The Daily: October 26

Random Penguin? Penguin and Random House in merger talks
Two of the world's biggest publishing houses are in talks to merge into a single publishing powerhouse in a deal worth £2.4 billion. Pearson, the media business which owns Penguin said it was in talks with Bertelsmann, the German business which owns Random House about conjoining the publishing houses. These negotiations have come at a critical time in the publishing world which has spent most of the last decade in turmoil. If the deal goes ahead the merger would create the world's biggest publishing house. Phil Jones, editor of the Bookseller said this "provides the first hint of what the future shape of publishing will look like."

Pippa Middleton launches new book 'Celebrate'
Pippa Middleton launched her party planning guide 'Celebrate' last night with a total of four different outfits! Pippa began the day wearing a dress from Paper London, before changing into a Roksanda Ilincic mulberry dress, a designer also favoured by her sister the Duchess of Cambridge, for the official launch at Daunt Books, Chelsea. Once inside she changed again into a Markus Lupfer bodice dress for a children's teatime Halloween party and ended the day wearing a skater style skirt and top by Stella McCartney. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did not attend the book launch, a spokesman said that they were at home in Anglesey.

'It was terrible here' Fiona Phillips tells pupils at old school
The former GMTV host Fiona Phillips has attacked her education during what was supposed to be a celebration of the rebranding of Millbrook School, now Oasis Academy Lord's Hill in Southampton. In her role as guest speaker Phillips described how the school crushed her ambitions, "I went in and said I wanted to be a doctor and they said, 'Have you thought about hairdressing?' The speech drew criticism from former pupils and governors; with one Phillip's contemporary's saying "there was nothing wrong with the school nor the pupils who worked hard at their education. "

Twitter map of London shows 66 languages
Academics have analysed the tweets published in London between March and August this year and by plotting them on a map they have been able to show the capital's language clusters. The research has found a total of 66 languages in the capital, with English accounting for 92.5% of the tweets, Spanish coming second then French, Turkish, Arabic and Portuguese. Since the data was gathered over the summer, Dr Cheshire, a UCL lecturer who carried out the research said "we can clearly see the many languages of the Olympic Park".

Banksy canvas to fetch almost £100,000
A canvas spray painted by the British urban artist Banksy featuring his 'Gangsta Rat' character is expected to fetch almost £100,000 when it goes under the hammer in Hollywood later this month. The canvas from 2006 is being sold at Bonham's auction of Urban Art, Banksy has previously said of the 'Gangsta Rat' character creation that "they exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilisations to their knees." To date, the record sale of a Banksy is for his defaced version of fellow artist Damien Hirst's Pharmaceutical, called Keep It Spotless. It fetched £1.16m in 2008.

The Shard, London, a visitor's look inside
The Shard's viewing platform won't be open to the public until February 2013, but developers today released details of the experiences visitors can anticipate when they ascend to the peak of the tallest building in the EU. The public viewing spaces will stretch from level 68 to level 72 with the upper levels reaching 244m high, the highest vantage point provided by any building in Western Europe and is almost twice as high as any other viewing point in London. Developers claim the view stretches for 40miles (64km) on a clear day and there will be a number of "tell scopes" – digital telescopes with touch screens – which will store information about more than 200 London attractions visible from the View from the Shard.