Who would have thought iTunes would be prudish? It has banned an artwork by the acclaimed young British painter Annie Kevans, whose series Boys, of dictators as young children, was bought by Charles Saatchi.

She is one half of a talented household. The painting that affronted iTunes was done as a cover for Dialling Tone, the catchy debut single by her husband Will. It shows a scantily clad woman talking on the phone. But iTunes told Will Kevans that it operates a strict “no nipples” rule, and that, unless the image was altered, it wouldn’t stock the song.

Mrs Kevans, who was nominated for a 2007 Women of the Future award, is philosophical: “The picture’s now cropped, so you just see the face. I didn’t worry about it, because painting isn’t usually thought of as pornographic.”

Will Kevans’s album, which also features his wife’s artwork, is out in March. In the meantime, the uncensored image can be seen on his MySpace page.

Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones documentary, Shine a Light, is out next year, but the band are also to be the subject of a home-grown production, based on the memoirs of former manager Andrew Loog Oldham. Julien Temple is in line to direct, and it is rumoured Kate Moss may play her friend Marianne Faithfull.

The latest Marilyn Monroe material to surface details arrangements for her 1962 appearance for JFK’s birthday, and shows that she had to buy her own ticket to the event. She took four friends and wrote a cheque for $5,000 – a fortune at the time.

The archive, for auction at Bonhams in LA next month, also includes some of her last phone bills. Biographers have speculated that she was trying to contact the president or his brother in her final weeks. The bills are itemised, and Margaret Barrett, a Monroe expert says there are many calls to Washington from that period. “All of the calls last just a few minutes, as if she couldn’t get through.”

Is the London Review of Books flirting with a serious change of tone? While the Spectator has a virtual Coffee House, the LRB last week went one step further, throwing open the doors of its (genuine) cake shop on Bury Place. To anyone who thinks cake is a bit frivolous, it quotes Henry James, who said that tea was his favourite time of day. No word yet on a TLS cocktail lounge or New Statesman oyster bar.

John Ashbery, the 80-year-old New York poet, has been appointed MTV’s laureate. When term started, American students found extracts from his poems being broadcast on mtvU, the channel that airs on university campuses. Disappointingly, there are no plans for the scheme to be copied in the UK (although the dedicated can get mtvU online). Ashbery, who freewheels surreally, appears an inspired laureate for student life. However, some commentators observed that, as he uses a typewriter and has written only one poem about contemporary music, he was an unusual choice for “the iPod generation”. But what does that mean these days? Fully clothed tea – any takers?

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