As a youngster – I suspect like many of you – I could spend hours at the beach, competing with my friends to see who could get a stone to skip across the waves or who had the strongest throwing arm. More recently, over several happy years visiting the Gironde peninsula in southern France, I'd pick up pocket-loads of pretty pebbles that caught my eye. One year I had one polished up and made into a pendant for my wife. And now I find I'd become an unwitting criminal.

According to the 1949 Coastal Protection Act, it's unlawful to remove any materials from a beach in the UK. Surely this is one of those crimes which almost everybody has committed, like being drunk in a pub (speak for yourself, I hear you say).  But removing pebbles from a beach is not a victimless crime – here's why.

Having raised an untrainable dog, and loved her all the same, we took solace in the fact that, given she weighed just 2.8kg, any natural exuberance on Betty's part wasn't going to scare anyone away. So I felt for the author of this story, whose pooch's antics meant that he was essentially sent to Coventry by other dog walkers. Here's the story of Tommy, the over-enthusiastic Jack Russell, and the many other dog lovers whose charges become an unwitting tool of social exclusion.

The ever-popular Regency romp Bridgerton is back for a third series and, as you'd expect, it's once again chock full of lords and ladies a'leaping, mainly on each other. But our author was surprised to see how little the series' characters seem to know about sex itself. In fact, as she writes here, the period was awash with literary sex, from Fanny Hill to Nicolas Venette's highly instructive The Mysteries of Conjugal Love.

This week we also learned there are an alarming number of people in the UK with undiagnosed Hepatitis C,  and, ahead of today's FA Cup final, we sympathised with smaller clubs who have been financially disadvantaged by scrapping replays. And with the momentous news that Norway, Ireland and Spain will formally recognise Palestinian statehood next week, we talked to a Middle East expert about what this could mean.

With help from our friends and colleagues in our global network, meanwhile, we celebrated the 80th birthday of legendary Senegalese dancer Germaine Acogny, and we learned how 17th-century European migrants used the printing press as a tool to fight oppression. And, from the US, we read how not only are some animals skilled at self-medicating, but that over the years they've taught us a thing or two about medicine.

As ever, do try and make time to listen to our podcast, The Conversation Weekly. The latest episode looks at the election which is underway in India and how people there are fighting back against what they see as a hollowing out of democracy.

Contact us here to have your event listed.

For sponsorship opportunities, email us here