Hints and tips:
...Once, when Brearley commiserated with him about not being picked for a team, Smith shrugged....
...Lulu Smith is our producer. Big shout-out this week to Neve Ro, our former intern who helped a lot with this episode....
...Edna O’Brien was a Bellowian 85 when she published The Little Red Chairs to general rapture two years ago....
...The purpose of the call transpired to be a warning from Edna Healey to Elspeth Howe to have the kitchen refitted before moving in....
...two handsomely designed volumes, Hensher showcases “probably the richest, most varied and most historically extensive national tradition” of short story writing in the world, from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith...
...Thus Brix Smith Start found herself living in a grotty flat in 1980s Manchester, married to irascible Mark E Smith, playing in The Fall and co-writing some of their best albums, as told in her enjoyably...
...Difficult second memoir syndrome, perhaps: but Smith conquers it in style, delivering reminiscences about writing, reading and married life with Fred “Sonic” Smith....
...Claude In The Country , by Alex Smith, Hodder, RRP£4.99 Absurd, quintessentially British humour from writer/illustrator Smith....
...Barry Humphries, the Australian comedian better known as his alter-ego, Dame Edna Everage, and guest of Channel 9, lampooned the hat worn to the wedding by Julia Gillard, Australia’s prime minister....
...Saints and Sinners , by Edna O’Brien, Faber, RRP£7.99 It’s been more than 50 years since O’Brien published her debut novel, The Country Girls....
...The London on display in Edna O’Brien’s Haunted bears little relation to the dynamic, diverse capital of today....
...There But For The, by Ali Smith, Hamish Hamilton, RRP£16, 384 pages A dinner party guest locks himself in the host’s spare room and refuses to leave....
...The film’s first half is not for Aunt Edna. But Edna, regrettably, will storm back for the last part, in which a gooey moralising banishes the mirth and installs the message....
...When Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls first appeared in 1960, the novel was banned in the author’s native Ireland for its candid portrayal of the sexual awakenings of two teenage Irish girls....
...Michael Ball as her mother Edna is grotesque because s/he is basically a pantomime dame in a fat suit (all those costume changes!)...
...So a lot is resting on Ball – along with his co-star Mel Smith and the show’s director Jack O’Brien – to bring in the crowds....
...“Joe Smith, who helped avoid the disaster of 9/11, died of complications of liver disease.”...
...“A re-simulation of the 1954 season …could cause total loss exceeding $50bn (€42bn, £29bn),” said David Smith, director of Eqecat's research group....
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