Radio column: The No 1 news show for a new world order

There's a certain type of listener that organises their day around what's on the radio. The Today programme might haul them out of bed on a weekday morning and see them through breakfast and ablutions, while lunch might be accompanied by Jeremy Vine declaiming about cuckolding vicars. For me, Friday evenings aren't complete without a glass of wine and the sound of Jonathan Dimbleby on Any Questions quietly banging his head on the desk at being called David for the 874th time.
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Music review: Gillian Welch, Brighton Dome

No fuss, no frills. Such is the approach of Gillian Welch and her long-term partner, David Rawlings, who arrive carrying their instruments on to an empty stage.
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Radio column: The careerist comics who are taking the mic

Being funny on the radio should be a breeze for comics. You'd think they'd be in their element: on a stage with a microphone, with the added advantage that their listeners, scattered across the country rather than crammed in the back room of a pub, can't see the sweat patches forming under their arms.
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Book review: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? By Jeanette Winterson

This real-life counterpart to 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit' deals with lifelong abandonment issues and the torment of a religious upbringing
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Mary J Blige: 'I've been through hell, but I survived'

Mary J Blige has beaten drink, drugs and her demons – and a brand new album is in the bag. So why is the hip-hop soul superstar so insecure? Interview by Fiona Sturges
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Book review: Here Comes Trouble, By Michael Moore

In 2003, the film director Michael Moore made his infamous Oscar acceptance speech in which he called George Bush a "fictitious president" who had sent America to war "for fictitious reasons". He was rewarded with a vandalised statuette, half a ton of manure on his front lawn and so many threats of violence that he was forced to hire a bevy of ex-Navy Seals to see off any would-be assassins.
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Comics...it's the way they sell 'em

A dire childhood and years of failure are good for sales, when professional jokers relate their life stories. By Fiona Sturges
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Baby blues: Laura Marling on hits, heartache and that tricky 21st birthday

Laura Marling was so young when she started that the bouncers wouldn't let her in to her own gigs. Now 21, with a Brit in her pocket and a sell-out tour ahead, how is our 'most gifted young singer-songwriter' coming to terms with fame? Interview by Fiona Sturges
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'Nevermind': Smells like my teen spirit

Nirvana's second album is to be re-released, 20 years after it sparked a musical revolution. Fiona Sturges salutes an album that changed her generation.
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TV review: The Jonathan Ross Show

It was the chin that gave him away. Jonathan Ross, who since his departure from the BBC following the Sachsgate affair has been advertising his devil-may-care, unemployed status with flip-flops and a goatee, stepped on to the set fully shod and shorn of all facial hair.
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Book review: Black by Design: A 2-Tone Memoir, By Pauline Black

Pauline Black's earliest memory is of vomiting, at the age of four, on to a pile of sheets that had been cleaned, starched and ironed by her mother. "She was not amused but then again it was her own fault," says Black. "She shouldn't have told me I was adopted." Read more...

Book review: The Long Goodbye, by Meghan O'Rourke

The American poet Meghan O'Rourke's mother died on Christmas Day in 2008, two and a half years after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The family had known the end was coming, though nothing could prepare them for the crushing absence, the sense of a world that had lost its colour, which assaulted them after she had gone.
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Art of the west: See Devon through different eyes

'Art" reads a tiny signpost skewered into the hedge at the end of three miles of narrow, winding road. All is quiet here in Bantham, a remote seaside village in south Devon, save for the gentle whisper of the trees.
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Stay The Night: Earthship Perrine, Normandy

You can be sure of the green credentials of this zero-carbon gîte. But is it a comfortable place to stay? Fiona Sturges reports
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Exmoor: A walk in the wild West Country

In the first of a four-part series on our national parks, Fiona Sturges delves into Devon and Somerset
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