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It's hello from him . . .
Ronnie Corbett talks to Donald Clarke about The Two Ronnies, old-fashioned humour, and being back on stage p

From the real to the fictional world
Being a top reporter got in the way for a while, but James Meek is focused on fiction now, he tells Nadine O'Regan p

Turning with the tide
Donald Teskey's paintings have a flowing, rhythmic quality - never more so than in his latest work, writes Aidan Dunne , Art Critic p

Arts

Autamata for the people
Following a sleeper debut, Ken McHugh is ready to take on the world with help from a couple of friends, writes Tony Clayton-Lea p
The west is your oyster
On the Town: Brian Burke, the current Irish Oyster Opening Champion, wielded his knife like a surgeon. p
A short cut to the festival
On the Town: 'Think Reservoir Dogs meets Memento," said scriptwriter Shane McCabe. p
Beneficiaries of the brotherhood
On the Town: Past pupils of Cistercian College Roscrea, the boys' boarding school in Co Tipperary, celebrated their common experiences and memories at a launch in Dublin this week. p
On the waterfront
On the Town: A series of drawings featuring the coastline of north-east Co Mayo and Valentia Island in Co Kerry went on view at the Rubicon Gallery in Dublin this week. Land Fall Variations is "the study of rocks and the point where the water meets the coastline", explained the artist, Donald Teskey. p
Bray's loss is Abbey's gain
ArtScape: The Abbey Theatre this week announced a key appointment in its in-house restructuring. Aideen Howard, currently director of the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, is to take up the position of literary director in January. p

About Us

The workhorse whisperers
A course in Co Clare is helping to revive the dying skills of working with horses on farms, writes Éibhir Mulqueen p
Singing in a burst of seraphic melody
Another Life: For a heartfelt response to nature, there was nothing to beat a Victorian in full rhapsodic flow. p
Horizons
Environmental events from around the country p
Eye on Nature
Readers of The Irish Times pose questions on nature. p

Book Reviews

When America took its hat off
Society: One takes one's hat off to Neil Steinberg: he has fashioned an intermittently fascinating book out of a highly unpromising subject. p
The scars of survival
Memoir: Early in 1933, Shanti Seth, a young man from a middle-class Indian family who was training in Berlin as a dentist, took a room in a house near the city's Dental Institute. His landlady was a Mrs Caro, newly widowed and a mother of three adult children: Lola, Henny and Heinz. p
Blood across the Atlantic
Memoir: Thomas Lynch's Booking Passage: We Irish and Americans - a memoir, travelogue, and social commentary - has at its core varying ruminations on the changes in Ireland since his coming here in 1970. p
Seven levels of spiciness
Food: Like real men today, the Mughal rulers of northern India believed that meat helped them acquire semen, and with it strength and courage. Hindus, on the other hand, were usually vegetarian. For them, properly regulated food was the route to good health and spiritual enlightenment. p
If strings could talk
Biography: Charles R Cross's previous book, Heavier than Heaven, was a biography of Kurt Cobain, a rock star from Seattle who changed the face of music, did too many drugs, and died at the age of 27. p
Random musings of a self-indulgent showman
Fiction: Sex and bits of history, popular culture, classical references and many nods to Scheherazade, not forgetting tough-guy slang, attempted gags and stock elements of the grotesque, laced with sufficient violence to keep the drowsy awake - and as usual there is a ripe, if troubled and troublesome maiden undulating across the stage. p
A family in free-fall
Memoir: With regard to air disasters, there is a kind of sanctity about those final minutes, sealed as they are in silence - partly because the equipment that might give some idea of what was happening, in human terms, has failed and partly because - unlike with bombs or earthquakes or illnesses - when a plane crashes, nobody survives to tell us what it felt like. p
Knowing me, knowing you
Popular Fiction: When you have found and then lost your soulmate, what more can life hold? And how can a woman who has loved only one man in her life help her teenage daughter to prepare for the pitfalls of dating? p
Maintaining the Collins habit
Loose Leaves: The great thing about historians is that there are always new waves of them, bringing new interpretations of the past. p
Paperbacks
The latest titles reviewed p

Seen & Heard

Kicking like a mule
TV Review: It's "pure mule" - it's the brothers in the red saloon roaring down main street of a Friday night; it's the hair gel and the sticky deodorant; it's the mammy with the tea ready, the tea to be got out of the way quick, like; it's mammy handing out the condoms like little foil-wrapped talismans; and it's the town to invade and the pints to be drunk and the fags to be smoked and the girls to be got and the night to be had. It's pure mule, so it is. p
Big hitters slip back behind their desks
Radio Review: It wasn't broken so there wasn't any real need to fix it, it just needed to be parked somewhere else. p
Age-old questions
The LastStraw: Congratulations to the clever people at Irish Life & Permanent, which this week posted profits of €196 million for the first half of 2005. p

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It's hello from him . . .

From the real to the fictional world

Turning with the tide

Autamata for the people

The west is your oyster

A short cut to the festival

Beneficiaries of the brotherhood

On the waterfront

Bray's loss is Abbey's gain

The workhorse whisperers

Singing in a burst of seraphic melody

Horizons

Eye on Nature

When America took its hat off

The scars of survival

Blood across the Atlantic

Seven levels of spiciness

If strings could talk

Random musings of a self-indulgent showman

A family in free-fall

Knowing me, knowing you

Maintaining the Collins habit

Paperbacks

Kicking like a mule

Big hitters slip back behind their desks

Age-old questions

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