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bae6b65
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Was everything an accident of geography?
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Nick Hornby |
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947af6f
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don't think people with talent necessarily value it, because it all comes so easy to them, and we never value things that come easy to us.
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Nick Hornby |
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21eebfe
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I'd hoped for someone who was remarkably intelligent, but disadvantaged by home circumstance, someone who only needed an hour's extra tuition a week to become some kind of working-class prodigy. I wanted my hour a week to make the difference between a future addicted to heroin and a future studying English at Oxford. That was the sort of kid I wanted, and instead they'd given me someone whose chief interest was in eating fruit. I mean, what..
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reading
disadvantaged
gents-toilets
martin-sharpe
pacino
telly
learning-to-read
oxford
prodigy
intelligent
symbol
tutoring
english
fruit
heroin
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Nick Hornby |
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7fe0e33
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Being gay was a bit like the Olympics: It disappeared in ancient times, and then they brought it back in the twentieth century.
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Nick Hornby |
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89fb1f9
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A Tragic Honesty, like the Ian Hamilton biography of Lowell that I read recently, is a sad and occasionally terrifying account of how creativity can be simultaneously fragile and self-destructive; it also made me grateful that I am writing now, when the antidepressants are better, and we all drink less. Stories about contemporary writers being taken away in straitjackets are thin on the ground - or no one tells them to me, anyway - but it s..
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Nick Hornby |
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5fba224
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In a few short weeks, mock-marital status had ceased to be something to aspire to, and had become a cause for scorn. At seventeen, we were becoming as embittered and as unromantic as our parents.
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Nick Hornby |
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602f138
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Is that thing actually going round? I can't tell
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Nick Hornby |
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66c95e6
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Bad thing upon bad thing upon bad thing until you can't take anymore, and then it's off to the nearest multistory car park in the family hatchback with a length of rubber tubing. Surely that's fair enough? Surely the coroner's report should read, "He took his own life after sober and careful contemplation of the fucking shambles it had become."
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Nick Hornby |
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efbe479
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Most of this fixation was easy to explain. Brady was a midfield player, a passer, and Arsenal haven't really had one since he left. It might surprise those who have a rudimentary grasp of the rules of the game to learn that a First Division football team can try to play football without a player who can pass the ball, but it no longer surprises the rest of us: passing went out of fashion just after silk scarves and just before inflatable ba..
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Nick Hornby |
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c1ca916
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Look at the statistics. You're more likely to top yourself if you've just gone through a divorce. Or if you're anorexic. Or if you're unemployed. Or if you're a prostitute. Or if you've fought in a war, or if you've been raped, or if you've lost somebody . . . There are lots and lots of factors that push people over the edge; none of these factors are likely to make you feel anything but fucking miserable.
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Nick Hornby |
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da40904
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He was a story at least, even if he never became anything else.
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relationships
love
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Nick Hornby |
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dd6da1e
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I remember the juvenile stuff, where you put your arm along the sofa and let it drop onto her shoulder, or press your leg against hers; I remember the mock-tough adult stuff I used to try when I was in my mid-twenties, where I looked someone in the eye and asked if they wanted to stay the night. But none of that seems appropriate anymore. What do you do when you're old enough to know better?
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Nick Hornby |
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961ae05
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sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful at the same time.
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Nick Hornby |
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0ca1eab
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If he'd known how long he was going to spend in the airport lounge of his own life, he'd have made different travel arrangements,
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Nick Hornby |
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d6d60e6
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I have made myself more complicated than I really am.
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Nick Hornby |
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215e539
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Surely we all occasionally buy books because of a daydream we're having--a little fantasy about the people we might turn into one day, when our lives are different, quieter, more introspective, and when all the urgent reading, whatever that might be, has been done. We never arrive at that point, needless to say....
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reading
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Nick Hornby |
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c195a05
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A couple of times a year I make myself a tape to play in the car, a tape full of all the new songs I've loved over the previous few months, and every time I finish one I can't believe that there'll be another one. Yet there always is, and I can't wait for the next one; you need only a few hundred more things like that, and you've got a life worth living.
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Nick Hornby |
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27c4148
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At around four o'clock most Saturday afternoons, just when I make us all a cup of tea, I have a little glow on, maybe because this is after all my work, and it's going OK, maybe because I'm proud of us, of the way that, though our talents are small and peculiar, we use them to their best advantage.
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Nick Hornby |
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5b7a13b
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I hate calling him T-Bone. It sets my teeth on edge, like when you have to ask for a Big Heap Buffalo Billburger, when all you want is a quarter-pounder, or a Just Like Mom Used to Make, when all you want is a piece of apple pie.
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Nick Hornby |
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731c8b3
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I don't really know why it matters so much. Ian could be better at talking than me, or cooking, or working, or housework, or saving money, or earning money, or spending money, or understanding books or films; he could be nicer than me, better-looking, more intelligent, cleaner, more generous-spirited, more helpful, a better human being in any way you care to mention...and I wouldn't really mind. Really. I accept and understand that you can'..
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Nick Hornby |
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3d1851c
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Deaner ran down to the barrier separating the crowd from the pitch, and eventually persuaded the stewards that he had a part to play in the unfolding drama. (Anyone who has ever attempted to talk to a steward at a Premiership football ground will recognize that, whatever else during the afternoon required divine intervention, Deaner's success in getting on to the White Hart Lane turf really was a miracle.)
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Nick Hornby |
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810819f
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How had I managed to edit all this out in the intervening years? How had I managed to turn her into the answer to all the world's problems?
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Nick Hornby |
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d123b22
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She wanted to be given a funny script so that she could make it funnier.
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Nick Hornby |
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d24e611
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Look at all the things that can go wrong for men. There's the nothing-happening-at-all problem, the too-much-happening-too-soon problem, the dismal-droop-after-a-promising-beginning problem; there's the size-doesn't-matter-except-in-my-case problem, the failing-to-deliver-the-goods problem... and what do women have to worry about? A handful of cellulite? Join the club. A spot of I-wonder-how-I-rank? Ditto.
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Nick Hornby |
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f1a37ca
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I was just going to have a discreet "J R" done on my upper arm, but Victor the tattooist wasn't having any of it. "Which one is she? 'J' or 'R'?" "'J.'" "And how long have you been seeing this 'J' bird, then?" I was frightened by the aggressive masculinity of the parlor--the other customers (who were all firmly wrestling-team muscular, and seemed inexplicably amused to see me), the nude women on the walls, the lurid examples of services off..
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Nick Hornby |
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6e69eb2
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So you weren't interested in the music at all?" "Well, yes. A bit. And more so then than I am now. That's life, though, isn't it?" "But you see...That's all there is of me. There isn't anything else. If you've lost interest in that, you've lost interest in everything. What's the point of us?" "You really believe that?" "Yes. Look at me. Look at the flat. What else has it got, apart from records and CDs and tapes?" "And do you like it that w..
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Nick Hornby |
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22824fc
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People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands--literally thousands--of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking, are the ones who like pop music the most; and I don't know whether pop music has caused this..
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Nick Hornby |
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460e2dc
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So what should I be doing?" "I don't know. Something. Working. Seeing people. Running a scout troop, or running a club even. Something more than waiting for life to change and keeping your options open. You'd keep your options open for the rest of your life, if you could. You'll be lying on your deathbed, dying of some smoking-related disease, and you'll be thinking, 'Well, at least I've kept my options open. At least I never ended up doing..
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Nick Hornby |
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c4e5f93
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When I am no longer desperate, when I have got all this sorted out, I promise you here and now that I will never ever complain again about how the shop is doing, or about the soullessness of modern pop music, or the stingy fillings you get in the sandwich bar up the road (PS1.60 for egg mayonnaise and crispy bacon, and none of us have ever had more than four pieces of crispy bacon in a whole round yet) or anything at all. I will beam beatif..
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Nick Hornby |
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0f961a7
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You can see this everywhere you go: young, middle-class people whose lives are beginning to disappoint them making too much noise in restaurants and clubs and wine bars. "Look at me! I'm not as boring as you think I am! I know how to have fun!" Tragic. I'm glad I learned to stay home and sulk.)"
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Nick Hornby |
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7b5ee10
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I will always be grateful to her for creating in me the narcotic need to hear her song again and again. It is, after all, a harmless need, easily satisfied, and there are few enough of those in the world.
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Nick Hornby |
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bea3b2b
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It seems to me that if you place music (and books, probably, and films, and plays, and anything that makes you feel) at the center of your being, then you can't afford to sort out your love life, start to think of it as the finished product. You've got to pick at it, keep it alive and in turmoil, you've got to pick at it and unravel it until it all comes apart and you're compelled to start all over again. Maybe we all live life at too high ..
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Nick Hornby |
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e386dcb
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Wanting to kill myself is was an appropriate and reasonable response to a whole series of unfortunate events that had rendered life unlivable. Oh, yes, I know the shrinks would say that they could have helped, but that's half the trouble with this bloody country, isn't it? No one's willing to face their responsibilities. It's always someone else's fault. Boo hoo hoo. Well, I happen to be one of those rare individuals who believe that what w..
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Nick Hornby |
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044345c
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He was one of the first people to complain about the increasing encroachment of the state into personal lives, but, actually, shouldn't there be a little more encroachment, when it came to things like this? Where was the protective fence, or the safety net? They made it hard for you to jump off bridges, or to smoke, to own a gun, to become a gynecologist. So how come they let you walk out on a stable, functioning relationship? They shouldn'..
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Nick Hornby |
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f12d146
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The anger was clearly real, though. It was in there, sloshing around, looking for the nearest hole to escape through.
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Nick Hornby |
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09400ae
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The moment had gone. You're probably thinking, How much concentration does a man need to throw himself off the top of a high building? Well, you'd be surprised. Before Maureen arrived I'd been in the zone; I was in a place where it would have been easy to push myself off. I was entirely focused on all the reasons I was up there in the first place; I understood with horrible clarity the impossibility of attempting to resume life down on the ..
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Nick Hornby |
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db65bc3
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There is a paradox here, however, a paradox that provides some consolation: these feelings of guilt are harmful to one's mental health, yes, granted. But those who have no need to feel guilty are, in my experience, the most mentally unhealthy of all of us, because the only way to have a guilt-free relationship with one's parents is to talk to them and see them constantly, maybe even live with them. And that can't be good, can it? So if thos..
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Nick Hornby |
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e0e35b1
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I had discovered after the Swindon game that loyalty, at least in football terms, was not a moral choice like bravery or kindness; it was more like a wart or a hump, something you were stuck with. Marriages are nowhere near as rigid - you won't catch any Arsenal fans slipping off to Tottenham for a bit of extra-marital slap and tickle, and though divorce is a possibility (you can just stop going if things get too bad), getting hitched again..
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Nick Hornby |
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5cd7734
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like being able to see how I got from Deep Purple to Howlin' Wolf in twenty-five moves; I am no longer pained by the memory of listening to "Sexual Healing" all the way through a period of enforced celibacy, or embarrassed by the reminder of forming a rock club at school, so that I and my fellow fifth-formers could get together and talk about Ziggy Stardust and Tommy."
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Nick Hornby |
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a51ccac
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He was thinking about Edith. She was constantly on the verge of canceling their marriage. She would only commission a few shows at a time, reluctantly, and if he had listened properly, she'd always been telling him that it would all end one day.
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Nick Hornby |
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971d946
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Take away the love and the laughter, narrate the stories as if the characters had acted with malice and self-absorption, and everybody was in a bleak independent film about alcoholism and schizophrenia and child abuse.
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Nick Hornby |
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1dfef61
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She thought she'd focus on the compliment, rather than the terrifying glimpse she'd been given into her flatmate's soul. She found herself particularly worried by Marjorie's willingness to do all that, the slicing and the bleeding and the murdering, for only a percentage of the advantages she envied. There was something in this compromise that made it seem more real than Barbara wanted it to be.
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Nick Hornby |
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e5d104f
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the truth was that these things matter, and it's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.
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Nick Hornby |
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801e4ab
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After Sophie had scraped the last of the makeup off her face, she was aware of the first sharp pangs of something that felt like homesickness. They'd already been told that the BBC wanted another series, but that was months away; and anyway, the last episode of the first series made her realize that one day there would be a last episode, and she didn't know whether she'd be able to bear it. And it didn't help, telling herself that when it w..
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Nick Hornby |