Christmas list :The Very Best of Linda Smith

After all that whingeing and saying that I'd give up on reading the w/e review supplements it was business as usual as Bookhound came through the door with whatever dregs are left in the village post office by the time we get there, which is usually long after the posh hotel along the lane has cleared them out.I'd forgotten to tell him I'm not reading them any more and it seemed churlish not to as he'd gone to all the bother.
So today the dregs were The Guardian and The Times, well, one has to make do with what one can get.
It's a while since I'd perused either and thankfully there is no mention of DGR scribbles anywhere within, but there were quite a few books worth adding to the Christmas list.
Here's the first from The Guardian
I Think the Nurses Are Stealing My Clothes: The Very Best of Linda Smith ed by Warren Lakin.
Maureen Lipman has written a great piece on the book and on the late,great Linda's consummate skill, being funny without being nasty, "the talons gloved as they were in softest pink flannelette"
Linda Smith died of cancer at the age of 48 in February this year and for those who may not have heard of her she was one of the most exceptional comedy voices on Radio 4, but she could also do satire like no one else.
The excerpts in the review had us both in stitches as I read them out over coffee (isn't it annoying when someone does that just when you're reading a really serious piece)
Oscar Wilde doing a spoof review of The River Cafe
"Ah there is dear Robin Cook, one always feels there is a portrait of him in his attic in which he looks fine"
The second Mrs de Winter giving a business presentation for a carpet warehouse
"Last night I dreamt I was in Underlay again"
Also quoted was Mark Steel who remarks that Linda had "a contempt for bullies, from global leaders to local thugs and she was proud to be their enemy"
I loved Linda Smith's distinctive voice on the radio and you always but always knew you might as well  stop what you were doing and listen, or soon you'd be laughing so much you'd be helpless anyway.
One of those voices that will be truly missed when we look back on 2006 and see just who we are ending the year without.