1. The novelist Hilary Mantel died last week. The London Review of Books have for the time being removed the paywall from the articles she wrote for them over the years https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/hilary-mantel

This one, Royal Bodies, in which she refers to Kate Middleton (now the Princess of Wales) as “a jointed doll on which certain rags are hung” got her into a certain amount of trouble https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

2. How many have you heard of? Here’s the bookie’s odds for the next Nobel Prize in Literature https://lithub.com/here-are-the-bookies-odds-for-the-2022-nobel-prize-in-literature/ The author notes that the bookies usually get this one wrong, however.

3. I quite often find myself guessing at the meaning of the Oxford English Dictionary ‘Word of the Day’. I got this one well wrong, thinking it was something to do with pretension https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/150965

You can sign up in a wonderfully simple, no-frills way for Word of the Day here – bravo Oxford! https://www.oed.com/emailupdates

4. And, finally, a local radio masterclass in not answering the question from the new UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0d3flmh