The chatshow host lifts the energy of this game where families battle to avoid being voted out of a street they move into. But he’s not onscreen often enough to save it
I’ve had a good idea. Let’s apply for a moratorium on new reality shows, at least until the frenzied desire for a challenger to The Traitors’ crown is over. Otherwise they’re just going to keep happening.
The Neighbourhood – presented by Graham Norton, its saving grace – is the latest to throw its cap into the ring. Six families take up residence in a suburban close (the neighbourhood, you get it) and each is aiming to be the last one voted out and thus claim the uncustomarily large pot of £250,000. This at least suggests that someone in the TV commissioning offices is beginning to understand the concept of inflation and the truth that yer 50 or 100ks are no longer universally life-changing amounts of money but closer to being a month’s rent or the price of a tank of petrol.
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Thirteen years after her celebrated debut, the author returns with a bizarre, evocative work that merges science and the surreal
Romy Ash’s debut novel, Floundering, has sat on my bookshelf since the Sydney Morning Herald, where I worked as literary editor, named her as one of the best young Australian novelists in 2013 – the year she was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin literary award among others.
The Australian author Cate Kennedy wrote of the neglected young brothers in Floundering: “These boys are so real you will lie awake worrying about them” – words so true that I still feel anxious for them.
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US special envoy Zampolli hopes for Italy involvement
Doubts remain over Iran’s participation
An envoy to the US President Donald Trump has asked Fifa to replace Iran with Italy in the upcoming World Cup, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
The plan is an effort to repair ties between Trump and Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni after the two fell out amid the American president’s attacks against Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
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