Howard Jacobson News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Voice . 20 years. 20 years from being from finishing university, and thinking im out in the world, and now im going to write, and 20 years before i could write anything that looked to me like a book. Im tempted to ask, then, what kept you. That is what many people asked. Especially those who thought i would never be a novelist anyway. And i worried, myself, about it. My father used to say, well, where is it, then . That spurred me on. That must have annoyed you. I think my problem was that perhaps a bit over educated. I had been educated to revere the classic so much, to revere dh lawrence and...

Im stephen sackur. Is the way we use words changing . Most of us probably write less than we used to, read less than we used to, and spend far more time staring at screens and tapping out messages. Does it matter to our relationships, our politics, our culture . Well, my guest today is conviced it does. Howard jacobsons meditations on life, love, jewishness, and a whole lot more have won him awards, including the man booker prize. But is he an artist swimming against an irresistible cultural tide . Howard jacobson, welcome to hardtalk. I am delighted to be here. Thank you for having me on. I w...

Nervously to find out if theyve won. Well bring you the announcement of the winner live here on bbc news in the next hour. Raqqa has fallen. The Islamic State group has been driven from its de fa cto group has been driven from its de facto capital. This is in the north of syria and four months after the kurdish led, us backed Syrian Democratic forces began their offensive. It has now declared that the city has been completely liberated, with Ongoing Operations to comb and cleanse districts from the remnants of is. Raqqa was the first major city to be captured by is in 2014. It became the headq...

Casts, is enormous, but how do you maintain that once it moves on to the next city . How do you keep the good times going . That is future planning and the legacy programme. We have spent over a year not planning for this year but beyond 2021, because we are City Of Culture for four years, but we are determined never to look back, to look forward and look at opportunities, and we are going to do that and that is what you need to do. You certainly need the public behind you. We had 80 of the public when asked by the judges that they knew about the City Of Culture and that they wanted that title...

Lets get the latest weather. Mixed bag of weather across the uk for the second part of the weekend. Scotland and Northern Ireland farewell with good spells of sunshine. A lot of cloud across england and wales with persistent rain in the southern part of Northern England and showers to the south of that. Gusty winds and some of the showers contain hail and snow as well. But it is drifting ever eastwards over the next few hours. A touch of frost but typically it is around three degrees. Wet across the South East Of England and some of the Rain Fringing into the south east of wales. Most of wales...