Sandra Harris Writes

FANTASY DINNER PARTY: WHOM WOULD I INVITE? BY SANDRA HARRIS. This is a good question. I can invite everyone/anyone I want, as many as I want, living or dead, fictional or from real life? Brilliant. Great stuff. As a lifelong reader and book enthusiast, my guest list'll probably be top-heavy with writers. I don't just love reading, I love the physical books themselves: collecting them, choosing them in a bookshop, handling them, bringing them home, breathing in their scent whether they're old or new, shelving them, re-arranging them endlessly, housing them by category and so on. I'm a major book person. I'll probably be buried with some of my favourite reads. I might even choose to marry a book, lol. After all, it won't ever cheat on me or forget that women like cuddling after sex and not just being told, can you see yourself out, I have work in the morning...? Anyway, here goes. Let's see if you agree with my choices! William Sh...

A MESSI FINISH: SO LONG, WORLD CUP 2026. BY SANDRA HARRIS. I genuinely didn't know we had so many Spanish people in Dublin until last night. When Spain was declared the winner of the 2026 World Cup at around eleven o'clock Irish time, after beating title-holders Argentina 1-0, the pubs in my local area erupted in the loudest noise imaginable, then for the next few hours there was shouting, singing and dancing in the streets, cars hooting their horns and even people blowing on vuvuzelas. This is a noise-making instrument (you can't really call it music) so obnoxiously loud and dangerous to human hearing that it's been banned at major sporting events, including the FIFA World Cup, but apparently it's perfectly okay to blow one outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night during a heatwave which just will not end. I didn't really mind Spain winning as I have nothing against them, but I was kind of hoping Argentina might do it because Lionel Messi seems...

SAM NEILL: REST IN PEACE. BY SANDRA HARRIS. I was genuinely shocked and saddened (crikey, now I sound like a phoney, cliche-ridden politician) to hear this morning that the actor Sam Neill had died. I've both admired and fancied him ever since I first saw him in a made-for-television film in the 'Eighties sometime. The Sunday afternoon film was one of the highlights of my week, distracting me as it did from school bullies and the mountain of homework our teachers seemed to think was okay to pile on us, even though we spent six-and-a-half hours of every day in school as it was. Anyway, the film was Ivanhoe (1982) , based on the 1819 novel of the same name by Sir Walter Scott, and Sam Neill was so handsome in it as Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert that I was immediately enchanted. Thus began a crush that lasted to this very day, the sad day of his death, but it definitely won't end here. My heart will go on, lol. Although everyone knows Sam Neill as hailing from New...