Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Every village needs a kebab shop

[Andrew Hasson / Alamy Stock Photo] 
issue 26 February 2022

‘A diary?’ said the lady in the chintzy gift shop, pronouncing the word very much as Edith Evans said ‘handbag’ in the 1952 film of The Importance of Being Earnest.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘a diary. Do you have one?’ I was standing in the middle of a shop so like one that would sell a diary that I could not express quite adequately how obvious I thought it was that they might.

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