Polly Samson’s novel The Kindness is built around a family secret — the suicide of a beloved uncle. She tells Sue Leonard about it and what it’s like to write songs for her husband David Gilmour’s band Pink Floyd.

The son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was jailed for 16 months today for going on a drink- and drug-fuelled rampage at a student fees protest.

THE horrendous deaths of 10 people – eight in Donegal and two more elsewhere in the country over the past weekend – highlights the enormous social costs of the car in society. It also demonstrates a huge hypocrisy that permeates society when confronting the issues and contradictions that surround car culture in general.

Screen legend Al Pacino is such a perfectionist, his forthcoming movie The Local Stigmatic took him more than 20 years to complete.