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Inside No. 9 logo

Inside No. 9 logo

"The Riddle of the Sphinx" is the third episode of the third series of the British dark comedy anthology television programme Inside No. 9. Written by the programme's creators, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and directed by Guillem Morales, it first aired on 28 February 2017 on BBC Two. It stars Alexandra Roach as Nina, a young woman seeking answers to the Varsity cryptic crossword, Pemberton as Professor Squires, who sets the crossword using the pseudonym Sphinx, and Shearsmith as Dr Tyler. The same crossword was published in The Guardian on the day the episode aired, and the episode is filled with references to the puzzle. Influences for the episode include Anthony Shaffer's 1970 play Sleuth, the works of Anton Chekhov, and the 1989 film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Critics lauded the writing and the precise attention to detail in the production. Roach's performance was praised, as was the direction of Morales. (Full article...)

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Santa singing at the 2024 Paralympics closing ceremony

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In the news

Han Kang

The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to South Korean poet and novelist Han Kang (pictured).
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is divided, with half awarded to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for their work on protein structure prediction and the other half to David Baker for his work on computational protein design.
Hurricane Milton makes landfall in the U.S. state of Florida.
John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research in machine learning with artificial neural networks.

On this day

October 13

Whirlpool Galaxy

645 – Goguryeo–Tang War: Led by Emperor Taizong, the Tang army was forced to abandon a siege of Ansi Fortress.
1773 – French astronomer Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy (pictured), an interacting, grand design spiral galaxy located an estimated 31 million light-years away.
1917 – At least 30,000 people witnessed the Miracle of the Sun in the fields of Cova da Iria near Fátima, Portugal.
1961 – Newly elected Burundian prime minister Louis Rwagasore was assassinated by his political rivals.
2013 – During the Hindu festival of Navaratri at a temple in Madhya Pradesh, India, rumours about an impending bridge collapse caused a stampede that resulted in 115 deaths.

Robert I, Count of Flanders (d. 1093)
Bernard Bosanquet (b. 1877)
Thomas White (d. 1957)
Rebecca Clarke (d. 1979)

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Art Tatum (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American pianist, widely regarded as one of the greatest jazz performers in history. Born in Toledo, Ohio, he began playing the piano professionally and hosting a nationwide radio program while in his teens. He left Toledo in 1932 and had residencies as a solo pianist at clubs in major urban centers including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In that decade, he settled into a pattern he followed for most of his career – paid performances followed by long after-hours playing, all accompanied by prodigious consumption of alcohol. In the 1940s, Tatum led a commercially successful trio for a short time and began playing in more formal jazz concert settings, including at Norman Granz–produced Jazz at the Philharmonic events. His popularity diminished towards the end of the decade, as he continued to play in his own style, ignoring the rise of bebop. Granz recorded Tatum extensively in solo and small group formats in the mid-1950s, with the last session only two months before Tatum's death from uremia at the age of 47. This photograph by William P. Gottlieb shows Tatum playing the piano in the Vogue Room in New York City sometime in the late 1940s.

Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb

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