pub

He said he had been wandering up to the pub with a friend for "one last drink", when he heard an "almighty explosion".

Irish author Roddy Doyle's book Two Pints, about two middle-aged men reflecting on life over a drink in a Dublin pub, gets its UK stage premiere at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, 2-24 May.

If tourism failed, she added, "then the number of people that are employed in tourism, they will start to lose jobs - the pubs, the cafes... if there's no tourists, they're not going to survive."

The celebratory pints have been flowing freely in a Scottish town after a historic pub was saved for the community.

He noted that his most recent gig, at the Half Moon pub in Putney, west London, in February, had been a sell-out, which was "testimony to his superb talent".