A new short story by Ali Smith, read by Olivia Williams

Life and Art from FT Weekend

In a festive special episode, the actor Olivia Williams reads 'I Heard it on Classic FN', a new short story by Ali Smith, author of the novels How To Be Both, Autumn and Winter. The story was commissioned by FT Weekend; you can read it at ft.com/books. Everything Else returns in January.

"Maybe because they could hear the Beach Boys greatest hits playlist. We were playing it because Bel had insisted. It's not winter. It's summer.

It was winter, obviously. But all through Christmas she'd been playing the new game she'd invented, which she called Classic FN. (The F and the N stood for the words fake and news.) You played this game simply by claiming that something that was true wasn't true. You said the false thing as if it was true, then you added the words I heard it on Classic FN, or just said Classic FN at the end of whatever your statement was, like that fashion that people had of adding the word not after something they'd said. I'm so looking forward to spending all of Christmas with you. Not."

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