Susie Dent

Being the gormful chap he is, Simon is deeply happified to welcome Britain's best-known and best loved lexicographer and etymologist Susie Dent to the shed. Susie has not only served in Countdown's Dictionary Corner for more than three decades (and graced the slightly less seemly environs of '8 Out of Ten Cats' in the process), she has also written the novel 'Guilty by Definition' and numerous non-fiction books delighting in the English language. It's German, though, that really captured her heart early and remains her favourite language. She describes her circuitous and sometimes reluctant route to fame, and as next door's cows gather to eavesdrop, Simon and Susie explore how poets and lexicographers approach, use and celebrate language in their different but complementary ways.