Linda Davidson

Actress Linda Davidson, who plays the shrewish, punked-out single mother Mary Smith on "EastEnders," was every bit as surprised as the show's fans to hear that KOCE Channel 50, the only Southern California station airing the program, is dropping it next week. In fact, while in the Southland this week "on holiday," she was spending part of her time lining up interviews that were supposed to help further spread the word about the BBC working-class soap. "What a shame," Davidson, 24, said by phone from Los Angeles, where she is staying with friends until her vacation ends Wednesday, the same day KOCE will air the final episode from the original package of "EastEnders" shows it bought last year.

Actress Linda Davidson, who plays the shrewish, punked-out single mother Mary Smith on "EastEnders," was every bit as surprised as the show's fans to hear that KOCE Channel 50, the only Southern California station airing the program, is dropping it next week. In fact, while in the Southland this week "on holiday," she was spending part of her time lining up interviews that were supposed to help further spread the word about the BBC working-class soap. "What a shame," Davidson, 24, said by phone from Los Angeles, where she is staying with friends until her vacation ends Wednesday, the same day KOCE will air the final episode from the original package of "EastEnders" shows it bought last year.

Attention job applicants: Don't hesitate to apply for that position because you lack the necessary experience. In today's tight labor market, many employers will hire you if you just express a willingness to learn. In a 1998 national survey of 750 small-company owners with job openings, the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington concluded that "the severe labor shortage is a huge problem."

Louis Borick, the founder and longtime chairman of Van Nuys-headquartered Superior Industries International, one of the world's largest manufacturers of aluminum wheels for the automotive industry, has died. He was 87. Borick died of natural causes Monday, two days before his 88th birthday, at his home in Beverly Hills, said his son, Steven. A onetime used-car salesman who sold his half of a business that made clear plastic seat covers in St. Paul, Minn., before moving to Encino in 1956, Borick founded Superior Industries in a 4,000-square-foot plant in North Hollywood a year later.

The day has long since passed when one could say that "the sun never sets on the British Empire." This week, Old Sol sank a little lower on the cultural horizon of Southland Anglophiles with word that after Wednesday, the popular BBC-TV series "EastEnders" will no longer be shown locally. KOCE Channel 50, the Orange County public television station with exclusive Southern California rights to "EastEnders," won't pick up the next package of 165 episodes of the British soap because "we can't afford it," the station's program director said this week.

Popular music is back in the courtroom--on a murder charge. Six weeks after Time Warner Inc. and Ice-T pulled the controversial "Cop Killer" song off the market, an unprecedented legal battle over another album released by a Time Warner subsidiary promises to reopen the bitter national debate over artistic expression, free speech and corporate responsibility.

1. "How To Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman (MacMillan, $25). A fresh approach to the cooking encyclopedia, with more than 1,500 recipes. Last Week: 3 Weeks on List: 22 2. "Kitchen Sessions With Charlie Trotter" by Charlie Trotter (Ten Speed Press, $29.95). Companion volume to Trotter's TV show focuses on preparing fine cuisine at home. Last Week: 7 Weeks on List: 3 3. "The Pie and Pastry Bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Scribner, $35).

Most people who read about the lawsuit being brought against black rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur by Linda Sue Davidson ("Testing the Limits," Calendar, Oct. 13) probably had the same initial reaction I did: Here we go again. We have, after all, trudged through these muddy waters before.

The little box had that brave but forlorn look of grade school shop. Screwdriver dents in the wood. Lopsided sandpapering. Ancient varnish congealed to yellow-orange. This schoolboy primitive would cost me. "You know," I said to a salesperson at the Antique Mart in Sherman Oaks, "I'm probably the only bozo in California who would pay $35 for this." "That," she said, with kindly humor, "is what the antique business is all about." True.

Jerry Rose of Ventura quips that his Election Day job is "no politics, just jokes." That's because politics was a forbidden topic for Rose and hundreds of others who manned the polls across Ventura County on Tuesday. Rose, who regularly toils for the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, supervised the voting at a polling station set up in the Todd Ranch II recreation room in Ventura. As an elections inspector, Rose supervised two clerks and all the paperwork associated with hundreds of votes.

Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" has usually been thought of as a problem play, in more ways than one. It deals with serious issues, such as justice, revenge, integrity and personal honor. It also confuses some viewers in its density and its basic premise, that the Duke of Vienna would think of leaving control of the city in the hands of a deputy and wandering about in disguise to feel the pulse of his realm.