From the blurb on the British Film Institute YouTube channel. Part of the enduring majesty of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's cinema comes from their ability to undercut the prim and proper sensibility of wartime filmmaking with moments that are deeply strange, sometimes even disturbing. In this video essay director Will Webb highlights scenes from Powell + Pressburger films - including The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I'm Going and Black Narcissus - that tilt us off-balance, shaking what we thought we knew about the world's that one of cinema's greatest filmmaking partnerships created. ...
Who is the only person to have won both an Oscar and the Nobel Prize for Literature? Many years ago I remember preening myself on having answered this question correctly in a quiz. I didn't know the answer, but worked out that George Bernard Shaw was a likely choice. He had definitely won the Nobel Prize and it seemed at least plausible that one of his plays had become a film script or even that he had written a screenplay. (And indeed it was for adopting Pygmalion for the silver screen so a bit of both.) Pride comes before a ...
The Shropshire Star has put up a paywall, so we go instead to the Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser: A concert pianist who has been elected to chair the Liberal Democrats for the new South Shropshire constituency. David Gaukroger, who has been chair of the Ludlow Town Lib Dems since 2011 and a former Cleobury Mortimer councillor, replaces Councillor Heather Kidd MBE. Mr Gaukroger is well known in South Shropshire for his recent Flanders and Swann concerts with tenor Kim Begley in Ludlow's Assembly Rooms, and has just performed in 'A Christmas Carol', in aid of MND research. "After Helen ...
Those with even a passing interest in politics is aware of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University, it's a ground zero for privilege, arrogance, and unfortunately lasting success later in life. Every Russell Group university has an equivalent clique, however, including mine, the LSE. Going to university meant leaving home and encountering two groups of ... Continue reading London's Bullingdon set
Merry Christmas time 'Be quiet, old man' he said "Tears of rage" played on
When there has been so much discussion around the party's messaging and whether it showcases our values enough recently, it is a relief to see our parliamentarians speak out so strongly against the bizarrely named Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill as though just writing something down makes it so. Alistair Carmichael described the Bill as showing a "grim and illiberal mentality" and would replace our asylum system with a moral vacuum. Here's his whole speech: I say sincerely that it is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). ...
I don't want to appear biased but in my opinion Erica's Christmas wreath was definitely the best and the students from Calderstones Comp sang like angels!! As the old song goes it's beginning to look a bit like Christmas down ... Continue reading →
It is difficult to know whether it is the higher profile that social media affords, a general disillusionment with politics or just politcians being obnoxious, but the Mirror reports that Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Daniel Greenberg has received a thousand complaints about MPs' comments on social media and hundreds over their language in the Commons. The paper says that Greenberg has told how his office was contacted by people upset about words spoken in Parliament and posted online by elected politicians, telling the Commons Standards Committee: "Up to date in this calendar year, just over 1,200 complaints were received about language ...
