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BBC News – UK City of Culture: Events announced for Derry celebration
The Turner Prize, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Ballet will all feature in Londonderry as part of the UK City of Culture celebrations.
The first edition of the programmes arrived in the city by speedboat along the river Foyle.
Derry will take on the title in 2013. The year will kick off with a special Sons and Daughters of Derry concert.
Frank Cottrell Boyce has also been commissioned to devise a performance piece on the River Foyle.
‘Superb programme’
Derry defeated stiff competition from Birmingham, Norwich and Sheffield to win the title for 2013 – the first time it has ever been awarded.
The chairman of the Culture Company, Martin Bradley, told the BBC that the city had undergone a “physical and psychological transformation”.
“We’re the first city of culture, there is no blueprint for this. All eyes are watching us to see how we do,” he said.
“A huge amount of work has gone into this over the last 18 months. It’s a superb programme.”
The event will open with a Sons and Daughters concert on the 20 January 2013 in a new purpose built building in Ebrington Square.
The concert hopes to celebrate Derry’s rich musical heritage and will be broadcast by the BBC.
The Turner Prize will be held outside England for the first time. It will be staged in the former military barracks on Ebrington Square.
via BBC News – UK City of Culture: Events announced for Derry celebration.
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New Audio Project Offers Four Months of ‘Moby-Dick’ – NYTimes.com
The actress Tilda Swinton and 134 other readers are lending their voices to the “Moby-Dick Big Read,” an online audio version of Herman Melville’s epic novel.
The chapters will be available as free downloads, a new one appearing on the Web site each day until mid-January alongside a related image by a contemporary artist.
The author Philip Hoare and the artist Angela Cockayne came up with the idea, having previously teamed up in 2011 to present a whale symposium and exhibition at Peninsula Arts, a public arts program at Britain’s Plymouth University. Mr. Hoare’s book “The Whale,” a wide-ranging cultural and natural history of the animal, won the BBC’s Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2009.
“The digressive nature of ‘Moby-Dick’ really suits the medium of going online,” Mr. Hoare said. “The book was never edited. It’s quite analogous to a kind of blog, really.”
The democratic list of readers includes celebrities like Ms. Swinton, John Waters and Stephen Fry as well as fishermen, schoolchildren and a vicar. The youngest is Cyrus Larcombe-Moore, a 12-year-old who contributes a few lines of dialogue to a chapter read by his teacher, Tom Thoroughgood.
via New Audio Project Offers Four Months of ‘Moby-Dick’ – NYTimes.com.
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Sandwich celebrates 250th birthday – UPI.com
SANDWICH, England, May 12 UPI — Residents of Sandwich, England, are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the invention of the sandwich, first ordered by the fourth earl of Sandwich.
History says the earl, John Montagu, first ordered a sandwich in 1762 while playing cards with his friends. He asked for beef between two slices of bread so he could still easily eat while playing.
Sam Bompas, a so-called foodsmith, said Montagu probably wasn’t the first to think of the idea.
“Other people were probably eating in that way anyway but they were people who weren’t written about,” he said.
It’s possible the sandwich could have been named something else entirely. The first earl of Sandwich had the opportunity to choose Portsmouth instead of Sandwich when he was offered a peerage in 1660, said Steve Laslett, one of the organizers of the Sandwich Celebration Festival taking place Saturday and Sunday.
“Today we could be eating a Portsmouth,” he said.
During the celebration, the east Kent town will have sandwich-making competitions and re-enactments of the earl requesting his namesake, the BBC reported Saturday.
The 11th earl of Sandwich, also named John Montagu, is scheduled to host a lunch Sunday.
“I am delighted to wish a happy 250th birthday to the sandwich,” he said.
via Sandwich celebrates 250th birthday – UPI.com.
Strange Random Sandwich Quote:
“I don’t need music, lobster or wine
Whenever your eyes look into mine;
The things I long for are simple and few:
A cup of coffee, a sandwich–and you!”
- Billy Rose (American theatrical Entrepreneur and Composer. 1899-1966)
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Legal thriller looms as Sherlock takes his caseload to New York – News – TV & Radio – The Independent
It’s a fresh take on Sherlock Holmes which will transplant the sleuth to a modern-day setting. But it doesn’t take Baker Street’s finest to deduce the source material for a major new drama announced by American network CBS.
The producers of the BBC’s acclaimed Sherlock series, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, are prepared to take legal action against the US network over a rival Holmes series which appears to tread on familiar ground.
The BBC version is already a cult hit in America, where it is screened on the PBS network. The show’s contemporary reinvention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, allied to slick production values, impressed network executives at CBS – so when an offer to remake the BBC’s Sherlock for US viewers came to nothing, they decided to go ahead and make their own.
In a move which has caused concern at Hartswood Films, the BBC show’s producers, CBS has commissioned Elementary, described as a new Sherlock Holmes adaptation set in modern-day New York.
Sue Vertue, Sherlock Executive Producer at Hartswood Films, said: “We understand that CBS are doing their own version of an updated Sherlock Holmes. It’s interesting, as they approached us a while back about remaking our show. At the time, they made great assurances about their integrity, so we have to assume that their modernised Sherlock Holmes doesn’t resemble ours in any way, as that would be extremely worrying.” She added: “We are very proud of our show and like any proud parent, will protect the interest and wellbeing of our offspring.”
Strange Random Sherlock Holmes Quote:
I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule. – The Sign of the Four (1890)
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Student sends Oxford University rejection letter for ‘taking itself too seriously’ – Higher – Education – The Independent
A student has sent her own rejection letter to a prestigious university, criticising it for “intimidating” pupils from comprehensive school backgrounds during the interview process.
Elly Nowell, from Winchester, Hampshire, wrote in her letter to Oxford University that using “grand formal settings” for the interviews allowed public school applicants to “flourish”.
The 19-year-old, who studied at Brockenhurst College, had applied to Magdalen College to read law (jurisprudence).
Parodying a standard university rejection letter, she wrote: “I have now considered your establishment as a place to read Law (jurisprudence).
“I very much regret to inform you that I will be withdrawing my application.”I realise you may be disappointed by this decision, but you were in competition with many fantastic universities and following your interview I am afraid you do not quite meet the standard of the universities I will be considering.”
The letter continued: “While you may believe your decision to hold interviews in grand formal settings is inspiring, it allows public school applicants to flourish and intimidates state school applicants, distorting the academic potential of both.”
Ms Nowell, who hopes to be accepted into University College London, told the BBC that she had felt like “the only atheist in a gigantic monastery” when she had attended the interview at Magdalen.
Strange Random University Quote:
“Of course there’s a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don’t take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.” – Abbott Lawrence Lowell (American Lawyer and University President of Harvard, 1856-1943)
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- A model rejection letter (andrewgelman.com)
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