http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GGARX6JJ
go there to download
all of the songs were hits in 1983 in the UK and here is the reference list for all you music aficionado's who want to see when in the year these songs were big and for how long they stayed at the top of the charts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_in_music_(UK)
in addition try a search for google for "top of the pops 1983" and then go to videos. Top of the Pops was sort of the American Bandstand in the UK. Some of the videos are amazing and worthwhile watching.
here is one:
and yes...that is the comedian tracy ullman who had the 20th spot in the top singles of 1983.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness?
this very phrase, Hector says at a very pivotal point within the play.
Here is the poem from which it comes from and then the definition of the title
Gerontion by TS Elliot
HERE I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, 5
Bitten by flies, fought.
My house is a decayed house,
And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London. 10
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
I an old man, 15
A dull head among windy spaces.
Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!”
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger 20
In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room; 25
By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts, 30
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, 35
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed, 40
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues 45
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last 50
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom 55
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact? 60
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do, 65
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn, 70
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season. 75
Gerontion
old man who deplores aging, aridity, and spiritual decay and despairs of civilization. [Br. Poetry: Benét, 391]
See : Pessimism
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Here is the poem from which it comes from and then the definition of the title
Gerontion by TS Elliot
HERE I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, 5
Bitten by flies, fought.
My house is a decayed house,
And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner,
Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,
Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London. 10
The goat coughs at night in the field overhead;
Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
The woman keeps the kitchen, makes tea,
Sneezes at evening, poking the peevish gutter.
I an old man, 15
A dull head among windy spaces.
Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!”
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger 20
In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room; 25
By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door. Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts, 30
An old man in a draughty house
Under a windy knob.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions, 35
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed, 40
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues 45
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.
The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours. Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last 50
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom 55
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:
How should I use them for your closer contact? 60
These with a thousand small deliberations
Protract the profit of their chilled delirium,
Excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled,
With pungent sauces, multiply variety
In a wilderness of mirrors. What will the spider do, 65
Suspend its operations, will the weevil
Delay? De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled
Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear
In fractured atoms. Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle, or running on the Horn, 70
White feathers in the snow, the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season. 75
Gerontion
old man who deplores aging, aridity, and spiritual decay and despairs of civilization. [Br. Poetry: Benét, 391]
See : Pessimism
Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Cultural Divide Between North and South England
Here are some articles I found about the division between the North and South of England.
Copyright New York Times Company Oct 19, 1998
To the Editor:
Re ''Has England Lost Its Identity?'' (London Journal, Oct. 14): With regional legislatures poised to take over their affairs from Parliament, you report, English traditionalists begin to sense a snub and to fear for what made England England -- a devotion to privacy, sense of honor and respect for eccentricity. There is even talk of a separate assembly for England.
But the establishment of such a body -- only a subject of Conservative musing so far -- would soon be followed, I would bet, by an even greater cultural division -- the demand for parliamentary partition, North versus South. In fact, most of the traditional Englishness about which you write is far more characteristic of Southern rural values than of traditional North-of-England values.
The major cultural divide within England -- predating 19th-century class formations -- is that of North versus South. The culture and ancient dialects of the North are more like those of Scotland and Ulster than southern England in many ways. One could structure a history of this cultural fact focusing on the ancient Northumbrian kingdom and its capital at York.
ROBERT ST CYR
Greenlawn, N.Y., Oct. 15, 1998
North-South divide puzzles nation
Britain's so-called north-south divide should actually be redrawn as a diagonal line, new research suggests.
A new map defining north and south by socio-economic data suggests the dividing line runs diagonally from Gloucester, ending just below Grimsby.
The divide puts Hereford in the north while Lincoln - actually 155 miles to the north east - is in the south.
The research comes after an exhibition asked visitors to plot the divide and found no-one had the same answer.
North? South?
The Lowry art gallery in Salford, Greater Manchester, asked visitors to mark the North-South boundary on an interactive map at its Myth of the North exhibition.
After they found virtually no-one agreed, they raised the idea of research into people's perceptions of North and South to an expert in human mapping at the University of Sheffield.
Professor Danny Dorling and his team threw a series of statistical, social, cultural and economic factors at the problem.
They included variants in house prices, visual changes in the built environment, physical and historic boundaries, cultural and political differences and different life expectancy rates.
They discovered the North and South were often as socially and economically defined as they were by geography.
Cheshire in particular had many "southern" characteristics, they found.
Professor Dorling also found the dividing line between North and South shifted depending on social and economic factors.
His team also claimed there was very little middle ground - or social Midlands, if you were - between the South and the North.
Bill Longshaw, curator of Myth of The North, said: "I'm not sure I agree that culturally people in parts of Gloucester, Coventry or Birmingham are really northerners but Danny's analysis really does make you think about where The North begins.
"But no one who has visited the exhibition seems to be able to agree where the boundary is either, so at least this exercise has brought some academic and scientific reason to the debate."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/7061201.stm
Design Cross sectional study using data from the 2001 national census.
Setting Great Britain.
Participants Adults aged between 25 and 64 in Great Britain and enumerated in the 2001 population census (n = 25.6 million).
Main outcome measures European age standardised rates of self rated general health, for men and women classified by the government social class scheme.
Results In each of the seven social classes, Wales and the North East and North West regions of England had high rates of poor health. There were large social class inequalities in self rated health, with rates of poor health generally increasing from class 1 (higher professional occupations) to class 7 (routine occupations). The size of the health divide varied between regions: the largest rate ratios for routine versus higher professional classes were for Scotland (2.9 for men; 2.8 for women) and London (2.9 for men; 2.4 for women). Women had higher rates of poor health compared to men in the same social class, except in class 6 (semi-routine occupations).
Conclusions A northwest-southeast divide in social class inequalities existed in Great Britain at the start of the 21st century, with each of the seven social classes having higher rates of poor health in Wales, the North East and North West regions of England than elsewhere. The widest health gap between social classes, however, was in Scotland and London, adding another dimension to the policy debate on resource allocation and targets to tackle the health divide.
Copyright New York Times Company Oct 19, 1998
To the Editor:
Re ''Has England Lost Its Identity?'' (London Journal, Oct. 14): With regional legislatures poised to take over their affairs from Parliament, you report, English traditionalists begin to sense a snub and to fear for what made England England -- a devotion to privacy, sense of honor and respect for eccentricity. There is even talk of a separate assembly for England.
But the establishment of such a body -- only a subject of Conservative musing so far -- would soon be followed, I would bet, by an even greater cultural division -- the demand for parliamentary partition, North versus South. In fact, most of the traditional Englishness about which you write is far more characteristic of Southern rural values than of traditional North-of-England values.
The major cultural divide within England -- predating 19th-century class formations -- is that of North versus South. The culture and ancient dialects of the North are more like those of Scotland and Ulster than southern England in many ways. One could structure a history of this cultural fact focusing on the ancient Northumbrian kingdom and its capital at York.
ROBERT ST CYR
Greenlawn, N.Y., Oct. 15, 1998
North-South divide puzzles nation
Britain's so-called north-south divide should actually be redrawn as a diagonal line, new research suggests.
A new map defining north and south by socio-economic data suggests the dividing line runs diagonally from Gloucester, ending just below Grimsby.
The divide puts Hereford in the north while Lincoln - actually 155 miles to the north east - is in the south.
The research comes after an exhibition asked visitors to plot the divide and found no-one had the same answer.
North? South?
The Lowry art gallery in Salford, Greater Manchester, asked visitors to mark the North-South boundary on an interactive map at its Myth of the North exhibition.
After they found virtually no-one agreed, they raised the idea of research into people's perceptions of North and South to an expert in human mapping at the University of Sheffield.
Professor Danny Dorling and his team threw a series of statistical, social, cultural and economic factors at the problem.
They included variants in house prices, visual changes in the built environment, physical and historic boundaries, cultural and political differences and different life expectancy rates.
They discovered the North and South were often as socially and economically defined as they were by geography.
Cheshire in particular had many "southern" characteristics, they found.
Professor Dorling also found the dividing line between North and South shifted depending on social and economic factors.
His team also claimed there was very little middle ground - or social Midlands, if you were - between the South and the North.
Bill Longshaw, curator of Myth of The North, said: "I'm not sure I agree that culturally people in parts of Gloucester, Coventry or Birmingham are really northerners but Danny's analysis really does make you think about where The North begins.
"But no one who has visited the exhibition seems to be able to agree where the boundary is either, so at least this exercise has brought some academic and scientific reason to the debate."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/7061201.stm
Design Cross sectional study using data from the 2001 national census.
Setting Great Britain.
Participants Adults aged between 25 and 64 in Great Britain and enumerated in the 2001 population census (n = 25.6 million).
Main outcome measures European age standardised rates of self rated general health, for men and women classified by the government social class scheme.
Results In each of the seven social classes, Wales and the North East and North West regions of England had high rates of poor health. There were large social class inequalities in self rated health, with rates of poor health generally increasing from class 1 (higher professional occupations) to class 7 (routine occupations). The size of the health divide varied between regions: the largest rate ratios for routine versus higher professional classes were for Scotland (2.9 for men; 2.8 for women) and London (2.9 for men; 2.4 for women). Women had higher rates of poor health compared to men in the same social class, except in class 6 (semi-routine occupations).
Conclusions A northwest-southeast divide in social class inequalities existed in Great Britain at the start of the 21st century, with each of the seven social classes having higher rates of poor health in Wales, the North East and North West regions of England than elsewhere. The widest health gap between social classes, however, was in Scotland and London, adding another dimension to the policy debate on resource allocation and targets to tackle the health divide.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Page 46: Hector and Posner Discuss Yorkshire Fertilizer
QUESTION: Hector talks about a Yorkshire firm in the 19th century which swept up bones of the dead soldiers and ground them into fertilizer. What is the significance of the firm being from Yorkshire?
ANSWER: In Chris Hedges' War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, there is this anecdote from the post-Napoleonic period, drawn from the London Observer, November 18, 1822:
It is estimated that more than a million bushels of human and inhuman bones were imported last year from the continent of Europe into the port of Hull. The neighborhood of Leipzig, Austerlitz, Waterloo, and of all the places where, during the late bloody war, the principal battles were fought, have been swept alike of the bones of the hero and the horse which he rode. Thus collected from every quarter, they have been shipped to the port of Hull and thence forwarded to the Yorkshire bone grinders who have erected steam-engines and powerful machinery for the purpose of reducing them to a granularly state. In this condition they are sold to the farmers to manure their lands.
My interpretation is that Hector is disparaging Yorkshire as being populated by uncouth profit-hounds who have no honor in their search for money. This sentiment is in keeping with the perception of Yorkshire as a center of industry (ie. Industrial Revolution) and uncultured people. The best literary Yorkshire examples of this stereotype are Mr. and Mrs. Squeers in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. Mr. Squeers is the definition of a rude, boarish Yorkshire man who beats little boys at his school and is only concerned with profit.
Hope this helps!
Kim
ANSWER: In Chris Hedges' War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, there is this anecdote from the post-Napoleonic period, drawn from the London Observer, November 18, 1822:
It is estimated that more than a million bushels of human and inhuman bones were imported last year from the continent of Europe into the port of Hull. The neighborhood of Leipzig, Austerlitz, Waterloo, and of all the places where, during the late bloody war, the principal battles were fought, have been swept alike of the bones of the hero and the horse which he rode. Thus collected from every quarter, they have been shipped to the port of Hull and thence forwarded to the Yorkshire bone grinders who have erected steam-engines and powerful machinery for the purpose of reducing them to a granularly state. In this condition they are sold to the farmers to manure their lands.
My interpretation is that Hector is disparaging Yorkshire as being populated by uncouth profit-hounds who have no honor in their search for money. This sentiment is in keeping with the perception of Yorkshire as a center of industry (ie. Industrial Revolution) and uncultured people. The best literary Yorkshire examples of this stereotype are Mr. and Mrs. Squeers in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. Mr. Squeers is the definition of a rude, boarish Yorkshire man who beats little boys at his school and is only concerned with profit.
Hope this helps!
Kim
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Here is the clip from Brief Encounter that Posner and Scripps perform. It is towards the end of the clip.
A Huge Thank You to Tom for finding this.
WWI Research
and here is a GREAT website on World War I from the BBC.
WWI has a huge history so we are only going to touch lightly on it and mainly on the poets of WWI.
Here is a link to the book WWI British Poets. It is an excerpt from the book it includes the major poet we will be talking about tonight, Rupert Brooke.
So this is technically not part of the playlist but it can be.
Here is the video for The Pet Shop Boy's "It's A Sin"
and then here is the download link for the song
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