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Bill Oddie
William Edgar Oddie (born 7 July 1941) is an English actor, artist, birder, comedian, conservationist, musician, songwriter, television presenter and writer. He was a member of comedy trio The Goodies. A birder since his childhood in Quinton, Birmingham, Oddie has established a reputation as a naturalist, conservationist, and television presenter on wildlife issues. Some of his books are illustrated with his own paintings and drawings. His wildlife programmes for the BBC include '' Springwatch'' and ''Autumnwatch'', '' How to Watch Wildlife'', ''Wild in Your Garden'', '' Birding with Bill Oddie'', '' Britain Goes Wild with Bill Oddie'' and '' Bill Oddie Goes Wild''. Early life Oddie was born on 7 July 1941 in Rochdale, Lancashire, but moved to Birmingham at a young age. He was raised by his father, Harry Oddie, and grandmother, Emily. His father was assistant chief accountant at the Midlands Electricity Board. His mother, Lilian, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and, dur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of The British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom#Modern honours, knight if male or a dame (title), dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with the order, but are not members of it. The order was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V, who created the order to recognise 'such persons, male or female, as may have rendered or shall hereafter render important services to Our Empire'. Equal recognition was to be given for services rendered in the UK and overseas. Today, the majority of recipients are UK citizens, though a number of Commonwealth realms outside the UK continue to make appointments to the order. Honorary awards may be made to cit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barnsley Hall Hospital
Barnsley Hall Hospital was a psychiatric facility located in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. History The hospital was based on a site purchased by the County Council in 1899. It was designed by George Thomas Hine and opened in 1907, to relieve pressure on the county's only existing asylum, Powick Hospital near Malvern and to serve the northern part of the county. It was used as a military hospital during the First World War. By 1929, it had become known as Worcestershire Mental Hospital and had reached its capacity of around 720 patients. It was used as a military hospital again during the Second World War. It joined the National Health Service as Barnsley Hall Mental Hospital in 1948 and became Barnsley Hall Hospital for Nervous and Mental Diseases in 1949. Additional buildings increased its capacity to about 1,200. It provided a continuation of psychiatric care after the Powick Hospital closed in 1989 and closed itself in 1996. Originally reserved as an Area of Development Rest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Theatre
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, American and British English spelling differences), many of the List of Broadway theaters, extant or closed Broadway venues use or used the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names. Many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also use the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, is a theatre genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional Theater (structure), theaters, each with 500 or more seats, in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End theatre, West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway thoroughfare is eponymous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge Footlights Revue
The ''Cambridge Footlights Revue'' is an annual revue by the Footlights Club, a group of comedy writer-performers at the University of Cambridge. Three of the more notable revues are detailed below. 1963 revue "A Clump of Plinths" — "Cambridge Circus" The 1963 revue, entitled "A Clump of Plinths" (later retitled ''Cambridge Circus''), played at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1963 before opening at West End in London on 10 July 1963. Unfortunately, the revised title sometimes confused audiences, as it was not actually playing at Cambridge Circus itself. "Cambridge Circus" then toured New Zealand in July and August 1964, where they recorded a television special and four radio shows. which were eventually broadcast in November and December 1964. The radio shows were rediscovered in the New Zealand national sound and film archives in 2015 and broadcast again in January 2016 under the title "Goodie, Goodie! Python, Python! The Cambridge Circus Tapes" The New Zealand tou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe, the Fringe or the Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2024 spanned 25 days, sold more than 2.6 million tickets and featured more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,746 different shows across 262 venues from 60 different countries. Of those shows, the largest section was comedy, representing almost 40% of shows, followed by theatre, which was 26.6% of shows. Established in 1947 as an unofficial offshoot to (and on the "fringe" of) the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The combination of Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Edinburgh International Festival has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. It is an open-access (or " unjuried") performing arts festival, meaning that there is no selection committee, and anyon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatre, theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketch comedy, sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles. Owing to high ticket prices, wikt:ribald, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of wikt:prurient, prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Footlights
The Cambridge Footlights, commonly referred to simply as Footlights, is a student sketch comedy troupe located in Cambridge, England. Footlights was founded in 1883, and is one of Britain's oldest student sketch comedy troupes. The comedy society is run by the students of the University of Cambridge. History Footlights' inaugural performance took place in June 1883. For some months before the name "Footlights" was chosen, the group had performed to local audiences in the Cambridge area (once, with a cricket match included, at the "pauper lunatic asylum"). They wished to go wider than the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club (ADC), founded in 1855, with its membership drawn largely from Trinity College, and its theatre seating only 100. They were to perform every May Week at the Theatre Royal, Barnwell, Cambridge, the shows soon open to the public. A local paper commended the club's appeal to the "general public, the many different classes of which life in Cambridge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its founding, as well as extensive gardens. Its members are termed "Valencians". The college's current master is Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury. Pembroke has a level of academic performance among the highest of all the Cambridge colleges; in 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2018 Pembroke was placed second in the Tompkins Table. Pembroke contains the first chapel designed by Sir Christopher Wren and is one of only six Cambridge colleges to have educated a British prime minister, in Pembroke's case William Pitt the Younger. The college library, with a Victorian neo-gothic clock tower, has an original copy of the first encyclopaedia to contain printed diagrams. History Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke (1303� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from the English-speaking world. The English language has developed over more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Ango-Saxon settlers in the fifth century, are called Old English. ''Beowulf'' is the most famous work in Old English. Despite being set in Scandinavia, it has achieved national epic status in England. However, following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the written form of the Old English, Anglo-Saxon language became less common. Under the influence of the new aristocracy, French became the standard language of courts, parliament, and polite society.Baugh, Albert and Cable, Thomas. 2002. ''The History of the English Language''. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 79–81. The English spoken after the Normans came is known as Middle English. This form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rugby Union
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in England in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an Rugby ball, oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped Goal (sports)#Structure, goalposts at both ends. Rugby union is a popular sport around the world, played by people regardless of gender, age or size. In 2023, there were more than 10 million people playing worldwide, of whom 8.4 million were registered players. World Rugby, previously called the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) and the International Rugby Board (IRB), has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Grant Grammar School
A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in the United Kingdom that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted fees, some paid by a Local Education Authority and some by the pupils' parents or guardians. On average, the schools received just over half of their income from the state. The status was introduced in England and Wales by the Education Act 1944 as a modification of an existing direct grant scheme to some long standing endowed grammar schools. There were 179 direct grant grammar schools, which, together with almost 1,300 grammar schools maintained by local authorities, formed the most academic tier of the Tripartite System. They varied greatly in size and composition, but, on average, achieved higher academic results than either maintained grammar schools or private schools. State secondary education was reorganised on comprehensive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School (KES) is an independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the British Public school (UK), public school tradition, located in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Founded by Edward VI of England, King Edward VI in 1552, it is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. It shares its site and is twinned with King Edward VI High School for Girls (KEHS). While the two schools run separately, dramatic arts, societies, music and other events are often shared; the schools also share a couple of hockey pitches and several clubs. The shared area is called Winterbourne after the nearby Winterbourne Botanic Garden. Since September 2024, the two schools have shared a joint head teacher, styled Chief Master & Principal. Alumni of the school include two Nobel Prize, Nobel laureates, a Fields Medal, Fields medallist, as well as J. R. R. Tolkien (author of ''The Lord of the Rings''), and Fiel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
