|
Philip French
Philip Neville French (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English film critic and radio producer. French began his career in journalism in the late 1950s, before eventually becoming a BBC Radio producer, and later a film critic. He began writing for ''The Observer'' in 1963 and retired as film critic in 2013, but continued to write until his death. French was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in December 2012. Upon his death on 27 October 2015, French was referred to by his ''Observer'' successor Mark Kermode as "an inspiration to an entire generation of film critics". Biography French was born in Birkenhead in 1933. The son of an insurance salesman, he moved frequently throughout his childhood, and was educated at the direct grant Bristol Grammar School then at Exeter College, OxfordDennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 255. where he read Law. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Officer Of The Most Excellent 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 knight if male or a 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 citizens of other nations of which the order's sovereign is not the head of state. Cur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts also featuring. The station has described itself as "the world's most significant commissioner of new music". Through its BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, New Generation Artists scheme, it promotes young musicians of all nationalities. The station broadcasts the The Proms, BBC Proms concerts, live and in full, each summer in addition to performances by the BBC Orchestras and Singers. There are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama. Radio 3 won the Sony Radio Academy UK Station of the Year Gold Award for 2009 and was nominated again in 2011. According to RAJAR, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 1.9 million with a listening share of 1.6% as of March 2024. History Radio 3 is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-Portrait (1969 Film)
''Self-Portrait'' was a 1969 film made by the artist Yoko Ono. Premiering at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London on 10 September 1969, the 42-minute film consisted of a single shot of her husband John Lennon's semi-erect penis. Background On March 20, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono married after ten months of dating. Yoko made several films in cooperation with Lennon. One of these films is ''Self-Portrait'', which was released in 1969. It was a film that showed John Lennon's penis for 42 minutes. This proved to be too unconventional for audiences; the film was never reshown following its initial screening. Synopsis ''Self-Portrait'' is one long shot of John Lennon's semi-erect penis. As in Ono's ''One: Fluxfilm No. 14'' (aka ''Match'') (1966) film, slow motion is used to extend the sense of time. At the end of ''Self-Portrait'', a drop of semen comes out of Lennon's penis. Lennon would later state in an interview about the film that the semen drop was accidental, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York City in 1952 to join her family. She became involved with New York City's downtown artists scene in the early 1960s, which included the Fluxus group, and became well known in 1969 when she married English musician John Lennon of the Beatles, with whom she would subsequently record as a duo in the Plastic Ono Band. The couple used their honeymoon as a stage for public protests against the Vietnam War with what they called a bed-in. She and Lennon remained married until Murder of John Lennon, he was murdered in front of the couple's apartment building, the Dakota, on December 8, 1980. Together, they had one son, Sean Lennon, Sean, who later also became a musician. Ono began a career in popular music in 1969, forming the Plastic Ono Band wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philately
Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. While closely associated with stamp collecting and the study of postage, it is possible to be a philatelist without owning any stamps. For instance, the stamps being studied may be very rare or reside only in museums. Etymology The word "philately" is the English transliteration of the French "", coined by Georges Herpin in 1864. Herpin stated that stamps had been collected and studied for the previous six or seven years and a better name was required for the new hobby than ''timbromanie'' (roughly "stamp mania"), which was disliked.Williams, L.N. & M. ''Fundamentals of Philately''. State College: The American Philatelic Society, 1971, p. 20. The alternative terms "timbromania", "timbrophily", and "timbrology" gradually fell out of use as ''philately'' gained acceptance during the 1860s. Herpin took the Greek root word φ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Post Office
The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Established in England in the 17th century, the GPO was a state monopoly covering the dispatch of items from a specific sender to a specific receiver (which was to be of great importance when new forms of communication were invented); it was overseen by a Government minister, the Postmaster General. Over time its remit was extended to Scotland and Ireland, and across parts of the British Empire. The GPO was abolished by the Post Office Act 1969, which transferred its assets to the Post Office, so changing it from a Department of State to a statutory corporation. Responsibility for telecommunications was given to Post Office Telecommunications, the successor of the GPO Telegraph and Telephones department. In 1980, the telecommunications and postal sides were split prior to British Telecommunications' conversion into a totally separate publicly owned c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Cinema
British cinema has significantly influenced the global film industry since the 19th century. The oldest known surviving film in the world, ''Roundhay Garden Scene'' (1888), was shot in England by French inventor Louis Le Prince. Early colour films were also pioneered in the UK. Film production reached an all-time high in 1936, but the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, which saw the release of the most critically acclaimed works by filmmakers such as David Lean, Michael Powell, and Carol Reed. Many British actors have accrued critical success and worldwide recognition, including Patrick Stewart, Julie Andrews, Michael Caine, Joan Collins, Sean Connery, Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Craig, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Olivia de Havilland, Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Glynis Johns, Vivien Leigh, Ian Mckellen, Peter O'Toole, Gary Oldman, Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Emma Thompson, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Film School
London Film School (LFS) is a film school in London, United Kingdom, and is situated in Covent Garden, London, neighbouring Soho, a hub of the UK film industry. It is the oldest film school in the UK."LFS History" London Film School. Retrieved June 2020. LFS was founded in 1956 by Gilmore Roberts as the London School of Film Technique (LSFT). Originally based on Electric Avenue in , the school moved to a converted brewery on Shelton Street in 1966, after a brief parenthesis in Charlotte Street, and changed its name to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ladykillers (1955 Film)
''The Ladykillers'' is a 1955 British black comedy crime film directed by Alexander Mackendrick for Ealing Studios. It stars Alec Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, Danny Green, Jack Warner, and Katie Johnson as the old lady, Mrs. Wilberforce. William Rose wrote the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and won the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay. He claimed to have dreamt the entire film and merely had to remember the details when he awoke. Plot Mrs. Wilberforce is a sweet and eccentric old widow who lives alone in a gradually subsiding house, built over the entrance to a railway tunnel in Kings Cross, London. With nothing to occupy her time and an active imagination, she is a frequent visitor to the local police station where she reports fanciful suspicions regarding neighbourhood activities. The officers there humour her but give her reports no credence whatsoever. She is approached by a sly a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appointment In London
''Appointment in London'' (known as ''Raiders in the Sky'' in the U.S.) is a 1953 British war film set during the Second World War and starring Dirk Bogarde. The film was directed by Philip Leacock and based on a story by John Wooldridge, who as an RAF bomber pilot flew 108 operational sorties over Europe.Coldstream 2005, p. 181. Wooldridge, who after the war established himself as a successful film composer before his untimely death in a car accident, also wrote the film score and participated in writing the screenplay for ''Appointment in London''. ''Appointment in London'' is set in an RAF Bomber Command squadron during 1943 and tells of a wing commander's attempt to finish his third and final tour of 30 operations. A sub-plot involves his relationship with a widowed Wren in whom an American observer attached to his airfield is also interested. Plot Wing Commander Tim Mason commands a wing of Avro Lancasters based in England. He is nearing the end of his third tour of op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington (born 16 November 1939) is a British author and arts critic. He writes for ''The Guardian'', and was the paper's chief drama critic from 1971 to 2019. Billington is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts. He is the authorised biographer of the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008). Early life and education Billington was born on 16 November 1939, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, and attended Warwick School, an independent boys' school in Warwick. He attended St Catherine's College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, where he studied English and was appointed theatre critic of '' Cherwell''. He graduated with a BA degree. As a member of Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), in 1959, Billington played the Priest in '' The Birds'', by Aristophanes, his only appearance as an actor, and, in 1960, he directed a production of Eugène Ionesco's '' The Bald Pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2013 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 2013 were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebrations at the start of January. The New Year Honours were announced on 28 December 2012 in the United Kingdom of Great BritainThe United Kingdom: and Northern Ireland,Northern Ireland: on 31 December 2012 in New Zealand, and 28 December 2012 in the Cook Islands,Cook Islands: Barbados,Barbados: Grenada,Grenada: Solomon Islands,Solomon Islands: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Saint Christopher and Nevis,Saint Christopher and Nevis: Belize,Belize: and Antigua and Barbuda,Antigua and Barbuda: The recipients of honours are displayed as they were styled before their new honour and arranged by the country (in order of precedence) whose ministers advised The Queen on the appointments, then by honour with grades i.e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
