#Richard Dimbleby

[petermorwood]

This is one of, if not THE, best April Fools jokes ever, and may even be the very first to air on "serious TV". The prank was aired April 1 1957 at the end of the BBC current-affairs programme “Panorama”.

It was helped by spaghetti being a rare exotic food in 1950s Britain, and narration by the hugely respected journalist and presenter Richard Dimbleby made it utterly convincing.

Afterwards people either got the joke - or didn’t, and wanted to grow their own spaghetti trees. These optimists were told to “place a length of dry spaghetti in a jar of tomato sauce and hope for the best”.

*****

The entire spoof got it wrong, of course, since free-range organic spaghetti doesn’t grow on trees at all. 

In actual fact it’s a kind of marshland reed, and very seasonal, only available from March 15 (when by tradition the first harvest is made by use of many small sharp knives) through until April 2nd, when it’s officially declared to be stale.

Extruded lengths of flour-water-egg paste - originally called spaghetti finti or spaghetti di casa - replicate these reeds while being available all year round.

*****

Some humourless pundits indulged in sputtering outrage that such nonsense was part of a serious programme, but "Panorama” producer David Wheeler stuck to his guns, suggesting that viewers needed a more critical attitude to what was shown on TV, and shouldn’t believe everything they saw. 

What would he have said now?

*****

@dduane​ says that for US readers to understand just how effective it was, imagine the same thing on “60 Minutes”, voiced with equal sincerity by Dan Rather.

*****

And oddly enough, what we’re having for supper tonight will be...

Probably not spaghetti.

;->

#April Fool's Day #spaghetti harvest #Richard Dimbleby #Dan Rather #pinch of salt

[i-was-today-years-old-when]

i learned that the BBC initially refused to publish Richard Dimbleby's eye witness account of Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, they didn't believe it was as terrible as he described. It's estimated 70,000 people died at Belsen. The BBC only agreed to broadcast after Dimbleby threatened to resign (x)

#today i learned #facts #truth #history #tv #news

[justforbooks]

Is this the best April Fool's ever?

The news report was produced as an April Fools' Day joke in 1957, and presented a family in the canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland gathering a bumper spaghetti harvest after a mild winter and "virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil". Footage of a traditional "Harvest Festival" was aired along with a discussion of the breeding necessary to develop a strain to produce the perfect spaghetti noodle length. Some scenes were filmed at the (now closed) Pasta Foods factory on London Road, St Albans, in Hertfordshire, and at a hotel in Castagnola, Switzerland.

Panorama cameraman Charles de Jaeger dreamed up the story after remembering how teachers at his school in Austria teased his classmates for being so stupid that if they were told that spaghetti grew on trees, they would believe it. The editor of Panorama, Michael Peacock, told the BBC in 2014 how he gave de Jaeger a budget of £100 and sent him off. The report was made more believable through its voice-over by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby. Peacock said Dimbleby knew they were using his authority to make the joke work, and that Dimbleby loved the idea and went at it eagerly.

At the time, 7 million of the 15.8 million homes (about 44%) in Britain had television receivers. Pasta was not an everyday food in 1950s Britain, and it was known mainly from tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce and considered by many to be an exotic delicacy. An estimated eight million people watched the programme on 1 April 1957, and hundreds phoned in the following day to question the authenticity of the story or ask for more information about spaghetti cultivation and how they could grow their own spaghetti trees; the BBC told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".

The origins of April Fools Day are not clear but it is known that the tradition of practical joking and mischief-making dates back to Ancient Roman times.

It would appear that the festival is closely related to the coming of Spring.

Ancient Romans and Celts celebrated a festival of practical joking at about the time of the Vernal Equinox, as do millions of India's Hindus.

The French also mark 1 April but instead of April Fools they call it Poisson d'Avril (April Fish).

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #April Fools Day

[grandmaster-anne]

Originally broadcast: 29 May 1961 Richard Dimbleby interviews the Duke of Edinburgh about the opening of Commonwealth Technical Training Week, seven days of activities and publicity about training for skilled work across the Commonwealth. The Duke says attitudes to unskilled labour need to be changed in order to compete in a global, skills-based economy. This interview was the first with a member of the Royal Family on television. The Duke of Edinburgh talks about a subject he is passionate about: the creation of opportunities and the extension of prospects for young people. © BBC Archive

#prince philip #duke of edinburgh #interview #tv appearances #panorama #Youtube

[davidastbury]

Mr Grey

If you live long enough you will learn everything. Here is the explanation to a secret I had long given up on, but was revealed to me last week!

Imagine a clock spinning back nearly seventy years, a world of Norman Wisdom at the cinema and Richard Dimbleby on the 12” telly. And our neighbour, Mr Grey; station-master, august, dignified and bowler hatted, remote, detached, his mind on very important things. One night he knocks on our door and little me answered; staring up at the great man. He requested to speak to my parents. I was aware of scuffling, Dad pushing the dog back and my mother rushing to the kitchen, taking off her apron.

After a few pleasantries Mr Grey got to the point; it was about his daughter; she wasn’t well. She wasn’t eating, she wasn’t sleeping properly, she was unable to concentrate on her schoolwork. He gave examples of the deterioration in her sporting activities, her disinterest in everything. The family doctor was baffled.

My parents sat listening to all this, no doubt wondering what on earth this had to do with them, whilst I stood in the doorway watching the drama unfolding. Mr Grey lit his pipe and looked grim … ‘And finally my wife got Elaine to explain!’ (I chuckled at the rhyme) He turned to me, clearly irritated, and my dad pushed me out of the room and firmly shut the door.

That was it. I never knew what was said because I couldn’t hear anything and when I asked I was told to shut up. It was something I had no right to enquire about, so eventually it became half forgotten and then completely forgotten.

Clock spins forward nearly seventy years and I was enjoying a meandering two hour ‘phone chat with my brother. The subject of our childhood neighbours cropped up and we shared hilarious anecdotes of the decidedly odd people who populated our early lives. Being five years older he was able to put a new light on certain episodes - we were crumpling up, choking, helpless with laughter.

And then he told me that Mr Grey had called round that night and in the tone of a justifiably offended neighbour complaining about parking in front of his house, or our dog barking endlessly at all hours, he wished to make my parents aware that the deterioration in his daughter’s wellbeing was due to her hopeless infatuation with their eldest son, my brother! And it had to stop!

Best of all my brother wasn’t aware of it - or so he said (not sure I believe him).

Lol.

[beatlesonline-blog]

[nkengdi]

Deaths On This Day – December - 22

Pre-1600

AD 69 – Vitellius, Roman emperor (b. 15)

731 – Yuan Qianyao, official of the Chinese Tang Dynasty

1012 – Baha' al-Dawla, Buyid amir of Iraq

1060 – Cynesige, Archbishop of York

1100 – Bretislav II of Bohemia (b. 1060)

1115 – Olaf Magnusson, King of Norway (b. 1099)

1419 – Antipope John XXIII

1530 – Willibald Pirckheimer, German lawyer and author (b. 1470)

1554 – Alessandro Bonvicino, Italian painter (b. 1498)

1572 – François Clouet, French miniaturist (b. c. 1510)

1601–1900

1603 – Mehmed III, Ottoman sultan (b. 1566)

1641 – Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, 2nd Prime Minister of France (b. 1560)

1646 – Petro Mohyla, Ruthenian metropolitan and saint (b. 1596)

1660 – André Tacquet, Flemish priest and mathematician (b. 1612)

1666 – Guercino, Italian painter (b. 1591)

1681 – Richard Alleine, English minister and author (b. 1611)

1767 – John Newbery, English publisher (b. 1713)

1788 – Percivall Pott, English physician and surgeon (b. 1714)

1806 – William Vernon, English-American merchant (b. 1719)

1828 – William Hyde Wollaston, English chemist and physicist (b. 1766)

1853 – Manuel María Lombardini, Mexican general and politician. President (1853) (b. 1802)

1867 – Jean-Victor Poncelet, French mathematician and engineer (b. 1788)

1870 – Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Spanish journalist, poet, and playwright (b. 1836)

1880 – George Eliot, English novelist and poet (b. 1819)

1891 – Paul de Lagarde, German biblical scholar and orientalist (b. 1827)

1899 – Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist and publisher, founded Moody Publishers (b. 1837)

1901–present

1902 – Richard von Krafft-Ebing, German-Austrian psychiatrist and author (b. 1840)

1915 – Rose Talbot Bullard, American medical doctor and professor (b. 1864)

1917 – Frances Xavier Cabrini, Italian-American nun and saint (b. 1850)

1918 – Aristeidis Moraitinis, Greek lieutenant and pilot (b. 1891)

1919 – Hermann Weingärtner, German gymnast (b. 1864)

1925 – Amelie Beese, German pilot and engineer (b. 1886)

1939 – Ma Rainey, American singer (b. 1886)

1940 – Nathanael West, American author and screenwriter (b. 1903)

1941 – Karel Hašler, Czech actor, director, composer, and screenwriter (b. 1879)

1942 – Franz Boas, German-American anthropologist and linguist (b. 1858)

1943 – Beatrix Potter, English children's book writer and illustrator (b. 1866)

1944 – Harry Langdon, American actor, comedian, and vaudevillian (b. 1884)

1950 – Frederick Freake, English polo player (b. 1876)

1957 – Frank George Woollard, English engineer (b. 1883)

1959 – Gilda Gray, Polish-American actress and dancer (b. 1901)

1960 – Ninian Comper, Scottish-English architect (b. 1864)

1962 – Ross McLarty, Australian politician, 17th Premier of Western Australia (b. 1891)

1965 – Richard Dimbleby, English journalist (b. 1913)

1968 – Raymond Gram Swing, American journalist (b. 1887)

1969 – Enrique Peñaranda, 45th President of Bolivia (b. 1892)

1971 – Godfried Bomans, Dutch journalist and author (b. 1913)

1974 – Sterling North, American author and critic (b. 1906)

1979 – Darryl F. Zanuck, American director and producer (b. 1902)

1985 – D. Boon, American singer and musician (b. 1958)

1986 – Mary Burchell, English author and activist (b. 1904)

1986 – David Penhaligon, Cornish Liberal Politician (b. 1944), Member of Parliament (MP) for Truro (1974-1986)

1987 – Luca Prodan, Italian-Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1953)

1988 – Chico Mendes, Brazilian trade union leader and activist (b. 1944)

1989 – Samuel Beckett, Irish author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1906)

1992 – Harry Bluestone, English violinist and composer (b. 1907)

1992 – Frederick William Franz, American religious leader (b. 1893)

1993 – Don DeFore, American actor (b. 1913)

1995 – Butterfly McQueen, American actress and dancer (b. 1911)

1995 – James Meade, English economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1907)

1996 – Jack Hamm, American cartoonist and television host (b. 1916)

1997 – Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, Cuban-American dentist and activist (b. 1931)

2001 – Ovidiu Iacov, Romanian footballer (b. 1981)

2001 – Walter Newton Read, American lawyer and second chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission (b. 1918)

2002 – Desmond Hoyte, Guyanese lawyer, politician and President of Guyana (b. 1929)

2002 – Joe Strummer, English singer-songwriter (b. 1952)

2004 – Doug Ault, American baseball player and manager (b. 1950)

2006 – Elena Mukhina, Russian gymnast (b. 1960)

2006 – Galina Ustvolskaya, Russian composer (b. 1919)

2007 – Charles Court, Australian politician, 21st Premier of Western Australia (b. 1911)

2007 – Adrian Cristobal, Filipino journalist and playwright (b. 1932)

2009 – Luis Francisco Cuéllar, Colombian rancher and politician (b. 1940)

2009 – Albert Scanlon, English footballer (b. 1935)

2010 – Fred Foy, American soldier and announcer (b. 1921)

2012 – Chuck Cherundolo, American football player and coach (b. 1916)

2012 – Ryan Freel, American baseball player (b. 1976)

2012 – Cliff Osmond, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1937)

2012 – Lim Keng Yaik, Malaysian physician and politician (b. 1939)

2013 – Diomedes Díaz, Colombian singer-songwriter (b. 1956)

2013 – Hans Hækkerup, Danish lawyer and politician (b. 1945)

2013 – Oscar Peer, Swiss author, playwright, and philologist (b. 1928)

2014 – John Robert Beyster, American physicist and academic (b. 1924)

2014 – Christine Cavanaugh, American actress (b. 1963)

2014 – Joe Cocker, English singer-songwriter (b. 1944)

2014 – Bernard Stone, American lawyer and politician (b. 1927)

2015 – Peter Lundblad, Swedish singer-songwriter (b. 1950)

2015 – Freda Meissner-Blau, Australian activist and politician (b. 1927)

2016 – Chad Robinson, Australian rugby league player (b. 1980)

2017 – Gonzalo Morales Sáurez, Costa Rican painter (b. 1945)

2018 – Simcha Rotem, last survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (b. 1924)

2018 – Herman Sikumbang, Indonesian guitarist (b. 1982); casualty during 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami

2019 – Ram Dass, American spiritual teacher and author (b. 1931)

[urbanhermit]

[williamchasterson]

How the first report from Belsen concentration camp shocked the world

How the first report from Belsen concentration camp shocked the world

In April 1945, the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby was the first reporter to enter the liberated Belsen concentration camp.  from BBC News – World https://ift.tt/wmJzta3 via IFTTT

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#BBC News - World #IFTTT

[demoura]

19 DE SETEMBRO DE 2022 : TEMPO DE VERÃO ; O IMPERDÍVEL SHOW DAS EXÉQUIAS DE ISABEL II TERMINA HOJE ; POLÉMICO LUTO DE 3 DIAS EM PORTUGAL : OSTRAS DO SADO AO ALMOCO ; “ OS MAGNÍFICOS REBELDES - OS PRIMEIROS ROMÂNTICOS ” LEITURA EMPOLGANTE: o tempo está de veraneio com céu azul e temperaturas cálidas .Mas pecador me confesso estar dentro de casa a assistir ao show televisivo dos dez dias de comemorações e luto que se seguiram à morte da rainha Elizabeth II e culminarão hoje com o funeral da rainha às 11h (horário de Londres) na Abadia de Westminster. O evento atrairá dignitários de todo o mundo e uma enorme audiência mundial assistindo online e na televisão. Eu serei um deles bebericando o cocktail favorito da Rainha - Gin com Dubonnet .Como dizem as gentes da TV no seu calão este é um conteúdo imbatível ….Grandes ocasiões de Estado inspiram um jornalismo elevado, que faz o possível para corresponder aos rituais místicos da cerimónia - “Dois rios correm silenciosamente por Londres esta noite e um é feito de pessoas”, escreveu Vincent Mulchrone, do Daily Mail – em janeiro de 1965 sobre as filas humanas para ver o caixão do meu ídolo Winston Churchill . “Nunca esteve mais seguro, mais bem guardado, um rei adormecido do que este, com a luz dourada das velas aquecendo o seu local de descanso, e os passos abafados de seus súbditos dedicados para lhe fazerem companhia”, disse Richard Dimbleby, na BBC, em fevereiro de 1952, quando o caixão de George VI estava no mesmo antigo salão.O Guardian meu jornal favorito muitas vezes adotou uma abordagem menos shakespeariana….Por outro lado considero subserviente um luto nacional de 3 dias pela Rainha de Inglaterra normalmente reservados para altas figuras nacionais, como os presidentes Mário Soares e Jorge Sampaio.Apesar de ser uma república, Portugal é um dos países que mais dias de luto decretou para homenagear a falecida monarca, ultrapassando mesmo alguns estados da Commonwealth, como o Canadá ou a Nova Zelândia.! São também para mim surpreendentes as filas de gente suportando 24 horas de desconforto . A explicação talvez seja a de Peter Stanford -é um ritual de vida “ In mourning the Queen we are confronted with our own mortality” . Num nível mais prosaico a compra do dia foi excelente . Ostras do Sado ,abertas e em caixa com gelo , fruto da procura de clientes russos ….. Continuo empolgado com a leitura de “ Magnificent Rebels “ de Andrea Wulf uma biografia de grupo, celebrando as vidas das mentes mais brilhantes da Alemanha: Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Novalis, reunidos na pequena cidade de Jena .

“

[jadewalker]

[petermorwood]

This is one of, if not THE, best April Fools jokes ever, and may even be the very first to air on TV.

The prank was aired April 1 1957 at the end of the BBC current-affairs programme “Panorama”.

It was helped by spaghetti being a rare exotic food in 1950s Britain, and narration by the hugely respected journalist and presenter Richard Dimbleby made it utterly convincing.

Afterwards people either got the joke, or didn’t and wanted to grow their own trees; they were told to “place a length of dry spaghetti in a jar of tomato sauce and hope for the best”.

*****

The entire spoof got it wrong, of course, since spaghetti doesn’t grown on trees at all. 

It’s actually a kind of reed or sturdy grass, but it’s very seasonal, only available from March 15 (when by tradition the first harvest is made by use of many small sharp knives) through until April 2nd, when it’s declared to be stale.

Extruded lengths of flour-water-egg paste - originally called spaghetti finti or spaghetti di casa - replicate these reeds while being available all year round..

*****

Some humourless pundits indulged in sputtering outrage that such nonsense was part of a serious programme, but "Panorama” producer (and spoof scriptwriter) David Wheeler stood by his guns. 

He suggested that viewers needed a more critical attitude to what was shown on TV, and shouldn’t believe everything they saw. 

Hoo boy, what would he have said now?

*****

@dduane​ says that for US readers to understand just how effective it was, imagine the same thing on “60 Minutes”, voiced with equal sincerity by Dan Rather.

*****

And oddly enough, what we’re having for supper tonight will be...

Lamb, because of Easter... 

;->

#april fool #spaghetti harvest #richard dimbleby

[mrepstein]

Richard Dimbleby introduces a story on Brian Epstein on the BBC current affairs programme Panorama (March 30, 1964)

#Brian Epstein #Richard Dimbleby #Panorama #BBC #March 30 #1964 #60s

[myfavoritepeterotoole]

Peter O'Toole at the Variety Club awards

Richard Dimbleby, Richard Todd, Bruce Forsyth, Harry Secombe, Elizabeth Seal, Peter O'Toole and guests attend the Variety Club lunch. 8th March 1960.

Awards for 1959 The Variety Club of Great Britain March, 1960

Best Stage Actor: Peter O'Toole

#peter o'toole #award #the variety club of great britain #the variety club of great britain award #1960 #the long and the short and the tall #stage #richard todd #richard dimbleby #bruce forsyth #harry secombe #elizabeth seal

[dirjoh-blog]

Richard Dimbleby and Dirk Bogarde's accounts on what they saw in Bergen Belsen

Richard Dimbleby and Dirk Bogarde’s accounts on what they saw in Bergen Belsen

It absolutely amazes me that in this day and age there are still people deny that the Holocaust ever happened. In fact there appears to be an increase of Holocaust deniers. Some use the picture above, of liberated women in Bergen Belsen as their ‘evidence’ that the Holocaust was a myth. They say of you look at the picture you can see that the women are healthy and seem to be happy. Well of…

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#Bergen Belsen #Dirk Bogarde #Evidence #History #Holocaust #Holocaust denial #Richard Dimbleby #World War 2

[insignificant-moments-in-hi-blog]

BBC fools The Nation in 1957

The BBC has received a mixed reaction to a spoof documentary broadcast this evening about spaghetti crops in Switzerland. The hoax Panorama programme, narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. Spaghetti was not a widely-eaten food in the UK and was considered by many as an exotic delicacy. Mr Dimbleby explained how each year the end of March is a very anxious time for Spaghetti harvesters all over Europe as severe frost can impair the flavour of the spaghetti. He also explained how each strand of spaghetti always grows to the same length thanks to years of hard work by generations of growers. This is believed to be one of the first times the medium of television has been used to stage an April Fools Day hoax.

#April Fools Day hoax #BBC #Richard Dimbleby #BBC fools The Nation #1957 #spoof broadcast #British television