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raptorfae53 · 2 months

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Monster High Reimagined

Toralei stripe character bio/redesign

Toralei Stripe (they/he/she)

Harimau Jaidan daughter of the Stripe family (Chinese Malaysian-British)

(Lesbian)

A bad tempered,mistrustful weretiger adopted by a wealthy family of cat Yokai living in Britain, Toraleis had it rough. Abandoned as a young child they've been cycled through the foster system more than they can think and feel detached from their foster mother Caterina Stripe and her standoffish family as a result,being inducted into monster high on caterina’s father's warning of it being a last chance for the girl before being shipped off to a reform school. Toralei personally express their own feelings regarding all of their baggage through playing loud punk music with his band,the Hissfits (consisting of toralei themself on vocals and guitar and their cousins purrsephone and meowlody on bass and drums) much to the dismay of the half of the campus able to hear it.

Likes: punk subculture and music, playing guitar in her band,drama ,taking catnaps (often in class) and dairy products.

Dislikes: crates and enclosed spaces,people trying to tell him how to live his life,being short (5’3),digital only media and his adoptive grandfather and family (bar purrsephone and meowlody, misfits gotta stick together after all)

Killer style: Toralei's mother always insisted on her dressing "properly" to fit in with her family's smart image,since joining monster high however toralei has been rejigging these old clothes into something more "her style", that being punky Sukeban-inspired looks bound to irk her mum's sensibilities.

Familiar: Sweetfangs, a huge orange tomcat that toralei befriended during her childhood as a street kitten,who bears a passing resemblance to a sabretooth tiger and hates everybody but toralei,who in return spoils him.

Pet Peeve: Their adoptive mother, Ms Stripe's insistence on their education being top-priority. Toralei just doesn't know why she even bothers. They've never done well in school,and no students or teachers either human or monster ever put much stock in them either. In a few years both will be out of each others lives anyway,reform school or not,so why even care?

Freaky Flaw: Their self loathing. To say toralei has issues is an understatement,and said issues have manifested into a frustratingly self defeating look on life. To toralei though it's just how it is,she's had to be on their own for most of their life and fight to get what she wants without anyone helping,planting the idea early that it was simply because he wasn't worth helping,and regardless of the changes in her life recently she expects it all to be the same at monster high. After all,if the people who insisted they were there to help never did anything for toralei,why shouldn't this be true for this new lot?

Spooky Secret: Toralei has a very pronounced West Country accent (having grown up in devon) that he masks for fear it makes him sound too “farmer-y” with a pseudo-cockney one, regardless it tends to slip in times of high emotion,including during when they sing,but the fact that they're attending an American school means few are the wiser.

Dream job: Rocking out on the underground punk circuit and touring around the British isles when they're done with school,despite her Foster mothers disapproval and insistence on studying. Although another,more personal reason for this dream lifestyle being that through it toralei hopes to meet other Harimau Jaidan in the UK as well as maybe track down her birth parents on the road in-between shows.

Five Fearsome facts

Harimau Jaidan and by extent other types of werecat are a rare type of monster,even more so outside of their native Malaya and toralei has spent much of her life regardless of setting with this gnawing feeling of isolation. Even if she now has purrsephone and meowlody she's still the only one of her species at monster high,so the feeling of being alone in a crowd remains...

Toralei has a marked dislike for a lot of modern pop music,considering it too corporate and without any genuine message for her liking compared to punk and rock. (Although when their cousins aren't around he does listen to a few of his cousins Jpop CDs,don't tell anybody though…)

Aside from punk subculture,Toralei's other great love is dairy products, and beguiling their hard-edged image,ice cream,boba tea and other sweet treats rank among their all-time favourites. Toralei is also ragingly lactose intolerant but this doesn't stop him.

On top of singing and playing guitar for the Hissfits, toralei makes all of their bands merchandise ranging from badges and stickers to screen printed shirts and posters,and often incorporates some of it into her day-to-day outfits, arguing that actually the printing is intended to be wonky (it's not) and it wouldn't be properly punk if it weren't a little asymmetrical.

As a result of distrusting the model of digital only music distribution, toralei uses a lot of physical media to enjoy their music, using a physical CD player and distributing the hissfits music via burned CDs sold with the bands other merchandise. Toralei also uses said skills in making mixtapes for the people he cares most for in their life and casual Internet piracy.

Hello again everyone, I'm back with another one of these finally (and of one of my favourite monster high characters of all no less) + I'm also very close to finishing another profile so I doubt it'll be long before the next one of these is up,but anyways as usual, an explanation for my design choices:

Having previously drawn my version of toralei,whose design you can see here (hope to do more art of them and the rest of my monster high designs in the future btw) you probably already know that I've changed her monster type from a plain old werecat to a Harimau Jaidan, a were-tiger from Malayan folklore (Inspired by @jdoodlin amazing toralei design,who first introduced me to the Harimau Jaidan concept)

To keep it short, I never liked the "werecat" label, it felt a bit too artificial and I knew that there were multiple sorts of cat monsters from mythologies across the world that would make for much more interesting designs than just plain old cat people,hence why toralei is the only one of the 5 werecats to actually remain a werecat (well,weretiger). As for the others well, you'll just have to watch this space,as I have a whole smorgasbord of ideas for the twins,Catty and Catrine I can't wait to share with you all eventually in art and writing.

Anyways,hope you like this character bio,see you for the next one.

#monster high #monster high reimagined #toralei stripe #my writing

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mazur5s · 8 months

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NOW PRESENTING: JONATHAN MAZUR5! captain of west ham united.

firm but fair. large and in charge. captains a team like a conductor leads a symphony. legacy player. trying to be different from his dad, whilst only wanting to be his shadow.

JONATHAN MAZUR. Oct 7th 1995. 28. West Ham’s strongman.

Be more like your dad! His mother had always squawked at Jonny, her Polish accent more thick with pride when talking about Filip Mazur. He and Bethany came to London as eighteen year olds with big dreams, having met back in Poland. They got engaged, married and had kids quickly, raising them to speak both English and Polish, to respect where they came from; heritage was important.

His father had, at one point, been the absolute best of the best on the pitch. A legend. He was loved by the team he played for (an Arsenal man through and through), loved by the nation (when he made his first appearance for Queen and country, Old Wembley’s stands shook) and loved by the pundits. He had records young footballers could only dream of, but it didn’t make him untouchable.

In 2017, he did retire, at an eye watering age of forty two – something utterly unheard of in that world. He left with a wealth of accolades for Arsenal under his belt, a whole load of records - including oldest goal scorer in the Premier League.

Jon, the Mazurs’ first born, had worked through Chelsea Academy as a kid - he didn't get to have a Bar Mitzvah because of his incredibly busy schedule, though he put his all into his sisters’ so that he could be a big part of it - and stayed with the Blues all the way through to seniors, making his debut in 2012, after Chelsea won the Champions League the year before. He was a Chelsea lad to his very core, playing (eventually) alongside Roy. Fucking. Kent. A man he should objectively hate given that he’d once tried to absolutely KO his dad in a match, but hey - what wouldn’t anyone give to kick a ball around under that man’s captaincy. He helped shape Jon into the player he is today and he’ll be grateful for it for as long as he’s able to play and beyond.

In 2015, Jon was snapped up by West Ham United, a move he found difficult to come to terms with, but one he thought would give him the freedom to pursue his individuality - his ability to truly be his own man and not just his father, but in blue. East London. He would fit in with the cockneys, he thought.

Of course WHU wanted him; he was in high demand; not only was he the second-tallest player in the Prem which made him a beast to go up against but he was known as an incredibly flexible player who had the ability to move from defence positions to the midfield right up to being in front, playing the 9. He had a kick like his dad, though in truth they were not that similar. That Mazur, though outspoken and bold off the grass, was patient and calm on the pitch, sharing his whippet speed and skill with his son. This Mazur had a relatively short temper and wasn’t afraid to use his elbows.. Though, this was something Jon has worked on over time, instead becoming known for his level headedness and dedication to the sport. He doesn’t fight referees, he doesn’t pick fights with the little shits on lower table teams, he’s an artist on the pitch.

In 2015, aged twenty, Jon made his debut for the Three Lions, the England team, legacy number 1207.

Now he’s as beloved by West Ham fans as his father was (is) by Arsenal’s. He was named their captain in July of 2017, the same year his father stepped away from the game. It’s a role he takes seriously, trying to pave the way for the younger Hammers, showing them how to act and how to better themselves just as Roy Kent had done for him those years ago.

On Nov 15th 2018, Jon was given the captain’s band for England for a game against USA, something his own father had never quite managed. He had wanted to step out of Fil’s shadow and this was just another challenge to take up in order to prove himself even more… to who, he wasn’t entirely sure.

He captained the England team through the 2016 Euros, the 2020 Euros and the 2022 World Cup, he’s got 221 goals for West Ham under his belt, 62 for England and in 2023 he led West Ham to victory, winning the Europa Conference League in Prague.

The man is a true testament to himself and his game. It was no shock to the people that really knew him to find out that he was nominated for the Ballon d’Or, let alone when he won the thing (he, though, was sitting with his jaw agape before being roused from his seat). The biggest surprise of all was the moment his father walked out on stage to hand him the trophy - some people slammed the move from the older Mazur man, but it was perhaps the most touching moment of young Mazur’s life so far.

Sitting in his hotel room with the buzz of champagne in his body and the ringing of partying still in his ears was the moment, the first real moment, he started to doubt his place at West Ham. It was true that the team had helped him elevate his game, that he’d forged some strong bonds there, and he had a lot to thank the clarets for, but Champions League players they were not. He was running out of time. Could he really turn his back on such a team? Did he have it in him to turn his back on another team that’d raised him?

#PINNED DNI.#BY BUG. 25. THEY/THEM. GMT.#MAIN @PARKER66 #HEADER/PINNED GRAPHIC : BEKEELEY

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queer-cosette · 3 years

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“u don’t sound Glaswegian” well maybe that’s because of the prejudice against the working class and all things associated with it including the dialects and as a result I’ve trained away my Glaswegian accent in order to be taken seriously by people in positions of authority, have you ever considered that ye fuckin numpty

#it's the same with every traditional working class accent #including the west country accent and the cockney accent #no one takes you fucking seriously and then mocks you for not sounding like where you came from #coco will not shut up about this one #coco speaks #glaswegian #glaswegian accent #glasgow #glesga

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oumaheroes · 3 years

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hii its bougie <3 if you're still taking hc requests, i was wondering if you'd have thoughts on something that's been on my mind for a while. i was interested in the nuance to english culture due to regional differences. eg.,dinner being called "tea" in the north of england, rugby being more popular in the south, the difference in how scones with jam and cream are enjoyed in Devon and Cornwall?? or how certain english accents are perceived as... "less attractive" i guess (the black country accents are unpopular apparently?) -- you'd probably know more about these particularities than me ;u;

i was wondering how these cultural differences might map onto hws England's character, and how they might influence his attitudes and behaviours. because there's such a clearly defined stereotype of the english that i think shape people's expectations of what the english are like, i usually think that Arthur usually consciously acts according to what counts as positive interpretations of himself. however, i love nuanced and somewhat subversive interpretations of his character, and am very curious if you might have any ideas on how these kind of internal regional differences might shape him.

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Bougieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee <3

I’m not gonna lie this sent me down a RABBIT HOLE of thoughts, so hang on tight cos we're gonna get messy.

Accents:

Let’s start with my personal favourite, so excuse me whilst I geek out for a second. I’ve gone into this area already in this headcanon, but I personally see England being a very proud little dragon regarding English accents, those both native and non-native to the British Isles. Focusing just on accents within England for this post, the way Arthur himself sees them, (regarding class and general preference), comes a lot down to how I see him feeling about language and the unification of England in general.

England is a tiny country. It’s really teeny, compared to some, and yet holds an incredible number of regional accents and dialects (from digging about the internet for a good source, I keep finding numbers ranging from 37 to 43). There are a number of reasons for this, but the one that I love the most is that accents are influenced by the previous/ influential other languages spoken in a given area. Accents on the East of England are more influenced by Viking invaders, both phonologically and via the dialectal words used, and accents/ dialects in the West are more influenced by Welsh, for example.

Accents and dialects tell the history of a place, all who ever came there and influenced it to some degree. The map of English accents is a patchwork quilt of old cultures and people now lost to time, but their ways of speaking have been preserved in the modern tongue. The old English kingdoms might now be mere counties- Kent, Essex, Sussex, East Anglia, etc- they may not have their own influence or language these days as they used to, but their old ways have been imprinted on their people of today whether they know it or not and they carry pieces of the past in their words and how they speak them. Older speakers of the Northern English dialects liek the Yorkshire dialect still use ‘thou/thee’ where this has fallen out in other areas, the Midlands and parts of the South-East still keep the ‘-n’ ending for possessive pronouns (‘yourn’ instead of ‘yours’, ‘ourn’ instead of ‘ours’), and there’s even some linguistic research into how Brittonic, the ancestor of Modern Welsh, influenced English structure and phonology (for references, see notes at the end).

Back to England the person (to contain myself slightly), his regional accents are a story of himself, his history being kept alive in all of its variety every day. He doesn’t hold a classist view of a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ accent because he knows why they’re all there- what languages and people influenced them and how these events affected him- the older generations now lost and forgotten being kept alive in the smallest of phonemes.

Every dialect, every accent, and every language tells the story of a people, from the smallest phonological marker right up to a language as a whole and England takes comfort and pride in his dialects and accents’ longevity and variety. He is as much of the North as he is the South, as much of the East as the West and a patchwork man born of patchwork cultures it makes no sense for him to favour one particular accent over another.

That being said, he is aware that there is a common cultural stance on accents as well as an opinion regarding ‘ugly’ ones, ‘common’ ones, and ‘classy’ ones, but he himself doesn’t partake in these ideas. I like to think that a nation takes on the speech of the people and the area they’re in, matching the person they speak to or the area they visit to relate to their people. So, for me a Chav Arthur exists as much as a Brummie one does, or a Scouser, or a Geordie, or a Cockney. They’re all English, and thus they’re all a part of him.

Class

I have to include this one, if only to touch on it lightly regarding accents and dialects. Class does influence which words you speak, arguably just as much as which accent (this is known as a sociolect). Although I said that England adopts the accent of whatever area he’s in, or whomever he’s talking to if they’re English, the class people are will also affect which words he choses to use.

Here’s a short example from here:

'It is pudding for the upper class. Dessert is sometimes used by upper middles, but afters and sweets very clearly put you below stairs.'

Have some more!

Upper class: Spectacles, Lavatory or loo, Die, Napkin, Sofa

Middle class: Glasses, Toilet , Pass on, Serviette, Settee or couch

(Working class is a mix but harder to find sources for).

This is where England treads a fine line. It could be that he again adopts more of a class lexicon regarding who he is speaking to, matching his people word for word. However, England is not unaware of the affects of class, regardless of how he himself feels, and also although class snobbery and divide frustrate him, he cannot deny using this understanding to benefit himself, which also conforms to how his own people behave. (I myself have, many times, diluted and filtered my speech to be seen as ‘better’).

Want to be seen as more reliable and powerful? Want to be taken more seriously? RP and Estuary English (a lot more so these days), hold undeniable sway and England is not above adopting a manner of speaking to come across ‘better’ or more polite, or a more ‘common’ accent to fit in with the working classes. I think of England as leaning more towards a working-class mindset- he’s very hands on, very up for and used to manual labour and this particular English class has always made up the bulk of his population. It makes no sense for a nation, who represents all of their people, to have a snide view or a preference for a particular group and England as a person I see is someone who does not enjoy the foppery and false airs of aristocracy.

That being said, England is an intelligent man. He knows how to work a room and use a crowd to his advantage, knows what must be done and what he needs to do to achieve a goal and if this entails courting the upper classes for a time then he will do so. He’s adepts at switching himself like a chameleon, blending his behaviours, accent, and dialect to match who he’s talking to to achieve a goal or to fit in with someone’s perception of him, or to gain influence or prestige. He also doesn’t hate his upper classes- they are of him too, and the middle and working class have their own prejudices and ideas against the others. But he doesn’t adopt a stereotypical distain of lower classes because to him, it really doesn’t make much sense.

Abroad, this need to cultivate a particular perception defiantly comes under greater pressure. RP and Estuary English are more well know, more heard and taught, and more recognisably ‘British’, and so these are what he uses when speaking English to other nations or foreigners, either wanting to uphold an image of himself (more so in the Victorian/ Edwardian period than nowadays) or just for the ease of being understood.

Regional Differences

Okay, this one is a lot more fun. Does England put in his milk first or last when making tea? Does he put jam first, or clotted cream when having a scone? Does he have chips with gravy, or curry sauce? Does he have dinner at 6, or 9? To marmite, or not to marmite.

Ah, that is the question, and England does not know the answer. Does he do what he does because that’s what he likes, or because that’s what his people do? He didn’t grow up with these habits, after all, they’re all relatively recent in his lifetime, and so these habits are defiantly things he cultures for a particular audience.

I’m not really sure if the above preferences are class based, (well, milk first when making tea is argued to be, but I can't find any sources I'd consider entirely credible. I put the ones I did find in the notes below, in case any one's interested), so it’s hard to get a sense of which one to use. Overall, it doesn’t matter which you do and neither is right or wrong, but the English feel strongly about them, one way or another, and often Arthur the man isn’t sure at all which one he himself actually thinks is better.

Food in another sense though is something he can be surer of. A Cornish pastie not from Cornwall is not worth eating, nor is a Bakewell tart outside of Bakewell. England can be very particular about this sort of thing and enjoys maintaining and supporting the ‘original’ flavour or recipe of a thing where he can, considering this to be the ‘best’. Sally Lunn Buns from Bath, Gypsy tarts from Kent, Eccles Cakes from Eccles.

England wants to preserve his food and culture and has what could be considered a snobbish view on the ‘best’ way of creating or eating his national foods. Some things he is more lenient with: he will eat cheddar cheese, whether or not it is from Cheddar, same from Cumberland sausages not from Cumbria. But he certainly has a preference and he is not afraid to voice this when asked for his opinion.

Okay, we're done

Phew! This had me digging out my old linguistic student brain. To anyone who has made it this far down, gosh golly miss molly thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the ride, and especially @prickyy who was kind enough to want to hear my opinions about all of this <3

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Notes:

Brittonic influence on English:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittonicisms_in_English

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://journals.mountaintopuniversity.edu.ng/English%2520Language/Celtic%2520Influences%2520in%2520English%2520A%2520Re-evaluation.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2ohDYdq3BoWImwHn6oWQAg&scisig=AAGBfm29zTF0FBCpd1KqDiAbjM-0X7nfoA&oi=scholarr (PDF)

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://www.oppi.uef.fi/wanda/unicont/abstracts/14ICEHL_MF.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2ohDYdq3BoWImwHn6oWQAg&scisig=AAGBfm3UvOXbJEb0b51J73eBnTJvgGaQOA&oi=scholarr (PDF)

Sociolects and class distinction within language in English:

https://languageawarenessbyrosalie.weebly.com/social-dialects.html

https://www.grin.com/document/313937

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

Milk in tea first and the potential class reason:

https://www.theteaclub.com/blog/milk-in-tea/

https://qmhistoryoftea.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/milk-in-first-a-miffy-question/

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azvolrien · 2 years

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OC Trivia - Accents and Voices

I don’t have ‘voice actors’ in mind for most of my characters, but nevertheless I do generally have some idea of what their voices sound like. This got a bit longer than I’d originally intended, so I’ll put it under a cut. So here goes:

Stormhaven:

I’ve established on several occasions that Stormhaveners sound Welsh, though as with Wales itself there are regional variations.

Wygar (like most people from the city of Stormhaven) has a fairly gentle South Wales accent. I actually imagine him as sounding similar to Tom Jones, but with a somewhat lighter, higher voice, more of a tenor than a baritone (and he’s not as good a singer).

Calburn’s accent is very similar to Wygar’s, but he has a deeper, more gravelly voice.

Rhona has more of a North Wales accent; her family are from a farm out in the countryside and she never visited the city until starting her apprenticeship at the College. She’s spent enough time in the city since to have picked up some of the accent but still sounds different enough to tell she’s not a native. In terms of pitch and timbre she has a fairly middling voice, not noticeably high or deep.

Kiraan:

The Kiraani Empire is huge and accordingly includes a vast variety of different accents, so let’s take ‘Kiraan’ to here mean the Imperial City itself and its immediate surroundings. Basically they sound like Londoners, with all the class variations that implies - the only two Kiraani who’ve spent much time in the spotlight are middle- to upper-class, but I expect Kiraani from a more working-class background definitely have a certain Cockney edge to their accents.

Zar, being the Emperor and expected to do a lot of public speaking, was put through all sorts of rigorous elocution lessons growing up. Accordingly he speaks with your very clipped BBC-style Received Pronunciation (like David Attenborough), but with a deep voice to go with it. I’m talking Keith David-deep, the kind of voice you feel in your bones. So not like David Attenborough.

Asta also sounds fairly upper-middle-class Londoner, sort of ‘generic English’ but not quite as formal as full RP. She has quite a high voice, but not squeaky or shrill unless she’s extremely worked-up about something. She doesn’t do much singing but she’d be in the soprano range.

The Sea Loch Country:

The Sea Lochs, as you might have guessed from the map, are a kind of amalgam of Scotland and Scandinavia (Scotlinavia?) and have the accents to go with that. The people of Loch Deas to Loch Dubh sound Scottish; the people of Bjarnafjord to Myrkfjord are more Norwegian. Though as you might expect, the transition is more of a spectrum than a hard boundary.

Roan: Naturally she sounds Scottish. She doesn’t, however, sound Glaswegian; she has a much gentler West Highland/Hebridean accent with a definite Gaelic lilt. She has a moderately low voice for a woman, squarely in the alto range, with a bit of a purr to it. Asta could listen to it all day.

Daro, eldest son of an aristocratic clan, has a very posh Edinburgh accent. Kind of like Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie, only a man. Similar tenor range to Wygar, I’d say.

And finally:

Fayn:

She gets a section of her own because frankly your guess is (almost) as good as mine. She grew up living feral in the Darkwald buffer zone between Stormhaven and the Empire and, other than a few informal vocab lessons as a six-year-old, learned English Imperial by spying on travellers making their way through the forest. A lot of those travellers were from Stormhaven so she probably does have the odd Welsh inflection, but ultimately has a weird, unidentifiable hybrid accent made up of dozens of others she’s heard. She’s of mezzo-soprano range, but years of living as an animal have left a bit of a growl in her voice.

#oc trivia #worldbuilding

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havatabanca · 3 years

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Is Eddie Grant the true inventor of Soca?

by Jo-Ann Greene

Eddy Grant stands among an elite group of artists as one who has not just merely moved successfully across the musical spectrum, but has actually been at the forefront of genres and even created one of his own. From pop star to reggae radical, musical entrepreneur to the inventor of ringbang, the artist has cut a swath through the world of music and made it his own.

Born in Plaisance, Guyana, on March 5, 1948, the young Edmond Grant grew up on the sound of his homeland, tan singing, an Indo-Caribbean vocal style whose roots lay in South Asia and are the backbone of modern chutney. Then in 1960, the Grant family emigrated to England, taking up residence in the working-class Stoke Newington area of London. The young teen's musical horizons swiftly expanded, embracing the R&B, blues, and rock that percolated across his new island home.

In 1965, Grant formed his first band, the Equals, and long before the days of 2-Tone, the group was unique in being the first of Britain's multi-racial bands to receive any recognition. The West Indian contingent comprised Jamaican-born singer Lincoln Gordon, with his twin brother Derv and Grant both on guitar, while the rhythm section of bassist Patrick Lloyd and drummer John Hall were native-born white Englishmen. Like most of the teenaged bands roaming the capital at the time, the Equals cut their teeth on the club and pub circuit and finally inked a label deal with President Records in early 1967. Their debut single, "I Won't Be There," didn't crack the charts but did receive major radio support. This, alongside an expanding fan base wowed by their live shows, pushed their first album, Unequaled Equals, into the U.K. Top Ten. At the request of his label, Grant had also been working with the Pyramids, the British group who had backed Prince Buster on his recent U.K. tour. Besides composing songs for the band (and one for Buster himself, the rude classic "Rough Rider"), Grant also produced several tracks, including the band's debut single and sole hit, "Train to Rainbow City." In 1968, the Equals scored their own hit with "I Get So Excited," the group's debut into the Top 50. Although their follow-up album, Equals Explosion, proved less successful than its predecessor, as did the next single, the quintet's career was indeed about to explode. "Hold Me Closer" may have disappointed in the U.K., where it stalled at a lowly number 50, but in Germany, the single was flipped over and "Baby Come Back" released as the A-side. It swiftly soared to the top of the German charts, a feat repeated across Europe. Later that spring, a reissued British single finally received its just due and reached number one. Even the U.S. took notice, sending the single into the lower reaches of the Top 40. Sadly, this turned out to be a flash in the pan. The Equals' follow-up single, "Laurel and Hardy" died at number 35; its successor did even worse, while their new album, Sensational Equals, didn't even make the charts. New hope arrived when "Viva Bobby Joe" shot into the Top Ten in the summer of 1969, but its follow-up, "Rub a Dub Dub," just scraped into the Top 35. Understandable, considering the Equals' roller coaster of ups and downs, Grant now turned his attention elsewhere.

In 1970, he started up his own specialty record label, Torpedo, concentrating on British reggae artists. He also utilized the label as a home for a brief solo career under the alias Little Grant, releasing the single "Let's Do It Together." But the artist hadn't given up on the Equals yet, and good thing too. Later that year, their new 45, "Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys," slammed the group back into the Top Ten. And then, the unimaginable happened. On New Year's day in 1971, Grant, all of 23 years old, suffered a heart attack and a collapsed lung. If lifestyle played a part, it wasn't because he drank, took drugs, smoked, or ate meat; it was due to Grant's only vice -- a hectic schedule. He quit the group at this point and the Equals soldiered on into the shadows without him. He sold Torpedo as well and with the proceeds opened up his own recording studio, The Coach House, in 1972. Grant continued to produce other artists and release their records through his newly launched Ice label, but his own musical talents were seemingly left behind. It wasn't until 1977 when Grant finally released a record of his own, the Message Man album. It was three years in the making and a stunning about-face from his previous pop persona, even if "Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys" had suggested a change was imminent. Tracks like "Cockney Black," "Race Hate," and "Curfew" were politicized dark masterpieces laced with aggression and anger.

But the album also included some lighter moments, including "Hello Africa," which featured a sound that the media hadn't even invented a word for yet. Grant dubbed it "kaisoul," an amalgamation of kaiso (the traditional word for calypso) and soul. Caribbean legend Lord Shorty, the acknowledged inventor of this new crossover hybrid, labeled it solka. Neither term stuck, however, once the Trinidad and Tobago press came up with their own label: soca. But regardless of what it was called, the style was just one of many hybrids that Grant was entertaining.

Message Man may have proved a commercial failure, but that didn't dim the artist's vision for one second.

Two more years passed while Grant wrestled with its follow-up in the studio, composing, producing, and performing virtually the entire album himself. The end result was 1979's Walking on Sunshine, one of the greatest albums of the decade. While the B-side featured a clutch of seminal musical hybrids, the centerpiece of the album's A-side was "Living on the Frontline," a dancefloor classic that blended tough lyrics with an electronic sheen, a sense of optimism, and a funk-fired sound. Released as a single, the song roared up the British chart, while becoming a cult hit in U.K. clubs. Inexplicably, the album itself didn't chart at all, nor did its follow-up, 1980's Love in Exile. However, in the next year, Grant finally cracked the market wide open with Can't Get Enough, which finally breached the Top 40. His singles' success had continued uninterrupted across "Do You Feel My Love," "Can't Get Enough of You," and "I Love You, Yes I Love You." A phenomenal live album, Live at Notting Hill, was recorded in August 1981 during London's Notting Hill Carnival. The following year's Killer on the Rampage slew its way into both the British and American charts, where it landed at number ten. The album spun off "I Don't Wanna Dance," which topped the chart in the U.K., while the exhilarating "Electric Avenue," from his next album, Going for Broke, landed at number two on both sides of the Atlantic.

Nothing else would equal these dizzying heights. Three more singles followed by the end of 1984, but none managed to break into the Top 40. In the U.S., only one, "Romancing the Stone," actually made the chart, charming its way into a respectable berth just outside the Top 25. That was his final showing in the U.S. On both sides of the Atlantic, 1987's Born Tuff and the following year's File Under Rock were passed over by the record-buying public. However, the British gave the artist one last Top Ten hit in 1988 with "Gimme Hope Jo'anna," a highlight of his 1990 Barefoot Soldier album. Unfortunately, its 1992 follow-up, Painting of the Soul, went the way of its last few predecessors.

By then, the artist had long ago left the U.K., having emigrated to Barbados a decade earlier. Even as his own career had taken off back in England, Grant was spending much of his time mentoring a new generation of soca talent. He opened a new studio, Blue Wave, and lavished most of his attention on it, which explains the gap in his output between 1984 and 1987. By the time "Jo'anna" had fallen off the chart, Grant was well on the way to creating his own mini-empire. Besides giving new stars-to-be a helping hand, Grant also moved into music publishing, specializing in calypso's legends. Over the years, Ice has thrilled the world by making the back catalog of multitudes of stars available: Lord Kitchener, Roaring Lion, and Mighty Sparrow, to name a few. And almost uniquely among Caribbean artists, Grant has maintained control over his own music, and Ice, of course, has kept it available. Across Grant's solo career, the artist has continued to experiment with different styles in ever-changing combinations. Pop, funk, new wave, reggae, Caribbean, African, and even country have all been melded into his sound. 1992's Painting of the Soul was heavy with island influences, while the next year's Soca Baptism is a collection of covers, from hits to obscurities, all dosed with a modern sound.

By this time, Grant was hard at work in the evolution of yet another hybrid style: ringbang. Many of the genre's elements are easily found in the artist's earlier recordings, from African rhythms to military tattoos, alongside soca itself and dancehall rhythms, many of the latter influenced by Grant's own previous work. The new style debuted in 1994 at the Barbados Crop Over festival. Since then, the style has continued to intrigue, but has yet to create the international success that it's always threatened. Much of this can be laid at Grant's own door, through a simmering dispute with other artists and the legal ramifications of the genre's trademark. A vociferous supporter of artists' rights, Grant first ran into trouble in 1996 when he demanded his label's artists receive adequate copyright fees from Trinidad and Tobabgo's Carnival. A heroic stance that infuriated the festival's organizers, this was quickly overshadowed by the public outcry over soca itself. As far as T&T was concerned, the inventor of soca was island native Lord Shorty, who announced its birth in 1978 with the Soca Explosion album. However, Grant insists otherwise, crediting his own "Black Skinned Blue Eyed Boys" as the first-ever soca record. Needless to say, his public proclamations of this fact continue to infuriate T&T and other Shorty supporters. But politics aside, the greater factor may be in ringbang's trademark. Once Grant filed it, the word could no longer be used by other artists without express permission. A perusal of any soca, calypso, or chutney hits collection shows the importance of the use of the genre term to the actual song, and just how many titles feature the term. By preventing artists from using the word ringbang, few outside the Ice stable were willing to explore the genre.

Even so, Grant managed to organize the Ringbang Celebration 2000 as part of T&T's millennium festivities. The event, which went off without a hitch, created further ill will due to its price tag, a whopping 41 million (6.5 million dollars in U.S. currency). The artist himself performed two songs at the event.

In the new year, he recorded a new version of one of them, "East Dry River," while in Jamaica, appropriately enough in a ska style. The previous year, the artist released the Hearts & Diamonds album, with Reparation following in 2006. Grant continues to make an impact on both sides of the studio, with his music always an intriguing concoction of sound and his studio work equally innovative. Ice itself is equally instrumental in the music world, both in its preservation of past legacies and its attention to new artists.

via island mix backchat http://www.islandmix.com/backchat/threads/is-eddie-grant-the-true-creator-inventor-of-soca.247725/

#soca #eddie grant #lord shorty #passa passa

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back-and-totheleft · 3 years

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“I’m not sure I’ve modified my thinking”

“It’s a strange place, England,” Oliver Stone informs me at the start of our Zoom call. “You’ve managed to make it worse than it was,” he says, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. “You’ve turned it into World War Two with your attitudes over there. The English love punishment, it’s part of their make-up.”

You sure know how to break the ice, Mr Stone. It’s a slightly galling accusation, given that he has hitched his wagon to Russia, hardly a paragon of enlightenment. The New York-born writer-director has never shied from ruffling feathers, though. Stone has taken on the American establishment to thrilling effect in his movies, from Platoon to Born on the Fourth of July, JFK to W, Salvador to Snowden, and still emerged with three Oscars. And he has admiringly interviewed a string of figures whose relations with Uncle Sam have rarely been cosy, including Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Vladimir Putin. Those had more mixed receptions, as has his support for Julian Assange.

Yet at 74 he is still a thorn in the side of the military-industrial complex and is set to remain one for some time, having just had his second shot of Covid vaccine. This being Stone, he got his jab in Russia. A recent trial showed the Sputnik V vaccine he was given to have 92 per cent efficacy and he’s palpably delighted. Angry too, of course. “It’s strange how the US ignores that. It’s a strange bias they have against all things Russian,” he says. “I do believe it’s your best vaccine on the market, actually,” he adds, sounding weirdly Trump-like.

If his bullishness is still intact, Stone reveals a more vulnerable side in his recent memoir, Chasing the Light. The book, which he discusses in an online Q&A tonight, goes a long way to explaining his distrust of government, society and, well, pretty much everything. There are visceral accounts of him fighting in Vietnam, and fighting to get Salvador and Platoon made. “The war was lodged away in a compartment, and I made films about it,” he says. “Sometimes I have a dream that I’ve been drafted and sent back there.”

The crucial event in the book, though, is his parents’ divorce when he was 15. Stone realises now that his conservative Jewish-American father and glamorous French mother were ill-suited. Both had affairs. What really stung was the way he was told about their split: over the phone by a family friend while he was at boarding school. “It was very cold, very English,” he says. “I say English because everything about boarding school invokes the old England.” He’s really got it in for us today.

With no siblings, he says, “I had no family after that divorce. It was over. The three of us split up.” His world view stemmed from his parents being in denial about their incompatibility, he writes in the book: “Children like me are born out of that original lie. And nobody can ever be trusted again.”

That disillusionment took a few years to show itself. “All of a sudden, I just had a collapse,” Stone says. He had been admitted to Yale University but his father’s alma mater suddenly felt like part of the problem. He felt suicidal and sidestepped those thoughts by enlisting to fight in Vietnam, putting the choice of him dying into other hands.

The Stone in the book was described by one reviewer as his most sympathetic character. “It’s true probably because it’s a novel,” he says. Well, technically it’s an autobiography, but it’s a telling mistake. Fact and fiction can blur in his work, from the demonisation of Turks in Midnight Express (he wrote the screenplay) to the conspiracy theories in JFK.

Writing the book allowed him to put himself into the story, something he says he’s never been able to do in his films. He has tried. He wrote a screenplay, White Lies, in which a child of divorce repeats his parents’ mistakes, as Stone has. “I had two divorces in my life [from the Lebanese-born Najwa Sarkis and Elizabeth Burkit Cox, who worked as a “spiritual advisor” on his films] and I’m on my third marriage, which I’m very happy in.” He and Sun-jung Jung, who is from South Korea, have been together for more than 25 years. They have a grown-up daughter, Tara, and he has two sons, Sean and Michael, from his marriage to Cox.

White Lies is on ice for now. “It’s hard to get those kinds of things done,” Stone says wearily. Will he make another feature? It’s been documentaries recently, the last two on the Ukraine. “I don’t know. It’s a question of energy. In the old days, there would be a studio you’d have a relationship with, and they’d have to trust you to a certain degree. And that doesn’t exist any more.”

He thinks back to the big beasts of his early years. Alan Parker, who directed Midnight Express; John Daly, who produced Salvador and Platoon; Robert Bolt, who taught him about screenwriting. “Those three Englishmen had a lot to do with my successes,” he says. I think he feels bad about all the limey bashing. “John was a tough cockney, but I liked him a lot.” He liked him more than Parker, whom he describes as “cold” with a “serious chip on his shoulder.” He smiles. “Sure. Alan did a good job with Midnight Express, though.”

You wonder if Netflix could come to Stone’s rescue. They have given generous backing to big-name directors, from David Fincher to Martin Scorsese, Stone’s old tutor at NYU film school. Surely they would welcome him? “Well, that’s why you’re not in charge! Netflix is very engineering driven. Subject matter such as [White Lies] might register low on a demographic.”

Isn’t he also working on a JFK documentary, Destiny Betrayed? That could do better with the Netflix algorithms. “I’m having problems with that too. Americans were so concerned with Trump, I don’t know that they wanted to hear about some of the facts behind the Kennedy killing. They don’t recognise that there’s a connection between 1963 and now, that pretty much all the screws came loose when they did that in ’63.” He smiles. “I know you think I’m nuts.”

Well no, but you do wonder at his unwavering conviction that there was a conspiracy to murder Kennedy, probably involving the CIA. JFK is a big reason why a majority of Americans believe in a conspiracy and, according to Stone, led to the establishment of the Assassination Records Review Board, which he claims is “the only piece of legislation in this country that ever came out of a film.”

Yet several serious studies, including a 1,600-page book, Reclaiming History, by the former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. That book accused Stone of committing a “cultural crime” by distorting facts in JFK. “I feel like I’m in the dock with Bugliosi. I didn’t like his book at all,” Stone says. “Believe me, you cannot walk out of [his forthcoming documentary] and say Oswald did it alone. If you do, I think you’re on mushrooms.”

Stone knows whereof he speaks regarding psychedelics. On returning from Vietnam he was “a little bit radical” in his behaviour, he says: drugs, womanising, hellraising. He recently took LSD for the first time in years. “It was wonderful,” he says. He hallucinated that he was “moving from island to island on a little boat”.

What was radical in the Seventies can be problematic now. He has been accused of inappropriate behaviour by the model Carrie Stevens and the actresses Patricia Arquette and Melissa Gilbert. “As far as I know I never forced anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do,” he says. Has he modified the way he behaves around women? “Oh sure, no question.”

At the same time, he is disturbed by “the scolding going on, the shaming culture. I don’t agree with any of that. It’s like the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It scares the shit out of me. I do think the politically correct point of view will never be mine.”

He’s not a slavish follower of conspiracy theories — QAnon “sounds like nonsense”, he says, as was the theory that Donald Trump was “a Manchurian candidate for the Russians. That was a horrible thing to do and it hurt that presidency a lot. I’m not an admirer of Trump by any means, but he was picked on from day one.”

What does he make of Joe Biden? “I voted for him, not because I liked him, but as an alternative to Trump’s disasters. He’s got a far more merciful humanitarian side. But he also has a history of warmongering.” Fake news, he says, has “always happened”, in the east and west, on the left and the right. “I mean, back in the Cold War, the US was saying Russia was lying and Russia was saying the US was lying. Each one of these wars the US has been involved in was based on lies.”

It sounds as if Stone has been on the Russian Kool-Aid himself. He is making a documentary, A Bright Future, about climate change that advocates pursuing nuclear power in the short term, and has visited some Russian nuclear plants. They are “very state-of-the-art,” he says. “The US is not really pursuing the big plants, the way Russia and China are. I believe in renewables, but they’re not going to be able to handle the capacity when India and Africa and all these countries come online wanting electricity.”

Putin liked the interviews Stone did with him in 2017, he says. “I think they contributed to his election numbers.” Wasn’t he too easy on the Russian leader? “That’s what some say. But I got his ire up. I did ask him some tough questions about succession. ‘I think you should leave’ — that kind of stuff. The pressure that Russia is under from both England and the US is enormous,” he adds. “Unless you’re there I don’t know that you understand that. Because you take the English point of view, and they have been very anti-Soviet since 1920. You talk about fake news — I feel that way about MI5 and MI6.”

You can’t help but admire Stone’s conviction. If he’s modified his behaviour that’s probably a good thing, but as he says, “I’m not so sure I’ve modified my thinking. I express myself freely. I don’t want to feel muzzled.” Whatever you think of him, be grateful he hasn’t been.

-Ed Potton, “You talk about fake news. I feel that way about MI5 and MI6,” The Times of London, Feb 8 2021 [x]

#oliver stone #chasing the light #the times of london #ptsd #the vietnam war #russia #Trump #joe biden #politics #vaccine

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ariesrps · 5 years

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in honor of a recent rise in roleplays set in the uk, coinciding with the recent global success of the new british netflix show sex education, i was inspired to create this guide to roleplaying british characters. as a british kid myself i love seeing these characters in rps, but have often had friends in the rpc tell me that they struggle to write them due to the differences in popular culture, dialect, slang, media etc.

of course, accuracy isn’t TOO important when it comes to this, since british people generally aren’t a marginalized or oppressed group. however i do think this is a guide a lot of people will find valuable. in a poll with 43 respondents, the highest percentage of roleplayers were from north america (72.1%) compared to only 9.3% coming from the united kingdom (all info correct at time of posting). with the assumption that people mostly write characters that are from the country they’re most familiar with, there aren’t a lot of british characters in tumblr rp. if this guide can provide non-UK-based rpers with the info they’re seeking to pen a british muse, then my job here is done!

DISCLAIMER: if you were looking for a guide written like an essay or report, this ain’t it! this is mostly a collection of external resources you may find useful when writing your characters, as opposed to written instructions.

PLEASE, LIKE OR REBLOG THIS IF YOU FOUND IT USEFUL IN ANY WAY!

GEOGRAPHY — where will your character be from?

as a british person who isn’t exactly the most well-traveled, there are definitely inaccuracies in my knowledge of other countries’ geography. i wouldn’t be surprised if some people struggle with the same issue, but regarding the united kingdom. if your character is from the UK, it’s important to know that their characterization should differ depending on which part they’re from.

map of the british isles

map of england

map of scotland

map of wales

map of northern island

the difference between the UK, great britain, and england: explained

why is the republic of ireland not a part of the united kingdom?

NOTE: this guide will not include info on how to write characters from the republic of ireland, as that identity is one of its own and is not classified as part of the uk!

SOCIAL CLASS — what kind of socio-economic background will your character have?

class is an important issue in the UK, in some ways more-so than the US. the first bullet point of this section is an interesting article which explains why this is, but to summarize: the american dream – though flawed, is a reality to an extent. there is no such concept in the UK, making the class situation and socio-economic divide a little different.

“in the uk, i’m working class, but said goodbye to that title in america” article

the seven social classes of 21st century britain — where do you fit in?

POLITICS — what kind of stance will your character take?

just like in any country, politics is extremely important in the UK. just like in america, the country is extremely divided between left and right. if political views is something your character views as important, or you think that their politics defines their characterization in any way, this section should be helpful!

parliamentary (UK) vs. presidential (US) democracy, explained

the uk’s many political parties, explained ( NOTE: this video is slightly outdated. the prime minister, and leader of the conservative party, is now theresa may, not david cameron. but you probably already knew that. )

uk political spectrum

2017 uk general election map

brexit, explained

to summarize the two main parties: labour = left-wing = good. conservative = right-wing = bad.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY — what kind of ethnic background will your character have?

similarly to the US, the UK (though dominated by caucasian people aka white british) encompasses many different cultures. according to the UK gov “87% of people in the uk are white, and 13% belong to a black, asian, mixed or [from] other ethnic group[s], according to the combined 2011 censuses.” while non-white ethnicities are a definite minority, it’s so important not to erase their existence.

a chart illustrating the uk’s race / ethnicity breakdown

britain’s most racially diverse areas

2011 census reveals most ethnically diverse city

IDENTITY — what kind of cultural identity will your character have?

ask a scotsman for a handful of reasons he’s different from an englishman, and he’ll talk for hours. within england alone, ask a londoner how they’re different from a mancunian and they’ll talk for even longer. different parts of the uk have different identities, and it’s important. something we want to avoid is the “posh”, well-spoken, crumpet-eating stereotype or, on the other end of the spectrum, the modern-day oliver twist. expand your horizons!

stereotypes americans have about british people that aren’t actually true

10 differences between brits and americans

what does it mean to be british?

ENGLAND

how is the south of england different to the north? (spoiler: very)

north-south divide wikipedia

culture of england wikipedia

SCOTLAND

our scottish culture: so much more than kilts and bagpipes

scottish culture and traditions guide

culture of scotland wikipedia

WALES

wales history, language and culture

welsh culture: facts and traditions

culture of wales wikipedia

NORTHERN IRELAND

northern ireland – cultural life

northern ireland history and culture

culture of northern ireland wikipedia

LANGUAGE, DIALECT, ACCENT, SLANG — how will your character speak?

here’s where the fun parts start! there are so many different variations of accents, regional dialects, area-specific slang and colloquialisms throughout the uk. sometimes i see british characters being written with little to no use of any of these, nothing at all differentiating them from american characters and it’s such a waste in my opinion. even if you don’t like writing with a an accent (some people don’t!) the dialect and slang words along can make your character so much more authentic.

how are british english & american english different?

everyday american words we don’t use the same in the UK

america vs british english – 50 differences

NOTE: resources for the north of england are higher in quantity than the midlands and south of england due to wider variations of accents within the region.

ENGLAND (NORTH)

a tour of northern english accents

a - z of northern slang (GENERAL NORTHERN)

northern slang with blossoms (GENERAL NORTHERN)

a - z of mancunian slang (MANCHESTER)

mancunian: english like a native (MANCHESTER)

scouse: english like a native (LIVERPOOL)

scouse slang (LIVERPOOL)

geordie slang (NEWCASTLE)

mackem slang (SUNDERLAND)

yorkshire slang (YORKSHIRE)

the yorkshire accent (YORKSHIRE)

sheffield slang (SHEFFIELD)

arctic monkeys slang lessons (SHEFFIELD / YORKSHIRE / GEN. NORTHERN)

ENGLAND (MIDLANDS)

how to speak birmingham (BIRMINGHAM)

a brummie accent (BIRMINGHAM)

7 things said in nottingham (NOTTINGHAM)

black country dialect (BLACK COUNTRY)

ENGLAND (SOUTH)

10 common british/english slang expressions & phrases (NON-SPECIFIC)

cockney (LONDON)

cockney rhyming slang: english like a native (LONDON)

roadman slang vs cockney slang (LONDON)

london street slang, translated (LONDON)

west country: english like a native (WEST COUNTRY / SOUTH WEST)

essex slang (ESSEX)

mark watson on bristol slang (BRISTOL)

slang of the south - portsmouth (PORTSMOUTH)

WALES

welsh people on welsh slang (GENERAL WELSH)

taron egerton talks welsh slang (GENERAL WELSH)

common welsh sayings (GENERAL WELSH)

luke evans on welsh slang (GENERAL WELSH)

25 words and phrases you’ll always hear in cardiff (CARDIFF)

swansea slang (SWANSEA)

20 welsh colloquialisms (GENERAL WELSH)

29 words that have a totally different meaning in wales (GENERAL WELSH)

welsh language wikipedia

SCOTLAND

how to speak & understand glaswegian (GLASGOW)

gerard butler teachers you scottish slang (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

glasgow slang words (GLASGOW)

most used scottish slang words & phrases (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

doric from around aberdeen (ABERDEEN) note: definitions in description

edinburgh dialect words (EDINBURGH)

trainspotting slang explained (GLASGOW / GENERAL SCOTTISH)

scottish words glossary (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

glossary of scottish slang & jargon wikipedia (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

handy scottish words to know (EDINBURGH / GENERAL SCOTTISH)

28 great scottish sayings and slang phrases (GENERAL SCOTTISH)

use of gaelic in scotland wikipedia

NORTHERN IRELAND

jamie dornan teaches you northern irish slang – vanity fair (GENERAL N. IRISH)

jamie dornan does northern irish slang – bbc (GENERAL N. IRISH)

28 sayings from northern ireland (GENERAL N. IRISH)

northern irish words (GENERAL N. IRISH)

16 slang phrases you’ll need to know in northern ireland (GENERAL N. IRISH)

17 words and phrases you’ll always get in belfast (BELFAST)

a list of belfast sayings (BELFAST)

derry slang words 1 (DERRY)

derry slang words 2 (DERRY)

use of gaelic in northern ireland wikipedia

SURROUNDINGS — what’s it like where your character grew up, or where they live now?

whether your character comes from one of these places OR lives there now (or both!) it might be interesting to incorporate some of their surroundings into their characterization. this section isn’t classified by country/region, because if i were to start going into that much detail here, this guide would go on forever!

10 incredible historical towns in the uk

where are the largest cities in britain?

a guide to the english countryside

the 15 most stunning places in the uk outside of london

top 50 areas for quality of life in the uk

10 best party cities in the uk

10 best student cities in the uk

10 of the uk’s most creative towns & cities to live, work & play

cities with the youngest vs oldest age population

map of stereotypes in the uk

google autocomplete map of the uk “why is [city]...”

POP CULTURE / MEDIA — what does your character like? what are they consuming?

us brits are very proud of our own british-made media. our television, our music, our cinema, etc. if you’re somebody who is interested in including the things a character likes in their characterization, it would be unrealistic not to give a british character some favourites from the place they’re from.

uk map showing where tv shows are set and filmed

uk map showing the origins of famous bands/musicians

the uk’s most popular tv shows according to IMBD

10 best british rock bands of the 21st century

the ultimate reference guide to british pop culture

LASTLY, HERE ARE SOME RESOURCES ON WRITING BRITISH CHARACTERS:

making british characters realistic as an american writer

tips from a brit for writing british fictional characters

another ‘writing british characters’ guide by @thewritershelpers

another ‘writing british characters’ guide by @writeworld

another ‘writing british characters’ guide by @rphelper

how to write dialogue for british characters

writing black british characters by talkthepoc on wattpad

of course, this is overkill. there’s no way on earth you’ll ever need all of these resources, but they’re here and i hope you find some use out of this guide! please forgive any inaccuracies or mistakes, this is my first time writing a guide. you’re welcome to leave me feedback on this here. last but not least, HAPPY WRITING!

#rpc #rph #rpt #rpa #rp guide #guide #mine

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hops1982blr-blog · 4 years

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Weekend Football

Welcome to my first blog. I’ve chosen an incredibly original subject to write about, that being men’s association football, seeing as nobody ever talks about it and it’s seldom seen on TV.

However, despite this, I am going to try and look at it from a different angle including TV coverage. I’d like to use the word ‘irreverent’, but this just reminds me of an irritating, try-hard ‘comedian’ who’s just got his (or her) own vacuous show on some late-night slot on BB3 (RIP) or ITV2.

A little about the author. I’m a cantankerous, cynical sports fan, born in the 80s, a misty-eyed romantic, harking back to ‘the good old days’ of football in the 90s, when players like Shearer, Gazza, Baggio and Weah were my heroes. When social media and being ‘woke’ wasn’t a thing; players weren’t trying to make side careers in broadcasting, making clothes, giving themselves nicknames like ‘J.Lingz’ or being cool and looked like the supporters on the terraces.

And so, as you’re losing the will to live, onto the football. The weekend started (for me, at least) with the lunchtime kick off at the Olympic Stadium for West Ham vs. Tottenham. Of course, all the talk was about Jose’s return, and I’ve a feeling he took the Spurs job simply because the first game was the welcoming prospect of facing West Ham; like returning from holiday and getting a hug off your mum, this was as nice a comeback as is possible.

The downside of the lunchtime kick-off is that we’re forced to watch the game on BT Sport. From the annoying, smarminess of the presenter Jake Humphries, a man who’d probably show you his bank balance on a night out, to the twee, cockney geezer analysis of Joe Cole. How appropriate that this match featured the ‘Ammers, because the latter always reminds me of a member of Albert Square.

The game itself was as underwhelming as Joe’s hairline, with West Ham playing up to their ‘mumsy’ role and allowing a Spurs team with only one away Prem win in the last 12 months to romp into a 3-0 lead, before showing some sort of commitment and getting a couple of late goals back. In truth, 3-2 flattered West Ham, who were so bad in the opening 45 minutes, that it prompted the pundits to laud Dele Alli, who is now apparently ‘back’, a conclusion that was drawn primarily from one on-the-floor back flick to Son which brought about the second goal, and not much else in the way of hard evidence.

Accordingly, Mourinho had a part to play with a fantastic bit of man management in which he supposedly asked ‘Dele’ if he was the real person, or if it’d been his brother playing for the past year. With insight like this, why is ‘The Special One’ (I hate that nickname, so please read it with the highest level of cynicism humanly possible) wasting his time managing Tottenham and not involved in the Brexit negotiations or middle east peace negotiations? It baffles me.

Fast forward past Gillette Soccer Saturday, which is now becoming trite given that Charlie Nicholas and Phil Thompson are still on our TVs every week. With a similar, baffling level of ubiquity, they’re like a football version of Ant & Dec, but without any of the wit, charm or entertainment value. Nicholas still thinks he’s living in the 80s with his poncey haircut and daft earring, and Thommo is just annoying, spitting out heavy clichés with his guttural scouse accent for six hours each and every grinding Saturday afternoon.

Saturday tea-time brings us the delights of crisis club (again, find that sarcasm level and ramp it up to 11) Man City at home to Chelsea, who, as many before me have remarked, have become weirdly likeable. I guess when John Terry isn’t involved with a club, they immediately become 1,000 times more affable and it feels acceptable to not hate them.

The game itself was dull, with not much to talk about except the disallowing of Raheem Sterling’s goal because his armpit was offside. Thank God for VAR, otherwise the heinous, egregious error to award Sterling that goal would've stood. What a time to be alive and how grateful we should all be that this fantastic piece of technology has been brought in to 100% improve the world's greatest sport. Truly joyous. As is probably obvious, I hate, hate, HATE VAR. It’s sucking the life out of football, with its sanitation and cleansing of passion. I’d rather see 100 incorrect decisions per season that be forced to spend five minutes watching the fun police disallowing a goal because a striker’s pubic hair is beyond that of the last defender.

Talking of fun police, in the studio are Roy Keane and Jamie Redknapp, a couple of pundits whose opinions are polar opposite in terms of validity. Keano could tell me that Primark made the world’s best garments, and I’d believe him. On the other hand, Redknapp would, for me, struggle to sell water to a man dying of thirst. He should be put out to pasture now, free to pursue his interests, which no doubt include heading into town after the match to see how young a woman he can pull (to be clear here, I’m not suggesting he’s the new Adam Johnson, just more that he’s probably a bit of an old sleazebag) and trying on as much aftershave as possible.

Saturday ends with Match of the Day, which is still the only way to watch Premier League highlights. If you don’t enjoy watching and listening to the obvious dad jokes of Lineker, then you’re probably someone who votes for the Brexit party and can’t see past your right-wing views. On the other side of that weird, low table they have are Danny Murphy and Alan Shearer.

Murphy, for me, always looks like he’s just stepped out of Burton’s menswear but is annoyed at himself for once more going back in after being disappointed with his previous purchases. I heard a BBC commentator/presenter once say that Murphy is ‘hilarious and great company’. That same commentator also spent some time in a correctional facility in the early 2000s, so his gauge of fun and good company might be somewhat skewed. Shearer is Shearer. As a Blackburn fan, I won’t say a bad word against him, and his punditry has drastically improved over the years, but he does have a habit of, have a habit of repeating himself, which is his idiosyncrasy that I find quite endearing.

As I’m writing this, Sheffield United are playing Man United. In the studio, Graeme Souness and Brian Deane are both dressed like country gents who are about to go shooting pheasants and grouse at Sandringham (with Prince Andrew and Jamie Redknapp, perhaps?), and on the field, another Blackburn connection is Phil Jones, the gift that keeps on giving, handing the Blades the lead with a fantastic piece of misjudgement that allowed the striker Lys Mousset the opportunity to pull the ball back and give his team the lead. The final 25 minutes was chaos, with two mid-table sides scrapping it out to a 3-3 draw with awful defending getting the assists.

That’s all I can muster this week. If you managed it, congratulations on getting to the end. What will football bring us next week? I can hardly contain my excitement at the prospect.

#premier league #football #sky sports #bt sport #eastenders #prince andrew #joe cole

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bbclesmis · 5 years

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Daily Mail: 'Les Misérables is a songless triumph'

DEBORAH ROSS: 19 years for bun theft? You’d be misérable too

Andrew Davies’s six-part adaptation of Les Misérables, Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, which runs to around a million pages or something, has been necessarily distilled. There are no songs but, and I know this will come as a surprise to some, there weren’t any in the book either. Still, it is odd. What is the point of Fantine if she doesn’t get to sing one great song before she dies? And dream a dream? Yet, having said that, it isn’t too distilled. If it were too distilled we’d all see it for what it is, which is, surely, just a lot of fuss about a minor parole offence. So it is distilled just right. It is brilliantly distilled, even. A triumph. Although I may feel different when everyone songlessly gathers at the barricades, obviously. I don’t even know what songless barricades would look like, to tell the truth.

The first episode deftly introduced us to all the main players, including our protagonist, Jean Valjean (Dominic West), who is breaking rocks in a Toulon prison while serving the last 12 months of his 19-year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread. West’s Valjean is Hulk-like, magnificently bearded and magnificently boiling with hatred and defiance, as can happen, one supposes, if you’re going to get 19 years for stealing a bun. David Oyelowo plays his nemesis, Javert, the prison guard. Some viewers complained that there was no way Javert would be African, but as we are watching English people playing French people who happen to be speaking English, those who wish to have arguments about ethnicity are on thin ground.

Davies, who adapted Phwoar & Peace, and that wet-shirted Pride And Prejudice, is famed for homing in on erotic content and making these adaptations ‘sexy’, so tell me: when Valjean had to strip for Javert on his release from prison, that look Javert gave him? Homoerotic? Is this why Javert returns Valjean’s magnificently boiling hatred? Because he’s attracted to him and can’t face up to that? You may or may not buy this, but you can’t say Davies isn’t making us think about the characters afresh.

Meanwhile, across town, so to speak, the young grisette Fantine (Lily Collins) and her friends have fallen in with that trio of rich boys. The friends had warned her not to get in too deep with her own particular beau, Felix (Johnny Flynn) – he’s just amusing himself before returning home to marry someone posh – but he is different, she keeps hoping. Fantine can come across as a fool, but here Collins brings her innocence and sweetness to the fore, although why she speaks like she’s been to Roedean when her friends are all Cockney, I don’t know. Felix does abandon Fantine, and that scene in the restaurant when the letter arrives to say he’s gone was truly heartbreaking. Indeed, in such circumstances, there may be no sadder a PS than: ‘The meal is paid for.’

As we left it, Valjean had been freed from prison and set on the path to good by Bishop ‘take my candlesticks’ Myriel (played by a wonderfully scene-stealing Derek Jacobi), and even though this is a story I already know, it feels reborn. Also, there is still Olivia Colman to come.

Davies, now 82, is the greatest television adaptor of all time, but if you were looking for any true insights they weren’t to be found in Andrew Davies: Rewriting The Classics. The talking heads largely said what we already know. He is brilliant at taking what’s important from an original source and discarding the rest. He offers ‘a fiercely clear attitudinal take’. He visited his old school and his childhood home but this profile only perked up when he mentioned he started writing as a means of understanding his mother, who was ‘a complicated woman’, but no one then asked him about that. I was screaming at the television: ask him about his mother, ask him about his mother, for God’s sake, what was it with his mother? It may be he didn’t want to talk about his mother, but they should have had him say that. In short: a better understanding of character was not achieved in this instance.

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #articles #reviews #episode 1 #daily mail

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anthonypaulh · 5 years

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A NIGHT at the MUSEUM with the AMAZING MR SOANE

One of the many benefits of being a Londoner born and bred is that you get to know the nooks and crannies of the City. Down the avenues and up the hidden alleyways you can discover many off the beaten track attractions. You get to know the places that not so many visitors reach.

Not for me the trek to Madam Tussaud’s to see waxy works, nor the Planetarium to look at the stars. No trip to Greenwich to check the mean time and never a rider on the wheel or a climber up the Shard. These are the places where many visitors go to queue and very fine they are. But these are not regular haunts for those of us born in the City.

It is almost as if we have surrendered such places to tourists and sightseers, thereby keeping back some of the hidden gems that the Metropolis hides under its’ bushel, so to speak. There are so many wonderful, lesser known attractions that are not as busy, hectic or selfie stacked .

Just one of the hidden treats that London has to offer is the incredible house at numbers 12 to 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the Sir John Soane Museum. One of the most eclectic collections of artefacts ever assembled is housed in what was the former home of architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837). It displays his collection of antiquities, furniture, sculptures, architectural models, paintings – including work by Hogarth, Turner and Canaletto – and over 30,000 architectural drawings. It’s a vast, extraordinary collection, full of curiosities and surprises.

I am fortunate to have visited the house of Mr Soane many times but my latest enchanting tour was made at night, when the dramatic effect that he intended his collection to make really comes to life. Seeing the property and the incredible objects that it houses by candlelight, shows things exactly as Soane would have preferred to show them to his esteemed guests.

He wanted to impress, he expected visitors to be awe struck, amazed , thrilled and entertained. This was a man who was desperate to make a mark, to make a big splash but at the same time share it with others. Here was an incredibly complex character who lived his life in the shadow of the Enlightenment but at the birth of Romanticism. An autodidact, Soane was determined to improve himself. He was a driven man, self motivated and desperate to succeed . It was no surprise then that he should leave his home and collection of artefacts for the education and enlightenment of all who succeeded him. What better legacy ?

A visit to his museum really is an entrance to his World, it is a tour of his home exactly as he left it when he died in 1837 (the year that Queen Victoria came to the throne). The entire experience is fantastical yet so intimate that the visitor feels that the great man himself is still present. It is a genuine sensation that Soane himself is guiding you around his home, gently introducing you to artefacts and treasures from every corner of the globe. So, who was Sir John Soane and what was his role in London life during the early part of the 19th Century ?

The architect Sir John Soane was born in Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire in 1753. He was the son of a bricklayer and came from a very humble family. He was educated in Reading and later moved to Chertsey in Surrey then aged 14, after the death of his father in 1768. He moved into the home of his older brother, who was also a bricklayer and it was William who introduced Soane to the surveyor James Peacock who worked for the famous architect George Dance the Younger. This was Soane’s first big break and he was determined to make the most of the opportunity.

At the age of 15, Soane commenced his training as an architect at the offices of George Dance the Younger in London at his practice on the corner of Moorfields and Chsiwell Street near what is now Old Street roundabout in Islington. He joined the schools of the Royal Academy in 1771 and worked hard to absorb as much knowledge and information as possible. In 1772 he moved into the household of builder Henry Holland and he was awarded a silver medal by the Royal Academy in that year for a drawing of the facade of the Banqueting House in Whitehall. He was then awarded a gold medal in 1776 for the design of a Triumphal Bridge. A promising talent was beginning to flourish.

The early promise and dedication displayed by Soane was rewarded by the Royal Academy in 1777 with a travelling scholarship. This was to be the next big opportunity for the broadening of Soane’s horizons and his development as a designer and architect. He was granted the sum of £60 per year for 3 years, plus £30 travelling expenses for each leg of the journey. Soane set off on his Grand Tour on 18th March 1778 with the aim of travelling to Rome via Paris and taking in most of the important classical architectural gems and art works in Italy. On the homeward leg he would make stops in Switzerland, Germany and Belgium for further study.

This was a life changing experience and the basis on which his entire career would be founded. For a young man from very modest beginnings, Soane was diligent, committed and determined to succeed. But on his return to London from his Grand Tour, although much enlightened he was also much in debt. He got back to London in June 1780 and he owed £120. He needed to get work as soon as possible. He was itching to put into practice all that he had learned and he was also eager to establish himself and clear his debts.

He was successful in getting some minor jobs, refurbishing and repairing buildings for various contacts he had made on his Grand Tour. His old mentor George Dance gave him a few jobs, including repair work on Newgate Prison damaged in the Gordon Riots of 1781.

But Soane did not receive his first full commission until 1783, for a new country house Letton Hall in Norfolk. At last his career was really taking off and plenty of work followed in East Anglia. He was at last making decent sized waves and more importantly making friends in very high places, including the Prime Minister William Pitt. Movers and shakers courted him now and it came as no surprise when our man Soane was awarded what was to be the most significant contract of his life. A combination of what he knew and who he knew got him the key role that would really propel him to a new level.

His friendship with the Prime Minister, his Pitt prop, was crucial in getting him the commission for the redevelopment of the Bank of England in 1788. For one still relatively young and inexperienced, aged just 35, this was a huge deal for Soane. He would remain architect and surveyor to the Bank of England until 1833, pretty much rebuilding the entire bank and extending it in that time. Sadly most of his work at the bank was demolished when it was redeveloped in the 20th century by Sir Herbert Baker.

As his notoriety and celebrity increased Soane attracted plenty of work like in 1807 when he was appointed the clerk of works at The Royal Chelsea Hospital. In 1813, he became the official architect to the Office of Works. The appointment ended in 1832, at a salary of £500 per annum. As part of this position he was invited to advise the Parliamentary commissioners on the building of new churches.

In 1811, Soane was appointed as architect for Dulwich Picture Gallery, the first purpose-built public art gallery in Britain. The Dulwich Picture Gallery was completed in 1817. The five main galleries are lit by elongated roof lanterns. The use of light, mirrors and lanterns became key features of Soanean architecture. The neoclassical foundations on which he built his reputation frequently gave way to a more romantic slant. Such diversity, even contradiction can be viewed spectacularly at his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

The Soane connection with Lincoln’s Inn Fields started in 1792 when he bought the house at number 12. It is important to understand that Lincoln’s Inn Fields was and still is a very desirable address. It is situated in Holborn (ironically 5 minutes from where I was born and brought up).

At the time Soane purchased number 12 he would have been acutely aware that his new home was just 5 minutes walk from the Royal Academy at Somerset House. The same distance to the West was Freemason’s Hall and further into Covent Garden lived his friend and celebrated cockney artist JMW Turner. No doubt, Soane wanted to be at the heart of London life and all the notoriety and trade it brought.

As Soane expanded his collections and portfolio of work he expanded his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields by purchasing number 13 in 1807. The properties were his home, library and practice where he entertained potential clients. But as ever with Soane he rapidly ran out of space for the huge collection of artefacts, drawings, pictures, plaster casts, Roman marbles and items from all corners of the World. So in 1812 Soane rebuilt the front of number 13 and used it to display more of his vast collection.

After the remodelling of number 13 in 1812, Soane opened up his house to students and some magazines often referred to his home as the Academy of Architecture. However, Soane continued to collect and by 1823 more space was needed, so he bought the property at number 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In 1833 he negotiated an Act of Parliament: to preserve his house and collection, exactly as it would be at the time of his death – and to keep it open and free for inspiration and education.

Soane was determined to ensure that all his work and all of his vast collection would be made available to those who succeeded him. Perhaps he was motivated by his own humble background, maybe he was a tad vain and wanted to ensure he’d never be forgotten, possibly he was also mindful that his own sons were not at all interested in architecture so he could not pretend that they would want his collection. Soane was a complex, often irascible character, so who really knows what he was thinking.

What we do know is that the celebrated architect Sir John Soane had married his wife Elizabeth Smith in 1784 and their first child John was born on 29 April 1786. A second son George was born just before Christmas 1787 but the boy died just six months later. The third son, also called George, was born on 28 September 1789, and their final son Henry was born on 10 October 1790 but died the following year.

Both surviving sons were not at all keen to follow their father into architecture, despite his tremendous efforts to get them to do so. They were, therefore, bound to be a major disappointment to him but they courted their father’s disapproval by making controversial life choices (to say the least). Youngest son John died in 1823 but surviving son George ended up being blamed for the death of Soane’s wife due to a critical article that he had written of his father’s work in 1815.

When his wife Elizabeth died in 1815 Soane was left a bitter, frustrated and often depressive man. He was determined to leave his legacy to educate those who survived him. As for his surviving son George, he became estranged from his father and they were never reconciled.

In 1816 Soane designed the tomb above the vault his wife was buried in. The monument is in St Pancras Old Church, another of the lesser known gems of London. The tomb avoids any Christian symbolism (Soane was a Deist and Freemason) the roof has a pine cone finial the symbol in Ancient Egypt for regeneration, below which is carved a serpent swallowing its own tail, symbol of eternity, there are also carvings of boys holding extinguished torches symbols of death.

The shape and design of the tomb was a direct influence on Giles Gilbert Scott’s plans for the famous London red telephone box which has become a symbol of Britain across the globe.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of his relationship with his two surviving sons, Soane died in 1837 at his home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a widower, estranged from his remaining son George. He was a highly driven, determined, often irascible individual who rose from extremely humble beginnings to the very top of his chosen, self taught profession. He became one of the most important figures in architecture and one of the most influential people of his time in the London of the late Enlightenment/early Romantic period.

Some commentators have described Soane as a neoclassical architect and famous collector, others have suggested that he was an accidental Romantic with his penchant for the sublime and the use of light, space and genuine shock and awe. But I personally see him as being akin to a Modernist, as someone who wanted constantly to strive for the next and newest thing whilst being an avid collector of all that had gone before to educate and inform his own and others’ future(s).

A visit to the Sir John Soane Museum is indeed a rare treat and a glimpse into the complicated, often contradictory mind of the man himself. A tour of the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is walking through a living home . Even though the owner is not physically present, you can definitely feel his presence.

By candlelight the property comes alive. You do get the sense of awe and surprise that Soane wanted to play upon his guests. The Monk’s Parlour does stimulate a sensation of melancholy by the restricted space, dark colours and the church like use of stained glass to induce that introspective feel he intended. He wanted the Parlour to be a gentle satire on the then fashionable fashion for the “Gothic”. He was poking fun at the whole revival of the Gothic style and it woks beautifully.

There are so many highlights packed into the amazingly small space that is the museum. The Crypt. dining room and library, the study and dressing room, and the breakfast room are all wonderful reflections of the complicated personality behind the great man himself. The house is steeped in the classical tradition of architecture and art from ancient Greece and Rome which he remained convinced should always remain the foundations of any architectural students education. But it has quirkiness at every twist and turn too. Some of the devil really is in the detail and you need to look carefully for some of the subtleties and humour that Soane cleverly intended.

The Picture Room contains numerous paintings and drawings including works by his friend JMW Turner, Canaletto, and Piranesi. Undoubtedly the highlight of the Picture Room is the two series of pictures by William Hogarth (1697-1764). The series entitled A Rakes Progress and the other series called An Election are both worth the journey to visit the museum on their own, let alone all the other curiosities and myriad items in the house. Even the method that Soane himself invented, to display such a huge collection of paintings and drawings, is in itself ingenious given the limited space he had for them.

That Sir John Soane was a complicated, often conflicted man is not open for debate. He lived at a time of tremendous change and upheaval in the first industrial City known to man. The Metropolis was also the fastest growing that history had ever witnessed. To further complicate matters Europe was undergoing the tsunami of change that the French Revolution unleashed in 1789.

Like all cultural items be they paintings, drawings, music, architecture, literature, fashion, they are a reflection of the time in which they are created. Sir John Soane reflected the radically changing times and the exciting opportunities and pitfalls that those times provided. He was complicated, his times were complicated, his collection was eclectic and it reflected every influence that he had ever been exposed to. That we can now share all of his collection, free of charge (during the day) and surround ourselves with some of the most important items ever produced is the most important legacy Sir John Soane could ever have left us.

A night at the museum is a must, more especially when a night in the company of the remarkable Mr Soane is a part of the evening. It is something not to be missed. Truly, it is a night to remember !

Useful Links ….

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/sep/13/artsfeatures.architectureweek1999

https://www.soane.org/your-visit/soane-lates

#sirjohnsoane #sirjohnsoanemuseum #holborn #hogarth #canaletto #london #lincolnsinnfields

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dazzledbybooks · 5 years

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Editor: Christina Boyd Narrator: Victoria Riley Length: 18 hours and 3 minutes Series: The Quill Collective, Book 3 Publisher: The Quill Ink, LLC Released: Jul. 18, 2019 Genre: Anthologies “But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.” (Persuasion, Jane Austen) Jane Austen: True romantic or rational creature? Her novels transport us back to the Regency, a time when well-mannered gentlemen and finely-bred ladies fell in love as they danced at balls and rode in carriages. Yet her heroines, such as Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot, and Elinor Dashwood, were no swooning, fainthearted damsels in distress. Austen’s novels are timeless classics because of their biting wit, honest social commentary - because she wrote of strong women who were ahead of their day. True to their principles and beliefs, they fought through hypocrisy and broke social boundaries to find their happily-ever-after. In the third romance anthology of The Quill Collective series, 16 celebrated Austenesque authors write the untold histories of Austen’s heroines, brave adventuresses, shy maidens, talkative spinsters, and naughty matrons. Peek around the curtain and discover what made Lady Susan so wicked, Mary Crawford so capricious, and Hettie Bates so in need of Emma Woodhouse’s pity. Rational Creatures is a collection of humorous, poignant, and engaging short stories set in Georgian England that complement and pay homage to Austen’s great works and great ladies who were, perhaps, the first feminists in an era that was not quite ready for feminism. “Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.” (Mary Wollstonecraft) Stories by: Elizabeth Adams, Nicole Clarkston, Karen M Cox, J. Marie Croft, Amy D’Orazio, Jenetta James, Jessie Lewis, KaraLynne Mackrory, Lona Manning, Christina Morland, Beau North, Sophia Rose, Anngela Schroeder, Joana Starnes, Brooke West, and Caitlin Williams CHRISTINA BOYD wears many hats as she is an editor under her own banner, The Quill Ink, a contributor to Austenprose, and a commercial ceramicist. A life member of Jane Austen Society of North America, Christina lives in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest with her dear Mr. B, two busy teenagers, and a retriever named BiBi. Visiting Jane Austen’s England was made possible by actor Henry Cavill when she won the Omaze experience to meet him in the spring of 2017 on the London Eye. True story. You can Google it. Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook⎮Goodreads⎮Amazon⎮Instagram Victoria Riley is a British voiceover artist and audiobook narrator. Originally trained as a theatre actor, she gradually moved into voice work and is now happiest behind the mic. She loves classic literature and travelling the world. If she isn't recording, she's probably lying in a hammock in some far-flung place, reading book after book after book. Website⎮Twitter I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Christina Boyd. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it. Rational Creatures: Stirring of Feminism in the Hearts of Jane Austen's Fine Ladies, the Quill Collective, Book 3 by Joana Starnes, Amy D'Orazio, Caitlin Williams, Karen Cox, Jenetta James, Beau North, Chistina Morland, Nicole Clarkston, Elizabeth Adams, J. Marie Croft, Jessie Lewis, Kara Lynne Mackrory, Lona Manning, Sophia Rose, Anngela Schoreder, and Brooke West. Now that is a lot of names. Each of these writers brought you a story about a different Austen character. 1. Self-Composed by Christina Morland. (Elinor Dashwood.) 2. Every Past Affliction by Nicole Clarkston. (Marianne Dashwood.) 3. Happiness in Marriage by Amy D'Orazio. (Elizabeth Bennett.) 4. Charlotte's Comfort by Joana Starnes. (Charlotte Lucas.) 5. Knightly Discourse by Anngela Schroeder. (Emma Woodhouse.) 6. The Simple Things by J. Marie Croft. (Hetty Bates.) 7. In Good Hands by Caitlin Williams. (Harriet Smith.) 8. The Meaning of Wife by Brooke West. (Fanny Price.) 9. What Strange Creatures by Jenetta James. (Mary Crawford.) 10. An Unnatural Beginning by Elizabeth Adams. (Anne Elliot.) 11. Where the Sky Touches the Sea by KaraLynne Mackrory. (Sophia Croft.) 12. The Art of Pleasing by Lona Manning. (Penelope Clay.) 13. Louisa by the Sea by Beau North. (Louisa Musgrove.) 14. The Strength of Their Attachment by Sophia Rose. (Catherine Morland.) 15. A Nominal Mistress by Karen M. Cox. (Eleanor Tilney.) 16. The Edification of Lady Susan by Jessie Lewis. (Lady Susan.) This collection of stories is taking a deeper dive into Austen’s greatest female characters. I thought it was definitely interesting to see someone else’s take on these characters. We had a variety of characters from the heroines to the minors. A lot of the ideas behind these short stories come the feminist ideas that are discussed in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women. The narrator was such a perfect match for this book. I loved how she performed all the different characters. She was so easy to listen too. I thought that her British accent fit so well. She put so much life into these stores that I felt I was really able to get to know these characters. I thought the writers and narrator did a fantastic job with the story collection mash up. I thought the stories were fun and engaging. The audiobook kept me listening for hours. Over 18 hours. I thought this was a fantastic edition. I found that I really enjoyed this collection. . Interview with Narrator: Victoria Riley. 1.When did you know you wanted to be an audiobook narrator? Well, I've always said that I'd be happy to just sit in a cupboard all day reading books. I didn't know that I could actually do that and get paid for it. Dreams do come true, folks. 2. How did you wind up narrating audiobooks? Was it always your goal or was it something you stumbled into by chance? I'm actually a classically trained actress and was originally interested in theatre. When I started out, audiobooks weren't really a big thing and it didn't occur to me as a career. I gradually veered into voiceover and my first audiobook was through my VO agent. I then set up my own studio at home and audiobooks are just one of the things I work on. 3. A lot of narrators seem to have a background in theatre. Is that something you think is essential to a successful narration career? I wouldn't say it's essential, but it really, really helps. We've been trained to analyse scripts and characters, to convey nuance and emotion. With audiobooks, you have to do it all with your voice, though, so it is an added skill. However, I do think that some people are natural storytellers. My Mum worked as a primary school teacher and I still remember the way she read books to me before bed. 4. What about this title compelled you to audition as narrator? I LOVE Jane Austen. I love her female characters with their fire and intelligence. To have such strong minds, but be so restricted with their options in life. For marriage to be your only way forward when you have so much to offer the world. It makes me feel claustrophobic just thinking about it. From a working perspective, this is also my first collection of short stories. Short stories are a real art form. You have to draw the reader (or listener!) into the tale very quickly and make them care about the characters without the luxury of a whole novel in which to do it. I really enjoyed each one being a separate little project, so I had a sense of closure and achievement after each one. 5. What types of things are harmful to your voice? I wouldn't say I'm that careful with it to be honest. I've had vocal training drummed into me for decades, so I think it really comes naturally to me to support my voice well and to speak from the diaphragm. I've been trained to project to the back of a theatre, without a microphone, night after night after night. Some narrators get tired voices, but you can't shut me up! 6. Who are your “accent inspirations”? Absolutely everybody! I love accents. I have a broad Lancashire accent myself. I hope you can't tell from 'Rational Creatures'! If I hear a good accent, someone on TV or in real life, I'll be there mouthing the words, fascinated by how they're forming the sounds. Penelope Keith is a good one for very upper class ladies. Pam Ayres for West Country. Some elude me, though. My Cockney wanders all over the place, though you get a snippet of it in 'Rational Creatures'. My boyfriend has a London accent and sometimes he helps me with pronunciations. I'll be texting him asking things like 'Transport or traaaahnsport??'. 7. How did you decide how each character should sound in this title? Well, a lot of the characters are very well-known anyway, which helps. I didn't feel as though I was creating them from scratch. Most of them just jump off the page too. There are simple things like class to consider. Also character traits, like arrogance, pomposity, shyness or humility, which affect voice and delivery. I love a character that you can really embody. When it's so obvious how they should sound that you don't even really have to think about it. 8. How does audiobook narration differ from other types of voiceover work you've done? It takes a REALLY long time, especially if you're fully producing the work yourself. It takes around six hours to produce one hour of finished audio, sometimes longer. That doesn't even include all the prep work you have to do first, reading the work in full, researching characters and pronunciations, deciding on voices. Editing takes forever, combing through the recording, editing out little sounds like mouth clicks or any particular noisy breaths. I also regularly do radio jingles, which is a good comparison, because it takes no time at all! Audiobooks are not for the faint-hearted. 9. If you could narrate one book from your youth what would it be and why? Apart from absolutely everything by Jane Austen? I have so many author heroes! However, if it's from my youth, then I'm going to plump for Roald Dahl's 'The Witches'. His stories are so evocative and he doesn't shy away from darker themes. I was born in Pendle Witch country, so this one struck a particular chord with me. 10. Any funny anecdotes from inside the recording studio? We've all done silly things. Giving an Oscar-worthy performance, then realising you haven't pressed record. Stuffing a cushion up your jumper to stop tummy rumbles reaching the mic. Gradually getting more naked as you stifle in the booth in summer. We've all done it. Giveaway: $20 Amazon Gift Card a Rafflecopter giveaway Sep. 6th: The Quill Ink Valerie Ullmer | Romance Author T's Stuff Reading A Page Turner Sep. 7th: All the Ups and Downs Viviana MacKade Miss Lawrence is Hearing Things Sep. 8th: Jorie Loves A Story Nesie's Place Eileen Troemel Sep. 9th: History from a Woman’s Perspective KayBee's Bookshelf, A Literary Blog Nyx Blogs Always Love Me Some Books Sep. 10th: Country Road Reviews The Book Junkie Reads . . . Sep. 11th: Jazzy Book Reviews Locks, Hooks and Books What Is That Book About Sep. 12th: My Creatively Random Life Dazzled by Books ➜Sign up as a host here

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biofunmy · 5 years

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‘Hot Dogs! Cold Beer!’ M.L.B. Will Bring the Familiar to London Stadium

LONDON — Imagine stirring renditions of “Sweet Caroline” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” belted out by fans munching on Cracker Jack sold by roving vendors.

If that sounds like a typical regular-season game between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, that is the goal in England this weekend. But it will be anything but routine.

The teams are scheduled to play twice at London Stadium in the first regular-season Major League Baseball games in Europe, and organizers are working to give the games the flavor of a typical June series in Boston or New York — or at least as much as possible in an Olympic-size stadium in the East End of London.

“Baseball is a unique experience,” said Charlie Hill, the vice president of M.L.B. International, which is based in London. “We want to give people in London that taste of an authentic baseball game with all the little rituals.”

Baseball has staged regular-season games in Mexico, Australia and Japan, but bringing the big leagues to Britain, where cricket is the dominant bat-and-ball sport, will involve some of the typical sights and sounds of baseball, but with a slight Cockney accent.

King Henry VII and Freddie Mercury going toe-to-toe

As far as anyone can tell, there have never been mascot races at either Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium for a Red Sox-Yankees game. Those are mostly reserved for Milwaukee (sausages), Washington (presidents) and the more adventurous minors, but organizers of the London Series wanted to add that particular slice of Americana.

So, a Twitter vote was held to determine Britain’s four most mascot-worthy figures. The queen didn’t quite make the cut, although Freddie Mercury of the rock band Queen was one of the winners. The other three to battle it out during the game will be Winston Churchill, King Henry VIII and the Loch Ness Monster.

(The Beatles and William Shakespeare failed to make it. And you thought the voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame was controversial).

The food will come to them

Baseball fans in the United States and Canada are familiar with concessionaires wandering the stadium selling hot dogs and the like, but roving vendors are not common in Britain. Soccer fans typically wait until halftime to sprint to the concession stand and get a hot cup of Bovril, so the idea of roving vendors in Britain are alien.

So the concessionaires went through a crash course led by a team of instructors from the United States to learn how to induce people to pay for food and drinks without ever leaving their seats.

“We’re going to ask people to hand their money down the row of strangers and then have a bag of peanuts tossed over to them by a hawker,” Hill said. “That’s not something they are used to.”

Even Dave Grohl thinks it’s huge

Baseball barely even registers as a niche sport in Britain, but every ticket for this series was snapped up in less than 45 minutes when they went on sale in December, organizers said.

M.L.B. said that 70 percent of the roughly 120,000 tickets were purchased from within Britain, presumably including ticket brokers, and that 20 percent were sold in the United States, leaving 10 percent for fans from other countries.

The high demand explains why the series is being held at London Stadium. It was considered the only venue with enough space to fit more than three acres of French artificial turf in front of 60,000 seats — nearly 60 percent more than the capacity of Fenway Park.

“London Stadium,” said Graham Gilmore, the stadium’s chief executive, “can do it all.”

The arena was built for the 2012 Summer Olympics and is now home to West Ham United, the English Premier League soccer club. It has hosted the Rugby World Cup and huge concerts by the Rolling Stones and Beyoncé. When the rock band Foo Fighters played there last year, the frontman Dave Grohl lauded the size of the building and made a disparaging comment about Wembley Stadium, London’s more famous venue, in a comment that forever endeared him to Gilmore.

Fitting a diamond in an oval

The area on the ground, including the running track, is so vast that it required 141,900 square feet of artificial turf, imported from France, to cover it, plus the infield dirt and clay shipped in from Slippery Rock, Pa.

The 16-foot-high center-field wall will be 385 feet away from home plate — the rest of the walls will measure between four and eight feet. There is also a roof that extends over home plate, so there will be specific ground rules pertaining to balls hitting it.

One unique feature is that home plate will be on one side of the oval — not one of the ends — creating vast amounts of foul territory. Most fields in oval-shaped stadiums, like the old Polo Grounds and Olympic Stadium in Montreal, had home plate tucked into one end, or in a corner.

James Williams, London Stadium’s head groundsman, said that his crew has had to learn many new things about baseball fields.

“We even learned how to roll out the tarp,” he said. “This is definitely the biggest project I’ve ever been involved in. There’s been quite a few sleepless nights.”

This is also the first time the Red Sox and Yankees have played a regular-season game on plastic grass. When the series is over, the turf will be rolled up and stored until next year when the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs play in London.

Custom-built clubhouses

Thirteen months ago, a contingent of major league officials toured the stadium with Gilmore, the stadium boss, to make sure it would be appropriate for baseball. The group included Commissioner Rob Manfred, Yankees and Red Sox owners, and members of the players’ association. Gilmore was surprised by something that had nothing to do with the field layout.

“I didn’t understand the power of the players union,” Gilmore said.

One concern was the clubhouses. Soccer locker rooms are generally more spartan than baseball clubhouses, so, swanky, temporary accommodations were built to accommodate the tastes and standards of major league baseball players. Dugouts also had to be built from scratch, along with a wall to separate the players as they enter the playing field.

What if it rains?

When a reporter asked organizers about the possibility of rain, the response was glowering stares. But, you know, it has been known to rain in the British Isles.

Every attempt will be made to get the games in, and Williams, the stadium groundsman, said the field drainage system — which was put to the test by heavy downpours earlier this month — was enhanced for the series, with extra piping placed beneath a layer of stone chips.

But even though both teams have an off day scheduled for Monday, July 1, they would not play a makeup game in London, according to Hill. It is a home series for the Red Sox, so in the unlikely scenario of a rainout, the game would be made up in Boston. Most likely, though, if there is rain, they will wait it out and hope for the best.

“There are some massive challenges,” Gilmore said, “including the expectations of M.L.B. and the players’ union. We have to make sure we are at the top of our game.”

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twerkkkidrauhl-blog1 · 7 years

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How to prepare for GRE ?

There are numerous phrases and words those are utilized in daily life give the impression of a native speaker. Be aware that there is not a dearth of this language and phrases but sincerity in using them in daily conversation.

Feeling gloomy; possess the bliss -- A feeling of depression or despair. A dollar -- Slang term for an American buck. From the skin of (my/your/his/her) teeth -- only barely. Couch Potato -- A lazy individual who spends the majority of their time engaged in things which may be done while sitting on a sofa. Cram -- To examine feverishly prior to a test typically done after neglecting to research consistently. Crash -- To suddenly fall asleep, or to appear without invitation. Drive up the wall -- To irritate. For Actual -- A proclamation of honesty. Going Dutch -- When every individual, normally in a dating scenario, pays to get his/her own meal. The cold shoulder -- A metaphor for deliberately ignoring someone. Give a ring -- To call someone on the telephone. Hyped (adj.) -- an extremely excited state. Hang outside -- To casually gather together or spend time with someone in a social way. Jack upward -- A sudden increase, typically in the price of something. Assessing -- To speak negatively, to disparage, to badmouth. Lighten up -- To relax and take things too seriously. Typically stated as a charm to someone who is acting uptight. Dominate the dollar -- To divert responsibility onto someone else. Plead the fifth -- cautioned the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which enables a witness in court to deny questions about the grounds that they risk self-incrimination. Screw upward -- To make a mistake, i.e. mess up. Sweet -- An adjective that describes something which is good, or nice. Junk -- may be utilized as an intransitive verb for destruction. E.g. "He cried the car." Zonked -- Entirely exhausted.Our following article will cover British slang terms that Americans find confusing. Until then, here are a few of our favorite American fashion words: Pants -- CLOTHING RETAILERS TAKE NOTE: The Brits say 'pants' ...The American default sentence to the article of clothing that covers the thighs and pelvic region appears fairly common and innocuous to English speakers in the U.S. To the real English, yet, 'trousers' is the primary term they use for 'underwear.' And while American cinema and television typically writes the word 'knickers' for panties into the language of British personalities--that is probably only for comedic effect since 'trousers' would not induce any reaction--the most popular British word for panties really is 'pants.' Americans don't to notice how frequently they refer to their so-called trousers until someone from the U.K. joins their positions. After that happens they begin to notice restrained snickering every time 'trousers' are referenced in a polite conversation. For those birds -- Imagine how this term must sound to someone who doesn't know that it pertains to something that is insufficient in some regard. Is it a sack of seeds or some kind of lawn decoration reference? The Brits sometimes use the phrase 'bird,' to refer to girls, in precisely the exact same way Americans use 'chicks.' So, perhaps it comes off like reference to girlishness. Who knows? Bought the plantation -- "I didn't know he wanted to proceed to the country," is the way a British man might respond to hearing this term. At this point 'purchased the farm,' is a general reference to untimely passing. On the other hand, the term originates from WWII-era military accidents involving unreliable aircraft crashing into rural European countryside properties resulting in compensation for which the U.S. government was responsible to cover, therefore, 'buying the plantation,' so to speak. Jonesing -- To desire, kiss, or desire something intensely, and its particular form, 'joneser,' (a man who desires or desires something intensely), isn't necessarily evident even to Americans. However the definition of 'joneser,' continues to be shrouded among several circles to include describing someone whose personality is found wanting, i.e. lacking, compared to someone who simply needs something urgently. Require a raincheck -- This is an Americanism which dates back to the 1880s and references the practice of giving baseball match ticketholders a pass to a match that should be rescheduled due to weather. It's generally used as a metaphor for postponing or rescheduling a meeting between individuals to a later date which is more convenient. Spill the Beans -- British English speakers might pick upon the Usage of the phrase 'spill,' as a metaphor for divulging. However, 'spill the beans, '' might be vague enough for them to assume that a more specific connotation, which they aren't aware of. Take the breeze -- An idiomatic term for killing time with idle chit-chat, 'take the breeze likely stems from old-west imagery, either cinematic or anecdotal in origin, in which guys with nothing but time and ammunition in their palms taken their guns at no particular goal. John Hancock -- Although vague associative references are a favorite kind of Cockney slang, it's unlikely that an English man would have some idea who John Hancock was. The mention could escape them. The title John Hancock became synonymous with a individual's signature since his was one of the very flamboyant signatures on The Declaration of Independence. Monday morning quarterback -- Because quarterback is a on-field leadership position played in American soccer, which the British have zero interest in, also since Monday morning references the fact that the majority of NFL games occur on Sundays, this is a doubly vague metaphor. While American's know that the term references the practice of criticizing something after-fact-with the benefit of hindsight, an English man would find this expression totally meaningless. Ride Shotgun -- Another word taken from Old-West folklore, riding shotgun is an announcement of the two position and standing--a kind of second-in-command service position who works out of a preferential vantage. The imagery invoked from the word stems from stagecoaches, specifically whoever rode in the chair next to the driver whose occupation was to fend off any prospective bandits with a shotgun. Addition to it Inculcate habit of reading news newspaper and magazine so that you will get familiar with the array of phrases and words. Aside from, attempt to listen day to day conversation - hollywood movies or displays will help you a whole lot.

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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A Popup LA Art Space is Exclusively Showing Works by Convict and Ex-Convict Artists

After in the wake of Oakland's Ghost Ship fire, DIY art spaces around the country knew the clock was ticking. Think Tank Gallery, a now venue-less Los Angeles-based alternative art space, was one of the collectives that saw the writing on the wall. Although they had survived for seven years through creative alliances with local officials, Think Tank quickly found itself shuttered. Not content to give up, and hoping to question the very idea of whether legal is actually good, Think Tank is currently staging an exhibition titled Legal Goods, which features only artworks created by convict and ex-convict artists.

Organized by Think Tank co-founder Jacob Patterson and artist Phil America, Legal Goods—the third installment in Think Tank's ongoing You Are Here series—is being held at the Bonito Swap Meet in LA's MacArthur Park neighborhood, and is open until April 30th. Think Tank chose the location because its owners gave them a free month for setup and teardown in exchange for restoring and updating their mural, which had been tagged with graffiti. The location is also long time Mexican immigrant neighborhood, which adds some political flavor to the exhibition space.

"Phil approached us with the idea of showing only prison-made items and artists with a criminal record, at a gallery kicked out for breaking the law, in a neighborhood notorious in LA for illegal activity and immigrants," says Patterson, a street artist and ex-convict himself. "He wanted to humanize all of the above, as most of his projects do."

While the Legal Goods title openly questions the difference between "legal" and "good," it is also a play on words relating to, as Patterson says, "the anonymous indentured servants making our everyday items from inside the prison system." Patterson and America believe notions of "legal" and "good" will become more confusing in the United States in the next four years.

"Our gallery being kicked out—doing what we think was good work—for obscure legal reasons, made this the perfect time to jump on the project," says Patterson. "Especially for a 'gallery' that calls itself Post-Street Art, a genre evolved from illegal activity."

A convict's wallet sculpture made of cigarette packaging

America, like Patterson, is an ex-convict who served time in jail in LA for an old graffiti case. As he tells Creators, he met a lot of people inside, then smuggled a few things out that were made for him. America's "illegal galleries," which he has held in New York subways and along the US-Mexico border, amongst other places, were a natural inspiration for Legal Goods. Once he and Think Tank came together, America started commissioning artworks from people in prison, then began devising ways of getting the pieces out.

"[To] many in the art world, [this] is considered 'craft' but to me it's definitely a form of outsider art," Patterson says. "Each piece can take weeks or months to create and are made of the items one can get access to such as cigarette packages, candy wrappers, matches, bed clothes, floss, and other things."

A convict's matchstick sculpture

Legal Goods also features work by ex-convicts Shepard Fairey, godfather of Cholo writing "Chaz" Bojorquez, and Michael Knowlton, who served time for marijuana back in the day, as Patterson notes. Artist Cockney, who also appears in the show, treats his crimes as public services. As Patterson notes, Cockney allows fans to buy his art by paying the cost of the vandalism fee, with the receipt being an actual copy of the citation.

"Utah and Ether have one of the most famous stories in recent graffiti lore and they sent us drawings and dice they sold in prison for like $3 a pop," says Patterson. "Outside of prison we're selling them at fine art rates, which is a conversation I love."

Installation view

Think Tank is already planning other projects, including shows in apartment complexes, laundromats, and abandoned spaces inside LA's sprawl. They are also planning a massive summer exhibition called Drinkin' Smokin' & West Coastin', which will take place across multiple venues, pairing artists with a large-scale immersive production.

"This time it will be themed around West Coast hip-hop, which pretty much built me into what I am," Patterson says. "It will be the first time we attempt to host a show at multiple venues at once. Other than that we are focusing on our podcast, highlighting dope talent online, and maybe a pop-up in there somewhere."

Society of Destruction by Shepard Fairey

What Think Tank's Legal Goods proves, apart from the fact that art is boundless, is that the shutdown of a DIY space isn't a death sentence. Or, at least it doesn't have to be. With enough ambition and creativity, alternative art spaces across the country can soldier on in this country's gentrifying, post-Ghost Ship political atmosphere.

CALI by Chaz Bojorquez (2012)

Think Tank working on Bonito Swap Meet mural

Click here to stay tuned into Think Tank Gallery's various upcoming projects.

[Op-Ed] The Party Is Over: Defending DIY Spaces After Ghost Ship

Chicago's 2nd Floor Rear Festival Celebrates DIY Art Spaces of All Kinds | #50StatesofArt

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