1.
Ilford
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Ilford is a large cosmopolitan town in East London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located 9.1 miles north-east of Charing Cross and is one of the metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Ilford forms a significant commercial and retail centre surrounded by residential development. It was historically a rural settlement in the county of Essex and its strategic position on the River Roding. Since 1965 it has formed part of Greater London, but it is considered by some to be in Essex because of the postal county. Despite the Royal Mail no longer using official postal counties, Ilford is part of the IG postcode area, though areas to the west of Ilford Hill and the A406 are part of E postcode area instead. Ilford was historically known as Great Ilford to differentiate it from nearby Little Ilford, the name is first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Ilefort and means ford over the Hyle, an old name for the River Roding that means trickling stream. The only complete skull of a mammoth discovered in the United Kingdom was unearthed in 1860 at the site where Boots the Chemist now stands in the High Road. The skull can now be seen in the Natural History Museum and other animal remains can be seen at Redbridge Museum, Central Library. Redevelopment has destroyed much of the evidence for early Ilford, but the oldest evidence for human occupation is the 1st and this was situated between the Roding and Ilford Lane and is recorded in 18th century plans. Roman finds have also made in the vicinity. A nearby mound called Lavender Mount existed into the 1960s, when it was removed during building work at Howards chemical works, excavation has shown that the latter may have been a 16th-century beacon-mound. Archaeological discoveries are displayed at Redbridge Museum, Ilford straddled the important road from London to Colchester. The Middlesex and Essex Turnpike Trust controlled and maintained the road from 1721, the River Roding was made navigable for barges as far as Ilford Bridge from 1737. Ilford remained largely rural until its expansion in the 19th century and this brought about brickworks, cement works and coal yards to service the new buildings, largely centred on the River Roding. In 1839, a station was opened on the line from Romford to Mile End. The early businesses gave way to new industries, such as making and services such as steam laundries and collar making. A number of businesses have been founded in the town, including the eponymous photographic film
2.
Essex
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Essex /ˈɛsᵻks/ is a county in England immediately north-east of London. It borders the counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, the county town is Chelmsford, which is the only city in the county. Essex occupies the part of the old Kingdom of Essex, before this. As well as areas, the county also includes London Stansted Airport, the new towns of Basildon and Harlow, Lakeside Shopping Centre, the port of Tilbury. Originally recorded in AD527, Essex occupied territory to the north of the River Thames, incorporating all of what later became Middlesex and its territory was later restricted to lands east of the River Lea. In changes before the Norman conquest the East Saxons were subsumed into the Kingdom of England and, following the Norman conquest, Essex became a county. During the medieval period, much of the area was designated a Royal forest, including the county in a period to 1204. Gradually, the subject to forest law diminished, but at various times included the forests of Becontree, Chelmsford, Epping, Hatfield, Ongar. County-wide administration Essex County Council was formed in 1889, however County Boroughs of West Ham, Southend-on-Sea and East Ham formed part of the county but were unitary authorities. 12 boroughs and districts provide more localised services such as rubbish and recycling collections, leisure and planning, parish-level administration – changes A few Essex parishes have been transferred to other counties. Before 1889, small areas were transferred to Hertfordshire near Bishops Stortford, Essex became part of the East of England Government Office Region in 1994 and was statistically counted as part of that region from 1999, having previously been part of the South East England region. Two unitary authorities In 1998 the boroughs of Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock were granted autonomy from the county of Essex after successful requests to become unitary authorities. Essex Police covers the county and the two unitary authorities. The county council chamber and main headquarters is at the County Hall in Chelmsford, before 1938 the council regularly met in London near Moorgate, which with significant parts closer to that point and the dominance of railways had been more convenient than any place in the county. It currently has 75 elected councillors, before 1965, the number of councillors reached over 100. The highest point of the county of Essex is Chrishall Common near the village of Langley, close to the Hertfordshire border, the pattern of settlement in the county is diverse. Epping Forest also acts as a barrier to the further spread of London. Part of the southeast of the county, already containing the population centres of Basildon, Southend and Thurrock, is within the Thames Gateway
3.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
4.
British people
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British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies, and their descendants. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era, because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists. Modern Britons are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century, Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse. The British are a diverse, multi-national and multicultural society, with regional accents, expressions. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them, the group included Ireland, which was referred to as Ierne inhabited by the different race of Hiberni, and Britain as insula Albionum, island of the Albions. The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that name derives from a Gaulish description translated as people of the forms. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island, during the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people. At that time, it was the held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the ancient Britons. This notion was supported by such as the Historia Regum Britanniae. Wales and Cornwall, and north, i. e. Cumbria, Strathclyde and this legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of 66% in East Anglia. Oppenheimers opinion is that. by far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia, ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales. The English had been unified under a single state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh. However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood in the 13th century
5.
BBC
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The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
6.
Science fiction
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Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a literature of ideas. Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying science fiction is what we point to when we say it, a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography, you do not know what it is, in 1970 or 1971William Atheling Jr. According to science fiction writer Robert A, rod Serlings definition is fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. Science fiction elements include, A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, a spatial setting or scenes in outer space, on other worlds, or on subterranean earth. Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots, futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers. Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for time travel, wormholes. New and different political or social systems, e. g. utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis Other universes or dimensions and travel between them. A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of science itself. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Keplers work the first science fiction story and it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earths motion is seen from there. Later, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon, more examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Wells The War of the Worlds describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry and it is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. In the late 19th century, the scientific romance was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland, the term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars
7.
Pride and Prejudice
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Pride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The comedy of the lies in the depiction of manners, education. Mr Bennet of the Longbourn estate has five daughters, but his property is entailed, since his wife had no fortune, it is imperative that one of the girls marries well in order to support the others on his death. However, Jane Austens opening line It is a universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife is a sentence filled with irony. The novel revolves around the necessity of marrying for love, not simply for mercenary reasons despite the pressures to make a good match. Pride and Prejudice retains the fascination of modern readers, consistently appearing near the top of lists of most-loved books among both scholars and the general public. It has become one of the most popular novels in English literature, with over 20 million copies sold, continuing interest in the book has resulted in a number of dramatic adaptations and an abundance of novels and stories imitating Austens memorable characters or themes. The novel opens with Mrs Bennet trying to persuade Mr Bennet to visit an eligible bachelor, Mr Bingley, after some verbal sparring with Mr Bennet baiting his wife, it transpires that this visit has taken place at Netherfield. The visit is followed by an invitation to a ball at the assembly rooms that the whole neighborhood will attend. At the ball, Mr Bingley is open and cheerful, popular with all the guests and his friend, Mr Darcy, is reputed to be twice as wealthy, however, he is haughty and aloof. He declines to dance with Elizabeth, suggesting that she is not pretty enough to tempt him and she finds this amusing and jokes about the statement with her friends. Jane also attracts the attention of Mr Bingleys sister Caroline, who invites her to visit, Jane visits Miss Bingley and is caught in a rain shower on the way, catching a serious cold. Elizabeth, out of concern for her sisters well being. This is the point at which Darcy begins to see the attraction of Elizabeth, Mr Collins, a cousin of Mr Bennet and heir to the Longbourn estate, visits the Bennet family. He is a pompous and obsequious clergyman because he expects each of the Bennet girls to wish to marry him due to his inheritance and he plans to propose to Elizabeth over Jane as he is led to believe Jane is taken. Elizabeths dislike of Mr Darcy is confirmed, at a ball at which Mr Wickham is not present, Elizabeth dances with Mr Darcy rather against her will. Other than Jane and Elizabeth, all the members of the Bennet family show their lack of decorum, Mrs Bennet states loudly that she expects Jane and Bingley to become engaged and each member of the family exposes the whole to ridicule. The following morning, Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth and she rejects him, to the fury of her mother and the relief of her father
8.
Sleeping Beauty
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Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault, or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm, is a classic fairy tale which involves a beautiful princess, a sleeping enchantment, and a handsome prince. The version collected by the Brothers Grimm was an orally transmitted version of the originally literary tale published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697. This in turn was based on Sun, Moon, and Talia by Italian poet Giambattista Basile, the earliest known version of the story is found in the narrative Perceforest, composed between 1330 and 1344 and first printed in 1528. At the christening of a king and queens long-wished-for child, seven good fairies are invited to be godmothers to the infant princess, the fairies attend the banquet at the palace. Each fairy is presented with a plate and drinking cups adorned with jewels. Soon after, an old fairy enters the palace and is seated with a plate of fine china and this old fairy is overlooked because she has been within a tower for many years and everyone had believed her to be deceased. Six of the seven fairies then offer their gifts of beauty, wit, grace, dance, song. The evil fairy is very angry about having been forgotten, and as her gift, enchants the infant princess so that she one day prick her finger on a spindle of a spinning wheel. The seventh fairy, who hasnt yet given her gift, attempts to reverse the evil fairys curse, however, she can only do so partially. Instead of dying, the Princess will fall into a deep sleep for 100 years, the King orders that every spindle and spinning wheel in the kingdom to be destroyed, to try to save his daughter from the terrible curse. Fifteen or sixteen years pass and one day, when the king and queen are away, the princess, who has never seen anyone spin before, asks the old woman if she can try the spinning wheel. The curse is fulfilled as the princess pricks her finger on the spindle, the old woman cries for help and attempts are made to revive the princess. The king attributes this to fate and has the Princess carried to the finest room in the palace and placed upon a bed of gold, the king and queen kiss their daughter goodbye and depart, proclaiming the entrance to be forbidden. The good fairy who altered the evil prophecy is summoned, having great powers of foresight, the fairy sees that the Princess will awaken to distress when she finds herself alone, so the fairy puts everyone in the castle to sleep. The fairy also summons a forest of trees, brambles and thorns that spring up around the castle, shielding it from the outside world, a hundred years pass and a prince from another family spies the hidden castle during a hunting expedition. The prince then braves the tall trees, brambles and thorns which part at his approach and he passes the sleeping castle folk and comes across the chamber where the Princess lies asleep on the bed. Struck by the radiant beauty before him, he falls on his knees before her, the enchantment comes to an end by a kiss and the princess awakens and converses with the prince for a long time. Meanwhile, the rest of the castle awakens and go about their business, the prince and princess are later married by the chaplain in the castle chapel
9.
Private Lives
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Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for each other and its second act love scene was nearly censored in Britain as too risqué. Coward wrote one of his most popular songs, Some Day Ill Find You, after touring the British provinces, the play opened the new Phoenix Theatre in London in 1930, starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Adrianne Allen and Laurence Olivier. A Broadway production followed in 1931, and the play has been revived at least a dozen times each in the West End. Directors of new productions have included John Gielgud, Howard Davies, the play was made into a 1931 film and has been adapted several times for television and radio. Coward was in the middle of an extensive Asian tour when he contracted influenza in Shanghai and he spent the better part of his two-week convalescence sketching out the play and then completed the actual writing of the piece in only four days. He immediately cabled Gertrude Lawrence in New York to ask her to keep autumn 1930 free to appear in the play. After spending a few more weeks revising it, he typed the final draft in the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon and sent copies to Lawrence and his producer and manager, wilson, with instructions to cable him with their reactions. Coward received no fewer than 30 telegrams from Lawrence about the play and she first said that she had read the play and there was nothing wrong with it that cant be fixed. Coward wired back curtly that the thing that was going to be fixed was her performance. Lawrence was indecisive about what to do about her previous commitment to André Charlot, Coward finally responded that he planned to cast the play with another actress. By the time he returned to London, he found Lawrence not only had cleared her schedule but was staying at Edward Molyneuxs villa in Cap-dAil in southeastern France learning her lines, Coward joined her, and the two began rehearsing the scenes they shared. At the end of July they returned to London where Coward began to direct the production, Coward played the part of Elyot Chase himself, Adrianne Allen was his bride Sybil, Lawrence played Amanda Prynne, and Laurence Olivier was her new husband Victor. Coward wrote Sybil and Victor as minor characters, extra puppets, lightly wooden ninepins, only to be knocked down. Rehearsals were still under way when the Lord Chamberlain took exception to the second act love scene, the play contains one of Cowards most popular songs, Some Day Ill Find You. The Noël Coward Societys website, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers, act 1 Following a brief courtship, Elyot and Sybil are honeymooning at an hotel in Deauville, although her curiosity about his first marriage is not helping his romantic mood. In the adjoining suite, Amanda and Victor are starting their new life together, Elyot and Amanda separately beg their new spouses to leave the hotel with them immediately, but both new spouses refuse to co-operate and each storms off to dine alone
10.
Sarah Bernhardt
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Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress. She was referred to as the most famous actress the world has ever known, Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, at the beginning of the Belle Epoque period, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas. She developed a reputation as a dramatic actress and tragedienne. In her later career she starred in some of the earliest films ever produced, Sarah Bernhardt was born in Paris as Rosine Bernardt on October 23,1844. She was the daughter of a Dutch-Jewish courtesan, or upper-class prostitute, Judith Bernard. Four different addresses in Paris are claimed as her birthplace,125 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré,5 rue de lEcole-de-Medicine,22 rue de la Michodière and 265 rue Saint-Honoré. The father, whoever he was, left a sum of one hundred francs for her future dowry when she came of age. Sarah lived for months with the nurse and her husband in the tiny apartment of the concierge. While there, the child showed the first signs of tuberculosis. Sarah was discovered on the street by her aunt Rosine, who was passing by, when Sarahs mother finally returned to Paris, Sarah was taken to her apartment at 265 rue Saint-Honoré, where she lived, attended by servants, rarely ever seeing her mother. At the age of eight, Sarah could neither read or writer and her mother sent her away to a school for young ladies in Auteuil run by a Madame Fressard, where for the first time she was with other children her own age. The other children made fun of her appearance and curly hair. During the two years she attended the school, her mother came to see her only twice and she completely forgot all of her lines and fled the stage in tears. At the age of ten, by obtaining the sponsorship of the Duc de Morny, her mother sent Sarah to Grandchamp, at the convent, she was soon on the stage again, performing the part of the Archangel Raphael in the story of Tobias and the Angel. She received her first communion as a Roman Catholic in 1856, however, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked years later by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied, No, Im a Roman Catholic, Im waiting until Christians become better. At the age of fifteen, her mother withdrew her from the school and her mother summoned a family council, which also included the Duc de Morny, one of her friends. Morny proposed that Sarah should become an actress, an idea which horrified the young girl, Morny arranged for her to attend her first theater performance at the Comedie Française in a party which included her mother, the Duc de Morny, and his friend Alexandre Dumas
