1.
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
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Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I, in every year since 1998 Emmanuel has been among the top five colleges in the Tompkins Table, which ranks colleges according to end-of-year examination results. Emmanuel has topped the five times since then and placed second six times. Emmanuel is one of the colleges at Cambridge with a financial endowment of approximately £105 million. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I, the site had been occupied by a Dominican friary until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, some 45 years earlier. Mildmays foundation made use of the existing buildings, Mildmay, a Puritan, intended Emmanuel to be a college of training for Protestant preachers. Like all of the older Cambridge Colleges, Emmanuel originally took only male students and it first admitted female students in 1979. Under Mildmays instruction, the chapel of the original Dominican Friary had been converted to be the Colleges dining hall, in the late 17th century, the College commissioned a new chapel, one of three buildings in Cambridge to be designed by Christopher Wren. After Wrens construction, the chapel became the College library until it outgrew the space. There is a fish pond in the grounds, part of the legacy of the friary. The pond is home of a colony of ducks, the Fellows Garden contains a swimming pool, which was originally the friars bathing pool, making it one of the oldest bathing pools in Europe. It includes an Oriental plane tree, also in the Fellows Garden, the Emmanuel College Students Union is the society of all undergraduate students at Emmanuel College. It provides a shop, a bar, a common room, eCSUs Executive Committee is elected on a yearly basis at the end of Michaelmas Term. The Emmanuel College Middle Combination Room is the society of all students at Emmanuel College. The Room itself is a comfortable and well equipped space in the Queens Building, the MCR committee organises regular social events for graduate students, including well-attended formal dinners in hall every few weeks. A large number of student societies and sports clubs exist at Emmanuel College, sports clubs include Emmanuel Boat Club, tennis, badminton, cricket, squash, rugby, football, hockey and netball. Funding for societies, old and new, come from applications to the Emmanuel College Student union, Emmanuel graduates had a large involvement in the settling of North America. Of the first 100 university graduates in New England, one-third were graduates of Emmanuel College, Harvard University, the first college in the United States, was organised on the model of Emmanuel, as it was then run
2.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
3.
Birdsong (novel)
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Birdsong is a 1993 war novel and family saga by the English author Sebastian Faulks. Faulks developed the novel to bring public awareness to the experience of war remembered by WWI veterans. Most critics found this effort successful, commenting on how the novel, like many other WWI novels, similarly, because of the parallel narratives WWI and 1970s Britain, the novel explores metahistorical questions about how to document and recover narratives about the past. Because of its genre, themes and writing style, the novel has been compared to a number of other war novels, like Ian McEwans Atonement. Birdsong is part of a trilogy of novels by Sebastian Faulks, alongside The Girl at the Lion dOr and Charlotte Gray. Birdsong is one of Faulkss best-received works, earning critical and popular praise, including being listed as the 13th favourite book in Britain in a 2003 BBC survey called the Big Read. It has also adapted three times under the same title, for radio, the stage and television. Faulks wrote the novel partly because he felt that the First World War had not been discussed enough in both literary and historical contexts, the novel was a success, with international impact and attention. The hardback print-run, first issued in 1993, sold 14,000 copies, the novel featured in many Best of the Year lists in the United Kingdom during 1993. Subsequently, the novel has one of the most checked-out works from British libraries. Though Faulkss fourth published novel in the United Kingdom, Birdsong was only his second republished in the United States, in New Zealand and Australia, the novel was popular, reaching best seller and whats hot lists. Globally, sales were strong, and as of 2010, the novel had sold over 3 million copies, the first stage starts in pre-war Amiens, France. Stephen Wraysford visits and lives with René Azaire, his wife Isabelle, Azaire teaches Stephen about the French textile industry. He witnesses a comfortable middle class life in Northern France alongside industrial worker unrest, Azaire and the significantly younger Isabelle express discontent with their marriage. This sparks Stephens interest in Isabelle, with whom he falls in love. During one incident, Azaire, embarrassed that he and Isabelle cannot have another child, around the same time, Isabelle helps give food to the families of striking workers, stirring rumours that she is having an affair with one of the workers. Stephens love of Isabelle transforms into a passionate affair, Isabelle confronts Azaire with the truth of their relationship and Azaire evicts Stephen. Isabelle leaves with him, running away to Southern France, there she becomes pregnant, and momentarily loses faith in her relationship with Stephen
4.
James Bond
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The James Bond series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. The latest novel is Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz, published in September 2015, additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny. The character has also adapted for television, radio, comic strip, video games. As of 2017, there have been twenty-four films in the Eon Productions series, the most recent Bond film, Spectre, stars Daniel Craig in his fourth portrayal of Bond, he is the sixth actor to play Bond in the Eon series. There have also two independent productions of Bond films, Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again. In 2015, the franchise was estimated to be worth $19.9 billion, the Bond films are renowned for a number of features, including the musical accompaniment, with the theme songs having received Academy Award nominations on several occasions, and two wins. Other important elements which run through most of the films include Bonds cars, his guns, the films are also noted for Bonds relationships with various women, who are sometimes referred to as Bond girls. Ian Fleming created the character of James Bond as the central figure for his works. Bond is an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is known by his number,007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander. Among those types were his brother, Peter, who had involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway. Aside from Flemings brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bonds make up, including Conrad OBrien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill Biffy Dunderdale. The name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. He further explained that, When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be a dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened. When I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, is the dullest name I ever heard. On another occasion, Fleming said, I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, James Bond was much better than something more interesting, like Peregrine Carruthers. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is certainly good-looking. Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way and that black hair falling down over the right eyebrow
5.
P. G. Wodehouse
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Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse KBE was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy years at Dulwich College. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and his early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. Although most of Wodehouses fiction is set in England, he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. During and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern and he began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his revelations of incompetence and extravagance at Hollywood studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his career reached a new peak. In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons, in 1940 he was prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, the talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in Britain, and a threat of prosecution. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955 and he was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, in Southampton, Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words, after the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career he would produce a novel in three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers, the Wodehouses, who traced their ancestry back to the 13th century, belonged to a collateral branch of the family of the earls of Kimberley. Eleanor Wodehouse was also of ancient aristocratic ancestry and she was visiting one of her sisters in Guildford when Wodehouse was born there prematurely. The boy was baptised at the Church of St Nicolas, Guildford, Wodehouse wrote in 1957, If you ask me to tell you frankly if I like the name Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, I must confess that I do not. I was named after a godfather, and not a thing to show for it, the first name was rapidly elided to Plum, the name by which Wodehouse became known to family and friends. Mother and son sailed for Hong Kong, where for his first two years Wodehouse was raised by a Chinese amah, alongside his elder brothers Peveril and Armine
6.
The Scotsman
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The Scotsman is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website published from Edinburgh. It was a broadsheet until 16 August 2004, the Scotsman Publications Ltd also issues the Edinburgh Evening News and the Herald & Post series of free newspapers in Edinburgh, Fife, and West Lothian. As of February 2016, it had a print circulation of 22,740, with a full-price paid-for circulation of 61. 6% of this figure. Scotsman. com websites, including the site, job site, property site, mobile site. The paper was pledged to impartiality, firmness and independence, after the abolition of newspaper stamp tax in Scotland in 1850, The Scotsman was relaunched as a daily newspaper priced at 1d and a circulation of 6,000 copies. Their premises were originally at 257 High Street on the Royal Mile, in 1860 they obtained a purpose built office on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh designed in the Scots baronial style by the architects Peddie & Kinnear. This backed onto their original offices on the Royal Mile, the building bears the initials JR for John Ritchie the founder of the company. In 1902 they moved to new offices at the top of the street, facing onto North Bridge. This huge building had three years to build and also had connected printworks on Market Street. The printworks connected below road level direct to Waverley Station in an efficient production line. In 1953 the newspaper was bought by Canadian millionaire Roy Thomson who was in the process of building a media group. The paper was bought in 1995 by David and Frederick Barclay for £85 million, the daily was awarded by the Society for News Design the World’s Best Designed Newspaper™ for 1994. Ian Stewart has been the editor since June 2012, after a reshuffle of senior management in April 2012 during which John McLellan who was the papers editor-in-chief was dismissed, ian Stewart was previously editor of Edinburgh Evening News and remains as the editor of Scotland on Sunday. In 2012, The Scotsman was named Newspaper of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards, Johnston Press have downsized to refurbished premises at Orchard Brae House in Queensferry Road, Edinburgh, a move which was quoted as saving the group £1million per annum in rent. The newspaper backed a No vote in the referendum on Scottish independence and it has had live webcams and panoramas around Scotland. It also has sections for other Scotsman Publications including Scotland on Sunday, List of newspapers in Scotland List of newspapers by date Merrill, John C. and Harold A. Fisher. The worlds great dailies, profiles of fifty newspapers pp 273–79 Official website The Scotsman Digital Archive 1817-1950 Johnston Press Comprehensive Design Architects
7.
West Ham United F.C.
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West Ham United Football Club is a professional football club based in Stratford, East London, England. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football, in 2016 the club re-located to the London Stadium. The club was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks and reformed in 1900 as West Ham United and they moved to the Boleyn Ground in 1904, which remained their home ground for more than a century. The team initially competed in the Southern League and Western League before joining the Football League in 1919 and they were promoted to the top flight in 1923, when they also losing finalists in the first FA Cup Final held at Wembley. In 1940, the won the inaugural Football League War Cup. West Ham have been winners of the FA Cup three times, in 1964,1975, and 1980, and have also been runners-up twice, in 1923, and 2006. The club have reached two major European finals, winning the European Cup Winners Cup in 1965 and finishing runners up in the competition in 1976. West Ham also won the Intertoto Cup in 1999 and they are one of eight clubs never to have fallen below the second tier of English football, spending 59 of 91 league seasons in the top flight, up to and including the 2016–17 season. The clubs highest league position to date came in 1985–86 when they achieved third place in the then First Division, three West Ham players were members of the 1966 World Cup final-winning England team, captain Bobby Moore and goalscorers Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. The club, Thames Ironworks were the first ever winners of the West Ham Charity Cup in 1895 contested by clubs in the West Ham locality and they turned professional in 1898 upon entering the Southern League Second Division, and were promoted to the First Division at the first attempt. The following year they came second from bottom, but had established themselves as a fully fledged competitive team and they comfortably fended off the challenge of local rivals Fulham in a relegation play-off, 5–1 in late April 1900 and retained their First Division status. In 1899, they acquired their now-traditional home kit combination of claret shirts and sky blue sleeves in a wager involving Aston Villa players, because of the original works team roots and links, they are still known as the Irons or the Hammers amongst fans and the media. West Ham Utd joined the Western League for the 1901 season while continuing to play in the Southern Division 1. In 1907, West Ham were crowned the Western League Division 1B Champions, the reborn club continued to play their games at the Memorial Grounds in Plaistow but moved to a pitch in the Upton Park area in the guise of the Boleyn Ground stadium in 1904. The Cup Final match itself ended 2–0 to Bolton, the team enjoyed mixed success in Division 1 but retained their status for ten years and reached the FA Cup semi-final in 1933. In 1932, the club was relegated to Division Two and long term custodian Syd King was sacked after serving the club in the role of manager for 32 years, following relegation, King had mental health problems. He appeared drunk at a meeting and soon after committed suicide. The club spent most of the next 30 years in division, first under Paynter
8.
The Guardian
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The Guardian is a British daily newspaper, known from 1821 until 1959 as the Manchester Guardian. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, the Scott Trust became a limited company in 2008, with a constitution to maintain the same protections for The Guardian. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than to the benefit of an owner or shareholders, the Guardian is edited by Katharine Viner, who succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. In 2016, The Guardians print edition had a daily circulation of roughly 162,000 copies in the country, behind The Daily Telegraph. The newspaper has an online UK edition as well as two international websites, Guardian Australia and Guardian US, the newspapers online edition was the fifth most widely read in the world in October 2014, with over 42.6 million readers. Its combined print and online editions reach nearly 9 million British readers, notable scoops include the 2011 News International phone hacking scandal, in particular the hacking of murdered English teenager Milly Dowlers phone. The investigation led to the closure of the UKs biggest selling Sunday newspaper, and one of the highest circulation newspapers in the world, in 2016, it led the investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing the then British Prime Minister David Camerons links to offshore bank accounts. The Guardian has been named Newspaper of the Year four times at the annual British Press Awards, the paper is still occasionally referred to by its nickname of The Grauniad, given originally for the purported frequency of its typographical errors. The Manchester Guardian was founded in Manchester in 1821 by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor with backing from the Little Circle and they launched their paper after the police closure of the more radical Manchester Observer, a paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo Massacre protesters. They do not toil, neither do they spin, but they better than those that do. When the government closed down the Manchester Observer, the champions had the upper hand. The influential journalist Jeremiah Garnett joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper, the prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty. Warmly advocate the cause of Reform, endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and. Support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, in 1825 the paper merged with the British Volunteer and was known as The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer until 1828. The working-class Manchester and Salford Advertiser called the Manchester Guardian the foul prostitute, the Manchester Guardian was generally hostile to labours claims. The Manchester Guardian dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators –, if an accommodation can be effected, the occupation of the agents of the Union is gone. CP Scott made the newspaper nationally recognised and he was editor for 57 years from 1872, and became its owner when he bought the paper from the estate of Taylors son in 1907. Under Scott, the moderate editorial line became more radical, supporting William Gladstone when the Liberals split in 1886
9.
Scottish independence referendum, 2014
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A referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom took place on 18 September 2014. The referendum question, which answered with Yes or No, was Should Scotland be an independent country. The No side won, with 2,001,926 voting against independence and 1,617,989 voting in favour, the turnout of 84. 6% was the highest recorded for an election or referendum in the United Kingdom since the introduction of universal suffrage. To pass, the proposal required a simple majority. With some exceptions, all European Union or Commonwealth citizens resident in Scotland aged 16 or over could vote and this was the first time that the electoral franchise was extended to include 16 and 17 year olds in Scotland. Yes Scotland was the campaign group for independence, while Better Together was the main campaign group in favour of maintaining the union. Many other campaign groups, political parties, businesses, newspapers, prominent issues raised during the referendum included which currency an independent Scotland would use, public expenditure, EU membership, and North Sea oil. The Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England were established as independent countries during the Middle Ages, after fighting a series of wars during the 14th century, the two monarchies entered a personal union in 1603 when James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. The two nations were temporarily united under one government when Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Protector of a Commonwealth in 1653, Great Britain in turn united with the Kingdom of Ireland in 1801, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of Ireland left the Union in 1922 to form the Irish Free State, consequently, the Labour Party was committed to home rule for Scotland in the 1920s, but it slipped down its agenda in the following years. The Scottish National Party was formed in 1934, but did not achieve significant electoral success until the 1960s, a document calling for home rule, the Scottish Covenant, was signed by 2 million people in the late 1940s. Home rule, now known as Scottish devolution, did not become a serious proposal until the late 1970s as the Labour government of James Callaghan came under pressure from the SNP. A proposal for a devolved Scottish Assembly was put to a referendum in 1979, a narrow majority of votes were cast in favour of change, but this had no effect due to a requirement that the number voting Yes had to exceed 40% of the total electorate. No further constitutional reform was proposed until Labour returned to power in 1997, clear majorities expressed support for both a devolved Scottish Parliament and that Parliament having the power to vary the basic rate of income tax. The Scotland Act 1998 established the new Scottish Parliament, first elected on 6 May 1999, a commitment to hold a referendum in 2010 was part of the SNPs election manifesto when it contested the 2007 Scottish Parliament election. As a result of election, the SNP became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament and formed a minority government led by the First Minister. The SNP administration launched a National Conversation as an exercise in August 2007, part of which included a draft referendum bill. After this, a paper for the proposed Referendum Bill was published
10.
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
11.
Ian Fleming
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Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer who is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva and his wartime service and his career as a journalist provided much of the background, detail and depth of the James Bond novels. Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952 and it was a success, with three print runs being commissioned to cope with the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two short-story collections followed between 1953 and 1966, the novels revolved around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond was also known by his number,007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. The Bond stories rank among the series of fictional books of all time. Fleming also wrote the childrens story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction, in 2008, The Times ranked Fleming 14th on its list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Fleming was married to Ann Charteris, who was divorced from the second Viscount Rothermere owing to her affair with the author, Fleming and Charteris had a son, Caspar. Fleming was a smoker and drinker for most of his life. Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously, other writers have since produced Bond novels, Flemings creation has appeared in film twenty-six times, portrayed by seven actors. Ian Fleming was born on 28 May 1908, at 27 Green Street in the wealthy London district of Mayfair and his mother was Evelyn St Croix Rose, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910. As an infant he lived, with his family, at Braziers Park in Oxfordshire. Fleming was the grandson of the Scottish financier Robert Fleming, who founded the Scottish American Investment Trust, in 1914, with the start of the First World War, Valentine joined C Squadron, Queens Own Oxfordshire Hussars, and rose to the rank of major. He was killed by German shelling on the Western Front on 20 May 1917, because the family owned an estate at Arnisdale, Valentines death was commemorated on the Glenelg War Memorial. Flemings elder brother Peter became a writer and married actress Celia Johnson. Fleming also had two brothers, Michael and Richard, and a younger maternal half-sister born out of wedlock, cellist Amaryllis Fleming. Amaryllis was conceived during an affair between John and Evelyn that started in 1923, some six years after the death of Valentine
12.
Bleak House
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Bleak House is one of Charles Dickenss major novels, first published as a serial between March 1852 and September 1853. The novel has characters and several sub-plots, and the story is told partly by the novels heroine, Esther Summerson. At the centre of Bleak House is the legal case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Though the legal profession criticised Dickenss satire as exaggerated, this novel helped support a reform movement. There is some debate among scholars as to when Bleak House is set, the English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth sets the action in 1827, however, reference to preparation for the building of a railway in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s. Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife Lady Honoria live on his estate at Chesney Wold, unknown to Sir Leicester, Lady Dedlock had a lover, Captain Hawdon, before she married – and had a daughter by him. Lady Dedlock believes her daughter is dead, the daughter, Esther, is in fact alive, and being raised by Miss Barbary, Lady Dedlocks sister. Esther does not know Miss Barbary is her aunt, after Miss Barbary dies, John Jarndyce becomes Esthers guardian and assigns the Chancery lawyer Conversation Kenge to take charge of her future. After attending school for six years, Esther moves in with him at Bleak House, Jarndyce simultaneously assumes custody of two other wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare. They are beneficiaries in one of the wills at issue in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, their guardian is a beneficiary under another will, and the two wills conflict. Richard and Ada soon fall in love, but though Mr Jarndyce does not oppose the match, Richard first tries a career in medicine, and Esther meets Allan Woodcourt, a physician, at the house of Richards tutor. When Richard mentions the prospect of gaining from the resolution of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, meanwhile, Lady Dedlock is also a beneficiary under one of the wills. Early in the book, while listening to the reading of an affidavit by the solicitor, Mr Tulkinghorn. The sight affects her so much she almost faints, which Tulkinghorn notices and investigates and he traces the copyist, a pauper known only as Nemo, in London. Lady Dedlock is also investigating, disguised as her maid, Mademoiselle Hortense and she pays Jo to take her to Nemos grave. Meanwhile, Tulkinghorn is concerned Lady Dedlocks secret could threaten the interests of Sir Leicester and he also enlists Inspector Bucket to run Jo out of town, so that there are no loose ends that might connect Nemo to the Dedlocks. Esther sees Lady Dedlock at church and talks with her later at Chesney Wold – though neither woman recognises their connection, later, Lady Dedlock does discover that Esther is her child. However Esther has become sick after nursing the homeless boy Jo, Lady Dedlock waits until she has recovered before telling her the truth
