British Portrait Miniatures at the V & A. 'These pages developed to compliment the Miniatures Gallery tell the story of the portrait miniature in Britain, from its first appearance in the 1520s, at the court of Henry VIII, to the height of its popularity in the early 19th century.'
posted by plep
on Mar 2, 2005 -
5 comments
AppreciationFilter: Edwyn Collins --Scottish Britpop Master--from Nu-Sonic as a teen in the 70s, Orange Juice ("Rip It Up") in the early 80s, to "A Girl Like You" and "Magic Piper," and still
going strong decades later. He even created a British sitcom, West Heath Yard, and now supports up and coming bands. Even if you've never heard of him, you've heard at least one of his songs, whether in Austin Powers or elsewhere.
More history here, from his old site. (and you can hear 18 streaming songs of his on the main link, above.)
Edwyn is now
in the hospital after suffering a serious brain hemorrhage.
posted by amberglow
on Feb 26, 2005 -
13 comments
Canada, a 13+ link whistlestop glance at something from all the provinces and territories...
Alberta,
British Columbia,
Manitoba,
New Brunswick,
Newfoundland,
NWT,
Nova Scotia,
Nunavut,
Ontario,
PEI,
Quebec,
Saskatewan,
Yukon. Not to mention the talk about
Turks and
Caicos?
posted by edgeways
on Feb 15, 2005 -
28 comments
Naïve in Thailand: The misadventures of an unprepared 43-year-old Brit who drops everything to try and help with tsunami rebuilding. Pet peeve? "The only real irritation has been the American Christian volunteers."
posted by NortonDC
on Jan 16, 2005 -
88 comments
Top 100 British...Intellectuals? Rock bands, schmock bands. Who are currently the cream of British Intelligentsia? Prospect
names 100 of (supposedly) the UK's finest and asks you to vote for your top 5, plus a write-in. The list is discussed further
here. Some entrants may make you
wonder, some may make you
gasp, most you just won't have a clue about!
posted by biffa
on Jul 1, 2004 -
22 comments
The recent post that revived the rude ‘
Rainbow’ kids show sketch reminded me of the our (that is, British) obsession with comic
double entendre - the ability to accept the filthiest things as long as there is a parallel innocuous interpretation. I think it is something to do our love for wordplay and subtext, our innate hypocrisy and the belief that sex is, in fact, rather naughty. Perhaps the prime example are the
Julian and Sandy sketches that ran on the BBC Radio show
‘Beyond Our Ken’ from 1964-69. Over Sunday lunch, millions (there was ONLY the BBC in those days) listened to two very camp characters saying outrageous things in
Polari (underground gay slang). A much earlier prime example is the
great dirty joke (it’s the one in blue at the bottom of the page) that got comedian Max Miller (died in 1963) banned from the BBC for 5 years. A more recent case of innuendo is, of course,
Mrs. Slocombe’s pussy. Of course the
double entendre can also be
unintentional.
posted by rolo
on Feb 27, 2004 -
8 comments
The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM to cognoscenti) one of the lesser known but most influential movements of the past quarter century. After the
innovators of Metal ran out of steam in the late 70's and were stampeded in the maelstrom of punk, heavy metal (and testosterone-soaked delindquents everywhere) found itself in a quandary). A number of UK acts took some cues from the punks, shortened the songs, reigned in the self-indulgence and speeded up the tempo, and upped the relevance and intelligence of the lyrical content, while still retaining the vocal prowess, instrumental pyrotechnics and young warrior energy that makes it Metal in the first place.
Some groups became world famous. Others only
big in Europe. Some great ones
missed stardom by just a
notch. Many of these acts have been cited as inspirations by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Napalm Death and the thrash/death metal hordes, and even many post-punks. An interesting summary for fans, and a good introduction for non-mans who may have to recalibrate their opinion of the genre after checking some of these bands out.
posted by jonmc
on Dec 17, 2003 -
17 comments
Kick A Brit In The Nuts: We've heard enough about anti-Americanism. What about anti-British feeling? Check out the
USian website. Is there still a lingering, post-colonial resentment in the U.S., Australia and South Africa? Why not, apparently, in Canada or New Zealand? Is it anti-
British, i.e. including the Scots and the Welsh, or just anti-
English? Finally, is
Usian the best collective noun for citizens of the U.S.A.? Will
American eventually become politically incorrect, even though no one calls a Canadian an American? Sorry about so many questions. Me confused European!
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Sep 16, 2003 -
64 comments
tibetan yak butter, reindeer hash, crocodile paté, and smoked cobra. All this and more at
edible.com.
posted by crunchland
on Sep 5, 2003 -
8 comments
Britain's Small Wars since 1945. India, Palestine, Malaya, Korea, Suez Canal Zone, Kenya, Cyprus, Suez 1956, Borneo, Vietnam, Aden, Radfan, Oman, Dhofar, etc. Iraq and
East Timor not featured, as yet.
posted by plep
on Aug 20, 2003 -
4 comments
Fix Up, Look Sharp With stateside hip hop in an unprecedented doldrum, the torch has been snatched up on this side of the Atlantic by 18-year-old Eastender Dizzee Rascal. He's recovering from a stabbing carried out rival fans of a rival garage collective in Ayia Napa, Cyprus. The attack took place a few days before being nominated for the Mercury Music prize.
Guaranteed not to be everybody's cup of tea, but he's an interesting character and challenging music make it, and his album, worth a look.
posted by hmgovt
on Jul 29, 2003 -
25 comments
Jerry Springer: The Opera? You know, whenever I happened to have this misfortune to watch Springer, I too thought "It's got tragedy. It's got violence. There are people screaming at each other and you can't understand what they're saying." but I didn't quite make the leap that
"It's perfect for opera."
But now on an operatic journey that takes us
the tv studio to hell, the
British National Theatre is realizing this vision.
To quote from the libretto: "This is a Jerry Springer moment!" sing the chorus. "We don't want this moment to end, so cover us in chocolate and throw us to the lesbians."
Skeptical? Read the
reviews!
posted by jearbear
on Apr 18, 2003 -
1 comment
Do Most Of You Yanks Really Understand What The Brits Here Are On About? Although the cultural mistranslations are probably more a question of tone and habits of irony and understatement, Jeremy Smith's online
American·British
British·American Dictionary, to be published next September, might be of some assistance. Although I still prefer Terry Gliedt's older but pithier
United Kingdom English For The American Novice and even Scotsman Chris Rae's
English-to-American Dictionary. Here's a little BBC
quiz to test your skills. It seems that
Canadians,
Australians and [
another cute quiz coming up!]
New Zealanders are the only Metafilterians to completely capture all the varieties of English usage here. Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that non-U.S. users know much, much less about England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand et caetera than vice-versa? Does anyone else get the occasional feeling we're not exactly speaking the same language here?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Apr 5, 2003 -
66 comments
The British Empire in Colour -- a three-part documentary series from the producers of the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award-winning
Britain at War in Colour will air this month. The series is supposed to include "a treasure-trove of early colour movies filmed before 'technicolour' transformed film making in the 1930s. Unique colour footage of the Edwardian splendour of 1906 British India, soldiers of the First World War and class divided Britain in 1926 as seen for the first time by a modern visually sophisticated audience."
Apparently, it also includes
Horrifying footage of last days of Raj.
posted by Bixby23
on Sep 2, 2002 -
17 comments
How To Say Yes (Or No) To British Food: Apart from the language barrier (ably demolished by
Mike Etherington's magnificent online
dictionary), British food has a
dreadful reputation all over the world. Yet people who try it, whatever their nationality, often find they enjoy it. If it's
properly made, that is. Enter
Helen Watson's impeccable and ethnically correct
recipes. And those who can't be bothered to cook can always plump for the many ready-made
goodies (and some real stinkers) now offered by internet mail order firms. The most promising has got to be, with over 2,500 goodies, the
FBC Brit Shop. Unfortunately it's based in Japan and will only start delivering in September. The best of the rest is probably yummy
British Delights. My mother's English so I'm obviously biased, but aren't a lot of people missing out on the unique gastronomic charms of the good old United K?
Oh yes![
FBC link pilfered from the Boing Boing larder.]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Aug 3, 2002 -
63 comments
Best British Blog. The Guardian has launched a competition to find the best British weblog. Is this another case of the mainstream media not really understanding what blogging is all about?
posted by crayfish
on Jul 18, 2002 -
18 comments
British papers seem to be the only place we can find out what goes on in the US these days. Probably has to do with the liberal media, wouldn't you say?
posted by nofundy
on Jun 18, 2002 -
36 comments
The brouhaha that erupted in Britain last month when it was learned that the prestigious Booker Prize might be opened to American writers by 2004, displays a British inferiority complex and underscores the remarkable persistence of preconceptions that Britain and the United States hold about each other. But it's about ideas and styles and even language being swapped and appropriated across the globe. It's about artists picking from a smorgasbord of techniques and influences to try to get a handle on an increasingly fragmented and cacophonous reality, and in doing so creating a new wave of writing that is richer for its multicultural mingling of styles and voices, its voracious mixing of the high and low, the cerebral and street-smart, the old and the new. Just like in MeFi.
posted by semmi
on Jun 14, 2002 -
17 comments
"British Liberty, RIP" A leader article on the danger represented by the British Government's new Statutory Order and the need for Parliamentarians to step in and resist. (The Order will allow a wide range of organisations access to phone and internet records - The Guardian's own story with details is
here.)
Ben Franklin has been quoted here many times before, but I have no hesitation quoting him again:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
posted by jonpollard
on Jun 11, 2002 -
10 comments
bring out your clips! a decent website where it is possible to get hold of some of the very best of british humour including a large dollop of monty python, not bad eh!
posted by johnnyboy
on Apr 5, 2002 -
5 comments
oh glorious rapture, vertu has launched. (flash) the phones (called "instruments" in vertu-speak) are okay, but the real meat seems to be the one-touch vertu concierge: allows one to find theatre tickets, make reservations, or (assumably) order KFC. and, as promised, they are indeed clutch-the-pearls expensive: €6000 to €24000. golly.
posted by patricking
on Mar 27, 2002 -
12 comments
Goliath lost. This and other pro-small billboards are popping up in downtown Atlanta. No doubt they have cousins (little ones, I'm sure) springing up in your cities. I couldn't believe my eyes, because the billboards seemed to be promoting the ever-so-British
Mini Cooper.
The Mini is... well... just like it says, the veritable opposite of the stereotypical American SUV. Yes, it is the type of car
Mr Bean would drive. But when you see them in their natural Anglo habitat, you can't help but notice they're just perfectly suited to zipping to and from wherever. The site lets you find a dealer, build your own Mini and save it for future reference. The catch is that you have to fill out an opt-in form, but with lines like this as part of your agreement, how could you resist?
"- I agree to chase squirrels around the park now and then and giggle like a madman while doing it."Yeah. I want one. But will the American public?
posted by grabbingsand
on Mar 14, 2002 -
77 comments
Bad Director! No biscuit! Apparently, the incredibly civilized British have found a way to rid themselves of stupid executives. Using the
Insolvency Act, executives can be banned from starting new businesses, or from "materially taking part" of an existing business, if they can be proven to have no idea how to run one ethically.
(As opposed to the American model, where
this bozo can lose 50 million dollars, and then get hired as an "visionary" executive at Yahoo, where he promptly directed the layoffs of the majority of technical staff.) My question becomes, how do we implement the "stupid manager law" here in the states...and if we did, would there be anyone left to run the RIAA?
posted by dejah420
on Jan 5, 2002 -
6 comments
Mercedes supercar to be built in Britain. God, that feels to good to read. Am I xenophobic, nationalistic or proud of the Euoropean Community on my doorstep? I'm not sure, but how can you hold a grudge against a country with
this?
posted by Frasermoo
on Oct 3, 2001 -
13 comments
