Argentina will take Falklands claim to the UN Cristina Kirchner warns of 'grave risks to international security' and states intention to prevent war over natural resources. (Argentina) has mobilised much of South America and the Caribbean in a diplomatic and commercial squeeze. Ships flying the Falklands flag are barred from the region's ports, depriving the islands of bananas and other fresh fruit. [more inside]
posted by KokuRyu
on Feb 7, 2012 -
121 comments
India tells Britain: We don't want your aid According to a leaked memo, the foreign minister, Nirupama Rao, proposed “not to avail [of] any further DFID [British] assistance with effect from 1st April 2011,” because of the “negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted by DFID”. But officials at DFID, Britain’s Department for International Development, told the Indians that cancelling the programme would cause “grave political embarrassment” to Britain, according to sources in Delhi. Further embarressment ensues.
Emma Boon, campaign director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is incredible that ministers have defended the aid we send to India, insisting it is vital, when now we learn that even the Indian government doesn’t want it.”
posted by infini
on Feb 5, 2012 -
34 comments
The Reel History of Britain, a BFI/BBC co-production, brings archive film into the nation’s living rooms. The footage shown in the series has been selected from the hundreds of thousands of films and programmes preserved in Britain’s film and television archives. We are complementing the series by making many of the films featured in The Reel History of Britain available online in their entirety, alongside expert commentary from the nation’s archive curators.
posted by Trurl
on Oct 17, 2011 -
4 comments
Although the
sculptor Hiram Powers (1805-73) enjoyed considerable success with his
portraits and more
allegorical works, he is now almost entirely remembered for one of nineteenth-century America's most hotly-debated sculptures:
The Greek Slave. Powers was a
little vague about the inspiration for the statue--longstanding dream, or response to the Greek War of Independence (see
previously)? Understood
at the time as a major leap forward in establishing America as a serious force in the art world, the statue was an international hit (appearing at the
Great Exhibition of 1851), and was
endlessly copied and
daguerrotyped. (Some of the copies turn the statue into a much more ambiguous
bust, or
hark back to one of its major influences, the
Venus de Milo.) However, some observers, including
Elizabeth Barrett Browning and,
much more pointedly, the illustrator and caricaturist
John Tenniel, suggested that an American sculptor might wish to think about
other slaves.
posted by thomas j wise
on Aug 17, 2011 -
9 comments
"
Using pejorative terms like "handouts" and "doling out", some parts of the media are mounting a campaign to suggest Britain should be embarrassed by our level of aid giving. But the idea that aid is generous is absurd. Some families, inspired by religious tradition, think it is appropriate to give 10% of what they have to charity, £10 in every £100 of earnings. In 2010, the UK gave not £10, not £1, but 56p ($0.91) in overseas aid for every £100 ($163) we earned as a country. On average, since 1990 we have given even less, 35p ($0.57)." [
Giving aid to poor countries is hardly a great act of generosity]
[more inside]
posted by vidur
on Jun 14, 2011 -
59 comments
Coalition health reforms will spell the end for the NHS and lead to U.S. style system, claim researchers. 'Prof Allyson Pollock, from the Barts and The London School of Medicine, and David Price, senior research fellow at its Centre for Health Sciences, write in a paper published on BMJ.com that the legislation “amounts to the abolition of the English NHS as a universal, comprehensive, publicly accountable, tax funded service, free at the point of delivery”. They say the Government “has repealed the health secretary’s duty to provide or secure the provision of comprehensive care” in order to create a commercial market in care. Instead, under the new system the state "finances but does not provide healthcare", in “equivalent to Medicare and Medicaid schemes in the US”'. Meanwhile, Dr Kim Price, claims '
the UK coalition government's planned NHS and welfare reforms, and their use of 'nudge' theory, hark back to ideas on welfare and recession from the end of the nineteenth century, according to studies by a University of Leicester historian whose research paper has recently been published in the Lancet'.
[more inside]
posted by VikingSword
on Mar 23, 2011 -
33 comments
The snowpocalypse has hit Britain, again, and you've still not bought a snow shovel. Naturally, all the shops have sold out and have no idea when they'll get more. Let the Internet help you by
sending you a reminder for next year...
posted by mr_silver
on Dec 23, 2010 -
58 comments
Robert F. Gallagher served in the United States Army's 815th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion (Third Army) in the European Theater during WWII. He has posted his memoir online:
"Scratch One Messerschmitt," told from numerous photos he took during the war and the detailed notes he made shortly afterwards.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 23, 2010 -
7 comments
The Curfew "is an adventure web-game created by Littleloud, published by
Channel 4 and written by acclaimed comic book author,
Kieron Gillen. Set in 2027 in the heart of an authoritarian security state, The Curfew could be described as a miniature Canterbury Tales set in a not-so-distant future, where citizens must abide by government security measures and 'sub citizens' are placed under curfew at night. The player must navigate this complex political world and engage with the characters they meet along the way to work out who they should trust in order to gain freedom.
Choose wisely and you could change the course of history. Choose poorly, and it'll be changed for you."
posted by catchingsignals
on Aug 6, 2010 -
55 comments
London Lives 12 London archives – digitised, marked up and tagged – to "create a comprehensive electronic edition of primary sources on criminal justice and the provision of poor relief and medical care in eighteenth-century London".
The
Lives page is a good place to start browsing.
[related]
posted by unliteral
on Jun 8, 2010 -
8 comments
The Martians And Us a BBC documentary series on the history of British science fiction.
Part 1 - 'From Apes To Aliens' (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
Part 2 - 'Trouble In Paradise' (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
Part 3 - The End Of The World As We Know It (
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6)
[more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on Jun 7, 2010 -
7 comments
Educational gamesmaker Preloaded has recently made two strategy games for English TV station Channel 4.
1066 is a mix of tactics, insult-typing, bowmanship, rhythm-game and narration by Ian Holm.
Trafalgar Origins is all Napoleonic high seas derringdo all the time, as you sail your English ship in real time against the damnable French and Spanish. Whether you want to hoist the sails or call your opponent a stench weasel, they are fun little games which have the added bonus of teaching you about British history. Both games can be played solo or multiplayer.
[via Rock Paper Shotgun, where they like those games quite a lot]
posted by Kattullus
on May 5, 2010 -
14 comments
The Benedict Condom: The British Government has apologised to the Pope over official documents that mocked his forthcoming visit to the UK by suggesting he should bless a gay marriage and even launch Papal-branded condoms.
[more inside]
posted by aqsakal
on Apr 25, 2010 -
59 comments
In 1937, the London News Chronicle published a photograph of five boys at the gates of Lord's cricket ground; two stood aloof in top hats and tails, with their backs to a group of three working-class lads. The resulting photograph became famous as a metaphor for the class divide in Britain, appearing in newspaper stories about school reform, inequality and bourgeois guilt and on the
covers of books. The photograph appeared in the Getty Images archive as "
Toffs and Toughs", and even was printed on a jigsaw puzzle in 2004. The identities of the three working-class boys were unknown until a journalist tracked them down in 1998;
here is an article on the history of the photograph and the lives of the five boys in it.
posted by acb
on Mar 23, 2010 -
36 comments
