Books  Let's formalise things.  Since it looks like my latest mad project is going to be looking at all the extant First Folios either in person or on a screen, find after the fold a complete list of all the First Folios in existence as per Eric Rasmussen and Anthony James West's The Shakespeare First Folios: A Descriptive Catalogue.  Their version offers a bit more geographical detail but this list has been simplified for ease of use.  After each location you'll see that they're marked depending on whether the linked blog post talks about a Folio I've seen in the real wo ..read more

  Books  Twelve Books That Changed The World (2006) is a book and four part ITV documentary series in which Melvyn Bragg highlights a series of British volumes which he thinks, have had the most profound effect on humanity.  There are the obvious choices: On The Origin of Species, The King James Bible, Principia Mathematica and the Magna Carta.  The more specific choices: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Married Love, On the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Experimental Researches in Electricity and The Wealth of Nations.  The probably aimed at the channel's cor ..read more

By 1995, I'd moved within walking distance of numerous cinemas in Leeds, particular the Hyde Park Picture House and was also spending a lot of time at friend's house especially in that second year because I didn't get on very well with my own housemates.  The upshot of that was not watching a lot of television while at university in those years at least not live.  During Pride & Prejudice's initial broadcast, I vividly remember my much nicer third year housemates gathering together in one of the ground floor rooms to watch the latest episode, while I was on the way out of the h ..read more

History  Tonny & Annie Calderwood lived in North Haven, Maine.  They were farmers in Indian Point and their diaries have been transcribed and uploaded by a local historical society.  This is a useful demonstration of how life continues during momentous events but also the information which was being disseminated to the general populace at the time: Nov. 22, Friday  Tonny: Has been a nice mild short sleeve day but turned into a very sad one.  Word came on radio about 2:00 P.M. that President Kennedy had been fatally shot while riding through the streets of Dallas ..read more

One of the benefits of a less stringent posting schedule for this strand of the blog has been that I've scooped up some of the coverage of the Radio 5 Live launch now that its thirtieth anniversary has passed.  Along with Radio 4, it's been my default radio station for decades, less for the newsier elements and more for things like Danny Baker phone-ins, Kermode and Mayo's film reviews and the multinational multi-events when I haven't been next to a television.   I still prefer to listen to their Wimbledon coverage instead of television, especially in the first week as it whis ..read more

On Thursday 8th April 1993 viewers to BBC Breakfast were greeted with the news that the accompaniment to their morning routine would be a receiving a new look after the Easter weekend.  Following a brief (slightly arch) history of the programme from the Bough years through to the current Dando/Witchell period, it was revealed that the show would be joining the rebrand of the BBC's news service in which all of the daily bulletins, including the one, the six and the nine would share the same new "virtual studio" and opening featuring a giant "glass" effigy of the BBC's coat of arms upfron ..read more

TV  There we have it.  Until about an hour ago, the co-production deal with Disney+ in the making of Doctor Who seemed to be all upside.  Larger budgets, a series every year for at least another four years and the possibility of it finally becoming a global franchise which is famous enough to have its own proper Lego that isn't just adding a fan-made mini-figure to the pirate set (or whatever).  There even seemed to be some agreement on the scheduling with the past four episodes premiering globally at the whims of the BBC One scheduling.  Well, it couldn't last. D ..read more

Even though large parts of my school life have disappeared from my memory due to trauma or age or both, there is one image that remains vivid. The internet tells me it happened in early January 1991: sitting in the form room before registration and assembly, listening to coverage of the Gulf War on a radio that another boy had brought in for the purpose. This was unusual. The school had strict rules about what could and couldn't happen in classrooms. Having a radio blasting out, even the news, was very much frowned upon. (Although having half the class taunt one of its pupils to the point ..read more

Obituaries  There are only a few figures in life that have been as important to be as film theorist and historian David Bordwell, who left us on the 1st March.  I really began taking film serious in the mid-90s, but it wasn't until the mid-00s when I was exposed to his work through my MA course that I really understood how films were structured, how they worked as an art form.  Unlike other writers, he and his wife Kristen Thompson had the ability to make even the most esoteric concepts accessible and if you're at all interested in film, I'd point you towards any edition of Film ..read more

Books  The cornerstone of BBC Books's 60th anniversary efforts, Whotopia is part of the legacy of Doctor Who reference books taking the effort right up to The Power of the Doctor, on this occasion resolutely sticking to the fiction rather than production.  Perhaps sensing that having a printed book containing this information is a bit old fashioned when WOTAN's successor is out there (not to mention every episode on the iPlayer), the authors, Jonathan Morris, Simon Guerrier and Una McCormack's twist is to have many of the mentioned individuals provide first person testimony for them ..read more