Category: Video Wednesday

VIDEO WEDNESDAY: ALAN RICKMAN

A LITTLE CHAOS
A romantic drama following Sabine (Academy Award winner Kate Winslet), a strong-willed and talented landscape designer, who is chosen to build one of the main gardens at King Louis XIV’s new palace at Versailles. In her new position of power, she challenges gender and class barriers while also becoming professionally and romantically entangled with the court’s renowned landscape artist André Le Notre (Matthias Schoenaerts)
Click here to watch an interview with star and director of A Little Chaos Alan Rickman
and
A PROMISE
Germany 1912, a freshly graduated engineer with modest origins, Friedrich Zeitz, becomes the right hand of ageing tycoon Karl Hoffmeister. When Hoffmeister’s degrading health condition starts to confine him permanently to his house, Friedrich has to visit him at home to get briefed. Thus Friedrich makes the acquaintance of Hoffmeister’s younger wife Charlotte, a beautiful and reserved woman in her early 30s. He immediately becomes enamored with her and struggles with his growing unrequited feelings for her, not realizing they are reciprocated. Just as they disclose their mutual attraction towards one another, Friedrich has to leave the country to represent Hoffmeister overseas. The outbreak of World War I keeps him away from Germany for a long time. Only after the end of the war and many years of separation are Friedrich and Charlotte able to reunite.
and finally . . . . . . 

Watch an Alan Rickman-off with Benedict Cumberbatch 

and Jimmy Fallon – click here

VIDEO WEDNESDAY: HISTORY COLD CASE

Aired on BBC Two, History Cold Case is a series that sees the skeletons of everyday people from across the ages analysed in staggering detail, opening new windows on the history of our forebears by literally revealing the person behind the skeleton.

This is a fabulous series, with each episode bringing the daily lives, times and history surrounding each skeleton to life. Wonderful for history lovers and medical enthusiasts. Many thanks to Jo Manning for bringing this to our attention!

 You’ll find the link to the full playlist here.

More about the series:

The fascinating work of world-renowned Professor Sue Black OBE and her team at the Center for Human Anatomy and Identification at the University of Dundee comes under the spotlight as the team works on answering three big questions from the skeleton.
Who were they? Why did they die? What does their life story tell us that we didn’t know before? Using the full arsenal of modern forensic anthropology, remarkable stories emerge from long forgotten bones, along with the faces of people who haven’t been seen for hundreds of years.
Ipswich Man. An apparently African skeleton, unearthed near a medieval English monastery, pushes Professor Sue Black’s forensics team to its limits.
Mummified Child. This time the team heads back into a dark corner of the 19th century, to a time when corpses were turned into trophies and children were sold by the inch.
Stirling Man. Mysterious skeleton discovered by accident in a series of forgotten rooms in Scotland’s Stirling Castle.
Crossbones Girl. A skeleton unearthed in an archaeological dig in the historic borough of Southwark in London sparks a new cold case when it is found to be covered with disfiguring scars.
The Skeletons of Windy Pits. For decades experts have remained baffled by a jumble of human bones discovered in a unique series of caves on the North York Moors, known as the Windypits.
The York 113. In 2008, construction workers just beyond York’s city walls uncovered 113 bodies in a mass grave.
The Bodies in the Well. When the remains of 17 people – men, women and 11 children, one as young as two years old – were discovered in a dry well shaft in Norwich city centre, the local community were keen for answers about who these people were and what happened to them.
The Woman and Three Babies. In the sleepy commuter town of Baldock in Hertfordshire the History Cold Case team is called in to investigate the discovery of a skeleton dating from around 100AD, buried in a bizarre position, along with the remains of three babies.

VIDEO WEDNESDAY – CHRISTMAS IN ENGLAND


Having spent a few Christmas’s in England, I can assure you that there’s no where else I’d rather be just now. Since that’s impossible (sigh) we’re bringing you some yuletide videos that we hope will warm the cockles of your hearts. **


Seasonal activities in London

How to flame a Christmas pudding

2010 Victorian Christmas Festival in Portsmouth

Flashmob of British Army musicians surprises Christmas shoppers in Gateshead’s Metrocentre

John Lewis Christmas advert 2014

Sainsbury Christmas 2014 advert remembering soldiers in 1914 – must see!

Victorian Christmas – make your own Christmas cards

How to make a Victorian Christmas pudding 

** Definition from www.smh.com.au – One of the meanings of “cockle” is the chamber of a kiln: in reference to the heart, it refers to the chambers, of which there are four (two atria and two ventricles). The heart has always been associated with emotions, especially love, excitement and fear, probably because when we feel a strong emotion we feel our heart thumping and beating faster. So when something “warms the cockles of our heart”, it is a reference to something pleasant that makes our heart beat faster and makes us feel good. It is probably also the origin of the saying that something gives us that “warm and fuzzy feeling.”