Showing posts with label Dickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dickens. Show all posts
Monday, September 14, 2026

The Joy of Six 1576

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Anna Sabine , Liberal Democrat MP for Frome and East Somerset, has discovered what happens when a politician loses her voice: "There’s ...
Thursday, September 10, 2026

David Alton, Andy Burnham and telescopic radicalism

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Embed from Getty Images It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon...
Thursday, September 03, 2026

Charles Masterman and Charles Dickens on 19th-century poverty

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Here's a book review that features my favourite writers on Victorian poverty – the two Charlies. That's Charles Masterman and Charle...
Sunday, August 30, 2026

Marjory Allen encounters the ban on child actors in British films

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Embed from Getty Images Returning to Marjory Allen's memoirs after my holiday, I've come across a passage that refers to it being i...
Friday, August 07, 2026

The Joy of Six 1558

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"Someone who attended a private school in London or the South East is 24 times more likely to become a permanent secretary than someone...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 29, 2026

An Ian Christie lecture about Gothic London on film

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This a terrific lecture by Ian Christie, whose writings did much to bring the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger back to promine...
Sunday, July 05, 2026

The Joy of Six 1543

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"In many cases, lack of coordination and administrative errors in the Home Office cause failed removals. Complications around booking f...
Sunday, June 14, 2026

Lord Bonkers: "Something less terrible than the truth"

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G.K. Chesterton was a brilliant literary critic and there's an observation of his on Dickens that I've quoted more than once in prin...
2 comments:
Tuesday, June 09, 2026

The Joy of Six 1530

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"The big red 'stop nudes' button is appealing because it’s a lot easier than investing in proper services to protect children a...
Tuesday, May 26, 2026

How David Lean's Oliver Twist broke the law

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Embed from Getty Images Here's a remarkable thing. Between 1933 and 1963, it was illegal in Britain for a child under 12 to appear in an...
Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Alexander McCall Smith on publishing novels in serial form

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Occasionally a writer will still publish a novel in instalments as the Victorians did . In the preface to his 44 Scotland Street, Alexander ...
Sunday, May 17, 2026

Dickens was never a slog for the Victorians: Are we reading him the wrong way?

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That Guardian list of the 100 best novels of all time has given the anti-Dickens tendency fresh legs. They tried him at school and hated h...
3 comments:
Tuesday, May 12, 2026

A Sense of Carol Reed (2006)

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A short documentary on the great British film director Carol Reed, focusing on his trilogy of great films of the late 1940s – Odd Man Out, T...
Saturday, May 02, 2026

The Joy of Six 1512

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Chris Dillow lays bare the stupidity of Westminster politics: "If your final shortlist for a job comprises Mandelson, George Osborne (...
Thursday, April 23, 2026

The rise and fall and (slight) rise of Lionel Bart

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By my calculation, this edition of The South Bank Show dates from 1994. As much of my politics come from reading Oliver Twist too young, an...
Tuesday, April 14, 2026

A BFI Q&A with members of the cast of Oliver! (1968)

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This session was recorded in 2012, three years before Ron Moody died. As well as Moody, who played Fagin in the 1968 film of Oliver!  having...
Saturday, April 11, 2026

The Joy of Six 1502

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"As need has grown and reform and resources have stalled, 1.9 million people in England alone provided a 'full-time' (defined a...
Thursday, March 26, 2026

The Joy of Six 1495

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Christopher M. Cruz says US Democrats have failed to offer a vision of a liberal education: "This is not just bad for Democrats, but b...
Saturday, February 07, 2026

The railway comes to Camden: Happy birthday Charles Dickens

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It's Charles Dickens' birthday. He was born on 7 February 1812 in Portsmouth – you can visit the house where he was born . To celebr...

The Joy of Six 1472

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"The fallout from the latest revelations has again put survivors secondary to the actions of powerful men. Mandelson, who maintained a ...
1 comment: