The first film version of the classic tale has been restored by the British Film Institute and was made 8 years after the birth of cinema. The original ran for 12 minutes and was the longest film produced in England at the time. Lots more on the story behind the restoration process on the BFI website.
1 free eBook is great, 2 is very generous, 10 is just stupendous but the perfect 10 is exactly what Mills and Boon are giving away currently. They’re doing it to celebrate a year of the steamy romances being available in eBook format. As if the eBook giveaway wasn’t enough, there is a monthly competition with a Sony Reader up for grabs too. Lash in your email address before the end of each month up to 31st December and you too could join the eBook reading revolution sweeping the globe. I’ve taken a look through all the titles on offer and have selected Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition as the book I will read from the collection. Here’s the teaser : Kidnapped and forced to take a pregnancy test! Sexy millionaire aristocrat Luke Devereaux showed up at Louisa’s office, frogmarched her to a doctor and demanded she took a pregnancy test! … There’s more
Fans of the hit US drama series Mad Men will love this website. Adviews is a digital archive of TV advertising from the 1950′s through to the 80′s. There are literally thousands of ads in the archive. They were created or collected by the ad agency Benton & Bowles or its successor, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B).It would be wonderful to see a digital archive of Irish adverts created along these lines too. In case you missed it first time round, you can still catch the excellent documentary Ireland’s Mad Men on RTE Player. It explores Ireland’s advertising industry from the 60′s to the 80′s and includes footage of popular ad campaigns of the time. Hurry though - it is only available on the web until Tuesday 29th September.
As previously flagged here on Culch.ie, Bob Dylan is releasing a Christmas Album for charity next month. A preview has just found its way onto YouTube. The full track listing is : Here Comes Santa Claus (Gene Autry, Oakley Haldeman) Do You Hear What I Hear? (Noel Regney, Gloria Shayne) Winter Wonderland (Richard B. Smith, Felix Bernard ) Hark The Herald Angels Sing (Traditional ) I’ll Be Home For Christmas (Walter Kent, Kim Gannon, Buck Ram) Little Drummer Boy (Katherine Davis, Henry V. Onorati, Harry Simeone) The Christmas Blues (David Jack Holt, Sammy Cahn) O’ Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles) (Traditional ) Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Ralph Blane, Hugh Martin ) Must Be Santa (Hal Moore, Bill Fredricks ) Silver Bells (Raymond B. Evans, Jay Livingston) The First Noel (Traditional) Christmas Island (Lyle Moraine) The Christmas Song (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells) O’ Little Town Of Bethlehem (Traditional) … There’s more
So, Tommy Tiernan is in hot water again over one of his outbursts/jokes/random mental thoughts. This time it’s the Jews. Irishcentral says he is facing a worldwide storm of protest over these comments : “But these Jews, these f**king Jews come up to me. F**king Christ killing bastards. F**king six million? I would have got 10 or 12 million out of that. No f**king problem. Two at a time they would have gone. Hold hands, get in there, leave us your teeth and your glasses.” Tiernan made them during a Q&A at Electric Picnic a few weeks ago and he prefaced the comments by saying that comedy was “about allowing whatever lunacy is inside you to come out in a special protected environment where people know that nothing they say is being taken seriously.” We get it Tommy. You’re an artiste - you must follow your muse, challenge perceptions, push … There’s more
Saturday’s Irish Daily Mail had a front page teaser reading ‘Exclusive : Meet the new apprentices”. Page 6 and 7 of the main newspaper had a large group photograph and a couple of paragraphs of text. The free ‘You’ magazine inside the paper had the real detail of all the candidates – or so I thought. The 6 page spread in the glossy magazine, had all the female candidates glammed up with a decent bio and mini interview with each one included. As you can see from the photo above, the 7 guys got a passport size shot with a the bare minimum of detail. This leads me to question if any of these women should even be in the competition. In my eyes, they have zero credibility for a €100,000 job in the world of business after signing up to become clothes horses for a photoshoot in a glossy mag. Or maybe I’m … There’s more
TED Talks hardly need an introduction. On the offchance that you haven’t heard of them before TED is annual conference where some of the world’s brightest thinkers and doers are challenged to give the talk of the lives in about 18 minutes. The talks are all available on the TED website and there is also a handy Google spreadsheet for easy reference. Since ‘Free on Friday’ is all about free stuff, I can’t recommend these TED talks highly enough. In the best X Factor tradition, they are in no particular order. I’ve just included 5 of my own personal favourites here and suggestions from culch_ie followers on Twitter. Sir Ken Robinson - School kills creativity Hugely entertaining and thought provoking. Sir Ken Robinson believes that creativity is as important as literacy. He makes a compelling case for changing the way we educate. Our future may depend on it. About 15 minutes into the talk, … There’s more
Coke Zero have a pretty nifty Facebook competition running at the moment. It’s all based around the theme of the impossible becoming possible. If you can think of an example that illustrates that theme, you are invited to upload the story, photograph or video clip to the Coke Zero Facebook page. It doesn’t have to be something from your own personal experiece. It could be a scene from a film, a photograph from a newspaper or maybe a passage from a book. Whatever it happens to be, share it on the Facebook page and you could soon become the proud owner of a shiny & sleek Macbook Pro. That’s the prize on offer for the winner of the competition which closes this Thursday, 17th September. Even if you don’t enter yourself, you can always vote for your friends entry which can’t do any harm when the judges come to decide … There’s more
What is it? A book by Irish author Michael Scott. What’s it about? Two teenagers who get dragged into a fantastic adventure involving magic, myth, monsters, legends and a book that has the power to destroy the human race if it gets into the wrong hands. Will I like it? If you like fantasy that takes ancient myth and spins it into a roller coasting page turner, you will most definitely like it. Although a children’s book, this is a thoroughly enjoyable thriller that adults will enjoy too. Where can I get it? Via the link on openculture to download the PDF version. What’s the catch? There’s none. This is Free on Friday. It’s Free (and since it’s from the publisher, totally legit). If there is a downside, it’s that when you finish the book you’ll be bursting to get the next one. It’s a trilogy you see. If anyone … There’s more
Really like the idea of the BBC’s effort to get people singing. Heard about it last night on BBC Radio 3 during the interval to the Messiah. Sing Hallelujah is a nationwide effort in the UK to encourage people to : find their voices and discover the joy of singing. We want to get thousands of people singing Handel’s famous Hallelujah Chorus as part of a nationwide celebration of one of the most popular choral pieces in the world. Gay Byrne organised a “Messiah For All” concert back in 1992 in the Point Theatre in aid of Goal and Concern. As far as I remember, anyone who was familiar with the piece was invited to come along and sing. Those singing were organised into voice sections, while the remaining space was for the general audience. Audience and singers alike were invited to join in on the the Hallelujah Chorus. It … There’s more
Been thinking about how my film viewing has changed over the last year or so. A recent article in the London Independent pretty much summed it up for me very well. Although I’m not in the “youth market” category mentioned in the article, I’m more likely to watch a film now while I’m commuting than I am to sit in front of the TV or go to the cinema. As one of the interviewees says : “I watch movies the way many people listen to music - anytime, anywhere, any way.” Even if I buy a DVD (or rent), I rarely watch it the regular way. I’m more likely to squeeze it down to size so it fits on my iPhone and view it on the way to/from work. I just see it as making better use of my time. Sitting on a couch in the evening watching a film … There’s more
Once upon a time in a leafy suburb, far far away, a child was born. He kicked and screamed his way into the world like any other child, but this child was different. His parents just knew instinctively he was destined for greatness. The legend goes that 2 minutes after his birth, he suddenly stopped crying. All gathered around the bed were astonished at this unusual behaviour. He seemed to be in some kind of rapture. It was as if the hand God had reached from the heavens to soothe his cries. It was only when one of the porters popped his head in the door and said “Oh Jaysis, I’m late for the Late Late Show”, that it dawned on everyone in the room. It was the music coming from the television in the corner that had stopped the baby crying. The suggestion of calling the child Gay entered … There’s more
Edit - I am lame - this was already covered on Friday. Apologies y’all. Take 20 YouTube videos of instruments all playing in Bb major with simple floating textures. Embed them all on one single page to make something really, really wonderful. That’s what inbflat.net is. Now I don’t feel guilty wasting time with YouTube. [h/t @justinparks via Twitter on Sunday morning last when everyone was still in bed]
The Colouring from Dan Britt on Vimeo. Doesn’t need a whole lot of explaining. It’s spooky…
A number of weeks ago I was watching one of the Rental Boys episodes on the RTE website. One of the characters in the particular episode had a scene with a customer where he talked about his favourite film, Requiem for a Dream. I’d never heard of it but put it on my list of films to watch. So, one evening I settled down to watch the film and found it to be an absolutely compelling story of 4 lives destroyed by drugs. I rate the film very highly but it’s not an easy film to watch. It’s a bit depressing and bleak. The character played by Ellen Burstyn (a 50 something mother of a similarly drug addicted son) was particularly heartbreaking to watch. As the credits rolled, it was getting late so I just switched off the TV and headed for bed. Although tired, I just couldn’t get to sleep. … There’s more
