Here’s a clip of Mike Freer, a Tory MP, in the House of Commons with a common sense, no nonsense defense of marriage equality. Americans should listen to Mr. Freer and contemplate his message. To me what it really all boils down to is “some in the church don’t like it, so we shouldn’t do it.” And I say to that, “Bloody bollocks!”
H/T Andrew Sullivan, on whose site I first saw this.
400 – 175 For Marriage Equality In Britain « The Dish.
February 5, 2013 in London, England. Image: The Dish.
Sullivan dishes on the House of Commons vote today on marriage equality and a few additional issues we could learn a thing or two about from his home country. I posted this on my Facebook page today and said, “It it passes the Lords, how does one immigrate?” Several friends chuckled, one suggested it would be closer to move to Iowa, but, well, no.
If I could swing it — need to work unless I win the lottery — I’d jump ship in a New York minute. Liverpool minute. Northumbrian minute. Whatever.
God Save the Queen.
Richard III. Image: Wikimedia Commons
A skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park has been confirmed as that of English king Richard III.Experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarchs family.Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley, from the University of Leicester, told a press conference to applause: “Beyond reasonable doubt its Richard.”
via BBC News – Richard III dig: DNA confirms bones are kings.
The link above from BBC News Leicester is chock-a-block with info about the dig, about the bones and about Richard, the last Plantagenet King of England.
Honestly, I don’t know much about him, just Shakespeare’s version. I saw Ian McKellen do it onstage in the 90s, then on film. Terrific. It’s a cracking good play.
I studied the early Plantagenets in college. Henry I and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, being particularly mesmerizing subjects. A great modern American play (and, like everything else, subsequently a film) about the first Plantagenets is The Lion in Winter. Henry is “the lion,” but the best lines are Eleanor’s. In fact, in history, Eleanor is one of the most fascinating women of the last millennia, I believe.
P.S. — Headline courtesy of an American friend of mine who lives in the U.K. I told her “Plantagenet Frenzy” sounded like a new bistro dish. Comes with crisps. Rotten old bones extra!
Are you familiar with RAW at all?
RAW is set in a restaurant of the same name in Dublin, Ireland and is broadcast on RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcaster – more or less – of Ireland). This clip is from the current series of six episodes now airing in Ireland.
The show is anchored by the truly astonishing Damon Gameau, an Aussie who plays bombastic and often egomaniacal head chef Geoff. In this clip, you see Geoff returning to RAW after a long absence and you see his lover, Pavel, dead in his arms in a brief flashback. Krystof Hadek gave an achingly beautiful portrayal of Pavel. He humanized Geoff and was a soft-spoken anchor for Geoff and the restaurant.
It’s the type of elegant, yet visceral, drama that is utterly lacking from American television. Especially network broadcast television.
Radcliffe has been the subject of gay rumors since catapulting to stardom after the “Harry Potter” series.
“The papers used to say I had a gay face, whatever that is, or a gay voice but it simply wasn’t true,” he told the Daily Express in March, according to Pink News. “[But] when you know a gay guy has a crush on you, it’s the most flattering thing.”
via Daniel Radcliffe Sounds Off On Why British Men ‘Seem Gay’.
I love him. He seems so damn, well, reasonable.
Every time I go to the U.K. I think, “Everyone’s so much more likable here than they are in the States.” HA! Probably completely not true, but I do feel more at home ‘across the pond’ in many ways, I must admit.
Did Shakespeare Have Syphilis? | PBS NewsHour.
A report from the NewsHour on possible illnesses of famous literary figures. There’s a new book out, natch. Whenever you think about the follies and foibles of modern medicine, think about this:
[John] Milton is known to have “dabbled in physic,” or taken popular medicines of the day in a failed attempt to save his eyesight. These may have included “mummy” (ground-up human bones or flesh), human sweat, cat-ointment, oil of puppies, and sugar of lead, the last of which may have led to Milton’s gout and kidney failure.
OIL OF PUPPIES???
Giant goat-cheese fire closes Norwegian roadway for six days | The Sideshow – Yahoo! News.
This is the best thing I’ve read all day!
Brunost, the highly flammable Norwegian cheese, is described as being a bit salty with a “surprisingly sweet flavor with a hint of goat about it.” Doesn’t seem terribly appetizing, I have to say! Image: Yahoo News via Wikimedia Commons.
There are about 30 dressing rooms at the National. Some hold up to five people, and a few accommodate just one. They are arranged around a 60-foot-square air shaft, five stories high, at the very center of the building’s sprawling complex. All of the dressing room windows face in on one another. Look out any window at the half-hour call, and you stare right into the windows of dozens of other actors, all readying themselves for one of the three shows they are about to perform.
That cut is from a great article John Lithgow wrote for the New York Times. I’ll link to it at the bottom after I tell you my story about the dressing rooms at London’s National Theatre. Caution: serious name-dropping ahead!!
John Lithgow in his dressing room in London at the National Theater. Photo: Dave Corio/New York Times
New Year’s Eve: 1997
Four friends of mine and I were in London for a mad week of theatre and touristy fun. One of my friends, an actor, was playing the dual role of Captain Hook/Mr. Darling in a production of Peter Pan in the States. We were going to see a production of the same adaptation in London at the National and the same role my friend was playing in the U.S. version was being assayed in London by Sir Ian McKellen.
And, as it happened, Sir Ian had a connection to the theatre where my friend was performing. On the flight over, my friend, let’s call him Steve, told me that his theatre had given him a press kit and wondered if I knew how we could get it to Sir Ian. (I was working as a theatrical press agent at the time — or as NPR’s Bob Mondello once referred to me in an article: “theatre flack Mark Blackmon.”)
I looked at the information; press kits being a particularly weird specialty of mine. I took out about half of the information and rearranged the rest of it. I handed it back to my friend.
“Do you want to meet Ian McKellen?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “How?”
“Leave that part to me,” I said. “But if I get you in, you’re taking me with you.”
A few days later — the afternoon of the 31st — we were taking a tour of the National. I made sure my friend had the press kit with him. During the tour, I made him give it to me and dove out of line. Then I did the thing that always works in the movies: I kept looking at my watch, looked harried and confused and walked up to a lobby attendant.
“I’m terribly late for a meeting,” I lied, prominently holding the folder as if it contained life-altering information. “Can you point me to the stage door?” He did and I thanked him profusely. (Seriously, I don’t know why I don’t have a Tony Award for Ballsiness!)
I ran outside, around the building, and to the prominently marked stage entrance. Once inside, I thanked the gods that the desk attendant was a little old lady. I was always better at chatting up grandmas than I was at chatting up cute boys, I’m sorry to say! I told her my story, she promised to leave the material in Sir Ian’s dressing room and told me to return after the show and she’d let us know if we could go back to meet him.
That night after the show, Steve and I left our group as soon as curtain call began and ran around to the stage door. Oh, Ian would be delighted to meet us, I was told, just as soon as he dressed. An interminable 10 minutes later, someone came up and escorted us through the rabbit’s warren that is backstage at the National to Sir Ian McKellen’s dressing room.
I’ve met a lot of famous and near-famous folks over the years, but Ian remains in my Top 5 all-time nicest list. We spent about an hour backstage with him. He cracked open a bottle of wine, which the three of us consumed. He and Steve traded Peter Pan stories and Steve tried on Ian’s hook. Ian kept glancing out of the window — just as Lithgow described it — and finally apologized, telling us that it looked like an elderly actor was waiting to meet him in someone else’s dressing room. “I was secretly hoping he expired during the performance,” he said wryly.
We were shown the door and we giddily walked back up the Thames, crossed Waterloo Bridge and caught the Tube back to our hotel, arriving just in time to grab something overpriced from the mini-bar to toast the New Year and recount our adventures to the rest of our group.
Since that time, Sir Ian has starred in some of the biggest blockbuster motion pictures of all time. Often, when someone begins a conversation about Gandalf or Magneto, I’ll ask the question, “Have I ever told you about spending New Year’s Eve in Ian McKellen’s dressing room?”
UPDATE: 10/17/2013 – Just FYI, missfinlandia88’s original YouTube account was deleted on copyright violation grounds and is currently offline. You should know that missfinlandia88 DID have permission from Freemantle, the soap’s distributor to post the content. Like most annoying things, it may have been some anti-gay person or group who instigated the copyright “violation.” Meanwhile, they are working to get the original site back up. You can view new segments if you search “Elias Story” on YouTube. Those results uploaded by “Elias Story” are actually from missfinlandia88. Good luck and happy Finnish viewing!
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YouTube user missfinlandia88 has been uploading the storyline of Elias and Lari from the Finnish sudser Salatut Elämät for a good while now — and it has caught on with English speakers from around the world thanks to missfinlandia88’s captioning of the episodes. In the first video below, she explains how the Finnish media have picked up on the story.
I’ve watched some of this and I don’t think it’s half-bad. The writing and storylining are a little stilted at times, but the actors really give it their all. According to the translation of the article, above, the show’s production company feel that this type of content distribution can only enhance the show. More folks should get on board with this type of thinking, I believe.
Petteri Paavola (left) is out teen Elias and Ronny Roslöf is closeted hockey player Lari in the Finnish series Salatut Elämät.
Here’s a clip of the Elias and Lari storyline. For the record, I can’t begin to pronounce the title of the show in Finnish. I just call it “Lots of Umlauts!” Enjoy.
In Britain, the all-male culture of college sports is not quite the mass religion it is in the US, but it sure is a force that has historically been hostile to homosexuals in their midst. But here we have the new order: a Warwick University rowing club doing a naked calendar and video to benefit straight rugby player Ben Cohen’s campaign against anti-gay fear and bullying. I simply cannot begin to imagine such a thng happening when I was a student at Oxford.
via In The Buff Against Bullying – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.
Lovely little piece by Sullivan and a great short video. Good on ya, hunky, sporty, English rowy lads!
One Last Word 