That's it! Pen's down! There will be no recount - even if you might have seen a rather shifty looking woman passing me a fat brown envelope down a dark alley. By the magic of maths we've tallied up the votes, and the winners (or losers - depending on their viewpoint), and those who will be giving a talk as part of their prize are as follows:
Miriam Cady - "Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not an escalator!": Trekkies and thier use of material culture in the negotiation of their identities
Ann Stones - Estate Mentalities: New Parks v Braunstone, home or away?
Maureen Harris - The 'debauched and scandalous' parson and the 'wit-already-expired rogue': cutting the Anglican minister down to size in the Warwickshire parish, 1660-1720
Congratulations everyone - now get practising!
P.S. I'm not bitter that I came last. Not bitter at all. Oh no.
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Leicester on Film -the Newsreel
Thanks to all those who braved the snow and came to see ‘Leicester on Film’ last week! We received such a good response that we’re hoping to make film nights a regular event... Any suggestions for thought provoking films gratefully received.
As promised on the night, Julie Ives (my research partner in crime at the MACE ) and I have put together a newsreel with material from the ITV regional television news collection. We’ve given it the title ‘Leicester: City of Innovation’ to capture how the regional news teams attempted to injected newsworthiness into local events...click on the links below to see the (dubious) results!
Leicester Hosiery Exhibition 30.03.1962
Policemen wearing helmets with flashing lights 17.01.1966
Opening of Radio Leicester 08.11.1967
New Car Park for Small Cars 22.11.1971
Miss World visits Leicester 08.03.1979
The ITV regional news collection consists of filmed inserts made for the daily news programmes, first broadcast in the Midlands in 1956. As you can see some of the inserts are mute in their archived form, since their accompanying voiceovers were broadcast live. Footage of the newsreaders and studio interviews had a similarly ephemeral existence. These details will ever remain tantalisingly irretrievable, but I love working with them, the immediacy, movement, testimony from local people on the streets...all fabulous.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect to the collection is how it shows contemporary excitement, or attempts to generate it, for ideas that never caught on. Wonderful initiatives that were never to become ‘historically significant’ in the conventional sense. The item on ‘New Car Park for Small Cars’ is an ATV classic in these terms. The presenter pulling up in his car, framed by the window as his does his piece to camera, attempting to ignite a spark of controversy despite the stoicism of the local councillor, oozes seventies local media kitsch.
I also have to mention, one of my favourite items in the regional news collection: Miss World visits Leicester, or more precisely “visits [the] Leicester hosiery factory which makes her track suits and leotards” (Whatever happened to leotards, eh?!). Beauty queens had been a television news staple since the 1950s, usually filmed lined up for the judges. In the 1960s the beauty queen on the news moved into the realm of advertising (sometimes perched on elephants...) for local businesses. However, just as feminists were attacking the institution of the Beauty-queen-cattle-market, Miss World gained the ultimate TV news respectability, taking part in a ‘factory visit’ -a duty usually reserved for civic dignitaries, sporting heroes and PM James Callaghan. A feat which I think represents the importance of looking at the mysterious workings of celebrity amidst the dazzling mundanely of the regional television news.
Happy viewing!
Woody Guthrie in the words of Bob Dylan
As we've linked Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan by calling Will Kaufman's session on 9th December Like a Rolling Stone after Dylan's 1965 song - I thought I'd see how Dylan himself described Woody Guthrie in his autobiography, Bob Dylan: Chronicles. He says:
'Who is he? He's a hustling ex-sign painter from Oaklahoma, an anti materialist who grew up in the Depression and dustbowl days -migrated West, had a tragic childhood, a lot of fire in his life -figuratively and literally. He's a singing cowboy, but he's more than a singing cowboy. Woody's got a fierce poetic soul -the poet of hard crust and gumbo mud. Guthrie divides the world between those who work and those who don't and is interested in the liberation of the human race and wants to create a world worth living in'.
When Bob Dylan was in his early twenties he tracked down Woody Guthrie to a grim hospital in New Jersey where the inmates had to wear uniforms. He used to take the bus there, take him cigarettes and play his own songs to him. He said 'it was a strange environment to meet anybody, least of all the true voice of the American spirit'. I notice Bob Dylan still talks about Woody Guthrie in the present tense.
'Who is he? He's a hustling ex-sign painter from Oaklahoma, an anti materialist who grew up in the Depression and dustbowl days -migrated West, had a tragic childhood, a lot of fire in his life -figuratively and literally. He's a singing cowboy, but he's more than a singing cowboy. Woody's got a fierce poetic soul -the poet of hard crust and gumbo mud. Guthrie divides the world between those who work and those who don't and is interested in the liberation of the human race and wants to create a world worth living in'.
When Bob Dylan was in his early twenties he tracked down Woody Guthrie to a grim hospital in New Jersey where the inmates had to wear uniforms. He used to take the bus there, take him cigarettes and play his own songs to him. He said 'it was a strange environment to meet anybody, least of all the true voice of the American spirit'. I notice Bob Dylan still talks about Woody Guthrie in the present tense.
Nick Clegg: Similarities to Lloyd George
Nick Clegg's recent prominence has encouraged me to think about the similarities between him and another well known Liberal politician = David Lloyd George.
Clegg made a tremendous impact during the TV debates (particularly the first) during the general election this year. Lloyd George, often dubbed 'the Welsh Wizard' was an equally, if not greater, electioneer.
Of course there are significant differences - Lloyd George when he was Prime Minister was not the leader of the Liberal Party whereas Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the Liberal Party.
However, there is one characteristic that they both have in common - their ability to powerfully advocate one policy and then to powerfully advocate the complete opposite when the sutuation arises. In Clegg's case this is his well documentated U-Turn over Tuition Fees. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXw7yqHfxDI (Apologies for the overt political nature of the YouTube link but it does contain genuine clear and unambiguous statements from Nick Clegg). In the general election of 1918 Lloyd George and the Conservative dominated government promised social reform and 'homes fit for heroes to live in'. After this election, 'excessive criticism of government expenditure built up within the Conservative ranks' and Lloyd George appointed Sir Eric Geddes to recommend cuts in expenditure - often known as the 'Geddes Axe'. The governments social reforms were quickly forgotten about.
I wonder if Nick Clegg will speak in the House of Commons on Thursday (9 December) during the vote on the increased Tuition Fees, and if so, will my comparison to Lloyd George be given further substance.
Clegg made a tremendous impact during the TV debates (particularly the first) during the general election this year. Lloyd George, often dubbed 'the Welsh Wizard' was an equally, if not greater, electioneer.
Of course there are significant differences - Lloyd George when he was Prime Minister was not the leader of the Liberal Party whereas Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the Liberal Party.
However, there is one characteristic that they both have in common - their ability to powerfully advocate one policy and then to powerfully advocate the complete opposite when the sutuation arises. In Clegg's case this is his well documentated U-Turn over Tuition Fees. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXw7yqHfxDI (Apologies for the overt political nature of the YouTube link but it does contain genuine clear and unambiguous statements from Nick Clegg). In the general election of 1918 Lloyd George and the Conservative dominated government promised social reform and 'homes fit for heroes to live in'. After this election, 'excessive criticism of government expenditure built up within the Conservative ranks' and Lloyd George appointed Sir Eric Geddes to recommend cuts in expenditure - often known as the 'Geddes Axe'. The governments social reforms were quickly forgotten about.
I wonder if Nick Clegg will speak in the House of Commons on Thursday (9 December) during the vote on the increased Tuition Fees, and if so, will my comparison to Lloyd George be given further substance.
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