General Chat

You're going to <3 <3 <3 <3 luuuuurv this!

In honour of the 200th Anniversary of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, BBC2 are to reconstruct a Regency Ball.
The programme is to be called 'Pride & Prejudice: Having a Ball'.

Presenter Amanda Vickery (The Many Lovers Of Jane Austen) will be joined by Alastair Sooke (Modern Masters) and a team of experts who reconstruct the ball in detail, from music and dancing, to food and fashion.

Read all about it -
http://www.televisual.com/news-detail/Optomen-reconstructs-a-Jane-Austen-ball-for-BBC-Two_nid-2406.html




Karen
:-D

Will definitely be watching that one. Thanks Karen. :-)

no wonder the license fee is frozen

Don't know when it will be on, but hope I get to see it too, Christina :-)

Not quite into the spirit of the Regency era, then, Rollo?? :-D

Thanx Karen will look out for it x

I am sending this from a laptop resting on the Regency period desk of my ancestor, a lawyer. He was keen on the new literature and I am lucky enough that some of his library has been passed down the years.

Compared especially to today the Regency was a time when England became civilised while business, science and engineering advanced with great speed. As a bonus people made pots of money and BONAPARTE was sent on a permanent free holiday.

No wonder people are so nostalgic for the Regency, living at a time when the country becomes more dumbed down and horrible to live in as the days go by. As a coup de grace it is being run by the political acolytes of BONY!

I just to not believe that the BBC should be spending the license fee on this sort of jolly. Indeed I think the time for the BBC license fee is long past its use by date.

I think I would be OK with the ball if it was held in Brussels on 17 June with the men in full dress uniform. They could even invite Barosso, van Rumpuy and Holland to pass around the port at la Haye Sainte, the farm is still there.

It is a sad thing that so few admirers of the works of Jane Austen have actually read any of her books, relying on television series and movies of very variable quality and even the singer Kate Bush.. As they can now be obtained at no charge from the usual suppliers for the Kindle, Nook etc it is always a good time to acquaint oneself with Ms Austen and real English. You might learn a thing or two of some use.

<3

:-D

I don't think my lot made money during the Regency period.
I also find Austen's prose difficult to read,
However, as she died, and is buried just down the road from me, and lived a few miles away, I'll watch the first 10 mnutes to see if it's any good.
I find a lot of 'reconstructions' are tainted by the fashion and ideals of the time. Some producers seem unable to assume how life could have been without 'modern' appliances.
Mainly, I suppose, because they can't imagine a life without a car, mobile phone or a flushing toilet!

Moving on only a little from the Regency the Victorians got around perfectly well with a comprehensive railway network, buses and trams, pony and trap, communicated with a rapid and an efficient post/telegram system ( google for "The Victorian Internet" ).

They social networked with all kinds of press, newsletters and handbills plus the post which took an hour or so in major cities.

It helped of course that by 1880, say, most of the working and school age population were literate which is more than can be said today. Hence the modern popularity of television adaptations and the elevation of such drivel as Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Gray.

Just look at anything you like - MP waffle, press statements, TV newscasts full of basic errors, "reporters" who are proud to display their ignorance assuming it puts them at one with the audience , the Queens Jubilee being a notable example.

The terrible syntax and spelling on message boards, e-mails, sms etc. may be why the sheer effort of trying to communicate is so hard and stressful.

This is not just about failure to get a basic GSCE. The Leveson enquiry was essentially about a total failure of person to person communication between people who like to thing of themselves as part of the ruling elite.

Management believes that if it spouts enough gobbledegook all will come out right in the end. Instead we get such fiascos as horse meat and Stafford

Certainly hours worked are far less than 120 years ago and danger at work vanishingly slight.

Mr Crapper and Mr Joseph Bazelgette were both Victorians, prime movers for the flush loo.

That leaves the mobile phone, possibly the most misbegotten piece of technology ever although the motor car is a close rival. Fwiw Paris is on a trajectory to remove the motor car altogether from the city.

As you may ask I have a love/hate relationship with my Galaxy phone and a love/love relationship with a 3l V6 motor car except when paying for the fuel. I use the train for such things as going to London. We do have flush toilets. I worked in Iraq for some time where such innovations were seldom found.

Money? The C19 saw far more social mobility than the C20 where it hardly happened at all leaving aside the brief 1945-1970 grammar school experiment.

enjoy the ball

gotta go trayne 2 kach mssen b l8 cya