Archive lectures and events

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Hey, thank you very much for that. Fiona and I hope, thank you very much.

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Very much for everybody else turning up for this. Brief lecture on food sustainability. My main priority is I am an environmental health practitioner.

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What used to be environmental health officer back in the days. However, not really worked with the local authority, mainly worked with the military by Well, it's all over the world and have that with these sort of issues that we're dealing with in all sorts of, in all types of, continents and countries all over the place.

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So hopefully, by the end of the lecture, we should have give you some ideas on how to reduce our environmental footprint through sustainable practices.

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When looking at the way our food is produced. How we eat our food, how we deal with our food waste.

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And how we deal with food packaging.

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So, following on from that, what is sustainedability? So what you're seeing there on the screen.

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Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.

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Now that was an actual, definition which came from the, World Commission on Environment and Development.

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Our common future, it was a report written in 1987. Now, the biggest question is, is that definition still pertinent today?

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Because it assumes universal agreement. On development and requirements both socially, physically, upside socially, politically and environmentally by all countries, which definitely is not happening today.

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It was quite generic in its needs. And basically How can they anticipate future needs from the 19 eighties?

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We know for a fact that everything has changed since COVID. The use of AI, I'm bringing in telecommunications so there has been a lot of changes since then

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So. And out of this there's now 17 to, sustainable development goals. Which the UN have put out and all of these goals are supposed to be reached by 2,030.

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So these, as you can see here, one that we'll be dealing with today is our sustainable development goal number 2.

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No hunger by 2030. However, just having a quick look at the, the, 17 of them.

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There are major issues with regards to these goals, buzzing, first of all, there's too many of them.

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Which ones would we prioritize? There's too many trade-offs. We can trade off on our good health for us sustainable city or we can trade off clean water and sanitation for better life.

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Below water. And that's just for a few examples. Most of these goals are non bonding.

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Definitely underfunded because not all countries pay equally into the UN to sort of hope these out. Or is there any most countries budgets towards these goals?

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Themselves. Vary depending on the cost of living within that country. The very thinking nature. They can be easily politicized and we've seen that with regards to.

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Climate action all over the world. And depending on where you are globally, you can be looking at these from a different perspective, i.

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E. In developing countries, there's different needs to what we have in our in our own sort of area.

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So this is the actual report infographic for the report for 2,023 for this sustainable development group for goal 2 hunger.

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And as you can see there. There's very little progress. I've been made. Worldwide.

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This report is about creating a free

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World. And free hunger, free of hunger. The goal issues of hunger and food insecurity are shown an alarming increase since 2,015.

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And the trend is exacerbated by a combination of factors. Including the COVID pandemic. Conflicting Ukraine.

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And now in, in the Middle East, climate change and deepening inequalities across the world.

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By 2022. It was recorded that approximately 735 million people or 9.2% of the world Phone observes in the chronic stage of hunger.

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This is a stuck in rise compared to 2019. Now bearing in mind that we're looking at 0 hunger in 2030 It's now been projected that there'll still be 600 million people worldwide still facing Hungary in 2,030 itself.

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Which is highlighting the immense challenge of achieving 0 hunger target. People who experience more moderate food insecurity are typically unable to eat a healthy balanced diet on a regular basis because of the income and other resource constraints.

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Boys, rising cost of living, civil insecurity and blinding food production. Adds to all of this.

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And basically what we're doing today is discussing how we As individuals. Can look at the policies and look at our impact in general.

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Sorry, the environment impact of food in general, how we can look at food sustainability and basically how we can then Further, reduce.

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So this impact.

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So. Through production itself. Is responsible for a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. On contributing to global warning.

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However, the environment impact of different foods varies, hugely. So what you can see here, and this is an example we've got here.

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2026% of food. Sorry, a quarter of all global emissions come from food.

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Oh, that's 20 all of that quarter of global emissions. 58% are animal products and then 50% of that is beef.

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And the start comes that you see here now is based on research published in the Science Journal which estimated emissions per serving of different foods.

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It shows a wide range of potential environmental impact even with the same foods depending on how and where they are.

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According to the Uk's aquaculture and horticulture, development board.

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Greenhouse gas emissions are lower from UK produced based part because the landscape and climate in the UK is perfect for growing glass.

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We've got a grasslands covering 65% of our farmland on 50% of our land in total.

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This means cows don't rely on as much rain and other food. Which is like even higher carbon footprint.

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Which is mostly found in other countries. Other impacts around the world vary the environmental impact. Beef projection is the leading cause of deforestation in tropical reggae forests such as the Animal.

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And this adds to the environment and to impact of the beef. But all around the world.

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It's study that you see here is found up to 61% of the total emissions linked to some foods are generated as they are prepared in the home.

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Chicken with vegetables so it's our actual cooking ourselves at home. Is worsening the situation.

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Potentially even when we toast our bread it's significantly more carbon intensive than the regular type of bread that we eat.

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The final act of cooking or toasting bread can add 13% to its footprint. For foods that have already been partially pre cooked in factories are such as examples here of tofu and certain meats substitutes.

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The job contributes around 42%. Of their total initiatives.

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So. One of the main options seen by most people to reduce our environmental impact for food. sorry, the environment about the food is for people to sort of consider going to become a vegetarian.

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So, this face it we are on divorce. We are designed to eat meat. And vegetables. But however, over the past few years there's been an interest in veganism booming with supermarkets and restaurants.

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Competing to offer vegan menus and ranges to growing consumer demand. Perhaps you've been scratching your head wondering what exactly are the differences between a vegan and a vegetarian diet.

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Well, most people are familiar with the terms. And what this entails, some there is some confusion around the chord.

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Differences between these lifestyles.

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So as you can see here. The vegetarian diet is not just a diet of eating vegetables.

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We do need vitamins and other minerals which vegetables don't. Oh, don't apply.

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So therefore, what we're looking at here is the different types of vegetarian diet. So Those include.

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Not too vegetarians who do not eat eggs. Over vegetarians which exclude dairy but include eggs in the diet.

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Basketarians that do not eat meat or meat by products but they do eat fish. And sometimes they do, pescatians will eat.

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Eggs as well. That gives you a wide range of what we have there on types of vegetarianism.

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So it's not just simple eating veg. Band in mind as well. Following this, you're going to have to take supplements, extra for vitamins and, have to take supplements, extra for vitamins and, as, as you go through daily life.

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So there is definitely is a difference between vegans and vegetarianism. However, it does get confused when people are talking about it.

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But mainly, thinking is a lifestyle. It does not, vegans do not buy clothes or footwear made from any animal byproducts.

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They will avoid all animal products within their homes. The main difference between a vegan and a vegetarian diet is that a vegan diet excludes all animal products.

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Including dairy, eggs and honey. Watch the vegetarian. As we sung before may eat some dairy products.

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Thank you, turns do not eat meat, vulture or fish, but they may consume dairy products.

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Both diets have been made around for centuries. They've been practiced in Far East and in India.

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And what we also, with both diets to maintain health, maintain a healthy lifestyle.

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You need to get some, supplements. And basically what we've got here one of the main ones is vitamin B 12 which is primarily found in animal products.

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So what's the environmental impact of all of this? Deagan diets can sometimes include foods which have traveled long distances by air and require a large amount of water, such as avocados, exotic fruit, oleans.

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But is still by far the diet with the lowest footprint. In 2019 the UN released a report that stated a plant based diet is the single different single biggest way to reduce our impact on the planet.

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The difference between veganism and vegetarianism is that vegetarians typically consume a lot of dairy, which is a range of consequences when it comes to climate change.

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Yeah, approximately 270 million dairy cows worldwide, all of which produce vast amounts of greenhouse gases, water pollution.

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Post-defort patches force station and soil degradation. In fact, another recent report estimated that emissions from the top world, the sorry the world's top.

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There are 2 dairy farms, the largest ones, equal that the whole of the UK in itself.

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So is our current food strategy sustainable?

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It's an increasingly important question to ask when it comes to what we eat. And the UN have given a definition of which is defines a sustainable diet.

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It is basically states those diets with low environmental impact which contribute to food and nutrition security. And to a healthy lifestyle for present and future generations.

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Descendable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems. Culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable.

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You choose to clear out the nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy. And optimizing a lot of natural and human resources.

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So effectively, what does this mean in practice? In practice, sustainable eating is all about choosing foods under health and not all helpful to our environment and our bodies.

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2 is responsible as we mentioned early for 30% of US US. Sorry, UK greenhouse gas emissions.

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The resilience of Canada is being destroyed faster than the Amazon due to soy production. Most of which is fed to the animals that we eat.

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Over in Borneo, ancient tropical forests have been failed to plant palm trees to provide palm oil for what bread and low fat spread.

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Daily reports of writing food prices not to mention civil invest arising from food insecurity. Mean that what we eat matters more than ever before.

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Taking personal responsibility for eating habits and understanding as much as possible about the food we eat is a matter we should all consider.

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The issue of a sustainable diet may be complex, extending beyond the systems and structures of normal food production.

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But on a micro level, maintain a diet which process here is kept to a minimum is a simple and effective solution.

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By knowing your ingredients you can feed a family for far less than by buying the equivalent amount in ready meals.

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Farms livestock can be consumed in moderation. Eating, Seaton, the produced, veg, also makes a big difference.

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There is a myriad of reasons why we should all be eating more fruit and vent.

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To sustain a healthier human diet is not just the quantity of food that is important. But adequate and appropriate magician is also essential.

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Even though the police is on food, focus on feeding 9 billion people by 2,050. In reality, it's not distributed equally and some people have poor access to food than others.

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So this then, on to look at food sustainability, food security and nutritional security. Addition to the accessibility of food affordability.

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It's also important. 400 sorry in addition to the accessibility of Making it affordable is important to us all.

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Food for hundreds of millions of people in the world, the cost of sufficient and nutrition food can be prohibitive.

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Also what we've got to take into account is to additional and spiritual associations of food and also important.

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Food. Food pervades deeply into the organisation of human society and the Fuji is strong influenced by where you live.

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Food has to be transported across the world. On the following gives you a rough idea of what the impacts of transportation are.

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But we have air pollution, problems with health. Water pollution, carbon dioxide emissions. Or we have health and safety problems with accidents with, with vehicles and ships.

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Noise from food transport congestion from road transport Yeah, it's a different state. Something that we call the food print.

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So each stage of the food transport and production process contributes to carbon emissions. And basically we cannot do anything about this carbon emissions.

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They're just gonna happen. However, we can try and look at them from a different point of view when we consider.

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Miles

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Only a small percent food is transported by lorries, trains, planes and ships, all burned fossil fuels in their engines releasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

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This contribute, as we've already said, to global warming and climate change. Air freight, the least environmentally friendly way of transporting food due to the huge amount of gas is given off by aircraft.

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It's not the most quickly expanding method of food transposition since 1992. The amount of foods found by aeroplanes now is risen by a hundred 40%.

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Beauty is responsible for approximately 26% of global Greenhouse gash emissions with CM rail producing 20% of the world's food transport emissions.

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Road being the most common form of transport in food, which, once it's reached a country of origin.

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Is also as contributing significantly to carbon dioxide. Permissions.

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So we've mentioned food malls earlier, so basically what are they? Food models or a way of attempting to measure how far food is traveled before it reaches the consumer.

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It is a good way of looking into the environment impact of food and their ingredients. It also includes getting foods to you but also getting waste away from from your food waste away from you and getting it to landfill.

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So what does food, what does it mean? It means that it is time to think about where your food has come from.

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And what environmental effects it has.

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All we know from that. What can you do? So when we look at food miles and processed foods Votage foods will contain a list of different ingredients.

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Each ingredient will already traveled some distance before they're all mixed together. For example, a prepackaged fruit sided from the supermarket contains strawberries from Scotland.

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Pine apples from Costa Rica. And grapes from Egypt. That is a lot of food models.

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Each of the foods created. Few miles on the way to the factory where they are prepared and packed.

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And also they gain more food laws within the country. We're within the country when they've been delivered to the supermarkets.

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Also, you take into account if you're travelling to buy the food. If when you're going by bus or by Call.

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So when we look at fresh food fresh fruit gains malls when they're transported from where they are grown to where they are bought.

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So it is better to keep it local as possible. And again, and examples. We have pairs.

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Coming from Argentina to have traveled over 7,000 miles to reach the UK when we have pairs already grown in this country.

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So you can you can weigh and balance up the carbon footprint there.

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So I think the first thing you can do when you're looking out. Where your food come from is always check the labels.

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So as you can see there, that's we have highlighted. Oraging there's always has to be by law face of origin on the food label.

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So when you are buying new food and if you I'm sure most of you do it already You can take into account where that foods come from and check.

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So we've mentioned food security previously, so why is this important? So. He's quite important because it was actually mentioned by the Prime Minister this week in a speech that he gave to the National Farmers Union about food security in the UK and how they're invited towards it.

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So food security refers to once. Access to safe and nutritious food. It is multi-dimensional concept that looks at different food systems.

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And elements including production, processing, distribution. Consumption and the actual delivery of the food. Food security covers all access points from physical to economic and social access to the food supplies.

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To achieve optimum food security.

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We should follow the thought we should have enough produce provided by our food supplies within the UK. Maintain a steady influx of food.

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Ensure that those in need can access food supplies easily.

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And basically we've got to ensure That's we do have sufficient and nutritional food. To make sure that there is food security because then this leads on to a better lifestyle.

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When we have, decent food security, education and health care. Become better and also lifestyle improvements become better.

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So all in all, food securities link to economic well-being.

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But on the flip side.

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Hello, unhealthy eating, it can be a consequence of food insecurity. So therefore Well, a fifth of UK households are resorting to unhealthy.

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Hi, Calorie, food and diets. Due to trouble accessing good quality food at reasonable prices.

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The promotion of cheap, calorie dense foods lacking essential nutrients has resulted in 30% of the population becoming obese.

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This figure is expected to rise to 40% by 2035. But the NHS spent spending a lot more money on type 2 diabetes treatment.

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Outweighing current expenditure on treating all cancers. And other lifestyle problems. Basically obesity is a chronic complex relapsing condition.

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Which with multiple factors impacting its development around genetic psychology and biologic biological along social factors such as poverty.

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Often food choices in those living with obesity and food insecurity. Or made through financial constraints rather than the knowledge of a healthy diet.

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And what we've got here hopefully is an example. Of where it is in the UK. So there's an increase in few foods insecurity.

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Is part throughout the UK is partly because consumer price inflation is at its highest in the last 40 years.

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Meaning many households are resorting to money saving measures. Like skipping meals. Evidence shows that more healthy food, over choices expenses as less healthy options.

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And it is viable to farmers as mentioned in the PM speech this week. It's vital for farmers.

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And other food producers to be able to. Get sufficient and suitable food and at least it's quite near to all citizens.

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Nutritional security is vitally important for health and well-being and lack of nutrition security manifests in malnutrition caused by not any enough of the right things necessary for an active and healthy lifestyle.

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And youtritious diet consists of macro nutrients, carbohydrates.

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Proteins and fats, etc. In certain proportions. And a wide range of micro nutrients, vitamin, and minerals.

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What does the global But sorry, but does the current global food production address those nutritional needs? Unfortunately, it does not.

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The 2017 global nutrition report suggest that nutrition is still a large scale and universal problem.

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So this leads to quite a concept of balancing. Food security versus nutrition security.

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It's these terms are often used. Interchangeability in food policy discourse and under debate.

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While the strategies to address each of these are intertwined, there are important differences that should be noted and understood by educators, policymakers, community leaders and other stakeholders.

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Food and nutrition security will it exist when all people at all times have physical, social and economical access to food which is consumed in sufficient quantity.

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And quality to meet their dietary needs. And food preferences and is supported by an environment of adequate.

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Sanitation, health services and care alone for a healthy and active lifestyle. So this is looked at on a regular basis.

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Why the United Nations? And this report provides an update on global. Progress towards the targets of ended hunger.

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And the all forms of malnutrition. And estimates on the number of people who are unable to afford a healthy diet.

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Since it's 2017 edition. This report has repeatedly highlighted that the intensification interaction of conflict, climate and climate extremes and economic slowdowns and tangent downturns.

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Combined with highly unaffordable nutritious food and glowing, growing inequality are pushing off track to meet the the targets for sgd 2 in the same with goals.

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However, other important mega trends must also be factored into the analysis to fully understand the challenges and opportunities to meet these targets.

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One such mega trained. Is urbanization. New evidence shows that food produced in some countries are no longer.

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Owning among urban houses but among rural households either. Conception of highly processed food is also increasing in How are you open and rural?

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Hey, areas of some countries.

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Let me look at dietary choices and preferences. As much as the affordability of food is what people eat is strongly influenced by their dieter performances, preferences, which in turn is closely connected to behavioral culture and religious and social factors as mentioned earlier.

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These factors add other dimensions to future security. And these top useful, these are meant to fulfill these dimensions.

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And this is on production alone is not sufficient. So when we're looking at all our diets and our food choices now.

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We're having to look at affordability by which we profess pet preferences then that then our behavioral culture, religion and social aspects.

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So basically emphasis is not on production alone.

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So one, that that thing to consider is do we have enough? Oh, or too much food. When we're looking at our our daily lives.

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That for basically we need to think about our portion sizes. Most of us probably do not think about portion size when we eat.

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It depends on what we usually have, how hunger we feel. How much is in a packet or on a plate?

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But having a healthy balance diet is about getting the right types of food and drinks in the right amounts.

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These guys, guys, aim to help you find the right balance for you is known how much you eat, it's also about eating differently.

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So what we have here is from the British Nutritional Foundation and it gives you a rough idea.

00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:58.000
Of what you have should have nutritionally on your plate. Basically your 5 a day which you've all heard about.

00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:03.000
However

00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:13.000
We're looking at basically, 2,000 kilo calories a day. Nobody's going to sit there and weigh the food out every time they look at or wait.

00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.000
And so what we've got here for you is just a Rough idea of how to measure food.

00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:31.000
So 2 handfuls of dry pasta, at about 75 grams. The spaghetti round about one pound coin again is 75 grams.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:42.000
Etc, etc. 3 handfuls of breakfast cereal, 40 grams. So this will be put into the notes at the end so it can give you a rough idea.

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:52.000
How you can measure out your food and keep within. The appropriate portion sizes.

00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:01.000
Following on from that, also we need to look. To reduce our carbon footprint. Where are foods come from?

00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:13.000
Now, obviously. You're looking at country of origin on each label. But when we look at a chocolate For instance, this gives you an idea of where it comes from.

00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:19.000
So the makeup of a chocolate bar itself. Elko's from South America, salts from China.

00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:30.000
Sugars from the Caribbean. How chimps sulfate from India. Nok and wheat from the EU, Palmol from the Southeast Asia.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:40.000
Even though it's manufactured locally, the ingredients source from is sourced from many areas and overseas as you can see.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.000
It typical biscuit containing chocolate, a buyer they bought, like you can buy from a shop.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:54.000
Has most probably been manufactured in a British factory and has very high food miles. So effectively you're talking in there.

00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:00.000
In excess of about 5,000 food loils.

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:09.000
Also, which is used for, environmental impact is the humble banana. And what we've got here just gives you an idea of.

00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:18.000
The environment, to impact of the humble banana. So it takes 130 liters of water.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:28.000
Could choose per banana, each banana. 30% of the fresh bananas are produced. Or rejected prior to sale.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:37.000
Alright, and they're also part of the 345 kg of food which is wasted annually.

00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:44.000
Before because we don't like them when they start going moldy. Or when you start going black, etc.

00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:55.000
And bananas and other landfill waste emissions increase our CO 2 by 24 times. The normal amount.

00:33:55.000 --> 00:34:03.000
Bulling on from that, this now leads us into talking about food packaging and food waste itself.

00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:07.000
So why do we have food packaging?

00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:11.000
We have it there to ensure that food arrives in a safe and good condition. It provides the information of the contents of the food.

00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:20.000
Useful information as we've seen before. It's essential for transport to stop spinach, etc.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:28.000
And again, if we shop locally, it needs. Little packaging.

00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:34.000
What we've got here. Is example of the waste. Associated with the grounds responsible for the most plastic.

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Packaging, pollution in the UK. And a lot of them you can see are ones We recognise.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:02.000
Also, what this shows here. This is a slide form surface against sewage. On these of the dirty does the companies they call the Bertie Dozen.

00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:14.000
Who's packaging? And waste products or affecting our oceans. Today.

00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:17.000
So.

00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:22.000
What is the problem with, the, that we use? Most of it is not renewable.

00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:37.000
It's made from oil tin and annual. Which is all basically new sources. All manufacture, course there's a lot of pollution during its manufacturing.

00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:43.000
And taint, and seep into plastics. Now we'll show you that a little bit later on in the talk.

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:55.000
It's required. To ensure food transport. So it does itself cause a few, food malls and emissions.

00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:10.000
And it takes a lot of energy. When we, refrigerate the, the food and, in the packaging that we use and most of it is not recyclable.

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:18.000
Well what we've got here, this gives you an idea of the chemicals of concern. That we find in food packaging.

00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:27.000
Obviously, woken down into paper, plastic and metal. This is just a brief overview of the overview of those chemicals of concern.

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:39.000
However, some of you may recognize a, the phthalates in there, which are those forever chemicals that have been I've been banded about on social media and in the news.

00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:52.000
And they take a lot of problems coming far, well. They're around forever. Some other chemicals that you've got there are potentially carcinogenic in nature.

00:36:52.000 --> 00:37:03.000
And also some of these leaching to the phone. If left in contact for a long time or if the packages left into in sunlight.

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:11.000
So it does cause us quite a lot of problems does, food packaging.

00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:17.000
So following on from food production, food consumption, it all causes and food packaging all causes food waste.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:23.000
Which also has a major impact on our environment.

00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:32.000
It's year, as you can see there, 1.3 billion tons of food. About a third of it is producing about a third of it is wasted.

00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:39.000
Good waste is a big growing problem. Hey, the amount of food we throw away is accuse waste of resources as well.

00:37:39.000 --> 00:37:48.000
So we can use it for all types of energy. All of the energy. And water and packaging used in food production, transport and storage is wasted completely.

00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:55.000
When we throw it. Is most of the time. Food, even though it is collective. In our bins.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:05.000
Unless there's anything specifically set up by the council, it will all go to landfill.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:25.000
Got and its own right causes pop and when it goes to landfill because it generates something called leech 8 in landfill which can contaminate local water tables and so in its well and is one of the most toxic chemicals, known to man.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:37.000
And makes up to 50% of old household waste. Requires, transportation. And I said, mentioned there, 2425 times.

00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:51.000
The rate of CO 2 emitted from the landfill site is all down to food waste.

00:38:51.000 --> 00:39:08.000
Fruit has happened throughout the food supply chain. Basically It starts at the farm itself. And also at the supermarkets.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:17.000
UK supermarkets, I've been known to throw away at least a hundred 15,000 tonnes of perfectly good food each year.

00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:25.000
This is all due to certain variables and necessarily strict sell by dates mean food is disposed of when it could be eaten.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:32.000
Commercial offers, buy one, get one free, so we all buy too much more food than we need.

00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:48.000
You see, is demand for a cosmetically perfect means. Of their food. And poor storage is a result of it as well.

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:57.000
On necessarily stripped expiration date means that food is disposed of, people not understanding used by dates, best before dates, etc.

00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:09.000
The rule of thumb basically is the use by date is a is basically a quality. It's a quality.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:18.000
Sorry, used by date is there for quality. I'm basically, you can scratch and sniff to see if the food is okay.

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:24.000
I passed before. So I got that along with that. Please, please forgive me. I'll start again.

00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:38.000
I used by date is for food safety. You cannot use food. Which is gone past that date because it's been, it's been, microbiologically tested and it's known that,

00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:48.000
Organisms will grow after that date which can potentially cause. To, to humans. The best for date is quality.

00:40:48.000 --> 00:40:59.000
That's the one you she can do scratching Smith. And basically test and adjust. See, if the quality of the food is, okay.

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:07.000
I'd apologise while I go, but have mixed up there. Okay, 70% of post farm gate food is produced by the household.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:16.000
And it looked like there was twenty-ninth and 28 9, 2,018, 9.5 million tons of food and drink were wasted in the UK poster farm gate food chain.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:26.000
This can all be avoided by just looking at little bits and pieces of how we buy our food.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:34.000
While we cook it, how we prep it. And what we do with the food waste.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:40.000
Again, dealing with lettuces. 38% of lettuces are actually thrown, thrown away.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:45.000
So, we need to look at when we buy them.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:56.000
Best before dates. You etc. Thanks. We throw away for 4% of all our own bread.

00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:02.000
Again, scratch and sniff can work wonders with that.

00:42:02.000 --> 00:42:09.000
1% of foods find a way that could be, in, fresh fruit and vegetables.

00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:17.000
And this basically is the main problem falling on from that. Is that the cost of food waste to an average person?

00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:29.000
An average family with children is over a thousand pounds per year. So reducing the amount of food we throw away does not only help the environment, it can actually save us money.

00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:36.000
The overall cost of food waste each year to households in the UK cultures up to 19 billion pounds.

00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:53.000
According to the waste and resources action program, the average UK family with children wastes 244 kg of food or 580 meals each year which costs them over 700 pounds.

00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:57.000
Oh, sorry, between 712,000 pounds.

00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:06.000
The cost of food waste is not just financial, but it's also environmental. And it contributes to greenhouse gases.

00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:20.000
There are suggestions that we'll talk about as we go through for how we can react, reduce our food waste and this cost.

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:30.000
Is really at the end of the day there is more than enough food producing the world to feed everyone. Watched 98% of the world's hungry live in developing countries.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:33.000
There were many people in the UK do not get enough to eat. More than 8 million people in Britain live in households that struggle to put enough food on the table.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:49.000
Or over half regular, go a day without eating. Get on with 7 million tons of food end up in mouthfuls each year.

00:43:49.000 --> 00:44:03.000
Love food hate campaign. Love food hate waste campaign encourages people to to waste less food. Because at the moment there is no Monday mandatory food waste reduction targets in the UK.

00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:14.000
But there are many voluntary initiatives that have been set up. Consumer campaigns that encourage people to rethink how they can shop plan meals better and use up leftovers.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:21.000
And you can find out more about this. If you, Google love food hate waste.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:30.000
And look at their website. It's a very very good website and some very very good tips.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:41.000
Also what we've got. You're looking at is food redistribution schemes which save food from being wasted and make sure it gets to those who need it.

00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:49.000
This is an example of one in Leeds where is now a food waste supermarket that works with stores to put food to good use.

00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:54.000
It means that those, you can, if we can take food. Would otherwise have been thrown out.

00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:57.000
Very, very good. You've also seen. Seen it around, specifically when shopping Morrisons, I've seen it there.

00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:08.000
Many supermarkets have launched a wonky veg range.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:15.000
To help reduce food waste.

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:22.000
It is important when you look at, the way you, you make, buy produce.

00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:30.000
You, your food. And get rid of your waste. With night it would be good to follow the waste hierarchy.

00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:38.000
So all in all the best thing to do is to prevent food waste by reducing and reusing it. Wait, food has to be thrown away.

00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:43.000
Think about where it goes. And always try to recycle it.

00:45:43.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Would you reduce food where you can, reduce the amount of foods use where you can. Okay, okay, and buy the food that you would you could you can easily eat in one go.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:13.000
As we mentioned, this just basically now gives you Regents to think about caution sizes and explains better than my little sort of mess up earlier on the.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:25.000
How to go about using the best before dates and use by dates. Okay. So food is often okay to eat after the best before date.

00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:45.000
Does it smell? Page look fine, yes. You can eat the food and keep checking it. If it's past issue by date, it's it is a health risk.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:58.000
Also. Try and get creative with leftovers. Obviously on Sunday voice you can eat for 2 or 3 sandwiches later in the week or you can make a resort or a curry.

00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:06.000
Thereby reducing. Blue touch being thrown away. If you do have to phone through the way.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:14.000
Why don't you use the compost? Once the pride of every gardener, but, the has been a few.

00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:15.000
A lot of people are now put off by compost tips because they think it's too much work.

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:26.000
It is basically it's agent technology introduced by the rooms around about 2,000 and a way of in previous all facility.

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:35.000
It provides organic waste, it's a value of commodity. It's a great way to stop one cooked kitchen waste ending up in landfill.

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:44.000
And you'll garden will benefit. It can be made easily by leaving materials in a heap, ideally in a one meter square.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:52.000
And it should be in close with a brick or timber or cup, timber. Frame and covered to be.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:48:05.000
Catch out as you can see that the wood refrain. Just some palettes or. An old box there on a plastic box that can be used and this.

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Produces lovely compost like on your

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:23.000
Threeed waste can also be recirculated into fertilizer and hopefully or you can check with your local authority.

00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:43.000
To see if they do generate these, these systems. Or. If they do, they should be reporting it on their, with on their environmental websites.

00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:51.000
So we're just gonna run through a few things now. As we lead towards the end of the, of the lecture is things to think about.

00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:01.000
Give you just a few ideas Not to say you must, you must, you must, but when you're walking, right, you know, around the shops, what to consider.

00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:23.000
So where possible, reduce your food mode and shop locally. Okay, so local supermarkets. No local, local, farm shops, farmers markets and Also when you're actually in the supermarket look look down the local shop for local aisle.

00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:35.000
Another great thing to consider is eating fish sustainability are sustainably. So instead of eating cod. Eat hake, set of tuna.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:43.000
Sorry. Set of prawns, muscles. Set a salmon, try ray more trout.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:52.000
Instead of had a place. All of these are basically more sustainable.

00:49:52.000 --> 00:49:58.000
A more. Successful.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:02.000
Species of fish and

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:06.000
And shellfish out there.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:07.000
So basically, 80% of the seafood we eat in the UK is made up of just 5 different species.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:23.000
Ones that we've mentioned there. We call them the big 5 called haddock salmon tuna and prawns Not only are they really boring when you eat them, but it's a pretty bad idea.

00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:31.000
To keep eating them because they're not they're becoming unsustainable. And these big swaps that I've mentioned here.

00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:35.000
Can make it

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:41.000
Can, sorry, the swaps I've mentioned here. Can take the pressure off off of these species.

00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:52.000
And also a lot of this information you can find in the good fish guide if you google that as well.

00:50:52.000 --> 00:50:59.000
Also something to think about when you go for your weekly shop. Is to buy less process food.

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:12.000
If you can eat more simple fresh food. Which house? Choose with their natural dieting methods.

00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:19.000
Avoid. Packaging wherever you can, as it does cause pollution. Simper food is likely to be more highly packaged.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:26.000
This is because basically it's going to.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:36.000
It's part of the processing and preservation process. And it helped extend the shelf life of processed food, it's sport is you maintain in freshness.

00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:41.000
So try even in some ship or buy because you can actually leave the package in behind.

00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:45.000
If you figure it if you feel this too much.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:57.000
Enjoy food that is in season. Investigate the health food store, the health food shop. Troy, organically if you can.

00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:09.000
So that was just giving you some simple things to think about. What we're looking at now, obviously it's, when we are better off financially, we can look up how we, how we can look.

00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:19.000
Into how we impact the environment more. But in the current sort of. State of play with our finances and the cost of poor cost of living.

00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:26.000
Following a few suggestions from if you've got no money, so if you've got a little bit of money.

00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:27.000
So. Suggestions that help save you money and help the environment as you can see there is drink tap water.

00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:39.000
Set of bottled water. Reduce the amount of meat you eat. I, to only eating meat 2 days a week.

00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:47.000
I've actually done much set up myself and I'm actually starting to enjoy the meat that I eat at the weekend more.

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:53.000
Also, I don't tend to waste it. As much. And I am enjoying a lot more vegetables.

00:52:53.000 --> 00:53:03.000
So that is a win win as far as I'm concerned. Or grow your own food. Instead of count drinks, use concentrated or juices.

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:16.000
And try foraging. There's a lot of stuff out there on foraging. Well, by mainly one of the books by Richard may be is that there's the best book you can get on on foraging.

00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:22.000
But just, follow the guidelines and be careful.

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:31.000
We've mentioned before us. Suggestions that cost nothing and help the environment buy local products, farmers markets.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:46.000
My fish pot fish products can be eaten without refrigeration. Use oranges and, instead of, cartoons and juice your own orange juice.

00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:51.000
Trying to voice faster.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:54:02.000
Suggestions that cost a small amount of extra, save towards the environment. Join your organic box scheme, promise yourself more organic item each time you go to the shop.

00:54:02.000 --> 00:54:12.000
Boy local honey. You certified dolphin fended tuna. Free major organic cream, Obviously that's little things that you can do if you've got.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:17.000
Sufficient money to do that.

00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:30.000
Hello. So really what is hope that you've got away from this lecture. And some of my gabling all the way through is It is easy to feel that we are no longer in control of our food.

00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:45.000
And we are far to remove from the food production. There are things out there that we can do. Taking a few simple steps it is possible for us to improve our health and well being and we choose the impact on the planet.

00:54:45.000 --> 00:54:53.000
I don't consider the ideas in this lecture you can feel better about looking and join yourself while creating less pollution.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:55:04.000
And you will feel more in control of your life as well as being on the way to being part of this, part of the solution, from the problem and dealing with our own environmental impact.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:12.000
So to end on a good note Environmental and food data shows we can we can think the world twice over.

00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:20.000
The average person needs 2,000 to 2,500 calories per day. If we actually divide up all our global food production equally.

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:30.000
We can afford 5,000 calories per person per day for everybody in the world. Hungarian farming, still exist or political in nature and can be dealt with.

00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Limits to feeding. Everyone inside, entirely self in. Pose and we are resourceful not humans and we have a good track record of dealing with major problems that can affect us so we can.

00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:53.000
We can overcome this. And here's a few examples. Of what to expect in the future for food sustainability.

00:55:53.000 --> 00:56:00.000
We have Spyelina which is a cyclo bacterium or blue green algae. You most probably already seen that in health food shops.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:10.000
That's to help you. It's. An ancient food type used by the Aztecs.

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:21.000
And it can give us nearly 60% of our protein requirements. There's something else here from South Africa, which I'm not really a little keen about, but that's insect milk.

00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:30.000
Made from cockroaches. And of course, as we've seen all over the past, we've seen in our shops.

00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:38.000
Which again, Never saw a couple of years ago shows how resourceful we're being.

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:45.000
Well, thing I would like you to take away from this are At least, leapfrog into next month.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:55.000
Is this food action week, 2024, eighteenth, 20 fourth of March. It focuses on.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:09.000
This is focusing on what will you use. Food wise during that, during that week and if you can reduce your food waste, that would be absolutely superb.

00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:15.000
So depending any questions, thank you very much and I'll pass myself. Back to Fiona.

00:57:15.000 --> 00:57:16.000
Thank you.

00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:31.000
Thanks very much for that, Lee. We got through a lot of stuff there and we've got a few quite a few questions which folks I don't think we're gonna have time to get through them all just now but we will try and get some of the questions done and anything that we can answer live today.

00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:37.000
And we'll take these away, Lee, and we'll get the answers to those and post them up beside the recording when it's ready either tomorrow or early next week.

00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:44.000
Okay, so let me start off with, and I'll try and get through as many as I can.

00:57:44.000 --> 00:57:56.000
Now, I've had a couple of questions about cooking methods, leave, which you talked about kind of quite early on in the presentation.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:03.000
So I had a question from Jane and a question from Enid. Now, First of all, how do you decide what's the best way to cook something?

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:10.000
For example, beef. You know, you've got so many different cooking methods these days, we've got air fryers as well now.

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:18.000
How can you make those decisions between roasting or slow cooking or air frying and these kinds of things.

00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:30.000
It's quite difficult. And also in it was talking about you talked about the toasting of the bread and kind of what is actually the impact of that.

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:40.000
We are you can actually use stale bread. Rather than wasting it versus buying another loaf of bread.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:41.000
Okay, so.

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:44.000
So there's kind of Okay, there that we need to try and make isn't there?

00:58:44.000 --> 00:58:53.000
Yeah, I mean with regards to cooking. When we're looking at anything that keeps the oven on quite a long time, is basically adding to, you know, an environment.

00:58:53.000 --> 00:59:00.000
The global emissions X, etc. So we're trying to reduce our cooking in another as much as possible.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:09.000
So we can use air, it would be preferable to do something like an air fly or your microwave.

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:16.000
As well. Because yes, it's high, high use electrically for a microwave, but it's for a short time.

00:59:16.000 --> 00:59:21.000
Where else? When you've got your oven, it can, it can take 2 to 3 h.

00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:30.000
Now, sorry, I missed a bit about the bread.

00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:31.000
All right, so.

00:59:31.000 --> 00:59:32.000
Yeah, so you talked about the twisting of the bread having an environmental impact in terms of emissions and whatnot.

00:59:32.000 --> 00:59:37.000
But the toasting of the bread can allow you to use stale bread that you might otherwise Ben.

00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:38.000
Exactly, yes.

00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:46.000
And so what's the impact of that toasting versus the impact of buying another loaf of bread and wasting.

00:59:46.000 --> 00:59:55.000
Well, let's face it. If you, again, if you're Toasting the bread, not that you are, instead of buying another loaf.

00:59:55.000 --> 01:00:06.000
You are actually reducing the food, aren't you? For totting up bread. Because if you're going to buy a low that starts to hope, that's going to be adding to the food mode because you're going out to the shops to buy the bed.

01:00:06.000 --> 01:00:14.000
It's obviously come from somewhere, etc, etc. So, toasting it.

01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:25.000
Is far more better than buying another local bed. Also, You can you can actually use stale bread in other and other sort of recipes.

01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:35.000
Classic example. it croutons is for soup and also bed but a pudding which is that's the sort of thing.

01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:40.000
So you can look for other recipes where you can use it. Use that type of stuff.

01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:45.000
You can also freeze it.

01:00:45.000 --> 01:00:46.000
Sorry? You can also freeze bed as well, yes, yes.

01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:57.000
Right. You can also freeze bread, to, to to lengthen its shell slice.

01:00:57.000 --> 01:00:58.000
Yeah.

01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:09.000
Okay. And now another question from Stuart. And now what Stuart saying is another measure of food sustainability could be the scarily diminishing number of the world's population who rely on the foods which they grow themselves.

01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:25.000
Do we know the percentage of the UK or indeed the world's population who actually are self-sustaining with regard to their own food needs.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:26.000
Hmm.

01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:27.000
That's not is no. I haven't got that. Oh, it doesn't actually come up in any of the UN reports.

01:01:27.000 --> 01:01:38.000
It's not primarily in any UK report. as far as I know, So I can't really answer that question.

01:01:38.000 --> 01:01:42.000
Something that's not necessarily measured.

01:01:42.000 --> 01:01:44.000
Yes, I see.

01:01:44.000 --> 01:01:52.000
Okay. And well, there we go, Stuart. Okay. No, a quick question from Stephen.

01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:58.000
Now this was about, let me see if I can just find it.

01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:10.000
We've got lots of comments in here. This was to do with, the sort of environment impact of meat versus veg.

01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:21.000
And because obviously you can you can eat local meats but obviously a lot of edges imported. And meat does tend to get quite a bad rap sometimes because of the emissions that come from it.

01:02:21.000 --> 01:02:27.000
So I don't know what your thoughts are on that and because you can probably eat meat more locally than you can the veg because we see it in the supermarkets all the time.

01:02:27.000 --> 01:02:34.000
It's that most of the veg is coming from elsewhere.

01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:47.000
I think, and, mentioned, in of the lecture, meet in the UK, it is, if it comes from the UK, it's fairly, fairly good with the gods to environment environmental impacts.

01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:52.000
We're not using a lot of our grains or wheat and we've got a lot of grass etc.

01:02:52.000 --> 01:03:01.000
So it would be better obviously to buy meat. And it would be okay to, it wouldn't cause too much.

01:03:01.000 --> 01:03:13.000
To buy me with regards to food, food bars and the environmental impact if it was from the UK. If it was from, you know, you know, from Europe or things like that, then I would sort of and have to consider food miles, greenhouse gas emissions, etc.

01:03:13.000 --> 01:03:19.000
So by local, by British basically.

01:03:19.000 --> 01:03:25.000
But are there any sort of comparators? Are there any kinds of figures which show?

01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:33.000
Because obviously you know We know that there are huge amounts of fruit and veg that come in with huge huge food miles.

01:03:33.000 --> 01:03:41.000
Are there any figures that tell us kind of what the comparators are between the meat production and the veg?

01:03:41.000 --> 01:03:45.000
Off the top of my head but if you want to put that question I can answer that. For the notes afterwards.

01:03:45.000 --> 01:03:48.000
Right, well that's what we'll do, Stephen. We'll see if we can get full of answer for that.

01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:55.000
And afterwards. Okay. I think we'll probably have time for one more question and then we'll think we'll need to wrap up folks.

01:03:55.000 --> 01:04:02.000
But as I say, I'll gather all your questions together and we'll take a look at them afterwards.

01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:09.000
No, there was an interesting question actually from, Lesley.

01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:26.000
What do we know of the impact of the manufacture of supplements? The impact on the use of power and transport because obviously, you know, if you're thinking about vegetarian or a vegan diet, supplements are something that you would probably want to think about.

01:04:26.000 --> 01:04:35.000
Do we know what the environment environmental impacts are of the manufacture of these supplements?

01:04:35.000 --> 01:04:41.000
Simple answer is no, cause I haven't actually seen any, anything on the environmental impact to supplements.

01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:50.000
From an official point of view, I would have thought, because a lot of the supplements are, sort of chemically based and made in a laboratory.

01:04:50.000 --> 01:04:56.000
I couldn't really answer that question. Again, I can look it up.

01:04:56.000 --> 01:05:05.000
Okay, lovely. Okay. No.

01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:12.000
Right. This is a final question, we'll just answer, ask one more. And this is a question from Ali.

01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:17.000
Now let me just scroll down to see if I can find this.

01:05:17.000 --> 01:05:22.000
If you give me 1 s, Fox.

01:05:22.000 --> 01:05:30.000
Let's have a look.

01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:37.000
Right, I can't find it because we've got so many comments in here which I'll let you see but basically the gist of the question was.

01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:43.000
Do we know what sort of percentage difference can be made by individuals and all the things that we can do?

01:05:43.000 --> 01:05:53.000
To try and you know improve food sustainability compared to The actual food. Industry being better regulated.

01:05:53.000 --> 01:06:00.000
I suppose in terms of packaging and wastage and that kind of thing.

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:03.000
Sorry, can you repeat that?

01:06:03.000 --> 01:06:10.000
But, what percentage difference can be made by individuals compared to better food regulation, IE, the food industry.

01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:20.000
You know, because we're talking about all the things that we can do. What action, you know, what is the percentage difference that that can make compared to the difference that the food industry.

01:06:20.000 --> 01:06:25.000
Should actually make with better regulation.

01:06:25.000 --> 01:06:26.000
If that makes sense.

01:06:26.000 --> 01:06:28.000
Okay. Okay. Yeah, it is.

01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:44.000
Basically, I think if we all everybody can make it a difference, by little subtle changes, you know, in the way we sort of, live with sort of work and as we sort of, if we went to a supermarket and we kept set hand him back.

01:06:44.000 --> 01:06:53.000
Kept handing back the waste, plastics and things like that. They'll cotton on the producers will cotton on in the end.

01:06:53.000 --> 01:07:01.000
You know, voice is all coming back. Etc. Also I think

01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:08.000
I think really. From a legislative point of view. We're still early in the phase.

01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:20.000
I know we've got till 2030, but sustainable goals. Aren't being reached. With regards to that and there isn't really any, legislation out there.

01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:31.000
To say that we have to follow the requirements on this. I'm I'm getting sorry I'm going to get myself mixed up and skip very dark so I can't see what's going on.

01:07:31.000 --> 01:07:35.000
So can I answer that question again, please in in the notes. Thank you. Yeah.

01:07:35.000 --> 01:07:42.000
Sure, no problem at all. Okay, folks, right, it's now 10 past 6 actually, so we better start wrapping up.

01:07:42.000 --> 01:07:51.000
Okay, so really interesting stuff. I hope that we'll all be coming away with a little bit of food for thought and about what we can all do to reduce the impact on the environment.

01:07:51.000 --> 01:08:03.000
Improve our health and wellbeing and maybe save a little bit of money at the same time, which is obviously very important in the current financial climate.

01:08:03.000 --> 01:08:13.000
So thanks again, Lee. I hope everybody enjoyed that out there. Thanks, Lee.

00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:28.000
Okay, thank you very much, Fiona. Thank you for that introduction. And yes, I just like to welcome everybody to the lecture and I'll just start sharing my screen if that's okay.

00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:29.000
That's looking good, Janet.

00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:41.000
Okay, hope that everybody can see this first slide. Really, that's great. And as Piena said, this presentation is going to be an explanation of some some of the idioms of English and there are a lot we go to.

00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:56.000
Having a little look at how many and just look at their origins where they've come from and what they can tell us about about traditions, about customs and about the English language as well, you know, because they do reflect a history of change there.

00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:03.000
Okay.

00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:08.000
So, so Kosovo, we're going to just have a quick look at what a medium is.

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So the Cambridge Dictionary depends the lidium as a group of words that are in a fixed order that has a specific meaning that's different from the meaning of each word on its own.

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So that means that it's a it's a saying or a phrase that really is a specific sort of grace for that that has a particular meaning.

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Examples of of these idioms could be to peel under the weather or to say has the cat got your turn meaning you know why you being silent or it's raining cats and dogs.

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Some estimates. That I've read online and say that approximately 225,000 idiomatic sayings in the English language.

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And, really, that's quite a lot, but considering this 470,000 words in English, it may be that puts it into perspective, but still that's a considerable number of idioms.

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And one of the things is that we often don't realize that we're using idiomatic sayings, because we used them so frequently never day speech.

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For example, if I was to say I was going up north to Scotland, for example, or down south to London.

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I wouldn't really realize that I was using an idiot, but up and down, in terms of directions, is idiomatic.

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We don't literally go up or down. And it could be that these idioms to do with directions actually stem from putting charts and maps on a wall with the compass point north being look at the top.

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And the south being down at the bottom. And similarly, if I was to say, you know, everything's gone west, I don't mean it's literally gone west.

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But, the saying, to go Westminster. You know, die or to end.

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Could come from the thieves slang where going, going west to Tyburn, and make going to the gallows after you've been tried.

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Or it could simply mean that the West is where the sun sets in the northern hemisphere.

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So going west is where things go down and go and end. So, idioms, they're fascinating and that's what we're going to be looking at here.

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They're also very difficult if you're learning a language, they're probably one of the most difficult things to learn because they the sayings that have a specific meaning that isn't really connected to the the sort of practical meaning of the of the term.

00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.000
And of course, idioms, every language has idioms. It isn't unique to English.

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We've got a lot of idioms, but every language has idioms. And idioms can be culturally specific.

00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:02.000
Or they can tell us something about the culture. In Japan, I, I'm not going to try to pronounce these words.

00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:20.000
But because I'd probably mangle the language, which again is idiomatic. But to in Japan there's a medium that's briefly transmitted, means even monkeys call from trees so that means that everybody makes mistakes.

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I just go back a bit sorry about that. And in German there's an idiomatic phrase which means everything has an end.

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Only a sausage has 2, which means everything comes to an end and you can't get much more German than sausages.

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So it's sort of like culturally specific. And in Cuba there's a saying that it's all turned into a bowl of rice and mango.

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I mean it's it's all gone to pot it's gone as we might say in this country it's compare shape.

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And it's Swedish. We were told not to skitter in that blast, gap it. I think of just root Swedish there or to pull in the blue locker.

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:18.000
And that really means that don't make a mess of things and the blue locker refers to a very expensive piece of furniture because it was coated in fresh and blue paint which was really really expensive.

00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:33.000
So, idioms can be culturally specific and tell us a lot about the culture and certainly in the the idiots we have in English can tell us a lot about what we used to do some of the practices we used to have.

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And something about how the language has changed.

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So we got a lot of rain and so we have a lot of idioms about rain. We for example into each life some rain was fall, meaning you know it can't have a sunny day all the time.

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You can't have, you know, everything can't be nice and rosy all the time.

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And that actually comes from a, a poem by called The Rainy Day by Longfellow.

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Which was Mr. Native. 42. And it says that I fate. And it is a common fatable in 2 some each life, some rain was small.

00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:16.000
And that's like many literary sort of phases that's that's coming to everyday speech.

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People have read the poem or heard the poem and it they it's entity to everyday speech and now people who may never have read or heard of it.

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We'll use that phrase. Save it for a rainy day. And that comes, goes way back to the 15 hundreds from a play called Lasperia.

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Sperutata, which was adapted into English by John Lilly. So that originally came from, you know, another, another language.

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We have some idioms that have come from across the Atlantic like to do a rain check. Which really sort of originates from the baseball scene in in the U.S.A. in the 18 eighties but now we can do a rain check if we want to go on holiday or have a day out and that sort of thing.

00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:12.000
And rain on my parade again has an older origin from about the 18 hundreds but was very much popular.

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In the 1,964 film for the girl. I'm sure that you can find lots of other videos about to rain.

00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:36.000
And there's one in particular that we're going to look at because it's got many possible origins so we've got to look at raining cats and dogs or it's raining cats and dogs in a minute.

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But The so the idioms that we go to look at they can tell us something about our everyday practices and customs or the everyday practices and customs that have died out.

00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:55.000
And since the practice and customs have died out, we don't really associate the idiom with anything in particular.

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Or they can be traced back to maritime and naval history and we've got a very strong sort of maritime and naval history in this country and a lot of idioms have come from some of the beliefs and sort of practices that were in the sort of naval, on the naval scene.

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:20.000
Then we have false beliefs of familiarity, so I've got a lot of idioms about.

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Animals and particularly animals that we used to use a lot. And false beliefs sometimes about these animals as well so we can have a look at some of those and then of course we look at some idioms from literature.

00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:36.000
So it's going to be a little range of some of the idiots that we're going to look at.

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Some that I think have got quite an interesting history.

00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:53.000
For example, a red herring, which means a pulse clue. You might, you know, detective picture and you might say, well, that must be a red herring.

00:08:53.000 --> 00:09:08.000
And there were 2 possible origins. For that particular saying. And each of them probably true. The it could originate from a hunting and hunting practice where the herring which has a very strong scent.

00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:25.000
Was used as bait to train hounds. Rather like we do now, we don't, do fox hunting anymore, we use bates to if we go in hunting and Thomas Nash wrote about this particular custom in 1599.

00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:35.000
But it could also, on the contrary, sort of refer to a practice that poachers would use when they would drag a red herring behind them to put the landowners dogs off their scent.

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So it's the same thing but used by different people for different purposes. It's not, meaning to get married.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:59.000
That's it refers to a very old sort of Celtic tradition, not just Celtic tradition, but tradition, not just Celtic tradition, not just Celtic tradition, not just Celtic tradition, but certainly what it was associated with that, that's certainly what it was associated with, that's, certainly, what it was associated with them, to Celtic nations until very recently.

00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:11.000
And that's of hand pasting and it still goes on. People still hand passed in which 2 people married or underwent to try marriage by tying their hands together to show their commitments.

00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:19.000
So, when we tie up, pay the notch, we're getting married and showing our commitment to each other.

00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:27.000
And beat around the bush when you're wasting time and not getting to the point. Again, that comes from hunting.

00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:41.000
And it was first recorded in the in the porting porches. And the sort of real idiom, the poor lidium is one beats around the bush, the other gets the bird.

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So one waste time trashing around the book, but the other gets a bird. But we often just shorten it to beaten around the bush.

00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.000
It cost an arm and a leg. There's a lot of, a lot of different theories about this idiom.

00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.000
But one that I like is that it's the saying originates, it means to be very expensive.

00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:09.000
You know, the saying of it from the eighteenth century when people would pay to have their portrait painted.

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:15.000
And it would cost them quite a bit more to have their arms and their legs sort of included in the painting.

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:22.000
And so a lot, that's why you got a lot of That sort of busts of people rather than the whole, that portrait.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:25.000
But of course it could, it could refer to just be a general saying, meaning very, very expensive.

00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:44.000
But yeah, I quite like that. That possibility as well. Don't it's yes meaning a long time, comes from Cockney Raymond's, slung, donkey's ears, meaning years.

00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:45.000
Just put the 2 together. So, don his years, you know, he's been doing that for donkey's years.

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Been doing it for a long time. From my part of the world because I'm from Yorkshire, we love to say DAFTA, meeting somebody that's being poor.

00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:10.000
This is meant to be quite a friendly term. And all it means is a daft hate Louis or half Pennyworth or someone or something that's of little value.

00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:15.000
So it's not quite a nice, nice thing. It's, as we probably think it was.

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:20.000
You take the bucket, these are a bit, idioms that are a bit uncomfortable and often idioms are used as euphemisms as well or started out as euphemisms.

00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:35.000
That's why there's a picture of Monty Python's dead parrot scene where the whole list of idioms meaning to die in there.

00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:42.000
But yeah, so a lot of you can be some started off as, sort of a video started off as you.

00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:56.000
It's getting the bucket today. It could have, really originated. But I'm used to slaughter animals and we would in the last throws a death, the animal would literally kick the bucket over.

00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:09.000
Break a leg that's from the theater and so you'd wish someone good luck, well it wasn't, it was considered to be unlucky to wish somebody good luck.

00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:30.000
So you would wish them bad look, you know, I eat a breaker leg. And to turn the blind eye to something again as a quite an interesting history it comes from the Battle of Popenhagen in 18 or one when Horatio Nelson deliberately put Peninsula to his blind eye so he couldn't see the signal to withdraw because he wanted to carry on with the with the battle.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:45.000
And So that's, that maybe it may have been saying before that, but certainly that's what it's attributed to widely.

00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:53.000
Then we have terms like biting the bullet, you know, bite the bullet, get it over with, to face up to something that might be uncomfortable.

00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:01.000
And it was first recorded. Again, it's got a literary source in Rudyiard Kipling's novel, The Light That Failed.

00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:11.000
But like many of the literary idioms, they, the these things were probably in general usage before they were actually written by somebody in popularized.

00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:21.000
So it probably, was it within military slang, and based on the purchase, biting the bullet to cope with pay before an aesthetics were used.

00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:28.000
What of the say that I had a lot of fun sort of researching is one for the road. And there's a picture of Frank Sinatra that came to the road as well.

00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:39.000
So and Having won the road, usually has public connotations about taking the last week before we head home.

00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:44.000
That's probably what it means as well. I have one for the world, have one because I got home.

00:14:44.000 --> 00:15:00.000
But there has really just recently I think since about 2,010 there's been a couple of sort of a urban legends it were that the idiom has a darker history.

00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:13.000
And it's associated with this urban legend is associated with the fact that christeners were often offered one last drink because they went to the gallows and that was one for the road and associated with that.

00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:22.000
Alex, that's urban legend, is that on the wagon meant that you abstain from doing because you're on the wagon to go to the the gallows.

00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:39.000
These are really Yeah, I like the idea of that, but I don't think at any time, and particularly in this country, we were we were, kind of the click on that with condemned prisoners to give them the last drink, all too often that opportunity to escape.

00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:56.000
So there's no historical evidence to back that up. It is a nice, a nice story. And yeah, on the wagon, I mentioned, again, in twentieth century, early twentieth century, United States, or certainly.

00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:01.000
And it meant on the water wagon, so I'm not drinking, I'm on the water wagon, I want the water cart.

00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:22.000
And now to call off the wagon, means to, you know, go back onto whatever your, back into drinking or you've gone, you may might have got up a diet or you're calling off the wagon containing to anything you'd given up previously and you're now doing again.

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:28.000
Putting someone's leg, it's, it's, we often, it's an idiot this often, you know, I'm just pulling your leg.

00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:31.000
I'm just having a bit of a joke with you. And the, but the idioms are quite unclear.

00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:46.000
I thought I'd be able to find, exactly where this came from. One, quite a few sauces, I was, and it originated from the practice of thieves turning on someone's leg to distract them.

00:16:46.000 --> 00:17:03.000
Well, well, part of the pig, the victim's pocket. Incidentally, cutting the wool of your eyes, and, have originated from the fact that thieves might when in the days when people were wigs they would one thing might hold the wig over some of his eyes to stop them seeing what's going on in the pocket.

00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:18.000
So some of these, sayings might have come from rather devious. But they've asked some claims that.

00:17:18.000 --> 00:17:28.000
That although we might think this. So, began the medieval marketplace of Victorian states, it might not have been the correct origin of the id.

00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:39.000
Others have suggested that people were hired on the, at the gallows during public hand. It's a pull on the legs of the victims to speed their legs their end.

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:55.000
Theopicon, of the Macabre association with idioms. And But, yeah, but nobody's quite sure, but it's got some, some fascinating sort of histories, that possible histories to it.

00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:07.000
When we have painting the town red and this means you know you could have a night of outrageous behavior so I'm you know the when I was your going to go out and paint the town red and this has a specific origin.

00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:25.000
The in 1837 the Mackey of Waterford who was known as a rather bit of a waterford who was known as a rather bit of a man about town let a great group of waterford who was known as a rather bit of a man about town, who was known as a rather bit of a man about town, led a great group of friends on a night of drinking through the English town of Melton Mogree.

00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:33.000
And this ended up in vandalism and all sorts of revelry in this sort of thing. And yeah, they literally.

00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:47.000
Heyated a toll gate and the doors of several homes in under swan statue it's with red paint so that does come from one particular incident.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:58.000
Then we come to the idioms from maritime and naval history. And of course we have a lot and many of them we use and don't really realise where they've come from.

00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:07.000
Sort of tied over and means to sort of make a small amount due to a large amount can be sourced.

00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:19.000
And it's something that many people are doing now to sort of having a bits tied them over. And that relates to the old days of the old saline boats, so the Sailing ships, but there wasn't enough winds to blow the sails.

00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:27.000
The ship would sort of float on the tide and just tied over until the wind arrived. Eating blue, the feeling blue will have a lot of different origins.

00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:41.000
And so it could be associated with cleaning blue with the cold. It could be related to, and I think this is a sort of a separate, meaning, meaning, but still meaning to be sad to the blues.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:51.000
In America and in the sort of slavery and longing for the the blue blue blue skies and things.

00:19:51.000 --> 00:20:03.000
But being Bluetooth to feel sad does have an origin in our naval history. So when a captain died at sea the crew would put it blue flags and maybe paint a blue line along the ship's side to show respect to morning.

00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:10.000
So when you're feeling blue, you're feeling pretty down.

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:29.000
Even the saying to be taken about, look, a surprise or, or startled, and refer to that when the days when the sales of a ship were described as being a back if the wind flattened them or blew against them so it could refer be a reference to that sort of feeling.

00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:32.000
And to pipe down, well, the ship's crew, so we all think of them as big big burly men.

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:50.000
And they, received a lot of instructions and one single signal was to be piped down piping down the hammock so they got went down below to sleep and they'll play the pipes as they went down below.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:21:02.000
How in the line? So members of the British Navy were required to stand barefoot with their toes placed along a line or a seam of plank on the deck for inspection.

00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:07.000
So if you're toying the line, you've got your toes on that. Line as you're supposed to do, you're doing as you're told.

00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:20.000
And the doldrums. And that was a belt around the equator. And because there was little surface wind in the days of sailorship again, ship could often be come stranded there.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:26.000
So when you were in the doldrums who were listless, depressed. Bored. And And that's sort of thing.

00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:40.000
And 3 sheets to the wind. We need to be very drunk. And so again, back to the sailing ships, the the Saini ships would have 3, now that they have more, main sales, which we call sheets.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:47.000
And if the pay, first sale sort of came adrift or lost its taught this, then the, would sort of wobble from side to side.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:54.000
Who came with it? Then it was really sort of start lurching and and sort of leering.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:09.000
But if all 3 came at Rick then it would pitch and roll and be completely out of control so if you were completely out of control you're so doing the complete out of control you have 3 sheets to the wind.

00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:28.000
And yeah, so we also have, sayings of generalized sort of sayings referring to, sailors as jolly jockeys, Johnny Johnny Jack has sorry and so a lot of these sort of references to people.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:40.000
Pam from common names and Jack's been a popular name for centuries. And of course in the days of the Sailors, Sailorships, the ships were made of wood and rigging, and made from hemp.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:51.000
And to stop the rope from sort of eroding, there was soaking tar, which had to be constantly reapplied and sailors, I mean this this is a picture here of Johnny Depp as in Jack's swallow, Sparrow, sorry.

00:22:51.000 --> 00:23:13.000
And he had these sort of dreadlocks and braids and it's the actual that was costume is not really very far removed from reality because the say this would guitar on their hair to deter license things and to stop it flapping around in the wind.

00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:21.000
So they got in the name Johnny Jock, Jack, Come to Jolly because we're a bit drunk, but they came so sure as well.

00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:32.000
So there's some truth between the when we talk about the the TAS and the and Tommy Atkins as well but obviously Tommy is a was a very since still is a very common sort of British name.

00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:47.000
And this it you know, in the sort of world walls, the soldiers, the common soldiers were referred to the Thomas as the Tommy's.

00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:57.000
And it goes back to the Duke of Wellington as well as far back as sort of. And he, the troops by this name in honor of a very brave man of arms called Tommy Atkins.

00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:10.000
So it could have a much more specific. Being as well it could refer to an actual person originally.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:22.000
So what're going on to look at some animal-based idioms. And so, idioms tend to come from our rice from things that are really, we're familiar with.

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:36.000
And because We're familiar with the things. We sort of use metopausa to associate with the the entity or the animal and it they become idioms.

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:42.000
So yeah, so. One actually swims like a fish is and he drinks like a fish.

00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:49.000
They don't need much explanation, you know, fishes, they live in the water, they swim, they seem to drink.

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:58.000
But a lot of the animal idioms have some interesting sort of histories. So we'll just have a quick look at some of these.

00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:19.000
So I told you about the saying, it's raining cats and dogs. And if you want to fascinating idiom to look up here this one is really quite a fascinating one and it's up to one that if somebody is learning English they will say well why on earth do you say that you know what what's what's the history behind this And nobody is exactly sure about the origins of this idiom.

00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:49.000
It probably has quite a few. So it could have a physical origin. So when the rain fell heavily in the trees, like London, it would carry with it all the debris, including the carbure here, the bodies of dead or drowned animals and Johnny Jonathan Swift actually describes this in 70 10 in the point called the description of a city shower where he describes drowned puppets, thinking.

00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:54.000
sprat, soul, drenched in merged dead cats and turnish tops all came tumbling with the flood.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:12.000
And so it could refer to that sort of thing. Other suggestions are that the cats and the dogs would sometimes perched on patched roots and when there was a very heavy rain the patch would give way bringing the animals down with them.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:20.000
Which is possible. Not much in dog speed, the touch move rooms, but, you never know.

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:43.000
There's a possible literary source and that's Richard Brahms, 1652 play the city wit in which the main character pretends to love no Latin because he wants to impress his friends and so he he says something like the world is full flow with dancers and it shall rain dogs and polecats and so forth.

00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:54.000
So it could come from a play that was popular in the middle of the seventeenth century.

00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:07.000
And other say what it's just got a very sort of rural origin it comes from the names given to the flowers of the widow tree, in's and cuss a willow and so they will be washed down with the rainfall.

00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:29.000
So when it mains cats and dogs, it's very in in some potty willow. Which is a charming image really And David Milton in the book Words B's a debunking linguistic urban legends suggest that the EDM, that heavy rainfall sounds like cats and dogs.

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:38.000
Piting. I haven't actually heard that but yeah, it could do. But the, the Library of Congress.

00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:57.000
That the idea might come from the Greek expression, a cataductor or contrary to expressions or especially this denoting a, or contrary to expressions, especially this denoting a sort of extraordinary deluge of rain or from the French word, this denoting a sort of extraordinary deluge of brain or from the French word, denoting a sort of extraordinary deluge of brain or from the French word cadoo, which means a deluge or or water

00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:00.000
call. Nobody knows for sure. Nobody really knows for sure. It could be a mixture of all those things.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:14.000
But yeah, this become a an idiomatic saying the top 10 battles. People who are learning English.

00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:21.000
And there we go, a whole set of idioms relating to sin bags. Dogs in bags.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:30.000
Things in pokes when a poke is a, is a bag. And all this sort of thing and you think, well, what on earth is going up there?

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:41.000
So to let the cat out of the bag, we need to give away a secret. So if I was to sort of the No, health something that said small to get secret.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:48.000
I let the cat out of the bag opt in and personally. And this comes from the all come from a very similar source.

00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:54.000
In old marketplaces, suckling pigs, so little baby piglets. Rockton sold live.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:58.000
In bags or pokes. So if you don't want the pigs running about all the time so it'd be better to just to have them already hide up in a bag.

00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:16.000
And some unscrupulous tradeers will put a live pat in the bag. He said of a pig and the customer wouldn't realize that they had been swindled to they opened the bag at home and the cat slept out.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:34.000
And, and it's similar to buy a puck, and that means it's from the same, same practice or same malpractice, you know, when the circling pig was replaced with a puppy, you bought a pot meaning to you bought something that's no good and the pig in the poke is when you've actually bought something without seeing.

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:41.000
So you haven't had a look at your pig that's in the in the coke. You know you might actually be a cat in the dog if you haven't looked at it.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:55.000
So these all come from this unscrupulous sort of practice that was in the marketplaces from the medieval times up to the, well I would say quite recently, so, I do.

00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:05.000
Live animals are no longer sold in marketplaces. Then we've got a of idioms about horses so pigs and cats and dogs are very familiar animals so are horses.

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:17.000
So if you say don't look a get horse in the mouth you know you're given something so don't don't complain about it.

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:23.000
Don't don't look it's imperfections. Actually comes it can be traced back to 380 BCE.

00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:32.000
And so you know don't we and it just goes on the fact they can hell the horse's age and its help from its teeth.

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:41.000
And so, don't look too meticulously. That's something that's a gift to you.

00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:52.000
And came straight from the horses mouth as well. Horse traders might lie about a horse's age and a customer get a better idea if they actually looked at the horse's mouth and got it straight from the horse's mouth the age.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:05.000
Same as longing the tooth as a horse ages. Is teeth don't actually get longer but the gums recede which makes its teeth look longer so we've got a collection of idioms all to do with horses and mouths and horses teeth.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:14.000
As well which go back to all the, you know, when we used to buy horses in, in market places as well.

00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:27.000
It's a more horse related, idioms as well. So, something that I used to say with the, with my children, you know, it could take a host of water, but you can't make it drink.

00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:45.000
So there's a limit to what you can do. You can only do so much. And this got way back to old English in parts to the eleventh century where it says, you know, basically that's, you could take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:51.000
A horse of a different color. This comes from Shakespeare. We've been looking at a few more idioms.

00:31:51.000 --> 00:31:54.000
There are a lot of idioms that come from Shakespeare. And of course Shakespeare, might not have invented these idioms.

00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:06.000
He was very, very, very good at making theologians and new sayings, but he certainly popularized them.

00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:11.000
And so this comes from twelfth night, a horse of different color. Wild horses wouldn't keep me away.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:25.000
Now we're going back into sort of McCabra territory again here. So it is assumed to refer to an old method of quartering being pulled apart by a team of wild horses.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:31.000
Again, it's probably more fictional than actual, it wouldn't have been very practical to have.

00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:49.000
Call to people this way, but who knows? And then we've got the hair of the dog that bit you, which I've always thought was a very strange practice, you know, when it, it means basically we've got a hangover, you have another drink to.

00:32:49.000 --> 00:33:01.000
Make you feel better. And it, it arises from a fault, which actually part of homeopathy were like cures light.

00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:07.000
And it can be traced the idea of this that like to, you know, cures like.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:12.000
So if you take if something's done harm to you take a little bit more but it might help.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:18.000
Can we create as far back to as Hippocrates, core 60 to 3 77 PC.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:26.000
And they had a dog bit you basically meant that if you were bitten by a rabid dog then putting a hair of the infected animal onto a wound would prevent the infection of rabies.

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:38.000
It didn't, but There's very additional that they could do at that time. Probably was where anything was worth the try.

00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:45.000
But that's, yeah, the head, the.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:50.000
The bees, knees, yes, so you're the biggest knees, you're the very best.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:08.000
And so yes, It's, it actually, comes from, what we call folk, etymology, which is the suddenly a history of was, I'm phrases and made it by the fault, made it by the common people.

00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:15.000
And, These don't actually have these as such, but it was thought that they have little lumpy things on the legs.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:31.000
It was thought that they used these sacks on their legs to carry pollen, which was then used to make honey and therefore the the needs that these little colours that were really really precious because it made honey and honey was very very very precious.

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:38.000
Of course, that that isn't the case, but it's the maybe 100 for the nectar.

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:40.000
And another one about this, it comes from full came to me is that it's about bees making a B line for something.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:58.000
So be and that we person you know making it you're going in a straight line a B line which comes from the sort of belief that bees take the most direct route back to their hives.

00:34:58.000 --> 00:35:23.000
They don't actually, but the say you make it a B line does have a little truth because a forager be goes out of scouts for pollen sauce and then it returns to the, does a little waggle dance or something and then makes a beat then the rest of the swarm make a bee line for the to the salt all the workers do anyway so so yeah they do they do take most direct route

00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:34.000
afterwards when after they Bees come back. And that idiom make it a bee line was first seen in print in the U.S.A. in the 18 hundreds.

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:42.000
Robert was in common use of Bush before then. Like a lot of these sayings were were used colloquially.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:47.000
And before they actually came into print.

00:35:47.000 --> 00:36:05.000
And of course when this one idiot we can make Hundreds more and we'll sort of something so they are fixed expressions but we can sometimes make make a few alternative ones that are very explosive structure to the original and we still know what's going on.

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:14.000
So the spiders, ankles, the ants, pants, hypothesis, sops, the camels hump for the cat's pyjamas, of all derivations of the bee's knees.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:19.000
I'll be the same.

00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:32.000
Really good other ones. So open a can of words. Yes, so again, it's, most likely comes from Pishing, when Angela's might open the bait boxes and spill the content.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:44.000
So it could come from just an everyday common occurrence. Or yes, and it, yeah. Would also refer to something rather like Tandorver spots.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:51.000
To get all your ducks in a row to get things in order. So the That's, from the observation that the things.

00:36:51.000 --> 00:37:00.000
And often follow their mother in a line. And we will love to see this, that the things, often follow their mother in a line. And we'll love to see this.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:08.000
We see the mother that going and and it could also be from the eighteenth century lawn bowling game in which the ducks were, they were the pins, had to be set up before the bowling took place.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:19.000
Or it could even be an arcade shooting game where you shoot there rifle at these these doves.

00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:31.000
So there are lots of different origins for that. I tend to think that probably there's a little bit of who seen all of them.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:49.000
And I'll be a monkey's uncle. I'll be very surprised. So yeah, this comes from a originally or the first printed version of the saying comes from a newspaper called the Brass Monkey printed in Texas in 1,917.

00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:54.000
And it was supposed to be a sarcastic response by creationists who Darwin's theory of evolution.

00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:06.000
But now it's not really used sarcastically, it's just used as way of saying I'm be very surprised.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:13.000
That's the cat got your turn, you're probably thinking, well, these idioms have some rather, list and savory origins.

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:28.000
And this is this is no exception. So has a cat got your turn? It could have been originated from earlier practices in ancient societies in which liars had their tongues cut out and possibly petered cats.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:41.000
There's no evidence to say it is. It could also refer back to the naval histories where the catanine tails or wick will be used if I say it has answered that so they kept quiet.

00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:53.000
So the sort of cats actually got their their tongue as it were. Oh, it might even have a reference to medieval beliefs that witches familiar may be cats who could bind ones speechless.

00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:03.000
So yeah, this, yeah. Yeah. It's a much maligned in in in mediums.

00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:08.000
There's mad as a hatter, we tend to associate this with Lewis Carroll's book.

00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:18.000
I listen in Wonderland, which is a character called the Mad Hatter. But it the term was quite well-established before, in the, in 1865.

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:19.000
It would be really interesting though and I'm sure that Carol knew that knew this, Lewis Carroll.

00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:37.000
In 1,800 hat makers would use mercury nitrate to stabilize the felt and this could give them a form of mercury poisoning which caused, yeah, I wouldn't even try to pronounce it, but it was a sort of a delirium.

00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:48.000
And to do with mercury poisoning. So being as mad as a hatter could have literally been.

00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:56.000
Observation for people suffering from in the hatting industry suffering from Yeah, mercury poisoning. But snobs.

00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:09.000
Dot com suggests that this idiom is really, really very old. It, it, from the old English and middle English saying as mad as a matter.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:17.000
Where the word mad could mean dangerous or venomous, not necessarily sort of crazy. And Natter was adder.

00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:28.000
And we're going to see that a lot of these words that, beginning with an A of a day and they change.

00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:42.000
We could have a look at some of those words that change over time. So the praise originally meant as feminists as a, as a viper.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:47.000
So yeah, so there's a few ones which do begin with, and then now begin with the bubble.

00:40:47.000 --> 00:41:02.000
So, and that there was once a, an apron was once, an apron. And when people start putting these words into print in the fifteenth century and beyond, they didn't know whether it was an adder or a nadder or a napalon nap.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:13.000
So they made the division, they said, right, okay, we go to put the indefinite article here and, and you it, begin with, with a, with a vowel.

00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:25.000
A nude was initially an you, so that one had a different sort of change in its constriction through printing.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:34.000
And to eat humble pie. And that's another one that when we're talking about sort of linguistic changes.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:41.000
So the the liver entrails and the heart of the, I know we should all very good bit free, live in the heart.

00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:47.000
We're called the Numbles. Like on the French Numbles and Latin Lumbler really little loin.

00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:59.000
And the numbers of the animal were often eaten by hunts the huntsman, his companions and and the the servants they were considered to be you know that they were eaten by the lower class.

00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:05.000
The better cuts of meat were reserved for the masts and the lords and their families.

00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:19.000
So if a gentleman, you know, the mass is a lot of, and his associates committed some misdemeanor or error, they'd be asked to eat number pie rather than prestigious cuts of meat.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:27.000
So they'd be served this number pie, which is where we get the word humble pie. The N was actually lost at some time in history because people began to think that a number power was an humble pie.

00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:44.000
And some of your peeps actually wrote in his diary, Mrs Turner came in and did bring us an umble pie hot out of her of an extraordinary good.

00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:51.000
On Webster's dictionary sort of estimates that Numbles passed the numbers in about the 13 hundreds and then became humbles in 1,400 and they became humbles or humble due to associations with lack of prestige.

00:42:51.000 --> 00:43:10.000
In the 15 hundreds. But it wasn't common everywhere. So yes, so we've had a change from numbers to humble and in between for that one.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:18.000
And then we've got to just have a quick look at some literary sources where, idioms have come from.

00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:29.000
And so there's a common saying, isn't this, if you want to know where a saying comes from, look at the Bible or Shakespeare and also the Aesop's fables.

00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:42.000
So don't get a manger, that comes from a story by, from, aes, which is one of the earliest sort of widely published, children's literature, of widely published children's literature.

00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:53.000
And so, yeah, that's about a dog that, children's literature. And so, yeah, that's about a dog that was very protective of a major pull of hay, even though the hay was of no use to me to kept the ox and the sheep away from it.

00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:58.000
And these pebbles, originate from about 600 BC and but the, inium didn't.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:09.000
Enter English until well popularly until about 15 hundreds when the, the, were widely published.

00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:14.000
Let me have the King James Bible and there are lots of Gideons and sayings that come from the King James Bibles and there are lots of idioms and sayings that come from the King James Bibles and sometimes again we don't really realize where where they came from.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:33.000
So in David Crystal, found 200 depicted 7 phrases from the King James Bible in English, but only 18 were unique to the King James version, others had come from Wycliffe's earlier translation of the Bible.

00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:41.000
Shakespeare? Introduced about a hundred phrases and 1,700 new words so Shakespeare Introduce a lot more new words.

00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:51.000
And Christine actually just say though that much Shakespeare's work was a drama so there would be much more need for more video.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:58.000
Matic sayings, new words, this sort of thing. And the Bibles produced to be critical to the original text.

00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:10.000
So 2 different genres. But they still both produce a lot of Indians. So we'll have a look at a few of these.

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:16.000
Bye.

00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:23.000
There we go. So these are some mediums from the Bible that we've probably heard of, to be the salt of the earth.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:31.000
To give up the go. The set your teeth on edge. We also got the skin of the teeth as well, although youth don't have skin.

00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:39.000
And that could be a translation from a Hebrew saying as well, and that makes more sense in Hebrew that does in in English.

00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:57.000
Out of the mouths of babes. Spare the child, spoil the child. Position here thereself, Brothers Keeper, wash one's hands off, an even hotly rhyme's slang has a records would you autumn and believe that would you believe that So we get a lot of our idioms and expressions from the Bible.

00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:06.000
Of course, the Bible was probably the most widely read read literature for many. And yes, Shakespeare.

00:46:06.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Yeah, so Shakespeare, he, he was, his works have been printed and performed at the time of standardization and improved levels of literacy occurring.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:30.000
So what he wrote often was taken up by the public as well. And so yes, he's accredited for bringing in about 1,700 new words, sayings.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:43.000
This Bernard Levin quotas has a performs quoting Shakespeare. If you look it up on YouTube, it's really, really, sort of, well-performed.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:47:03.000
So if you bid me good riddance, send me packing if you wish I was as dead as a doornail, if you think I'm an I saw a laughing sock the devil in can need to stony how to feel bloody minded or bleak in idiot, then by Jove, Oh Lord, for goodness sake, what the Dickens, Dickens meaning devil.

00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:09.000
But me no buts and y'all, Shake, the Poeting Shakespeare.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:25.000
All those saying, from Shakespeare and these are some of the looking stock pound of flesh all that glistens is not gold there's liquid habit and to be all and then all.

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:39.000
So there's a lot of these. Sayings from Shakespeare.

00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:46.000
We'll have some sort of, honorable mentions. And before we go to a close.

00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:58.000
You get so much short shrift when it's coming up to Shrove Tuesday. And to Shri, meant to compress your sins, henchrive or shrews Tuesday, is that so people invest their sins before lent?

00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:02.000
So if you're given short shrift, you were given only a minimal time to confession since before.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:20.000
Oh, it's a little bit, but, one before you were executed. Freelancer, or to freelance in the Middle Ages, some nights were mercenaries and they'll hire out their services in the carry lances, therefore they arranged their old terms, hence there were 3 lancers.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:33.000
Again, this comes from Paul Ketemology, whereby people might think that bear comes were originally sort of a mockerous shape than that and their mothers literally licked them into shape.

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:38.000
And so, yes.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:45.000
I'll, draw this to a close nap because we come into the, near the end, sometimes some questions.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:53.000
So iti's can enrich a language, so given this imaginative, sometimes mysterious ways to refer to concepts and practices.

00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:00.000
And they need they do. We often use idioms when we don't. Even know that we're using Lydians.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:21.000
But, like, languages for, full of metaphor. And they also reflect practices and beliefs that may not be part of the modern world, just to give us important insights into all the customs and traditions and they might even preserve all the words operators or show how they changed because as the word changes so does the meaning as well.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:33.000
So, in idioms can give us really good insights into the changes in our languages. In our language and the change in in our society as well.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:44.000
So I let. Leave time call. Any questions or if you want to share some mediums that we'd like to discuss that would be be brilliant?

00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:45.000
Yeah.

00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:47.000
Yeah, thank you very much for that, Janet. We've had lots of action going on in the chat here.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:50:02.000
So I know there's lots of thoughts from you at everyone out there about the different meanings of some of these expressions and where they come from.

00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:03.000
Yeah.

00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:07.000
So what we'll do, Janet is I'll gather them together for you. I don't think we've got time to look at them all in the community session today but we'll pass them all on to because I'm sure you'll be interested to read those.

00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:08.000
And yeah.

00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:26.000
I certainly will. And, I think we're seeing the discussion as well that, opt in the event one source or the, it sometimes the source is unclear and it I'd be really I'd really report to seeing other other explanations for the for the Adams as well.

00:50:26.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Absolutely. Okay, and Janet, I wonder if you want to just take your presentation down just now and then we'll do a few questions.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:32.000
Yeah, absolutely.

00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:41.000
I'll do my best to get through as many of them as I can, folks, but anything that we don't get to will certainly take a look at after the lecture.

00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:49.000
I'm gonna kick off with a question from Helen. She's asking, do you think some idioms become refracted in time?

00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:57.000
For example, the pop calling the kettle black seems to have been replaced by the words hot kettle and black spring to mind.

00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:07.000
I tend to say personally myself just pots and kettles. She thinks that that one is going to set out as an attempt at humor but ends up a bit more trite than the original.

00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:08.000
But yes.

00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:19.000
Yes, I've heard this where where people will reduce the idiom and they'll just say pot Heckle or whatever, but and and yes, they do reduce the idiom.

00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:42.000
And when you think about it, it's, it, if personal time when we used to hang these pieces of sort of utensils over the pyre and both the petal and the pot would be black because we blackened by the coal and so it's not a practice we do we use anymore but I do think that language changes and idioms although we do they said we're getting their quite set grazers they will alter with

00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:47.000
that. Yeah, so I think you're absolutely right. Some of them do have we do start they and refracted.

00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:48.000
You're absolutely right.

00:51:48.000 --> 00:51:54.000
Hmm. I'm kind of related to that a little bit. There's a question here from Sue.

00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:56.000
Is there a generational aspect to all of this? She wasn't aware that, for example, taken aback was an idiom.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:16.000
And she does use that phrase. She doesn't use raining cats and dogs but her parents did so you know, is there sort of like a, sorry, general, generational aspect to that?

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:23.000
That's the certainly is. And certainly when I was a child, we there were lots of idioms to do with theme.

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:29.000
You know, it's called seen a head, you know, for Augustine school, whatever or you've got to get up steam or whatever.

00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:34.000
And now we don't hear those. And because obviously the steam age is quite a long time away.

00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:47.000
So, so ago. So I think they do change over time as well. I'm trying to think if some idiots that my parents would say my parents were from the you know they're born in the twenties and yeah there were certainly things that they would say they're idiomatic in their day.

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:57.000
And are not anymore. We are hardly used anymore. But yeah, there there's a generational thing, I'm certain.

00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:06.000
Okay, thank you. And a question from Stuart, you were talking about knowing your onions.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:07.000
Yeah.

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:13.000
And Stuart saying he always thought that idiom was to do with knowing the contents of CT onions and dictionary of entomology.

00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:28.000
And but thinks that must be wrong since his dictionary only dates back to 1966. When did dictionaries begin to include idioms and their entomology in a comprehensive manner?

00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:29.000
That's a quick question.

00:53:29.000 --> 00:53:43.000
Oh, right. Well, I'm, I'm going back to Samuel Johnson's dish in me and I don't know that you've actually still, I think he's was just, I think he's, to Samuel Johnson's dictionary and I don't know that you've actually still, I think his was just words, he used to make up some wonderful meanings but for some of the words as well

00:53:43.000 --> 00:53:49.000
definitions I think there's a one for OH which I won't say because it's quite quite offensive to anybody from Scotland.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:58.000
It's quite quite offensive to anybody from Scotland. But at the, yeah, there's the don't know exactly when the idioms were included in dictionaries.

00:53:58.000 --> 00:54:00.000
Dictionaries did start as just a recording. There were parts of the way of standardizing the language.

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:11.000
You needed a, you know, a definition and a way of spelling a particular word, the, and printing was coming out.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:20.000
Idios would have come later, but I don't know exactly when they would have been included. It'd be something, it's something to look up and come to research as well.

00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:21.000
Yeah.

00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:23.000
Okay, there you go. There's a bit of work for you then. Let's turn it.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:25.000
Yeah.

00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:36.000
And a question from Steve here actually. Are idioms like these still arising? If so, where do they come from these days?

00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:37.000
I guess they must be still arising.

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:46.000
They they are yes and oh I I'm absolutely used as it's thinking on the spot, but they are.

00:54:46.000 --> 00:55:04.000
They, they all things to do with language dynamic. And there'll be idioms coming out now that have to do with, you know, generation Z or whatever that our new idioms to do with new technologies to do it social media to do with new celebrities and this sort of thing.

00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:11.000
And yes, they're still there. It's surprising really that some mediums are very, very old and are still used.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:18.000
But the vast, and that are really, really modern, whether they not really new ones stay is a different matter.

00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:23.000
Some of them can be idiomatic for time, but they don't actually pay the day out into a bit.

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:25.000
So yeah.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:26.000
Okay.

00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:28.000
Right, yes, I've just seen somebody here come, yeah, yes.

00:55:28.000 --> 00:55:34.000
Okay, yeah, I thought we could maybe spend a few minutes maybe looking at some of the idioms that people have come up with to see what your thoughts are on them.

00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:36.000
Yes.

00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:41.000
I've got a few here. We won't get through them all everybody. We will try to do that afterwards.

00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:49.000
No, let me scroll back all the bits of talk. From Miranda. Have you heard of the French idiom?

00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:00.000
Climbing the trees. I'm going to say this and if the French for this and I hope I pronounce it properly.

00:56:00.000 --> 00:56:01.000
Hmm.

00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:04.000
Hi happens to know what's it mean? I mean what does it what does it mean.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:05.000
Don't know.

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:26.000
I haven't heard of that. But i'm i'm learning French at the moment again i mean i and that is a school at school but i'm going back different and simply yeah the idioms again you know fascinating idioms there but haven't had a time in the trees I wondered what I'm going to put it I'm rashing on the, I'll have a look at

00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:27.000
them.

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:32.000
Okay, right. We talked about Tommy Atkins.

00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:33.000
Yes.

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:37.000
So related to that. Do we know who Joe Bloggs and John DOE were? That's from Ruth and Jane respectively.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:47.000
Okay. We don't know. Joe, I think just means every month. It's like every month, you know, how you have been in shape with this.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:51.000
And it makes you, you know, how you have been in shape with this. And it means you're your common person.

00:56:51.000 --> 00:56:58.000
Your common name blogs common name. Whether there was a direct recurrent to Joe Block, they're taking a Joe Bloggs who was just like a normal blow.

00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:07.000
I don't know. John DOE and Jane DOE that that meaning somebody without a name, and often, yeah.

00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:13.000
They, I'm not quite sure where they, where that comes from. I know how it's used, but I'm not quite sure where the dough bit comes from.

00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:20.000
I'd like to think that it's a there may be some sort of acronym. But yeah, I don't know where the dough comes from.

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:25.000
I'm sorry about that.

00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:37.000
Okay. No, this one from Kate, now let me just find it. Just go scrolling through these comments.

00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:39.000
I've got lots of them for you Janet.

00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:45.000
Okay.

00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:46.000
Thank you.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:52.000
It was to do with, It's all my I and Betty Markham or Betty Martin as Judith said.

00:57:52.000 --> 00:57:55.000
It's in relation to weather, I think.

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:56.000
All right, yes.

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:00.000
Well, I'm not sure. I might be wrong in that actually. I might be thinking of something else.

00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:05.000
And have you heard of that one? So, I am Betty Markham or Martin.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:09.000
Oh, I have in a quick question, I've forgotten its origins, but, but yes, yes, I don't know where that comes from.

00:58:09.000 --> 00:58:26.000
It sounds like it's a, it's. I believe it comes from. It's a more modern one than some of the most to be looking at.

00:58:26.000 --> 00:58:27.000
Hello?

00:58:27.000 --> 00:58:34.000
But yeah, so, Jill, I think has just said that DOE, DOE, means dead on a ride on examination, which which I thought it was an acronym of some sort, but yeah, brilliant.

00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:35.000
Thank you.

00:58:35.000 --> 00:58:40.000
Right, I've got another one here from Judith, which actually is, I think, once do the weather.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:43.000
It's looking black over Bill's mother's.

00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:45.000
Oh!

00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:46.000
I've never heard that one, have to say.

00:58:46.000 --> 00:58:55.000
Bye. I haven't, it's just a local one, I mean, but some of these are, that you can get, it, at a local to an area.

00:58:55.000 --> 00:59:12.000
And so that may be maybe a local one. This one about, going, you know, Go down to the back door or something or going up the stairs or something that's, it's quite a look at our area meaning he was really surprised by something.

00:59:12.000 --> 00:59:13.000
Yeah, yeah.

00:59:13.000 --> 00:59:14.000
Okay, I've got a couple more and then I think we'll need to start wrapping up folks.

00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:27.000
Now this is from Kita.

00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:28.000
Yeah. Yes.

00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:41.000
Freezing the bowls of a breast monkey, we've all heard that one. He's heard that this is linked to the brass balls on the end of an iron bedframe or that a monkey was a type of tree used to hold cannonballs next to the cannon on ships.

00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:42.000
Yes.

00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:44.000
The latter might link to powder monkeys a term to describe the young boys who used to claim over the ship's cannons.

00:59:44.000 --> 00:59:45.000
What do you think?

00:59:45.000 --> 00:59:51.000
Yes. I think that's very, very likely. Same as having a loose cannon if you're a loose cannon, you can't be relied on.

00:59:51.000 --> 01:00:11.000
It goes back to the days when old warships and if you did have a canon that wasn't tethered down or tied down it was very dangerous to go up anywhere so yeah in the powder monkeys and the brass monk as well yeah Yes, so yes, there's a lot of things to do with monkeys attached to do with monkeys themselves both to do with people of a certain set of

01:00:11.000 --> 01:00:14.000
trades or other things as well.

01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:24.000
Hmm, okay. And another one from Mike. Er, early twentieth century McCannell was sold in 2 versions.

01:00:24.000 --> 01:00:33.000
Box standard and boxer locks which are alleged to have given rise to 2 common expressions today. True or dubious.

01:00:33.000 --> 01:00:34.000
What do you think?

01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:37.000
Right, so, so, early, makad, could you just repeat that one? Yeah.

01:00:37.000 --> 01:00:42.000
We can, oh, 2 versions box standard and box deluxe.

01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:50.000
Right, now this is really good. This is something that I might call, what they called an egg call.

01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:56.000
Now, a egg cone is something that people misunderstand. It's here, but it makes sense.

01:00:56.000 --> 01:01:04.000
So in Acorn, becomes Natecong, because it So I've always thought box standard was bog.

01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:07.000
Bog standard. But, yeah, both standard. Yeah, it could actually refer to that.

01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:23.000
They probably does have that could be one of the origins for it, they probably does have that that could be one of the origins for it but I've always thought the box done and meant, you know, down to earth, you know, normal, sort of, but that could be what I call the nick on as well.

01:01:23.000 --> 01:01:30.000
Hmm. Okay. And I think we might have to leave it there. And Linda, you had asked about having this slide with the references on.

01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:35.000
And what I will do is post lecture, I will post up the details of the references and adopt the the lecture recording on the members area of the website when it is ready.

01:01:35.000 --> 01:01:47.000
But Janet, I don't know if you just want to quickly put that up onto the website when it is ready.

01:01:47.000 --> 01:01:48.000
Yes, of course, yes, no problem at all.

01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:53.000
And but, Janet, I don't know if you just want to quickly put that up onto the screen again just for, minutes, it will make it available to you afterwards as well on the members area of the website.

01:01:53.000 --> 01:01:57.000
So.

01:01:57.000 --> 01:02:02.000
That would be great.

01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:05.000
So these are some beautiful books. Got Hartwell. Matthews Taggart there.

01:02:05.000 --> 01:02:14.000
There's a useful but send some you, you, there's some websites as well that I've got there.

01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:15.000
But yet.

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:20.000
Okay, so I hope, that gives you a little bit of time just to drop that down, Linda.

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:28.000
Okay, so I think that's, that's us. And thanks again, Janet.

01:02:28.000 --> 01:02:29.000
Thank you.

01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:34.000
And it was really fascinating and really interesting to hear the back story to many of the things. That we save without really thinking that hard about it.

01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:40.000
So I hope everybody enjoyed that out there and I don't know if you want to just take that slide down again.

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:41.000
Okay.

01:02:41.000 --> 01:02:47.000
That would be great. And as I say, we'll make that available to everybody afterwards. So thanks again, Janet.

01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:52.000
Thank you. Thank you.

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.000
And open doors for all future black American artists. Across all branches of the arts. Including jazz and the blues were their immeasurable influence on global modern music.

00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:20.000
The civil rights movement, and the negative movements in France, which had of course one great challenges to colonial rule.

00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:31.000
Given it is such an influential movements. This lecture, however, can only. Operate within very confined focus and limits.

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In considering the Home Renaissance, we are of course mainly glancing across. A hugely wide range of movements covering all the art and I can only recommend the reading list at the end of the lecture for starting points, the other branches of the arts with my apologies.

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At best, this lecture can only be described as introductory remarks. We're skimming a stone across a huge surface.

00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:09.000
And, whilst all aspects of arts and intellectual activity flourished during this period, this lecture's main focus, it was sole focus is on literature.

00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:15.000
It focuses more on the following elements of the Homer Renaissance literature. It's purpose.

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Some of the questions of representation that rose around it. And some of the debates which rose around it.

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I should also mention my limits. There are many. However, one I'm particularly conscious of is that I'm a white British woman giving a talk about a black American cultural movement.

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And I must acknowledge the conversations that come with that.

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The question of terminology should be addressed because it is rightly such a sensitive one. It is problematized because terms used by key figures and publications at the time of the Harlem Renaissance.

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Would now sound offensive but were not felt then to be so, In fact, the term Harlem Renaissance was not universally adopted for this movement.

00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:16.000
I don't need becoming used in academic studies in around the 19 seventies. It was known in its time amongst other terms such as the new Negro Renaissance, which would raise questions today.

00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:38.000
So they're having suggestions that it should be reclaimed. There were a number of such renaissance movements in black communities other than Harlem, Washington DC, Chicago, New York, Mexico City, Havana, Berlin, Paris, Kingston also experienced flourishing presidency to name just a few.

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And the number of terms are used today of course by modern day black Americans to describe themselves, for example, black, African-american and person of color.

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And there is a lot of discussion about this. But for the purposes of this lecture, I have chosen black or black Americans.

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Well, I was considering the problems of bread that, brings. My rationale is that black is the same frequently used by writers from the Harlem Renaissance area.

00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:17.000
And that's the problems of others, at the other, frequently used within the movement, which is So that's take ourselves along to a timeline.

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Giving some key historical political backgrounds here. Around the time in America. We have a 1,909 the National Association for the Advancements of covered people NAACP being set up, a civil rights organization seeking to advance justice for black Americans.

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1,914 to 18, of course, World War One. Around 1916 That was what has been termed the great migration of black Americans from the rural South to the urban West.

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North and it commences around this point and Harlem in New York. Becomes established as a new center for black Americans residentially culturally.

00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:11.000
And in terms of employment. 1917 Yeah, NACP and church leaders organized a silent process parade down Fifth Avenue.

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Protesting against violence against black Americans. In 1919 there was what was termed the red summer where race riots broke out with hundreds of deaths, mainly those of black Americans.

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In 1920 the international conventions Negro peoples the world at Madison Square Gardens was attended by 25,000 people.

00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:40.000
1,900, and 23, horrifyingly, an anti-mention bill is defeated.

00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:49.000
In the House of Representatives. There will of course be a huge range of other key events and and all further cans in contributions as to them.

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In the history of the Harlem Renaissance, we gladly received at the end of the lecture.

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So,'s name.

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What I've written out for you here, I just some. Hey authors and publications from this great artistic movement.

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As you can see, the list of journals, essays, poets, playwrights, and prose fiction, this goes on for 2 slides.

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Is extensive and not just male, I have given you these lists. Firstly to indicate the immense amount of creative activity generated at this period.

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And so can they, to give you points of reference for you to follow up further. As I understand this presentation will be online for members to re visit.

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I want particularly to draw your attention to the journals section. As firstly, these were vital means through which black new writing could be published.

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Secondly, we're particularly considering the questions of artistic purpose. Representation and debate within the HR.

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And it was in journals that these discussions were particularly aired. So akin publication. Was the crisis.

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Found in 1,910 and the Journal of the NAACP. It was to combat racism in multiple forms.

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Including lynching, discrimination in federal agencies in the workplace, including the military. In the immigration rules and the misrepresentation of black people.

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And in 1926 at 7 issue symposium was actually run in the crisis called the Negro in art.

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How shall he be portrayed? Which demonstrates how central the question of how black people in the arts have been presented was.

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And how they should be presenting. Oh, opportunity edited by Charles Spurgeon Johnson, but also later Gwenton and Bennet.

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It's another important journalist pick up on him. It's worth noting that's a key event in the All Renaissance was the 1924 party hosted by opportunity.

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One was this a key event because it bought both. Black voices and white publishers together. Hello, fire, a quarterly devoted to younger Negro artists was launched in 1926.

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I'm afraid only ran to one edition. But it has a very powerful and quite radical agenda, a challenging one as the central ideas.

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Around this movement of racial uplift. Of which more later and of portraying much wider aspects of black, back and life.

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And as you can see, I've covered essays and going on to poets. And then we go on to our lay rights, tons of them, prose fiction.

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Just to name just a few. Of the authors and rice is flourishing at this period or racing at this period.

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So that's counter off. Just Angelina Welds.

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Women writers were not always as recognized as they should have been within the Harlem Renaissance, but their presence as authors commentators, editors and essays was powerful.

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I research is increasingly showing the number of female playwrights, especially producing work within the HR.

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I'm grim case particularly early and powerful example. As you can see, she was a teacher.

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Including at Dunbar High School, which is school for blank students. With a particularly strong reputation for high academic accidents and she herself attended classes at Harvard.

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And, was prolific. We got 7,073 pounds here, which 31 were published.

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And say short stories and claims. Much of her work was not published though a number of writings were in the crisis and opportunity and her work was much anthologized in the whole Renaissance collections and publications.

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And the tax we're going to be, particularly, is section from Rachel. Now this was one of the earliest planes to protest against lynching and racial violence.

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It was also one of the first plays to be staged by a black writer and performed by an all-black cast.

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It presents the direct challenge to grotesque and offensive misrepresentation of black people in literature and on stage.

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Time out of mind. Black people have been portrayed as idiotic. Or savage or inarticulate or Uncle Tom's or laughable.

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Minstrel see for example had a long and shameful tradition of such cool trails. Rachel seeks to do something different.

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So let's read together very simply pass the stage direction from the beginning of the play. Describing the rhythm for the.

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In the center of the left wall is the fireplace with a grace in it for colds. And this is a wooden mantle painted once.

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In the center is a small clock. A pair of vases, green and white and powering, one at each end complete the ornaments.

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Over the mantle, it's in their own. Okay, hanging on the wall, Burn Jones's golden stair simply framed.

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Against the front end of the left wall is an upright piano with a stall in front of it.

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On top is music neatly piled. Honey, over the piano is Rafael Sistine Madonna.

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And the center of the floor is green run and in the center of this a rectangular dining room table alongside facing This is covered with the green tablecloth.

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You have to see some line in that.

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One of the first points that I want to draw your attention to is that the protagonists ring shows a taste for high if we like in both, culture.

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2 of the props are Burn James Golden Stands and Rafael Sistine Madonna.

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:09.000
Grimke is making the point that black characters are not to be seen as gonage, c's and or uncouth.

00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:22.000
But are informed about and appreciative of high ass and culture. Moreover, they are aspirational. Goal in the stairs is a portrayal of female creativity.

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And aesthetic participation. The Sistine Madonna is of course an image of piety and threatened motherhood.

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As I'm sure you know, a fearful Virgin Mary and child look anxiously, much as black motherhood is under terrible threat in the plane.

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It's just both. Suggests personal privacy. And have black suffering is to be seen as integral. To the spiritual suffering which is central to Orthodox Christianity.

00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:01.000
Another T show, I want briefly to draw your attention to, is the upright piano with the stall in front of it.

00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:08.000
On top of his music neatly piled. It is important to note that this is an orderly environment.

00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:18.000
Off to the relentless misrepresentation of black people, dirty or squalid. This stage direction offers a direct challenge.

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All of which points of representation that black people were to be seen as participating in the appreciation of high culture.

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Were pints were high-minded and his suffering was fully part of the most orthodox aesthetic and religious protein portrayals.

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Would have been absolutely upheld by a key thinker of the Helen Renaissance. WAB, and it is to voiced by the way he insisted on that pronunciation.

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As you can see, he was an academic, an enormously influential figure, now in Renaissance, and Black American history.

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You held degrees from Fisk and Harvard University becoming in 1,895 the first black American.

00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:12.000
To go in a PhD from Harvard. You argued vehemently that black people should despise the highest academic standards.

00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:25.000
To explain this point, you notice I've put CF. Rocketley Washington there. Okay, Washington was also a renowned black education writer who had argued strongly for black education's been enlarged.

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But with an emphasis on the industrial and vocational. And this was increasingly seen by Du Bois as an ugly compromise to a peace white prejudice.

00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:47.000
He argued vehemently. Good black education to encompass. A full academic curriculum and he was a fervent supporter of the concept of racial uplift.

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A racial uplift, is a term within black communities that was motivating, to be responsible in the lifting of their race.

00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:08.000
And the concept actually goes back to the 18 hundreds about black and what was introduced by like, such as, the voice in Washington.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:21.000
And it seems a means of assisting Bucks. To raise themselves to reach new heights in life.

00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:27.000
You was hugely involved with number of years for the NAACP as you can see in the crisis.

00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:34.000
He was made in 1910. The director of publicity and research being an AOCP. And became editor of the crisis.

00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:45.000
And he's also a vocal figure in establishing sociological studies of the misrepresentation of black people and sociology, sociology is a discipline as a whole.

00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:54.000
So just one example I understand is the highly influential study the Philadelphia Negro. The first case study of black community in the US.

00:14:54.000 --> 00:15:04.000
And his history of black Africans in Negro was hugely influential in challenging representations of Africans in history.

00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:11.000
His writing was by no means any nonfiction. He was also a novelist, a poet, and essayist with very clear views.

00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:17.000
On the purpose of the arts.

00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:25.000
Okay. So let's not consider the Following quotation from De Boyce's essay.

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A hugely important book called Criteria, Negro Art. 1926. Thus he says it is the bounden duty of black Americans who begin this great work.

00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:47.000
Of the creation of beauty, of the preservation of beauty. Of the realization of and we must use in this work all the methods that men have used before.

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:53.000
And what have been the tools of the artist in times gone by? First of all, use the truth.

00:15:53.000 --> 00:16:02.000
Not for the sake of truth, not as a scientist seeking truth, but as one upon whom truth eternally thrust itself.

00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:14.000
That's the highest hand made of imagination as the one great vehicle of universal understanding. Again, IS in all its aspects of justice, goodness in all its aspects of justice, honor and rights.

00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:23.000
Not for the sake of an ethical sanction. This is the one true method of gaining simply and human interest.

00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:32.000
The point for me here is that art is to be seen as morally uploading. This is to be seen as the creation of beauty.

00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:43.000
There is perhaps an echo of the Also as a means to increase goodness in all its aspects. Of them has a moral role.

00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:56.000
In increasing sympathy. It's just seen in elevated terms more of this later. So we have this drive towards excellent and beautiful art by black individuals and communities.

00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:08.000
As part of this role in inspiring interest in sympathy. I'm reading Simpson, by the way, and its broadest sense rather than simply pity which, would have scorn.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:21.000
We also have consider what you boys had to say about the representation. Of black individuals and communities. So back against criteria of Negro art.

00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:33.000
Deposits a question. Suppose the only Negro who survived some quite centuries hence. The NICCO painted by the white Americans in the novels and thes, they have.

00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:40.000
What would be quite a hundred years, Now, to that, suppose you were to run to the story.

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:48.000
I'm person it the kinds of people know and like and imagine. You might get it published and you might not.

00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:55.000
And the Mount North is still more bigger than the Mounts. The white publishers catering to white frog.

00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:00.000
Would say it is not interesting. To white folk, naturally not. They want Uncle Tom's topsy.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:17.000
Good darkees and clowns. Let me, there are 2 key points in. Firstly, that the portrayal of black people, in the voice describes as the kind of people you know and like and imagine.

00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:32.000
Was not necessarily likely to be published. Realism have no place in white propagation. What? Because once again, grotesque misrepresentation of black peoples would be more likely to sell books.

00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:44.000
They will want Uncle Thomas, Topsy's Good Darkies clowns. So with this in mind, Du Bois and others set up a fish company with the difference.

00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:56.000
And it was called Craig where short form crisis guild of writers and artists. And this guild was founded by Devoise and they set up together as they accompany the Cyber Players.

00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:09.000
And in turn. It's wanted a competition for playwriting in 1925. And in the crisis The boys set out the following.

00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:18.000
The place of the Negro system must be one about us. That's, they must have plots which reveal Negro life as it is.

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:25.000
2 by us. That is, they must be written by NPO authors who understand from birth.

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:41.000
And continue to association. Just what it means to be a Sorry, for us. That says the theismus case of plimerilis and ego ordinances, ambes supported and sustained by their entertainment and approval.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:45.000
Cool. Mirrors. This must be in the Negro neighborhood in the mass of ordinary Negro people.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:55.000
And Du Bois went on to say, it true be sincere, be thorough and do a beautiful John.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:05.000
So, we say it to, and insistence on black writers who understood and were part of black experience.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:12.000
A long ones, and accessible venue in a non-threatening black neighborhood. At demand for high quality art.

00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:17.000
It was a huge success and I note with pleasure there's a number of black women worried that this were winners.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:22.000
For example, the Black Rights for Teacher and Actress, Ulani Spence.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:28.000
Again, I would kind of, that huge list of authors, I gave you any of them more names.

00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:40.000
I'm, because this particular genre represents a number of the debates. Around a lot and representation within the Harlem Renaissance.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.000
And it's worth looking at these a little.

00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:52.000
Firstly, the purpose of this new drama was widely debated. Should it be a call for social action?

00:20:52.000 --> 00:21:03.000
Should it be so nice? Should it be to entertain? And it was actually suggested that the traumas emerging at this time fell into 2 broad categories.

00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:12.000
Rachel propaganda praise. Dealing with racial oppression and aiming to create social change as promoted by primary.

00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:24.000
Particularly to boys. Or folk plays which focus more on education and entertainment. And much just like.

00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:35.000
Another debate concerns the question of how black people should be represented in these dramas. How much should they got people in the role models?

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:44.000
Aging racial uplift. Jessie Redmond forces, there's a blank, writer, educator and editor of the crisis.

00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:52.000
Okay, for what she called the representation of quote, the better class of colored people, unquote.

00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:00.000
And this is wholly understandable in terms of challenging the grotesqueness representations of black people in God's population.

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:09.000
But it was a problematic standpoint. That's a class in huge terms. What about representations of black people?

00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:16.000
Which were more wandering, demonstrating a wider sweep.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:26.000
Additional approaches also came to discussion about representation and at this point we come to the discussion of exploiting the fashion.

00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:36.000
For the exotic. And this leads us to rather controversial figures, but it, Marley, and Carl Van Heckton, who was a white writer, photographer.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:50.000
And patron of the home renaissance. And he argued that black writers writers Should exploit white interest in novelty and in being sort of, which was then in bow.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:05.000
Premises and primitivism had recently been infection. I, the, which, sort, of idealized primitive experience and so primitively cause inherent in more noble and civilized people, heavy closer and primitive.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:10.000
And then, NATIONS, the case in point.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:18.000
The message is reinforcing that black people are somehow connected with the primitive or the savage certainly didn't affect the men's dangerous.

00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:23.000
That that's an argue for the black.

00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:33.000
One of the other big debates here, which never really fully resolved. Was the integration versus black autonomous identity.

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:42.000
Discussion. As we've seen. Do bosses initial criteria for cricket was to make it by for until.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:49.000
But this writes the inevitable question of when these dramas should also be presented on white as it were stages.

00:23:49.000 --> 00:24:00.000
Was any kind of integration within the White House and which were the dominant and thoroughly prejudice culture. Mean the diminishment of black achievement.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:13.000
Sure black artists only create for black audiences something loust and hues of any more later. Was sometimes directly told It was not a debate that was ever fully resolved.

00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:24.000
Though in fact, blacks are digging towards Broadway posters. Depression. Under the auspices of the workspace of administration.

00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:32.000
And the question of inspiration could not be more relevant. To our next key author, Gene Team.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:39.000
And he's great, 1923 novel. Okay, Gene and this is pronounced that way.

00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:46.000
Pain himself from a very mixed background and he attended both segregated black schools and or white schools.

00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:53.000
And he attended numerous colleges and universities, studying a range of disciplines but he never completed a degree.

00:24:53.000 --> 00:25:03.000
But the formative experience for him. Was when he became principal as an industrial and agricultural school for black students in Georgia for a short time.

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:10.000
I'm witnessing the oppressions of the black people there change was changing for him.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:18.000
And he's the author of the modernist and now, a mentally influential novel, it was.

00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:28.000
Well, the seat, at the sign of its publication. But was not widely read. And now, however, it has come to be recognized as some of this masterpiece.

00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:37.000
Hello, you can see said of it. I love it passionately. I could not possibly and could not possibly exist without it.

00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:44.000
But simply, cane is a series of portraits, vignettes, arguably short stories.

00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:53.000
About a range of Black Americans in the United States. And here is one such, that let's read it together.

00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:58.000
When does in the can come along. Hanging, swaying, rusty, vetoed.

00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:03.000
Scratching choruses above the guinea squawk. Winges in the can.

00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:05.000
Come along.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:12.000
Karma in overalls and strong as any man stands behind your brown mule driving the wagon home.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:19.000
Bumps and rings and shakes as it crosses the railroad track. Gene, riding it easy.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:26.000
I need the men around the stove to follow her with my eyes down the red dust road. Fixy pipe is what they call it.

00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:36.000
Maybe she feels my games, perhaps she expects it. There's some which has been slanting over his shoulder.

00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:54.000
Cheats primitive rockets into her mangrove blooms. Yeah, the as in the other This passage raises a number of points for Firstly, there is a combination in genres.

00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:03.000
We start with the song, Windows in the Can, come along. Before moving into pros. So, and to praise.

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:14.000
This collision is a typical modernist technique. I'm, has been identified as particular. Fractured structure.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:23.000
Which could reflect the fragmented nature of black history. And the fluidity and shift of modernist art.

00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:36.000
Also spoke to the Harlem Renaissance movement. Because it provided a cancer poise to the fixed white ideals concerning black people and the portrayal of black people.

00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:40.000
Comma and I'm for all as strong as any man is also important. We see a black woman.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:48.000
Briefly. Not as feminized, not as corrupt, not as weakened. But powerful.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:01.000
There's a suggestion of equality as strong as any man. Moreover, she has agency. Riding it easy is suggested of control, relaxation, power.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:10.000
Moreover, tumour shows a shrewd awareness of the question of the male gaze, which was for centuries a source of threat to black women.

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:19.000
Maybe she feels my gaze, perhaps. She expects it. Oh my, here, Karma seems magnificently untaunted and turns.

00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:26.000
Where the fears are fearlessly towards. Or just, away from our protagonists is not clear.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:33.000
I'm also particularly struck by this beautiful image at the end, which is more than almost the point of surreal.

00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:39.000
One can almost see a modernist painting with its incongruous juxtaposing imagery of rockets.

00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:45.000
Mango of trees and shrubs, the flower of Karma's face.

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:53.000
What then was Tumor's view in writing Kane? Of the purpose of the arts. Off the text composition.

00:28:53.000 --> 00:29:02.000
He said, I realized with deep regret. That the spirituals meeting ridicule would be certain to die out.

00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:11.000
The Negroes also the trend was towards the small town and then towards the city and industry in commerce and machines.

00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:20.000
The folk spirit was walking in to die in the modern desert. That's been so beautiful. His death was so troubled.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:28.000
Just this seems to some life. And this was the feeling I put into K. Okay, was a swan song.

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.000
It was the song of an end.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:41.000
So Kane is as much as anything a record, an active record of a postant art form, the spiritual.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:52.000
Most than 100 Renaissance rise there. Made the point that spirituals along with jazz Could be, to be the only truly vernacular American art forms.

00:29:52.000 --> 00:30:04.000
Fine not from European rates. Is trying to act as a witness and make a record of this extraordinary awful before he fed it with Diane.

00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:11.000
You're also commenting. I heard folk songs come. From the lips of Negro presence.

00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:18.000
I saw the rich dusk beauty that I had heard many false accents about. And of which till then.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:29.000
I was somewhat skeptical. And a deep part of my nature about this I had repressed. Spring suddenly so long and responded to them.

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:39.000
Here, firstly, tumor names, false accents, referencing, the perhaps, the patronizing portrayals of black rural culture.

00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:46.000
Secondly, it seems that this needs the spirituals. Tuma had a deepening self-awareness.

00:30:46.000 --> 00:30:55.000
There is both record here and personal discovery. And once again, the question is the representation of black individuals and communities.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:31:06.000
We need to consider one final quotation which is of interest considering Tumor's views on black and white culture.

00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:18.000
One marketing came. Schumer forbade his publishers mentioned his race. My racial composition and my position in the world are realities which by alone may determine.

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:29.000
Nor would he allow his work to be included in black anthologies, insisting he was part of a Emergent race, simply called American.

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:36.000
And here we see a debate that was very much the 4 in Harlem Renaissance discussions of identity.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:46.000
How much should black communities choose to be seen as separate from the dominant white culture? Or how much should black and white cultures communities come together?

00:31:46.000 --> 00:32:02.000
And mix together to form this new emergent race. Simply It has to be born in mind that tumor on government documents alternated between identifying as Negro I don't find his wife.

00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:08.000
It also has to be pointed out that genes, as we've seen, was from a Mitch race background himself.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:19.000
His father had been born in slowly and afraid. 2 marriages, both white women. Nice which cause controversy.

00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:28.000
So we hear, but see here perhaps a paradigm since you know. You are, you strongly for the new emergent rice simply called American.

00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:41.000
He was also clearly Awfully determined. To record unique helmets, black experience and art. And he's used to some and spiritual in pain.

00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:50.000
Tuma was by no means the only author insistent on the idea that black culture has something distinctive and specific to offer.

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:56.000
I mentioned earlier the questions of spiritual and jazz as truly, in that you know, American art forms.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:11.000
And this leads us to another great writer. Langston Hughes. As you can see. He was an award-winning racist, deeply engaged in the debate surrounding the function of art in relation to black communities.

00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:28.000
He was the first Black American to earn his living through writings and lecturing. And he believes intensely in the abilities of black artists and communities to generate a distinctively black ismetic.

00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:41.000
He was immensely popular as a writer, among ordinary as it were, black communities. In large part because the accessibility and the outward looking nature of his and I put their CF.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Moderns Movements influence.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:51.000
The reason was that one of the criticisms of some of the Harlem Renaissance is creative output.

00:33:51.000 --> 00:34:00.000
Was it was too engaged with modernism. And one of the criticisms of modernism in general and not just from within the whole Renaissance.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:14.000
Was that modernism was esoteric. And the That's a debate for another time. But the point is that fair ones make and we'll return to it shortly.

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:21.000
In the meantime, Langston, here is Langston Hughes performing one of his especially well-known poems, The Weary Blues.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:35.000
In 1958. I'm gonna have to stop sharing briefly while I set up this

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:59.000
Hughes has his own account, his own introduction.

00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:13.000
You

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:20.000
The sun's a satin. This is what I'm gonna sing. Sons of 7.

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:34.000
This is what I'm gonna sing. I feel the blues are coming. I wonder what the blue will bring.

00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:44.000
You

00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:49.000
You

00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:58.000
A in a drowsy, syncopated tune. Rocking back and forth to a mellow cruise.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:04.000
I heard a Negro delay.

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:14.000
No, no, Nelix Avenue the other night. By the pale, dull, pallor of a one, He did a lazy sway.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:24.000
He did a lazy sway to the tune of those weary blues.

00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:30.000
With his company hands on each ivory key. He made that poor piano moaned with melody.

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:52.000
Oh blue. Swaying to and fro on his wiggy stool he played that sad ragy tune like a musical fool Sweet blues coming from a black man's soul Oh, blue.

00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:56.000
Oh

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:07.000
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone I heard that Negro see that old Tiana moan Ain't got nobody in all this world.

00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:17.000
Ain't got nobody but myself. Unground equit my prowling and put my troubles on the shell.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:24.000
Dump, dump, when he's put on the floor. He played a few cards and he signed some more.

00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:40.000
I got the weary blues. I can't be satisfied. The weary blues. Happy no more and I wish that I had died.

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:48.000
Far into the night, groom that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon.

00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:52.000
The singer stopped playing and went to bed.

00:37:52.000 --> 00:38:01.000
While the weary blues, echoed through his head. He slept like a rock. Or a man that's dead.

00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:11.000
Oh

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:28.000
Okay, I just get a safe moment to. Get back to our PowerPoint.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Okay. So that was Langston Hughes, his 1,925, poem, The Weary Blues, in a 1,958 performance.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:48.000
And I'm struck by a number of points in this beautiful and moving poem. Personally, I notice this is an act of self portraiture.

00:38:48.000 --> 00:39:00.000
A black crisis describing a black artist. Writers in the Harlem Renaissance such as Alan Locke were emphatic about the importance of black artists and communities.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:11.000
Moving away from white portrayals of them. And this self-corch show is part of the insistence on self-expression and self-determination.

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:15.000
I also know the line that he made that pure piano, What we have here is a black artist in a position of agency.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:26.000
This is not a passive figure. But an artist making music happen.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:33.000
The lines, sweet blues, coming from a black man's soul and I was going to quit my framing and put my troubles on the show.

00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:49.000
Are also particular important. They are especially struggling as critics have pointed out that the centuries Black individuals and communities have been portrayed from the outside.

00:39:49.000 --> 00:39:58.000
Rather than observed from within, observed rather than from within their experience, their internal life. Parents hearing honestly.

00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:11.000
Here in this song, we have the black artist's personal expression. Coming from his soul. I feel also that there's a distinct echo of the spirituals here put my troubles on the shelf.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:21.000
Isn't that code for me of laying down my Perhaps one art form is paying tributes to another here.

00:40:21.000 --> 00:40:30.000
Just as long as and Hughes in this poem is paying tribute to the Blues. Finally, the last verse contains the line.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:37.000
You slept like a rook or a man that stared. We are offered no easy consolation from this piece.

00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:42.000
The black process has expression. But no comfort.

00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:49.000
Kings was admirably clear-headed about the problems of representation and the purpose of the arts.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:56.000
That's a hundred Renaissance, said he was. You said it was the period when the Negro was in.

00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:02.000
Being used at the Harlem Renaissance could also easily be a fad, a fashion.

00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:11.000
I reminded once again of the dangers of Carl Van Pften's encouragement of blank artists to take advantage of the interest in the exotic.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:16.000
We also see in Hughes a clear understanding of the limits of the Harlem Renaissance.

00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:28.000
As he commented in his autobiography, the Big C. You ordinary NGOs hadn't heard of the Renaissance and they had it haven't raised their wages any.

00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:35.000
There was the problem of this being a movement which only affected a small elite. Hughes was in fluxing.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:44.000
That the artistic work of black communities can go so much further than that. That's the quotation, the lowest tells us from.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:53.000
You just wanted to tell the stories of his people in the ways that reflected their actual culture. Including their love of music, laughter and language itself.

00:41:53.000 --> 00:42:04.000
Alongside their supperings. In this, he links with writers like SORRY, or HERSON, who also acknowledged both the distinctiveness of black cultures.

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:12.000
Was protesting against yachts only being concerned. With what was termed the race problem.

00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:22.000
So Hughes was emphatic in his vital, 1926 essay. The Negro assist in the racial mountain that without going outside his race.

00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:31.000
And even among the better classes with their whites culture and conscious American manners. But still need grow enough to be different.

00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.000
There is sufficient set masses of furniture black artist with a lifetime of creative work.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:47.000
He saw it as essential. And here he links in that black houses have more than enough material and media from their own experience.

00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:54.000
And a distinctive is better. And this is part of what the WAY, of course, is celebrating.

00:42:54.000 --> 00:43:01.000
But not everyone agree with him. And this leads us to the figure, George Schuyler.

00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:11.000
And he's a fascinating. Unlike, he came from a less middle class and educated background and spending as you can see, time in the army.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:17.000
Where he was wrongfully present after a racist instance. And he was a prolific master and journalist.

00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:26.000
And as longside, you know, this, short stories, essays, novels, pamphlets.

00:43:26.000 --> 00:43:33.000
One is novels is the utterly scathing satau, a black home ball. I've recommended it.

00:43:33.000 --> 00:43:39.000
I'm on the earliest slides. And this piece of satire is extraordinary. It's a.

00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:50.000
Whereby a medication could be devised. Whereby black people could turn themselves into white people. It is a hilarious biting and thought-provoking read.

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:56.000
And no one white people, black people, figures from holler a raisins, emerges unscathed.

00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:01.000
I believe he refers to Dubois as Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon bed.

00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:06.000
As you can see, he was published widely.

00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:14.000
But although he was business manager, He was actually in MEDSY Skeptical about the High Renaissance.

00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:18.000
And the claims it made about itself as an artistic movement.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:27.000
He was emphatic that to separate us into Negro lecture or black literature was intensely dangerous.

00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:34.000
It should be seen as art that stood by its and merits. To present since his necreliction.

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Would still be a form of discrimination. And that would mainly mean that it would be seen as separate. And therefore taking this seriously.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:47.000
As we can see in the following

00:44:47.000 --> 00:44:56.000
All of this hullabaloo about the Negro Renaissance in art and literature did stimulate the writing of some literature of importance, which will live.

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:08.000
The amount however is very small but such as it is it is meritorious because it is literature and not legal in This is just by literary and not by racial standards.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:11.000
Which is as it should be.

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:21.000
On questions of representation, however, Skynet was in agreement. With some of the standpoint central to the Harmonissance thought of Ames.

00:45:21.000 --> 00:45:33.000
And his 1926 essay the Nico arts hope him He absolutely agreed. That black individuals and communities have been grotesquely and offensively misrepresented.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:37.000
The may mention of the word Negro, he said, conjures up in the average white Americans mind a composite stereotype and Burke Williams aren't your minor Uncle Tom.

00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:50.000
Jack Johnson for flooring slackly. And the various monstrosities. Scrolled by the cartoons.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:59.000
However, he did plan the idea of a black distinctive black aesthetic dangerous. And for him, such distinctness.

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:14.000
Mainly fed white prejudice that black people were different and therefore in failure. As he commented. On this baseless premise, so flattering to the white mob that the blackmore is inferior and fundamentally indifferent.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:23.000
Is direct to the postulate that he needs must be peculiar. And when he attempts to portray life through the meeting of art, it must have necessity.

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:26.000
Be a peculiar art.

00:46:26.000 --> 00:46:33.000
So as we can see, the ideas, questions and debates in the Han Renaissance were many and were rich.

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:44.000
Oh, touched upon them today. Let's summarize this brief overview and starting point. So, purposes of art and key debates.

00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:54.000
There was the proof that black people could despise the highest achievements alongside white people as a means to racial uplift and a positive representation of black people.

00:46:54.000 --> 00:47:06.000
As a form of self-expression created by and distinctive to black people. As a means by which back people can find a black person can find voice and speak for him or herself.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:17.000
That's a means to enter the interior as opposed to observed experience for black person people. As a form to read recorded purely on its own merits, irrespective of grace.

00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:26.000
As we integrate it or not. Into the predominantly white world of the arts. Or was this a transplant exploiting?

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:32.000
And, some, some, some, some, of, the questions of representation. The Universal Agreement.

00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:39.000
Was that portrayals of black equaling arts up until this time. The degrading and brochesque.

00:47:39.000 --> 00:47:52.000
Who was to be represented in hell was greatly debated. And the dangers of seeing art from black individuals and communities is distinctive, risk that their art will be seen separate in the park.

00:47:52.000 --> 00:47:55.000
And place white prejudice.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:48:07.000
I'll give you some I recommend harsley these as starting points and the great advantage of course is them is unlike today's lecture they will tell you about all the art forms.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:15.000
That were being developed and flourishing at this time. So I harshly recommend them to you. And thank you very much for listening.

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:20.000
I'm going to stop sharing that.

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:26.000
Thank you so much Claire. That was really great. Just, quickly to say that we're going to, because of the, the screen share in size, we're going to pop a PDF.

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:39.000
Of the slides up in the members area of the website alongside the recording so you can see all of the reading lists.

00:48:39.000 --> 00:48:51.000
From today as well. And we always fascinating. Thank you so much Claire. And I think we'll, and we'll jump straight into some, questions if that's okay.

00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:10.000
So, First one, I've got one that it's not on the chat because it came straight through to me, but it's from Steve and Steve says the development and influence of jazz and blues music has been huge and Claire do you think that those forms share the same dates as literature?

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.000
As part of the Harlem Renaissance. 1919 to 1939.

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:23.000
It's. It's half reset because I'm a literature bud. But if we look, let me take out my time line.

00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:31.000
Go, what you've got going on. For example, is in 1921. You had shuffle along.

00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:37.000
Written by UB Blake and they will see see opening on Broadway. That was one of the key works as I understand it.

00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:43.000
I'm not some musicologist. The began signified beginnings at the jazz age.

00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:51.000
You got, Louis Armstrong moving to New York City in 1,924 and the big band movement really developing there.

00:49:51.000 --> 00:50:00.000
You know, so you have got some really huge things going on. Do you, to know, in the club in 1927?

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:10.000
So as far as I can answer that Steve, it looks like it. As I say, I'm not a music, but that's, a few, that they help.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:19.000
Thank you. And I've got another question now from Maureen who asks, do you consider James Baldwin a later member of this group?

00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:27.000
That's a really interesting question because I looked up James Baldwin. He was actually born, I think, in 1924, 1,927.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:35.000
So he's definitely a second wave. If he's part of this at all. You've got the second world war.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:50.000
Piling in. Beyond that, I wouldn't like to really comment.

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:51.000
Yes.

00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:55.000
Okay, And just want to, there's a comment there from, Kate. And when we were like watching the Weary Blues video, a comment that the music, the musicians all seemed to be white ironically.

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:56.000
Oh, didn't they?

00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Yeah, yeah, which I spotted too, yeah.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:02.000
Yep.

00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:05.000
Yes, how very tedious. Yeah.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:18.000
Great. So thank you again, Claire. I think if we're, If we're done for questions we'll wrap it up there but yeah just to say thank you very very much for tonight

00:51:18.000 --> 00:51:28.000
Thank you. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you very much for that having me along. Really appreciated.

00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:04.000
And there we go. So Ali, it's over to you.

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:13.000
Okay. Perhaps I should also say a little bit that, one of the other things that I, have been involved in, I also direct a great deal.

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So a lot of what I'm going to be talking about tonight is kind of drawn from person experience to thinking about design and elements of that.

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And, we're just gonna start off with a little sort of potted history of theater design and then I'm gonna look at some of the basic principles that a designer might apply.

00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:44.000
Hope you're gonna find it as fascinating as I do. Okay, so. Let's start at the very beginning as they say because that is always a good place to start.

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And, we're just gonna just deal with. A little bit of history to start with.

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Now a lot of you will know that the tradition of theatre starts with the ancient Greeks and the ancient Greeks did not like, we weren't interested in scenery, they used very little by way of props and costume.

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They did use masks. They also used platform boots to make their actors look taller so that in the massive auditoriums if any of you have been to Greece you'll know how large these auditorium that were being used by the Greeks are.

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So they would use masks and, with little funnels in to amplify the voice.

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They would also have, you know, platform shoes but in terms of a set design or a costume design very little was done.

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It wasn't until the Romans came on that came along and they decided to increase the level of spectacle that was being produced.

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That they came up with this. This is, the Roman, theater in Orange in France and you can see what they've done what they've done is they've created a backdrop for spectacle to take place in front of it and you've got So the 2 layers, one at the top there, can you see there's also, there's a, a statue

00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:19.000
there which is dedicated to Bacchus who was the god of theater for the Romans and these 3 entrant spaces and this particular kind of design.

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It's something that stays with us through the long period that follows that involves basically theater being open to the air.

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So, this is the reproduction of the globe and the onsite on the, in South work, I can't talk to, in, in, which some of you may actually have seen and you can see the connection to the To the Roman theatre that I've just shown you, you've got your 3 entrances along the front.

00:02:48.000 --> 00:03:08.000
You've got an upper area here which of course is used extensively by shakespeare in a number of his plays where people see things from windows and of course it is the the origin of the balcony scene as it's often thought of in Romeo and Judith by the way.

00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:13.000
No way in Shakespeare does it say she's in the balcony. It simply says she's above.

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We have decided that it's a balcony scene. It's one of those, those useful trivia facts that you can put a gene next pub quiz.

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But this this this model is what happened. For the next kind of few centuries from the Romans moving forward, it was in the open air, this is what they were looking for was a some kind of area which had 3 entrances so people could come in and out and we could have an upper area that would be good.

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So a lot of travelling data happened in in yards, which they basically followed the same model. And it wasn't until theatre started to become interior.

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That things started to change. And, for us in in the person who really started to move that on was a man called Inigo Jones who was both an architect and a theatre designer.

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And he was doing a lot of work for the early Jacobian kings, particularly Charles the First. And he had been influenced by the ideas of perspective that were being brought in from Italy by people like Palladio.

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So what you've got here on the right is an example of a backdrop that has been drawn by Enigo Jones for a courtly mask.

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Now you can see that it's got some of the same kind of shapes that are going on, but this is a flat piece of canvas on which this has been applied and he has given it perspective to get it look like you know it's a street moving away and the performers would have worked in front of it.

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And for the first time we start to see something that is specific design for theatrical purposes.

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You know, Jones was very much employed in the court to do court masks and these masks are There often, allegorical in context and therefore they're not really telling a story they're they're kind of telling a loose kind of connection of ideas that are put together.

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And the other element of what they were doing was creating amazing and complicated theatrical costume design and this is on the left here is it one of Indigo Jones's designs for costume.

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For a mask which was about fire. It was a very lucrative business being involved in a courtly mask.

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Milton wrote one about weddings about about marital fidelity called comus that some of you may have heard of.

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And they were extremely popular and it was the English of war that kind of brought these things to an end.

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But when the theatres reopened after the interregnum, it was this kind of look, this backdrop.

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With fantastic costumes that started to dominate what was going on in theater and it remained the norm for quite some considerable time.

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To the point that we got to a case of the huge elaboration of these, these incredibly complicated backdrops.

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That the Victorians came to love and they kind of reached their zenith with Henry Bourbon Tree and he got so carried away that he decided he wanted to have real things on stage.

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So he produced a famous version of Midsummer Night's Dream in which there were real rabbits on stage.

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And it is recorded that the rabbits during the course of the run bread and that there were many many more rabbits than they ended up with that when they started he tried to put real trees on the stage which of course had difficulties with With heat, they died very quickly because they weren't really fit to fit for it.

00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:11.000
But the, the, Victorians were all about spectacle on the stage. If you go on the really fascinating backstage tour at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

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They will show you part of the mechanism which was for a horse race. They actually have live horse races on the stage because it was all about the spectacle.

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It was all about making the visual look as amazing as they possibly could. And then comes along Henry Irving.

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Henry Irving is much more interested in creating theatre as an art form. He wants to go back to kind of traditional ideas.

00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:44.000
And that the focus should be on the performance and on the actor. And one of the first things that he did was he insisted he was the person who decided that lights would come down in the auditorium.

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So that when you go into the theater now or to the cinema for that matter and you sit there and the lights go down it's Henry Irving you can thank for that particular invention and whether or not you decide that it's a nice time to struggle down, have a snooze may depend on the play or the film.

00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:10.000
But alongside that, of course. During Henry Irving's time, they were improvements in stage lighting.

00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:20.000
Gas lighting had come in. And it meant that the the stage could be lit in ways to create mood.

00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:29.000
And mood is one of those important things when you're thinking about design and it meant that you could focus the light in certain parts.

00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:37.000
And one of the elements to stage design is that you are trying to focus on the audience's attention where you want it to go.

00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:49.000
If you're creating a film It's editing that does this. You know, you can edit something so that it focuses on this person's face or on the glass falling over.

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In the theater you can't guarantee where the audience is going to look. So what you do is you try and use techniques to try and focus the audience where you want them to keep their attention.

00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:08.000
And lighting was one of the ways that it could be done. Henry Irving was particularly fond of, lighting the focused on him.

00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:20.000
He was probably the first person to figure out that standing in spotlight was a really good idea. And, he was very known for his attitude towards his own talent.

00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:33.000
Then she after that, we come along with the Mary Vestris. And Mary Vestris was French, and she created the idea of a set that was like a room.

00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:54.000
What we call a box set. So if you imagine something like a, doll's house with the front taken off that's exactly what it is that she's creating is that the idea of a room that looks like a real room that's just had one wall taken off it so we the audience can peer inside it.

00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:01.000
It's probably the most common. Set design you will see. No, because it's the way that we think.

00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:09.000
And that's been emphasized by the work of Constantine Now, Stanislasky wasn't the designer.

00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.000
That he was partnered with some of the most important figures of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century theater.

00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:34.000
And he was the for of naturalistic acting. And he believed that actors should be reproducing real life as much as was humanly possible on the stage for the audience to see.

00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:40.000
As far as he was concerned that meant that you had to have a reproduction of the room.

00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.000
Add to which that he then said, well, there were other things you needed to add. If there was a fire in the room, it had to be real fire.

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:58.000
If the actors were going to eat on stage it had to be real food. You know they had to actually be eating what and what's now referred to as a practical practical meal.

00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:19.000
And along with that, he took the book set one stage further. In that he said the actors should try and remember that as far as they're concerned the audience isn't there and that the the missing wall, the fourth wall as as he referred to it, was something that the actors could I know.

00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:22.000
That they could pretend you audience wasn't there. And, there were moments in his early career as an actor and director where he had actors actually turn their back to the audience.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:35.000
Because realistically, that's not what they would do. And it caused a sensation.

00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:45.000
Yeah, that you might not focus. On your, she might not watch the theatre, what in the theater we call cheap front so that you're always facing towards the audience.

00:11:45.000 --> 00:12:05.000
The idea that you shouldn't be doing that. And came from Stanislasky. And it changed the idea of the to design completely because at that point we started to see electricity so we could light things in a different way and we were reproducing in actual detail.

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:17.000
Minute detail in fact the rooms that these characters were existing in. If you've ever seen a fully developed Shauno case, you say something like, you know, in the paycock.

00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:38.000
That's exactly what happens there and you get people cooking on stage, you get people, Actually trying to reproduce their their kind of own lives ignoring the fact the audience is there and it's something that touches upon a great deal of of modern theater.

00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:50.000
One of the things of course that is starting to change that is cinema. And why although we've creating a real room with real fires and real food and real light coming through.

00:12:50.000 --> 00:13:13.000
Real Windows when you can do that in cinema. So as we move through the late 20 first century and into the 20 first century start seeing much more abstract ideas for the 20 first century you start seeing much more abstract ideas for theater design simply because We don't need to produce, and it naturalism, we can go to the television or to the cinema for that.

00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:23.000
So if you want something different, then you will go to theatre to see something that's a little bit more, in keeping with the play.

00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:30.000
And that is, that is derived from this man. This chat actually deserves to talk all to himself.

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This is Edward Gordon Craig. And Henry Gordon Craig was amongst other things. He was the son of Ellen Terry.

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And probably the world's one of the world's first superstar actresses. He was the husband of his Adora Duncan.

00:13:42.000 --> 00:14:08.000
The famous contemporary dancer, and was also, a theater designer. He decided that what theatre should have instead of going towards this new naturalism, that it should reflect the mood and the themes of the piece and that it should be much more abstracting its tones.

00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:15.000
And he wrote several books, the most significant of which is towards a new theater which he produced in 1,913.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:26.000
He also had a very, familiar magazine which went out, which was kind of the first theater magazine that people were reading.

00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:37.000
And he was influenced and influenced. Myaholt working in Russia and Piscuital working in Germany to try and look towards this kind of more abstract design.

00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:46.000
And just to give you some idea of the difference. So let me just remind you, this is what the Victorian stage was starting to look like.

00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:55.000
And this is what Craig was recommending. This is a design that he did for Hamlet.

00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:20.000
And you can see the complete difference here. We come from elaborate and complicated to geometric shapes that are set on their ends and they you can see the size of the actors within it this is how we envisage it the world should be something that has a thematic and overwhelming feeling to it.

00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:44.000
And. This idea of the design. Set design and costume design reflecting mood and structure is something that has influenced modern theater design since the early 90, since the early twentieth century and you will see examples of the impact of Craig, Craig's work.

00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:58.000
You know at all sorts of points in modern theater and particularly during the 19 sixties you know, particularly during the 19 sixties, you know, famous versions of plays that kind of, you know, famous versions of plays that kind of, now iconic like Peter Brooks.

00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:22.000
Famous, Midsummer Night's Dream, the, the, the, that brought Paul Schofield to to stardom all have this this Craigian feel behind them that is the intention that they should have they should be about mood and structure rather than trying to reproduce this place in the world.

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:26.000
Which takes me on to thinking about this idea of modern theater design and I'm just going to talk about 3, about 5 particular principles that you will see in action.

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:42.000
When you're talking about design. I'm going to focus on set design because obviously visually I can give you a lot of pictures to talk you through some of these.

00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:52.000
But it does also apply particularly dilapidation and cleanliness and scale, balance and size to costume design as well.

00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:59.000
Angles, multiple pattern and color can be applied through lighting too, but for the purposes of the exercise and the amount of time we have this evening I'm going to focus on.

00:16:59.000 --> 00:17:13.000
On images set design to give you some idea into that. You will find when she, when she will know these, that when you look at a set that you'll be able to identify them quite easily.

00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:20.000
And most set designs now will contain at least one of these examples. Having 3 of these things in it.

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:31.000
Is fairly standard. And having 5, all 5 of them is just working too hard. And so it's things to look out for.

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When you go to the theater yourself is what I'm going to going to point you towards I guess.

00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:40.000
So you start by considering color. Calories are cheap and effective way of creating contrast and also focusing on the audience's attention.

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If you remember me saying earlier that in theater we can't always give the audience to look where we want them to look.

00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:13.000
So playing with color can do that. For example I think one of the most familiar ways of doing it is the example that I always use when I'm explaining this is if you've seen Stingless lists, Chindler's List is a film that is shot in black and white.

00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:18.000
And at 1 point, Steven Spielberg introduces the figure of a small girl. In a red coat.

00:18:18.000 --> 00:18:26.000
Whilst the Nazis are rounding up Jewish people and putting them on trains and this little girl in the red coat because this red is the only color on screen.

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You can't take your eyes off it, it makes you follow it. It is that kind of use of color.

00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:55.000
You often get sets where there are very specific color. Combinations. To do with the color, and you will also find situations where color has been, a certain color has been removed from the set and then will be reintroduced to create impact.

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Most commonly that's with red and white. So you have a set that is mostly blues and browns and then you introduce somebody wearing a red coat.

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You can't not look at that person. The same would apply to somebody wearing white. In the same circumstances.

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And you get a lot of these combinations. One of the challenges we working with, Col, if you are a theater designer, is you need to take for lighting designers opinion into account.

00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:37.000
For reasons that are to do with the scientific elements of of the way that color is created.

00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:55.000
And certain colors are really hard to light on stage. Green is notoriously so. And so a lighting designer might well veto the idea of having too much of particular greens on stage.

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:57.000
They particularly don't like green floor cloths. Because they are difficult to light the night is absorbed by it.

00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:05.000
So very often a designer will come up with an idea and then the lighting design will go, no, we can't use that.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:13.000
So that's a kind of recommendation. And again, something else to look out for. So let's start with a simple one.

00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:23.000
This I know this is from the film, this is from Aberly and in this particular case the focus of the color is red and green.

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I said it was very very rarely seen but in every scene in this film there is an element of red and green and you can see how it's being used here.

00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:47.000
To create focus on certain parts. The top, the left hand corner there, you can see how, Amelie appearing in the red dress really makes her ping out against the natural background.

00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:58.000
And it creates this particular effect. It draws a line to it. It creates a particular sort of approach that you owes something to painting to be honest.

00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:12.000
But you can see how this limitation of color is almost no blue in these pictures. This, no shade of brand to speak of.

00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:26.000
Just not that much white. And because they've all been taken out just to focus on this red and green colorway and it has a particular effect on our way that we look.

00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:32.000
This is another example. This is from the National Theatre's Adaption of the Lorax for Children.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:39.000
And what's what's interesting about this is that because it's for children the the set is very brightly colored.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:50.000
Can you see that the set designer has used brushes from a car wash? To create the the rather strange woods in which the lorax lives.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.000
So the lorax, the puppet, is very brightly coloured. Partly because he is in the book, but also partly because he's about drawing the eye.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:16.000
And the puppeteers are, as is very common now in modern puppeteering, are dressed in Modern closest there is less in enthusiasm for having the the puppeteers all dressed in black so we can pretend they're not there.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:17.000
But they are dressed in neutral colours. They're dressed in this in this set of gray colors.

00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:36.000
So that once again, the central character, the lorax itself, pops out. So our eyes drawn to the puppet and not to the puppeteers.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:45.000
This is from, that face. A recent success and again we've got a great deal in red in this case used because the one of the characters here is extremely sensual and sensuous.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:23:01.000
And you can see as well choices of the posters that are on the wall, add to that a general impression of, of sensuality.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:12.000
We've got broken up light from the lighting. And they're using Govo's which create, which, stencils that you push light through and that creates particular effects but in this case the costume design has made a decision about one of the actors.

00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:24.000
And that is to dress him all in black. Which means he stands out. It's the reason why Hamlet is dressing black.

00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:36.000
You will see designs for Hamlet where the rest of the stage is stripped of all sign of black except for the central figure of Hamlet who has to be dressed in black because Shakespeare says so.

00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:49.000
Given that much information. But in this particular case this actor stands out against this sea of red and the moment that he moves you will be following him because he is differently colored the rest of it.

00:23:49.000 --> 00:24:03.000
And of course it says something about his mood, it says something about his character. In the same way as the rest of the sector, something about the mood and character of the other people in it.

00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:09.000
And this is from, F, a recent National Theatre Music or Success.

00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:22.000
I think you can get a national theater online. I couldn't recommend it more highly. And the story is of all the girls who that win the Z-Fi fories and they have this annual reunion.

00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:36.000
So all of these women are linked by their connection to the follies and what the costume designer has done here is give them G that represent their different periods of their time.

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:43.000
But that they are all within the same color way. They'd be all meat on the color wheel together.

00:24:43.000 --> 00:25:00.000
So lots of lilacs and blues and they transfer from one to the other. So you can clearly see that there is a connection between these characters.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:17.000
Now we're going to get into, multiple pattern and repeated pattern. This is a really interesting one because this is this is a psychological thing and it's a very strange thing but it is absolutely true that if you put a lot of things in front of a human, the human eye.

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:27.000
There's certain points at which the human eye will come, we'll try and count them. You'll brain will go, And then there's a point at which you can put too many things on the stage and they will it will stop working.

00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:37.000
Your brain will just go and that's rather lovely. I like that. It's kind of like the difference between the wood and the trees, I suppose.

00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:46.000
And our brain just kind of set back and goes, okay, yeah, I quite like that. I quite like I'm quite interested in that and stops trying to count it and just takes it all in.

00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:55.000
So you get design effects like this. This is a really simple design. And again, you can see the power of the lighting.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:04.000
The lighting designer has chosen to spend more time lighting the balloons and lighting the actors at this particular point.

00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:17.000
But all this is is just a whole bunch of balloons. In the space and it just creates this rather lovely, ethereal effect of these 2 lovers.

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:25.000
In this, in this scene and, without really putting too much effort in. You know, this isn't complicated.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:31.000
There's not a lot, not a lot of detail here. But your brain just looks, well, that's rather charming.

00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:39.000
Also, you'll notice the color has come into play here. There are no colors on this stage except for blue and white and gray.

00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:47.000
So again, think about the impact if some of the color came in a stronger color. Something like red.

00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:56.000
Or a black coming into this space would change its appearance completely. But the pattern thing is really important. And this is a really famous set.

00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:00.000
This is the set for Matilda. The musical which some of you might have seen and you can see that they're multiple pattern effect has gone completely mad.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:14.000
Every single one of these is a block with a letter on it, and some of them light up. To spell out certain words.

00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:21.000
It starts off with the letters from Tilda being flown in from the, this is from the opening to the play.

00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:28.000
And Every time I've taken people to see it, what they do is they try and figure out what the letters are spelling.

00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:43.000
And then after they kind of give up and just go, that's really rather lovely. And it is because you've got so much multiple pattern going on there that you'll brain just enjoy as it is.

00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:50.000
And it works if you're doing something much more cheaply. This is a touring production from the Edinburgh Fringe.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:59.000
And the, as you can see, there's no design really to speak of because the whole idea is that they don't know what they're going to get in terms of backdrop.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:06.000
Can't afford it. So what they've done is they've created a backdrop by creating multiple pattern.

00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:13.000
Along a portable wardrobe, rail kind of thing you can you can buy from Ikea.

00:28:13.000 --> 00:28:21.000
And then using color. Along the rain. To create their backdrop.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:29.000
Some of the, things that we hang up here are used as costume during the course of the show.

00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:38.000
But most of it is there just to create this rather rather lovely rainbow effect. It is a play about, a gay love affair.

00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:47.000
To create this rainbow effect, very simply. It also creates backdrop you can just about see that there is there's a bed behind it the hospital bed in fact.

00:28:47.000 --> 00:29:04.000
That is part of the play. And all of this caused tax data very nicely into that familiar white band that anybody who's been working on fringe shows or small-scale touring shows will be very familiar.

00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:16.000
In my time I have spent spent a long time sitting in little white vans. I'm full of stuff that you didn't expect to be anywhere near.

00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:22.000
And we're going to talk about, ation and cleanliness. Now.

00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:23.000
There's very clean things, very dirty things. Have an impact on the way that we think about them.

00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:32.000
Particularly when we're talking about character and costume. It's a lot of fun to do.

00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:46.000
One of the happiest couple of hours I spent was working on a projection of Oliver. We the bunch of young people and they'd all brought along their clothes to be worn.

00:29:46.000 --> 00:30:10.000
As part of the, gang or part of the street scenes and we we distressed the clothes and what you do is you set about the clothes that you've got with cheese graters and sand paper and you rub them with all kinds of things and you use the face packs to make the muddy.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:15.000
And they had a glorious time get messing these things around but it's also about the way that it looks.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:28.000
We have a response to certain things. Let me give you an example. This is the model box for, the National Theatre's production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:37.000
The central figure, Christopher, is severely autistic. And his brain works along very mathematical lines.

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:49.000
And this is intended to represent the interior of. Christopher's brain. So because it works a little mathematical lines, the designer has gone for very, very clean straight lines.

00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:52.000
You've got your, you see the 3 entrances again, like, you, back to the Romans that we talked about right at the beginning.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:31:02.000
But it is very clean back to the Romans that we talked about right at the beginning. But it is very clean, it's very pristine.

00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:10.000
It doesn't, it doesn't give any concession to any kind of softness or edges because that's the way that Christopher break Christopher's brain works.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:15.000
This particular set. He's also packed. Absolutely packed with all kinds of gadgetry.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:24.000
So things are projected on it, things are projected along the floor. Each one of those lines you can see contains LED light so it can spell out certain things, it can make certain shapes.

00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:31.000
So very technical set. On the other end of the scale, you can have things where there's genuine dilapidation.

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:46.000
And this is a design for and a student production of an opera that I've now just forgotten the name of.

00:31:46.000 --> 00:32:08.000
And you can see what's gone on here is again we've got the color issue they've ripped out all the color except for black and white, but also we can see the damp that's being done to the to the building so this is the construction of this we can see what's underneath it you can see the filthiness of the dull, the plasters come away from the columns.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:11.000
We can see that this is a world where there is poverty. Where there is not so much wealth going on.

00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:26.000
And it kind of strips it away so that we can see it and we have a very different impression of what this, what this world might be like.

00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:35.000
Angles angles on really important if you go to see if your fortunate stuff to go to see a play that is being produced in the range.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:47.000
So where the audience sits all around the outside of the performers. Then angles become vitally important because everything there has to happen on the diagonal so the audience can see.

00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:56.000
But even on a standard proscenium arch stage, the kind of ones we used to in the framework around the outside, you will see messing around with angles.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:07.000
To create different constructions and also really importantly to focus the audience's eye where you want to see.

00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:18.000
Just in the same way as painters do. You can see this is this is just a landscape painting, but the your eye is drawn along the path and out of distant hills.

00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:26.000
You might then go back and look at these trees in more detail, but your first response. It's like, And it's the very similar thing that set designers used in order to try and create that.

00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:35.000
And this is an example.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:45.000
Of one where. The design and also the direction of this play has focused everything to this central figure.

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:57.000
Even the lighting is focused on this. Central figure. He's very, very well lit, the characters to the one side, and you can see where the base here, where there's the lighting has been.

00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:13.000
They've been really focused on the centre. So this figure we know that this figure is the most important figure.

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:30.000
This is an image from the end scenes of, Stephen. Delaying's, famous, a version of in spectacles, a revival of, and at the end of the play.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:38.000
And the doll's house to where the dining room is where the Burling family have been meeting and being faced with the inspector.

00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:51.000
Has collapses. And all of the China falls out of it. And you can see that the angles here are deriving this house and it's it's it's dilapidation down into the floor.

00:34:51.000 --> 00:35:00.000
You can also see that the design has a curve on it. That it looks like that the ground is curved, it's not.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.000
It's just, it's the way that the designer has created this set of cobblestones.

00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:13.000
And, focused our attention on that. So here you've got a combination of using the angles.

00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:25.000
See the angle that's going on here. But also that idea of multiple pattern again with the with the with the clouds behind the clouds are projected.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:32.000
This is a lighting exercise rather than using Gogos. And again, we've got the limitations of color.

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:42.000
Remember I said that good design contains at least 3 of the examples that I've used. This is exactly what I need.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:36:01.000
And find a lighting used as angles. This is a version of 12 Angry Men. And you can see that the lighting has been used to create these very rigid angles to match up with the windows around the outside so the whole idea of morality and the discussions that are going on to do with justice.

00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:16.000
Are all embedded in what we can visually see. You might not realize it at the time. But this is having an impact on the way you respond to the play.

00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:27.000
Size scale and balance, which is another one of these things that we can use. And it's to do with the fact that we like Small things, we think they're cute.

00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:32.000
And we like big things. Big things can also be quite frightening. And designers will play with this idea.

00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:44.000
And it's particularly a common thing in costume design where you get costume designs that don't fit.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:50.000
If anybody has seen, James Corden's one man 2 governors. And that was such a hit for the National Theatre.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:56.000
His suit is deliberately made a little bit too small. So it makes him look a fatter than he actually is.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:08.000
And it's one of those things that's quite funny. You can do it with, with different scales.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:13.000
This is National Theatres, Christmas play of a few years back of Pinocchio.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:24.000
So the puppets being the characters we're most interested in. So the, the old reactors are all, all the normal, like to size.

00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:31.000
So the humans in this scene are represented by giant puppets. So the scale of this has been played with.

00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:44.000
So what we would expect that this human figure should be normal size isn't because it means that these characters are again put in perspective.

00:37:44.000 --> 00:38:00.000
And again, a method of making a character looking in a particular way. So, this is, a character who is being isolated, who is out of his depth and who just doesn't know how to cope in his world because his world is just got out of hand.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:09.000
And this idea of large pieces of furniture is one way of using it. And this idea of large pieces of furniture, it's one way of using it.

00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:13.000
There was a very famous, revival of a play called Maca now. I tried to look for pictures of it, couldn't find any.

00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:20.000
And with Fiona Shaw in the title role and one of the things that they gave her was an armchair.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:31.000
The big cozy armchair. That was just too big for her and it looked like it was swallowing her up and the theme of Makani is the idea that this woman is in a world where everything is too big and she can't control it.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:52.000
It's a very strong piece of feminist theater. And the set design reflected it. There wes very strongly and again you can see here we stripped out the color we've got the the angles you can see how this leans back to the Edward Craig that we were talking about earlier on.

00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:57.000
You can kind of see all the connections that are going on here.

00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:04.000
And finally, I just wanted to draw your attention to, this, this is quite a good year to be doing this talk.

00:39:04.000 --> 00:39:10.000
Every 2 years there is what's called the Limbrik price for stage design.

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:18.000
And it deals with set and costume and lighting. And the the prize winners are all gathered together.

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:35.000
And they have an exhibition, a free exhibition at the National Theatre. It's usually up on the first floor in Little Lange and it is currently running now and will be running until the thirtieth of March.

00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:40.000
So if you are in London and you've got half an hour to spare, you might want to go along and have a look.

00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:47.000
These are some of the award winning designs from this year.

00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:54.000
So this is the central costume design here. This is a design for, the Alzheimer's, in, in Dr.

00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:59.000
Faustus.

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:06.000
Did you sign on the bottom right hand side is for 1984. And I have immediately forgotten what the design on the top there.

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:29.000
And so you, if you go to the, you'll be able to see the full range of, of model boxes and designs and sketches and all of the things that go into making up theater design and you'll be able to see how these young designers have applied some of the things that we have been talking about this evening.

00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:35.000
And. That's it. Thank you very much. And I can see there's lots of stuff coming to the chat.

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:41.000
So I'm sure there's lots of questions. And I look forward to helping you answer them.

00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:49.000
Thanks very much, Ellie. Great. Now we have got a couple of questions here. So if anybody has any more questions, send them in through the chat.

00:40:49.000 --> 00:41:05.000
And okay, so let's kick off. And this is a question from Susie right at the start you talked about sort of Irving Vistress and Stan's love scheme Can you tell us a bit more about when exactly they brought their ideas into the theatre?

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:06.000
Thank you.

00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:10.000
Okay, so. Henry, Henry Irving is kind of kicks in around, 1880.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:23.000
Mary Vistress is slightly after that, around about 1890 and Stalaski really starts his work into the beginning of the twentieth century.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:26.000
Stalislasky was partnered with Anton Chekhov. And this whole kind of idea of the new naturalism.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:45.000
Is a way of both Stanislasky trying to deal with the idea that. Theatre should be reproducing human life, but also he got these very,

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:55.000
Not naturalistic plays with real psychology behind them. There's no there's no.

00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:04.000
It's no kind of accident that at the same time as we start to see this, we start seeing, things like, you know, signaling for you to come into the center.

00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:23.000
We also have Epson going on in Norway. All of these kind of psychological things and these psychological plays required a real background to set them into because the idea is that they can We can see the real world reproduced in that way.

00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:30.000
Thanks very much. I hope that answers your question, Susie. No, hold on second.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:36.000
Let me just find this in the chat. And this is a question from Elizabeth. This is quite an interesting one.

00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:44.000
Does the director of plays that are designed for a theatre audience and also for filming, say National Theatre Live?

00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:51.000
Have to consider how the stage design will have to be adapted so it makes sense for both. And testing question.

00:42:51.000 --> 00:43:05.000
No, no, because when you talk about something like National Theatre Live, and any streaming of performance is that what it is is that they are that it's a recording of a performance.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:14.000
So the designer will just, It's not for the director or the designer to have to think about.

00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000
What it will look like on the on the on a cinema screen or on a television screen.

00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:30.000
That is for the video and media team to deal with because not everything that is produced say at the national ever makes it to national theater live.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:43.000
Some of them obviously lend themselves much better to it, but that's not the purpose. They don't, nobody ever sits down that point and goes, you know what, you can't have that because it's not going to fit on the screen.

00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:53.000
Really good example. There is a production of, It's, it's like a national feature online, Treasure Island.

00:43:53.000 --> 00:44:01.000
Which features is it in the Olivier? It features on the huge drum revolve that is one of the national theaters both treasures and paint in the neck.

00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:12.000
A full pirate ship and it comes out of the ground. And I've seen, I saw it live.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:17.000
And I've also seen it online. You can't really get an impression of the size of this thing online because they can only shoot it from so many angles.

00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:26.000
But when it came up on the stage, I mean the audience applauded. Because it is massive.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:30.000
It's actual 3 stories of a full mastage NN Nelson period ship. It's astonishing.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:39.000
But you can't get it over. It's not about that. You very rarely have to think about that.

00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:50.000
Okay, interesting, right. No. This is another interesting one actually and quite current I suppose.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:56.000
From Margaret. Has AI impacted stage design yet?

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:13.000
No, the thing about AI is that you have to remember that AI is currently working on on words. The AI operates by you feeding in lots and lots of information of either people speaking or people's writing.

00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:20.000
And design depends on the visual. I'm not saying we won't get there at some point.

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:33.000
But it will require it will require an awful lot of data and of course images take up more data than words do in order for that to happen.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:42.000
I think AI is more dangerous to those people that write plays than it is to design us at this moment in time.

00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:43.000
Ask me again in 20 years.

00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:50.000
Okay. Okay. We might just do that. And okay, here's another question from Stuart.

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:59.000
You referred to googles a couple of times. What are they? Do you extend?

00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
Right, there we go.

00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.000
And not, not Go Go Go Go Go Go, Yeah. So, they're all.

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:14.000
2 types of stage lantern. Alright, she gotta be, if you're going to be proper theatrical, you never talk about lights, you talk about lanterns.

00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:21.000
And one set of them. The kind of things when you think about flood lights. And they're very unsettled.

00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:35.000
And you could put color in front of you, you can't do anything else. The other ones are what we call, Fresnel's and Fresnel's have a lens in them that is a series of concentric circles and if you actually see one in profile they're kind of like steps.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:42.000
It's exactly the same lens that is used in lighthouses. And it's created by Frenchman called Funnell.

00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:54.000
And, what they do is that they can, dissipate light. And if you've got a Fresnel lantern, what you can do is you can put into them a stencil which is about so big.

00:46:54.000 --> 00:47:00.000
With different patterns and designs on it. And the light goes through it and it makes that diffused effect.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:09.000
Let me see if I can just. Pull that back up for you.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:16.000
She asked, Shiva can show you. I mean in a bit more. Take it to me.

00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:20.000
With one of the designs that I've got here.

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:23.000
Okay

00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:30.000
Probably that one. So. Let me just share and screen with you.

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:37.000
So can you see how the with this particular one? Can you see how the light is diffused?

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:48.000
It's all dappled. What that is, that will be like that he has been pushed through a go, to make it look like, sunlight through trees.

00:47:48.000 --> 00:48:02.000
You can get gobos that, kind of spell out things, but most of them are what we call diffusers so that they you know they look like light through trees or light through stained glass windows or you can get window gobos.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:14.000
They're a very cheap way if you are in involved in in theater in some way they're a very cheap way of creating a particular location.

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:30.000
You can put a gobo up with a window in it and fish bash bush you are in in a prison or in a Victorian garden or whatever without having to build lots of stuff.

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:45.000
And you can add colors to them as well. So really useful tool. And if you are really interested, you go on the Roscoe, that's our OSK, CEO website and they will show you the full list of of ones that are available.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:59.000
And some of them are named after shows. There's what they call the Lemme, Z, are, of, of, g, which are, if you've seen the show, they, they have a lot of prison grids that are squares and they are used in that show and they're now available for everybody to buy.

00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:13.000
They're monstrous cheap, they're usually about 6 to 7 pounds. So that's much cheaper than building a whole set, which is why they're much beloved if people like me who don't have big budget for the shows that we do.

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:21.000
Okay, interesting. I hope that answers your question. And question from Stella with all these kind of principles and practice in mind.

00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:27.000
She asks, what of gimmicks such as a helicopter on stage in a Shakespeare comedy?

00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:35.000
At the National a few years ago and earlier Midsummer Night's Dream with full costumes done with the actors traipsing about in water.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:39.000
What do you reckon to that in terms of

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:41.000
What we've been talking about today.

00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:48.000
One of the issues of course with you kind of hit the nail on the head there with the Shakespeare reference.

00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:58.000
One of the challenges that I think both directors and designers get faced with and they get hung up on it a bit is that there are certain plays and certain playwrights and Shakespeare is the big daddy of them all.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:09.000
That what you've got to do is try and make, you know, there is a belief that you've got to make it better, different, more interesting.

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:13.000
And if you're the national feature and you've got lots of money to throw at it, then you might well do that.

00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:22.000
I mean, I've seen mid-sized dreams that have been set on a bed, a ginormous bed and the actors all wore pajamas.

00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:36.000
I have seen I simply horrific as far as the act is concerned version of the tempest where they covered the stage in sand and they had to provide the actually the chiropractor because it was that it was so hard to work on for the amount of time they were.

00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:44.000
And it's all about trying to make it look different and interesting. Where is I think there is an argument for saying

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:47.000
The word should speak for themselves, the place should speak for itself. That's not to say that I don't like a little bit, little bit of gadgetry.

00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:59.000
I recently went to see the Davey tenant, Macbeth at the Donmar warehouse with the binary headphones and it was fabulous.

00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:01.000
Very, very, very simple set. Incredibly simple set. And I think that's the thing that you need to do.

00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:11.000
If you're going to do something flashy. Do it in one area only and leave it there.

00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:17.000
You know, have amazing costumes but leave the set simple. Have an amazing set but leave the costume simple.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:25.000
That's when it works best. And of course there are shows where spectacle is what it's all about.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:30.000
You go to see a big musical, you spent a lot of money on going to see a big musical.

00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:39.000
And you do actually want to see your money on the stage and sometimes that does involve some of these more flashy effects.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:46.000
And, and when they work, they are amazing. And the trick is to try and balance it out.

00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:55.000
One of the problems is if the thing is bad is the set is the set you remember and not the show then you've got a slightly difficult problem.

00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:01.000
In a lot of people who went to see, see Miss like on in its heyday will go, oh well, I remember the helicopter.

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:10.000
But can you remember the performances? And if the set is taking a set, all that is the state costume design or something like that is overtaking the actual content of the piece or what the apps are doing.

00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:19.000
It's probably not doing a very good job. Well.

00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:23.000
Excellent. Thank you very much. Really interesting.

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:31.000
So I've got a question here from Elizabeth, which kind of links, it falls on from a question I asked earlier actually.

00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:42.000
She's asking who has the final say in the style of the dis, the design costumes lighting kind of the whole thing and are there often disagreements about these things?

00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:57.000
Directors get wedded to certain designers. They like to work with the same designers. And it's usually the director that will say, I'm, we're going to do a version of.

00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:03.000
Let's stick with the Shakespeare. I want to do a merchant of Venice and we're going to set it in Las Vegas.

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:15.000
And then it's up to the designer to go away and and and make that work. And to come back with lots of ideas and lots of sketches and they will start and that process will start.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:24.000
At least 2 months before anybody's even thought about casting it. In the end, it will come down to 3 things.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:31.000
The director will have the final say. But the other person who will come in and make an impact on it will be the various heads of department who have got to make these things.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:46.000
And of course, the person who's got got their hand on the budget. It's all very well for somebody to say, you know what, I'd really like to have a working fountain in the middle of the stage.

00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:56.000
And. There for the own the theatre produced to get, can't do it, you haven't got enough money.

00:53:56.000 --> 00:54:05.000
Well, you can have that, but you can't have, 2 extras. To do that, seeing that you really want to do, you're gonna have to make choice, you make choices.

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:11.000
And that's what it is. It's Very much the director's final say.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:23.000
Because it's his or her vision. That is going on the stage but it will be modified by somebody from the wardrobe saying You can't do that.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:37.000
We can't afford to put that character in. In bruteade or you're asking this actor to to where PVC but you also want them to do a massive long dance sequence.

00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:46.000
That's not fair, that's not kind or you want me to do the same way they're going to get covered in blood which means we're gonna have to wash the clothes every day.

00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:52.000
You know, there will be modifications made because practicality and cost will come into it.

00:54:52.000 --> 00:54:56.000
Yeah. Fantastic. Okay. No.

00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:08.000
Question from Jerry. You talked about the lungberry prize. I'm saying, do you know if it's available to see on line or virtually for people that in London.

00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:11.000
Sadly, sadly no, it's not. I mean, there are, you can hunt it down, you can find lots of illustrations of it.

00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:23.000
But, to actually see it, you're gonna have to be in town. I mean, you've got a couple of months.

00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:38.000
And it comes around every couple of years. You know look at and look out for it they I will say that if you are if you do go to the national the backstage tour is fabulous but they've also got a section around the back if you're going through the core education department where you can go and see.

00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:51.000
The, the scenic design unit and everything from the gallery above so you can see people working on things and it's absolutely free.

00:55:51.000 --> 00:55:57.000
And the littleton gallery is usually got some kind of design display on it whenever you go.

00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:03.000
The Limp Prize is great, but I shall be going to have a look at it myself.

00:56:03.000 --> 00:56:09.000
But there's always something with looking at. There if you if you happen to be in the area.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:11.000
Okay, good. Okay, now just a couple of final questions that I'm going to roll together actually.

00:56:11.000 --> 00:56:27.000
And from Margaret and Jane respectively. Do you have any particular sort of set designers that you look out for?

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:33.000
And what productions have you recently been working on? People are interested to know.

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:47.000
Okay. So. I don't have particularly designers that I look out for. I do know the kind of design I like.

00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:54.000
And the kind of design I aspire I aspire to when I do my own work. I do quite quite like a stripped down stage.

00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:58.000
I'm forever telling people that I can do it with 2 chairs in the table. It's great.

00:56:58.000 --> 00:57:09.000
I like good lighting design. More than I like. That more than I worry about, SETH, is, is an American called Ray Gordon whose work is just amazing.

00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:28.000
Did lots of the lighting for Linking. With Julie, and, If you've seen the, the opening with the sunrise, just so beautifully lit.

00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:38.000
So I kind of like that for me, I recently done a production of dye and vivon Rose which is a three-handed playback.

00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:49.000
And we mean growing up, they meet at university and it's about the the friendship that they have for the rest of their lives.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:58:05.000
I'm currently about to go into rehearsal for my writers groups. Live evening and I will be directing a if Noel Stratfield ballet shoes that I've written myself.

00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:14.000
That's going to be coming up. Probably early next year, we haven't finalized the dates yet.

00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:25.000
But that's an opportunity for us to bring the adults and my youth theater together. Cause obviously we need young people to be in that shape.

00:58:25.000 --> 00:58:30.000
Yeah, well good luck with that. Good luck with that. Thank you so much for that, Ali.

00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:40.000
That was really fascinating and I think everybody out there has very much enjoyed it and all that color combination stuff took me right back to my art classes.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:41.000
Yeah.

00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:53.000
Oh, the color wheel. But I hope everybody out there. I think I hope that you kind of go away with a bit more insight for the next time you go to a live theatre performance and it gives you a little bit of food for a thought for what you're looking at so

00:58:53.000 --> 00:58:59.000
It works for film as well. You've occurred for some of these shapes in film. You'll see exactly the same.

00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:00.000
Yeah, okay, bye.

00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:06.000
Can you see the coloration of, Phil's by West Anderson, for example? He loves, he loves the pastel.

00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:08.000
Lives a pastel colour.

00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:09.000
Thank you very much, Ally.

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:13.000
Thank you

00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:08.000
Hello, hello everybody! Welcome to 2024. We'll see what that has to offer and of course my way of dealing with it is immediately to dive straight back into history where there's a whole different of it is immediately to dive straight back into history where there's a whole different set of weird things going on from the modern world.

00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:31.000
So yeah, today I want to tell you a bit about wigs. I mean, they've been wigs out a lot earlier, the Egyptians war wigs, there's a lovely one made of whoop of moss out found out out on Hadrian's Wall not that long ago, rather special.

00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:37.000
But we're going to talk about the wig of the Seventeenth, eighteenth centuries, how that came about.

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The problems of wearing them. And why it sort of fell from grace afterwards. So what about the word wig?

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Where does that even come from? Well, People in the seventeenth century would have talked not about a wig but about a periwig, generally speaking.

00:00:53.000 --> 00:01:01.000
And they would also have used the word perug. And Perry Wig is a kind of corruption of Peru in the first place because Baruch is the French word for for it.

00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:08.000
For a while we could even sort of half cross the 2 and call them a per, she's a ugly word.

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And Peru actually nobody knows where it comes from. There are suggestions. Latin for hair is pointless.

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I think the best one is that it might come from parakeeto, which is a parakeet.

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So it might be that all these people are wearing a very distant cousin of a parakeet on their heads, which is pretty much what some people were trying to do anyway.

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So Where it starts, it all starts with royalty. It all starts specifically with Louis the thirteenth of France.

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This is because at the time baldness starts having negative connotations and it's going to have those because It's associated with this newfangled problem of syphilis and indeed of mercury treatment for syphilis both of which can make you go bald.

00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:12.000
So people are not going to want to appear like the hair is thinning. So Louis the thirteenth had lost his hair in his teens.

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Through some sort of illness. He does not want it to look like he's gone bald. So he wears this wig.

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In public. This is in the 16 twenties, 16 thirties. Basically 3 hairpieces just sort of stitched together to to give him some sense of body there And of course if a king's doing it, then it's going to become a status symbol right away.

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You know, we're not that far from the era where the king has an annual fistial or an everyone wants one, I kid you not.

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You start getting Crofts, craftsman really involved it becomes a more skilled trade because everyone wants to make for the king of course Soon after his death you get the first guild of barbers and and wig makers working together.

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They revolutionized the design the way it's made as well, tying little tiny bundles of real hair together.

00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:14.000
Onto these little narrow bands with silk thread. And suddenly in France it becomes fashionable to have a wig.

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And of course what happens then is the court of England or what is left of it after during and after the civil war.

00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:37.000
They will go over to France and they start picking up a taste for things French. Which is actually the start of a sort of 150 year conflict between English people who want to look kind of French and those who don't but that's a much bigger story.

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So the nobles have gone over and when they come back they've picked up these ideas in the restoration court 16 sixtys everything French is fashionable and that includes Charles the Second coming back.

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Now initially he has his own hair but but it's sort of styled very similarly to that of the French wigs.

00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:09.000
It is initially very much a thing of the court. It's a bit of an affectation along with wearing sort of heavy French perfume.

00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:20.000
But, 1663? Charles is starting to turn gray. And he and his brother who's the future James the Second Both start wearing wigs.

00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:28.000
At which point everyone in the court in England starts looking around and then you always is that the fashion? Is that something we should be doing as well?

00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:38.000
Peeps records I to whitehall to see the duke where he first put on a periwig today now that the duke is the future James II.

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He first put on a periwig. Methought his hair cut short in order there too did look very prettily of itself before he put on the periwig.

00:04:48.000 --> 00:05:01.000
So he actually preferred the buzz cut that was going on underneath. But having seen that his bosses are doing it, Peeps, who is the most awful follower of fashion on all occasions he's got to be cutting edge everything.

00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:09.000
Has to do it himself. So in 1,660 he has his own hair long and curled but he says it's a lot of effort.

00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:15.000
1,663, some of the nobles start doing it and he sort of follows suit reluctantly.

00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:20.000
He's afraid he's going to be laughed at for wearing one, but he wants to be in the trend anyway.

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:29.000
And he actually writes his kind of uncertainty about this. He says, I did try 2 or 3 borders and periwigs meaning to wear one.

00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:33.000
Yet I have no stomach for it, but the pains of keeping my hair clean is great. But my mind is almost altered from my first purpose for the trouble which I foresee in wearing them also.

00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:48.000
He can't make his mind up. Particularly when he sees one that's made a very sort of greasy greying hair and he thinks I don't want to look like that.

00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:56.000
So in the end his first wig is one that he has made by cutting off and then having turned into a wig.

00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:08.000
His own hair. So at least it looks exactly like his own hair because it is his own hair. It's just, it might be easier to look after when you can just take it off and give it to a servant to wash.

00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:22.000
Instead of having to be on his head all the time. But you can see over time. You know this this hair here looks Pretty much, like it's just, his own hair, because it probably is.

00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:28.000
This is 20 years later. It's definitely a bit less natural, it's a bit more sort of beuphant on top, isn't it?

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:38.000
It's, yeah, but much, much larger and more unnatural looking and that's the trend that happened over that time.

00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:55.000
There were still people you claimed. Oh no, it's all my own. As William Prin puts it, men who wear false hair and periwigs do commonly affirm and swear them to be their own and would all men deem them for their natural heir.

00:06:55.000 --> 00:07:01.000
But very clearly you're looking at something that's not your natural hair.

00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:13.000
Meanwhile in France? We get our next king. Louis XIV. And he, unlike his father, does not go bald in his teens.

00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:26.000
But even so, he tends as a younger man to sort of wear wedges in the back. So this, this is his natural hair but there's sort of bits, hair pieces in the back to fluff it up a bit.

00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:32.000
By the time you get to 1684 is it is 30, s his own hair is is thinning a lot.

00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:39.000
And he starts wearing these again huge wigs and you start to see the style there that's going to come in later with the kind of I don't know what you'd call it.

00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:48.000
The sort of dip in the middle. And that's the wig with his own hair poking through gaps whenever possible.

00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:00.000
So he's using both at the same time. And later he goes all artificial. There is a style that is created by his own personal barber.

00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:09.000
Which is very long, very full bottomed and very tight curls. It's rumoured that he had 48 wig makers.

00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:24.000
It's also rumored that a single wig took the hair of 50 women to achieve. And they all had to be country lasses with hair of 25 inches long who hadn't been hadn't worn bonnets regularly because that would have weakened their hair.

00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:33.000
It was also said he was presented with a choice of 5 wigs every morning for what style he wanted.

00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:42.000
Of course initially some people criticized this. The clergy initially say that there's there's a hundreds of years old ruling.

00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:48.000
That men shouldn't have long hair. They said it's going going against the work of God.

00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:57.000
You shouldn't alter your appearance. But then one of the Abbots does it and all the young canons, you know, it's much like when the king does it, the nobles do it.

00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:01.000
The same thing happens in the clergy. It just takes one person if it's the right person.

00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:13.000
And then it filters all the way down. But it's it's not universal in the seventeenth century particularly amongst the older generation who have grown up without it.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:19.000
So, Daniel Fleming writes to his son, George, who is 25. In 1,692.

00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:30.000
Saying, I am sorry to hear of you wearing a periwig since it will be inconvenient both to you and me and I think that there was no great need thereof.

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:40.000
So he's a bit of a holdout at this point. They are becoming quite standard and if his son is moving in fashionable circles then he'll believe that he needs one.

00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:48.000
But the older generation. Still not quite convinced.

00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:51.000
So as we see here

00:09:51.000 --> 00:10:07.000
We've got this from having your long hair, long natural hair, and then suddenly you have Yeah, that one's probably natural that one's probably not and then you get very soon into the, yeah, clearly, clearly that is not natural there.

00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:16.000
And to skim ahead to where we'll be a bit later. It stays at that silly height for a while.

00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:21.000
Calms down a bit, but it's still a wig. In the middle of the century.

00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:28.000
And then you reach a point where actually it's quite hard to tell because you style your hair to look like a wig and style your wig to look like a hair.

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:33.000
A hair, several hairs in the middle.

00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:49.000
So. Weeks are made out of human hair. And whereas a, King of France might have 50 going on, a normal person might still use up to 10 head fulls per wig.

00:10:49.000 --> 00:11:01.000
There's gonna be a lot of very short-haired women going around in the countryside. Which is not normally factored into one's vision of these things that Yeah, they'll all be selling their hair.

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.000
And that this is the work of specialists and there is a huge that the trade of collecting wigs is boom.

00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:22.000
Sorry, collecting hair to make the wigs is booming. It has to be there are collectors who go round from village to village in Flanders and in Holland and in Spain.

00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:31.000
To collect this hair. Off any peasant girl willing to sell it. And of course some sorts are worth considerably more than others.

00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:38.000
We don't sell hair in this country so much, we do sell made wigs to other people.

00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:49.000
And it's big, big business. In, 1,756, John Brooks of, of Holbein records Selling parcels of French hair.

00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:00.000
Worth 90,000 pounds and in today's money you're talking 6 or 7 million. So in his trade he's got a, yeah, turnover of 6 or 7 million in.

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:11.000
French hair alone. There are people leaving fortunes which people who are millionaires by if they were around now.

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:30.000
But the other end of the spectrum you get sort of itinerant Chapman who who've got the hair from one village and they're selling it in the next village to someone who can just stitch something together because all of these things as is usually the way are available right across the social spectrum at every price point imaginable.

00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:40.000
There are adverts in the paper saying if you have good hair to sell come to this particular pub And there you shall have at least as much ready money as anyone else will give.

00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:51.000
So it's, so it's quick cash if you need it. We're not quite at the, desperate stakes of poor fontine in Les Miz, but that is towards the end of this.

00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:56.000
This period a little beyond it and yeah hair is valuable.

00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:08.000
Then that hair has to be picked through to sort into different qualities. Different colors, a wound up on rollers to curl it for those lovely curled.

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:20.000
Looks. Quite often actually the the wig makers had a deal going with bakers. And they would give the hair to the bakers on rollers.

00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:37.000
To roll to bake them overnight when the oven would otherwise not be getting any use. And nobody seems until the late century to have worried particularly about the hygiene of the fact that lots of human hair has just been cooked in the thing that you're then about to cook.

00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:44.000
Your bread rolls for the day in.

00:13:44.000 --> 00:14:02.000
Blonde hair is in most demand and silver gray if it's long and silver grey can also be in in demand because of course if you want a blonde wig you'd better have a natural one because if you bleach it it won't have quite the same, hold curled and it'll be thinner and break more easily.

00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:09.000
And in France is actually a bit of a scandal because some people are selling bleached hair claiming that it's natural blonde hair.

00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:18.000
So, you know, people saying the natural blonde, it's not even about what's on the head, about what they put their bought from the shop.

00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:31.000
There are alternatives to human hair. You could use goat hair and horsehair which has a very different effect if you think course areas what judges use their wigs now.

00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:49.000
And yeah, these generally are, you know, obviously different. Again, there is an issue, there is a tax proposed for use of animal hair that is passed off as human hair.

00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:56.000
Cow and cough tails, mohair, horse, goat, and camel are all under suspicion.

00:14:56.000 --> 00:15:05.000
Yuck care. And there is a picture on the internet somewhere someone who's made a modern wig in this style just using yak hair.

00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:16.000
It seems plausible. But the evidence isn't brilliant on it, similarly. There are some wigs known as feather tops.

00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:28.000
Which possibly involve actual feathers? One seller advertises wigs for sporting mode made of mallard's tails.

00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:36.000
Now is he literally talking Mallard's tales there? There's no pictures of that anywhere, but Is that what a feather top is?

00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:46.000
We don't know. Similarly, there are, I think, precisely 2 references that have been found to the wearing of iron wigs.

00:15:46.000 --> 00:16:00.000
Walpole writes about Lady Mary W, Wly Montague. That her son is flouncing around in a iron wig that he has bought from Paris.

00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:07.000
You would not know it from hair. I would have thought it was actually made of iron. You very much would know it from hair.

00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:20.000
But who knows, it's very odd. Another wig maker says that he's selling iron wigs that can withstand rain, wind and hail without causing any discomfort.

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:37.000
That I doubt. So yeah making it is a complicated process particularly since you have to do deals with the bakers and particularly since you have to know how to make it in lots of different styles.

00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:52.000
The side from the fact that you know for a long time they all have this this very neat center parting there are many many options and they all have names you know you can you can be wearing the tie the brigadier the rameles, the feather top.

00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:57.000
The necklace, the lavant, the valency, the long tail, the foxtail, the cut wig.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:08.000
And some of them are very odd. We can only imagine that the rhinoceros is what it says on the tin and quite what that would look like on a person, I don't know.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:17.000
The she dragon the wild boars back and so on These are often literal translations of French.

00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:24.000
Names and some of them are very, very elaborate.

00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:38.000
Sure you these So This is a sort of set as produced by a barber for what a peruke seller for the different types you could potentially be buying.

00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:51.000
This is a little different. This is a hogarth etching. And he was inspired to do it because at the coronation of George III which is 1761.

00:17:51.000 --> 00:18:00.000
The wigs are so elaborate and there's so many different ones because everyone is wearing their poshest thing of course they are for a coronation.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:10.000
That he's inspired to write this which is 5 orders of periwigs and it is a parody of the 5 orders of classical architecture.

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:20.000
Doric, Ionia and Corinthian and so on. And so he sort of done done a wig equivalent of that from the fairly simple episcopal for the clergy to wear.

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:31.000
Through the Lexonic for lawyers and so on all the way up to the Querinthian which is of course like the Corinthian extremely fancy over the top.

00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:35.000
Curly style.

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:51.000
BY, 1764, about the same time as that, the Purukiya Encyclopedia is published with 115 types all all sort of mapped out and all given their own name.

00:18:51.000 --> 00:19:02.000
And as Hogarth says, and as he's visible in his artwork, actually, You can very often tell what professions somebody has by what style of wig they are wearing.

00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:09.000
Physicians ought to wear cauliflower wigs, for instance.

00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:21.000
There are a few types which are particularly notable we see particularly a lot One of those is the Ramalles.

00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:28.000
Which is the one you think of perhaps when you think of sailors, very hornblower sort of style.

00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:39.000
And this happened of course because military officers and, naval officers found of course that full periwigs get in the way.

00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:49.000
When you're fighting or you're on board ship and so they start wearing things tied back. And after the Battle of Ramelys, 1706.

00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:59.000
It becomes sort of standard informal where for them and a general wear for them from the 1730. It's also called a tie back.

00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:11.000
Relatively casual. Lord Bolingbroke. Popularizes it in England. But he creates a great scandal because he has hastily summoned to see the Queen.

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:19.000
He's a leader of the Tory party. And he appears in front of the Queen. In a tie wig, not in a proper full formal wig.

00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:26.000
And apparently the Queen remarked that she supposed next time Lord Brawling, Bollingbrook would come in his nightcap.

00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:29.000
That's how informal it is.

00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:40.000
And the they're also useful for telling rank if you are looking at the military. The the rank and file are more likely to tar their queue down, their pigtail down.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:51.000
Officers will use black ribbon at the top and bottom as you see there. And sometimes stiffen it with wire so that it could curl upward at the back.

00:20:51.000 --> 00:21:01.000
Then we have. Bagwigs. Again, as you see there is some neatly put inside this nice black satin.

00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:09.000
Bad, literally. Oh, black silk bag. And the ribbons from it quite often actually go round to the front.

00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:15.000
And tied a bow under your neck, which I think we would think of as being very comical indeed.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:32.000
But it's it's fashionable in France and therefore it becomes fashionable here as well. Although when it first comes to England people are afraid that they don't want to look like a French servant.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:39.000
And to say lots of other ones, a postonic wig, a bab, a bob wig which is a bit shorter.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:54.000
The Tyburn top which is a sort of half a wig that you put in with your own hair which people associate with criminals so it's people who are being hanged in Tyburn are the people that need a Tyburn wig.

00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:04.000
The the scratch wig that's often sort of a bit scruffier all these different types.

00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:16.000
And you would pay for this. Perhaps 25 shillings. For a sort of normal one but obviously if you push the boat out you can be paying

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:27.000
Up to hundreds of shillings, 500. 600. Shillings. Therefore a big wig really is anyone who can afford to buy a big wig.

00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:40.000
Or if you wanted to make yourself look like you were very rich one easy way to do that is to just make your hair make your wig as big as possible to make yourself a big wig whether it's true or not.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:47.000
And of course there are attendant costs on that. These wigs do not look after themselves.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:56.000
You still have to, you don't have to shave, cut your hair anymore. But you still do have costs attached.

00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Because status is sort of inferred when you look at someone's wig, people fake it.

00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:10.000
Marquee of Mirabeau says, everyone in Paris has become a mussia.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:15.000
On Sunday, a man came up to me wearing black silk, silk clothes and a well-powdered wig.

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:22.000
And as I fell over myself offering him compliments, he introduced himself as the oldest son of my blacksmith.

00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:28.000
Looks can be deceiving, you see.

00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:42.000
But all the way down the social scale people are trying to wear some sort of wig. Farm servants, day laborers, servants, servants of any one of any status, then that person would pay for their wigs for them.

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:53.000
Quite a long way down the scale. And that's possible of course because there's a lot of quality variation and also because you can buy them second, third, fourth hand.

00:23:53.000 --> 00:24:02.000
If you're a farm worker, you're earning 8 shillings a week, you're not spending your entire months wages on one of these, you're wearing one that's been handed down.

00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:20.000
By a servant who was given it by the local squire. Lot of journey and apprentices are within their apprenticeship documents they are to be provided with one wig per year.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:26.000
If you're a little bit better off, you might have 2, one for Sunday best.

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:35.000
And, well, if this starts quite young, there will be ten-year-olds, 12 year olds going around with wigs as well.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:40.000
If you are very poor, well, certainly if you're in London and you're very poor, there is a solution.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:48.000
You can go to the as described in the proceedings of the Old Bailey the Thripony Whig shop in middle row.

00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:54.000
Or the old widow wig shops of rag fair. A lot of these would have been stolen.

00:24:54.000 --> 00:25:04.000
Property these wigs. And the other thing you could do in in Holborn, there was a dip and some people have speculated this is the world's first lucky dip.

00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:12.000
For that threatens at the Threatening Wig Shop, what you did was stick your hand in a box full of wigs and pick one out.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:13.000
If it was awful, you could try a second time for one and a half pennies.

00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:32.000
If that was awful, you were stuck. You couldn't keep going and going but Of course the problem with that is if one of those wigs has nits before you know it they all do.

00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:42.000
But appearances can be deceiving. There's one MP who's a notorious miser who, possible inspiration for Scrooge, they reckon.

00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:49.000
Friend wrote he wore a wig for above a fortnight which I saw him pick out of a rut in the lane where we were riding.

00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:56.000
This was the last extremity of laudable economy for to all appearance. It was the cast off wig of some beggar.

00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:02.000
So, yeah, you can get it wrong in that direction as well.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:11.000
There's a lot of practicalities. You have to have your head. Cut short as shaved regularly maybe once a week.

00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:17.000
You have to add pomatum to the wig. You don't wash it because that will damage it.

00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:29.000
You put on pomatum, then you powder it and brush it. And actually people have tried doing this with their own hair and it can genuinely work as a hair care regime rather than washing.

00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:37.000
That permatum is during an animal fat. And can be sheep, tallow, big tallow.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:48.000
If you again are relatively well off and live in an urban centre, you might prefer the fashionable equivalent of this is to put bare grease in your hair rather in your wig.

00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:58.000
Bear fat is the ideal parade. Add one miser in 1,776 notes that rather than go to the barber or use Permaid.

00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:10.000
He had a servant to do the shave and used butter instead on the hair. So this wig is real hair covered in butter.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:19.000
You're then going to need to powder it. Now, most people aren't going to power their hair, their wig every day just on special occasions.

00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:27.000
Your nobles are going to do it. Every day or certainly very frequently and it would be a fine ground starch.

00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:38.000
But the problem is getting it on. You're going to start needing one of these bellows which look very similar to fire Bellows actually but they are they are weak bellows.

00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:48.000
And generally flower sometimes some clay or ground up bones or plaster of Paris, maybe Horace root for the scent.

00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:01.000
Most commonly white or grey, but there are occasional records of people using blue or pink. Giving themselves a sort of blue rinse effect.

00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:09.000
With it, but again the people doing that are going to be the same people who have lace and perfume everywhere.

00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:20.000
All of that fat plus all of that powder can add 2 whole pounds of weight to the weight of your wig.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:26.000
And doing it is of course a bit tricky because you don't want to get that really fine powder absolutely everywhere.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:32.000
So there are, you might just have a servant who can do it for you. But you don't really want them to get it everywhere either.

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:43.000
So there there are suggestions you can do it as this chap here is you put a cape and a mask or a cone on and dash the powder in your direction like that.

00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:57.000
Gentleman is doing. Cool. This is an early powder room. Because it's the place where the powdering happens.

00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:06.000
And you sit back and rest your head back and and put your wig. Through that hole. And that's where it gets powdered.

00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:12.000
And then you just stick your head back back out from us and you're ready to go without getting any on your shoulders.

00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:27.000
There are, there's room for invention here. So there are, as an advert for just come from Paris an engine curiously contrive for powdering periwigs and ladies hair.

00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:37.000
By throwing only the finest of powder and dispersing it perfectly equally. There there is a demand for easier ways of doing this because it's not an easy thing to do.

00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:50.000
You have to deal with cleaning it. Generally you would hope to have a happy relationship with your wig maker because then they can tend it for you on a regular basis.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:30:01.000
Some men have an annual contract going with their wig maker. For shaving and maintaining of wigs.

00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:08.000
And they need to be regularly reshaped to reset because they tend to lose their curl if you let them get wet.

00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:15.000
Lord Lovett was executed for treason. He sent his wig to the barber the previous day because he wanted to look as good as possible.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:20.000
With his, during his execution.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:25.000
Suppose it's one way to spend your money in that last bit of time.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:37.000
And of course, wigs are great for nits. Brilliant. They can hang on to that nice structure of it and then dive through the mesh onto a real head whenever they want.

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:45.000
Plus of course you've got all that beard fat or butter or whatever all over your head. Which is going to smell.

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:54.000
And and it might make the nits happy as well. It's widely thought that a knit picker is therefore someone who is going door to door.

00:30:54.000 --> 00:31:01.000
Doing that, getting rid of nets for you. That doesn't seem to be true, sadly.

00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:11.000
I can't find any original references to that. The word nitpicking first appears in 1956 and it's in reference to pedantry But clearly there was a need for people to do it.

00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:21.000
There are references, you know, in Chaucer of people picking nits out of their husband's hair.

00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:27.000
And we know that it would be a servant's job to to pick them out of the man of the house's wig.

00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:36.000
But it sadly doesn't seem to be a job as such. Another thing you could do is put a little flea trap into your wig.

00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:49.000
Just took a little flea trap in which would be a little container with tiny holes in it that you try and leer the fleet into with something tasty and then there'd be something sticky inside.

00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:56.000
Trying to kill them that way. I'm something that, Fortunately we don't generally do these days.

00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:21.000
There are rumors of mice. That more seems to associate with women who women tend not to wear whole wigs they tend to use their own hair but in lots and lots of extra padding and extra beats and extra accoutrements to build it up and up and up but their own hair is in there because otherwise they'd have to shave and that wouldn't be good.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:34.000
So they're are rumors of mice but they are few and far between usually played for laughs, but it's perfectly believable I think that mice were occasionally tempted in.

00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:44.000
There is a fear of disease. Could you get catch something from the previous owner of this pair? When it was their hair.

00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:51.000
Of course, in the 16 sixties, there's that huge fear of plague that coincides with the first wave of wigs.

00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:57.000
It's another thing that Peeps was worried about. He says up and put on my new periwig.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:03.000
Bought a good while since but does not wear it because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it.

00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:13.000
And it is a wonder what will be in fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs, for nobody will dare buy any hair for fear of the infection that's been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.

00:33:13.000 --> 00:33:19.000
Because of course when you've got all these bodies lying around. There's got to be a genuine temptation to take that.

00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:24.000
Free hair, hasn't there? And Nits. Maybe could carry it, same as fleas.

00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:34.000
So it's a fairly reasonable worry.

00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:43.000
In the eighteenth century there are people volunteering, asking to get the job of being the person who checks against that.

00:33:43.000 --> 00:33:50.000
Particularly hair that comes in from his majesty's dominions. Foreign hair could be carrying anything, right?

00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:05.000
And there's also a moral contagion element. In a comedy sketch in 1,690 somebody asks how many bad women do you think have laid their heads together to complete that main of yours?

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:13.000
I could something of that. Could you be wearing the hair that once belonged to a prostitute?

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:32.000
It's not particularly comfortable. People claim a new fancy best ever most comfortable ever has the softness of velvet you had to kind of move it aside if you were bowing or it got in your way it could get very hot.

00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:44.000
And very, I'm King Louis the fourteenth developed a boil on the back of his neck because of the constant rubbing from the greasy edge of his wig on the back of his head.

00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:55.000
Lord Sandwich used to say that his tie wig actually made him slightly deaf. The hare.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Like that, actually muffled sound. And there was a fire risk. Peeps once set his own wig a light I suppose much like people in the eighties with the with the high hairspray you know lean over a candle at the wrong time and the next thing you know lots and lots of reasons why you wouldn't do this and yet everyone is doing this.

00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:24.000
The final reason that is perhaps not as common as

00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:29.000
Oh, so I've lost my window as as it was claimed to be, but did sometimes happen.

00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:38.000
Is week theft. Either on its own or while also selling also stealing other things as well.

00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:46.000
You might just wait in a narrow road where a Hackney coach is going by with a posh gentleman driving quite slowly and just grab the wig and

00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:50.000
And so to interrupt you, I think we're seeing your notes kind of overlaid on top of your slides.

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:56.000
Okay, I have done something. Okay, I thought I pressed a strange button there and something had gone wrong. Right?

00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:58.000
Okay.

00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:04.000
Fix that. Stop for a moment now what did I press

00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:09.000
Back to there. Share screen

00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:13.000
Is that better?

00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:14.000
Yes.

00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:22.000
Okay, there we go. Sorry about that. Yes, you could just be anywhere where there was a traffic jam.

00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:33.000
Someone could reach and grab. There were stories that boys would be carried along in a basket and then sort of grab the wig from someone's head.

00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:50.000
The gentleman's magazine said that hair raising is often literal. Terrible, terrible, you know, one genuine victim of highway robbery says, I was going along the strand and felt my periwig gone from my head.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:37:02.000
People just grabbing them and running. There are tails. And again, how accurate these are hard to say of.

00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:09.000
Monkeys being trained to do it, someone just distracting while someone grabs it at the back there.

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:17.000
This chap is a macaroni which means he is in the most ludicrous of high fashion of the 17 sixtys, 17 seventys.

00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:28.000
Whether anyone ever quite looked like that is unclear. Yeah, trained monkey or trained dog, it and run off with it, you're never going to get it back, huh?

00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:33.000
It's not like they're sort of fixed on particularly strongly.

00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:46.000
So there are negative voices. Surprisingly few actually. It just becomes what you do. Until about the 17 sixties.

00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:55.000
When Well, the coronation, the same coronation where Hogarth does those pictures of all the different wigs.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:02.000
George the Third? Where's his own hair? Admittedly, he dresses it to look like a wig.

00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:06.000
But it's his hair and it's his wife that put it like that, not a professional.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:12.000
When all these other people have turned up in their best fanciest wigs you can imagine that was definitely a topic for gossip.

00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:20.000
5 years after that, professional wig makers are asking the government to make wigs compulsory for adult men.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:21.000
They have, you know, they know which way the wind is blowing and it's not towards them.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:31.000
They say there's been a universal decline of the trade and it's caused distress for us and our dependents.

00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:40.000
Because there's a present mode of men of all stations wearing their own hair. How dare they?

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:45.000
And yeah, young men are just styling their own hair to look a bit like a wig.

00:38:45.000 --> 00:39:00.000
And the macaroni does not help. The macaroni style tends to involve this sort of crazy, tricorn and then either as we saw in That picture, the huge huge huge hair.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:06.000
Or the hair, the wig. In both cases the wig just kind of tied up like that.

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:13.000
It's all a bit bizarre. It's what's called a club of hair at the back.

00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:22.000
And as the situation in France gets more and more chaotic, that is starting to look old-fashioned and associated with the sort of aristocratic style that we didn't really want to go down.

00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:42.000
So that's one factor of what happens as why these things start to go away. And, where people are still wearing it, it's usually ones with just sort of little side buckles, little rolls at the side of their head.

00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:53.000
In, 1, 86 the government starts taxing wigs. It's interesting the only really taxing them after they've stopped being this kind of huge universal deal.

00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:18.000
But that's what happens. Actually the weak tax is a quite useful source of evidence. For this era if you are doing family history because it's sort of when the census is run out but if your relative was important gentry or a lawyer or a clergyman or a servant for one of those people, they might show up in one of these lists.

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:24.000
Because those are the kind of people in older people. Other kinds of people who are still increasingly wearing them.

00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:39.000
And after, 1,795, household head of anyone who used hair powder in England had to buy a certificate from the local JP.

00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:46.000
Annually. William Pitt, the younger it imposed this annual tax. And the tax was one guinea.

00:40:46.000 --> 00:41:00.000
And that leads to So here is a one guinea certificate. And Because of that these people become known as guinea pigs as in that particular cartoon there.

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:10.000
So a guinea pig, guinea pigs are around as pets at the time and that is a guinea pig right there.

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:18.000
Why this was done? Well The 17 nineties is an era of famine. Red prices are going up.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:26.000
There are riots on the streets to do with bread. And they're looking over the channel and seeing the riots in France and how that is, you know.

00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:35.000
There are people being guillotined in France by this point. And suddenly it seems a bit.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:44.000
Tasteless to be putting tons and putting pounds of flour in your hair every day when people are starving for lack of bread.

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:58.000
And several people make this point clergymen and politicians start to make this point and say, you know, suppose every individual wearing this ornament instead of wearing it were to distribute its real value to the hungry poor.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:06.000
And that becomes harder to argue with. It does continue a bit because some people are exempt from the tax.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:19.000
For instance, clergymen with a low income are exempt from the tax. Jane Austen's father continues to wear one into the nineteenth century, but he doesn't have to pay for his, so he's sort of showing his status by still doing it.

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:34.000
In the military they still were allowed to do it so Yeah, during the flower famine a lot of flower went into the military and some of the older people of course just thought that it was It was their style, their fashion.

00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:40.000
And just normal.

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:50.000
But they were very often on the Tory side of things and the Whigs began calling them guinea pigs and that became normal.

00:42:50.000 --> 00:43:04.000
And the sort of the counterbalance of that is that the Tories started calling the Whigs the crop club because they've got still got very short hair because they haven't grown back yet from when they were wearing wigs.

00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:09.000
And,

00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:16.000
Not long after that. Whigs just become. The sort of arcane sign of a specialized profession.

00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:22.000
You're the servant of a noble, you're clergy or you're in the legal system.

00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:30.000
One consequence of that is that it left a whole load of wigs in circulation. That had previously been worth a lot.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:37.000
And I can't find a lot of evidence about what happened to all of them, but I did find one reference.

00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:49.000
That in the mid nineteenth century you could buy a probably 50 year old wig. The sixpence from a street stall to use it as a dust model.

00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:58.000
So that indeed is the rice and fall of the wig. Thank you very much. Okay.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:07.000
Thank you very much, Jo. Let's go to to some questions. How fascinating and strange. Okay.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:08.000
Oh.

00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:12.000
We're going to start with a question, and from Iris, now let me just find it.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:25.000
Where are we? Yeah, she talked about the sort of different styles of wings and Iis was asking, did different classes.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:35.000
So social classes we have different kinds of wigs. Don't know if you could talk a little bit more about that.

00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:36.000
Hmm.

00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Yes, in as much as some of them mark a profession out. So if you if you are a clergyman or a judge, you wear a particular kind.

00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:51.000
But that clergy burden is still going to be passing that wig on to someone in his village who he thinks needs a wig.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:45:02.000
So not really because if everything ends up getting passed down. So, you know, I suppose the absolute fanciest of wigs.

00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:14.000
I'm not going to be, by the time you've passed them down once or twice, they're by the time you passed them down once or twice, they're never going to make it to the lower classes are they because they will have already been through too many other hands.

00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:29.000
Before they get there. But the the mark of your status is not the style of the Whig. Except in as much as if can you afford to powder it every day?

00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:35.000
Can you afford to keep the curls crisp? All the time. Can you afford to keep the whole thing smooth?

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:42.000
It's those things that will be the marker of how much money you've got, not the actual original shape of the wig, if you see what I mean.

00:45:42.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Hmm. Interesting. Well, that answers your question, And another one from Anne. Probably quite an important question actually.

00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:57.000
How did they attach them to their heads?

00:45:57.000 --> 00:45:58.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:08.000
Well, not terribly well if you can just reach out from behind and grab one. That They are mostly just sort of.

00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:20.000
Always drawstring tied around on a band or on a series of bands. For some of them we're not going to have a picture with some of that.

00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:30.000
You know, we know that an announcement might be that I've invented this new elastic skin that grips the wig onto the head.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:38.000
But we know it's not made of elastic, so quite what is this elastic skin? It's hard to say.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:40.000
I think the weight of the wig is going to help. It's just going to position itself down.

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:43.000
Hmm.

00:46:43.000 --> 00:46:52.000
But in the absence of any elastic material, I think it's just a mix of the texture and the, the sort of griffiness of the fabric itself.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:47:01.000
We know that sometimes people did bend over in their wig fell off. So I think the answer is not particularly well generally.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:05.000
That's why you jam your head, your hat on top of it and hope that it stays.

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:10.000
Hmm. And sort of following on from that, there's a question from, Sue, I think it was.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:18.000
What is it that was actually used to make the base of the wig? So actually the hair was attached to something before going on your head.

00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:27.000
If you have a good one then probably silk. A framework of silk ribbons.

00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:34.000
Running crisscross. And then maybe some other sort of finer thread running between those silk ribbons.

00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:44.000
But yes, your your cap as it were will be threaded onto ribbons again. We know that the nice ones are silk.

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:48.000
I would assume that the less nice ones are just cotton. Sort of shaped.

00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:56.000
Hmm. Okay. Not answers your question, Sue. And a question here from Chris.

00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:59.000
You talked about the hair going into the oven. To be beat. What was the purpose of that?

00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:07.000
Surely it couldn't have been in there for for very long.

00:48:07.000 --> 00:48:08.000
Hmm.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:13.000
It's sort of very low heat, but you, you, keep it for a while at a low heat to set the curly in in exactly the same way so you get wet first.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:16.000
Hmm.

00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:22.000
You're on here on your own head.

00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:23.000
Yeah.

00:48:23.000 --> 00:48:38.000
So in exactly the same way that you would set the curl into your own. Yeah, yeah, and you know that if you're heated up with curlers it will set the curl better because if you look at those styles they're pretty much all curly either all over or in creating those sort of ring Bring us by the ears there so being able to set real hair into curls is important.

00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:54.000
No, a question here from Stuart. He talks about a famous cartoon of Marie Antoinette having a wig puts in place by assistants using ladders.

00:48:54.000 --> 00:48:55.000
Yes.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:02.000
Is that simply a cartoonist exaggeration or could they or would they have been as high as that?

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:11.000
Maybe not as high as that, but it's an exaggeration rather than a complete fiction. They would have wigs of maybe a couple of feet tall.

00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:12.000
Okay.

00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:26.000
That is a real thing. We know that it genuinely did happen sometimes that women would struggle to get into a coach for instance and would have to sit in the floor of the coach or sit in the coach sort of holding them like that because it was too high.

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:35.000
For the roof of the coach. So yes, there are. Obviously Marie Antoinette's an easy target at this point everyone's taking a pop at her but Yeah, something that's 18 inches tall.

00:49:35.000 --> 00:50:01.000
It absolutely was happening. And with as many weird ornaments in as they could think of you know there's been a naval battle, let's put ships in our hair and if we're good at it we'll get someone to make a ship that is an exact replica of our friendship that just won a victory and or you know I'm fond of gardening so I'm going to create a

00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:09.000
complete stepped garden. With different things going on on the different levels. They have these S, styles, ala mode or ala, I can't remember the word.

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:24.000
There's word for mood, so particular hairstyle is supposed to evoke a mood, a particular hairstyle is supposed to evoke a mood or a celebration or they're particular hairstyle is supposed to evoke a mood or a celebration or they very much treat it as a canvas.

00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:31.000
And it will include their own hair. Their own hair will be kind of in in at the start of it.

00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:32.000
Hmm.

00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:38.000
So that's how it's different from man's wig. But obviously when you look at something that big it is still mostly artificial.

00:50:38.000 --> 00:50:39.000
Yeah.

00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:44.000
You kind of start with a beehive and then add to it. And yeah, it's a canvas to say anything and the bigger you make that the better.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:45.000
Hmm.

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:53.000
The weirdest cartoon on that score is one who actually There's a cartoon where a woman is actually carrying a man.

00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:05.000
In, a full-grown man in instead of it just being a celebration of his victory.

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:06.000
Okay.

00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:09.000
She's actually carrying the man himself around in her wig. That clearly doesn't happen. But yeah, there are some good evidences of some very weird ones, very tall.

00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:17.000
Okay. Well, there we go. Right, okay. And a question from Sylvia.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:25.000
Did the quickers in the 17 hundreds wear wigs as they believed in plain dress?

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:26.000
And test the question.

00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:50.000
I, I believe they did wear wigs but they wore very sort of the soberest end, the simplest end of the wig, because you sort of had to get what I have wanted to get by in polite society, but you would then go for the Yes, as plain and straightforward a wig as you could and those would have been available along with the very fancy ones.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:14.000
Yeah, yeah, okay. Right. And we have another question here from Margaret. She's asking why do members of the legal profession still use This suppose that's really the only sort of situation that you see them these days, isn't it really?

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:15.000
Yes.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:28.000
It is, yes, pretty much. And the House of Lords, it's just an old-fashioned thing they never stopped doing it I think at some point it was in the regulation that they would have to do it and that regulation never was taken away.

00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:37.000
You know, this is the same profession that at the same time that they're wearing wigs in this until the seventh mid eighteenth century they're also doing some of their business in Latin.

00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:46.000
Writing down legal documents in Latin at a time when everyone else has stopped using Latin. Hundreds and hundreds of years earlier.

00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:55.000
So I think it is just a measure of the hide-bound nature of the profession. That they they end up as a holdout or run.

00:52:55.000 --> 00:53:00.000
And of course these days it's, you know, probably point of pride, isn't it?

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Hmm.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:12.000
Like. Standing out and looking different and showing authority and being, I'm speculating, I guess when People stopped wearing them.

00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:17.000
It was the youth that stopped wearing them while the older people were still wearing them and therefore they perhaps carried a sense of authority in the older generation and the older richer.

00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:34.000
And those are the people. That would be the judges and the justices of the peace. And it kind of follows on from there but I'm not sure that's that's me kind of

00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:35.000
Did you sleep?

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:42.000
Hmm. Okay. The question from Bridget. Now, could you, for you to remind us of something?

00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:49.000
She's asking if you could remind us what you said wigs were being used for in the mid nineteenth century.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:51.000
Oh, towards the end. Dishcloth. Just rags. It's a lump of hair, you can use it for cleaning things.

00:53:51.000 --> 00:54:03.000
Hmm. Yeah, for something that was so expensive at a period in time. Hmm.

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:07.000
Yes. The man hours that went into making it.

00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:11.000
Yeah, yeah. Also, could you remind us, I know you talked a little bit about this and this is from Ian.

00:54:11.000 --> 00:54:18.000
And about the the liberals that were called Why was that? Can you just remind us of that? So we touched on that a little bit.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:27.000
So. Oh, well, the, the, was being called wigs is nothing to do with the wearing of wigs.

00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:28.000
Right.

00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:48.000
In fact, confusingly it's the the wigs who lead the not wearing of wigs campaign the the hair pieces are generally being worn by people like barristers and physicians who tend to be the Tories.

00:54:48.000 --> 00:55:02.000
And The wigs start calling the Tories guinea pigs. And So all the week newspapers are saying how how you bunch of guinea pigs at the Tories.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:09.000
The Tories obviously need to kick back against that. So the Tory newspapers are saying, ha ha, you've got no hair at all.

00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:22.000
Yeah, you're just wandering around with your bald head. You are you are the close cropped people and they end up having because this is the eighteenth century is the era of political satire and political inviting and it's just another topic.

00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:33.000
For doing that with really. So yes, nothing to do with the actual, so the wig does not come from the wearing of wigs.

00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:43.000
Okay, right folks, I think we're just about out of time and I was just gonna finish on a little comment from Judith, which is Fashion has a lot to answer for, hasn't it?

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:44.000
Yeah.

00:55:44.000 --> 00:56:04.000
Oh yeah, absolutely. I've been researching the the macaroni's and their successes the dandies.

00:56:04.000 --> 00:56:05.000
Yeah.

00:56:05.000 --> 00:56:09.000
And the rest of their outfits in the last few weeks and Yeah, there's there's a lot going on and people will well people go through any amount of discomfort for fashion and we can't consider ourselves immune to that you know nothing that they did then does not have a parallel now in terms of Yeah, the different ways we do our looks.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:21.000
Yeah, they those guys were padding out their calves and they're It's no different from women having a padded bra now.

00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:22.000
You know.

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:28.000
Very true, very true. Right, well thanks again, Joe. That was absolutely fascinating. Very weird as well.

00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:29.000
Yes. What I do.

00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:37.000
Knew there was such a a history behind all of this. And really I have to say I've been sort of chuckling behind the scenes here a little bit.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:47.000
I'm sure everybody else has as well. Okay, so thanks very much for that, Jo.

00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:03.000
Good, good, good. Yeah, so, hi everyone. I'm going to do, first of all.

00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:18.000
Is just introduce a little of the history of christmas before I begin to, talk about the, reinvention of Christmas.

00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:31.000
During the Victorian period So as the winter deepens and the course of the sun, gets nearer to the southern horizon.

00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:51.000
Until it seems to stand still for a few days before slowly rising again to usher in the spring. The Romans from their words for sun and standing still called it salsicium.

00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:10.000
And that is of course the source of our word, solstice. Now according to the Julian calendar established under Julius Caesar The winter solstice was dated to the 20 fifth of December.

00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:27.000
And around AD 336. The early church adopted the solstice. And the feast of was created for Christ's birth.

00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:54.000
Now other pre-Christian. Cults, and practices. In influenced the dating of Christmas for example the Roman god he was actually prezoroastron often worshipped by soldiers, often worshiped by soldiers, the Roman, God, he was actually pre, often worshipped by soldiers, Mithras.

00:02:54.000 --> 00:03:01.000
His birthday was on the 20 fifth of December. Also of course you have the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:24.000
And you also have the fringes of the Roman Empire, the northern boundary. The festival which is now called You in Old Norse it's called And many of the elements associated with these, particular festivals.

00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:35.000
We still associate with Christmas today. All 3 festivals, Mythras, Saturnalia, Yol.

00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:44.000
Were accompanied with banquets. Saturnalia involved the giving of wax dolls to children.

00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:58.000
And all featured lights. And buildings were generally decorated with evergreens. Now the word Christmas itself is from the middle English for Christ's mass.

00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:10.000
I think everyone can work that out. And what we know is, existed by around 500 AD.

00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:24.000
The feast of Saint Nicholas, which fell within had a lively career of its own.

00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:36.000
But had very little to do with Christmas until the Reformation. When Protestants were pruning Catholics saints days.

00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:51.000
But wanted to keep St. Nicholas and so attached him to Christmas. Since Stephen was also, retained on the 20 sixth of December.

00:04:51.000 --> 00:05:07.000
And by the dark ages, by the medieval period, Christmas was established as a 12 day festival culminating at Epiphany which was the most important feast day.

00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:19.000
Not the 20 fifth. And if you read Tudor antiquarian such as John Stowe.

00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:35.000
He said every man's house and his parish church. Was decked with hot old ivy bays and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be.

00:05:35.000 --> 00:06:01.000
So many of our Christmas traditions have a long, history. And throughout the reins of Henry the Seventh, Henry the Eighth, these persisted alongside the celebration of Christmas as an important Catholic, liturgical feast and service.

00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:18.000
After the Reformation. Certain Tagan ascribed traditions were discouraged or were banned as a result of the development of puritanism.

00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:28.000
And this culminated. In what are known as the wars over Christmas during the Civil War period.

00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:37.000
And the interregnum between the death of Charles I. And the restoration of Charles II.

00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:54.000
And many of the traditions of Christmas went underground. For about 10 years. Because parliament, practiced, the enforcement of a ban.

00:06:54.000 --> 00:07:02.000
During the protectorate when Cromwell's government ordered a complete cessation of the holiday.

00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:16.000
Even going so far. As to order soldiers to seize any special meals that were prepared for the 20 fifth.

00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:31.000
And people you may have heard of such as John Evelyn, a diarist. Was in fact arrested for celebrating Christmas in 1657.

00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:45.000
So you can see on the slide. Just a public notice. Which says that Christmas was effectively, banned.

00:07:45.000 --> 00:08:02.000
At that point. Now. What then suddenly revived? Or reinvented Christmas in the Victorian age.

00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:10.000
Now during the Georgian period Christmas celebrations had been relatively muted. Despite a range of cartoons.

00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:24.000
Showing half clothed women and men. In drunken revels beneath boughs of mistletoe.

00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:36.000
But it began to gather towards a reinvention. During the reign of Victoria. And this rediscovery.

00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:52.000
Or reinvention. Christmas is due to a coincidence of several elements. Firstly, the revival of faith in the nineteenth century.

00:08:52.000 --> 00:09:13.000
The rise of consumerism. The literary reinvention. Of the feast of Christmas. Now the Anglican Church had been subject to revivals throughout the eighteenth century.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:24.000
Most notably Methodism, inspired of course by Wesley. Who's Carol Hart the the herald angels sing?

00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:35.000
Continues to be performed. And son today. Now, undoubtedly, the Victorian age was a religious.

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:54.000
Age despite the pressures of the French Revolution and the skepticism and rationalism of the Indeed, these pressures led to an attempted renewal.

00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:06.000
The Christian faith in Britain. As often as not sponsored by the state. And the historian A. J.

00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:18.000
Freud. Expressed a widely held view. When he declared that an established religion Give authority to the command.

00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:30.000
Creates a fear of doing wrong. And a sense of responsibility for doing it. To raise a doubt about a creed.

00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:44.000
Established by general except acceptance is a direct injury. To general welfare. Now correspondingly. Any decline.

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:57.000
In religious belief. Among the newly industrialized working classes. Was seen as being fraught with grievous danger.

00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:15.000
To the prop to property and to the state. And it was widely believed. That the skepticism of the enlightenment had led directly to the horrors of the French Revolution.

00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:25.000
Now when the first national census revealed in 1851. That no fewer than 5 million people.

00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:49.000
Had not attended church the previous Sunday. There was much shaking of heads among the pious. But church and chapel attendance did not fall markedly between 1,851 and 1881 and in absolute terms it grew until 1906.

00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:03.000
And religion was to be found everywhere. Chained bibles were common on station platforms. Sermons were regularly printed and sometimes even became best sellers.

00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:17.000
And highly popular efforts were made to bring Christianity to the heathen, especially if they lived in the British Empire.

00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:29.000
So in this environment. The revival of Christmas began. And much of this revival relates to the rediscovery.

00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:42.000
Of communal singing and ritual and folk practice. And these often proceed from a opposed origin.

00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:49.000
Within Methodism and the other.

00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:59.000
Authentic sex. There was a certain muscularity. To be found in advancing the writing of hymns and carols.

00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:08.000
But this is probably less important. Than the fact that Anglicanism and particularly the Oxford movement as one runs through the Victorian period.

00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:21.000
Rediscovered. The liturgy. And all things medieval, the Gothic revival.

00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:30.000
Which resulted in the discovery of numerous medieval carols in uncollected manuscripts.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:52.000
And the collection and collation of folk carols preserved in the oral tradition across Britain. Now this Rediscovery of manuscripts is very much part of the antiquarian movement in this period.

00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:59.000
And the singing of carols is a very ancient practice. Carols weren't originally associated with Christmas which may surprise people.

00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:29.000
Carols were religious songs to accompany the major festivals of the liturgical year. But a man called John Audley in 1425 mentions groups of Wassales, processing through the streets of towns and villages, going from house to house, singing carols.

00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:48.000
And this was very much revived and by the 1850 Carol singing was again popular and was sailing was reinvigorated.

00:14:48.000 --> 00:15:02.000
One of the reasons for this is incredibly prosaic and that was due to the fact that pianos and portable all organs were becoming much more affordable.

00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:12.000
And could be loaded onto the back of cards and taken through the streets to a company the caroling.

00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:22.000
So that is the sort of religious fear. In which Christmas was being rediscovered.

00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:35.000
Repackaged. And spruce up. By the re-importation of folk practices during the Victorian age.

00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:48.000
And often something that comes through in the Victorian age is a is the cultivation of a belief. In the sort of naivety.

00:15:48.000 --> 00:16:16.000
Of Christmas beliefs and practices. And folktale association folktale belief. And one sees this in Thomas Hardy's poem which was in fact published in 1915 but written probably 40 or 50 years previously.

00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:26.000
And in that, he talks about how as a child He had been exposed to the idea.

00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:46.000
That on Christmas Eve the beasts in the stable in Bethlehem. Had knelt. To give homage to the Christ child and that If one was lucky, one could see the beasts of the field.

00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:57.000
Kneeling each Christmas Eve. And he says Christmas Eve and 12 of the clock.

00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:08.000
Now they are all on their knees. An elder said as we sat in a flock. By the embers in half side ease.

00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:20.000
We pictured the mild creatures where they dwelt in their straw pen. No, did it occur to one of us there?

00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:28.000
To doubt they were kneeling there. So fair a fancy few would weave in these years.

00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:39.000
Yeah, I feel if someone said on Christmas Eve, come see the oxen Neil. In the lonely.

00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:54.000
By our childhood used to know. I should go with him. In the glue. Hoping it might be so.

00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:04.000
Now. Quite erroneousously. It is believed. That the traditional Christmas tree.

00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:20.000
Was introduced during the Victorian age. By Victoria's consort Albert. Now the matter of the Christmas tree is complex.

00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:36.000
Late medieval Germany. New a Christmas pyramid. Which was a construction of evergreens with a star on top.

00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:47.000
And a medieval Christmas play called Adam and Eve. Featured a fur. As what is called a paradise.

00:18:47.000 --> 00:19:10.000
Tree hung with apples and lights. And there is in fact a copper in graving by Lucas Cranach, the Elder, from 15, 9 which shows that by then something like a Christmas tree had emerged.

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:22.000
And there are further examples of the sixteenth century and in fact John Snow, the chap that I mentioned earlier.

00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:33.000
Rights, a standard of tree being set up in the midst of the pavement in cornhill, London.

00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:43.000
Fast in the ground. Nailed full of home and ivy. For the sport of Christmas to the people.

00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:57.000
And by the early nineteenth century. Christmas trees could be found. Displayed in homes across northern Europe.

00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:17.000
Although at first such. Examples were restricted to the elite. And was spread across the European courts, in large aristocratic, houses.

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:33.000
In Britain, the custom of decorating churches had been practiced for centuries. But it was the German born wife of George the Third.

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:48.000
Who displayed the first tree in Britain. And she was, of course, Charlotte of Mecklenburg, and in 1,800 She held a party.

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:59.000
Where the tree was the centre of the festivities. And when Queen Victoria married her cousin, Albert.

00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:18.000
The tradition continued. And in 1,848 a drawing was published which you can see of the Queen's Christmas Tree at Windsor Castle in the illustrated London News.

00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:32.000
And this illustration. Was a crucial factor in spreading the popularity. Of the tree throughout the country.

00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:45.000
And the idea of the Christmas tree was soon embraced by the wealthier upper middle class families across Britain.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:22:02.000
Dickens, for example, described the Christmas tree as a pretty German also making a reappearance of around this time.

00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:15.000
From the Georgian period onwards was the bringing of mistletoe into the hoe. And the idea of mistletoe as what was called a kissing.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:36.000
Seems to come originally. From the Norse tradition of you. And it fell out of favor. During the civil war period as I said earlier But Dickens mentions the kissing bow, the mistletoe.

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:47.000
In the Pickwick papers and he calls it the kissing ball. Because such boughs were typically spherical.

00:22:47.000 --> 00:23:05.000
And they included IV, poly, berries. Miss auto and ribbons. Sometimes with a miniature activity in the very heart of the ball.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:10.000
Now.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:33.000
Okay, let me see. Now the commercialization. Of Christmas and what we now understand. Christmas is probably the Victorian ages greatest claim towards the term the re-invention of Christmas.

00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:48.000
Within a span of around 50 years. During the first industrialized and industrial revolution. Up to around the 1870, s, 1880.

00:23:48.000 --> 00:24:00.000
You see very rapid economic changes. And one consequence was the sudden. And swift availability of products.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:15.000
So, supported by a burgeoning advertising market. And this fall of advertising. Through the print medium.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:32.000
Through shop displays and even the emergence of the first father Christmas grottoes in large stores encouraged consumers to participate in the season.

00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:51.000
Of course all was naturally marketed as celebration. Now probably. The best example. Of this is the development and the sending of Christmas cards.

00:24:51.000 --> 00:25:06.000
And this only occurs or is able to occur. Because of the introduction of a secure postal service. The uniform penny post.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:17.000
And the penny post moved the cost to the sender. And brought in a flat chart. Of one penny.

00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:29.000
A tense or less, than earlier. Prices. And just 3 years later. Henry Cole.

00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:40.000
Who was an eminent civil servant. An inventor and a prime mover in the new postal system.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:52.000
Had at his own expense. A 1,000 cards printed showing a family Christmas dinner and you can see the original.

00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:57.000
Card on the screen.

00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:10.000
These were priced at a shilling. Piece and there was no great demand. It's only in the 1880.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:24.000
When printing technology improved. And prices drop. That Christmas cards became a standard part of the season. And this was.

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:37.000
Aided by the invention of chromolithographic printing. And by 1870 the iconography of Christmas cards.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:52.000
Had resolved itself. Into something resembling the imagery on Christmas cards that we see today. Christmas trees, holly religious themes.

00:26:52.000 --> 00:27:04.000
And illustrations by the famous Victorian illustrator and cartoonist Crook Shank.

00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:20.000
Were particularly popular. Though as you will see on the next, slides. Some of these. Christmas cards were by our standards.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:31.000
McCabe. There are Christmas cards which show frogs murdering other frogs, for example.

00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:41.000
And dead robins were particularly popular and as you can see on the screen You have a dead robin with the.

00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:59.000
With the strap line may yours be a joyful Christmas. It's very difficult to know exactly what the Victorians understood by these cards.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:21.000
Robbins, it's been speculated, were featured as dead. As a reminder of, what might befall the poor in the streets during the cold, December's of the Victorian period.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:31.000
But it's far harder. To explain the presence of insects. For example, dancing.

00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:44.000
With frogs or an insect. Addressed in some manner as a Victorian, gentleman.

00:28:44.000 --> 00:29:02.000
And in fact so competitive was the trade. That Alfred Lord Tennyson was given a thousand guineas to write a Christmas card poet.

00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:09.000
I haven't included the poem that he wrote for you. Because with all due respect to Tennyson, it's scarcely better.

00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:25.000
The patience, strong. Now another factor of commercialization. Was.

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:39.000
And emerging toy. Market. And The emerging toy market was a means by which the Victorian middle classes.

00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:54.000
Were able to recognize their own purchasing. Power, the ability to expend income. On their children or on Christmas entertainments.

00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:02.000
Such as the pantomime. Which begins to gather pace in the 1880.

00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:13.000
And by the 18 eighties specific Christmas marketing emerged across. The print mediums of periodicals.

00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:31.000
And catalogues designed for the period of the season. Alone. So by the conclusion of Victoria's ray, Christmas had become the focal point of the selling world.

00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:51.000
And conspicuous consumption was now the norm. And this translated into seasonal produce too. And Ergo, we see the standardization of Christmas food stuffs.

00:30:51.000 --> 00:31:05.000
In 1845 Elizabeth Okay. Became the first cookery writer to publish a recipe for Christmas pudding.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:20.000
In modern cookery for private families. Though in actual fact recipes for plum pudding or plum potage originate in the medieval period.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:44.000
And buying Christmas food was a means to include oneself. In the consumerism of the time and it is Mrs. Beaton who writes a Christmas dinner with the middle classes of this empire would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey.

00:31:44.000 --> 00:32:07.000
All these elements are means of buying into an idealized. And marketed vision of the season. Now, I've given you, Hello, Eliza Acton's Christmas pudding recipe and, I must admit.

00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:30.000
That the inclusion of a quarter pound of mashed potatoes seems slightly strange to me but if you've got the ability to do a screenshot and you want to make Mrs. Acton's genuine Victorian Christmas pudding.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:46.000
You're welcome to it. Now. Finally, in terms of the consumer boo. Of things we know associate with Christmas.

00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:58.000
A man called Tom Smith. Who was a struggling confectioner. In the 18 forties. He began to insert.

00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:12.000
Love messages. Into sweet wrappers. And then he evolved that. Into what becomes the first Christmas cracker.

00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:27.000
Apparently after being after being inspired by the shape of the logs on his fireplace. And the earliest Christmas crackers date from 1847.

00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:40.000
They were first advertised as a Cossack. Cossack but the term cracker quickly became the more popular.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:58.000
And Tom Smith's son, Walter Smith. Was later to introduce elements including jokes, paper crowns and small toys into the crackers themselves.

00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:11.000
Now, The the other thing that I want to mention now turning to the sort of literary. Invention of Christmas.

00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:21.000
I've said that there is the rediscovery. Of carols and indeed there is an explosion.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:34.000
Of the writing of new ones in the Victorian age. And 2 men. Are responsible. For reinvigorating.

00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:44.000
The Carol. And they are William Sandes. And Davis Gilbert. Who went around Britain.

00:34:44.000 --> 00:35:10.000
Collecting the music from the villages. And then bringing after having transcribed the tombs of the words they then began publishing these rediscovered carols you can see, The singing of Carol's mentioned in Thomas Hardy's novel.

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:28.000
Under the greenwood tree in 1872. So they bring back into. The public domain. Carols such as God Rescue Merry Gentle.

00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:35.000
Well, the first nowhere. And I saw 3 ships.

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:45.000
Go to rest, you marry gentle is of course mentioned in Dickens's work, a Christmas Carol.

00:35:45.000 --> 00:36:00.000
Where you read the owner of what one's scant young nose naught and mumble. By the hungry cold does Bones are gnawed by dogs.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:08.000
Stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole. To regale him. With a Christmas Carol.

00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:23.000
Go bless you merry gentleman Let nothing you dismay. Unfortunately of course Scrooge slams the door upon him.

00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:47.000
No, the singing of Carol's in church, as nobody's quite sure when this began. But anecdotal evidence suggests that Church carol services were instituted in 1,880 in Truro Cathedral.

00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:56.000
And were created by Edward White Benson. Who was then. The Bishop of Truro.

00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:09.000
He was later to become the archbishop of Canterbury. And he apparently was so fed up with Carol's being sung.

00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:21.000
Raucously, in the Hostelaries in Truro that he literally went into competition with them.

00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:30.000
There is no real evidence for that but it's it's abusing enough.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:50.000
Probably a pop crucial. No, you've probably heard at some point. That. It is Dickens who reinvented Christmas.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:38:04.000
He didn't. But in large part what he did do. Was create our nostalgic awareness of what Christmas might be.

00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:18.000
And in 1850. Dickens wrote a Christmas tree. Which is the nostalgic reminiscences of an old man.

00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:32.000
Considering Christmases passed. And between the boughs of the Christmas tree. Which mysteriously appears, he glimpses, scenes from his past.

00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:50.000
And he concludes. Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time. Still let the benign figure of my childhood spanned the And this begins.

00:38:50.000 --> 00:39:01.000
The sanctification of the child at Christmas. Exploited. Forcially through the selling of toys.

00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:11.000
And certainly exploited as a theme in a Christmas carol. By Dickens.

00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:26.000
And Dickens of course. Published a Christmas Carol in 1843. Illustrated by John Leech.

00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:41.000
And it was immensely and instantly successful. Published on the nineteenth of December. The first edition had sold that completely by Christmas Eve.

00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:50.000
And by the following year. 13 editions had been published.

00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:09.000
And as the quintessential narrative of a miser's redemption. It is curious how how monetary issues also attached themselves to the publishing history of Christmas Carol.

00:40:09.000 --> 00:40:30.000
For example, Dickens took legal should against publishers who enlicately copied and pirated editions of a Christmas carol and in actual fact to reduce them to bankruptcy.

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:40.000
And stage productions of the Christmas Carol rapidly followed and by 1849 Dickens was touring the country.

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:54.000
Giving reading of a Christmas carol during the month of December. Now Dickens is work. As I'm sure you know, was generally marked.

00:40:54.000 --> 00:41:15.000
By a concern with the social conditions. Of his age. And Dickens had been moved. By his own experiences of semi poverty as a child by the conditions of workers.

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:35.000
And particularly child workers. And the condition of foundlings in London. And these things feed into his, creation of the cratchit family.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:45.000
And one thing that should be noted is that the cratchits are a family of the deserving poor.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:58.000
And a very strong distinction was made in the Victorian period. Between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.

00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:11.000
If you were on the deserving poor, That is, those that work. But were hamstrung by low wages you were deserving.

00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:25.000
If you were seen as being feckless, then you were pretty much still abound. To the parish and the poor laws at the time.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:37.000
So the redemption of the crashes and the conversion of poor and the salvation of tiny tin.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:53.000
As an example. Of the emerging trend of collapse. And charity which are watch words. For the Victorian social.

00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:11.000
And middle class foranthropy crops out not only in Dickens's work but in the in Canterbury's, in Bournville, in Lever, on Merseyside, in Coleman's, in Norwich, all of who.

00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:25.000
Did much for their low paid semi skilled workers. Christmas time. So in a sense A Christmas Carol.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:34.000
One way one can view it is that it is a story which is in a sense an economic fable.

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:47.000
Which allows the middle class is of Dickens this time the Victorian period to applaud their own charity.

00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:58.000
Without alienating because screws is converted and gives to the deserving.

00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:18.000
It is interesting that in the original version of a Christmas Carol The manuscript does not contain. The penultimate paragraph which reads and to tiny Tim who did not die.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:30.000
That was only did later. The book would have been very different. Had Tiny Tim not. Survived.

00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:42.000
So the transformation of screw. Is central to this story. And it embodies. And reb.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:55.000
And essentially Christian theme. It is an allegory of Christian reduction. And Claire Tomlin, who is Dickens biographer.

00:44:55.000 --> 00:45:11.000
Seize the conversion of screws as Scrooge as conveying the Christian message. That even the worst of sinners may repent and become a good man.

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:23.000
In inspired by the message of Christ's birth and teaching. And I think really He Dickens is establishes the template.

00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:47.000
By which Subsequent. Victorian Christmases were modeled after Dickens's death and which probably continued on through the Edwardian period.

00:45:47.000 --> 00:46:02.000
Until the really large scale decline in religious faith in Britain. Which has led to an increased secularization.

00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:13.000
Of the festival. Now I'm aware that I am running out of time to allow you, to ask questions.

00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:27.000
So I will. To that point and I hope that's just been little, guide to the way in which Christmas evolved over the, Victorian period.

00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:38.000
So thank you very much to you all. And, Merry Christmas. Okay, thank you.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:45.000
Thank you very much, Stephen. That was absolutely fascinating. And, We've got some questions.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:50.000
No, I think you did stun people into a little bit of silence for a while, but we have got some Christmas.

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:59.000
I've got some questions here. No, this is from Jane and was the pantomime ever worked into the Victorian Christmas?

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:01.000
I know you touched on it slightly.

00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:06.000
Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, the origins of Pant. I'm not sure.

00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:09.000
They come from the, in Italian drama. But yes, they are increasingly a feature of later Victorian Christmases and then into the, but yes, they are increasingly a feature of later Victorian Christmases and then into the Edwardian, period.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:26.000
So yes, and they, are increasingly a feature of later Victorian Christmases and then into the Edwardian, period.

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:31.000
So yes, and they, they develop specifically, Christmas themes, post to Dickens.

00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:33.000
So yes, indeed.

00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:44.000
And from that question from me, you know, those those pantomimes, would they be similar to the ones we know today?

00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:55.000
Yeah, yes, broadly speaking. They would. I mean of course, I mean it thrives off.

00:47:55.000 --> 00:48:13.000
Topicality. So pantalimes of of the Victorian age would allude to or sample political thought of the day because I mean the great thing about pantomime is that it operates according to what's called dual address.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:33.000
That is, the slapstick elements, which have always been there and still persist. They are in a sense to entertain the children in the audience and the more knowing kind of duplong Tom.

00:48:33.000 --> 00:48:45.000
That is to serve the adult to accompany the children. So yeah, that was a feature, certainly of Victoria.

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:46.000
Yep.

00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:56.000
Okay, thanks for that. And this is a little bit the comment here from Paula actually. It seems the sending of Christmas cards is now dying out due to the rising cost of stamps.

00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:57.000
Yes.

00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:02.000
I have to say that puts me off slightly. I guess our Christmas cards are a little bit different to some of the ones you showed us.

00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:03.000
Yeah.

00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:19.000
Yeah. No, I think we have another question here from Suit. In that period did they have a green father Christmas or the more usual red one that we know today.

00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:33.000
No, the, I missed that section now because I was running out of time. In fact, but, As you can see in the illustration there from Chris, Carol, he is, that is the ghost of Christmas present.

00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:42.000
And he is dressed in green. The idea of a figure dressed in green. Probably goes back to the medieval period.

00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:58.000
But certainly during the Dickens's time. Father Christmas was traditionally seen dressed in green. The presence of the red.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:10.000
Is is a result of the as somebody once said the Coca-cola.Ization of the world.

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:19.000
Because Coca-cola introduced it's that red, Santa Claus figure in its marketing of crisps.

00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:30.000
Really quite early, sort of around the beginning of the twentieth century. If I remember rightly. So no, traditionally you would have green.

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:36.000
Okay, thank you. I hope that answers your question soon. And another question from, Maureen.

00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:48.000
She's asking, did Christmas Day become a public holiday at a particular date? Was it during this period or or later or?

00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:56.000
No, it's been, it was a public holiday. Certainly by the early steward.

00:50:56.000 --> 00:51:10.000
Area. It was observed as, as a Sabbath day. And you would have been expected to attend church.

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:23.000
What happens, is the under the protectorate. It's a parliamentary subcommittee that bans Christmas in 1647.

00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:42.000
And they They essentially said that there should be no, keeping or festival days. Only the keeping of the Sabbath on Sunday and the keeping of what were called fast days when people were expected to fuss.

00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:56.000
And the problem emerged when Christmas Day didn't fall on a Sunday. Under the protectorate, everyone was expected to go to work.

00:51:56.000 --> 00:52:07.000
Shocks were expected to be over. And this led to rioting. In the 1650 s in Norwich for example in Bury St Edmunds and a number of other places.

00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:16.000
And in fact, I think it's in. Norwich. The apprentices who riot, it took over the town.

00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:38.000
No, it's Canterbury. Took over the town for a week. And eventually the parliamentary army had to reoccupy the tab and if i remember rightly i think several people were hanged for celebrating Christmas and so

00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:41.000
It's quite drastic, doesn't it?

00:52:41.000 --> 00:52:48.000
Doth said by historians that had Cromwell lived another 10 years, Christmas as we know it today would be very different.

00:52:48.000 --> 00:53:03.000
Because you know, the protectorate lasts about a decade. But had it become more entrenched.

00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:04.000
Hmm.

00:53:04.000 --> 00:53:09.000
Who knows, what would actually have happened? So no, it's It was a holiday, then it wasn't a holiday, then it becomes a holiday.

00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:21.000
And just kind of related to that, there's actually a question here from K. And what's boxing day holiday in the Victorian period?

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:22.000
Hmm.

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:31.000
As far as I know, but don't quote, again, traditionally, some Stevens day was a holiday.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:38.000
In the medieval period, very little work was done during the 12 days of Christmas. It was incumbent upon landowners.

00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:50.000
To, to organize. Festivities, for their feudal workforces during the 12 days of Christmas.

00:53:50.000 --> 00:54:01.000
Culminating, as I said, I think. Epiphany which was the May feast.

00:54:01.000 --> 00:54:18.000
And so the 20 fifth was actually a fairly I mean it was a it was a feast but it was by no means the principle feast which was epiphany because that's when the presents were brought by the May.

00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:23.000
To the major. Yeah.

00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:24.000
Yep.

00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:31.000
Okay. And so a question here from Wendy actually, which is actually talking about the United States.

00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:36.000
And Was Christmas as popular in the US in this period? As it was here.

00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:46.000
Yes, it was in a sense. I mean, Washington, writes a lot about Christmas.

00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:50.000
But he writes about Christmases, writes a lot about Christmas. But he writes about Christmases that he had a lot about Christmas.

00:54:50.000 --> 00:55:02.000
But he writes about Christmases that he had observed in Britain. And then some of his writing imports, the Victorian reinvention of Christmas into the United States.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:03.000
And then in the late nineteenth century, it's the twentieth century it becomes very commercial in the States.

00:55:03.000 --> 00:55:16.000
Prior to that, because of the presence of of a stronger Puritan tradition, in the US.

00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:25.000
It tended to be more muted affair. yeah.

00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:35.000
Okay, thank you. And I hope that answers. Your question. No, and we've got another question here.

00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:43.000
This is maybe slightly more on the literary side. Do you know anything about the Christmas annual?

00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:49.000
And at what point this became a fixture in tradition. I remember getting these when I was a child.

00:55:49.000 --> 00:55:50.000
Is it anything, you know, that you, to say that, likely off topic perhaps, but.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:56.000
Yeah. Yeah. Well, No, not really. I mean the Christmas.

00:55:56.000 --> 00:55:58.000
No.

00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:15.000
The Christmas annual evolves out of the the development of Christmas periodicals which were published. During December and sometimes into January during the Victorian, period.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:37.000
Dickens was responsible for several such Christmas periodicals. And in fact, as a sort of intimated, he wrote, Christmas Carol because, he'd actually just had a night there with Martin Chuzzlewit, which didn't sell as well as he expected.

00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:41.000
So he dashed off for Christmas Carol, put it out in one of his periodicals which he edited.

00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:55.000
Because he thought it would sell very well. It did. And it refloated. Dickens is publishing, ventures in actual fact.

00:56:55.000 --> 00:57:24.000
So as it goes on, you get a proliferation of the magazine market so you're getting proliferation of magazines of christmas decorations Christmas catalogs and because of that popularity then publishers obviously think, okay, around the turn of the twentieth century.

00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:49.000
We'll start gearing. Christmas publications to feature Well known characters that are coming through. So by the time you get into the twenties thirties and so on, you're having the publication of Christmas annuals of Rupert Bear and so on and so forth.

00:57:49.000 --> 00:57:54.000
So it it's a progression really from periodicals into animals. Yeah. And now they seem to.

00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:57.000
Okay.

00:57:57.000 --> 00:58:03.000
They seem not to be as popular now, of course.

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:12.000
Hmm. Hmm. Okay, well I think we will need to wrap things up. Their folks were pretty much out of time.

00:58:12.000 --> 00:58:21.000
So I'm going to, Thank you, Stephen, for coming along to tell us about all of this.

00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:34.000
And really interesting to hear about that transition of Christmas and to the sort of festival that we know today and that consumer driven holiday that we know and also a little bit of that literary side as well.

00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:40.000
So thank you very much.

00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:18.000
Okay, thank you very much Fiona and good evening everyone. I'm going to share my screen with you now.

00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:22.000
So I hope everyone can see that.

00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:23.000
Yep, that's perfect end.

00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:30.000
Perfect. Okay, thank you. And so the title of tonight's talk then is to get to know the winter night sky.

00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:34.000
And I think that the winter night sky is the most sort of magnificent of the, you know, the seasonal skies that you can see.

00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:49.000
And you do have to wrap up well. Okay, and the, you know, Clear Dark Night has really got some spectacular sights.

00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:53.000
And tonight I'm just going to tell you how you can find the planet Jupiter.

00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:58.000
The constellational rhyme and some other constellations. And I'm going to show you.

00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:16.000
What are called star hopping techniques. That will enable you to sort of pop from one constellation to the other to find out how you can see these objects and we'll also discuss just a bit about the mythology behind these patterns.

00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:21.000
Right. Oh, that's sorry, gone a bit too far. There we are.

00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:29.000
Okay, right, yeah. So, what I'm going to talk about then, first of all, I'm going to tell you about, a meteor shower that will be visible next week.

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Although the weather will certainly have to be better than it is here today in Leicestershire to see that.

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I'll tell you about the styles and planets on view and also you know tell you to look out for some unusual events.

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Now, next week is, the peak of what's called the geminid meteor shower.

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And so first of all, just want to say a bit about what a meteor shower is.

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And it's probably true that most people at some time outside and looked up on a clear dark night and seen a shooting start dash across the sky.

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:23.000
Well obviously this is a bit of a misnomer because it's not really a star. It's simply a very tiny speck of cosmic dust called a meteoroid which burns up as it sort of passes through the earth's atmosphere and it produces this streak of light which we call a meteor.

00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:29.000
So where does all this dust come from? Well, there's an awful lot of dust in space and that results from planetary, you know, collisions between bodies.

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In the past, but also comets are a great source of dust. As a comet orbits the sun it leaves a dust trail.

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And if the earth crosses this Then we might touch. Well, and that's what we call a meteor shower.

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I should say that if you go out on any night or shower. I should say that if you go out on any night of the year, if it's clear, if you look up for, you know, well, however, you know, few few minutes, half an hour or so, you'd probably be unlucky not to see a meteor, a shooting star.

00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:16.000
But that would almost likely be what we call a sporadic. At certain times of the year, we do see much higher numbers.

00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:23.000
And this is what I mean by a meteor shower. And you can see from this diagram here.

00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:35.000
The line here, little circle here. Represents the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Comets have quite different orbits from the Earth.

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They're far more elongated. And they are often inclined to the orbit of the Earth.

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But you can see that you know there's a possibility that the orbit of the comet and the earth can intersect usually only once but sometimes it's sort of twice.

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But as the comment goes around, it leaves this trail of dust and over a period of time this, dust trail can spread out.

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And when the earth passes through that, that's when we can see our meteor shower.

00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:13.000
Now, the meteor shower takes its name from the constellation in which what we call the radiant is found.

00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:24.000
Now, if you were to go out and observe a meteor shower, you had a

00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:42.000
The plot trails of the meteors on the star map then if you dotted all those lines back to where they crossed it would cross at 1 point and that's what we call them the radiant okay so the point from which these meteor trails appeared to originate.

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And it's this point and they they come outwards because quite interesting this to all intents and purposes, as the earth plows its way through this stream of dust, these meteoroids, and then that, you know, attack coming into the Earth in parallel paths.

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:09.000
And it's a perspective effect and I'm sure you're all familiar with this sort of effect.

00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:26.000
That if you've got a train track here now you know that those sides of the rails there are parallel But, and they're appear to get a point, don't they?

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And it's much the thing with this, radiant. And again, it's a bit like if you stand on a motorway bridge.

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Then those lanes there would appear to converge in the distance. And this is a photo of a, meteor.

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I think this was a Gemini that was taken. But you know, you can get a nice long streak across there.

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And the radiant itself of this meteor shower lies in the constellation of Jemini.

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And I'm going to say a bit about that in a minute. Gemini the twins.

00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:09.000
The 2 bright stars in Gemini are called Castor and Pollocks and I will tell you how you can find those.

00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:21.000
But just a bit of mythology, related to Gemini. In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollocks were the sons of Queen Leeda of Sparta.

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But, Pollocks was the son of leader and the gods use because use had seduced a leader.

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But Castor was the son of leader and the king of Sparta who was called Tindarius.

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So they didn't have the same father, but effectively they were, you know, brothers.

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Or twins as sometimes it's interpreted and they're very close but when Castro died because he was mortal because his father was the king of Sparta.

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Pollocks begged his father's use. To give Castor immortality and so that's how Castle came to be in the sky along with his brother Pollock's.

00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:14.000
But the radiant, lies very close to the, yeah, the style castor.

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And just to show you that in perspective. Now I'm assuming that a lot of people will know the constellation or Ryan and this is the view about 11 o'clock.

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In mid December so Orion is sort of slightly over to the southeast. But, and look, up then you've got cast and polyps and those 2 stars pretty much the same brightness and those 2 stars pretty much the same brightness and their It's very close together in the sky, so it's quite distinctive.

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And when you go out and look for these meteors and I'll tell you when and how to you know what sort of time you should be doing this.

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Don't just sort of focus on that area around Castor because remember that's just the point from where they meteors, appear to originate.

00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:16.000
In fact, these things can be streaking all the way across the sky. Like that. So the thing to do is yes, get those perhaps stars of, you know, Castron Pollock's in the center of your view.

00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:24.000
But keep on turning your head round and then you're more likely to see a lot of these meteors.

00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:38.000
Okay, what's the origin of these meteors then? Well, I mentioned earlier on that the origin of most meteor showers is in fact a comet, the comet dust, but the geminids are a bit different.

00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:39.000
Because an asteroid called 3 2 0 0 Python all asteroids have a number associated with them.

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That's believed to be responsible for the geminid meteor shower. So that makes it different from other meteor showers.

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First of all then, what's the difference between a comet and an asteroid?

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Now I'd love to be able to be a bright comment on view over the next month or so, but there's nothing in the offing, I'm afraid.

00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:12.000
And when we do see a comet, it has to be, but there's nothing in the offing, I'm afraid.

00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:15.000
And when we do see a comet, it generally has to be, you know, well, an unexpected visitor, shall we say.

00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:31.000
Now, a comet can be regarded as a sort of dirty snowball with a solid nucleus that's covered by a layer of ice and that ice sublime which means it turns from solid to a gas as the comet nears the sun.

00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:39.000
And as the gas is produced, then it does take off a lot of the dust with it. So that's how you see the tail of the comet.

00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:44.000
But an asteroid is just essentially a space, a space rock.

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That's the orbit of But there's the orbit of the earth there.

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And then I see all this comet again, so another one. So, you can see there that comets do have, you know, quite different orbits from planets.

00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:13.000
Now, Python was discovered back in 1983. By, 2 scientists, in fact, working at Leicester University, Simon Greene and John Davis.

00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:22.000
And they were discovered on images taken by, an astronomical satellite. And initially it was given that name.

00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:26.000
But once they'd analyzed the orbit, it became clear that this wasn't your typical comet.

00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:34.000
It was an asteroid and so it was given this name back in 1,985.

00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:41.000
That's a fairly small piece of rock about, you know, well under 6 kilometers in diameter and it takes about 524 days to complete one orbit of the Sun.

00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:53.000
So that's 1.4 3 years. And this diagram here. Shows the orbit of Python.

00:10:53.000 --> 00:11:01.000
Compared with the orbits of well there's there's Venus there. And the orbit of the Earth.

00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:11.000
Okay, so it comes in like this and you can see it sort of crosses. Yes, and then comes back out again.

00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:21.000
So it's at this sort of crossing point here that it would leave this dust trail that is going to give rise to the meteor shower.

00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:27.000
Now, Python, I said it's of interest. It approaches the sun closer.

00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:31.000
Than any other named asteroid.

00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:38.000
And it means that when it's at what we call perihelion, which is at the point in its orbit when it's closest to the Sun.

00:11:38.000 --> 00:12:00.000
It's only about 13 million miles, 21 million kilometers. All the other units that astronomers use for measuring distance is the astronomical unit which is in fact the Earth Sun distance and so when you express the distance of an object in terms of astronomical units, it's giving you some indication of the size of that.

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:11.000
Orbit compared with the Earth. So you can see this thing. When it is close to the sun, it's point 1 4 of the distance of the earth from the sun.

00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:15.000
So it's very close.

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:23.000
But when it's that close into the sun, the temperature could reach well over a thousand Kelvin or 750 Celsius.

00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:34.000
So it gets very hot and that's thought to be how or why it gives rise to this dust because the surface of this asteroid must get baked by the sun.

00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:38.000
It must loosen some of the material and any volatile material could be given off and takes any of this dust with it.

00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:51.000
So you can see it does it's got a very what we call eccentric orbit. When it's furthest from the summit, Appelian.

00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:58.000
It's 2.4 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Perry, it's point 1 4.

00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:23.000
What is closest, So anyway, get us the exciting bit. How can you view these? Well, you will need a clear sky, of course, and the Geminis themselves, and any time really about between the fourth and the seventeenth of December, the shower is is there the earth is passing through it but there will be times when it's predicted that there'll be more of these meteors than normal

00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:32.000
because the dust is more concentrated in certain parts of the stream. And the peak is around the fourteenth of December.

00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:39.000
So I would recommend that you perhaps look out on the evenings of the thirteenth, the fourteenth or the fifteenth.

00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:53.000
I've suggested those dates because well you just can't guarantee the weather can you? You know, so look out and they're pretty good on the weather forecast these days, that telling you when to look for meteors, aren't they?

00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:01.000
General myself. Is very high in the sky about one to 2 o'clock but in the morning but don't worry you don't have to get up that early to see it.

00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:17.000
And certainly before midnight you'd be able to see a few and of course if you're going out at this time of the year wrap up well you know hot drinks with you take a chair or recliner so that you can lean back.

00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:34.000
Because you know you will be out there for some time looking at these and you know maybe some blankets and obviously it's best not to go on your own but if you did of course tell someone where you were going but you know meteor watching is fun to do in a group.

00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:47.000
Because there's always someone who, sees. One bright meteor and everyone else doesn't doesn't and you know gives them a real feeling of one up and ship actually but anyway, you know, that's, that's what you need to do.

00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:57.000
So go out on a clear evening next week. And look for these meteors.

00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:04.000
Now you might see predictions, oh, 120 metres an hour. Well, that sounds a lot.

00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:13.000
But it still is only 2 a minute. So don't go out there expecting to see. Thanks coming at you right left and sense.

00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:19.000
I'm afraid you won't you do have to have a bit of patience for meteor watching.

00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:22.000
Good luck anyway.

00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:30.000
And there's the constellation of Gemini there then, okay, Caster and Pollocks that we mentioned, these are brothers.

00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:39.000
And they are to the if you're looking at online to the upper left but we've got a map that'll show you how to find them.

00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:47.000
And if you're just wondering about these stars, just a bit of interest about them. Pollocks, okay, which if you look.

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:55.000
There is the, the sort of lower one. Okay. Pollocks is 34 light years away.

00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:06.000
Now where are we now? Well, we're nearly 2,024. So just to make the maths a bit easier, the mental arithmetic, if you go out and look at Pollock's the light left there in 1,990 to get to your eyes.

00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:22.000
Over, you know, next week or whenever. And castle the upper one well when you look at that with the naked eye it appears to be one star but in fact there are 6 stars that make up that system.

00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:34.000
But obviously they're so close that you can't resolve them except with specialist equipment. So just a bit of interesting facts there about Caster and Pollops.

00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:40.000
Now what planets are on view at the moment? Well, Jupiter is dominating the evening sky.

00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:48.000
As soon as it gets dark, go out there and have a look and that really bright object you will see will be due.

00:16:48.000 --> 00:17:02.000
And Jupiter is the largest of the planet. At the moment it's got 95 confirmed moons, but I wouldn't be surprised if that, you know, more would be discovered in the future.

00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:09.000
Now the 4 largest and indeed brightest moons are called I/O Europa, Ganymede and Calisto.

00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:22.000
And they are visible with binoculars. Although it's fair to say you might not see all 4 at once due to the fact that they're orbiting Jupiter, you know, sometimes one or 2 of them are behind Jupiter, etc.

00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:28.000
But, something you might like to sort of get involved in. Is that at the moment you can actually get your name put on a probe to Europa.

00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:46.000
This large moon of Jupiter. Because in October of next year a man called you Rupa Clipper is due to be launched.

00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:50.000
And Europa is a great interest because it's an icy moon. The diagram or the photo you've got on the right.

00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:57.000
Is water ice. And underneath that layer of water lice, we're not quite sure how thick it is, but probably, you know, tens of kilometers.

00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:11.000
There is believed to be a liquid ocean water and in fact this belief to be more water on Europa than on the Earth despite the fact that Europa is only about the same size as our moon.

00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:16.000
Anyway, what you can do is this probe is going to go off there and hopefully tell us a lot more about your Roper.

00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:24.000
And what you need to do is look in your search engine, just type in Europa Message in a bottle.

00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:40.000
But hurry because it closes at 1159 eastern standard time on December the 30 first of this year sorry i didn't mean to look up the conversion but if you do it tonight it's not going to matter but then you see there's my name on this.

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:54.000
My name is along with loads of other people actually. Is, is on this spacecraft that will be Hello.

00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:13.000
It's a fun thing to do for children as well, isn't it? Anything you've got any youngsters who interested in science or space, you know, that would be good because it's not going to get there until 2030 so it's got 6 years so you never know if you've got any youngsters in your family they're not interested in space at the moment when it's 6 years

00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:23.000
time they might be so and get them on the Europa clipper. If I, lots of NASA missions do this, I've lost count of the number of missions that my name is on.

00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:29.000
But I think it's just a big kid in me that, that does it. Yeah.

00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:33.000
And anyway.

00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:41.000
Can be a stars then. Oh, by the way, just before the start, if you want to see a bright planet in the morning sky, then that is Venus.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:49.000
So if you get up and look out towards the morning sky, then that is Venus. So if you get up and look out towards the east, southeast, and look out towards the east, southeast, before sunrise, that bright object you see will be Venus.

00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:56.000
Right, so what about the sky then? What stars can we see? Well, Mitch January, 9 p.

00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:02.000
But that is also the same view you'd get round about 11 o'clock now.

00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:22.000
And just to close up, I'm just going to concentrate this afternoon on looking south. But there are styles of course that you see when you look north, but I'm going to concentrate on these.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:32.000
So let's stop off with all Ryan, the king of the winter sky, and we'll also mention some other constellations, Taurus, or Geminis, I've already done that, haven't I?

00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:41.000
And I'm going to mention these stars here. Serious and Procyon. Now, I think that, or Ryan, a lot of people can recognize that.

00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:50.000
And mainly Orion's belt is the prominent feature there. But Orion is very useful as a signpost.

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:56.000
Earlier on, we were talking about Gemini. So we've got Kastron Pollocks up there.

00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:01.000
But if you've got Orion's belt So the top star in Orion's belt.

00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:14.000
And you draw a line from there. Up through the shoulder start back of Then you come to cast. So that's the first.

00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:23.000
But we'll also see that it's going to enable us to find a lot of the other stars that we're going to talk about.

00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:31.000
And there's a photograph of Orion. I think this was actually taken on film some years ago now with a, with a scan.

00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:39.000
There but we're gonna see that photo again but there there's the belt there and there's Battle Girls, so to find Catherine Pollocks.

00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:45.000
I would simply draw a line up there and follow that through the sky.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:47.000
I'll skip that for now. Now, Orion is the most magnificent constellation.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:57.000
I'll say discuss. I'm not going to now, but it is. It's absolutely splendid.

00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:07.000
And in a few months time, you know, come April when you know, Orion is disappearing from our skies.

00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:16.000
You feel something's missing when you go out and look there. The pattern that Orion makes is quite distinctive and it's been recognized by many civilizations.

00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:28.000
The belt and this sort of figure of a man. And in Greek mythology, or Ryan was a very, very, very strong hunter.

00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:34.000
But he was a bit boastful. Because he dared to say that he would kill every animal on the earth.

00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:42.000
And this upset the goddess Gaia and so she sent a scorpion to try and kill Orion and the scorpion bit Orion.

00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:55.000
Okay. And but that's also given us the reason why. Or Ryan and the consolation scorpion scorpion, and the scene in the sky at the same time.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:23:10.000
You see Scorpius in the summer sky. However, Orion wasn't killed by the, scorpion, because offeous, that's another constellation, off he is just a surf paint bearer, revived a line with an antidote.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:20.000
And off the use just was placed in the sky between Orion and Scorpion hopefully are keeping the peace and coming up with the antidote again if ever it's needed.

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.000
So that's a bit of mythology, but you might find lots of other stories and lots of other civilizations.

00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:34.000
Have got their own stories. So there we are. This diagram here shows the names of some of these stars.

00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:40.000
But if I talk about the names again, I will put up another slide.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:50.000
Here is a representation of Orion with his club, remember he was a hunter. And he's got a line there.

00:23:50.000 --> 00:24:01.000
Right. No, I think this is interesting. Because when we look at the stars in the sky they just look like points on above us on what we call the celestial sphere.

00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:15.000
But the stars are all different distances from us. Now if you look in the top left hand side you can see we've actually got this diagram of All right, there's the belt.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:26.000
There's Becklegur's, the shoulder star. Yes, that's right, which is his knee.

00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:34.000
But is interesting to look at this diagram here. This looks a bit complicated, but it's, let me see, we can explain it.

00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.000
Now what we've got here at the front a screen. Or you can pitch that as a screen, okay?

00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:49.000
So that's the sort of view we get from the earth. Okay. And as far as we're concerned, you know, they they're all on this screen.

00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:55.000
But you can see the light from this star has to travel from here to get to the screen.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:25:02.000
Whereas the light from, say, the Orion Nebula. Has to travel a much further distance to get to the screen.

00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:12.000
So that's what it's showing. So, Bellatrix. Which is this right hand shoulder style there.

00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:19.000
That is about 252 light years away. So, where are we now?

00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:26.000
2,01750. So the light would have left there round about 1770. To get to your eyes.

00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:36.000
Whereas Becklegur's here, well, I think.

00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:45.000
Actually measuring the distance to stars is difficult. And I think people now think that battle girls may be about 600 light years away, so it be a bit further back here.

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:54.000
And but you can see that all these styles are different distances and there's a rigel there.

00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:02.000
The knee star and he's about 800 odd, well, 800 900 light years away.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:12.000
So the lightest taken that length of time to travel to us. But the most distant start that you can see with the naked eye in Orion.

00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:25.000
Is actually one of the style belt. One on the right hand side, which is called Alni Lamb, and that is the best part of 2,000 light years away.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:37.000
Well, I'll say a bit more about that in a minute, but I quite like that diagram because I say we get when we look up at the sky we get the idea that you know the stars that just on this celestial fifth but they're not they're different distances away.

00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:45.000
Now, just say something about Bettle Girls itself, the shoulder star. It is in fact the seventh brightest star in the sky is seen from the UK.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:50.000
Second brightest start in a ride and it is one of the largest stars that's visible to the naked eye.

00:26:50.000 --> 00:27:01.000
It's what we call a red giant and it's 640 light years from, that is the modern estimate.

00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:08.000
And just to show you how big it is. You've got these 6 little screens here.

00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:20.000
Okay, we start off up here. This shows, So the smallest one is on the left hand side, the largest one on the right hand side.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:29.000
So we're going from Mercury to the Earth. And then when we go to the next panel, then the largest one in the previous panel is now the smallest okay and it works up like that.

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:38.000
So we're going from Earth to Jupiter. And then we go from Jupiter. And then, there's the sun there.

00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:46.000
And this is a start called Serious that I'm going to mention later on. So you can see Sirius is quite a bit larger in diameter than the Sun.

00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:53.000
And then it goes on like this. Okay, there's Sirius there and there's Pollocks.

00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:58.000
There's Al Debra and that I'm going to mention later on. But, are we ever going to get to battle girls?

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:06.000
Well, yes, we are. But you can see it is really one of the biggest stars that's known.

00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:16.000
So, I showing these relative sizes. So it is a very big star. And in fact, another way of looking at this.

00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:21.000
That's what an estimate of the size of Betelgurs, so that's its size.

00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:26.000
But on the same scale that's the size of the Earth's orbit. And that's the size of Jupiter's orbit.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:32.000
So if you put Battle Goes in the middle of our solar system. Well, it's good by Earth and goodbye Jupiter.

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:42.000
It would probably stretch, you know, a significant fraction of the way out to Saturn. So it's a big star.

00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:49.000
Now, something very interesting happened with Becklegur's, 3 years ago now.

00:28:49.000 --> 00:29:02.000
We've had, yeah, no, perhaps 3, nearly 4 years ago. It's because normally Becklegur's really shines well in.

00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:08.000
Ryan and you can I said it was a red giant you can see the difference in color from the other styles in the constellation here.

00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:14.000
Well, in late, 2,019, early 2020, it suddenly dimmed and people didn't know why.

00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:26.000
At the time and that was a photo that was taken. So this is late 2019 early 2020 and you can clearly see that Becklegurse has dimmed.

00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:41.000
Now, what caused this dimming? Well, various series come up, but the dimming was probably due to a dust cloud passing in front of Bettle Girls rather than any sort of change in the star itself.

00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:51.000
This material was ejected from the start and it called. And blocked out some of the light.

00:29:51.000 --> 00:30:01.000
Now, but that's not to say that. You know, there won't be, yeah, some change in the star because Bettle G is a good candidate for what we call a supernova.

00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:16.000
Which is when the most massive stars literally implode and explode releasing fantastic amounts of energy. And so, you know, if this were to happen, then you know, Orion would actually look like that.

00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:22.000
Backglers would be extremely bright, could outshine the full moon, maybe be visible in daylight.

00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:30.000
But obviously if it were to happen, it would be 640 years before we knew about it.

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:42.000
Anyway, just back to Orion then with Becktelgurs. There and Rigel, the knee star, again another very big star.

00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:52.000
This is very hot white star. So there's Rigel in comparison with the sun. And it's about 860 light years from the sun.

00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:56.000
So again, let's say 900 just to make the mental arithmetic and we pretend we're in the year 2,000.

00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:04.000
So the light would, lead, I've left battle girls to reach your ice tonight round about the year 1,100.

00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:10.000
So the Normans hadn't really been over here for you know for very long.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:32.000
Now, Orion's belt, everyone's heard of all Ryan's belt, there's a telescopic view of them and a lot of people in other cultures have recognized these they've been called the 3 Marys Jacobs Rod or Jacob staff our ladies wand the Magi or the Chinese referred to them as the weighing bean

00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:42.000
It's all here, okay. Mintaka is about 900 light years away.

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:48.000
Alan, the one in the middle there, is about 2,000 light years away. And, only tech.

00:31:48.000 --> 00:32:07.000
Is about 800 light years away. So those 3 stars there are you know, some of the, some of the most distant styles you can see with your naked eye but the fact that they appear so bright is telling us that they're very luminous indeed, the sort of real powerhouses of stars.

00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:18.000
There they are sitting there like that. There's no physical association between those styles of I'm sorry, let me just go back there.

00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:25.000
On this photo here, you notice there's a little sort of red area there. Well, that is the Orion Nebula.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:32.000
Which you can see with The Naked eye from somewhere really dark. But probably best to look in binoculars, but it won't appear ready.

00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:56.000
It only appears red on a sort of photographic film. And to find it, you take the styles of the belt and just scan down with your binoculars and what's called Orion's sword and you'll see a clussy patch there but this is magnificent it is in fact about 1,340 light years away from us.

00:32:56.000 --> 00:33:09.000
But it's a big star forming region. You know come back in a few 1 million years time and that will be littered with stars and it's been very intensely studied by the Hubble Space Telescope.

00:33:09.000 --> 00:33:17.000
So stars are being born in this big cloud of gas and dust and a lot of what's going on at the moment is hidden from our, optical, eyes.

00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:21.000
By the gas and the dust, but things like Hubble and especially the James Webb Space Telescope.

00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:32.000
Are giving a really good look at this and is enable us to understand more about how styles form and how they evolve.

00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:36.000
Okay, so I've mentioned Becklegurz and Rigel and the belt.

00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:48.000
Starting with the Ryan's belt, we can find 2 other important stars. And the first one is if we go up and find.

00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:59.000
And then we come down find serious in the constellation of Canis Major. And then we've come down to find Serious in the constellation of Canis Major.

00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:06.000
Oh, sorry, I've done it the other way around. Okay. Well, to find Sirius, the dog star, you draw an imaginary line through the 3 stars of Orion's belt from the upper right going down to the left.

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:12.000
Go towards the horizon and you meet Sirius, which is the brightest star in the, in the night sky.

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:25.000
And in mythology, Canis Major or which is the constellation that it's in the larger dog represented the dog the lilaps which was a gift from Zeus to a Europa.

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:32.000
There's Canis Major there. And Sirius is one of our nearest neighbours in space.

00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:46.000
The light takes just under 9 years to reach the earth from Syria. So if you're looking at it, you know, tonight in the next few nights, the light left there around about 2,014 to get to your eyes.

00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:52.000
Now if we follow the belt in the other direction coming up like that, then we come to our Deborah.

00:34:52.000 --> 00:35:02.000
Which is the brightest star in Taurus. So draw an imaginary line through the stars of the belt from left to right and extend it upwards.

00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:11.000
And then you've got, Al, And this is another giant style. But it's 65 like years away.

00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:27.000
So the light, would have left there in what round about 1960 ish. Or just before late 1950 s to get to your eyes tonight and again you can see the comparative sizes of algebra and the sun.

00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:32.000
Now in in mythology, tourists associated with use. I mean, he crops up everywhere, doesn't he?

00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:51.000
He adopted the form of a bull when he tried to abduct a princess. You This is one of the few constellations that actually looks a bit like what it's named after because you've got the horns of the bull there.

00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:55.000
Haven't you? Yeah, that both false. And there's Al Debra and there.

00:35:55.000 --> 00:36:06.000
And there's this little V-shaped grouping of stars there called the Hyades. And the plaid is Al Debra and isn't a member of that that group there.

00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:13.000
It's just what we call a line of sight effect. It lies between us and them. And there's, a photograph there.

00:36:13.000 --> 00:36:22.000
So there's the belt coming up to Orion. And then this V shape here is are the hybrides a star pasta.

00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:29.000
So all those stars there. I'm moving through space together and it's very interesting to look at them with binoculars.

00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:35.000
If you look at them with binoculars, you'll find that some of those styles are actually double styles.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:40.000
You've got the other 2 stars that make up the horns there, much further away.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:48.000
Okay, and then you've got the plaid ease or the 7 sisters there

00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:55.000
Sorry, I've just dropped mine. Just retrieve that.

00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:01.000
Sorry. Sorry. That's upset the mouse.

00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:15.000
And sorry. Okay, there's the photo then. Okay. So, and the Hyades and the Pleiades.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:20.000
Now in in mythology, the Hydeas were the daughters of the Atlas and the half-sisters of the plides.

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:30.000
And they were placed in the sky after the death of their brother. And as I said, I'll Deborah and is not a member of this Hydeas cluster, it's a line of sight effect.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:38.000
And there's a close-up of the plaidies, the 7 sisters. And these are stars, they're very close together.

00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:53.000
In the sky but your eye is pretty good at picking them up and if you do go out there and have a look for them don't try and look directly at them look at them at the corner of your eye using what we call averted vision and you'll get a much clearer view.

00:37:53.000 --> 00:38:00.000
And, there they are there on the, on the map, okay? So we've got.

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:11.000
Orion had serious. Before.

00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:20.000
There is another star, that you can find called Procyon. And this is in the constellation of Cannes Minor, the little, the lesser dog.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:26.000
And again, it's another one of our near neighbors. It's only 11 and a half light years away.

00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:38.000
And prosion is found by drawing a line. You know, you've got to battle girls and Bella tricks at the top of Orion draw a line directly across that you come to pro cyan.

00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:41.000
And prosion and becklegurs and Sirius are often lumped together as the winter triangle.

00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:57.000
I think astronomers do like to find a lot of these geometric patterns in the sky. When it's something like that and it's not a constellation, we call it an asterism.

00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:06.000
So that they're fine, that is very obvious. And, science serious and actually got a number of similarities which I won't go into tonight.

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:15.000
Again, another pattern, the astronomers. To the sky is something called the winter hexagon.

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:31.000
And we've got pollocks there and pro Sion and Sirius and Rajel and Al Debra and then there is another star which I haven't mentioned tonight but it's overhead during the winter months called capella and those 6 styles there make up the winter hexagon.

00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:41.000
No, so, there we are. So, there's Orion and the say, Orion is absolutely a magnificent.

00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:58.000
No, but in the sky you should always be prepared for a surprise. Now, over the last few months, there have been a few occasions when the Aurora borealis, the northern lights have been visible from, you know, quite a lot of the UK.

00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:10.000
Obviously the further north you are, the more chance you have of seeing it. Okay. How do you know when?

00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:16.000
The aura is caused when a stream of very energetic particles that's emitted by the Sun interacts with the gases in the Earth's atmosphere, the oxygen and the nitrogen.

00:40:16.000 --> 00:40:33.000
These charged particles collide with the oxygen and the nitrogen. It gives these molecules a bit of extra energy and these molecules, then what we call excited, they lose this extra energy by radiating it in the form of this colored light.

00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:46.000
So how will you know when a, might be seen? Well, this good website, It's run by the University of Lancashire.

00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:58.000
So just Google or other search engines are of course available. Aurora Watch. UK and they've also got a station in Shetland and you'll see something like this.

00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:04.000
If it's red, then that is good news. That means that an aurora could be visible from anywhere in the UK.

00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:07.000
If it's green, it means there's no significant geomagnetic activity. So don't wait up.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:14.000
And most of the time it is green. There is something else as well called the glendale app.

00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:23.000
Which is good for that so that would give you an indication when an aurora might be due but again the weather forecasts are pretty good at this.

00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:34.000
But now, often, you know, it might be cloudy where you are, but you know that they're seeing on a roar in other parts of the country.

00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:36.000
The number of good webcams. There's a couple of webcams on Shetland that I use.

00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:56.000
Once called cliff cam 3 and if you just Google that it'll come up with the link that looks north from sombre head you do get some distant lights but I know a couple of weeks ago from watching a magnificent display from there and there's one on a place called Borough Firth which is on Unst.

00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:07.000
And there's a very good camera there the skies are much darker than the cliff cam 3 and unfortunately it's undergoing maintenance at the present so But just keep an eye open for that.

00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:25.000
But again, a couple of weeks ago when it was active, yeah, that was great. And also when you wake up in the morning, if you haven't had a sufficient dose the previous night from the Shetland webcams then go on to this is one I use Northern Lights Cam in Churchill, Manitoba.

00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:37.000
And I think there's one in Fair Banks, Alaska as well. There's probably loads of them, but you know just find one and you can get your fix of the aurora like that even if you can't see it yourself.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:38.000
And some of you may have seen this a couple of weeks ago. On Saturday, sort of forgot to put the date in there.

00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:58.000
Wasn't last Saturday before, but a lunar halo was visible over many parts of the UK and this is due to the sort of presence of, and this is due to the sort of presence of, you know, ice crystals, the sort of presence of, you know, ice crystals, you know, high up in the earth's atmosphere, you know, high up in the earth's atmosphere, you know.

00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:16.000
refracting the light of the moon, but, Oh, it was the nice ones I see. So although, you know, we're able to predict, you know, when constellations and planets are going to be on view, astronomy is always full of surprises.

00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:29.000
Like maybe an aurora or a lunar halo and i think it's just a case of you know going out and looking up at the sky live looking up during the day as well because then you can get all sorts of atmospheric phenomena associated from the sun.

00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:51.000
With things like sun dogs which you may have heard of. And you can get things called Nacreous Clouds, which are quite rare in the UK, but I have seen them and they're the multicolored clouds that you do require very cold conditions for that.

00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:57.000
So I hope I've given you an idea of what you can see in the night sky and I hope I've sort of encouraged you in giving you the incentive to go and look out for these.

00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:07.000
As I said, I can't guarantee you an Aurora, but on a clear night you will get all Ryan and you know explore it with your binoculars.

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:18.000
Go out with friends and p contact your local astronomical society as well because I'm sure they'd be very happy to give you a tour of the night sky.

00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:21.000
So thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:25.000
Thanks very much and do you want to just take your presentation down and we'll go into a few questions.

00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:26.000
We'll take yes, okay. Yeah.

00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:33.000
We've got a few that have come in. And thanks very much for that. Really fascinating. Now.

00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:41.000
I'll just start from the top actually. This is a question from Frederick. Can you see Cassiopeia in the winter?

00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:42.000
At this time.

00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:45.000
Yes, you can. You can see Cassie appear at any time of the year because it's what we call a circular constellation.

00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:51.000
So it's fairly close to the pole star. Yes you can. And in the winter, Cassia pit is high up actually.

00:44:51.000 --> 00:44:59.000
So yeah, you can.

00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:06.000
Hmm, that we go, Frederick. Okay. And we have another question from David.

00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:07.000
Right, yeah.

00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:11.000
And this is about the International Space Station. And when is it we can see it sort of round about this time of year?

00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:19.000
Right, okay. Well, you've just missed the current series of passes. I think that ended last week.

00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:33.000
And the international space station you can either see it you know for a period of time after the sunsets in the evening or in the mornings before the sun rises.

00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:48.000
And I think that, what you need to do is, you know, perhaps get an app for your phone that gives you predictions.

00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:52.000
I think we've got a list of apps and things, don't we, and that we can share with people.

00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:53.000
Yeah. Yeah.

00:45:53.000 --> 00:45:57.000
Or you know the various websites that you can you can do this from and if you want I can I think we have actually, yes, I can put that down, but you won't see it from the UK at the moment, you'll have to wait a few weeks, I'm afraid.

00:45:57.000 --> 00:45:58.000
But again, that's spectacular as well.

00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:05.000
Hmm. Yeah. Okay, look, right. So, next from Madeline.

00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:10.000
Now, when we were looking at some of those stars. You know, some of them are quite red.

00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:12.000
Are they really red?

00:46:12.000 --> 00:46:23.000
Yes. Yeah. I mean, it stars our different colors and the color of a star gives us information about the temperature of the outer layers of the stars.

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:30.000
And, you know, normally we think of blue being cold and red being hot. It stars, it's the other way around.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:38.000
The red styles have got the much cooler exteriors and the really hot styles are the white and blue ones.

00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:45.000
So get color is a very you can give us very important information about a star.

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:52.000
Right. Okay. I hope that answers your question. And Madeline, now we've got another question here.

00:46:52.000 --> 00:46:59.000
This is an interesting one. Hold on, let me just find it again. And this is from Lesley.

00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:10.000
Excusing her ignorance but if some of these stars are really that far away so many you know light years away, how do we know they are still there?

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:26.000
Well, I suppose, you know, one answer is that we don't, but I mean, we're pretty certain that they are because, you know, the lifetime, lifetimes of stars or most styles that you see in the sky are measured in hundreds of millions, billions of years.

00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:41.000
I mean, our Sun is 4.6 billion years old. And, you know, so the sort of distances that we can see with the naked eye are fairly, you know, trivial compared with the actual ages of the star.

00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:58.000
But you know she is quite right that something you know might have happened. I mean battle girls might have turned into a supernova but we won't know about it until 640 years after the event.

00:47:58.000 --> 00:48:00.000
Hmm. It's mind-boggling, isn't it?

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:08.000
But yeah, but from what we know, you know, generally, I mean, astronomers have good, you know, theories about how stars are made, how they evolve.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:21.000
And we know that you know, some styles are much longer lived than others. So seeing what type of star it is, then that would give us confidence in perhaps suggesting that that style might still be there.

00:48:21.000 --> 00:48:31.000
Okay. Right, and here's a question from Mavis. Could a celestial event affect the Earth in any way?

00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:41.000
Well, yes, if you think about, in the past, you know, an asteroid striking Earth.

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:42.000
Not sure.

00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:52.000
Is that the type of celestial event that's wanted or you know because I mean the earth has been struck many times in the past by you know, asteroids, you know, space rocks.

00:48:52.000 --> 00:49:04.000
And we know the same sort of thing has happened to the moon and the Mercury and Mars, but we see more of a history of that on those planets because they don't have an atmosphere and they're not You know, they don't have, you know, the geological activity that the Earth does.

00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:13.000
So, everyone's aware of the events that, you know, you know, supposedly saw off the dinosaurs.

00:49:13.000 --> 00:49:22.000
But you know, the actual, you know, crater that resulted from that is sort of buried under the earth.

00:49:22.000 --> 00:49:25.000
But there's the big meteor crater in Arizona. Which is, I think is about 50,000 years old, something like that.

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:40.000
And that was a much smaller event. So things like that can happen. But it's that is that what's meant by a celestial event or is it perhaps another you know planetary line app in which case I would say no to that.

00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:46.000
Hmm. Okay. I hope that answers your question. Maybe now we've got something here.

00:49:46.000 --> 00:50:00.000
From Ken. Wondering if you could maybe explain or explain a little bit more about interpreting the Sky Map, you know, and tell us, tell people a bit more about the horizon, the Meridian, these kinds of things.

00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:05.000
Right, okay. Do you want me to go back into one of the maps? Would that help or not?

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:06.000
You do that might, that might be helpful. Yes, but not too much trouble.

00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:14.000
Okay, alright, let me just see if I can share the screen again and.

00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:23.000
I'll just run back with so I find one of the

00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:28.000
It's not running backwards now.

00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:33.000
Oh, here we are. Yeah, that's works. Sorry, just click through. Right, yeah, that's a map there.

00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:44.000
I get this off a website called Heavens Hype and Above. Com. And it's free to you have to register but it's free to download and I like this because I think these projects nicely.

00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:57.000
Now this is the view looking south then, okay. And you know the map you produce the map for a given date and time.

00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:25.000
And you know the computer does all that for you. And so this is me looking south at this particular date and time and I can see that you know virtually due south is the start Al Debra and but Orion is slightly to the east of that okay because when you look at this the east is going round there Okay, so, and West goes around there, like that.

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:40.000
And the term meridian. Refers to the it's basically what you know what's due south from an So if I was observing at this time.

00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:46.000
Then Al Debra and because tall intents and purposes it's due south that would be on the meridian.

00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:50.000
Okay. That you can get.

00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:00.000
What I don't like about these heavens above maps is that, when you go to the north, it doesn't put north at the bottom so it's not always quite so easy to see.

00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:23.000
But you can get apps on your phone that would have Sky Maps for you. You can buy devices called planispheres which are like little there's a map of the sky and again you there's a plastic sheet on top and you you put in the date and time that you're observing the date and time that you're observing the date and time that you're observing and what's visible in

00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:27.000
the oval, would be the stars that would be visible in the oval, and would be the stars that would be visible.

00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:42.000
And yeah, I know star. And would be the stars that would be visible. And yeah, I know star maps can be tricky to get used to and I think the thing to do is if you go on to a website like this there would be some explanation there for you.

00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:49.000
Okay. So that's the direction that you would face, okay? Cause that makes sense.

00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:50.000
It's a bit, I can perhaps find out a bit more detail. Yeah, carry on.

00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:56.000
Okay. Could you just explain? Yeah, yeah, could you just explain what the pink line is on that?

00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:01.000
Oh, the pink line. Yeah, the pink line is something called the ecliptic. Okay.

00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:10.000
And, that represents the path of the sun against the background stars over the course of a year.

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:24.000
Okay. Or it's also, if you like the The Earth all bits the Sun, okay, and it's the projection of the Earth's orbit on the sky.

00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:48.000
And because all of the planets in the solar system they all bit in pretty much the same plane okay it's not exact but it's pretty much the same then if you want to find a planet or the moon you look towards this sort of purple line the ecliptic so there we are we've got Jupiter sitting bang on the ecliptic and the ecliptic marks out the constellations of

00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:57.000
the zodiac. So you can see we've got Pisces here, we've got Taurus here, we've got Gemini and Cancer and Leo.

00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:12.000
And as I said, it's, it marks out this. Because the part of the sun and the oldest v of course.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:16.000
You know, said, you know, the sun is in Gemini. The sun is in Taurus.

00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:31.000
Okay, but you know that that's essentially what it is. It's marking out the plane of the Earth's orbit on the sky or the path that the Sun takes against the background styles but of course in you know, when we're looking at this though, you think, well, where's the sun?

00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:42.000
Well, it's not there, of course. It's, you know, below the horizon and, so it's a bit difficult to explain actually but

00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:52.000
Yeah, it's yeah, over the course of a year, as I said, it marks out where the sun moves against the stars.

00:54:52.000 --> 00:55:01.000
That's that's where you look for a planet. Or the moon. I think we got the moon over there as well.

00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:02.000
Thank you.

00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:06.000
Sorry, I said I can find perhaps a better answer with a better diagram.

00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:12.000
Okay. Right. Let's have a look. I got another question here.

00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:20.000
Again, this is from David's, is Venus the brightest planet that we can see? From here.

00:55:20.000 --> 00:55:37.000
Yes, it is, yes. Yeah. I mean Jupiter gets pretty bright as well but it never reaches the you know the brightness that Venus does and it's reckoned that it's I mean obviously Venus is a lot closer to us than Jupiter so not further away but also the atmosphere of Venus.

00:55:37.000 --> 00:55:50.000
It's got a very thick atmosphere and it's supposed to have droplets of sort of sulfur type compounds in it which are very good at reflecting the light from the sun.

00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:57.000
Hmm. I actually saw a part I presumed to be a planet in Sky. It was a few weeks ago now, dark.

00:55:57.000 --> 00:56:10.000
In the east with the men and then there was something else that was very bright. Just I think it was down below it either to the I can't remember whether it was the left or the right, but I kind of thought that was probably Jupiter

00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:12.000
Will say in the evening.

00:56:12.000 --> 00:56:19.000
Yes, it was. Yeah.

00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:20.000
Okay.

00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:25.000
Yes, yeah, yeah, that would have been Jupiter then, yeah, cause for the last few months, Venus is only been visible in the morning sky, although next year that will change and it will be comfortable in the evening sky again.

00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:33.000
Hmm, Okay, I think we're just about time folks. Thank you very much for that.

00:56:33.000 --> 00:56:44.000
And that was fascinating as always and kind of rounds off the little series of lectures that we've had about the night sky and the different seasons.

00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:45.000
Okay, all right.

00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:47.000
I think we've covered them all now man I think. So thanks again and I hope everybody enjoyed that.

00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:07.000
Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Nice to see so many familiar faces. I can see a few.

00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:16.000
Good evening to everyone. So I'm going to speak to you about Hollywood and the Hayes code this evening, which you may have heard about.

00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:23.000
You may have heard about it being called the production code of the HAYES code. Well, look at what it is.

00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:31.000
How it came about and what the push back against it was. Why am I thinking about this now? Why did this weird topic jump into my head?

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I read an article in Screen rant a few weeks ago. Someone was talking about the sopranos, the TV show The Sopranos.

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And the the writer of the article said, The Sopranos was great, but when we look back on it, it's quite problematic.

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Because lots of the guys in the sopranos do quite bad things and they never get punished for them.

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And that's a problem. And I thought that's kind of that sort of the point of the sopranos, isn't it?

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But it made me think about This time in Hollywood when the the most the most important thing was that films have a moral, a moral center to them that films, that the baddies get punished, nothing untoward happens.

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And it made me feel like perhaps there's a move to push that sort of censorship back in that direction.

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The period we're talking about, the period where the haze code determined what could and couldn't be seen on screen lasts from about the early thirtys to the late sixtys.

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To show you what it is or sort of what it was. I want to Share with you this image.

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This image comes from

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This image comes from the, 1,941 Hollywood stills show, if everyone can see that.

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But it's made by a photographer would Al Whitey Schafer. He said the production code was in full effect at this time.

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:12.000
He basically, rather than enter as still in the still show of a film they had taken he created this image to illustrate all the things that weren't allowed in cinema at the time.

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And he entered it in the in the still show as a as a kind of joke. But it backfired on him because of course it was pulled from the Hollywood still show and he was threatened with a fine.

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So it was which it sort of proves the point that these things weren't allowed. They're not allowed on the screen and they're not allowed, they're not allowed in the still show either.

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But it's as good as any item we've got that illustrates what the what was and wasn't allowed during this during this era.

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I think you can probably, you can probably read them. Law defeated. I won't, we won't do all of them.

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Lord defeated is a crucial one. There's a dead policeman down at the bottom there. Various types of weapons, gambling, exposed bosom, drinking and narcotics.

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It's a, it's a reasonably comprehensive list of things that weren't allowed on screen at the time.

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It's important to remember that at the time there was no other form of cinema certification.

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All films were for everybody. And so the attempts to create the code by which films would be allowed or not allowed, was a way to make every film accessible to any, to anybody, kids, adults, anything.

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There was no censorship as we as we know it. We had it in Britain, but in Hollywood they didn't.

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To examine, I think why Why the code was needed in the first place, I think we need to, we need to go back up to a few years before it began.

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There was always feeling as soon as as soon as the film industry moved out to Hollywood, there was always feeling that it might be a lawless and awful place.

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The film industry started in New, in, in New York in New Jersey just across the river and place called Fort Lee.

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Very quickly the filmmakers decided that California would be a better place. Let me get rid of this image.

00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:21.000
So you can see my lovely face. Very quickly they thought California would be a better place but because you get year round sun and the Edison company protected its patents on filmmaking equipment in New York and you had to pay dues to the Edison people if you were going to make a film but they wouldn't pursue you to Hollywood.

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So the filmmaking people all went out to Hollywood. And it began to get a reputation for being a bit lawless.

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There was nothing there when they moved there. They were just orange groves and they built this built Los Angeles sort of from nothing.

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In the early twenties we get there's a few scandals that begin to feed into this public perception that Hollywood itself is a dangerous and lawless place.

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First of all, there's this guy. William Desmond Taylor. Who is a popular actor and director from the silent period he seems to have a mysterious past that people don't know much about.

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He seems to have abandoned his family years earlier and reinvented himself. He's killed. He's murdered under really mysterious circumstances in Hollywood in 1,922.

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It's Unbelievably, it's still an official cold case to this day, the William Desmond Taylor murder.

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He may have been, He may have been helping the actress Mabel Normand with her cocaine addiction and her drug dealers may have may have killed him.

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He may have been having an affair with a young actress called Mary Miles Minter and her mother may have she was in the frame for potentially having killed them at 1 point loads of loads of theories loads of scandal none of it proven but it doesn't look good this guy's just got randomly killed and his bungalow in Hollywood.

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That's 1,922. Just before that. There's a more.

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There's a. A better known scandal. I think here's a face that you may recognize.

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This is the face of Roscoe Arbuckle, who was also known as Batty Arbuckle, which he hated.

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So we try and remember him as Roscoe. Roscoe Arbuckle was accused in the end of 1,921.

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Of killing a young actress called Virginia Rappee. The story was that he had thrown a party in a, in a hotel in Hollywood that she had gone to and the story was that then that had attacked her, potentially raped her, she then died of abrupt bladder and peritonitis.

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And it didn't look good. For Roscoe, apart from everybody around him said, that's not what happened.

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There was multiple witnesses to prove that actually she was taken ill at the party and He tried to help her.

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And but of course, no good deed, goes unpunished. He's, he's on trial for murder 3 times.

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They can't make it stick to him because, well, because it's seems he didn't do it.

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But there's at the end of the third trial the jury actually right give him a handwritten apology saying your name's been tracked with the Mard and we hope you can get your career back and so forth but of course He's never going to get his career back.

00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:21.000
He's ruined heavily in debt, never really works again. And then, would die of a heart attack aged just 46 in 1,933.

00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:35.000
But it's an absolute media forore. The press go wild. This big fat Roscoe has squashed this young girl, you know it's a it's sensationalist it's it's it's awful it's the awful low stand of journalism.

00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:45.000
So there's this perception. That maybe, that maybe Hollywood is this law, law, lawless, amoral place.

00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:54.000
And it needs cleaning up if the people are this awful maybe the movies are awful too. So in, 1921.

00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:04.000
37 states introduced film. Censorship bills. Almost a hundred in individual bills in that year alone.

00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:18.000
Now the Supreme Court had ruled as early as 1,915 that the first amendment the right to free speech didn't apply to movies So you couldn't just say, I'm saying I'm doing this in my movie.

00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:22.000
It's First Amendment can't stop me. It's important that they didn't think that.

00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:32.000
So when if a movie was objectionable to one of these Yeah, we've got these 50 states and the movie is objectionable to one of the boards in one of the in one of the states it won't get shown in that state.

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So you're in a position where you may possibly have to re-cut and resubmit movies.

00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:50.000
In every single state where you want them to be shown. And if you think of America of the early twentieth century, those 50 states are more like 50 different countries with very different moral positions on all sorts of different things.

00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:51.000
It's still a segregated country. It's there's, there's all sorts of divisions.

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Big chunks of the country are very religious, big chunks of the country aren't.

00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:12.000
You can see Also, of reasons why the individual states might have very different reasons for wanting some things to appear in films and some things not wanting, not to bear in films.

00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:33.000
There's been calls during this period for there to be. Federal censorship of films send the Senator Henry Myers of Montana says in in the Senate he says that Hollywood is a colony of these people where debauchery, riotous living, drunkenness, rivalry, dissipation, free love seem to be conspicuous.

00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:42.000
This i think this thing that he says is this is the link between the people the place and the films I think.

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This idea in the public consciousness that Hollywood itself is somehow amoral and that may make the films amoral.

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So the industry doesn't want to deal with 50. 50 different states and 50 different, different censorship boards.

00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:13.000
They decide what they're going to do is beat everybody to the punch and set up their own self regulation system where they will Look at their own films and they will create a code that they will that they will then decide.

00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:22.000
The So I'm just, someone's got a completely black screen. I hope I've just taken that image off but hopefully you can see me.

00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:23.000
I'll respond to.

00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:29.000
Okay. Okay. So they decide that, The thing to do is self-censorship.

00:10:29.000 --> 00:10:48.000
They create a code and then they Well, put someone in charge who will then look and say, yes, these films are obeying the code and this film is good and that way these films are all suitable for everyone and everyone from kids to grandma's can all come in and see the film because It's the dominant in dominant entertainment industry.

00:10:48.000 --> 00:11:03.000
You don't want to be cutting off half your potential audience. So they establish the emotion picture producers and distributors of America, the MPPDA, and they appoint this fellow who I will show you.

00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:07.000
Where is it? Here is.

00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:16.000
Their point this fellow, Will H Hayes, as. As the, as the head of the MPPDA.

00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:20.000
Here's the former postmaster. He's a Presbyterian elder. And he's a former head of the Republican National Committee.

00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:30.000
He was President Harding's campaign manager. He's delivered the White House for the for the Republicans.

00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:36.000
So it doesn't quite look like he's got it in him does it but he's done all those things He gets paid $100,000 a year, which is the equivalent of about 2 million dollars a year today.

00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:46.000
So it's a serious, serious job.

00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:54.000
One of his first acts as the head of the NPPDA is he institutes a lifetime ban on Roscoe Arbuckle.

00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:59.000
Says his films can never be shown again. Roscoe Arbuckle has just been in court.

00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:05.000
For murder 3 times and has been completely exonerated. It's been found completely innocent. But so much mud has stuck to him.

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:13.000
That they decide. No, we'll have a lifetime bound on him. It's all about the perception of cleaning, of cleaning house.

00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:21.000
In in his autobiography much later, Hay said that it was the studio's idea to sacrifice Roscoe Arbuckle.

00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:28.000
But to make it without it having to come from the studio. So he's put there to give absolutely give the impression.

00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:34.000
To, that he's cleaning house. The ban on Roscoe is lifted 8 months later.

00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:43.000
Under protest, but local film boards around the country enforce it voluntarily. Roscoe's damaged goods.

00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:51.000
So in 1924. He develops the formula, the haze develops the formula. This isn't quite the haze code yet.

00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:53.000
The haze code is a few years in the future. But the formula is 13 elements that should be avoided.

00:12:53.000 --> 00:13:03.000
Films. They're not saying Definitely avoid them, but these are things that should be avoided in films.

00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:11.000
They're quite broad, so the formula includes films that deal with sex in an improper manner. Not sure what is a proper or improper manner.

00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:28.000
This one is crucial. Films that make vice attractive. Films that make gambling and drunkenness attractive films that might instruct the week in methods of committing crime.

00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:35.000
It's almost a ridicule public official. Films that offend religious beliefs.

00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.000
There's a few more, but those are the those are the crucial ones. You can see these are very broad.

00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:50.000
And not everybody has the same religious beliefs, not everybody has the same view of public officials perhaps. It's The whole code is based on a morality.

00:13:50.000 --> 00:14:00.000
But it's a very broad generalized morality. There are things in it. We're not supposed to have nakedness or prolonged passionate love scenes.

00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:15.000
There are things that are that are sort of matters of taste, I suppose, to some degree. But a big part of it is this is this, this moral imperative that films and certainly the one about that might instruct the week and methods of committing a crime.

00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:27.000
They were absolutely adamant that if that you might see a film and the film might actually teach you how to be a criminal and it might lower your morals and you might go and become a criminal because you'd seen someone in a film, you might become a criminal because you'd seen someone in a film do it.

00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:38.000
So that's the formula. That sticks for a while and then in 1,927 Hayes proposed a list of don't and be careful.

00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.000
The committee that put this together include representatives from MGM from Fox and from Paramount Fox aren't twentieth century Fox yet by this point.

00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:58.000
They're just Fox and Paramount. So Top industry guys are getting involved and the same and they are all guys as well unfortunately and they're saying yes we'll join in with this and then we will we will have all signed up.

00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:02.000
To, to, to the list. So the don't and be careful is a much longer list.

00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:13.000
Don't think, but it's broadly based on the same. The same list of the of the formula.

00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:25.000
So it includes things like profanity as in their Any sort of licentious or suggested nudity, they say, even in silhouette, any any inference of sex perversion.

00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:34.000
Which is an interesting sentence in and of itself because what one person considers perversion is there's going to be gray areas.

00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:43.000
Any sex relationships between the white and black races and I stress that that is a quote So this is a really important, a really important part of it.

00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:54.000
We're still dealing with a segregated America at this point. So there is not to be Even the hint of a relationship between a black person and a white person on the screen.

00:15:54.000 --> 00:16:02.000
And certainly not a love scene, even even a tame one. That is not going to be. That is not going to be in movies at all because that's not going to wash.

00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:05.000
And that's not going to wash. Well, where's that not going to wash in the south?

00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:11.000
And move so that's not gonna that's not gonna happen for movies under under the code. Ridicule of the clergy is in there as well.

00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:38.000
That's an important one. And then the Be Careful list includes things that you should be cautious about showing and that includes things like the use of firearms, theft, robbery, safe cracking, dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, and they've added to that having in mind the effect which a too detailed description of these may have upon the moron.

00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:45.000
So the more running question is the person that might watch it be stupid and think I could dynamite a train.

00:16:45.000 --> 00:16:50.000
Techniques of committing murder. Simpathy for criminals. Be careful about making synthetic criminals.

00:16:50.000 --> 00:17:01.000
Of course, this is a moral code. Attitude towards public characters and institutions. Titles or scenes having to do with law enforcement or law enforcing officers.

00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:09.000
So there's clearly a really practical element to the, to the, to the Dumps and Big Air Force.

00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:14.000
Much concerned with the idea that people may copy. I mean, it could be criminals that they saw on screen.

00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:21.000
But it's also one of Quite conservative morals, it's an attempt to stop the films.

00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:31.000
Being having any sort of license element to them, that may reflect on the people that made the films and that may lower the moral tone of anyone that sees them.

00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:34.000
Let's get rid of hayes i feel like he's been staring at us from the corner of my screen.

00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:43.000
Watching over me to make sure I don't bridge the code. The full code, the full haze code.

00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:55.000
Is implemented in 1,930. So what happens is, the editor of the trade paper motion picture Herald, who's a guy called Martin Quigley. He's a Catholic layman.

00:17:55.000 --> 00:18:01.000
And he gets together with a Jesuit priest. I know this sounds like the beginning of a joke, but I promise it's not.

00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:14.000
The brilliantly named father Daniel A. Lord, he's a Jesuit priest. So he and Martin quickly get together and they write a code of standards and submit it to the studios.

00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:19.000
Father Lord is particularly worried about sound and the effect that the the arrival of sound may have. He writes later, Silent Smuck had been bad.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:37.000
Vocal smut cried to the senses for vengeance. So quickly and, quickly and Lord, meet with Studio Heads and there's some revisions, but then finally the MPDAA and the studios agree to implement.

00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:46.000
The code. They are afraid that if they don't implement it, someone will come up with an even stone or a more stringent code and they'll have to implement it.

00:18:46.000 --> 00:19:04.000
Now I've got an image of the text of the code. The full code is quite long. Let me I've got a page a bit here which I can show you which might be quite interesting.

00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:12.000
So the full code itself is quite long. It's got the, the document has a list of reasons for the code and so forth.

00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:24.000
It's basically based around these 3 general principles. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it, hence the sympathy of of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.

00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:32.000
That's part one. Part 2 is correct standards of life subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment should be presented.

00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:45.000
Well, correct standards of life. Who's correct standards of whose life? I'm the third one is law, natural or human shall not be ridiculed nor nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:51.000
So the code is emphasizing traditional values. Sex outside marriage always had to be. Presented as bad.

00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:57.000
Any any same-sex activity that's totally not allowed, that's off the table.

00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:05.000
All crime has to be punished without sympathy. All authority figures have to be respected, judges, policemen, etc.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:12.000
They can be individually corrupt as long as the film makes it clear that they're the exception to the rule that the institution is good.

00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:22.000
The clergy can't be made fun of. Or be bad is. The audience should always know right from wrong and they should and they should feel that they know that.

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:28.000
Now of course, almost immediately there's a push back.

00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:33.000
And almost immediately there's non-enforcement. The board have to look at 500 films a year.

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:40.000
They've only got a very small staff. One of the very first films that they look at is and I'll share a few posters here.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:46.000
And one of the very first films they look at

00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:53.000
Is the Blue Angel. Monday and Dietrich in the Blue Angel.

00:20:53.000 --> 00:21:04.000
And, they pass it intact. The MP, the NPDAA, NPDA, the California sensor takes a look at it and says no it's indecent.

00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:13.000
So right from the very beginning you've got you've got the code not even actually working to deter to deter in the individual censorship boards in individual states.

00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:20.000
Lots of filmmakers flout the code initially and several publications speak out against it. So there's a magazine called The Nation.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:31.000
And they point out they say if law and justice are presented as the same thing. Then you couldn't make a film about the Boston Tea Party.

00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:37.000
Because all those guys that tipped with that T in the sea, they were all breaking the law. So under the under the code they should all be punished.

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:44.000
But actually they don't get punished. They create a nation, the nation in which we're now watching this film.

00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:47.000
Likewise, you wouldn't be able to make a sympathetic film about the suffragettes, for example.

00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:53.000
The suffragettes were all, were all criminals, so they all have to be punished at the end of the film.

00:21:53.000 --> 00:21:59.000
So this idea that law and justice are the same thing is something that filmmakers have trouble with immediately.

00:21:59.000 --> 00:22:08.000
In 1931 a screenwriter who's anonymous says in the Hollywood reporter the Hayes moral code is not even a joke, says in the Hollywood reporter, the Hayes moral code is not even a joke anymore, it's just a memory.

00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:14.000
Notice that he calls it the hay's moral code. It's, it's not Gorbachev, it's just with the hayescope, but he knows.

00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:21.000
They know it's an open, it's an openly discussed thing that it's a that it's a code based on morality.

00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:32.000
Now, even before it gets really implemented, some filmmakers go to go to some lengths to sort of protect themselves against it.

00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:41.000
I want to show you a very short clip. This clip is from the beginning of the movie Scarface, the first Scarface.

00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:46.000
This is, 1,932, the first Scarface by Howard Hawks.

00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:50.000
It's based on the novel Armitage Trail, which is the Life of Al Capone.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:23:01.000
So it's about a bunch of gangsters doing a bunch of gangster stuff and they they're well-dressed and they're cool and they're sexy, they're everything you want gangsters to be.

00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:05.000
Under the haze code, gangsters can't be cool and sexy and get away with anything.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:17.000
They can't be brave. We have to come down hard on them So. There's an absolute moral panic about this film, and it's heavily cut.

00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:47.000
Even to even to screen it in, 1,932. And Hawkes has to put this little disclaimer at the beginning of the film.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:31.000
That's quite high handed stuff isn't it when you read that the movie is essentially retrospectively re-pitching itself as a social conscience picture.

00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:36.000
Look at these criminals, aren't they awful? What are you going to do about it? The film never takes that tone for an hour and a half.

00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:43.000
It's a load of gangsters with Tommy guns shooting stuff up. It's exactly what you want from a 1930 s gangster picture.

00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:45.000
But Hawks has had to stick that card on at the beginning of the, at the beginning of the film.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:56.000
As a way of, as a way of basically saying, we're not We don't sympathize with this guy.

00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:14.000
And, and if you do, you're the baddie and basically right to your right to your congressman and say I want these gangsters out of course it's complete it's can't it's it's it's awful he doesn't really believe that it's he sees the code coming and he's getting his defense in first.

00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:20.000
But he has to also change. Make an important change. To what happens to the main character in Scarface eventually.

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:33.000
So at the very end of the film, he is he's holed up in his hideout and you're surrounded by the police.

00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:42.000
All his gang members are all dead. And this is how this is this is the denumont of the movie.

00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:59.000
And that

00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:05.000
No suit! There's your gun! Look at him, I'm all over. I can no gun.

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:13.000
See, I, give me a, what you got, I know. Who you ever respect to? I got nobody, I'm all alone.

00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:18.000
Little boy's gun. Thank you, Lord God.

00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:24.000
Steel showers don't work. I should have to bet. I come back, give me a breakaway.

00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:27.000
You haven't covered the, I can't do that.

00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:35.000
Give me papers. I told you you shop this way Get you in the jam without a gun.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.000
Yes, we like a yellow rat.

00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:51.000
Gram in the bed.

00:26:51.000 --> 00:27:00.000
The crucial thing about his death is that he dies a coward. He loses his nerve and he dies a coward so that we absolutely don't respect him.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:05.000
At the end, he has to be proven that he's been a coward all along. And that's the the code insists on that.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.000
He can't he can't go out in a place of glory like in the Scarface remake.

00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:15.000
So it's really, it's a really good bit of instruction that in how the code is working.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:24.000
I around the same sort of time a year later in 33, it's slightly, a slightly different approach to the code on screen.

00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:29.000
This is a moment from the Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup. This is a very short clip.

00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:40.000
They're having They're having a little bit of fun here with the fact that married couples in movies when the code comes in aren't allowed to have aren't allowed to share a double bed.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:58.000
So the Marks Brothers squeeze in a little joke at the expense of the code.

00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:03.000
And

00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:16.000
You

00:28:16.000 --> 00:28:26.000
Chico can't share a bed with his wife, but he can share a bed with his horse is essentially what the Marx brothers are telling us at that point and it's a it's a bit of fun being poked at the at the code.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:41.000
There's a 1933 bit of research done by the pain fund who are private organization they analyze the effect of movies on children and it leads to the publication of a book called our movie made children by Henry James Foreman.

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:51.000
Which concludes that the movies have a massive effect on children. But it's written in quite an emotional style and it's, it's not easy to read.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:58.000
But this is, there is very much this concern about kids seeing movies, and the effect might have on them.

00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:13.000
And then by mid 1934, the production code has grown teeth. You have to, by 34 you have to get a seal from the production code administration and products the PCA seal looks like.

00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:19.000
Whoops, looks like that. All films will have to have 1 one of these.

00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:35.000
And without it, you won't be able to release your, release your film. The studio's own all the cinemas at this point, so it's a it's it's exactly they can they can make that happen and it's it's still an important part of self-pleasing.

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:49.000
In 1934, Joseph Breen becomes head of the production code administration. Here's a picture of Joseph Green looking Quite stern.

00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:54.000
So Breen becomes head of the, of the PCA at this point. He's known for his sternness.

00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:10.000
So it's important to remember that the scheme is always voluntary. But the industry stick to it to avoid having anything more harder and more harder, harder and more draconian imposed on them from outside.

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:18.000
So lots of films. Lots of films have to be, have to be altered. Going into the, into the forties.

00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:20.000
The film Rebecca and I've got I can share posters as I do this bit.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:37.000
The film Rebecca comes out in 1,940. That's it's Adapted from the novel, of course, in the novel, Maxim De Wenter killed his first wife and got away with it.

00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:48.000
In the film adaptation that would breach the code. So it's changed. So that, she died in an accident and he merely covered it up, which is not quite as much of a crime and permissible.

00:30:48.000 --> 00:31:02.000
Under the code. What about What about Casablanca? I, which everybody knows, from, 1,942, Michael Cartiz.

00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:19.000
Breen insisted that the idea that Captain Renault was a sexual predator and exploited the young women in Casablanca be made less explicit and he also insisted that Rick the idea that Rick and Elsa may have slept together in Paris because she was still married to Paul Henry's character, couldn't be in the film.

00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:21.000
And because of the code, the ending has to be the way it is. Rick and Elsa could never be rewarded for their extra marital relationship.

00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:43.000
That she has to go off. She has to go off with the husband. Probably the most famous bit of pushing back against the against the code is this movie, which is not worth looking at a clip of.

00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:52.000
Poster kind of tells the whole story. This is Excuse me, just make this a bit smaller so you can see it.

00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:00.000
This is the outlaw. From, 1943, directed by Howard Hughes.

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:05.000
It was, they made it in 1,941, but it's not released widely till 46.

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:06.000
Howard Hughes deliberately stirred up controversy, made the film seem like it was going to be much sexier than it was.

00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:21.000
It's actually a pretty tame retelling of the Billy the Kids story. But Hughes knew that if he advertised it with quite a lot of Jane Russell's cleavage, he would make the film seem much more scandalous than it actually was.

00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:30.000
He himself tried to get it banned at the same time that he was trying to get it released because he knew that all publicity is good publicity.

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:40.000
And at 1 point it was released in 43 without a production code seal.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:46.000
Well, that eventually RKO release it and it makes them over 5 million US dollars, which is a, which is a pretty tidy sum.

00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:57.000
But it's, It's the beginning of filmmakers really pushing back I think against the code and sort of manipulating what they can and can't get a filmmakers really pushing back I think against the code and sort of manipulating what they can and can't get away with.

00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:06.000
Also going into the, Going into the into the forties, there's also an influence from British movies.

00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:15.000
So the the otherwise tame Gainsborough pictures, we have the wicked lady from 1,945 and I've got a very I can show you a very brief clip from the wicked lady.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:21.000
The wicked lady is the top British film, the top film of the British box office, the top British film at the British Proxopus in 1,946.

00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:31.000
Still one of the best performing British films ever to adjust for inflation. Gets in massive censorship trouble.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:41.000
One, because the costumes display too much cleavage. And the piece the production code administration notes on the wicked lady is the first time the word cleavage is used to refer to a woman's bust.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:50.000
That's an interesting fact for you, but also because the main character is quite immoral and enjoys it.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:56.000
And it's a huge problem and big chunks of it have to be big chunks of it have to be re-shot.

00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:04.000
Let me. Show you a little bit of the wicked lady so you can see what I what I mean so a sequence like this where she shows how How immoral she is.

00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:14.000
It's very troublesome for the American market.

00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:21.000
Come in.

00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:26.000
Morning, Barbara. Oh, you. I gave orders I wasn't to be disturbed.

00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:31.000
You have to get up sometime.

00:34:31.000 --> 00:34:40.000
I want to speak to you about Ralph. Not first thing in the morning, please.

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.000
There's a meeting downstairs about the highwayman. What about them? They're blaming Ralph.

00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:50.000
For Why? For being too lenient on the bench.

00:34:50.000 --> 00:35:01.000
What am I supposed to do about it? Barbara, he needs your help and understanding if you took a little interest in his work.

00:35:01.000 --> 00:35:05.000
What's happened between you and Ralph?

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Nothing. That's just the trouble. I'm sick to death of entertaining his dreary guests, of listening to their endless discussions on the quarter sessions, poachers, tenants, crops.

00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:21.000
I'm sick of hearing the same family prayers morning after morning of sitting in the skeleton pew every Sunday of the year.

00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:25.000
Most of all, I'm sick of Ralph.

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:31.000
You mean you don't love him anymore? I never have.

00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:42.000
But you took him from me. I knew. Could resist anything that belonged to somebody else. I thought it would be amusing to be Lady Skeleton to have money, jewels, lead a gay, exciting life.

00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:49.000
What Ralph thinks about is his duty. I hate him for it. And you pretended to love him.

00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:52.000
You knew how I loved him. Yet you took him from me. He let me humiliate myself at your wedding.

00:35:52.000 --> 00:36:03.000
He persuaded me to stay here when, when every instinct urged me to go away. I'm getting a little tired of having you remind me of mistakes I'd sooner forget.

00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:18.000
I think the point with the wicked lady is The immorality is more a problem than the cleavage, although both get written about extensively in the in the PCA notes, production code administration notes for that particular film.

00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:28.000
Bob, British films are making their way into the American market at this point. There's also going into the forties and fifties All this all the film studios are weakened.

00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:37.000
TV has come along and people aren't going to the cinema as much. There's a court case in 1,948 that says that the studios have to sell off their cinema chains.

00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:44.000
It's a they've got they've become too much of a monopoly. Now they don't own their cinema chains anymore.

00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:50.000
Those cinemas go independent, those cinemas now don't need to insist on there being a PCA seal attached to the film.

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.000
They can scream whatever they want. The problem is now the studios, not the cinemas.

00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:03.000
So that changes everything. Also, foreign films aren't bound by the code. So there's an Italian anthology film called The Ways of Love.

00:37:03.000 --> 00:37:13.000
That comes out I can show you a poster of that the ways of love comes out in that 19 in 1,950.

00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:15.000
And it's it's distributed in the US and it has one sequence in it that seems to mock the nativity.

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:35.000
So the New York censorship board ban it. And there's a core case and the court case overturns the 1,915 ruling that says films aren't protected by the first amendment and decides that films are protected by the First Amendment after all.

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:54.000
So that really weakens the production code. And and all arguments for censorship really so so attached to that to the to the second amendment are the British films, come through, we get a film like

00:37:54.000 --> 00:38:05.000
Like victim, from 1,961, Basil Deerden, or, at the same time, a taste of honey, the Tony Richardson film.

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:06.000
They both portray sympathetic homosexuals. They both portrayed sex outside marriage even childbirth outside marriage.

00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:28.000
So I mean victim in its in its presentation of a of a gay character. It can't. It can't go that far, but it's clearly what the what the story is about and it's breaking taboos and it's showing things on screen.

00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:34.000
And presenting storylines that are sort of prohibited by the code. But it's going to get released in America.

00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:47.000
American filmmakers start to push back as well. Amazingly, some like it hot isn't given a production code seal because of it's themes and it didn't really hurt the film.

00:38:47.000 --> 00:38:56.000
But the guy that pushes back the most is Otto Preminger. He pushes back, the man with the golden arm in 1,955, portrays drug use.

00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:06.000
In a some semi-sympathetic way. Anatomy of a murder from 1,959 talks quite openly about murder and rape.

00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:28.000
In a way that is that has not been not permissible on the screen up to that point. And then Sydney Lumette makes a film in 1,964 called The Pawnbroker, which is a film about the Holocaust and it's and it's quite dark and quite difficult to watch in places, but it's the It's the first one of the very first American

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:33.000
films. To contain any sort of nudity. And it's given special dispensation.

00:39:33.000 --> 00:39:41.000
By the MPAA because of its artistic merit because it's about a serious topic it's allowed to break the code.

00:39:41.000 --> 00:39:54.000
In other places. So by 1963 the the head of the the NPBDA and now just the MPAA.

00:39:54.000 --> 00:39:59.000
And the new head of the MPA is Eric Johnson. He's, he's liberalized things a bit.

00:39:59.000 --> 00:40:06.000
But he dies in 63 and there's a bit of a power struggle and he's eventually replaced by a guy called, a guy called Jack.

00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:20.000
Jack Valenti, Jack Valenti. And the outcome of the power struggle is very much going to be the outcome of whether the code carries on and whether whether it can still work in the new world.

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:27.000
One of the things they do is they create the the suggested for mature audiences label. So when.

00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:34.000
So when who's afraid of Virginia Wolf, the Mike Nichols fell, comes out in, that's that same year.

00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:44.000
That's the first film to have suggested from a your audience says nobody is tasked with actually enforcing that and making sure that only mature audience is going to see the film.

00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:59.000
It's just a suggestion. It's the beginning of a sort of admitting that that the things things are changing and that we're gonna there's going to need to be different classifications of films something they've been really reluctant to do up to this point.

00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:07.000
The same year, 66, so they come up with a list of of 11 points, 11 things that will mean you get you get suggested for mature audiences.

00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:18.000
The same year Michelangelo and Taoni directs, blow up.

00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:24.000
I was going to say the British film blow up, but is it a British film? It's, it's US financed.

00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:32.000
Italian directed made in Britain block, but crucially the money has come. The money has come from MGM in the States to make blob.

00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:40.000
Now blow up is one of the, it's one of the first films, screened, if not the first film screened in America, to contain full frontal nudity.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:48.000
Very briefly, but it's there. So it's denied a production code sale. It's denied a sale and, and they say this isn't, and this isn't going to be screened.

00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:57.000
So what MGM do? Is they create a special subsidiary called Premier Productions.

00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:06.000
Premier Productions aren't a member of the MPAA. So they can release blow up and they can release it into a cinema or cinemas that they don't own.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:09.000
And I mean that's it's such an obvious loophole. It's crazy that someone hasn't thought of doing that before.

00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:24.000
But the fact that it works is I think a sign of of, of changing. Of changing times and how the public are beginning to want.

00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:30.000
Different, different fad that beginning to one things, the type of stories that were told before the code.

00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:37.000
The public are beginning and again to sort of have a hankering for more serious stuff and the code is just not gonna it's not going to be able to deliver that.

00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:47.000
So that's 66 very rapidly after that the whole thing sort of collapsed and in 1,968 the whole code is abandoned.

00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:55.000
And the NPA, instead of having one code that all films need to adhere to, they create, their system of film.

00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:06.000
Ratings, which is G for everyone, M for suggested mature. For no accompanied under 16 s and x.

00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:18.000
Which is which is for over 18 s only x is the only strict one the rest are all optional the rest you can ignore the x for over 18 is the is the one that you absolutely have to have to abide by.

00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:30.000
And the very, the following year, just just a year later, we get this film, Midnight Cowboy.

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:36.000
Which is released in it's released in 68 and it's a recent 69. I think it wins the Oscar.

00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:46.000
It's raised in 69 and it wins the Best Picture Oscar. So it's the very first Oscar Best Picture Oscar winner that's X rated.

00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:57.000
Of course. There haven't been any x rated problems up to that so it's a bit of it's a It's an almost meaningless accolade, but it just goes to show that.

00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:12.000
Okay, with that rating. And therefore that limited audience can still win can still win best picture. Important to remember that this new system of film ratings that should the G's, the M's, the A's and so forth.

00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:29.000
That is the system. The We and Britain have had since the 19 teens. So they, the Americans basically spent the best part of 50 years trying to implement this code and trying to, trying to sort of accommodate.

00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:52.000
All the questions of taste and morality. And they end up with a solution which we've had all along which is that some films after some audiences and other films are for other audiences and it's probably better not to mix them, which seems like an incredibly simple solution and it's the one they finally arrive at at the end of the sixties and at that point the code is no more.

00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:57.000
And that's pretty much the end of the story. I promised Fiona that I would, draw to a close at quarter to so that we can take questions and I've seen loads of questions popping up.

00:44:57.000 --> 00:45:08.000
So. I'm happy to field them now. I think I think managed to time that quite right.

00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:09.000
Good.

00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:12.000
It's a we spent a lot there. So thank you for your thank you for your attention. Across that whole story.

00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:18.000
There's a there's a lot gone on so maybe we can dig into some more of it with the questions if I know the answers and those that I don't I promise I'll go away and try and find out.

00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:27.000
Yeah, thanks very much Christopher. We will go straight to some questions. Now, I'm going to start from the top.

00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:35.000
No, this was a question from Sue. Obviously the code started to evolve, thought was it, 1,930 you said?

00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:40.000
Was this still the time of silent movies?

00:45:40.000 --> 00:46:04.000
It's the code comes in just after, silent pictures. So you've got your, the first one is the, the first kind of Inkling of the code is the the the the formula which is 1,924 silent movies really lasted about 27 You get that very, very rapid transition to sound pictures in 27 because nobody wants to be left behind.

00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:30.000
Still producing silent films the public the moment the public see talkies in 27 almost every film in 1928 they're almost no talk is released it happens happens really fast the transition happens happens really really quickly so the formula the 13 elements to avoid he introduces that in 24 the Dunston be careful is coming in 27 which is the sort of transitional point The code comes in in 30.

00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:35.000
But it's not really enforced till you have to have the production code seal, which is 34.

00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:44.000
So we kind of measure the real implementation of the code from from from 34 so it's definitely the beginnings Do do take place, during, during silent pictures.

00:46:44.000 --> 00:47:00.000
Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great concern. Like I said at the beginning, the concern doesn't necessarily stem from the fact that the films are the evil or salacious or immoral.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:09.000
It really starts with the idea that the film makers and the film stars are out there in California doing a moral things and maybe that makes the films immoral.

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:17.000
It stems from a kind of fear of the fear of the new to some degree. But there's definitely a whole sort of tranche of.

00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:24.000
More, more sort of grown-up. Dramas that are referred to as pre code, pre code films.

00:47:24.000 --> 00:47:37.000
And they're normally all talkies, so there's a period from 27 to 34 that's sort of as precoat cinema where they can get away with a bit more and there are stories about infidelity.

00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:51.000
There's a very famous movies about, well, lots of them are about, simply about women having jobs, women in the workplace because of course the code when it comes in really reinforces the idea of traditional values.

00:47:51.000 --> 00:48:02.000
I think I think Betty Davis in an interview I'd sold up recently she says that what the code did was it took it took women away from being lawyers and judges and turned them all into housewives again because it's its traditional values.

00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:08.000
So there's a lot more interesting stuff happening in those precoat pictures for sure from the end of the science.

00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:13.000
I know that wasn't quite the question I've deviated a bit, but I always do.

00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:14.000
Okay.

00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:19.000
Yeah. Thank you. Now a question from Ruth.

00:48:19.000 --> 00:48:26.000
Where any other of Hitchcock's films apart from Rebecca Sina's problematic?

00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:27.000
It's them to the

00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:36.000
Oh, that's a good. That's a good question. Not off the top of my head!

00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:41.000
Can I think of one really? I think Hitchcock was always quite good at playing the studio game.

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:55.000
Oh yes, the someone just said the notorious kiss there is. So in what's the phone with with a Nazi hunting someone's gonna help me out with this no So that's great.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:04.000
I'm glad someone said the case because that's absolutely right. In the Hitchcock film notorious there's a Ingrid Bergman and Carrie Grant, they kiss.

00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:14.000
But the the haze code had said that a kiss can only be 3 s on screen maximum So H.Cop wants them to have a longer, a longer kiss.

00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:16.000
So the way they do it is they have lots of tiny little kisses and it goes on for about 10 min.

00:49:16.000 --> 00:49:32.000
They're sort of talking, guessing, talking, kissing, talking, kissing and it's really unnatural but it's hitchcock basically saying there you go not one of these kisses is more than 3 s long so he's having a little bit of he's having a little bit of fun with the with the code at that point.

00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:38.000
I think Hitchcock was clever enough to know. How to circumvent it and knock himself in too much trouble.

00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:44.000
He worked for so many different studios, Hitchcock was always considered a sort of a reasonably safe pair of hands.

00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:47.000
But I'm glad someone said that in the chat. All they said was the kiss and I knew exactly what they meant.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:58.000
So yeah, that's notorious, which is, it's just after the war actually 46 i think because it's about it's about escaped nazis.

00:49:58.000 --> 00:49:59.000
Okay.

00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:04.000
Hmm. Okay, right, I've got a couple of questions from Stuart that I'm gonna sort of put to you together.

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:08.000
So the first one is

00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:16.000
Well, it's a question. What is it? Was it possible to avoid the code by claiming a film was educational?

00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:27.000
And also, are you aware of any substantial move back to tighter control in the U.S.A. today.

00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:35.000
I think, so to take the first, take the first part of that. I don't think so.

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:53.000
I think there are cases where a film would be where the code would be applied more likely on films. If they, if they NPA thought they had particular merit and I think we get that with the, with the porn broker because it's that has a bit of nudity in it, but the nudity is not, it's not supposed to be.

00:50:53.000 --> 00:51:13.000
Titilating nudity for one of the better work. It's it's it's quite dark nudity and the whole film is about the Holocaust so it's like the sense of drop, it casts a slightly blind eye to that little bit and passes that and that's That's very much like the system we had in the UK, particularly when John Trevelyan was in charge

00:51:13.000 --> 00:51:17.000
of the BBFC, he would often give a film. Be more lenient with a movie.

00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:33.000
If he thought the movie was had artistic merit. Rather than you know rather than it just being it just being something cheap and cheerful entertainment.

00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:39.000
Certainly a few of the, of the more explicit. Swedish movies things like I am curious yellow and stuff that come through at the end of the sixtys.

00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:52.000
That are sort of ostensibly sort of educating about sex and so forth. But they don't really pop up until the code is kind of on its knees anyway.

00:51:52.000 --> 00:51:58.000
So it's hard to know if somebody would have made an I am curious yellow kind of 5 or 10 years.

00:51:58.000 --> 00:52:08.000
Or 20 years previous. So I don't think there was an exemption for educational, but there were exemptions for some unofficial exemptions for artistic merit I think to some degree.

00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:09.000
Okay.

00:52:09.000 --> 00:52:14.000
Last question I've, I've made.

00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:15.000
Okay.

00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:21.000
And it was let me just find it are there any are you aware of any substantial move back towards tighter control in the U.S.A. today.

00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:31.000
I think in some ways with streaming and the fact that so many people watch movies at home now I think in some ways with streaming and the fact that so many people watch movies at home now, I think in some ways the the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:39.000
I mean, like I said at the beginning, this I got thinking about this because of a young, a young reviewers or a young kind of article writer's piece.

00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:47.000
About the sopranos, you know, saying the sopranos is problematic saying, isn't it problematic all these guys in the sopranos have got these young girlfriends and nobody ever comments on it?

00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:51.000
It's like, yeah, it's because they're It's because they're gangsters.

00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:56.000
It's because they're all from Mobs. We don't, the show doesn't need to take a moral stance on it.

00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:06.000
And I think there, I think there is a sense. In some circles that the our entertainment.

00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:21.000
Should should have a moral element to it and that we shouldn't see things that offend us or upset us but i don't think that's going to take hold across a sort of across a the sort of broader world of Hollywood because I just think It's impossible.

00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:31.000
The real, the real money is with streaming services now. And your Apple and your Netflix and so forth and your Disney Plus are so much more powerful.

00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:38.000
So I don't think they'll be. A push back to sort of say, well, yeah, that's right.

00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:49.000
The, the, you know, the bad is always need to be punished. Interestingly, it's in Chinese, and, and in Hong Kong cinema, that's always been the case.

00:53:49.000 --> 00:54:06.000
If you watch I know it's a silly example but if you watch any of the sort of Bruce Lee films and things from the from the seventys even though Bruce is a sort of campaigner for justice if he breaks the law he has to go to jail at the end you're like not Bruce Lee he's the good guy but it's it's sort of imperative that he go to jail.

00:54:06.000 --> 00:54:12.000
I don't think we're there anymore and I think the I think the moral certainty has gone out of it to some degree.

00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:22.000
I think it was always difficult. To maintain a code based on a set of morality because, like I said, during during the talk.

00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:36.000
You know, who's morality? Mine may be different to someone else's. It has to be you have to be able to make the claim that you're speaking on behalf of a nation and I think that is I think we're ever more polarized and ever more split up these days.

00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:38.000
I can't imagine anyone being able to take that position.

00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:47.000
Hmm, okay, thank you. And a question from David and what about sweating and films? Where certain words and breach of the code.

00:54:47.000 --> 00:55:01.000
Oh yeah, as early as the formula. Well, in the formula, which is 1924, so it's still in the silent days, one of the things that should be avoided is salacious sub titles.

00:55:01.000 --> 00:55:13.000
So I, I imagine, I imagine, Any kind of profanity in would be included in the 1927 Don't and be careful.

00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:21.000
The number one in notes and be careful is number one in dotes is pointed profanity by either title or lip.

00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:38.000
This includes the words God, Lord, Jesus and Christ, unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies, Hell Dam, God, spelt GAWD, and every other profane and vulgar expression, however it may be spelled.

00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:39.000
Yeah.

00:55:39.000 --> 00:55:41.000
So every other profane and vulgar expression. So Yeah so that's very much out.

00:55:41.000 --> 00:55:54.000
I It's not film, it's TV, but there's a there's an early episode of Star Trek on American TV where something awful has happened to Captain Kirk and the show has to end with him saying, let's get the hell out of here.

00:55:54.000 --> 00:56:09.000
And they got a massive push back on by the he was out to say hell or not and whether that could be whether that episode could be shown in the Bible Belt and whether people would push back and say, can't be shown in the Bible belt and whether people would push back and say, Captain, can't say hell on TV.

00:56:09.000 --> 00:56:15.000
And so if that's TV in the sixties you can imagine how much more strict the movies of the decades prior to that are.

00:56:15.000 --> 00:56:16.000
So for sure, yeah, absolutely.

00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:27.000
Yeah, and just coming back to the court again, this is from Ruth. Was there, did there seem to be more concern about sexual behaviour than the use of guns and violence.

00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:38.000
I think people have always said this about American. Films, I've heard it said. American sensors are they're much more, they're much they come down much heavier.

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:53.000
On sex in films than they do on violence. And some people have suggested that it's because American films are broadly No very sexy and quite violent, whereas European films are broadly not very violent and quite sexy.

00:56:53.000 --> 00:57:01.000
And so it's actually a kind of industrial protectionist thing where they ski to keeping European films out of the American marketplace but actually That doesn't really stand up because where did that start?

00:57:01.000 --> 00:57:17.000
Americans aren't by nature. That way, nor, you know, it's so there is there is concern over The use of weapons and violence in the in the code but it's far more to do with the fact that people might.

00:57:17.000 --> 00:57:23.000
That people might copy it. It's far more to do with the fact that kids or the people that they love that they that they say is that they're called morons.

00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:37.000
And the more on may see this and then go and try and blow up a train themselves. So they're far more concerned that the violence may be maybe, instructional and that you might, you might learn something from it that you shouldn't really be learning.

00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:46.000
Which I suppose isn't quite the same as sex and nudity.

00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:55.000
Hmm. Okay, thank you. And a question where we're just about time folks. I think we'll take this question and then have to start wrapping up.

00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:56.000
This is from Jill. How far do you think all of this that we've just been talking about today?

00:57:56.000 --> 00:58:07.000
Correlates to the present concern over internet and social media content and influence. It's quite a big question.

00:58:07.000 --> 00:58:10.000
Gosh, that's a huge question.

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:14.000
Yeah.

00:58:14.000 --> 00:58:21.000
I don't know, that's hard to answer because Like I say, the code was always, the code was always moral.

00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:31.000
And so in the years of the code, they were really keen to preserve cinema. As a place where where anybody could go and see anything.

00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:49.000
And the idea that Sinema was was for all ages, something that particularly in Hollywood, or in America more than in the UK, that they really How long to and that primarily for for economic reasons they don't want to even now You don't really want your film to have an NC.

00:58:49.000 --> 00:58:58.000
17 or an R rating because it means that a lot of film goers who would have seen the film won't and you you simply won't make as much money from a film that has a higher rating.

00:58:58.000 --> 00:59:08.000
Some filmmakers now kind of want it as a badge of honor. But this idea that cinema was entertainment for everyone is kind of crucially important to how the how the code worked.

00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:09.000
We've got to make everything palatable for every conceivable audience. And that's obviously a really hard thing to do.

00:59:09.000 --> 00:59:23.000
And I think You know, I send them all progresses. You, you might hang on to that as a utopian idea or film should be viewable by everyone.

00:59:23.000 --> 00:59:34.000
Kind of you might hang on to that as an idea, sort of You know, and until you've got kids and they want to watch sore and then suddenly you might think, no, all definitely all films aren't everyone.

00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:40.000
There's definitely some things that are, that for various reasons are like absolutely. No, not suitable.

00:59:40.000 --> 00:59:47.000
And so we, it makes, I think it does make sense the way we do it now to kind of to stratify.

00:59:47.000 --> 00:59:55.000
S might say, yeah, you're up to this, you have to be this age. To see this it seems like the only pretty fair way of doing it.

00:59:55.000 --> 01:00:01.000
Can you do that with the internet? Can you do that with online material? It's very hard, isn't it?

01:00:01.000 --> 01:00:09.000
It's a the internet is a is a massively changing target. Can you even do it with, can you even do it with film material that you stream through the internet to your house.

01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:27.000
How, you know, if I, I can put on any film I want and I can, and any any of my any of my nests or nephews can come and gladly watch any awful horror film that I that I download from Netflix literally nobody can stop me.

01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:28.000
Hmm.

01:00:28.000 --> 01:00:37.000
It's up to me to not make that happen. And so I guess with the rise of streaming and the rise of our home viewing, it's kind of the same as the internet.

01:00:37.000 --> 01:00:43.000
You sort of need to be aware. If people are, if people that you're in charge of are looking at things that they shouldn't.

01:00:43.000 --> 01:00:48.000
Look at, but if they're smart, they'll find a way to do it.

01:00:48.000 --> 01:00:59.000
And so you have a bit of an arms race I suppose. I don't really think there's any way to say you certainly can't say the whole of the internet should be safe for everyone of all ages to look at because Man, it's really not.

01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:07.000
It's horrible. So by that token, I suppose we need. We, other, we need other checks and we need, we need other things.

01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:13.000
But then the internet was built. On that utopian idea that it's the free flow of information.

01:01:13.000 --> 01:01:22.000
It's just people have filled it with. Violence and pornography, especially pornography. So in some ways we kind of, it kind of speaks to our.

01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:25.000
Our ability to kind of ruin all the nice things we're given. That's probably a slightly different topic.

01:01:25.000 --> 01:01:31.000
So. Yeah, the 2 things aren't comparable in quite the same way, but they do have that link.

01:01:31.000 --> 01:01:36.000
And I think the point where those 2 things meet is definitely this idea of streaming films and watching them at home.

01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:48.000
It's very, and yeah, it's very easy to just use someone else's Netflix or just a lie or just have a family login and not set up parental controls who really knows how to sell the parental controls on their Netflix if they've got kids.

01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:52.000
No one. So it's a That's a changing world, I think. Check in with me in a couple years time.

01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:55.000
Yep.

01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:58.000
I'm not a position on that. We all might have who knows.

01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:02.000
Okay, well thanks very much for that Christopher. I think we'll need to wrap up there.

01:02:02.000 --> 01:02:11.000
That was absolutely fascinating and really interesting to hear how the code came about and what ultimately led to its demise and kind of how we've ended up.

01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:18.000
Where we are now and the code is certainly something that I knew absolutely nothing about until today I had never even heard of it.

01:02:18.000 --> 01:02:27.000
So, so thanks again.