Flying Scotsman to appear at Derby rail gala
Flying Scotsman was the first locomotive to circumnavigate the globe and is now part of the York-based National Railway Museum's collection. In 1934, it was the first locomotive to reach 100mph (160km/h).
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Daily Mail
3 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Gilbert & Sullivan Festival Review: Whether it's The Pirates Of Penzance or Iolanthe, Simon Butteriss is the very model of perfection, says Tully Potter
The Pirates Of Penzance & Iolanthe (Gilbert & Sullivan Festival) Verdict: Worthy tributes to two geniuses NOTHING could be more delightful than opening a G&S Festival programme to discover that Simon Butteriss is singing the role of the Major-General — unless you also see that he is portraying the Lord Chancellor. Rooted in tradition, yet fully aware of the developments in musical theatre, Butteriss's characterisations are, above all, side-achingly funny. Whereas his Major-General in The Pirates is a tad doddery and fuddy-duddy, his Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe is liable to break into a dance at any moment. And his singing is in the great G&S line. Buxton Opera House, with its fine acoustic, is an ideal venue for productions founded on a chorus of just 16 and this year's presentations by the main company are very well cast — I was sorry to miss Princess Ida, later in the first week. Mabel in Pirates is Rebecca Bottone, from a well-known singing family: she is a sassy comedienne as well as a splendid exponent of Sullivan's coloratura. Her Frederic is also very strong, as William Morgan has a fine tenor and moves easily on stage. John Savournin directs as well as singing the Pirate King: he might consider importing into his Act 1 air the trill I distinctly heard him execute in an ensemble. Matthew Kellett is a droll Sergeant but Amy J. Payne, as Ruth, could profitably decide which of her two voices to choose — her changes from one to the other are disconcerting. What an enchanting score Sullivan gave us for Iolanthe. The recent death of his mother surely accounts for the tenderness of some of the music, which has magical pastoral interludes as well as uproarious episodes such as the March Of The Peers or the 'Faint Heart Never Won Fair Lady' trio. First of the Savoy Operas to be premiered at the Savoy Theatre — and the first show to open in London and New York on the same night — it benefited from the new electric lighting. The fairies sported tiny origin of 'fairy-lights'! Sullivan took great care from the first bars of the Overture, and Gilbert's satirical bent was at its zenith. The Festival cast is without a weakness. Irish soprano Kelli-Ann Masterson is a lovely Phyllis and lyric baritone Felix Kemp as Strephon has added a little more body to his very pleasing tone. Meriel Cunningham is a touching Iolanthe, Gaynor Keeble a really queenly Queen of the Fairies. Earls Mountararat (James Cleverton) and Tolloller (Adam Sullivan) not only sing their respective airs with spirit but have a good knockabout relationship on stage. To have veteran Bruce Graham as the philosophical Private Willis is a rare bonus and Savournin's production is resourceful. The chorus and minor role singers are excellent, as are Harriet Ravdin's fairy costumes, the National Festival Orchestra's playing, and the conducting by John Andrews (Pirates) and James Hendry (Iolanthe). Balance was good except (a tiny quibble) that at both Iolanthe performances I attended, parts of the ensemble 'In Vain To Us You Plead' were inaudible.
Telegraph
3 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Cairn-builders are harmless, until suddenly they're a menace
The novelist Iris Murdoch collected stones, which she saw as having a numinous, almost sentient quality. She passed on her fascination to many of her fictional characters, including Anne Cavidge in Nuns and Soldiers, who finds a sense of the divine in the infinite variety of the pebbles on a Cumbrian beach. Murdoch's veneration of stones was shared with countless others throughout the ages: the practice of building a pile of stones to mark some significant place – a tomb, a holy place, a trail – is prehistoric in origin and culturally ubiquitous. Across the globe from Greenland to Hawaii, Somalia to Mongolia, cairns are to be found wherever there are rocks. The landscape of the UK and Ireland is seeded with cairns – the reasons for their construction often mysterious, their mythology ancient and haunting. A similar resonance surrounds the modern cairns made by the landscape artist Andy Goldsworthy. The university of Hertfordshire, which commissioned the Hatfield Cairn from Goldsworthy in 2001, describes his site-specific works as 'masterfully contribut[ing] to the natural beauty of rural locations'. Which brings us hard up against the question of who, now, may build a cairn. In wilderness landscapes around the world, tourists who wouldn't dream of carving their name on the Colosseum are building rock stacks and posting pictures of their handiwork on social media. It might seem a harmless, even a creative act: a Goldsworthy-esque embellishment of the beauty of a wild landscape. But in fact it has become a disfiguring menace: in Iceland, where there is an ancient tradition of cairn building, rock piles made by tourists are known as varta, or warts. Nor is cairn-building the pure, free-spirited activity that its amateur practitioners imagine: ancient monuments have been despoiled and fragile landscapes and habitats rudely disrupted by people bent on making their stony mark. While official pleas to desist go unregarded, tougher measures are being explored. In some Australian states, unofficial cairn-building is classified as vandalism, punishable by a fine. In the peak district national park, where guerrilla rock-piles have become an increasing problem, National Trust volunteers are dismantling tourist cairns, while Stuart Cox, a chartered engineer and hiker known as the Peak District Viking, is battling the social media rock-pilers on their own ground: posting videos of himself enthusiastically demolishing their erections. Cairn-builders with a taste for Murdochian sophism might argue that we cherish ancient graffiti in Pompeii, and venerate neolithic cairns built (presumably) by ordinary people like us. So why the handwringing over the modern iterations of these practices? To which the answer must be: numbers. One lovelock on the Pont des Arts is a romantic gesture; a million threaten to destroy the bridge. Each was significant to the person who put it there, as each cairn meant something to the person who built it. But as the Pompeian graffito puts it: 'I admire you wall, for not having collapsed at having to carry the tedious scribblings of so many writers.' In a pickle Preserving season is in full swing. While I plan to experiment with green figs in syrup, Telegraph reader Robert Ward, busy pickling onions and making chutney, is frustrated by the labels on his recycled jam jars, which stubbornly decline to be removed. One correspondent suggested sticking new labels over the old ones. Which is practical, but not very elegant, if you want to give away the surplus. But I think I have the (literal) solution. After removing as much of the old label as possible, the remaining adhesive succumbs quite meekly to a brisk rubbing with white spirit. Happy pickling!
The Guardian
3 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Readers reply: Is sarcasm the lowest form of wit? If not, what is?
Is sarcasm the lowest form of wit? If not, what is? Jason Frank, Cumbria Send new questions to nq@ I've always wondered why only the first half of the quote by Oscar Wilde is being discussed. The full quote is: 'Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.' Ffesterr Sarcasm is quite complex and can facilitate exceptional sophistication in humour. I think the lowest form of wit is that thing where you repeat the last thing a person said back to them. For example: 'The weather looks a bit wet and windy.' 'You look a bit wet and windy.' Porthos Miners' jokes: they're the pits. bricklayersoption I distanced myself from sarcasm when I realised those I used it with had no idea I was being sarcastic. So, as with the adage that if you have to explain a joke, it isn't a joke; if you have to explain you are being sarcastic, then it isn't wit. dallastxhollywood Not all puns, but the sort of awful puns people come up with when any semblance of cleverness or double meaning is gone from the wordplay and it's just an awkward forcing of words that barely sound right. Say, if people were trying to pun about cheese and someone said: 'That would be a gouda time.' Jebedee Dunno – I thought that was edam good joke. PeteTheBeat A man went into a baker's shop and asked: 'Do you have any buns?' The baker replied: 'We no longer bake buns.' 'Why ever not?' asked the man. The baker replied: 'Because the bun is the lowest form of wheat.' Scotford Lawrence
