Latest news with #C.S.Lewis
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Guess the reason behind New York cabbie's claim to fame...
The Diary is now eagerly awaiting the Scottification of other notable works of fantasy. Very soon we are sure to be watching an improved movie version of C.S. Lewis's classic yarn… The Highland Cow, The Witch and the Wardrobe. And instead of hobbits travelling to the evil land of Mordor, there will be an iteration of The Lord of the Rings where a fellowship of small hairy men called the nesbitts make their way from Glasgow into the heinous kingdom of England. Of course, Scotland doesn't just specialise in fantasy fiction. We're also a dab hand at gritty realism, as you'll now discover by reading the following classic tales from our archives… Waterworks don't work A Canada-based reader visiting Scotland was on the train from Oban to Glasgow where two chaps were in a desperate hurry to get past the refreshment trolley in order to get to the toilet. 'After some shuffling and shunting,' said our reader, 'the Glesga wummin in charge of the trolley managed to let them past, interrupting her sales patter just long enough to announce to everyone in the carriage, 'Thae men – their prostates are a' gone', then carried on selling coffee and sandwiches.' Added our reader: 'I sat with my legs tight crossed until we got to Glasgow.' Foreign affairs A woman in a Glasgow coffee shop was heard telling her friend that she went to see her doctor about a back pain, and he recommended she see a chiropractor. 'I swear,' she added, 'for a few seconds I thought he was wanting to send me to Egypt.' The fame game An East Kilbride reader got into a cab in New York and noticed from the driver's licence that he was named Robert Burns. Making conversation, our reader said: 'That's a famous name you have.' 'It should be,' replied the chap, 'I've been driving a cab here for nearly 40 years.' Horsing around Will the poor folk at Tesco never catch a break? A reader told us: 'Seen leaving Lochgilphead last Saturday… the white articulated Tesco delivery truck with the additional text, graffiti-style, along the length of the trailer, hand-written in the traffic grime: 'Caution – horses in transit'.' The absolute goat A reader found herself living on the outskirts of New Orleans, and once glanced out the window and spotted a goat grazing in the garden. She chased it away, then a short while later a neighbour rung the doorbell and said: 'I know you're from a foreign country, so I thought I'd let you know that the animal in your yard this morning is called a goat, and it's relatively harmless.' Our reader thanked him kindly.
Fox News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
The Quiz #421
Who wrote the novel 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'? Find out with The Quiz. Play. Share. Listen with FOX News Headlines 24/7 Anchor, Chris Foster. Blue MAGA
Glasgow Times
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Glasgow Times
Award-winning actor to star in stage version of classic in Glasgow
The upcoming production of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe based on C.S. Lewis's classic novel, will be performed at The King's Theatre, Glasgow, from June 10 to 14. Award-winning actor Katy Stephens is set to play the iconic White Witch. Read more: Acclaimed comedian announces first Glasgow show in a decade Stephens has had a successful career with leading roles at Shakespeare's Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company, with whom she is an Associate Artist. She said: "The role of Her Imperial Majesty Jadis, Queen of Narnia, in this thrilling stage version of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is something I can't wait to play. "The thought of casting a spell over Narnia to make it always winter but never Christmas is simply tantalising. "Let the magic begin." The stage production will see the Pevensie children portrayed by Joanna Adaran as Susan, Jesse Dunbar as Peter, Kudzai Mangombe as Lucy, and Bunmi Osadolor as Edmund. Stanton Wright will take on the central role of Aslan, the great lion. The rest of the cast includes Archie Combe, Andrew Davison, Anya de Villiers, Molly Francis, Ruby Greenwood, Ffion Haf, Rhiannon Hopkins, Joe Keenan, Oliver Magor, JB Maya, Luca Moscardini, Alfie Richards, Kraig Thornber, Ed Thorpe, Rhodri Watkins, Shane Anthony Whiteley. Since its publication in October 1950, C.S. Lewis's book has sold more than 85 million copies in 60 languages, making it one of the top ten best-selling books of all time. The stage adaptation of the iconic book previously enjoyed a successful, critically acclaimed London run in 2022/23. Chris Harper, producer, said: "We can't wait for children and adults alike to join us on this spectacular new journey through the wardrobe, and are proud to be marking the 75th anniversary of the publication of C.S. Lewis's novel with this tour." Read more: Wicked Wizard of Oz coming to Glasgow this December Michael Fentiman, director, said: "I'm delighted to be taking our beautiful production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe on a major tour of the UK and Ireland in 2025. "The production celebrates the magic of live theatre and is led by a multi-talented cast of actors, singers, musicians, dancers and puppeteers; it is a celebration of the possibilities of the collective imagination and the boundless wonders of individual skill." The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is produced by Chris Harper Productions and Catherine Schreiber and was first produced at the Leeds Playhouse. This production is directed by Michael Fentiman, based on the original production by Sally Cookson, with set and costume design by Tom Paris.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Brands Are Very Sorry About Your Trauma
Cameo is a platform that allows everyday people to commission B-to-Z-list celebrities to record personalized videograms for any occasion. Some time ago, when my friend Caroline was in the hospital, I used it to buy, for $12.59, a 2-minute, 14-second pep talk for her, delivered by a man who is famous online for dressing like a dog. More than two years later, Cameo wants me to know that if I would like to not receive Mother's Day–related promotional emails, I can opt out. So does Heyday, the Millennial skin-care company, and Parachute, the Millennial linen store, and Prose, the Millennial shampooery, and at least two different stores that have sold me expensive candles. They offer this service using the whispery timbre and platitudinous vocabulary of therapy-speak: This time of year, I am told, can be 'meaningful' but also 'tender.' I can take care of myself by electing not to receive Mother's Day marketing emails. Very often, there is a JPEG of flowers. This is well intentioned, of course: This holiday really can be difficult, for any number of reasons. 'The death of a beloved,' C. S. Lewis wrote, 'is an amputation,' and every mother, without exception, eventually dies, leaving lots of people without someone to celebrate. Being a mother and having a mother are also two of the most profound experiences a person can have, and profundity is rarely uncomplicated. Not being a mother if you want to be one can be a sadness you carry in your pocket every day. There are so many ways to wish things were different. Whatever's going on, I can guarantee that no one wants to be reminded of their familial trauma by the company they bought a soft-rib bath bundle (colorway: agave) from five years ago. And so they email us, asking if it's okay to email us. [Read: Why I'm skipping Mother's Day] The practice took off in the United States a few years ago, shortly after the coronavirus pandemic started and George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. Because of social media, people were already used to multinational corporations talking to them like friends, but when the world started falling apart, they wanted those friends to be better—to seem more empathetic, more human, more aware of things other than selling products. Younger customers, especially, 'want to feel like they're in a community with their favorite brands,' the business journalist Dan Frommer told me. 'There's this level of performance that becomes necessary, or at least, you know, part of the shtick.' The Mother's Day opt-out email suggests that the brand sending it sees you as a whole person, not just as a market segment (at least for a moment). It uses an intimate medium to manufacture more intimacy, appearing between messages from your human loved ones and talking like them too. (A recent email from Vena, a CBD company co-founded by a former Bravo housewife, begins by saluting me as 'babe' and reassures me that if I 'need to push pause for these emails, we totally get that.') It allows the brand to suggest that it is different from all of the other corporations competing for your attention and money—while simultaneously giving them more access to your attention and money. [Read: Brands have nothing real to say about racism] For companies, sending the Mother's Day opt-out email is like buying insurance on a highly valuable asset: your inbox. 'Email is, probably for every brand, the most profitable marketing channel for e-commerce,' Frommer told me. The people on any given company's email list are likely on it because they've already engaged with the brand in some way, whether knowingly or not. In the argot of online marketing, they're good leads—a consumer relationship just waiting to be strengthened, one strenuously casual email at a time. This is why every start-up is constantly offering you 10 percent off your first purchase if you sign up for their email list, and also why they will do anything to keep you on it. If a Mother's Day opt-out prevents even a small number of people from unsubscribing to all of a brand's emails, it will be worthwhile. 'It's the kind of thing that probably means a lot to very few people,' Frommer said, 'but those people really appreciate it.' But like a lot of what makes for good business these days, the effect is a little absurd. So many emails about Mother's Day are flying around, all in the service of sending fewer emails about Mother's Day. Advertisements are constantly shooting into our every unoccupied nook and cranny, but the good ones are now sensitive to our rawest family dynamics. Also, not to be too literal about it, but: The idea that pain, or regret, or tenderness, or whatever the brands want to call it, is something a person can decide not to participate in is fiction. 'Everyone is grieving something at any given point in time,' Jaclyn Bradshaw, who runs a small digital-marketing firm in London, told me. (She recently received a Mother's Day email that cannily combined a sale and an opt-out, offering 15 percent off just above the button to unsubscribe.) If someone's grief is acute, an email is unlikely to be the thing that reminds them. 'No, I remember,' Bradshaw said. 'It was at the very forefront of my mind.' [Read: When Mother's Day is 'empowering'] Mother's Day originated as an occasion for expressing simple gratitude for child care and the women who do it; people celebrated by writing letters and wearing white carnations. It is now a festival of acquisition, a day mostly devoted to buying things—$34 billion worth of things this year, according to forecasters. The brunch places in my neighborhood are advertising Mother's Day specials, and the ads on my television are reminding me that it's 'not too late to buy her jewelry.' I'm planning on going to a baseball game that day, and when I get there, a free clutch bag, designed to look like a baseball and 'presented by' a mattress company, will be pressed into my hand, in honor of the concept of motherhood. My friends will post on Instagram, and my co-workers will ask me how my day was when I get to work on Monday. This doesn't bother me, personally. I love being a mother, almost entirely uncomplicatedly, and I love my mother, almost entirely uncomplicatedly. (In this, I know, I'm very lucky.) I have no particular problem with Mother's Day, which is to say I'm as happy receiving an email from a brand about it as I am receiving an email from a brand about anything. But every year around this time, I think of my friend Mimi, who died the day after Mother's Day in 2018. That's not fully true, actually—the truth is that I think about her all the time: when I see a dog she would have delighted in petting, or find myself walking behind a woman with wild curly hair like hers on the street, or am served an old photo by my phone's 'memories' feature, or talk to someone who loved her too. Most of the time, I like it. Other times, if you gave me a button I could click to stop being reminded that she's not here anymore, I'd push it until my forefinger broke. It wouldn't work, of course. Brands are some of the most powerful forces in modern life, but they cannot do everything. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Absurdity—And Genius—of the Mother's Day Opt-Out Email
Cameo is a platform that allows everyday people to commission B-to-Z-list celebrities to record personalized videograms for any occasion. Some time ago, when my friend Caroline was in the hospital, I used it to buy, for $12.59, a 2-minute, 14-second pep talk for her, delivered by a man who is famous online for dressing like a dog. More than two years later, Cameo wants me to know that if I would like to not receive Mother's Day–related promotional emails, I can opt out. So does Heyday, the Millennial skin-care company, and Parachute, the Millennial linen store, and Prose, the Millennial shampooery, and at least two different stores that have sold me expensive candles. They offer this service using the whispery timbre and platitudinous vocabulary of therapy-speak: This time of year, I am told, can be 'meaningful' but also 'tender.' I can take care of myself by electing not to receive Mother's Day marketing emails. Very often, there is a JPEG of flowers. This is well intentioned, of course: This holiday really can be difficult, for any number of reasons. 'The death of a beloved,' C. S. Lewis wrote, 'is an amputation,' and every mother, without exception, eventually dies, leaving lots of people without someone to celebrate. Being a mother and having a mother are also two of the most profound experiences a person can have, and profundity is rarely uncomplicated. Not being a mother if you want to be one can be a sadness you carry in your pocket every day. There are so many ways to wish things were different. Whatever's going on, I can guarantee that no one wants to be reminded of their familial trauma by the company they bought a soft-rib bath bundle (colorway: agave) from five years ago. And so they email us, asking if it's okay to email us. The practice took off in the United States a few years ago, shortly after the coronavirus pandemic started and George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. Because of social media, people were already used to multinational corporations talking to them like friends, but when the world started falling apart, they wanted those friends to be better —to seem more empathetic, more human, more aware of things other than selling products. Younger customers, especially, 'want to feel like they're in a community with their favorite brands,' the business journalist Dan Frommer told me. 'There's this level of performance that becomes necessary, or at least, you know, part of the shtick.' The Mother's Day opt-out email suggests that the brand sending it sees you as a whole person, not just as a market segment (at least for a moment). It uses an intimate medium to manufacture more intimacy, appearing between messages from your human loved ones and talking like them too. (A recent email from Vena, a CBD company co-founded by a former Bravo housewife, begins by saluting me as 'babe' and reassures me that if I 'need to push pause for these emails, we totally get that.') It allows the brand to suggest that it is different from all of the other corporations competing for your attention and money—while simultaneously giving them more access to your attention and money. For companies, sending the Mother's Day opt-out email is like buying insurance on a highly valuable asset: your inbox. 'Email is, probably for every brand, the most profitable marketing channel for e-commerce,' Frommer told me. The people on any given company's email list are likely on it because they've already engaged with the brand in some way, whether knowingly or not. In the argot of online marketing, they're good leads —a consumer relationship just waiting to be strengthened, one strenuously casual email at a time. This is why every start-up is constantly offering you 10 percent off your first purchase if you sign up for their email list, and also why they will do anything to keep you on it. If a Mother's Day opt-out prevents even a small number of people from unsubscribing to all of a brand's emails, it will be worthwhile. 'It's the kind of thing that probably means a lot to very few people,' Frommer said, 'but those people really appreciate it.' But like a lot of what makes for good business these days, the effect is a little absurd. So many emails about Mother's Day are flying around, all in the service of sending fewer emails about Mother's Day. Advertisements are constantly shooting into our every unoccupied nook and cranny, but the good ones are now sensitive to our rawest family dynamics. Also, not to be too literal about it, but: The idea that pain, or regret, or tenderness, or whatever the brands want to call it, is something a person can decide not to participate in is fiction. 'Everyone is grieving something at any given point in time,' Jaclyn Bradshaw, who runs a small digital-marketing firm in London, told me. (She recently received a Mother's Day email that cannily combined a sale and an opt-out, offering 15 percent off just above the button to unsubscribe.) If someone's grief is acute, an email is unlikely to be the thing that reminds them. 'No, I remember,' Bradshaw said. 'It was at the very forefront of my mind.' Read: When Mother's Day is 'empowering' Mother's Day originated as an occasion for expressing simple gratitude for child care and the women who do it; people celebrated by writing letters and wearing white carnations. It is now a festival of acquisition, a day mostly devoted to buying things— $34 billion worth of things this year, according to forecasters. The brunch places in my neighborhood are advertising Mother's Day specials, and the ads on my television are reminding me that it's 'not too late to buy her jewelry.' I'm planning on going to a baseball game that day, and when I get there, a free clutch bag, designed to look like a baseball and 'presented by' a mattress company, will be pressed into my hand, in honor of the concept of motherhood. My friends will post on Instagram, and my co-workers will ask me how my day was when I get to work on Monday. This doesn't bother me, personally. I love being a mother, almost entirely uncomplicatedly, and I love my mother, almost entirely uncomplicatedly. (In this, I know, I'm very lucky.) I have no particular problem with Mother's Day, which is to say I'm as happy receiving an email from a brand about it as I am receiving an email from a brand about anything. But every year around this time, I think of my friend Mimi, who died the day after Mother's Day in 2018. That's not fully true, actually—the truth is that I think about her all the time: when I see a dog she would have delighted in petting, or find myself walking behind a woman with wild curly hair like hers on the street, or am served an old photo by my phone's 'memories' feature, or talk to someone who loved her too. Most of the time, I like it. Other times, if you gave me a button I could click to stop being reminded that she's not here anymore, I'd push it until my forefinger broke. It wouldn't work, of course. Brands are some of the most powerful forces in modern life, but they cannot do everything.
