Tuesday 31 December 2019

ARTHUR GUINNESS, THE MOST FAMOUS IRISH BREWER

Arthur Guinness
Today, The Grandma is preparing New Year's Eve. She has invited her closest friends Claire Fontaine, Joseph de Ca'th Lon, Tonyi Tamaki, Jordi Santanyí and Tina Picotes to her home to say goodbye to 2019 and welcome 2020.

She has prepared a big dinner with local products and their favourite beer, Guinness. This Irish beer takes its name of its founder, Arthur Guinness, an Irish brewer, entrepreneur and philanthropist. On a day like today in 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and started brewing Guinness. It was the beginning of a successful business that has become in one of the most important beer trademarks around the world.

More information: Guinness

Arthur Guinness (24 September 1725-23 January 1803) was an Irish brewer and the founder of the Guinness brewery business and family. He was also an entrepreneur and philanthropist.

At 27, in 1752, Guinness's godfather Arthur Price, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Cashel, bequeathed him £100 in his will. Guinness invested the money and in 1755 had a brewery at Leixlip, just 17 km from Dublin. In 1759, Guinness went to the city and set up his own business. He took a 9,000-year lease on the 16,000 m2 brewery at St. James's Gate from the descendants of Sir Mark Rainsford for an annual rent of £45.

Guinness's flowery red signature is still copied on every label of bottled Guinness.

Arthur Guinness's parents Richard and Elizabeth were both the children of Catholic tenant farmers in Dublin and Kildare. Richard's family were descendants of the McCartan Lords Of Kinelarty and Iveagh plus Gaelic Kings see McCartan family of County Down. Recent DNA evidence however suggests descent from the McCartans, another County Down clan, whose spiritual home of Kinelarty included the townland of Guiness near Ballynahinch, County Down.

Guinness's place and date of birth are the subject of speculation. His gravestone in Oughterard, County Kildare states clearly that he died on 23 January 1803, aged 78 years, indicating that he was born in 1724 or very early in 1725. There is no proof of the date of 28 September 1725 chosen by the Guinness company in 1991, apparently to end speculation about his birthdate. The place of birth was perhaps his mother's home at Read homestead at Ardclough, County Kildare. 

Guinness beer & brewery, St. James's Gate
In 2009 it was claimed he was born in nearby Celbridge where his parents lived in 1725 and where his father worked as an agent for the cleric Dr. Arthur Price, and may -or may not- have brewed ale for the household. In his will, Dr. Price left £100 each to his servant Arthur and his father in 1752. Starting his first brewery in Leixlip in 1755, Arthur then bought a long lease of an adjacent site from George Bryan of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania in 1756, that was developed as investment property.

In 1761 he married Olivia Whitmore in St. Mary's Church, Dublin, and they had 21 children, 10 of whom lived to adulthood. Olivia's father was William Whitmore, a grocer in Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin, and her mother was Mary Grattan from Drummin House, Carbury, County Kildare. Olivia also brought a dowry of £1,000.

From 1764 they lived at Beaumont House, which he had built on a 21 ha farm, which is now a part of Beaumont Convalescent Home, behind the main part of Beaumont Hospital, between Artane, Santry and Coolock in north County Dublin. His landlord was Charles Gardiner. The townland name of Kilmore was renamed by Arthur as Beaumont, meaning beautiful hill, and the later Beaumont parish copied the name.

From March 1798 he lived at Mountjoy Square in Dublin, which was then in the process of being built in the style of elegant Georgian architecture, where his landlord was Gardiner's son Luke. Three of his sons were also brewers, and his other descendants eventually included missionaries, politicians, and authors.

Guinness was a protestant Christian and pro-British Unionist. He died in Dublin and was buried in his mother's family plot at Oughterard, County Kildare in January 1803.

More information: Irish Central I & II

Guinness was a committed Unionist and strongly opposed Irish nationalism. Guinness supported Henry Grattan in the 1780s and 1790s, not least because Grattan wanted to reduce the tax on beer. He was one of the four brewers' guild representatives on Dublin Corporation from the 1760s until his death. Like Grattan, Guinness was publicly in favour of Catholic Emancipation from 1793, but he was not a supporter of the United Irishmen during the 1798 rebellion and was against Irish home-rule, leading to accusations he was spying for the British. In general, the Guinness family became Irish Unionists and Arthur Guinness accepted the system, with Arthur directly opposed to any movement toward Irish independence and wanting Ireland to remain under British control.

Guinness leased a brewery in Leixlip in 1755, brewing ale. Five years later he left his younger brother Richard in charge of that enterprise and moved on to another in St. James' Gate, Dublin, at the end of 1759.

The 9,000-year lease he signed for the brewery is presently displayed in the floor at St. James' Gate, effective from 31 December 1759.

By 1767 he was elected Master of the Dublin Corporation of Brewers. His first actual sales of porter were listed on tax (excise) data from 1778, and it seems that other Dublin brewers had experimented in brewing porter beer from the 1760s. From the 1780s his second son Arthur (1768–1855) worked at his side and eventually became the senior partner in the brewery from 1803. He commented on this in a letter of 1790:

...one of my sons is grown up to be able to assist me in this Business, or I wd not have attempted it, tho' prompted by a demand of providing for Ten Children now living out of one & twenty born to us, & more likely yet to come...

His major achievement was in expanding his brewery in 1797–99. Thereafter he brewed only porter and employed members of the Purser family, Moravians from Tewkesbury who had brewed porter in London until 1776. The Pursers became partners in the brewery for most of the 19th century.

By his death in 1803 the annual brewery output was over 20,000 barrels. Subsequently, Arthur and/or his beer was nicknamed Uncle Arthur in Dublin.

More information: Connolly Cove


I'm an early riser. I work out really hard.
I push myself; I get my job done, and at the end of the day,
there's a Guinness waiting for me.

Jason Momoa

Monday 30 December 2019

LEBRON R. JAMES SR., THE SPIRIT OF MICHAEL JORDAN

Lebron James, USA Team
Today, The Grandma has been watching NBA on TV. She is a great fan of Los Angeles Lakers since Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played with this team. Nowadays, the great star is LeBron James, an amazing player who was born on a day like today in 1984.

Tonight, he has played another great match. Los Angeles Lakers have won against Dallas Mavericks (108-95). During the game, Six Lakers players have scored in double figures led by 23 points and nine rebounds from Anthony Davis.

LeBron James has added 13 points, six rebounds and 13 assists, bringing up his 9,000th career dime along the way.

More information: LeBron James

LeBron Raymone James Sr. (December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Often compared for the title of the greatest of all time, like Michael Jordan, his accomplishments include taking two teams to eight consecutive NBA finals appearances (2011-2018), winning three NBA championships, four NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, three NBA Finals MVP Awards, and two Olympic gold medals.

James played in fifteen NBA All-Star Games and been named NBA All-Star MVP three times. He won the 2008 NBA scoring title, is the all-time NBA playoffs scoring leader, fourth in all-time career points scored, and ninth in all-time assists. He has been voted onto the All-NBA First Team twelve times and the All-Defensive First Team five times.

James played basketball for St. Vincent–St. Mary High School in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, where he was heavily touted by the national media as a future NBA superstar. A prep-to-pro, he joined the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003 as the first overall draft pick. Named the 2003–04 NBA Rookie of the Year, he soon established himself as one of the league's premier players; he won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award in 2009 and 2010.

After failing to win a championship with Cleveland, James left in 2010 to sign as a free agent with the Miami Heat. This move was announced in an ESPN special titled The Decision, and is one of the most controversial free agent decisions in American sports history.

Lebron James, Cleveland Cavaliers
James won his first two NBA championships while playing for the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2013; in both of these years, he also earned league MVP and Finals MVP. After his fourth season with the Heat in 2014, James opted out of his contract to re-sign with the Cavaliers.

In 2016, he led the Cavaliers to victory over the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, delivering the franchise's first championship and ending Cleveland's 52-year professional sports title drought. In 2018, James opted out of his contract with the Cavaliers to sign with the Lakers.

Off the court, James has accumulated additional wealth and fame from numerous endorsement contracts. His public life has been the subject of much scrutiny, and he has been ranked as one of America's most influential and popular athletes. He has been featured in books, documentaries, and television commercials. He has also hosted the ESPY Awards and Saturday Night Live, and appeared in the 2015 film Trainwreck.

More information: Cleveland Cavaliers

James was born on December 30, 1984 in Akron, Ohio to Gloria Marie James, who was 16 at the time of his birth. His father, Anthony McClelland, has an extensive criminal record and was not involved in his life. When James was growing up, life was often a struggle for the family, as they moved from apartment to apartment in the seedier neighborhoods of Akron while Gloria struggled to find steady work.

Realizing that her son would be better off in a more stable family environment, Gloria allowed him to move in with the family of Frank Walker, a local youth football coach who introduced James to basketball when he was nine years old.

James began playing organized basketball in the fifth grade. He later played Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball for the Northeast Ohio Shooting Stars. The team enjoyed success on a local and national level, led by James and his friends Sian Cotton, Dru Joyce III, and Willie McGee.

The group dubbed themselves the Fab Four and promised each other that they would attend high school together. In a move that stirred local controversy, they chose to attend St. Vincent–St. Mary High School, a private Catholic school with predominantly white students.

James was selected by his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, as the first overall pick of the 2003 NBA draft. In his first regular season game, he scored 25 points against the Sacramento Kings, setting an NBA record for most points scored by a prep-to-pro player in his debut performance. 

Lebron James, Miami Heat
At the conclusion of the season, he became the first Cavalier to receive the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, and with final averages of 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.9 assists per game, he also became just the third player in league history to average at least 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists per game as a rookie. Cleveland ultimately finished the season 35–47, failing to make the playoffs despite an 18-game improvement over the previous year.

James earned his first NBA All-Star Game selection in 2004–05, contributing 13 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists in a winning effort for the Eastern Conference. Around the league, teams took note of his rapid development, with Denver Nuggets coach George Karl telling Sports Illustrated, It's weird talking about a 20-year-old kid being a great player, but he is a great player... He's the exception to almost every rule.

At the conclusion of the 2008–09 season, James finished second in NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award voting and made his first NBA All-Defensive Team, posting 23 chase-down blocks and a career-high 93 total blocks. He also became only the fourth postmerger player to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks in a single season. Behind his play and the acquisition of All-Star guard Mo Williams, Cleveland went a franchise record 66–16 and fell just one game short of matching the best home record in league history. With final averages of 28.4 points, 7.6 rebounds, 7.2 assists, 1.7 steals, and 1.2 blocks per game, James became the first Cavalier to win the MVP Award.

James became an unrestricted free agent at 12:01 am EDT on July 1, 2010. During this time, he was contacted by several teams, including the Bulls, Los Angeles Clippers, Miami Heat, New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets, and Cavaliers. On July 8, he announced on a live ESPN special titled The Decision that he would sign with the Heat. 

More information: Miami Heat

James officially signed with the Heat on July 10, 2010. With the move, he became only the third reigning MVP to change teams and the first since Moses Malone in 1982.

On June 25, 2014, James opted out of his contract with the Heat, and on July 1, he officially became an unrestricted free agent. On July 11, he revealed via a first-person essay in Sports Illustrated that he intended to return to the Cavaliers. In contrast to The Decision, his announcement to return to Cleveland was well received. On July 12, he officially signed with the team, who had compiled a league-worst 97–215 record in the four seasons following his departure. A month after James's signing, the Cavaliers acquired Kevin Love from the Minnesota Timberwolves, forming a new star trio along with Kyrie Irving.

During the 2015–16 season, James was criticized for his role in several off-court controversies, including the midseason firing of Cavaliers' coach David Blatt. Despite these distractions, Cleveland finished the year with 57 wins and the best record in the East. James's final averages were 25.3 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 6.8 assists per game on 52 percent shooting.

LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
In the playoffs, the Cavaliers advanced comfortably to the Finals, losing only two games en route to a rematch with the Warriors, who were coming off a record-setting 73-win season.

To begin the series, Cleveland fell behind 3–1, including two blowout losses. James responded by registering back-to-back 41 point games in Games 5 and 6, leading the Cavaliers to two consecutive wins to stave off elimination. In Game 7, he posted a triple-double and made a number of key plays, including The Block on Andre Iguodala, as Cleveland emerged victorious, winning the city's first professional sports title in 52 years and becoming the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3–1 series deficit in the Finals.

James became just the third player to record a triple-double in an NBA Finals Game 7, and behind series averages of 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, 8.9 assists, 2.3 blocks, and 2.6 steals per game, he also became the first player in league history to lead both teams in all five statistical categories for a playoff round, culminating in a unanimous Finals MVP selection.

On June 29, 2018, James opted out of his contract with the Cavaliers and became an unrestricted free agent. On July 1, his management company, Klutch Sports, announced that he would sign with the Los Angeles Lakers; the deal was officially completed on July 9.

More information: Los Angeles Lakers

James made his debut for the United States national team at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. He spent the Games mostly on the bench, averaging 14.6 minutes per game with 5.8 points and 2.6 rebounds per game in eight games. Team USA finished the competition with a bronze medal, becoming the first U.S. basketball team to return home without a gold medal since adding active NBA players to their lineup.

At the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan, James took on a greater role for Team USA, averaging 13.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game as co-captain. The team finished the tournament with an 8–1 record, winning another bronze medal.

Before naming James to the 2008 Olympic team, Team USA managing director Jerry Colangelo and coach Mike Krzyzewski gave James an ultimatum to improve his attitude, and he heeded their advice. At the FIBA Americas Championship 2007, he averaged 18.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game, including a 31-point performance against Argentina in the championship game, the most ever by an American in an Olympic qualifier.

Team USA went 10–0, winning the gold medal and qualifying for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. James credited the team's attitude and experience for their improvement, saying: I don't think we understood what it meant to put on a USA uniform and all the people that we were representing in 2004. We definitely know that now. At the Olympics, Team USA went unbeaten, winning their first gold medal since 2000.

James did not play at the 2010 FIBA World Championship but rejoined Team USA for the 2012 Olympics in London, England. He became the leader of the team with Kobe Bryant, who would soon be 34, stepping back. James facilitated the offense from the post and perimeter, called the defensive sets, and provided scoring when needed. During a game against Australia, he recorded the first triple-double in U.S. Olympic basketball history with 11 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists. Team USA went on to win their second straight gold medal.

More information: USAB


 You can't be afraid to fail.
It's the only way you succeed 
-you're not gonna succeed all the time,
and I know that.

LeBron James

Sunday 29 December 2019

AKKALA SÁMI, THE DEATH OF A URALIC LANGUAGE

Sámi group, 1800's
Today, The Grandma wants to talk about Akkala Sámi, a Sámi language.

Sámi languages are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sámi people in Northern Europe, in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme north-western Russia.

The Grandma loves languages. They represent the most beautiful and exciting demonstration of a community, of its culture, traditions and history. Protecting languages must be an obligation for all the governments around the world, especially minority languages that are in danger of being supplanted by other with more speakers. Minorities must be respected and protected as treasures of our past, our present and our future. A community that respects their minorities is a stronger and more democratic one.

On a day like today in 2003, Maria Sergina –the last fluent native speakers of Akkala Sámi- died. When a language dies, a community dies and with it all its culture and history.

More information: National Geographic

Akkala Sámi is a Sámi language that was spoken in the Sámi villages of A´kkel, Ču´kksuâl and Sââ´rvesjäu´rr, in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

Formerly erroneously regarded as a dialect of Kildin Sámi, it has recently become recognized as an independent Sámi language that is most closely related to its western neighbor Skolt Sámi.

Akkala Sámi is the most endangered Eastern Sámi language. On December 29, 2003, Maria Sergina –the last fluent native speakers of Akkala Sámi– died. However, as of 2011 there were at least two people, both aged 70, with some knowledge of Akkala Sámi. Remaining ethnic Akkala Sámi live in the village Yona.

Although there exist a description of Akkala Sámi phonology and morphology, a few published texts, and archived audio recordings, the Akkala Sami language remains among the most poorly documented Sami languages.

Sámi Family in Finland, 1936
Akkala Sámi has eight cases, singular and plural: nominative, genitive-accusative, partitive, dative-illative, locative, essive, comitative and abessive. Case and number are expressed by a combination of endings and consonant gradation:

-Nominative: no marker in the singular, weak grade in the plural

-Genitive-accusative: weak grade in the singular, weak grade + -i in the plural

-Partitive: this case exists only in the singular, and has the ending -tti͔

-Dative-illative: strong grade + -a, -a͕ or -ɛ in the singular, weak grade + -i in the plural

-Locative: weak grade + -st, -śtˑ in the singular, weak grade + -nˑ in the plural

-Essive: this case exists only in the singular: strong grade + -n

-Comitative: weak grade + -nˑ in the singular, strong grade + -guim, -vuim or -vi̮i̭m in the plural

-Abessive: weak grade + -ta in the singular

More information: Endangered Languages

Sámi languages, in English also rendered as Sami, are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sámi people in Northern Europe, in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme north-western Russia.

There are, depending on the nature and terms of division, ten or more Sami languages. Several spellings have been used for the Sámi languages, including Sámi, Sami, Saami, Saame, Sámic, Samic and Saamic, as well as the exonyms Lappish and Lappic. The last two, along with the term Lapp, are now often considered pejorative.

The Sámi languages form a branch of the Uralic language family. According to the traditional view, Sámi is within the Uralic family most closely related to the Finnic languages. However, this view has recently been doubted by some scholars, who argue that the traditional view of a common Finno-Sami protolanguage is not as strongly supported as had been earlier assumed, and that the similarities may stem from an areal influence on Samic from Finnic.

In terms of internal relationships, the Sami languages are divided into two groups: western and eastern. The groups may be further divided into various subgroups and ultimately individual languages.

Sámi People, Norway
Parts of the Sami language area form a dialect continuum in which the neighbouring languages may be mutually intelligible to a fair degree, but two more widely separated groups will not understand each other's speech. There are, however, some sharp language boundaries, in particular between Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami, the speakers of which are not able to understand each other without learning or long practice.

The evolution of sharp language boundaries seems to suggest a relative isolation of the language speakers from each other and not very intensive contacts between the respective speakers in the past. There is some significance in this, as the geographical barriers between the respective speakers are no different from those in other parts of the Sami area.

The Sami languages are spoken in Sápmi in Northern Europe, in a region stretching over the four countries Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, reaching from the southern part of central Scandinavia in the southwest to the tip of the Kola Peninsula in the east.

The borders between the languages do not align with the ones separating the region's modern nation states.

During the Middle Ages and early modern period, now-extinct Sami languages were also spoken in the central and southern parts of Finland and Karelia and in a wider area on the Scandinavian Peninsula. Historical documents as well as Finnish and Karelian oral tradition contain many mentions of the earlier Sami inhabitation in these areas. Also, loanwords as well as place-names of Sami origin in the southern dialects of Finnish and Karelian dialects testify of earlier Sami presence in the area. These Sami languages, however, became extinct later, under the wave of the Finno-Karelian agricultural expansion.

More information: The Bubble

The Proto-Samic language is believed to have formed in the vicinity of the Gulf of Finland between 1000 BC to 700 AD, deriving from a common Proto-Sami-Finnic language.

However, reconstruction of any basic proto-languages in the Uralic family have reached a level close to or identical to Proto-Uralic. According to the comparative linguist Ante Aikio, the Proto-Samic language developed in South Finland or in Karelia around 2000–2500 years ago, spreading then to northern Fennoscandia.

The language is believed to have expanded west and north into Fennoscandia during the Nordic Iron Age, reaching central Scandinavia during the Proto-Scandinavian period ca. 500 AD. The language assimilated several layers of unknown Paleo-European languages from the early hunter-gatherers, first during the Proto-Sami phase and second in the subsequent expansion of the language in the west and the north of Fennoscandia that is part of modern Sami today.

Sámi Flag
At present there are nine living Sami languages. The largest six of the languages have independent literary languages; the three others have no written standard, and of them, there are only a few, mainly elderly, speakers left. The seven written languages are:

-Northern Sami (Norway, Sweden, Finland): With an estimated 15,000 speakers, this accounts for probably more than 75% of all Sami speakers in 2002

-Lule Sami (Norway, Sweden): The second largest group with an estimated 1,500 speakers

-Ume Sami (Norway, Sweden)

-Southern Sami (Norway, Sweden): 500 speakers (estimated)

-Inari Sami (Enare Sami) (Inari, Finland): 500 speakers (estimated)

-Skolt Sami (Näätämö and the Nellim-Keväjärvi districts, Inari municipality, Finland, also spoken in Russia, previously in Norway): 400 speakers (estimated)

-Kildin Sami (Kola Peninsula, Russia): 608 speakers in Murmansk Oblast, 179 in other Russian regions, although 1991 persons stated their Saami ethnicity (1769 of them live in Murmansk Oblast)

More information: IWGIA

The other Sami languages are critically endangered or moribund and have very few speakers left.

Pite Sami has about 30-50 speakers, and a dictionary and an official orthography is under way. A descriptive grammar has been published. Ume Sami likely has under 20 speakers left, and ten speakers of Ter Sami were known to be alive in 2004.

The last speaker of Akkala Sami is known to have died in December 2003, and the eleventh attested variety, Kemi Sami, became extinct in the 19th century. An additional Sami language, Kainuu Sami, became extinct in the 18th century, and probably belonged to the Eastern group like Kemi Sami, although the evidence for the language is limited.

Adopted in April 1988, Article 110a of the Norwegian Constitution states: It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling the Sami people to preserve and develop its language, culture and way of life.

The Sami Language Act went into effect in the 1990s. Sámi is an official language alongside Norwegian in the administrative area for Sámi language, that includes eight municipalities in the northern half of Norway, namely Kautokeino, Karasjok, Gáivuotna -Kåfjord- Kaivuono, Nesseby, Porsanger, Tana, Tysfjord, Lavangen and Snåsa.

In 2005 Sámi, Kven, Romanes and Romani were recognised as regional or minority languages in Norway within the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

More information: Life in Norway

On 1 April 2000, Sami became one of five recognized minority languages in Sweden. It can be used in dealing with public authorities in the municipalities of Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk, and Kiruna.
In 2011, this list was enlarged considerably. In Sweden the University of Umeå teaches North, Ume and South Sami, and Uppsala University has courses in North, Lule and South Sami.

More information: Sami in Sweden

In Finland, the Sami language act of 1991 granted the Northern, Inari, and Skolt Sami the right to use their languages for all government services.

The Sami Language Act of 2003 made Sami an official language in Enontekiö, Inari, Sodankylä and Utsjoki municipalities. Some documents, such as specific legislation, are translated into these Sami languages, but knowledge of any of these Sami languages among officials is not common. As the major language in the region is Finnish, Sami speakers are essentially always bilingual with Finnish.

Language nest daycares have been set up for teaching the languages to children. In education, Northern Sami, and to a more limited degree, Inari and Skolt Sami, can be studied at primary and secondary levels, both as a mothertongue -for native speakers- and as a foreign language -for non-native speakers.

More information: Visit Finland

In Russia, Sámi has no official status, neither on the national, regional or local level, and no formal recognition as a minority language. Sámi has been taught at the Murmansk University since 2012; before then, Sámi was taught at the Institute of Peoples of the North (Институт народов севера) in Saint Petersburg.

More information: Samediggi


We are the Sami people and we want to be Sami,
without being neither more not less than other people in the world.
We have throughout the history survived and lived in Sápmi,
and we have a culture that we want to continue to thrive.

Mikael Ursi

Saturday 28 December 2019

MARGARET NATALIE SMITH, THE ENGLISH DAME OF ARTS

Desdemona, Othelo, 1965
Today, The Grandma is resting at home. Christmas holiday can be very exhausted and she needs to relax and take new forces for the rest of the year. She has been watching some movies on TV with Maggie Smith's appearances. She loves this English actress who was born on a day like today in 1934.

The Grandma likes watching her films, some of them part of the history of Literature and Cinema, especially Harry Potter's saga, Downtown Abbey series and William Shakespeare's plays.

Dame Margaret Natalie Smith (born 28 December 1934) is an English actress. She has had an extensive, varied career on stage, film, and television, spanning over 68 years. Smith has appeared in more than 60 films, and is one of Britain's most recognisable actresses. She was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for contributions to the performing arts, and a Companion of Honour in 2014 for services to drama.

Smith began her career on stage as a student, performing at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952, and made her professional debut on Broadway in New Faces of '56. For her work on the London stage, she has won a record six Best Actress Evening Standard Awards: for The Private Ear, and The Public Eye (both 1962), Hedda Gabler (1970), Virginia (1981), The Way of the World (1984), Three Tall Women (1994) and A German Life (2019). She received Tony Award nominations for Private Lives (1975) and Night and Day (1979), before winning the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage. She appeared in Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of Antony and Cleopatra (1976) and Macbeth (1978), and West End productions of A Delicate Balance (1997) and The Breath of Life (2002). She received the Society of London Theatre Special Award in 2010.

More information: Maggie Smith

On screen, Smith first drew praise for the crime film Nowhere to Go (1958), for which she received her first British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award nomination. She has won two Academy Awards, winning Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978). She is one of only six actresses to have won in both categories. She has won a record four BAFTA Awards for Best Actress, including for A Private Function (1984) and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1988), a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for Tea with Mussolini (1999), and three Golden Globe Awards. She received four other Oscar nominations that were for Othello (1965), Travels with My Aunt (1972), A Room with a View (1986), and Gosford Park (2001).

Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series (2001–2011). Other notable films include Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973), Death on the Nile (1978), Clash of the Titans (1981), Evil Under the Sun (1982), Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992), Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), The Secret Garden (1993), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), and The Lady in the Van (2015).

She won an Emmy Award in 2003 for My House in Umbria, to become one of the few actresses to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting, and starred as Lady Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, on Downton Abbey (2010–2015), for which she won three Emmys, her first non-ensemble Screen Actors Guild Award, and her third Golden Globe.

More information: Dame Maggie

Her honorary film awards include the BAFTA Special Award in 1993 and the BAFTA Fellowship in 1996. She received the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's Legacy Award in 2012, and the Bodley Medal by the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries in 2016.

Minerva McGonagall, Harry Potter, 2001-2011
Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, Essex, on 28 December 1934. Her mother, Margaret Hutton was a Scottish secretary from Glasgow, and father, Nathaniel Smith (1902–1991), was a public health pathologist from Newcastle upon Tyne who worked at the University of Oxford.

During her childhood, Smith's parents told her the romantic story of how they had met on the train from Glasgow to London via Newcastle. She moved with her family to Oxford when she was four years old. She had older twin brothers, Alistair and Ian. The latter went to architecture school. Smith attended Oxford High School until age 16, when she left to study acting at the Oxford Playhouse.

In 1952, aged 17, under the auspices of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, Smith began her career as Viola in Twelfth Night at the Oxford Playhouse. In 1954, she appeared in the television programme Oxford Accents produced by Ned Sherrin. She appeared in her first film in 1956, in an uncredited role in Child in the House, and made her Broadway debut the same year playing several roles in the review New Faces of '56, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre from June to December 1956. In 1957, she starred opposite Kenneth Williams in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, written by Bamber Gascoigne. In 1959, she received the first of her 18 BAFTA Film and TV nominations for her role in the film Nowhere to Go.

More information: The Ritz London

In 1962, Smith won the first of a record five Best Actress Evening Standard Awards for her roles in Peter Shaffer's plays The Private Ear and The Public Eye, again opposite Kenneth Williams. She became a fixture at the Royal National Theatre in the 1960s, most notably for playing Desdemona in Othello opposite Laurence Olivier and earning her first Oscar nomination for her performance in the 1965 film version. She appeared opposite Olivier in Ibsen's The Master Builder, and played comedic roles in The Recruiting Officer and Much Ado About Nothing. Her other films at this time included Go to Blazes (1962), The V.I.P.s (1963), The Pumpkin Eater (1964), Young Cassidy (1965), Hot Millions (1968), and Oh! What A Lovely War (1969).

Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role of the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Vanessa Redgrave had originated the role on stage in London, and Zoe Caldwell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, when she played the role in New York. The role also won Smith her first BAFTA Award.

Dowager Countess, Downton Abbey, 201-2015
In 1970, she played the title role in Ingmar Bergman's London production of the Ibsen play Hedda Gabler, winning her second Evening Standard award for Best Actress. She received her third Academy Award nomination for the 1972 film Travels with My Aunt. She also appeared in the film Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973). In the mid-1970s, she made several guest appearances on The Carol Burnett Show.

From 1976 to 1980, she appeared in numerous productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, to acclaim; her roles included Queen Elizabeth in Richard III, Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth, Virginia Woolf in Virginia, and opposite Brian Bedford in the Noël Coward comedy Private Lives. Also during this time, she starred on Broadway in Private Lives in 1975 and Night and Day in 1979, receiving Tony Award nominations for both.

Smith received the 1978 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Diana Barrie in California Suite. For this role, she also won her first Golden Globe Award. Afterward, upon hearing that Michael Palin was about to embark on the film The Missionary (1982) with Smith, her co-star Michael Caine is supposed to have humorously telephoned Palin, warning him that she would steal the film. Her other films at this time include Murder by Death (1976) and Death on the Nile (1978).

More information: The Guardian

In 1981, Smith played the goddess Thetis in Clash of the Titans. For her role on television as Mrs Silly, she received the first of her four Best Actress BAFTA TV Award nominations. On stage, she won her third and fourth Evening Standard awards for Best Actress, for Virginia in 1981 and The Way of the World in 1984.

She won three more Best Actress BAFTA Awards for her roles as Joyce Chilvers in the 1984 black comedy A Private Function, Charlotte Bartlett in the 1986 Merchant Ivory production of A Room with a View, and the title role in the 1987 film The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. For A Room With a View, she also received her fifth Academy Award nomination, and won her second Golden Globe Award.

In 1987, she starred in A Bed Among the Lentils, part of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series, receiving a second BAFTA TV nomination. She starred in the 1987 London production of Lettice and Lovage alongside Margaret Tyzack, receiving an Olivier Award nomination, and reprised the role in 1990, when it transferred to Broadway, and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The play was written specifically for her by the playwright Peter Shaffer.

Muriel Donnelly, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, 2012
In the 1990s, Smith appeared as Wendy Darling in the 1991 hit movie Hook, and also appeared in the hit comedy films Sister Act in 1992 and The First Wives Club in 1996. She also received a third BAFTA TV nomination for the 1992 TV film Memento Mori, and her first Emmy nomination for her role in the 1993 TV film Suddenly, Last Summer.

She won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for the 1999 film Tea with Mussolini, in which she played Lady Hester. She also appeared in the films The Secret Garden (1993), Richard III (1995), and Washington Square (1997). Her 1990s stage roles included Three Tall Women in 1994, which won her a fifth Evening Standard award, Claire in A Delicate Balance opposite Eileen Atkins in 1997, and The Lady in the Van in 1999.

Due to the international success of the Harry Potter movies, she is widely known for playing Professor Minerva McGonagall, opposite Daniel Radcliffe in the title role. She has appeared in seven of the eight films in the series from 2001 to 2011. She and Radcliffe had worked together previously in the 1999 BBC television adaptation of David Copperfield, in which she played Betsey Trotwood and received a BAFTA TV Award nomination.

More information: Her

She received her sixth Academy Award nomination for the 2001 film Gosford Park, directed by Robert Altman, and won her first Emmy Award for the 2003 TV film My House in Umbria. On stage, she starred as Madeleine Palmer, opposite Judi Dench, in the David Hare play The Breath of Life in 2002, toured Australia in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads in 2004, and starred in The Lady from Dubuque in 2007.

Beginning in 2010, Smith appeared as Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the British period drama Downton Abbey. This role won her a Golden Globe Award and two Emmy Awards. In 2014, the role also won her a Screen Actors Guild Award.

In 2012, she played Muriel in the British comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and starred as Jean Horton in Quartet, based on Ronald Harwood's play, directed by actor Dustin Hoffman.

In a March 2015 interview with Joe Utichi in The Sunday Times, Smith announced that the sixth season of Downton Abbey would be her last, it was in fact the last to be produced. On 30 October 2015, Smith appeared on BBC's The Graham Norton Show, her first appearance on a chat show in 42 years. During the show, Smith discussed her appearance in the comedy-drama film The Lady in the Van, which was directed by Nicholas Hytner.

In February 2019, it was announced that Smith would return to the London stage for the first time in twelve years in A German Life. The new play by Christopher Hampton was drawn from the life and testimony of Brunhilde Pomsel (1911–2017), in which Smith was alone on stage, performing a 100-minute-long monologue to the audience. Jonathan Kent took the directorial role.

More information: Standard


I like the ephemeral thing about theatre,
every performance is like a ghost 
-it's there and then it's gone.

Maggie Smith

Friday 27 December 2019

M. M. BONET, 50 YEARS OF CAREER IN LA PEDRERA

Borja Penalba & Maria del Mar Bonet in concert
Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have gone to La Pedrera to listen to Maria del Mar Bonet (Palma, 1947) and Borja Penalba (València, 1975) who have presented a Christmas Concert full of popular Catalan songs and old and new hits of these two magnificent artists.

Claire and The Grandma have been following the last tour of these artists that is arriving to its end. Bonet and Penalba have been celebrating the 50th anniversary of the musical career of the Majorcan artist, who is a world reference in folk music.

Visiting La Pedrera is an incredible experience that you must live at least once in your life. Claire and The Grandma know this building very well and they want to share its history, totally related with the history of the city of Barcelona and the life of Antoni Gaudí, without any kind of doubt, one of the greatest geniuses of architecture.

More information: Maria del Mar Bonet

Casa Milà, popularly known as La Pedrera or The stone quarry, a reference to its unconventional rough-hewn appearance, is a modernist building in Barcelona, Catalonia. It was the last private residence designed by architect Antoni Gaudí and was built between 1906 and 1912.

The building was commissioned in 1906 by Pere Milà and his wife Roser Segimon. At the time, it was controversial because of its undulating stone facade, twisting wrought iron balconies and designed by Josep Maria Jujol. Several structural innovations include a self-supporting stone façade, and a free-plan floor, underground garage and the spectacular terrace on the roof.

In 1984, it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Since 2013 it has been the headquarters of the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera  which manages the visit to the building, exhibitions and other cultural and educative activities at Casa Milà.

Casa Milà was built for Roser Segimon and her husband Pere Milà. Roser Segimon was the wealthy widow of Josep Guardiola, an Indiano or Americano, or former colonist returned from South America, had made his fortune with a coffee plantation in Guatemala. Her second husband, Pere Milà was a developer known for his flamboyant lifestyle.

In 1905, Milà and Segimón married and on June 9, Roser Segimón bought a house with garden which occupied an area of 1,835 square meters, located on Paseo de Gracia, 92. In September, they commissioned Gaudí for building them a new house with the idea of living in the main floor and renting out the rest of the apartments. On February 2, 1906, the project was presented to the Barcelona City Council and the works began, demolishing the pre-existing building instead of reforming it, as in the case of the Casa Batlló.

Claire & The Grandma in La Pedrera
The building was completed in December 1910 and the owner asked Gaudí to make a certificate to inhabit the main floor, which the City Council authorized in October 1911, and the couple moved in.

On October 31, 1912, Gaudí issued the certificate stating that, in accordance with his plans and his direction, the work had been completed and the whole house was ready to be rented.

Gaudí, a Catholic and a devotee of the Virgin Mary, planned for the Casa Milà to be a spiritual symbol. Overt religious elements include an excerpt from the Rosary on the cornice and planned statues of Mary, specifically Our Lady of the Rosary, and two archangels, St. Michael and St. Gabriel. However, the Casa Milà was not built entirely to Gaudí's specifications. The local government ordered the demolition of elements that exceeded the height standard for the city, and fined the Milàs for many infractions of building codes. 

After Setmana Tràgica (Tragic Week), an outbreak of anticlericalism in the city, Milà prudently decided to forgo the religious statues. Gaudí contemplated abandoning the project but a priest persuaded him to continue.

Gaudí's work was designated a historic and artistic monument on July 24, 1969.

Casa Milà was in poor condition in the early 1980s. It had been painted a dreary brown and many of its interior color schemes had been abandoned or allowed to deteriorate, but it has been restored since and many of the original colors revived.

More information: La Pedrera

In 1984 the building became part of a World Heritage Site encompassing some of Gaudí's works.

The Barcelonan city council tried to rent the main floor as an office for the 1992 Olympic bid. Finally, the day before Christmas 1986, Caixa Catalunya bought La Pedrera. On February 19, 1987, urgently needed work began on the restoration and cleaning of the façade.

Casa Milà is characterized by its self-supporting stone facade, meaning that it is free of load-bearing walls. The facade connects to the internal structure of each floor by means of curved iron beams surrounding the perimeter of each floor. This construction system allows, on one hand, large openings in the facade which give light to the homes, and on the other, free structuring of the different levels, so that internal walls can be added and demolished without affecting the stability of the building. This allows the owners to change their minds at will and to modify, without problems, the interior layout of the homes.

The facade is composed of large blocks of limestone from the Garraf Massif on the first floor and from the Vilafranca quarry for the higher levels. The blocks were cut to follow the plot of the projection of the model, then raised to their location and adjusted to align in a continuous curve to the pieces around them.
 
Viewed from the outside the building has three parts: the main body of the six-storey blocks with winding stone floors, two floors set a block back with a different curve, similar to waves, a smoother texture and whiter color, and with small holes that look like embrasures, and finally the body of the roof.

Gaudí's original facade had some of its lower-level ironwork removed. In 1928, the tailor Mosella opened the first store in La Pedrera, and he eliminated the bars. This did not concern anyone, because in the middle of twentieth century, wrought ironwork had little importance. The ironwork was lost until a few years later, when Americans donated one of them to the MoMa, where it is on display.

With restoration initiatives launched in 1987, the facade was rejoined to some pieces of stone that had fallen. In order to respect the fidelity of the original, material was obtained from Vilafranca quarry, even though by then it was no longer operating.

More information: Portal Gaudí


Jo he cantat en nom vostro, la vostra veu és la mia.
I have sung in your name, your voice is mine.

Maria del Mar Bonet