THE FOSTERS, THE PATRONS OF THE NEW MOCO MUSEUM

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have received wonderful news from Marta Foster, who is following her dream as a prospector.

The Fosters are the patrons of the new Moco Museum in London, and they have planned how this amazing cultural place is going to be.

Before, the family has practised some English grammar with the Relative Pronouns (Who/Which/That), and have explained their future plans to Marta.

Finally, they have been reading Oscar Wilde's The Ghost of Canterville.

More information: Relative Pronouns

The Moco Museum (Modern Contemporary Museum) is an independent museum located in Amsterdam and Barcelona, dedicated to exhibiting modern and contemporary art. 

The museum was founded with the mission of attracting broader and younger audiences, and making art accessible to the public.

Moco Museum in Amsterdam is situated on Museumplein, in the historic Villa Alsberg, a townhouse designed in 1904 by Eduard Cuypers the nephew of Pierre Cuypers, designer of Amsterdam Central Station and the Rijksmuseum. The townhouse was one of the first privately owned residencies on Museumplein and remained so until 1939. Moco Museum opened its doors in April 2016.

Moco Museum in El Born, Barcelona is in the historic Palau Cervelló-Giudice, formerly the private residence of the noble Cervelló family until the 18th century. The building incorporates parts of a previous construction from the 15th century, evidenced by the interior courtyard, arched staircase with columns, capitals, and Renaissance-type mouldings. Furthermore, Palau Cervelló displays an impressive Gothic facade entryway.

Plans to open a new outlet in London, UK was approved on 3 October 2023.

More information: MOCO Museum

Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century.

Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art as a whole is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform, organising principle, ideology, or -ism. Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality.

In vernacular English, modern and contemporary are synonyms, resulting in some conflation and confusion of the terms modern art and contemporary art by non-specialists.

Some define contemporary art as art produced within our lifetime, recognising that lifetimes and life spans vary. However, there is a recognition that this generic definition is subject to specialized limitations.

The classification of contemporary art as a special type of art, rather than a general adjectival phrase, goes back to the beginnings of Modernism in the English-speaking world. In London, the Contemporary Art Society was founded in 1910 by the critic Roger Fry and others, as a private society for buying works of art to place in public museums.

A number of other institutions using the term were founded in the 1930s, such as in 1938 the Contemporary Art Society of Adelaide, Australia, and an increasing number after 1945. Many, like the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston changed their names from ones using Modern art in this period, as Modernism became defined as a historical art movement, and much modern art ceased to be contemporary.

The definition of what is contemporary is naturally always on the move, anchored in the present with a start date that moves forward, and the works the Contemporary Art Society bought in 1910 could no longer be described as contemporary.

Contemporary artwork is characterised by diversity: diversity of material, of form, of subject matter, and even time periods. It is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform organizing principle, ideology, or - ism that is seen in many other art periods and movements.

The focus of Modernism is self-referential. Impressionism looks at our perception of a moment through light and color, as opposed to the attempt to reflect stark reality in Realism. Contemporary art, on the other hand, does not have one, single objective or point of view, so it can be contradictory and open-ended.

There are nonetheless several common themes that have appeared in contemporary works, such as identity politics, the body, globalization and migration, technology, contemporary society and culture, time and memory, and institutional and political critique.

More information: The Collector

 I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art;
I don’t do that so much anymore.

Bansky

MIND THE GAP! THE FOSTER FAMILY IS TAKING THE TUBE

Today, The Fosters & The Grandma have decided to take the Metropolitan Railway, that opened between Paddington and Farringdon in 1863.

They have also written some compositions to have templates to prepare their A2 Cambridge Exam.

Download Writing

The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex suburbs. Its first line connected the main-line railway termini at Paddington, Euston, and King's Cross to the City.

The first section was built beneath the New Road using cut-and-cover between Paddington and King's Cross and in tunnel and cuttings beside Farringdon Road from King's Cross to near Smithfield, near the City. It opened to the public on 10 January 1863 with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, the world's first passenger-carrying designated underground railway.

The line was soon extended from both ends, and northwards via a branch from Baker Street. Southern branches, directly served, reached Hammersmith in 1864, Richmond in 1877 and the original completed the Inner Circle in 1884.

The most important route was northwest into the Middlesex countryside, stimulating the development of new suburbs. Harrow was reached in 1880, and from 1897, having achieved the early patronage of the Duke of Buckingham and the owners of Waddesdon Manor, services extended for many years to Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire.

Electric traction was introduced in 1905 and by 1907 electric multiple units operated most of the services, though electrification of outlying sections did not occur until decades later. Unlike other railway companies in the London area, the Met developed land for housing, and after World War I promoted housing estates near the railway using the Metro-land brand.

On 1 July 1933, the Met was amalgamated with the Underground Electric Railways Company of London and the capital's tramway and bus operators to form the London Passenger Transport Board.

 More information: Odd Salon

Former Met tracks and stations are used by the London Underground's Metropolitan, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Piccadilly, Jubilee and Victoria lines, and by Chiltern Railways and Great Northern.

In the first half of the 19th century the population and physical extent of London grew greatly. The increasing resident population and the development of a commuting population arriving by train each day led to a high level of traffic congestion with huge numbers of carts, cabs, and omnibuses filling the roads and up to 200,000 people entering the City of London, the commercial heart, each day on foot.

By 1850 there were seven railway termini around the urban centre of London: London Bridge and Waterloo to the south, Shoreditch and Fenchurch Street to the east, Euston and King's Cross to the north, and Paddington to the west. Only Fenchurch Street station was within the City.

The congested streets and the distance to the City from the stations to the north and west prompted many attempts to get parliamentary approval to build new railway lines into the City. None were successful, and the 1846 Royal Commission investigation into Metropolitan Railway Termini banned construction of new lines or stations in the built-up central area.

The concept of an underground railway linking the City with the mainline termini was first proposed in the 1830s. Charles Pearson, Solicitor to the City, was a leading promoter of several schemes and in 1846 proposed a central railway station to be used by multiple railway companies.

The scheme was rejected by the 1846 commission, but Pearson returned to the idea in 1852 when he helped set up the City Terminus Company to build a railway from Farringdon to King's Cross. 

The plan was supported by the City, but the railway companies were not interested and the company struggled to proceed.

The Bayswater, Paddington, and Holborn Bridge Railway Company was established to connect the Great Western Railway's (GWR's) Paddington station to Pearson's route at King's Cross. A bill was published in November 1852 and in January 1853 the directors held their first meeting and appointed John Fowler as its engineer.

 More information: Express

After successful lobbying, the company secured parliamentary approval under the name of the North Metropolitan Railway in mid-1853. The bill submitted by the City Terminus Company was rejected by Parliament, which meant that the North Metropolitan Railway would not be able to reach the City: to overcome this obstacle, the company took over the City Terminus Company and submitted a new bill in November 1853. This dropped the City terminus and extended the route south from Farringdon to the General Post Office in St. Martin's Le Grand.

The route at the western end was also altered so that it connected more directly to the GWR station. Permission was sought to connect to the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) at Euston and to the Great Northern Railway (GNR) at King's Cross, the latter by hoists and lifts. The company's name was also to be changed again, to Metropolitan Railway. Royal assent was granted to the North Metropolitan Railway Act on 7 August 1854.

Construction of the railway was estimated to cost £1 million. Initially, with the Crimean War under way, the Met found it hard to raise the capital. While it attempted to raise the funds it presented new bills to Parliament seeking an extension of time to carry out the works. 

In July 1855, an Act to make a direct connection to the GNR at King's Cross received royal assent. The plan was modified in 1856 by the Metropolitan (Great Northern Branch and Amendment) Act and in 1860 by the Great Northern & Metropolitan Junction Railway Act.

Board of Trade inspections took place in late December 1862 and early January 1863 to approve the railway for opening. After minor signalling changes were made, approval was granted and a few days of operating trials were carried out before the grand opening on 9 January 1863, which included a ceremonial run from Paddington and a large banquet for 600 shareholders and guests at Farringdon. Charles Pearson did not live to see the completion of the project; he died in September 1862.

More information: The Guardian 

The 6 km railway opened to the public on 10 January 1863, with stations at Paddington (Bishop's Road) (now Paddington), Edgware Road, Baker Street, Portland Road (now Great Portland Street), Gower Street (now Euston Square), King's Cross (now King's Cross St Pancras), and Farringdon Street (now Farringdon).

The railway was hailed a success, carrying 38,000 passengers on the opening day, using GNR trains to supplement the service. In the first 12 months 9.5 million passengers were carried and in the second 12 months this increased to 12 million.

The original timetable allowed 18 minutes for the journey. Off-peak service frequency was every 15 minutes, increased to ten minutes during the morning peak and reduced 20 minutes in the early mornings and after 8 pm. From May 1864, workmen's returns were offered on the 5:30 am and 5:40 am services from Paddington at the cost of a single ticket.

More information: Transport for London

I just like being on my own on trains, traveling.
I spent all my pocket money travelling
the London Underground and Southern Railway,
what used to be the Western region,
and in Europe as much as I could afford it.
My parents used to think I was going places,
but I wasn't, I was just travelling the trains.

 

Tony Judt

ADELE, GOD THIS REMINDS ME OF WHEN WE WERE YOUNG

I remember when I was a teenager. After leaving my hometown, Andorra La Vella, my family and I lived in a little town in the Garraf coast near Barcelona. 

It was a fishermen village with large beaches of white sand and a quiet sea.

I met him there. He was the most famous clown in the world, and I fell in love immediately. 

We were very young and our story was very short, but I still remember him, I still remember when we were young. Now, he is like a shadow that accompanies me everywhere. I will never forget him. He will be always on my mind and my memories.

The Grandma

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (born 5 May 1988), known mononymously as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter. She is known for her mezzo-soprano vocals and sentimental songwriting.

Adele has received numerous accolades including 16 Grammy Awards, 12 Brit Awards (including three for British Album of the Year), an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.

After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a record deal with XL Recordings. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008 and included the UK top-five singles Chasing Pavements and Make You Feel My Love.

19 has sold over 2.5 million copies in the UK and was named in the top 20 best-selling debut albums of all time in the UK. She was honoured with the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

Adele released her second studio album, 21, in 2011. It became the world's best-selling album of the 21st century, with sales of over 31 million. 21 holds the record for the top-performing album in US chart history, topping the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks, with the singles Rolling in the Deep, Someone like You, and Set Fire to the Rain heading charts worldwide, becoming her signature songs. The album received a record-tying six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.

In 2012, Adele released Skyfall, a soundtrack single for the James Bond film Skyfall, which won her the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Adele's third studio album, 25, was released in 2015, breaking first-week sales records in the UK and US. In the US, it remains the only album to sell over three million copies in a week. 25 earned her five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year. The lead single, Hello, achieved huge success worldwide. Her fourth studio album, 30, released in 2021, contains the chart-topping and Grammy-winning single Easy on Me. 25 and 30 became the best-selling albums worldwide, including the US and the UK, in 2015 and 2021, respectively.

As of 2023, all of her studio albums, except 19, have topped the yearly best-selling albums chart worldwide in the 21st century.

Adele is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with sales of over 120 million records worldwide. The best-selling female artist of the 21st century in the UK, she was named the best-selling artist of the 2010s decade in the US and worldwide.

Her studio albums 21 and 25 were the top two best-selling albums of the 2010s in the UK and both are listed among the best-selling albums in UK chart history, while in the US both are certified Diamond, the most of any artist who debuted in the 21st century.

More information: Adele

 It's hard to win me back
Everything just takes me back
To when you were there

My God, this reminds me
Of when we were young

Adele

WINSTON CHURCHILL, RESILIENCE & WAR PROPAGANDA

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have met, Winston Churchill, the British politician, statesman, army officer who has become one of the greatest figures in our recent history.

The family has been listening to some sad stories about Succession War, Spanish Civil War and WWII, and has discovered the great resilience of population under this kind of conflicts.

Before this, the family has been practising some English grammar with Present Continuous, and The Grandma has explained a popular Mallorcan legend named El Salt de la Bella Dona.

More information: Present Continuous

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November 1874-24 January 1965) was a British politician, statesman, army officer, and writer, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955.

As Prime Minister, Churchill led Britain to victory in the Second World War. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as Member of Parliament (MP). Ideologically an economic liberal and British imperialist, he began and ended his parliamentary career as a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but for twenty years from 1904 he was a prominent member of the Liberal Party.

Winston Churchill, in addition to his careers of soldier and politician, was a prolific writer under the pen name Winston S. Churchill. After being commissioned into the 4th Queen's Own Hussars in 1895, Churchill gained permission to observe the Cuban War of Independence, and sent war reports to The Daily Graphic. He continued his war journalism in British India, at the Siege of Malakand, then in the Sudan during the Mahdist War and in southern Africa during the Second Boer War.

Churchill's fictional output included one novel and a short story, but his main output comprised non-fiction. After he was elected as an MP, over 130 of his speeches or parliamentary answers were also published in pamphlets or booklets; many were subsequently published in collected editions.

Churchill received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.

In 1895 Winston Churchill was commissioned cornet, second lieutenant, into the 4th Queen's Own Hussars. His annual pay was £300, and he calculated he needed an additional £500 to support a style of life equal to that of other officers of the regiment. To earn the required funds, he gained his colonel's agreement to observe the Cuban War of Independence; his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, used her influence to secure a contract for her son to send war reports to The Daily Graphic.

More information: International Churchill Society

He was subsequently posted back to his regiment, then based in British India, where he took part in, and reported on the Siege of Malakand; the reports were published in The Pioneer and The Daily Telegraph. The reports formed the basis of his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, which was published in 1898. To relax he also wrote his only novel, Savrola, which was published in 1898. That same year he was transferred to the Sudan to take part in the Mahdist War (1881–99), where he participated in the Battle of Omdurman in September 1898. He published his recollections in The River War (1899).

In 1899 Churchill resigned his commission and travelled to South Africa as the correspondent with The Morning Post, on a salary of £250 a month plus all expenses, to report on the Second Boer War. He was captured by the Boers in November that year, but managed to escape. He remained in the country and continued to send in his reports to the newspaper. He subsequently published his despatches in two works, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton's March, both 1900. He returned to Britain in 1900 and was elected as the Member of parliament for the Oldham constituency at that year's general election.

As a serving MP he began publishing pamphlets containing his speeches or answers to key parliamentary questions. Beginning with Mr Winston Churchill on the Education Bill (1902), over 135 such tracts were published over his career. Many of these were subsequently compiled into collections, several of which were edited by his son, Randolph and others of which were edited by Charles Eade, the editor of the Sunday Dispatch.

In addition to his parliamentary duties, Churchill wrote a two-volume biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, published in 1906, in which he presented his father as a tory with increasingly radical sympathies, according to the historian Paul Addison.

In the 1923 general election Churchill lost his parliamentary seat and moved to the south of France where he wrote The World Crisis, a six-volume history of the First World War, published between 1923 and 1931. The book was well-received, although the former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour dismissed the work as Winston's brilliant autobiography, disguised as world history. 

At the 1924 general election Churchill returned to the Commons. In 1930 he wrote his first autobiography, My Early Life, after which he began his researches for Marlborough: His Life and Times (1933–38), a four-volume biography of his ancestor, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Before the final volume was published, Churchill wrote a series of biographical profiles for newspapers, which were later collected together and published as Great Contemporaries (1937).

In May 1940, eight months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill became Prime Minister. He wrote no histories during his tenure, although several collections of his speeches were published. At the end of the war he was voted out of office at the 1945 election; he returned to writing and, with a research team headed by the historian William Deakin, produced a six-volume history, The Second World War (1948–53). The books became a best-seller in both the UK and US. 

Churchill served as Prime Minister for a second time between October 1951 and April 1955 before resigning the premiership; he continued to serve as an MP until 1964. His final major work was the four-volume work A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58).

More information: National Churchill Museum

 

Never, never, never give up.

 

Winston Churchill

GIANTS OF ST. DUNSTAN-IN-THE-WEST CLOCK, A MUST

Today, The Grandma has visited the Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West, a medieval site that has a chiming clock, with figures of giants, who strike the bells with their clubs.

The Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West is in Fleet Street in the City of London. 

It is dedicated to Dunstan, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. 

The church is of medieval origin, although the present building, with an octagonal nave, was constructed in the 1830s to the designs of John Shaw.

It is first mentioned in written records in 1185. But there is no evidence of the date of its original foundation. There is speculation that it might have been erected by Dunstan himself, or by priests who knew him well. Others suggest a foundation date of between AD 988 (death of St Dunston) and 1070. Another speculation is that a church on this site was one of the Lundenwic strand settlement churches, like St Martin in the Fields, the first St Mary le Strand, St Clement Danes and St Bride's, which may pre-date any within the walls of the City of London.

King Henry III gained possession of it and its endowments from Westminster Abbey by 1237, and then granted these and the advowson to the Domus Conversorum (House of the Converts), which led to neglect of its parochial responsibilities.

William Tyndale, the celebrated translator of the Bible, was a lecturer at the church; the poet John Donne was at one time vicar, and delivered sermons. Samuel Pepys mentions the church in his diary.

The church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. The Dean of Westminster roused 40 scholars from Westminster School in the middle of the night, who formed a fire brigade that extinguished the flames with buckets of water; the flames reached a point three doors away.

The medieval church underwent many alterations before its demolition in the early 19th century. Small shops were built against its walls, St Dunstan's Churchyard becoming a centre for bookselling and publishing. Later repairs were carried out in an Italianate style: rusticated stonework was used, and some of the Gothic windows were replaced with round-headed ones, resulting in what George Godwin called a most heterogeneous appearance. The church's old vaulted roof was replaced in 1701 with a flat ceiling, ornamented with recessed panels.

More information: St Dunstan-in-the-West

The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers has been associated with the church since the 15th century. The company holds an annual service of commemoration to honour two of its benefactors, John Fisher and Richard Minge; by tradition, following the service, children were given a penny for each time they ran around the church.

Apart from losing its stained glass, the church survived the London Blitz largely intact, though bombs did damage the open-work lantern tower. The church was damaged again on 24/25 March 1944, during Operation Steinbock, a lower-intensity attack on London late in the war. The building was largely restored in 1950. An appeal to raise money to install a new ring of bells in the tower, replacing those removed in 1969, was successfully completed in 2012 with the dedication and hanging of 10 new bells.

The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.

On the façade is a chiming clock, with figures of giants, perhaps representing Gog and Magog, who strike the bells with their clubs. It was installed on the previous church in 1671, perhaps commissioned to celebrate its escape from destruction by the Great Fire of 1666. 

It was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand. The figures of the two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads.

There are numerous literary references to the clock, including in Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays, Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield; Nicholas Nickleby, Master Humphrey's Clock and Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens, The Warden by Anthony Trollope, the penny dreadful serial The String of Pearls (in which the character Sweeney Todd first appears), David Lyddal's The Prompter (1810), and a poem by William Cowper.

In 1828, when the medieval church was demolished, the clock was removed by art collector Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford, to Winfield House, his mansion in Regent's Park, which became known as St Dunstan's. During the First World War, Winfield House was lent as a hostel for blinded soldiers, and the new charity took the name St Dunstan's (now Blind Veterans UK).

The clock was returned by Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere (the brother of Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe) in 1935 to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V.

St Dunstan-in-the-West is one of the churches in England to share its building with the Romanian Orthodox community (St. George church). The chapel to the left of the main altar is closed off by an iconostasis, formerly from Antim Monastery in Bucharest, dedicated in 1966.

More information: Atlas Obscura

Don't watch the clock; do what it does.
Keep going.

Sam Levenson

'THE MOUSETRAP' BY AGATHA CHRISTIE, A MUST IN LDN

Today, The Grandma has bought some tickets to see The Mousetrap in London's West End, a play written by Agatha Christie that opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London in 1952.

The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie.

The Mousetrap opened in London's West End in 1952 and ran continuously until 16 March 2020, when the stage performances had to be discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It then re-opened on 17 May 2021. The longest-running West End show, it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,277th performance having taken place as of September 2023. Attendees at St Martin's Theatre often get their photo taken beside the wooden counter (showing a count of the number of performances) in the theatre foyer. As of 2022 the play has been seen by 10 million people in London.

The play has a twist ending, which the audience are traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre. The play began life as a short radio play written as a birthday present for Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. It was broadcast on 30 May 1947 under the name Three Blind Mice starring Barry Morse. The story drew from the real-life case of Dennis O'Neill, who died after he and his brother Terence suffered extreme abuse while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945.

The play is based on a short story, itself based on the radio play, but Christie asked that the story not be published as long as it ran as a play in the West End of London. The short story has still not been published within the United Kingdom, but it has appeared in the United States in the 1950 collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories.

When she wrote the play, Christie gave the rights to her grandson Matthew Prichard as a birthday present. In the United Kingdom, only one production of the play in addition to the West End production can be performed annually, and under the contract terms of the play, no film adaptation can be produced until the West End production has been closed for at least six months.

The play had to be renamed at the insistence of Emile Littler who had produced a play called Three Blind Mice in the West End before the Second World War. The suggestion to call it The Mousetrap came from Christie's son-in-law, Anthony Hicks.

More information: The Mousetrap

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, The Mousetrap is Hamlet's answer to Claudius's inquiry about the name of the play whose prologue and first scene the court has just observed (III, ii). The play is actually The Murder of Gonzago, but Hamlet answers metaphorically, since the play's the thing in which he intends to catch the conscience of the king. Three Blind Mice or its tune is heard a few times during the play.

The play's longevity has ensured its popularity with tourists from around the world. In 1997, at the initiative of producer Stephen Waley-Cohen, the theatrical education charity Mousetrap Theatre Projects was launched, helping young people experience London's theatre.

The play's storyline is set at the present, which presumably means England as it was around the time when the play came out in 1952, including postwar continuation of World War II rationing.

Tom Stoppard's 1968 play The Real Inspector Hound parodies many elements of The Mousetrap, including the surprise ending.

As a stage play, The Mousetrap had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on 6 October 1952.

It was originally directed by Peter Cotes, elder brother of John and Roy Boulting, the film directors. Its pre-West End tour then took it to the New Theatre Oxford, the Manchester Opera House, the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, the Grand Theatre Leeds and the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham before it began its run in London on 25 November 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre.

It ran at this theatre until Saturday, 23 March 1974 when it immediately transferred to the larger St Martin's Theatre, next door, where it reopened on Monday, 25 March thus keeping its initial run status. The London run has now exceeded 26,000 performances. The director of the play for many years has been David Turner.

Christie herself did not expect The Mousetrap to run for such a long time. In her autobiography, she reports a conversation that she had with Peter Saunders: Fourteen months I am going to give it, says Saunders. To which Christie replies, It won't run that long. Eight months, perhaps. Yes, I think eight months. When it broke the record for the longest run of a play in the West End in September 1957, Christie received a mildly grudging telegram from fellow playwright Noël Coward: Much as it pains me, I really must congratulate you...

In 2011, by which time The Mousetrap had been running for almost 59 years, this long-lost document was found by a Cotswold furniture maker who was renovating a bureau purchased by a client from the Christie estate. By the time of Christie's death in 1976 the play made more than £3 million.

More information: The Guardian

The original West End cast included Richard Attenborough as Detective Sergeant Trotter and his wife Sheila Sim as Mollie Ralston.

Since the retirement of Mysie Monte and David Raven, who each made history by remaining in the cast for more than 11 years, in their roles as Mrs Boyle and Major Metcalf, the cast has been changed annually. The change usually occurs around late November around the anniversary of the play's opening, and was the initiative of Sir Peter Saunders, the original producer. There is a tradition of the retiring leading lady and the new leading lady cutting a Mousetrap cake together.

The play has also made theatrical history by having an original cast member survive all the cast changes since its opening night. The late Deryck Guyler can still be heard, via a recording, reading the radio news bulletin in the play to this present day. The set was changed in 1965 and 1999, but one prop survives from the original opening -the clock, which sits on the mantelpiece of the fireplace in the main hall.

In May 2001, during the London production's 49th year, and to mark the 25th anniversary of Christie's death, the cast gave a semi-staged Sunday performance at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea as a guest contribution to the Agatha Christie Theatre Festival 2001, a twelve-week history-making cycle of all of Agatha Christie's plays presented by Roy Marsden's New Palace Theatre Company.

Performances at the St. Martin's Theatre were halted on 16 March 2020 with all other West End shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. 

The Mousetrap re-opened on 17 May 2021 after 14 months without performances.

More information: Official London Theatre

 Crime is terribly revealing.
Try and vary your methods as you will,
your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind,
and your soul is revealed by your actions.

Agatha Christie

YAIZA FOSTER, A NEW LIFE IN THE HIPPODROME CASINO

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have said goodbye to one of the members of the family, Yaiza Foster, the Argentinian croupier who has found a new job in the Hippodrome, the most popular casino in England.

Good luck, Yaiza!

Roll of the dice, sister!

Before saying goodbye to Yaiza, the family has been practising the Zero Conditional and playing some games to honoured their croupier.

Finally, The Grandma has explained one story about salmon and another about the importance of Navajo and Basque languages during the WWII.

More information: Zero Conditional

The Hippodrome is a building on the corner of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road in the City of Westminster, London. 

The name was used for many different theatres and music halls, of which the London Hippodrome is one of only a few survivors. Hippodrome is an archaic word referring to places that host horse races and other forms of equestrian entertainment.

The London Hippodrome was opened in 1900. It was designed by Frank Matcham for Moss Empires chaired by Edward Moss and built for £250,000 as a hippodrome for circus and variety performances. The venue gave its first show on 15 January 1900, a music hall revue entitled Giddy Ostend with Little Tich. The conductor was Georges Jacobi.

Entry to the venue was through a bar, dressed as a ship's saloon. The performance space featured both a proscenium stage and an arena that sank into 400 tons, when full, for aquatic spectacles. The tank featured eight central fountains, and a circle of fountains around the side. Entrances at the side of the auditorium could also be flooded, and used for the entry of boats.

Shows included equestrian acts, elephants and polar bears, and acrobats would dive from a minstrels' gallery above a sliding roof, in the centre of the proscenium arch. The auditorium featured cantilevered galleries, removing the columns that often obstructed views in London theatres, the whole was covered by a painted glass retractable roof, that could be illuminated at night. The building included the headquarters of Moss Empires.

In 1909, it was reconstructed by Matcham as a music-hall and variety theatre with 1340 seats in stalls, mezzanine, gallery and upper gallery levels. It was here that Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake received its English première by the Ballets Russes in 1910. The Albert de Courville revues were performed here from December 1912.

The Hippodrome hosted the first official jazz gig in the United Kingdom, by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, in 1919.

Its reputation was for revue and musical comedy, among them The Five O'Clock Girl, the West End production of Vincent Youmans' hit Broadway musical Hit The Deck (1928) and also Mr. Cinders, both in 1929; Ivor Novello's Perchance to Dream in 1945 with Margaret Rutherford; and the revue High Spirits in 1953 with Cyril Ritchard and Diana Churchill. 

Julie Andrews made her stage debut here at the age of 12. From 1949 to 1951 it was the London equivalent of the Folies Bergère.

The original interior was demolished in 1958, and Bernard Delfont had the Hippodrome converted into the nightclub The Talk of the Town. It featured appearances by many of the popular artistes of the time.

In 2009, the lease on the Hippodrome was acquired by Leicester-born father and son entrepreneurs Jimmy and Simon Thomas, who began an extensive restoration programme taking the Hippodrome back to Matcham's original designs for use as a casino and entertainment venue. During the planning stage, the adjacent Cranbourn Mansions building became available and plans were redrafted to incorporate this former gentlemen's apartment block into the design, doubling the eventual floorspace and linked using a new structure sited within the existing light well between the two buildings.

Investment in the building reportedly came to over £40 million, the funds being raised by the Thomas family from the sale of a number of bingo halls prior to the UK smoking ban, which made it illegal to smoke within an enclosed workplace, on 1 July 2007.

The Hippodrome Casino was opened on 13 July.

The venue on opening included four floors of gaming, including a Gold Room casino sited in the original basement with access directly into Chinatown to the rear of the building, Heliot restaurant, six bars, a smoking terrace and The Matcham Room cabaret theatre. The restoration and construction of the casino was followed on the blog of LBC presenter Steve Allen.

In January 2013, the casino was awarded Best Land-based Casino at the Totally Gaming Awards, which also gave Jimmy Thomas a Life Achievement award for his contribution to the gaming and entertainment industries.

On 4 March 2013, Simon Thomas announced the opening of Pokerstars LIVE, a collaboration between the Hippodrome and Pokerstars, the world's largest online poker website. While initially on the fourth floor, in 2020 Pokerstars LIVE moved to the third floor where it currently resides.

The Matcham Room at the Hippodrome Casino is currently the home of Magic Mike Live London.

In 2020, construction was completed on an expansion of the fourth floor smoking area to include gaming, and the creation of The Rooftop, a new bar and dining space, on the fifth floor.

More information: Hippodrome Casino

Life is a gamble at terrible odds
if it was a bet, you wouldn’t take it.

Tom Stoppard

ÁNGELES FOSTER & MICK, WITH NO LOVIN' IN OUR SOULS

Today, The Grandma has been listening to some music, and she has chosen Angie, the song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Angie is a song by the English rock band The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup. It also served as the lead single on the album, released on 20 August 1973.

The song is credited, as most Rolling Stones songs are, to both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Angie was recorded in November and December 1972 and is an acoustic guitar-driven ballad characterizing the end of a romance. The song's distinctive piano accompaniment, written by Richards, was played on the album by Nicky Hopkins, a Rolling Stones recording-session regular.

The strings on the piece (as well as on another song, Winter) were arranged by Nicky Harrison. An unusual feature of the original recording is that singer Mick Jagger's vocal guide track (made before the final vocals were performed) is faintly audible throughout the song (an effect sometimes called a ghost vocal).

Cash Box said that Jagger is at his best -slurring words by the dozens to ring out the feeling of every important line. Record World called it a tender ballad on which Mick Jagger's vocal is moving and sensuous.

Released as a single in August 1973, Angie went straight to the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached No. 5 on the UK singles chart. The song was also a No. 1 hit in both Canada and Australia for five weeks each and topped the charts in many countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

Because of the song's length, some radio stations made edits to shorten it to 3 minutes, omitting the longer coda and the second instrumental section of the song.

There was speculation that the song was about David Bowie's first wife Angela, Keith Richards' newborn daughter Dandelion Angela, the actress Angie Dickinson, and others. 

In 1993, in an interview for the liner notes to the Rolling Stones' compilation album Jump Back: The Best of The Rolling Stones, Richards said that the title was inspired by his baby daughter.

However, in his 2010 memoir Life, Richards said that he had chosen the name at random when writing the song -before he knew that his baby would be named Angela or even knew that his baby would be a girl- and that the song was not about any particular person. According to NME, Jagger's contributions to the lyrics referred to his breakup with Marianne Faithfull.

The Rolling Stones have frequently performed the song in concert; it's included in set lists on their 1973, 1975 and 1976 tours; it's available on two of their Vault recorded concerts including 1973 Brussels Affair (using electric guitars with Mick Taylor soloing) and Live at the L.A. Forum 1975 (played by Keith Richards and Ron Wood acoustically). It has been a touring staple since their 1982 European Tour. Concert renditions were released on the albums Stripped, Live Licks and The Rolling Stones: Havana Moon.

More information: U Discover Music

Angie
Ain't it time we said goodbye
With no lovin' in our souls
And no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
Angie, I still love you baby
Everywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain't a woman that comes close to you
Come on baby dry your eyes
Angie, Angie ain't good to be alive
Angie, Angie, we can't say we never tried

Mick Jagger

THE ROLLING STONES & THE FOSTERS, 'AS TEARS GO BY'

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have met The Rolling Stones, one of the best rock bands of all time, in Hyde Park.

Before this meeting, the family has practised some English grammar with Modal Verbs (Must/Mustn't), Object Pronouns and Let's.

Something has happened between Mick and Ángeles Foster, something very lovely and nice that can finish in the beginning of a great friendship or something more serious as tears go by.

More information: Must/Mustn't

More information: Object Pronouns

More information: Let's

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active across seven decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era.

In the early 1960s, the band pioneered the gritty, rhythmically driven sound that came to define hard rock. Their first stable line-up consisted of vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts. During their early years, Jones was the primary leader of the band.

After Andrew Loog Oldham became the group's manager in 1963, he encouraged them to write their own songs. The Jagger-Richards partnership became the band's primary songwriting and creative force; this alienated Jones, who developed a drug addiction that by 1968 interfered with his ability to contribute meaningfully.

Rooted in blues and early rock and roll, the Rolling Stones started out playing covers and were at the forefront of the British Invasion in 1964, becoming identified with the youthful counterculture of the 1960s. They then found greater success with their own material, as (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Get Off of My Cloud (both 1965), and Paint It Black (1966) became international number-one hits. Aftermath (1966), their first entirely original album, is often considered to be the most important of their early albums.

In 1967, they had the double-sided hit Ruby Tuesday/Let's Spend the Night Together and experimented with psychedelic rock on Their Satanic Majesties Request.

By the end of the 1960s, they had returned to their rhythm and blues-based rock sound, with hit singles Jumpin' Jack Flash (1968) and Honky Tonk Women (1969), and albums Beggars Banquet (1968), featuring Sympathy for the Devil and Street Fighting Man, and Let It Bleed (1969), featuring You Can't Always Get What You Want and Gimme Shelter.

Jones left the band shortly before his death in 1969, having been replaced by guitarist Mick Taylor. That year they were first introduced on stage as the greatest rock and roll band in the world.  

Sticky Fingers (1971), which yielded Brown Sugar and Wild Horses and included the first usage of their tongue and lips logo, was their first of eight consecutive number-one studio albums in the US. It was followed by Exile on Main St. (1972), featuring Tumbling Dice and Happy and Goats Head Soup (1973), featuring Angie.

Taylor left the band at the end of 1974, and was replaced by Ronnie Wood. The band released Some Girls in 1978, featuring Miss You, and Tattoo You in 1981, featuring Start Me Up.

Steel Wheels (1989) was widely considered a comeback album and was followed by Voodoo Lounge (1994). Both releases were promoted by large stadium and arena tours, as the Stones continued to be a huge concert attraction; by 2007 they had recorded the all-time highest-grossing concert tour three times, and they were the highest-earning live act of 2021.

Following Wyman's departure in 1993, the band continued as a four-piece core, with Darryl Jones becoming their regular bassist, and then as a three-piece core following Watts' death in 2021, with Steve Jordan becoming their regular drummer. Hackney Diamonds, the band's first new album of original material in 18 years, was released in October 2023, becoming their fourteenth UK number-one album.

The Rolling Stones' estimated record sales of 200 million make them one of the best-selling music artists of all time. They have won three Grammy Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.  

They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. 

Billboard and Rolling Stone have ranked them as one of the greatest artists of all time.

More information: Rolling Stones

Lose your dreams

and you might lose your mind.

Mick Jagger

CHARLES CHAPLIN, THE GREATEST ACTOR OF ALL TIME

Today, The Fosters & The Grandma have visited one of the greatest actors of all time, Charles Chaplin, who is spending some days in London.

 

Before this amazing visit, the family has been studying English grammar with the Comparative of Equality.

 

Finally, The Grandma has explained some stories about Charlie Rivel, the best clown of all time, and Marcel Marceau, the best mime of all time. 

 

Charlie Rivel and Marcel Marceau were as prosecuted as Charles Chaplin for political reasons. All three had to exile or escape from terrible situations helping lots of people on their searching of freedom.

More information: Comparative of Equality (AS ... AS)

 

Watch El Pallaso i el Führer (Catalan Version)

 

Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889-1977) is an English actor who famed in the silent film era.

Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financially -he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine.

When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian.

 

Chaplin started in the film industry at age 14 and since that moment his career was meteoric co-founding the distribution company United Artists in 1919 and playing successful films as The Kid, Modern Times, Limelight or The Great Dictator where he satirised Hitler and attacked fascism.

 

At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and attracted a large fan base. He directed his own films and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations.

 

By 1918, he was one of the world's best-known figures.

Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. He was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a picture. His films are characterised by slapstick combined with pathos, typified in the Tramp's struggles against adversity. Many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements.
 

His popularity declined when he was accused of communist and the FBI opened an investigation.

 

He received an Honorary Academy Award for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century in 1972, as part of a renewed appreciation for his work. He continues to be held in high regard, with The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator often ranked on lists of the greatest films. 

 

Chaplin was forced to leave the US and he settle in Switzerland where he died on 25 December. The king of the smile died on Christmas Day but his legacy is eternal.

More information: Charles Chaplin Official Website

 

You, the people have the power 

-the power to create machines. 

The power to create happiness! 

You, the people, have the power 

to make this life free and beautiful, 

to make this life a wonderful adventure.

 

The Great Dictator (1940)