Today, The Grandma has invested in a new English propierty. She is the new ownerof Downton Abbey,where she is going to share her home with the Crawley family and their domestic servants.
Downton Abbey is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes.
The
series first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2010,
and in the United States on PBS, which supported production of the
series as part of its Masterpiece Classic anthology, on 9 January 2011.
The series, set in the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey between 1912 and 1926, depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family
and their domestic servants in the post-Edwardian era -with the great
events of the time having an effect on their lives and on the British
social hierarchy.
Events
depicted throughout the series include news of the sinking of the
Titanic in the first series; the outbreak of the First World War, the
Spanish influenza pandemic, and the Marconi scandal in the second
series; the Irish War of Independence leading to the formation of the
Irish Free State in the third series; the Teapot Dome scandal in the
fourth series; the British general election of 1923 and the Beer Hall
Putsch in the fifth series.
The sixth and final series introduces the rise of the working class during the interwar period and hints at the eventual decline of the British aristocracy.
Downton Abbey has received acclaim from television critics and won numerous accolades,
including a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film
and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. It was
recognised by Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed
English-language television series of 2011.
It
earned the most nominations of any international television series in
the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, with twenty-seven in total,
after the first two series. It was the most watched television series on
both ITV and PBS, and subsequently became the most successful British
costume drama series since the 1981 television serial of Brideshead
Revisited.
On
26 March 2015, Carnival Films and ITV announced that the sixth series
would be the last. It aired on ITV between 20 September 2015 and 8
November 2015. The final episode, serving as the annual Christmas
special, was broadcast on 25 December 2015. A film adaptation, serving
as a continuation of the series, was confirmed on 13 July 2018 and
subsequently released in the United Kingdom on 13 September 2019, and in
the United States on 20 September 2019.
The series is set in fictional Downton Abbey, a Yorkshire country house,which
is the home and seat of the Earl and Countess of Grantham, along with
their three daughters and distant family members. Each series follows
the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family, their friends, and their servants during the reign of King George V.
Today, The Stones & The Grandma have continued their Englishlessons. They are working in a new home for Brauny and they have decided to contract a home service to help her in her day by day.
References are very important in work and they have received excellent ones from two great candidates, Anna and Mr. Bates, who worked for the aristocratic Crawley family some years ago.
The Stones have been discussing who the best candidates to work under Brauny orders are.
Finally, the family has reviewed ZeroConditional and There is/There are, the first of the three conditional structures that they are going to study.
Downton Abbey is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes.
The series first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2010, and in the United States on PBS, which supported production of the series as part of its Masterpiece Classic anthology, on 9 January 2011.
The series, set in the fictional Yorkshire country estate of Downton Abbey between 1912 and 1926, depicts the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their domestic servants in the post-Edwardian era -with the great events of the time having an effect on their lives and on the British social hierarchy.
Events depicted throughout the series include news of the sinking of the Titanic in the first series; the outbreak of the First World War, the Spanish influenza pandemic, and the Marconi scandal in the second series; the Irish War of Independence leading to the formation of the Irish Free State in the third series; the Teapot Dome scandal in the fourth series; the British general election of 1923 and the Beer Hall Putsch in the fifth series.
The sixth and final series introduces the rise of the working class during the interwar period and hints at the eventual decline of the British aristocracy.
Downton Abbey has received acclaim from television critics and won numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. It was recognised by Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed English-language television series of 2011.
It earned the most nominations of any international television series in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, with twenty-seven in total, after the first two series. It was the most watched television series on both ITV and PBS, and subsequently became the most successful British costume drama series since the 1981 television serial of Brideshead Revisited.
On 26 March 2015, Carnival Films and ITV announced that the sixth series would be the last. It aired on ITV between 20 September 2015 and 8 November 2015. The final episode, serving as the annual Christmas special, was broadcast on 25 December 2015. A film adaptation, serving as a continuation of the series, was confirmed on 13 July 2018 and subsequently released in the United Kingdom on 13 September 2019, and in the United States on 20 September 2019.
The series is set in fictional Downton Abbey, a Yorkshire country house,which is the home and seat of the Earl and Countess of Grantham, along with their three daughters and distant family members. Each series follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family, their friends, and their servants during the reign of King George V.
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'sappearances. 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 HarryPotter's saga, DowntownAbbey series and WilliamShakespeare'splays.
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.
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.
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.
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), HotMillions (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 wonSmith her first BAFTA Award.
Dowager Countess, Downton Abbey, 2010-2015
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).
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.
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.
Yesterday
was a hard day for The Holmes. They
reviewed some modal verbs (Need and Can) and they wrote two Florence’s postcards to MJ. They also practised some Social English and other themes of
English grammar while The Grandma
was explaining a story about an old friend who she loves a lot and once had to
take another path in her life far away from her.
Today, the
family has continued its preparation learning some new things about Adverbs of Frequency in comparative and superlative forms; Relative Pronouns and Conditional Tense. After MJ visit, the
family has been talking about the convenience of doing the Cambridge Exam with advantages and disadvantages.
The Grandma appreciates the huge effort of her family day after
day and trust on them because she knows that they have nothing to lose and the
only possible final is success
Tomorrow, The Holmes will recycle with modal
verbs, count with their little calculators and play bingo with Luisa Holmes, the croupier, like party’s
soul. After this, the family, who is now in Lîdje, are going to travel to London where they’re going to stay some days and where The Queen, an old Grandma’s friend, is
waiting for them, in the same way, that The
Collins who are going to receive them in Downton Abbey.
After visiting
some incredible places in Edinburgh,
the Scottish capital, like Arthur’s Seat, Royal Mile, Princess Street, Calton
Hill or the Castle, and some other Scottish places, where The Addams Family has enjoyed its wonderful people, like Connor MacLeod; they went to Inverness to meet Nessie in Loch Ness. It wasn’t possible
and then, they flew to London, the
English capital, where they’ve spent some days.
They’ve
visited emblematic places like Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Westminster
Abbey, The Houses of the Parliament, the London Eye, Saint Paul’s Cathedral,
Tower Bridge and the Tower of London and they went to meet the Queen, a Grandma’s
friend, who had invited all the family to take some tea in Buckingham Palace.
It has been
an interesting trip to improve their English and join to The Collins who received them in their majestic mansion, Downton Abbey. They have talked about environment and gender equality and they've done their first KET exams, too. It has been an intense week.
During two
days, The Collins Family has been
reviewing some grammar about KET, PET and FCE levels. The family has moving to Downton Abbey and they have been decorating its new home and they’ve
replied some letters of the service’s ex members. They're working like Little Hercules.
They have
been working during two months for arriving to the exam tests in the best
conditions. They know that they must work very hard, as they’ve done it until
now and The Grandma is finishing her
last manuals for helping them.
Before
staying in Downton Abbey, they have gone to French Guiana to get on a shuttle. This
has been the last Grandma’s present: sailing into the space.
And if you feel the weight of the world
Put your mind at ease
Little Hercules
'Cause there's so much on your shoulders
But you know it's a breeze
Last Friday, we finished our pre-intermediate book and
we started with our intermediate one. We reviewed Present Perfect vs. Past Simple and Present Simple vs. Present
Continuous and we read about restaurants. We ordered some reports and we talked
about adjectives that define us. Finally, we created stories with The Smurfs
Cards.
The Collins Family went to a party in the afternoon.
They invited lots of people to participate in it and Downton Abbey filled with
people arrived from all places, including non-terrestrial ones. It was a great
party, plenty of music, happiness, food and drink. The Family has rested during
all the weekend but they know, they must continue tomorrow because the show never ends, the show must go on.
For two
days, we’ve reviewed the present perfect with its important words: already,
just, yet, since and for. We’ve talked about determined and undetermined time
and we’ve worked more aspects about social English.
Moreover, we’ve continued
creating compositions and we’ve talked about Jack the Ripper, Vlad the Impaler
and Enriqueta Martí.
Tomorrow, The
Collins Family is going to enjoy a fantastic party in Downton Abbey for
celebrating its arrival. Today, the guests' list has continued increasing and
we can be sure that it will be an unforgettable party.
I find inspiration in the movies I've loved, especially all films ever made about Dracula.
Last Friday,
we decided to go to Venice to spend
the weekend and joy the Venetian Carnival.
Before this, we talked about social movements and its affection in cities like
Barcelona and we created tales inspired in Antoine
de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince.
Eva explained us the future accommodation of our pets in Downton Abbey and all The Collins Family was exciting with
the proposal.
During this
weekend, The Collins Family is
enjoying Venetian culture and tomorrow this evening they’re flying to London
where they will stay some days in a hotel meanwhile the workers refurbish
Downton Abbey and finish the last works.
Who would have thought from the top of the Coliseum, that the Roman Empire was not eternal.
Today, we’ve reviewed Past Continuous
and Past Simple and we’ve started a new reading book about the adventures of
two friends, Jake and Ros. We’ve talked about communication skills in group
interviews and we’ve studied the order of words in the sentences, especially
with the additions: Manner-Place-Time.
The family is sailing in the
Love Boat where has happened a strange case: a robbery. An old passenger said
that her jewels had disappeared and some members of our family are between the
main suspects: Mari Carmen, Montse Pottery, Eva Cyprus, Adriana, Gemma and
Dámaris. The Grandma is flying by helicopter to the Love Boat for avoiding any
kind of arrest.
Meanwhile, some members of the
family are working very hard: Eva Cyprus is designing new spaces in Downton
Abbey for the family pets and Belén is preparing a great tour inside The Louvre
Museum.
Tomorrow, The Collins Family
will give enough explanations about of all them to seem innocent and continue
the trip. The Family has a lot of work: preparing eight different songs for
participating in Eurovision Song Contest, a Karen’s dream.
Roll of the dice!
Love Boat soon will be making another run The Love Boat promises something for everyone Set a course for adventure Your mind on a new romance
The
Grandma has had some introspective days. While she was spending some days in
the hotel, her family was in Rhodes traveling around the island.She has been
thinking about the possibility of getting married because she felts alone,
although she has adopted a large family. After talking to every member of the
family, finally, she decided to continue without a new husband.
Next
week, The Grandma is going to meet her family in Santorini, where she will be
waiting the Love Boat’s arrival with all her family on board.
Now,
The Grandma is happy. She’s preparing her suitcases for traveling around Europe
during some months. From Santorini, the family is going to travel to Paris for
celebrating Belén’s birthday, and from Paris, they’re going to fly to London
near where The Grandma has bought a new house for all of them: Downton Abbey.
Next
week, the timetable of The Collins Family is plenty of activities: they’re
going to create lullabies and songs; buy some furniture for the new English
house; write a tale and plan how to rebuild Downton Abbey for giving enough
space and facilities to their pets.
From
Wednesday to Friday, The Collins Family has continued its English classes, which
are now more important than never because of its moving to Downton Abbey. They
reviewed the Past Continuous and sentences with when and while. They played
with the Story Cubes and described a neighbourhood. They also walked around
Rhodes guided by Adriana and they talked about the origin of some lullabies in
different cultures: the Hobo in the USA, the satiric ones in England and the
pain songs for a child’s death in Catalonia and in the Gipsy culture.
Eva
Maltese has continued searching some information about Corto but nobody knows
anything about him. Nowadays, she’s following a new clue: a man called Salvador
explained last news about him. In fact, Salvador was the last person who saw
Corto in the Greek Island. We don’t know but, perhaps, in the next hours there
will be an interesting cliff-hanger.In these moments, The Collins Family must be leaving Kos.
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