GEORGE IVAN MORRISON: SOMEONE LIKE YOU

Van Morrison

George Ivan Morrison, born 31 August 1945, known as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and producer. In 2016, Morrison was knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland. 

Known as Van the Man, Morrison started his professional career when, as a teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands covering the popular hits of the day. He rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic Gloria. 

His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single Brown Eyed Girl in 1967. After Berns' death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968).

Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially a poor seller; Moondance (1970), however, established Morrison as a major artist, and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances.

Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and the Chieftains. 

An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually-inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks and lesser-known ones such as Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as Celtic soul. 

He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

More information: Van Morrison

 I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me, 

not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand, 

I lived there before I was famous. 

Van Morrison

SEAMUS HEANEY: A NOBEL PRIZE FOR AN IRISH POET

Seamus Heaney  (1939-2013)

Seamus Heaney  was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Born near Castledawson, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, the family moved to nearby Bellaghy when he was a boy. Heaney became a lecturer at St. Joseph's College in Belfast in the early 1960s, after attending Queen's University and began to publish poetry. He lived in Sandymount, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, from 1976 until his death. He also lived part-time in the United States from 1981 to 2006. Heaney was recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry during his lifetime.

More information: Poetry Foundation

Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996, was made a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Other awards that he received include the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1968), the E. M. Forster Award (1975), the PEN Translation Prize (1985), the Golden Wreath of Poetry (2001), the T. S. Eliot Prize (2006) and two Whitbread Prizes (1996 and 1999). In 2011, he was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2012, a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust. His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland.

American poet Robert Lowell described him as the most important Irish poet since Yeats, and many others, including the academic John Sutherland, have said that he was the greatest poet of our age. Robert Pinsky has stated that with his wonderful gift of eye and ear Heaney has the gift of the story-teller. Upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as probably the best-known poet in the world. One of his best known works is Death of a Naturalist, published in 1966. His work often deals with the local surroundings of Ireland, particularly in Northern Ireland, where he was born and lived until young adulthood. 

His body is buried at the Cemetery of St. Mary's Church, Bellaghy, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The headstone bears the epitaph Walk on air against your better judgement, from one of his poems.

More information: Interesting Literature

When a poem rhymes, when a form generates itself, 

when a metre provokes consciousness into new postures, 

it is already on the side of life. 

When a rhyme surprises and extends the fixed relations between words, that in itself protests against necessity. 

When language does more than enough, 

as it does in all achieved poetry, it opts for the condition of overlife, 

and rebels at limit.

Seamus Heavey

VANESA: WHAT'S THE WEATHER LIKE?

The United Kingdom

The weather will be very instable in The UK. Predictions talk about a very strong temporal this week with a dangerous tornado.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland, there will be moderate breeze and calm sea. Perhaps, they can change throughout the week.

In North East and North West, the sky will be cloudy and it will be able to rain in the midweek.

In Yorkshire Humberside, there will be strong breeze with sunshine.

In East and west midlands will rain and there will be strong wind from the north.

In Wales, it will snow a little but without curdling.

In East Anglia, there will be gentle breeze and low temperatures.

In South East, there will be very stable with sunshine.

In South West, it will be very stable with strong winds that could cause a small tornado.

For more information: Weather UK

Vanesa Collins (Astronaut)