ROBERT HARDY: MINISTER OF MAGIC CORNELIUS FUDGE

Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy

Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy (29 October 1925-3 August 2017) was an English actor with a long career in the theatre, film and television.

Hardy was born in Cheltenham in 1925 to Jocelyn, née Dugdale, and Henry Harrison Hardy, the headmaster of Cheltenham College. He was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College, Oxford University, where his studies were interrupted by service in the Royal Air Force, after which he returned to gain a BA in English. 

On BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs he described the degree he obtained as shabby, although he treasured the time spent studying under C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

More information: Daily Mail

He was a close friend of actor Richard Burton, whom he met at Oxford University. While playing Henry V, Hardy developed an interest in medieval warfare, and he later wrote and presented an acclaimed television documentary on the subject of the Battle of Agincourt. 

Robert Hardy

He also wrote two books on the subject of the longbow, Longbow: A Social and Military History and The Great Warbow; From Hastings to the Mary Rose with Matthew Strickland. He was one of the experts consulted by the archaeologist responsible for raising the Mary Rose. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Bowyers of the City of London from 1988 to 1990. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Hardy began his career as a classical actor. In 1959 he appeared as Sicinius opposite Laurence Olivier in Coriolanus at Stratford-upon-Avon, directed by Peter Hall. He then appeared in Shakespeare's Henry V on stage and in television's An Age of Kings (1960), and subsequently played Coriolanus in The Spread of the Eagle (BBC, 1963) and Sir Toby Belch for the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Twelfth Night in 1980. 

His voice performance as Robin Hood in Tale Spinners For Children, an LP from the 1960s, is considered one of the best Robin Hood renditions. His voice was also the voice of D'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, and of Frédéric Chopin, in The Story of Chopin.

More information: BBC

Over the years, Hardy played a range of parts on television and film. His first continuing role in a TV series was as businessman Alec Stewart in the award-winning oil company drama The Troubleshooters for the BBC, which he played from 1966 to 1970. He won further acclaim for his portrayal of the mentally-unhinged Abwehr Sgt. Gratz in LWT's 1969 war drama Manhunt. In 1975, Hardy portrayed Prince Albert in the award-winning 13-hour serial Edward the Seventh.

Cornelius Fudge & Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter

Hardy played both Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, each on more than one occasion. He played Churchill most notably in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981), for which he won a BAFTA award, but also in The Sittaford Mystery, Bomber Harris and War and Remembrance. He played Roosevelt in the BBC serial, Bertie and Elizabeth, and in the French TV mini-series, Le Grand Charles, about the life of Charles de Gaulle. On 20 August 2010, he read Churchill's famous wartime address Never was so much owed by so many to so few at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the speech.
 

He also played Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in Elizabeth R, and Prince Albert in Edward the Seventh. He took the role of Sir John Middleton in the 1995 film version of Sense and Sensibility. His big screen roles included Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter films.

Today, Robert Hardy has died, aged 91 at Denville Hall, a home for retired actors.

More information: Denville Home

Difficult  for actors to extemporise in nineteenth-century English. 
Except for  Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs, 

who speak that way anyway.

Emma Thompson

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S HIDDEN STORY IN IRELAND

Albert Einstein in Ireland

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879-18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, alongside quantum mechanics. Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass, energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which has been dubbed the world's most famous equation. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.

More information: The Journal

Ireland has a proud history of neutrality and it is perhaps for this reason much of the details of Albert Einstein’s 1941 visit to Ireland has been erased from the history books.

What was to be but a short two day visit lasted three months and resulted in the construction of Ireland’s first and only nuclear bomb. Now, The Grandma brings you the true story of Einstein’s visit to these shores and the weapon of mass destruction he built for us.

The world's most famous equation

Famed for his passion for pacifism, Einstein was compelled to visit Ireland and see its neutrality first hand while en route to a series of lectures he was to give at Oxford University in England.

The Taoiseach of the day Eamon de Valera learned of Einstein’s passage to Ireland and invited him to an evening of conversation and conviviality in Dublin.

De Valera laid on a most impressive feast for his guest considering the lack of quality produce available in Ireland during wartime which Einstein greatly appreciated. They toured Dublin’s great whorehouses, not to partake in such practices, but having become wearied by the carrying around loose change all evening they decided to divest themselves of it while helping the local economy.

More information: The Irish Times

The Taoiseach made several requests of Einstein that evening, asking the great physicist to look into creating the most aerodynamically perfect hurley, which he would then send only to the Clare senior hurling team but Einstein declined.

Albert Einstein

After a detour into a noted and infamous opium emporium Einstein claimed to have witnessed visions of great cataclysmic horrors brought forth by war, de Valera too saw troubling sites in his hallucinations; a capital city obsessed with decent lattes and pulled pork.

Truly frightened of what he thought would be a Nazi reign of hipster culture de Valera struck Einstein in the head with an aerodynamically inferior hurley, knocking him out cold.

Einstein would wake in chains in a room de Valera had nicknamed An Dearg Seomra. It was here DeValera made demands of Einstein to create the basis of a foolproof defence against the Nazis: the atomic bomb.

The world famous physicist was forced to work around the clock for days on end until he completed a bomb of terrifying capabilities surviving only on a diet of chomp bars and Guinness.

Albert Einstein

Upon completion of the device Einstein was liberated and carried on his travels to Oxford, leaving de Valera in charge of the bomb along with its security code. In an act of defiance Einstein instituted a code that would irk de Valera: Michael Collins is da best.

The bomb as you may know remained unused as Hitler and his regime were ultimately defeated, but curiously de Valera had stated he would only use the bomb in the event of the Nazis occupying England as it would have hit two birds with one stone.

Subsequent political generations have kept these events as secretive as possible, but when some newspapers began sniffing around the story in the late 90s the Government of the day decided it was best to hide the bomb from public view.

The exact location of the warhead is not known, but it is probably not a coincidence that after quelling the story in the papers they would announce the construction of the Spire the following day.

More information: Biography.com

Try not to become a man of success, 

but rather try to become a man of value.

Albert Einstein