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| Enid Blyton banned from BBC for nearly 30 years Children's author Enid Blyton was banned from the BBC for nearly 30 years because the corporation thought she was a "second-rater" whose work lacked literary value. Letters and memos from the BBC archives disclose how the creator of the Famous Five and Noddy – and one of the bestselling authors of her time – was kept off the radio as executives regarded her plays and books as "very small beer". In an internal memo dated 1938, Jean Sutcliffe, head of the BBC schools department, dismissed Blyton's work. "Her stories might do for Children's Hour but they haven't much literary value," she wrote.Enid BlytonBBCRadioRadio industryChildren and teenagersguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
The digested read Ebury Press, £25I first wrote a Christmas cookery book all of 19 years ago. So why do it again? First, most of you will have forgotten about it by now so it's an obvious way to cash in with little effort. More importantly, though, Christmas has been rather hijacked by Nigella in recent years and her extravagant excess does not sit comfortably with today's austerity Britain. In times of hardship, you need a down-to-earth brand you can trust. Me.The wisdom that comes only late in life has taught me that Christmas always arrives sooner than you think. Around 17 December, generally. So you need to think ahead. By my reckoning, if you start planning in October, you should be in with a chance. So this Christmas is screwed for a start. But don't worry, there's always next year, when even more of you will be unemployed, so you can probably start making the Christmas pudding in February.Remember that homemade is always going to taste far better and be less expensive than shop-bought. Compare the cost of my mince pies to Nigella's. Mine: one shilling and threepence halfpenny for six. Nigella: 27 guineas – including return ride in black cab to darling Italian deli in Notting Hill.Christmas lasts for eight days, so the provident cook needs to have a set menu ready for 40 meals. Here I have listed a typical daily example. Breakfast: roast collar of bacon. Mid-morning snack: potted venison terrine. Lunch: roast bronze turkey. Tea: Souffled Arbroath smokie creams. Dinner: fillet of beef in pastry. If you're lucky, however, several members of your family may die of a heart attack long before the eight days are up, meaning you can cook less thereafter. Another money-saving tip from Auntie Delia!Anyway, now you've shelled out 500 sovereigns on the five pages of my essential ingredients and utensils and resigned yourself to being a galley slave while everyone else gets drunk, you're ready for the recipes. Here goes:Cranberry queen of puddings Personally, I'm sick of cranberries, but I've included this recipe to remind everyone I'm the bitch when it comes to product placement. Jamie, Gordon and Nigella – fork right orff. Whisk eggs, bung in breadcrumbs and cranberries, shove in oven for 23 minutes, 45 seconds, and hope for the best.Roast stuffed goose with apples and prunes in Armagnac I included this in my original Christmas book and it's still the best recipe for goose anywhere in the world. So here it is again for those who missed it. Prepare prunes two weeks in advance, then stuff the goose with apples, sausage meat and liver, and cook for seven hours. Remove to a serving dish and allow to rest for 19 years.Michael's chunky saute potatoes in turkey dripping My husband's one contribution to Christmas. Accidentally spill turkey fat on to the roast potatoes while interfering. Pretend you meant to do it.Fallen chocolate soufflé with Armagnac prunes I make no apologies for also including this recipe from 19 years ago, as I'm hoping for a backhander from the prune and Armagnac marketing boards. Mix some flour, chocolate, eggs, prunes and Armagnac and cook for 31 minutes at gas 3. It is perfect served chilled, so you can keep it in the freezer for a couple of decades.Traditional roast turkey I've saved this until last so I can give you more accurate timings. 27 August: order Norfolk turkey from the internet-thingy; 21 December: queue for five hours to collect from sorting office as you were out when Royal Mail tried to deliver; 25 December, 5.30am: get up to switch on oven while everyone else is still asleep. 7.30am: Put in oven while everyone else is still asleep. 10am: Prepare vegetables while everyone else is opening their presents. 12.30pm: Lay table while everyone else gets drunk. 2pm: Serve turkey. 3pm: Do the washing-up while everyone else has a kip. Enjoy!Digested read, digested: Delia's festive nostalgia . . . for her previous Christmas book.Delia SmithJohn Craceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Handel's Messiah: the Christmas gift that keeps giving The British Library has put the draft score online, so we can see a festive masterpiece in progress - crossings-out and allHallelujah! What a Christmas present from the British Library: a chance to peer into the inner workings of Handel's Messiah, with a selection of pages from the composer's draft score of 1741 available for free at their online gallery. Actually, "draft" is something of a misnomer: what you'll see (and read about, and hear) at the British Library site comes pretty close to the final version we all know and love. The top tunes of the Messiah are all here, from Ev'ry Valley to the final Amen, laid down in Handel's magnificently energetic scrawl. As the British Library commentary points out, it might seem like a superhuman feat that Handel conceived the entire oratorio from beginning to end in 24 short days in the summer of 1741, but that's entirely in keeping with what we know about the composer's working practices. In fact, he finished another huge oratorio, Samson, by the end of October the same year.The revelation of this Messiah score is the thousands of corrections and rubbings-out you can see. Handel didn't get everything right first time, and, in the changes he makes, you get a rare insight into his dynamic compositional process. There's even a dramatic ink-spillage on one of the pages, making the music almost illegible. The miraculous thing about the Messiah is the way it's become enmeshed in our collective Christmas consciousness, and these pages are the place it all started. It's a privilege to see them. Maybe next year, the British Library will make the whole score available. Until then – the New Year, that is – have a happy, Handelian Christmas.Classical musicBritish LibraryTom Serviceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Video: Plastic Logic's Que eReader at the CES 2010 Introducing Plastic Logic's Que ereader – a tablet gadget that lets you download, read and organise newspapers on a touchscreen feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Ode to a Nightingale by John KeatsMy heart aches, and a drowsy numbness painsMy sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,Or emptied some dull opiate to the drainsOne minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,But being too happy in thine happiness,—That thou, light-winged Dryad of the treesIn some melodious plotOf beechen green, and shadows numberless,Singest of summer in full-throated ease.O, for a draught of vintage! that hath beenCool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,Tasting of Flora and the country green,Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!O for a beaker full of the warm South,Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,And purple-stainèd mouth;That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,And with thee fade away into the forest dim:Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forgetWhat thou among the leaves hast never known,The weariness, the fever, and the fretHere, where men sit and hear each other groan;Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;Where but to think is to be full of sorrowAnd leaden-eyed despairs,Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.Away! away! for I will fly to thee,Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,But on the viewless wings of Poesy,Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:Already with thee! tender is the night,And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;But here there is no light,Save what from heaven is with the breezes blownThrough verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweetWherewith the seasonable month endowsThe grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;And mid-May's eldest child,The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.Darkling I listen; and for many a timeI have been half in love with easeful Death,Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,To take into the air my quiet breath;Now more than ever seems it rich to die,To cease upon the midnight with no pain,While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroadIn such an ecstasy!Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—To thy high requiem become a sod.Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!No hungry generations tread thee down;The voice I hear this passing night was heardIn ancient days by emperor and clown:Perhaps the self-same song that found a pathThrough the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien corn;The same that oft-times hathCharm'd magic casements, opening on the foamOf perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.Forlorn! the very word is like a bellTo toll me back from thee to my sole self!Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so wellAs she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fadesPast the near meadows, over the still stream,Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deepIn the next valley-glades:Was it a vision, or a waking dream?Fled is that music:— Do I wake or sleep?John KeatsPoetryguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |