British Summer Time
British Summer Time (BST) was an idea put forward by a wealthy businessman in Kent ~ William Willett (1856-1915) ~ who produced […]
Read MoreAuthor: Purple Brolly
My aim is to give a flavour of these precious islands we call 'the UK'. All research is based on a minimum of two publicly available sources, usually more.
Railways
It is said that the railways were the supreme achievement of the Victorian era in Britain. Cornishman Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) was the […]
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The Church of England
The Church of England (CofE) is the ‘Established’ church of England. This means that its head is the monarch ~ the ‘Defender […]
Read MoreThe Church of England (CofE) is the ‘Established’ church of England. This means that its head is the monarch ~ the ‘Defender of the Faith’ ~ and it plays a role in state occasions. Nevertheless, in current surveys only 14% of the population give their religion as CofE. Of those, just over 700,000 regularly attend CofE church services. However, the Christmas service is a different matter altogether, with increasing numbers of people seeing it as part of the festive fun!
The formation of the CofE by King Henry VIII (1491-1547) in 1534 was the Brexit of its day, as it was the breaking away from the Pope as head of the Europe-wide church. In fact, Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was excommunicated by the Pope in 1570, which put an end to her attempt to maintain the elements of Catholicism in CofE matters. Nevertheless, there are CofE churches today whose services are “in the Catholic tradition”, while, at the other end of the spectrum, other CofE churches opt for a modern style with no formal robes, no choir and a sermon tailored to topics of current interest.
In 2025, following the CofE’s increasingly alarming break with Biblical text, the wider Anglican community centred in Africa severed all ties with it.
(Top image of interior of Derby Cathedral: Michael D Beckwith at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)
The crime of forced marriage
In the UK, the legal joining of two loving partners in marriage is assumed to be a joyful occasion, entered into with […]
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Rendlesham Forest UFOs
In late December 1980 there occurred the world’s best-documented UFO incident in Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk. This was the site of the […]
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Visiting Parliament
Visits to the Houses of Parliament by all members of the public, British or otherwise, are welcomed and are free of charge. […]
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Horse racing
Horse racing is a sport largely enjoyed for its betting possibilities. It is subject to the regulations of the British Horseracing Association […]
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Frequency of Elections
The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011 decreased the frequency of General Elections, i.e. the elections to the House of Commons (MPs), from […]
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Lent
The observance of the 40 days of Lent in the Christian religions has waned considerably over the years. Unless you are a […]
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Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-70) remains one of Britain’s most influential writers, producing Victorian classics such as ‘A Christmas Carol’, ‘Great Expectations’ […]
Read MoreCharles John Huffam Dickens (1812-70) remains one of Britain’s most influential writers, producing Victorian classics such as ‘A Christmas Carol’, ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘Oliver Twist’. He was born in Hampshire and became a remarkably successful and renowned author, recitalist and social reform advocate. We can also partly blame him for the sentimentalisation of Christmas!
Dickens’s novels were serialised in magazines as he wrote them, which meant that he could tweak the plot in response to feedback. His clever style of writing, with playful use of language, kept his readers wanting more and he became very popular in his own lifetime. He had originally wanted to be an actor and audiences flocked to see his animated recitals of his work.
There were plenty of Dickens words and phrases that became part of everyday language ~ whoosh, scrooge, slow-coach, dustbin, ickle, bah humbug and whizz-bang, to name but a few. He liked to make up compound words (putting two words together), particularly for people’s surnames, and he loved a good metaphor!
“The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark Caves overshadowed by the wall.“
(Hard Times, 1854)
(Top image from Rochester Dickens Festival: Colin Smith at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Dolly the sheep
Dolly the sheep became famous for being the first publicly known mammal to be cloned. This caused much controversy, as it was […]
Read MoreDolly the sheep became famous for being the first publicly known mammal to be cloned. This caused much controversy, as it was seen as a precedent to cloning humans. Dolly was born on 5th July 1996 at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh and was euthanised on 14th February 2003 after contracting lung cancer. She had also suffered from arthritis.
Sir John Gurdon (1933-), who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2012, carried out the first investigations into removing the nuclei from adult somatic cells and transplanting them into embryonic cells. He experimented on frogs, but the research team headed by Professors Keith Campbell (1954-2012) and Sir Ian Wilmut (1944-, pictured above with Dolly) decided to go one further and use sheep.
(Photo courtesy of the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh / CC0)
The team implanted their modified embryo into a surrogate mother sheep of a breed that has black faces. Dolly had the white face of her donor mother’s breed, proving the success of the nucleus transplant. Dolly spent her life at the Institute and had six lambs, by normal means. Her preserved body is on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
(Top image: courtesy of the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh / CC0)
Red buses
Red buses are a feature of the London street scene and an integral part of the public transport system, although they are […]
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