Jean Simmons
She contacted us last night about Deborah Kerr - sadly too late for us to get her on air. It's got us talking this morning about all the great films that she - Jean Simmons - was in . Spartacus (that music - sob), The Robe, Great Expectations, Guys and Dolls.
I mistakenly for a moment thought she had played Charlton Heston's love interest in Ben Hur - you know, she and her mother end up in a leper colony and he has to come to rescue them etc etc. Ryan quickly corrected me. If you want to know anything - ask Ryan. ( He's the one pictured in Radio Times with Ed a few weeks ago).
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Carolyn: Posts don't seem to be getting through again, so perhaps you can mention this to whoever is looking at IT today?
Jean Simmons - Gosh, that takes me back to my childhood and watching old British films on TV on Sunday afternoons. Didn't she play Estelle in Great Expectations? We used to be taken to see that on the occasion of our School Birthday in the local Odeon, so it was a film I got to know well.
Can you get her on for this evening? It would make a lovely Friday evening item, don't you think? And perhaps you could say how much glamour she brought to British cinema in the post war years. She played alongside many of the 'greats', including Olivier (who brought her to prominence, I believe), and many of those delicious male actors around in the fifties and sixties, including Brando, Newman, Burton, and Mitchum. She was in Guys and Dolls, Hamlet, The Big Country, Spartacus - her range was phenomenal.
A beautiful woman all her life (I've seen recent photos of her, and it is as true today), it is great to know she's still very much here, and I salute her.
And maybe she's actually English?
;-)
ed
The more control, the more that requires control.
Fri Oct 19 11:23:37 BST 2007
I wouldn't care if she were Scottish, Welsh or Irish, Ed, she's Jean Simmons. Get a life, man!
Just heard the very sad news that Alan Coren has died. A sad day. Like Linda Smith, his voice was one that I associated with joy and laughter on The News Quiz on a Friday evening...
Tut, tut, my li'l English Rose...
xx
ed
The Force is what holds everything together. It has its dark side, and it has its light side. It's sort of like cosmic duct tape.
Testing 11:48
Big Sis, sadly the moment has passed to get Jean Simmons on because the item was about the death of Deborah Kerr. I know exactly what you mean about Sunday afternoons - I had the same experience.
Sadly we've got another death to announce today - Alan Coren - so we'll be paying tribute to him on PM later.
sequin
Sequin, Sis, et al,
I'll miss Alan Coren, and apologies if my (racist?) taunts seem out of place in what's becoming an obituary thread.
;-(
Wasn't it Jean Simmons who played Ophelia in Olivier's Hamlet? She was wonderful in that.
If we removed his reference to the environment and compared David Miliband’s justification for the latest EU reform treaty (Today programme 19 Oct) with the justification the former East European leaders gave for closer integration within the Soviet Bloc (trade, security, foreign policy etc), both could have been run off the same photocopier. It seems that the Iron Curtain didn’t come down it just moved a few miles (sorry kilometres) west.
The unelected President of the EU told the democratically elected British Prime Minister that he would not get any more concessions on the EU reform treaty (18/10/2007). The expression ‘Tail Wagging the Dog’ was conceived in anticipation of such an occasion.
Everyone,
That's really sad news about Alan Coren - not as young as fellow News Quiz regular Linda Smith, but still far too young for such a talent to die.
Tonight's News Quiz will have a sad pall over it, even though it would have been recorded last night.
Brian,
"democratically elected British Prime Minister"
????
Bus error -- driver executed.
Sad news indeed.
Brian Christley @ 11, I don't think calling Gordon Brown the democratically elected British Prime Minister is entirely fair: he hasn't been democratically elected by the British people, he was chosen by a small section of that population to be the leader of their political party, and by that means inherited the premiership from one of his friends. I can't remember whether anyone stood to oppose him, but even if they did it was still a shoo-in and an inheritance, just like elections in the tyrannies that masquerade as democracies in many countries we despise for their lack of freedom and proper representation.
Oh no, not Alan Coren too? I hadn't heard that .... I'd been wondering at his absence from the Newsquiz. Such a drole, lovely man. I shall miss his wit and wisdom very very much.
I'm truly truly sad.
Thank you, Carolyn, though for getting back about Jean Simmons, and it's lovely to think that we shared the same Sunday activities. Perhaps you can contrive another reason for getting her on?
Chris Ghoti - Wrong, wrong and thrice wrong!
he hasn't been democratically elected by the British people. - Yes he has.
he was chosen by a small section of that population to be the leader of their political party. - No he wasn't. He was returned unopposed. No-one had sufficient support within the Labour Party to oppose him. A perfectly valid and honest process.
inherited the premiership from one of his friends. - I don't share your idea of friendship, but in any case he didn't inherit anything - he replaced him.
By all means complain about our antiquated voting system which is a disgrace and makes us a laughing stock in Europe, but don't damage your argument with obvious misrepresentations.
Loon,
GB was 'elected' by one third of the eligible voters in the good people of Kirckaldy & Cowdenbeath:
(58% of the vote on a 58% turnout)
He was NOT elected as GB Prime Minister.
He was Appointed Party leader unopposed.
Slainte
ed
A man took his wife deer hunting for the first time. After he'd given her some basic instructions, they agreed to separate and rendezvous later. Before he left, he warned her if she should fell a deer to be wary of hunters who might beat her to the carcass and claim the kill. If that happened, he told her, she should fire her gun three times into the air and he would come to her aid.
Shortly after they separated, he heard a single shot, followed quickly by the agreed upon signal. Running to the scene, he found his wife standing in a small clearing with a very nervous man staring down her gun barrel.
"He claims this is his," she said, obviously very upset.
"She can keep it, she can keep it!" the wide-eyed man replied. "I just want to get my saddle back!"
I remember Jean Simmons in Elmer Gantry
xx
ed
Hangover, n.:
The burden of proof.
Ed I - One can do an awful lot with semantics and word choice.
"He was Appointed Party leader ..." - has connotations that the decision was somehow mysteriously made and handed down, rather than being the result of a completely open and honest process.
"GB was 'elected' by one third of the eligible voters . ." - don't understand the ' marks about elected. And 58% of the vote sounds reasonable to me. The turnout is irrelevant other than a measure of people’s attitude to politics or in some opinions, the way that politics is reported. I'm open to persuasion that voting should be obligatory especially if "None of the above" can be added to the ballot paper. And it is a scandal that we still use this out-dated first-past-the-post system.
As for "He was NOT elected as GB Prime Minister" - absolutely correct - no-one ever is. The Queen appoints the UK Prime Minister and in recent times that is usually the leader of the greatest party in the Commons.
Loon,
""He was Appointed Party leader ..." - has connotations that the decision was somehow mysteriously made and handed down, rather than being the result of a completely open and honest process."
Contains as many unshared interpretations as Chris's reference to 'his friend'
;-)
ed
"How many people work here?"
"Oh, about half."
At least the ´óÏó´«Ã½ won't be able to fire Coren now.
(I think he would have found that funny.)
Loon @ 17 wrote
"Chris Ghoti - Wrong, wrong and thrice wrong!"
'he hasn't been democratically elected by the British people.' - "Yes he has."
Well, no, he hasn't, neither as an MP (only a few of the population live in his constituency and voted for him) nor as PM (none of the population who were not members of the Labour party had the opportunity to vote for or against him, and since he had no opponent the Labour party members had no-one else to vote for). In any case as you rightly point out there is no such thing as a 'democratically elected British Prime Minister' (Brian's phrase) if the monarch appoints Prime Ministers. Thank you for that.
'he was chosen by a small section of that population to be the leader of their political party.' - "No he wasn't. He was returned unopposed. No-one had sufficient support within the Labour Party to oppose him. A perfectly valid and honest process."
The Labour party does not have as members a majority of the voting population, nor anything like it. I refered to them as a small section of the population. How many out of the 60 million are members of the Labour party? What percentage must there be before they are a small proportion?
'inherited the premiership from one of his friends.' - "I don't share your idea of friendship, but in any case he didn't inherit anything - he replaced him."
'friend' as in 'one joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy' -- well, no, perhaps not. But 'one who ison the same side in warfare, politics etc.' covers it, I think.
The position was not contested; I feel entitled to say that it was inherited, that is, 'received from a predecessor in office'. Or would you settle for my saying that Brown 'succeeded as heir'?
"By all means complain about our antiquated voting system which is a disgrace and makes us a laughing stock in Europe, but don't damage your argument with obvious misrepresentations."
If you think the population of Great Britain democratically elected Gordon Brown as their Prime Minister, I think you have created the election that we all voted in and which the party he was leading at the time won, thus giving him a mandate. My recollection is that Blair resigned and Brown took over, with no democratic election taking place. I don't see that one can be elected democratically if there is no opposition for which anyone could vote to prevent one's succession to a post.
I wasn't arguing against the voting system; I was arguing with Brian's phraseology. :-) Now I am obviously arguing with you. :-))
Chris - Sorry but there is not anything in your reply that I think is worth debating. I don't think you really appreciate how the Parliamentary system operates, so I think I'll just leave it.
Loon,
Au contraire, I think both Chris and I understand all too well how "the parliamentary system" operates, and how far from anything which might be called truly democratic that is.
Your 'parting shot' is just what Broon is accused of - "I'd explain, but you wouldn't understand, so just trust your betters."
Salaam, etc
ed
You single-handedly fought your way into this hopeless mess.
Sat Oct 20 01:44:14 BST 2007
Why was Deborah Kerr's name pronounced Carr?
tomi @ 26, Maybe the family came from Berkshire?
Ed @ 25, thank you.
I can't help remembering that the original example of democratic rule seems to come from Athens, which must have been rather smaller than Great Britain or America given that all the citizens entitled to a vote on a given matter appear to have fitted into a single large theatrealike. I also note that anyone with less than a certain income didn't get a vote, nor women, nor slaves of course because they aren't human at all... one person one vote? oh, really? What a quaint idea!
Somehow the name 'Demosthenes' floats across my mind. So does the comparatively few years that system lasted before it got comprehensively stomped by practically every other power in the area.
Oh well. It's always said to be the least-worst system of government available, isn't it, and we must have faith. Now where did I leave the irony emoticon?
(The system seems to think it's somewhere in room 502)
Chris,
You're welcome, I'm sure.
We needn't worry. Until quite recently all our laws were written by male landowners. When Burns was writing, there were something like 1300 voters in Scotland - today, there are 1300 private ownerships which account for two thirds of Scottish land. Plus ca change, eh?
Territory, Property, Sovereignty
& Democracy in Scotland
Enjoy a quiet Sunday. I'm giving our clay oven a lime render to winterize its surface.
xx
ed
You know your apartment is small...
when you can't know its position and velocity at the same time.
you put your key in the lock and it breaks the window.
you have to go outside to change your mind.
you can vacuum the entire place using a single electrical outlet.
Hoover up a few 502s, why don't we?
Deborah Kerr was born in Helensburgh, about twenty miles west of Glsagow.
Yes, Kerr or Ker is a Scots name, isn't it. As in various Roxburghs. The one of those who moved South and was made Earl of Somerset by James 1/6, Robert Ker, changed the spelling to Carr just because it was confusing. (That wretch was given Sir Walter Raleigh's beloved Sherbourne by the graceless monarch Scots Jamie. His biography is a right caution.)
Chris,
My Grandmother was born in Warwick Castle (probably in the stables ;-)) and was Harriet Carr.
It's always seemed a bit ironic that I could've played rugby for England, but not Scotland, and like any Scot who'll be honest with you, I support Scotland (and whoever's playing England).
And, of course, near here at Carlisle, they make English Matzos (Carr's Water Biscuits).
But wasn't Deborah Kerr, the iconic English Rose? And David Niven, the perfect English Gent was from Auchtermuchty (or was it Aberfeldy)
xxx
ed
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it.
Sun Oct 21 23:44:17 BST 2007
I tried to post this a couple of times, then gave up and went out for a couple of hours...
Ed @ 32, I never knew where Niven was born, only that he went to Stowe and the Royal Military Academy. Well well. Thank you.
Ker/Kerr/Carr seems to be one of those surnames that people spell how they want to so long as it sounds right to them, then. It just underliines my feeling that people with decent manners listen to what someone calls him/herself and try to remember to say it right thereafter.
I have always been a devotee of Carr's Water Biscuits. And of course Bath Olivers. :-)
'English Rose' has got to be a Type rather than a comment on someone's place of origin, then. The only one I know comes from Edinburgh.