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Post by tangent on Dec 30, 2018 12:21:47 GMT
Order of the British Empire.
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Post by whollygoats on Dec 30, 2018 15:30:01 GMT
What empire?
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Post by ceptimus on Dec 30, 2018 22:55:41 GMT
It's an antiquated honour - like being made a knight or dame, but a lower order.
Lucy could eventually be made a dame then her name would be Lady Lucy Worsley or similar. Below that is CBE, "Commander of the British Empire", and below that is OBE (what Lucy got) "Order of the British Empire". There's a lower one still, MBE "Member of the British Empire", and lower still BEM, "British Empire Medal".
Some people get offered the gongs and turn them down - either because they don't like the 'Empire' in the name, or they think the whole system of honours is divisive and archaic. Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders turned down gongs offered to them ages ago, saying, "We get very well paid for something we love doing - why should we get additional rewards over and above that."
Others have probably turned down gongs but don't make it public - Stephen Fry may be such a person.
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 3, 2019 22:38:30 GMT
Lucy is currently starring in a new BBC 4 television series titled, "American History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley" Here's the trailer, but maybe it's not visible outside the UK? www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06v59cr
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Post by Kye on Jan 3, 2019 23:36:32 GMT
I can see it!
It sounds interesting, but I'm barely literate in my own country's history...
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Post by Moose on Jan 3, 2019 23:55:59 GMT
Oh I asked Col to set the box thingy to record that
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 4, 2019 2:20:57 GMT
Most EXCELLENT!!!
There is no shortage of 'fibs', not to mention outright chicanery.
If her bit on the fibs of British history is any indicator, this should be fun. I wonder how long I shall have to wait to see it on YouTube.
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Post by Moose on Jan 11, 2019 23:46:29 GMT
It's starts here in a few days
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 12, 2019 1:46:53 GMT
It's starts here in a few days Keep me posted on the topics they cover.
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 12, 2019 12:09:04 GMT
It's only a three episode series. First episode airs Thursday 17th Jan.
#1 The American Revolution. This episode examines the American Revolution – a David-and-Goliath battle of men with high ideals taking on the might of the British Empire. But how much of America’s founding story is based on fact?
#2 The American Civil War. Lucy Worsley debunks the myths behind one of the USA’s great historical landmarks: the American Civil War. At the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington DC, Lucy explains that Abraham Lincoln has gone down in history as the saviour of the union, and for ending slavery. He did it at the expense of the bloodiest conflict ever to take place on American soil, a civil war that pitted Lincoln’s ‘free’ North against the ‘slave-owning’ Confederate states in the South. But Lucy reveals that Lincoln’s personal views, and the behaviour of his troops towards African Americans, were not as noble as they appeared. Then, in the South, after the war, she learns how history was rewritten in a bid to downplay the evils of slavery, and how a 1905 blockbuster film about the Civil War relaunched the Ku Klux Klan with terrifying results. Lucy visits the Georgia countryside of Scarlett O’Hara, but Gone with the Wind’s technicolor depiction of the old South and contented slaves was just part of a continued effort to whitewash history and romanticise a dark past. Back in Washington DC, Lucy meets a historian who explains that the next person to reconsider the Civil War’s legacy was Martin Luther King. Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he demanded that the USA honour a ‘bad cheque’ African Americans had been written when freedom was promised at the end of the war. Finally, she travels to Charlottesville, Virginia, and meets locals with differing opinions on a statue of the Confederate general Robert E Lee. The statue became a fatal flashpoint in 2017, when at a mass rally, Confederate flags mingled with Klan costumes - sad proof, one historian suggests to Lucy, that the Civil War has never really ended.
#3 ?
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 12, 2019 17:06:24 GMT
USers usually think of the Revolution as having been a conflict where the rebels were the overwhelming proportion of the colonists struggling against foreign invaders. I understand that the rebels, at best, only constituted about a third of the colonial population, with the rest divided between those who were Loyalists and those who wished everybody else would go away and leave them alone, as they wanted nothing to do with any of it. And, it was only 'won' when the French (the French fleet, actually) intervened at a propitious moment in the conflict.
Also, a close reading of Lincoln's 'Emancipation Proclamation' will provide some balance with regards the Civil War, but most folks don't do that, or, don't consider the facts on the ground versus the promises implied by the proclamation.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 12, 2019 19:35:28 GMT
It's an antiquated honour - like being made a knight or dame, but a lower order. A damette? A damarini? Damifino.
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Post by tangent on Jan 13, 2019 23:07:48 GMT
I think that Lucy Worlsey is very attractive? I dunno....Do you? I do too.
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Post by Moose on Jan 14, 2019 2:41:28 GMT
*beams at Steve*
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Post by Moose on Jan 18, 2019 21:41:37 GMT
Oooh has this started yet? we set it to record but I totally forgot. Should have recorded though
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Post by tangent on Jan 18, 2019 22:39:14 GMT
Yes, I've recorded it but saved it until my mind is a bit clearer.
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 19, 2019 10:23:23 GMT
#3 In the third and final film in the series, Lucy Worsley reveals the historic myths and deceptions told following the United States’ emergence as a superpower after the Second World War. We often remember the 1950s and early 1960s in America as a golden era of abundance, harmony and the American dream made real. This film reveals that to be a carefully constructed illusion. In truth, the era of America’s supremacy was a time of government deception, racial conflict and fears of nuclear annihilation.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 19, 2019 14:40:25 GMT
Heh...I'll have to catch it at some point.
And, don't I know it? I was raised in that era. We were itinerant, until we made it to Portland, where my father finally got regular work. Migrants. The thing is, I was raised on Roosevelt, the CCC, and Michael Harrington's _The Other America_. There was a "War on Poverty" in the 1960s which lifted the veil on much of that...LBJs "Great Society" was an outgrowth of the desire to shake off rural poverty and extend racial equality, but basically failed on the horns of an ill-conceived and poorly sponsored foreign war.
And, government deception continues to this day and I still dread nuclear annihilation.
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Post by Moose on Jan 20, 2019 2:34:57 GMT
One day I think that the world will be all but destroyed by a nuclear exchange. I hope I am not there to see it but I fear for those who are. It's been less than eighty years since we invented the technology and already there have been several scares since the first two bombs. We ain't gonna last much longer without someone using one
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 20, 2019 21:33:01 GMT
I watched #1 from my recording device tonight. Some random things I remember. - Someone famously foretold that the 2nd of July would become an important celebration day (nearly right)!
- The American army/militia would never have defeated the English without the help of the French - especially the French navy.
- The Boston Tea Party was frowned upon by the USA leaders of the day - they didn't even call it that until about fifty years later when all those who were involved or witnessed the event were dead/dying.
- Paul Revere never made it to Lexington, and it wasn't a lone ride - there were two or three people involved taking different routes, and it was the third rider who gave the message.
- 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' was a compromise ambiguous slogan made up in an attempt to satisfy both slave owners and anti-slavers.
- The Liberty Bell wasn't rung to announce anything, as it was out of action at the time.
- The story of the old bell ringer and the blue eyed boy was made up.
- Molly Pitcher was made up too.
- The statue of Liberty was originally designed to be sold to Egypt, but the Egyptians couldn't afford it.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 20, 2019 22:51:24 GMT
The only surprise in that was the last.
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 21, 2019 0:38:25 GMT
It was to be a representation of an Egyptian peasant woman, placed at the mouth of the Suez canal The statue was to symbolise the ruler of Egypt, Ismail Pasha's efforts to modernise the country and would be called ‘Egypt Bringing Light to Asia’ or ‘Egypt Enlightening the Orient’. The lantern would be metaphorical but also practical, as the statue would also double as a lighthouse – recalling the ancient Pharos of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 21, 2019 0:46:33 GMT
The only surprise in that was the last. I suppose the program is mainly targetted at a British audience, which in large part wouldn't even recognise names like Paul Revere or Molly Pitcher. So it's probably going to be a bit trivial for an American student of history such as yourself. For each topic, Lucy has to first explain the official, largely accepted, version and then contrast it with a more accurate factual account. You might find it a bit plodding, but as you like Lucy perhaps you will put up with being told what you already know, and enjoy watching Lucy dressed up in a variety of costumes visiting places of historical interest.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 21, 2019 0:52:05 GMT
Heh...cept has my number.
Yeah, I could probably watch Lucy arch her off-colour eyebrows just reading the phonebook.
As for the 'average American', I suspect they would learn a great deal from the entire program. I don't think I'm very 'average', especially considering the level of ignorance about American civics these days. I suspect the average Brit may well be better versed about our history than the average American.
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Post by tangent on Jan 21, 2019 17:51:30 GMT
As for the 'average American', I suspect they would learn a great deal from the entire program. I don't think I'm very 'average', especially considering the level of ignorance about American civics these days. I suspect the average Brit may well be better versed about our history than the average American. It would be good if you could conduct a survey of your fellow citizens, WG, to establish their level of knowledge.
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 27, 2019 22:49:56 GMT
I watched the second one about the American Civil War. I didn't really learn anything new: it was mainly saying that Lincoln and the Unionists weren't as anti-slavery as they're sometimes painted; that effective slavery, implemented by different means, continued well into the twentieth century; and that the civil war, in some respects, continues to be fought to this day. Worth watching, but not as informative as the first one, in my opinion.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 28, 2019 2:23:17 GMT
Yes, unfortunately, that Civil War continues unto this day.
The Civil War has devolved in to an uncivil war upon non-combatants with automatic weapons.
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Post by ceptimus on Feb 1, 2019 23:24:07 GMT
I watched the final one. Japan surrendered in WW2 not because of the nukes but because Russia declared war on them. Cuba missile crisis was averted when the USA agreed to remove USA missile bases in Turkey. Huge ramp up of USA ICBMs was in response to ludicrous over-reporting of Russia's ICBM capability: USA intelligence claimed the Russians had hundreds of missiles; in reality they had just four. Martin Luther King wouldn't allow women to speak on his platform, or accompany him into important meetings.
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