Pink

Pink is a colour that is a pale tint of red and is named after the flower of the same name. It was first used as a colour name in the late 17th century. In optics, the word “pink” can refer to any of the pale shades of colours between bluish red to red in […]

Gold

Gold, also called golden, is a colour. The web colour gold is sometimes referred to as golden to distinguish it from the colour metallic gold. The use of gold as a colour term in traditional usage is more often applied to the colour “metallic gold”. The first recorded use of golden as a colour name […]

Silver

Silver or metallic gray is a colour tone resembling gray that is a representation of the colour of polished silver. The visual sensation usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a simple solid colour, because the shiny effect is due to the material’s brightness varying with the […]

The Songs of Marie Lloyd

In today’s blog I want to celebrate Marie Lloyd the ‘Queen of the Music Hall, sadly there is no footage of her actually performing on the stage, although some recording of her singing do exist. Her daughter Marie Lloyd Jr. did give performances in which she impersonated her mother so I have included these as […]

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is an African-American spiritual song and one of the best-known Christian hymns. Originating in early oral and musical African-American traditions, it was composed by Wallis Wilis, a Choctaw freedman in the old Indian Territory in what is now Choctaw County, near the County seat of Hugo, Oklahoma sometime after 1865. He […]

Start!

Start comes from the the Middle English sterten; akin to Middle High German sterzen to stand up stiffly, move quickly. This meaning evolved by c. 1300 to “awaken suddenly, flinch or recoil in alarm,” and by 1660s to “cause to begin acting or operating.” Meaning “begin to move, leave, depart” (without implication of suddenness) is […]

Stop!

After the success of my recent series on songs related to English contractions, I though I would see if the same might be true of Exclamations. So today we are going to begin with “Stop”. It first appeared in Old English as “stoppian,” which has, so far, only been found in the written record in […]

Ain’t

The word ‘ain’t‘ is a contraction for am not, is not, are not, has not, and have not in the common English language vernacular. In some dialects ain’t is also used as a contraction of do not, does not, and did not. The development of ain’t for the various forms of to be not, to […]

The Plank (1967)

The Plank is a 1967 British slapstick comedy film (51 minutes) made by Associated London Films. It follows the misadventures of two builders who require a floorboard. It was written and directed by Eric Sykes, and produced by Jon Pennington. The story was based on an episode of Eric Sykes’ BBC comedy series Sykes and […]

Otis Redding

Otis Ray Redding Jr. was an American singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. Redding’s style of singing gained inspiration from the gospel music that preceded the genre. His singing style influenced many […]

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