Ann Hogarth
Margaret Ann Gildart Jackson (19 July 1910 – 9 April 1993) better known as Ann Hogarth (married name Margaret Ann Gildart Bussell) was a leading British puppeteer. She, her husband and "Hogarth Puppets" toured the world. She is best known for her puppet Muffin the Mule, which was one of the first stars of early BBC television in the 1940s and 1950s. She and her husband created a large collection of puppets Life Hogarth was born to Olive Mary (née Howle) and William Gildart Jackson who had been a school teacher. She was born the fourth of five children on 19 July 1910 at Hazelgrove, Shottermill, Frensham, Surrey. Her father remarried after her mother died when she was a small child. She was educated at St Catherine's School in Bramley where she discovered a talent for speaking and she resolved to go on the stage. To ensure she had a fallback career she trained as a secretary before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her qualification got her the job of stage manager ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muffin The Mule
Muffin the Mule is a puppet character in a British 1946-1955 television programme for children. The puppet had been made in 1933 for Hogarth Puppets. The original TV programmes featuring the animal character himself were presented by Annette Mills, and broadcast live by the BBC from their studios at Alexandra Palace from Autumn 1946 to Winter 1952. Mills and the puppet continued with programmes that were broadcast until 1955, when Mills died. The television series then transferred to ITV in 1956 and 1957. A modern animated version of ''Muffin the Mule'' aired on the British CBeebies channel between Autumn 2005 and Summer 2008 in the United Kingdom. History The original mule puppet himself was created in 1933 by Punch and Judy puppet maker Fred Tickner for husband-and-wife puppeteers Jan Bussell (1909–1984) and Ann Hogarth to form part of a puppet circus for the Hogarth Puppet Theatre. The act was soon put away, and the puppet was not taken out again until 1946, when Busse ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kangaroo
Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern grey kangaroo, and western grey kangaroo. Kangaroos are indigenous to Australia and New Guinea. The Australian government estimates that 42.8 million kangaroos lived within the commercial harvest areas of Australia in 2019, down from 53.2 million in 2013. As with the terms "wallaroo" and "wallaby", "kangaroo" refers to a paraphyletic grouping of species. All three terms refer to members of the same taxonomic family, Macropodidae, and are distinguished according to size. The largest species in the family are called "kangaroos" and the smallest are generally called "wallabies". The term "wallaroos" refers to species of an intermediate size. There are also the tree-kangaroos, another type of macropod, which inhabit the tropical ra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Idiot's Lantern
"The Idiot's Lantern" is the seventh episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast on 27 May 2006 on BBC One. It was written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Euros Lyn. The episode is set in London in 1953, at the time of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. In the episode, the incorporeal alien the Wire ( Maureen Lipman) intends to regain a physical body by consuming enough energy from the minds of the coronation's television audience. Plot The Tenth Doctor and Rose land in North London in 1953. While looking around, they see that most houses have TV antennas, which Rose recalls should be rare at this time. Mr. Magpie, a local merchant, informs them that the TVs are on sale to celebrate the upcoming coronation of Elizabeth II. The Doctor and Rose witness someone being taken from their home with a sheet over their head, and driven away by the police. The Doctor and Rose question the Connollys, a local fam ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. The TARDIS exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. With various companions, the Doctor combats foes, works to save civilisations, and helps people in need. Beginning with William Hartnell, thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; in 2017, Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to officially play the role on television. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each acto ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Glynebourne Theatre
Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hundred years old and listed at grade II.Kennedy, p. 5 History of the house "There had been a manor house at Glynde Bourne (as it was often spelt) since the fifteenth century", but the exact age of the house is unknown. Some surviving timber framing and pre-Elizabethan panelling makes an early sixteenth-century date the most likely. In 1618, it came into the possession of the Hay family, passing to James Hay Langham in 1824. He inherited his father's baronetcy and estate in Northamptonshire in 1833 which under the terms of his inheritance should have led to him relinquishing Glyndebourne, but as a certified lunatic he was unable to do so. After litigation the estate passed to a relative, Mr Langham Christie, but he later had to pay £50,000 to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale For A Land Baby
''The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby'' is a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. Written in 1862–63 as a serial for ''Macmillan's Magazine'', it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's ''On The Origin of Species''. The book was extremely popular in the United Kingdom and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in America in part due to its claimed prejudices against Irish, Jews, Catholics, and Americans. Story The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he appears to drown and is transformed into a "water-baby", as he is told by a caddisfly—an insect that sheds its skin—and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that E ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lesney Products
Lesney Products & Co. Ltd. was a British manufacturing company responsible for the conception, manufacture, and distribution of die-cast toys under the "Matchbox" name. The company existed from 1947 until 1982. History Lesney was founded on 19 January 1947 as an industrial die-casting company by Leslie Smith (6 March 1918 - 26 May 2005) and Rodney Smith (26 August 1917 - 20 July 2013). The name "Lesney" was an acronym from both partners' (which were not related by blood) names. They had been school friends and served together in the Royal Navy during World War II. Shortly after they founded the company, Rodney Smith introduced to his partner a man named John "Jack" Odell, an engineer he had met in a previous job at D.C.M.T. (another die-casting company). Mr. Odell initially rented a space in the Lesney building to make his own die-casting products, but he joined the company as a partner in that same year. Lesney originally started operations in a derelict pub in north London ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zebra
Zebras (, ) (subgenus ''Hippotigris'') are African equines with distinctive black-and-white striped coats. There are three living species: the Grévy's zebra (''Equus grevyi''), plains zebra (''E. quagga''), and the mountain zebra (''E. zebra''). Zebras share the genus ''Equus'' with horses and asses, the three groups being the only living members of the family Equidae. Zebra stripes come in different patterns, unique to each individual. Several theories have been proposed for the function of these stripes, with most evidence supporting them as a deterrent for biting flies. Zebras inhabit eastern and southern Africa and can be found in a variety of habitats such as savannahs, grasslands, woodlands, shrublands, and mountainous areas. Zebras are primarily grazers and can subsist on lower-quality vegetation. They are preyed on mainly by lions, and typically flee when threatened but also bite and kick. Zebra species differ in social behaviour, with plains and mountain zebra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Worm
Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete worms (bristle worms); for the African giant earthworm, ''Microchaetus rappi''; and for the marine nemertean worm (bootlace worm), ''Lineus longissimus''. Various types of worm occupy a small variety of parasitic niches, living inside the bodies of other animals. Free-living worm species do not live on land but instead live in marine or freshwater environments or underground by burrowing. In biology, "worm" refers to an obsolete taxon, ''vermes'', used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, now seen to be paraphyletic. The name stems from the Old English word ''wyrm''. Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slowworm '' A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kitten
A kitten is a juvenile cat. After being born, kittens display primary altriciality and are totally dependent on their mothers for survival. They normally do not open their eyes for seven to ten days. After about two weeks, kittens develop quickly and begin to explore the world outside their nest. After a further three to four weeks, they begin to eat solid food and grow baby teeth. Domestic kittens are highly social animals and usually enjoy human companionship. Etymology The word "kitten" derives from the Middle English word , which in turn came from the Old French or . Juvenile big cats are called "cubs" rather than kittens; either term (but usually more commonly "kitten") may be used for the young of smaller wild felids, such as ocelots, caracals, and lynxes. Development A feline litter usually consists of two to five kittens, but litters with one to more than ten are known. Kittens are typically born after a gestation lasting between 64 and 67 days, with an average l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have Countershading, countershaded dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life which they catch with their bills and swallow it whole while swimming. A penguin has a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey. They spend roughly half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea. The largest living species is the emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri''): on average, adults are about tall and weigh . The smallest penguin species is the Little penguin, little blue penguin (''Eudyptula minor''), also known as the fairy penguin, whic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Parrot
Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoidea ("true" parrots), the Cacatuoidea (cockatoos), and the Strigopoidea (New Zealand parrots). One-third of all parrot species are threatened by extinction, with higher aggregate extinction risk ( IUCN Red List Index) than any other comparable bird group. Parrots have a generally pantropical distribution with several species inhabiting temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere, as well. The greatest diversity of parrots is in South America and Australasia. Characteristic features of parrots include a strong, curved bill, an upright stance, strong legs, and clawed zygodactyl feet. Many parrots are vividly coloured, and some are multi-coloured. Most parrots exhibit little or no sexual dimorphism in the visual spectrum. They form the most ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |