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Mistletoe And Wine
"Mistletoe and Wine" is a Christmas song made famous as a chart-topping single by Cliff Richard in 1988. The song was written by Jeremy Paul, Leslie Stewart and Keith Strachan for a musical called ''Scraps'', which was an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" set in Victorian London. Background ''Scraps'' was first performed at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, London in 1976. The musical was renamed ''The Little Match Girl'' and adapted for television by HTV in 1987, and featured Roger Daltrey, Paul Daneman, Jimmy Jewel and Twiggy. As originally conceived, "Mistletoe and Wine" had a different meaning from that for which it has come to be known. The writers wanted a song that sounded like a Christmas carol, intending it to be sung ironically while the little matchgirl is kicked out into the snow by the unfeeling middle classes. By the time the musical transferred to television, the song had become a lusty pub song sung by the local whore, as pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is an Indian-born British musican, singer, producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist who holds both British and Barbadian citizenship. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and is the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley. Richard was originally marketed as a rebellious rock and roll singer in the style of Presley and Little Richard. With his backing group, the Shadows, he dominated the British popular music scene in the pre-Beatles period of the late 1950s to early 1960s. His 1958 hit single "Move It" is often described as Britain's first authentic rock and roll song. In the early 1960s, he had a prosperous screen career with films including '' The Young Ones'', '' Summer Holiday'' and '' Wonderful Life'' and his own television show at the BBC. Increased focus on his Christian faith and subsequent softening of his music led t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Jewel
James Arthur Thomas Jewel Marsh (4 December 1909 – 3 December 1995),Gifford, Denni''The Independent'', 5 December 1995. Note: This obituary wrongly gives the year of birth as 1912, which is contradicted by the Ben Warriss obituary. Retrieved 23 May 2013 known professionally as Jimmy Jewel, was an English comedian and actor whose long career in stage, radio, television and film productions, included a 32-year partnership with his cousin Ben Warriss. Career The son of a comedian and actor who also used the stage name Jimmy Jewel, the younger performer made his stage debut in ''Robinson Crusoe'' in Barnsley, at the age of four, worked with his father from the age of 10 and subsequently became stage manager for the family show. When young Jimmy started his own act, his father refused to let him use his stage name 'Jimmy Jewel', so he performed as Maurice Marsh; the name was chosen because he was often seen doing Maurice Chevalier impressions. He made his first London stage a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petula Clark
Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer. She has one of the longest serving careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades. Clark's professional career began during the Second World War as a child entertainer on BBC Radio. In 1954 she charted with "The Little Shoemaker", the first of her big UK hits, and within two years she began recording in French. Her international successes have included " ''Prends mon coeur''", "Sailor" (a UK number one), "Romeo", and " Chariot". Hits in German, Italian and Spanish followed. In late 1964 Clark's success extended to the United States with a four-year run of career-defining, often upbeat singles, many written or co-written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. These songs include her signature song " Downtown", "I Know a Place", " My Love", " A Sign of the Times", " I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "Who Am I", " Colour My World", " This Is My Song" (by Charles Chaplin), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Number One
In the United Kingdom, Christmas number ones are singles that top the UK Singles Chart in the week in which Christmas Day falls. The singles have often been novelty songs, charity songs or songs with a Christmas theme. Historically, the volume of record sales in the UK has peaked at Christmas. The Christmas number one is considered especially prestigious, more so than any other time of year. Christmas number-one singles have often also been the best-selling song of the year, though in recent years they have been released by reality television contestants and charity efforts. Due to the common practice of dating a chart by the date on which the week ends, the Christmas chart is dated the end of the week containing 25 December. The most recent Christmas number one single is "Food Aid" by LadBaby. History The UK Singles Chart began in 1952 – appearing in the '' New Musical Express''. The positions of all songs are based on weekly sales (from Sunday to Saturday until 2015, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russell Howard
Russell Joseph Howard (born 23 March 1980) is an English comedian, television presenter, radio presenter, and actor. He was known for his television show ''Russell Howard's Good News'' and is currently doing ''The Russell Howard Hour'', and his appearances on the topical panel TV show ''Mock the Week''. He won "Best Compère" at the 2006 Chortle Awards and was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award for his 2006 Aberdeen Festival Fringe show. Howard has cited comedians Lee Evans, Richard Pryor, and Frank Skinner as influences. Early life Howard was born in Bath to Dave and Ninette Howard. He has two younger siblings, twins Kerry and Daniel (born 1982). Daniel has epilepsy, to which Howard sometimes refers during his act. Howard attended Bedford Modern School, Perins School in New Alresford and Alton College. He later studied economics at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Career TV and radio work In 2004 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 1 to write, sing a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Gert Lush Christmas
''A Gert Lush Christmas'' is a British one-off comedy-drama film first broadcast on BBC Two on 26 December 2015. It was co-written by Russell Howard and Steve Williams, and features Howard in his acting debut. The programme also stars Kerry Howard (Russell's real life sister), Neil Morrissey, Sophie Thompson, Hannah Britland and Greg Davies. Plot The story centres around everyman Dan Colman (Russell Howard) who lives in London with his girlfriend Lisa ( Hannah Britland). For Christmas, Dan takes Lisa to his home-town of Bamford in Bristol to meet his caring but dysfunctional family which includes his fitness-obsessed father Dave ( Neil Morrissey), well-meaning but eccentric mother Sue (Sophie Thompson), charm offensive brother Jake (Dougie McMeekin), hairdresser sister Julie (Kerry Howard) and party animal Uncle Tony (Greg Davies). What begins as over enthusiasm to welcome Lisa into the family ends with Lisa running away and making Dan regret having introduced her to them i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drinking And Driving Wrecks Lives
Drinking And Driving Wrecks Lives is the tagline to a series of public information films (PIFs) that ran in the UK between 1987 and 1997 as part of the Government's Safety on the Move road safety campaign, addressing the problem of drink-driving. Background Unlike earlier campaigns which focused on consequences to the offender, this campaign was more aimed at showing the devastation that drink-driving can cause to the victims and their families, intending to produce an emotional response from the viewer. The films were primarily targeted towards young working class men, who were most likely to be convicted of drink driving, and aimed for the practice to become socially unacceptable. Films The campaign included several different films: * ''Jenny'' (c. 1987) showed a mother travelling home from hospital having visited her daughter, Jenny, who was the victim of a drink-driving accident and now in a vegetative state in a coma. Jenny's mother says she tries to visit her every day and re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drink Driving
Drunk driving (or drink-driving in British English) is the act of driving under the influence of alcohol. A small increase in the blood alcohol content increases the relative risk of a motor vehicle crash. In the United States, alcohol is involved in 30% of all traffic fatalities. Effects of alcohol on cognitive processes Alcohol has a very significant effect on the functions of the body which are vital to driving and being able to function. Alcohol is a depressant, which mainly affects the function of the brain. Alcohol first affects the most vital components of the brain and "when the brain cortex is released from its functions of integrating and control, processes related to judgment and behavior occur in a disorganized fashion and the proper operation of behavioral tasks becomes disrupted." Alcohol weakens a variety of skills that are necessary to perform everyday tasks. One of the main effects of alcohol is severely impairing a person's ability to shift attention ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Information Film
Public information films (PIFs) are a series of government-commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks in the United Kingdom. The name is sometimes also applied, ''faute de mieux'', to similar films from other countries, but the US equivalent is the public service announcement (PSA). Public information films were common place in the 1950s till the 2000s however became obsolete with the closure of the COI (Central Office of Information). Subjects The films advise the public on what to do in a multitude of situations ranging from crossing the road to surviving a nuclear attack. They are sometimes thought to concern only topics related to safety, but there are PIFs on many other subjects, including animal cruelty, protecting the environment, crime prevention, how to vote at a general election or how to fill in a census form. Many of these films were aimed at children and were shown during breaks in children's programmes during holidays and at weekends. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Download
A music download (commonly referred to as a digital download) is the digital transfer of music via the Internet into a device capable of decoding and playing it, such as a personal computer, portable media player, MP3 player or smartphone. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyrighted material without permission or legal payment. According to a Nielsen report, downloadable music accounted for 55.9 percent of all music sales in the US in 2012."All music sales" refers to albums plus track equivalent albums. A track equivalent album equates to 10 tracks. By the beginning of 2011, Apple's iTunes Store alone made 1.1 billion of revenue in the first quarter of its fiscal year. Music downloads are typically encoded with modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) audio data compression, particularly the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format used by iTunes as well as the MP3 audio coding format. Online music store Paid downloads are sometimes encoded with d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-selling Single (music), singles in the United Kingdom, based upon physical sales, paid-for downloads and music streaming, streaming. The Official Chart, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV (Official UK Top 40), is the UK music industry's recognised official measure of singles and albums popularity because it is the most comprehensive research panel of its kind, today surveying over 15,000 retailers and digital services daily, capturing 99.9% of all singles consumed in Britain across the week, and over 98% of albums. To be eligible for the chart, a Single (music), single is currently defined by the Official Charts Company (OCC) as either a 'single bundle' having no more than four tracks and not lasting longer than 25 minutes or one digital audio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Singles Chart
The Irish Singles Chart is the Republic of Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and compiled on their behalf by the Official Charts Company. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically each day from retailers' EPOS systems. All major record shops, digital retailers and streaming services contribute to the chart, accounting for over 95% of the market. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by the Irish Recorded Music Association on Friday at noon. Each chart is dated with the "week-ending" date of the previous Thursday (i.e., the day before issue). The singles chart was first published on 1 October 1962, and covered the top ten singles of the previous week by record label shipments. History The charts were first broadcast on RTÉ on 1 October 1962. Before this charts had been printed in the ''Evening Herald ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
