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Popular Beat Combo
Popular beat combo, which originated as a synonym for "Pop music, pop group", is a phrase within British culture. It may also be used more specifically to refer to The Beatles, or other such purveyors of beat music. The phrase is frequently used in ''Private Eye'' and in the BBC panel game ''Have I Got News For You'', making fun of Ian Hislop's supposed lack of knowledge about modern music. Derivation It is widely held that the phrase "popular beat combo" was coined in an English courtroom in the 1960s, by a barrister in response to a judge asking (for the benefit of the court's records) "Who are The Beatles?"; the answer being "I believe they are a popular beat combo, m'lud." However, neither the question nor the answer has ever been reliably attributed, and remains the stuff of urban legend. Marcel Berlins, legal correspondent for ''The Guardian'' newspaper, failed in his attempt to track down any verification. In 2007, Berlins restated his offer of "a bottle of best Guardian ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pop Music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. ''Rock'' and ''pop'' music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which ''pop'' became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is considered to be pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcel Berlins
Marcel Berlins (30 October 1941 – 31 July 2019) was a French-born lawyer, legal commentator, author, broadcaster and columnist. He was best known for his work in the United Kingdom, writing for British national newspapers ''The Times'' and ''The Guardian'', presenting BBC Radio 4's legal programme ''Law in Action'' for 16 years, and teaching Media Law at City, University of London. Biography Berlins was born in Marseille, France, on 30 October 1941, the only child of Jacques Berlins and his wife, Pearl, who were of Latvian Jewish origin. The couple had migrated to France before the war and ran a small hotel. When the country was occupied by the Nazis in 1940, Jacques became active in the Resistance; the family moved to a remote village in the hills near Luberon. He moved with his parents to South Africa in 1951 and stayed there until his early adulthood. Berlins completed his schooling in South Africa and only then started to learn English; he claimed to have perfected the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Music
English music may refer to: * Folk music of England * Music of the United Kingdom Throughout the history of the British Isles, the United Kingdom has been a major music producer, drawing inspiration from Church Music. Traditional folk music, using instruments of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Each of the ... * '' English Music (novel)'', 1992 novel by Peter Ackroyd {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recurring In-jokes In Private Eye
The fortnightly British satirical magazine ''Private Eye'' has long had a reputation for using euphemistic and irreverent substitute names and titles for people, groups and organisations and has coined a number of expressions to describe sex, drugs, alcohol and other aspects of human activity. Over the years these names and expressions have become in-jokes, used frequently in the magazine without explanation. Some have passed into general usage and can be found in other media and everyday conversation. Euphemisms * "Ugandan discussions", or a variation thereof (such as "discussing Ugandan affairs"), is often used as a euphemism for sex, usually while carrying out a supposedly official duty. The term originally referred to an incident at a party hosted by journalist Neal Ascherson and his first wife, at which fellow journalist Mary Kenny allegedly had a "meaningful confrontation" with a former cabinet minister in the government of Milton Obote, later claiming that they were "ups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph & Courier''. Considered a newspaper of record over ''The Times'' in the UK in the years up to 1997, ''The Telegraph'' generally has a reputation for high-quality journalism, and has been described as being "one of the world's great titles". The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", appears in the editorial pages and has featured in every edition of the newspaper since 19 April 1858. The paper had a circulation of 363,183 in December 2018, descending further until it withdrew from newspaper circulation audits in 2019, having declined almost 80%, from 1.4 million in 1980.United Newspapers PLC and Fleet Holdings PLC', Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1985), pp. 5–16. Its si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mervyn Griffith-Jones
John Mervyn Guthrie Griffith-Jones (1 July 1909 – 13 July 1979) was a British judge and former barrister. He led the prosecution of Penguin Books in the obscenity trial in 1960 following the publication of D. H. Lawrence's ''Lady Chatterley's Lover''. His much quoted remark in his opening statement as to whether the novel was something "you would even wish your wife or servants to read" is often cited as representing the extent to which the British establishment had fallen out of touch with popular opinion at the time. He failed to convince the jury at the Chatterley trial, and the publishers were acquitted. Early life Griffith-Jones was born in Hampstead, London. His father, John Stanley Phillips Griffith-Jones (1877/8–1949), was also a barrister. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1932, specialising in criminal law. He served with the Coldstream Guards during the Second World War, and was awarded th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Chatterley's Lover
''Lady Chatterley's Lover'' is the last novel by English author D. H. Lawrence, which was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929, in France. An unexpurgated edition was not published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960, when it was the subject of a watershed obscenity trial against the publisher Penguin Books, which won the case and quickly sold three million copies. The book was also banned for obscenity in the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Japan. The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical (and emotional) relationship between a working-class man and an upper-class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex and its use of then-unprintable four-letter words. Background The story is said to have originated from certain events in Lawrence's own unhappy domestic life, and he took inspiration for the settings of the book from Nottinghamshire, where he grew up. According to some critics, the fling of Lady Ottoline Morrell with "Tige ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Pickles
James Pickles (18 March 1925 – 18 December 2010) was an English barrister and circuit judge and who later became a tabloid newspaper columnist. He became known for his controversial sentencing decisions and press statements. He suffered a severe burn to his right hand when young, and learned to write and play tennis and squash with his left hand. He was educated at local primary schools, a prep school and then at Worksop College in Nottinghamshire. His hand injury made him exempt from military service in the Second World War, and he read law at Leeds University and Christ Church, Oxford. He graduated in the second class in 1947 and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1948. He married Sheila Ratcliffe in August 1948. They had two sons, Roger and Simon Pickles, and daughter, Carolyn Pickles, who became an actress. She appeared in ''Emmerdale'' on television and most recently in ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1''. His sister, Christina Pickles, is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christie Davies
John Christopher Hughes "Christie" Davies (25 December 1941 – 26 August 2017) was a British sociologist, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Reading, England, the author of many articles and books on criminology, the sociology of morality, censorship, and humour. He was also a visiting professor in India, Poland, United States, and Australia.''The Mirth of Nations'' book cover Early life He was born John Christopher Hughes Davies in Cheam, Surrey. His parents were Welsh, his father an inspector of schools and mother a teacher. He attended secondary school at Dynevor School in Swansea, Wales. He then studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge (taking part alongside Germaine Greer, Clive James and Eric Idle in the Cambridge Footlights) and graduated with a double first in Economics. In later life, Davies received a PhD from the same university (Cambridge) based on his published works. Career In 1964, Davies taught Economics at the University of Adelaide, South ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urban Legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family member, often with horrifying, humorous, or cautionary elements. These legends can be entertaining but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects or entities. Urban legends may confirm moral standards, reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties. Urban legends in the past were most often circulated orally, but now can also be spread by any media. This includes newspapers, mobile news apps, e-mail, and most often, social media. Some urban legends have passed through the years/decades with only minor changes, in where the time period takes place. Generic urban legends are often altered to suit regional variations, but the lesson or moral remains majorly the same. Or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phrase
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consist of a single word or a complete sentence. In theoretical linguistics, phrases are often analyzed as units of syntactic structure such as a constituent. Common and technical use There is a difference between the common use of the term ''phrase'' and its technical use in linguistics. In common usage, a phrase is usually a group of words with some special idiomatic meaning or other significance, such as "all rights reserved", "economical with the truth", "kick the bucket", and the like. It may be a euphemism, a saying or proverb, a fixed expression, a figure of speech, etc.. In linguistics, these are known as phrasemes. In theories of syntax, a phrase is any group of words, or sometimes a single word, which plays a particular role within ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
