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Radio Active (radio Series)
''Radio Active'' is a radio comedy programme, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 during the 1980s. The series grew out of a 1979 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show presented by The Oxford Revue and starred Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins, Michael Fenton Stevens, Helen Atkinson-Wood and Philip Pope. The first episode was broadcast in 1980, and it ran for seven series. Programme format The show is based on a fictional radio station (described as "Britain's first national local radio station") and the programmes that it might transmit. Initially the radio station concept was used simply as a loose framing device for otherwise unlinked sketches and songs, but as the show developed, the episodes became more thematically focused, each one lampooning a different broadcasting genre and sometimes even a specific programme such as ''Down Your Way'' (parodied as "Round Your Parts"), ''In at the Deep End'' ("Out of Your Depth"), ''Ultra Quiz'' ("Gigantaquiz"), ''The Radio Programme'' ("The Radio Radio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sketch Show
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is used widely in variety shows, comedy talk shows, and some sitcoms and children's television series. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their work from a "skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke (or "bit") while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or situation. definition 3b, Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved 5/4/2019 History Sketch comedy has its origins in |
Crimewatch
''Crimewatch'' (formerly ''Crimewatch UK'') is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was originally broadcast once a month on BBC One, although in the final years before cancellation it was usually broadcast roughly once every two months. ''Crimewatch'' was first broadcast on 7 June 1984, and is based on the German TV show ''Aktenzeichen XY… ungelöst'' (which translates as ''File Reference XY … Unsolved''). Nick Ross and Sue Cook presented the show for the first eleven years, until Cook's departure in June 1995. Cook was replaced by Jill Dando. After Dando was murdered in April 1999, Ross hosted ''Crimewatch'' alone until January 2000, when Fiona Bruce joined the show. Kirsty Young and Matthew Amroliwala replaced Ross and Bruce following their departures in 2007. The BBC announced on 15 October 2008 that they would move p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claire Rayner
Claire Berenice Rayner, OBE (; née Chetwynd; 22 January 1931 – 11 October 2010) was an English journalist, broadcaster, novelist and nurse, best known for her role for many years as an advice columnist. Early life Rayner was born to Jewish parents in Stepney,Jane Reed, "Rayner ée Berkovitch Claire Berenice (1931–2010)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Jan 201available online Retrieved 26 August 2020. London, the eldest of four children. Her father was a tailor and her mother a housewife. Her father had adopted the surname Chetwynd, under which name she was educated at the City of London School for Girls. Her autobiography ''How Did I Get Here from There?'' was published in 2003, and revealed details of a childhood marred by physical and mental cruelty at the hands of her parents. After the family emigrated to Canada, in 1945 she was placed in a psychiatric hospital by her parents, and treated for 15 months for a thyroid defect. Care ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Raeburn
Anna Raeburn (born 3 April 1944) is a British broadcaster, author and journalist who is best known for her role as an "agony aunt", giving advice on relationships and more general life problems. As a broadcaster, she has worked for Capital Radio, LBC and the original Talk Radio. She has authored two books and currently writes her own weekly blog called, 'Annalog'. Early life Raeburn went to the all-girls Kirby Grammar School in Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, north Yorkshire. She moved to London aged 17 and at 19 was working in New York. She worked for ''Penthouse'', ''Forum'' and ''Cosmopolitan''. Radio Raeburn built her reputation in the 1970s and 1980s on a popular late night problem phone-in show on Capital Radio, called ''Anna And The Doc''. The journalist Vincent Graff said of the show: “If you were a baffled teenager trying to find your way in the world, Anna and the Doc gave you the roadmap.” Her celebrity status was such that in 1978 she was invited onto BBC Radio 4' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agony Aunt
An advice column is a column in a question and answer format. Typically, a (usually anonymous) reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response. The responses are written by an advice columnist (colloquially known in British English as an agony aunt, or agony uncle if the columnist is male). An advice columnist is someone who gives advice to people who send in problems to the media outlet. The image presented was originally of an older woman dispensing comforting advice and maternal wisdom, hence the name "aunt". Sometimes the author is in fact a composite or a team: Marjorie Proops's name appeared (with photo) long after she retired. The nominal writer may be a pseudonym, or in effect a brand name; the accompanying picture may bear little resemblance to the actual author. ''The Athenian Mercury'' contained the first known advice column in 1690. Traditionally presented in a magazine or newspaper, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mail-order Bride
A mail-order bride is a woman who lists herself in catalogs and is selected by a man for marriage. In the twentieth century, the trend was primarily towards women living in developing countries seeking men in more developed nations. The majority of the women making use of these services in the late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century are from East and Southeast Asia, the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, and to a lesser extent Latin America. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, large numbers of eastern European women have advertised themselves in such a way, primarily from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Georgia and Moldova. Men who list themselves in such publications are referred to as "mail-order husbands", although this is much less common. The term ''mail-order bride'' is both criticized by owners (and customers) of international marriage agencies and used by them as an easily recognizable term. International marriage agency An international ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Tebbit
Norman Beresford Tebbit, Baron Tebbit (born 29 March 1931) is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet from 1981 to 1987 as Secretary of State for Employment (1981–1983), Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1983–1985), and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–1987). He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1970 to 1992, representing the constituencies of Epping (1970–1974) and Chingford (1974–1992). In 1984, Tebbit was injured in the Provisional Irish Republican Army's bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where he was staying during the Conservative Party Conference. His wife Margaret was left permanently disabled after the explosion. He left the cabinet after the 1987 general election to care for his wife.Tebbit, p. 332. Tebbit considered standing for the Conservative leadership following Margaret Thatcher's resignation in 1990, but came to the decision not to stand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gag Name
A gag name is a pseudonym intended to be humorous through its similarity to both a real name and a term or phrase that is funny, strange, or vulgar. The source of humor stems from the double meaning behind the phrase, although use of the name without prior knowledge of the joke could also be funny. Examples of the use of gag names occur in works of fiction in which there is a roll call, a listing of names, or a prank call. Some names that would be considered gag names have been adopted as stage names by performers, often in the adult entertainment industry. Examples People Occasionally, real people with a name that could be interpreted as a funny or vulgar phrase are subject to mockery or parody. For example, Hu Jintao, former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, whose surname is pronounced like "who", and former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, whose surname is pronounced like "when", have occasionally been the topic of humor similar to the "Who's on First?" sketch. For ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Media Portrayal Of HIV/AIDS
Initial events and trends in the discussion of HIV and AIDS in mass media contributed to the stigma and discrimination against those affected with the disease. Later discussion, sometimes led by HIV+ individuals themselves, moved toward advocacy and education on disease prevention and management. The UNESCO report on Journalism Education says, "Well researched television content can create public awareness about HIV prevention, treatment, care and support can potentially influence the development and implementation of relevant policies." The condition which was later to be called AIDS was first noticed in June 1981 when the Centers for Disease Control reported that five gay men in Los Angeles all died from a similar rare set of disease symptoms. Within two months 100 more gay men had died, and there was public awareness from medical publication that some new disease existed. Most media outlets have shown the tendency to universalize by emphasizing the risk to an entire age group, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zircon Affair
The Zircon affair was an incident in 1986 and 1987 caused by the planned broadcast on the BBC of a television programme about the ultimately cancelled Zircon signals intelligence satellite, as part of the six-part ''Secret Society'' series. It raised many important issues in the British constitution, particularly concerning parliamentary privilege and "gagging orders". The Zircon affair Development of programme In November 1985 the Scottish investigative journalist Duncan Campbell was commissioned by BBC Scotland to present and research a six part, half-hour documentary series called ''Secret Society'', produced by Brian Barr. GCHQ became aware that a BBC Scotland crew were filming at RAF Menwith Hill, and when Campbell interviewed the former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence Ronald Mason in August 1986 he mentioned the Zircon Project (regarded as "exceptionally secret").Nicholas Wilkinson, "Secrecy and the Media: The Official History of the United Kingdom' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spycatcher
''Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer'' (1987) is a memoir written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. He drew on his own experiences and research into the history of the British intelligence community. Published first in Australia, the book was banned in England (but not Scotland) due to its allegations about government policy and incidents. These efforts ensured the book's notoriety, and it earned considerable profit for Wright. In 2021, the Cabinet Office was still blocking freedom of information requests for files on the ''Spycatcher'' affair despite the rule that documents should be released after 30 years. Content In ''Spycatcher'', Wright says that one of his assignments was to unmask a Soviet mole in MI5, who he says was Roger Hollis, a former MI5 Director General. His book also discusses other candidates who may have or may not have been the mole. He explores the history o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
