Cultural Nourishment For Soul - Free During Covid19 LockDown
CULTURAL NOURISHMENT IN COVID LOCKDOWN is very important both for adults and children. On our pages at Historyworks we are making some suggestions with links, which elders have asked for, but we'll soon also post up some top tips for children and families too. Do browse the pages with our links to cultural nourishment and also birdsong, wellbeing, meditation, yogo, pilates, fitness courses with Joe Wicks here - browse these pages!
Or if you are wanting to have 30 mins of art, have a go at making a Fitzwiliam Museum Mosaic HERE or print LOVE THE NHS posters to colour in for front windows - by range of fab artists HERE
Or if you are interested in the history of technology, you can find wonderful colouring sheets from Cambridge Museum of Technology, plus activities using household recycle to produce interactives with children, like making a parachute and making jewelry, all freely available HERE
Also, recommending a slow watch of Kettles Yard' webcam to soothe the soul =
Fantastic JIGSAWS to do online are available for children and adults free via JIGSAW PLANET and
MICHAEL ROSEN free poetry youtube channel =
Plus, worth checking out, JK Rowling is putting entertainment free online on Harry Potter entertainment harrypotterathome.com
GROCERIES, PHARMACIES, FREE TAXIS FOR FOOD COLLECTION, TAKE-AWAY DELIVERIES IN AREA
Local at 102 Mill Road, the Al Amin grocery emporium are offering free deliveries and you can make online orders of fresh or packaged food via email or phone in your orders: 01223 576396 & http://www.alamin.co.uk/
Petersfield Pharmacy is offering a free delivery service: Petersfield Pharmacy is located at 56 Mill Road, Cambridge, CB1 2AS. For more information call 01223 354383, visit petersfieldpharmacy.co.uk
Shops & Take-aways A to Z in Cambs with top picks of take-aways eg Sea Tree Fish on Mill Road and for vulnerable eg free CabCo taxi service to collect deliveries for those self isolating with no help at hand:
Libraries & Archives & Lit Fests
LIBRARIES & ARCHIVES & LITERARY FESTIVALS are putting resources online and making more digital materials that were previously behind paywalls now freely available, such as those at the National Archives - hooray! We will be adding more to this listing as the national and international libraries put more collections freely online.
To get started enjoy browsing some of the fantastic collections with links listed on this page!
LOCAL LITERARY FESTIVALS
Cambridge Literary Festival is adapting to the Coronovirus Lock-down by offering Podcasts and Live Streaming for the Spring Festival re-branded as 'Cambridge Listening Festival' which will commence next Friday. To find out more and listen to free podcasts and interviews go to https://www.cambridgeliteraryfestival.com/
LOCAL LIBRARIES & ARCHIVE COLLECTIONS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY DIGITAL LIBRARY = cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk FANTASTIC DIGITAL LIBRARY AT CUL now has more than 500k images of 35k objects - from Newton's notebooks & Darwin's doodles to spirit trumpets, ectoplasm & everything in between. And it's FREE! HERE Favourite Cambridge University Library Collections to browse are the digital MAP collections = https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/maps/1 And the exhibition and collection called RISING TIDE about women at Cambridge = https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/therisingtide
CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNCIL HAS HAD TO SHUT ALL LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES, BUT YOU CAN BROWSE AND SURVEY LOTS OF MATERIALS IN THE ARCHIVES & RESOURCES HERE
NATIONAL LIBRARIES & ARCHIVE COLLECTIONS
National Emergency Library has been collated together HERE
IHR Research & Free Online Resources guide HERE
British Library Collections Online During Covid Closure - info & links HERE
National Archives Online Research Collections HERE
INTERNATIONAL LIBRARIES & ARCHIVE COLLECTIONS
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS EXHIBITIONS ONLINE HERE
HERITAGE ISSUES ONLINE
There are lots of heritage sites offering free tours online with some breathtaking photography and visualisatins. For example, take a look at the impact of climate on heritage landmarks via this website called 'Heritage on the Edge' written up in the Arts News HERE
MUSEUM & GALLERIES ONLINE
Tour the Britsh Museum Galleries HERE
National Gallery Youtube Channel HERE
Concerts & Opera, Musicals & Theatre
Here we have a listing of some of the top free music and theatre performances now available for free to audiences during the Covid19 lockdown, and do send in further recommendations to historyworks to share with others!
ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA are offeirng links to free performances, insights into classical music on their podcasts, interviews and rehearsals with their principal players, all pulled together on new website RPO AT HOME:
https://www.rpo.co.uk/rpo-at-home
BBC SINGERS IN ISOLATION - A VERY MOVING PERFORMANCE OF 'AVE VERUM CORPUS' BY MOZART
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-dv4rLOV5U&feature=youtu.be
BERLIN PHILHARMONIC CONCERT ARCHIVE AVAILABLE FOR FREE:
https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/titelgeschichten/20192020/digital-concert-hall/
NEW YORK METROPOLITAN OPERA PERFORMANCES - NIGHTLY STREAMING FOR FREE VIA:
https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/
NATIONAL THEATRE FREE PERFORMANCES, STARTING WITH 'ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS' VIA:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUDq1XzCY0NIOYVJvEMQjqw
LLOYD WEBER MUSICALS FOR FREE ON YOUTUBE CHANNEL 'THE SHOW MUST GO ON' VIA:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdmPjhKMaXNNeCr1FjuMvag
eg JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpO4ohqx3os
CORNOVIRUS RHAPSODY BASED ON BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY - FAB LYRICS RE COVID19:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eo9M4-BrJA
VIRTUAL CHOIRS ON YOUTUBE - lots out there, eg HERE COMES THE SUN with Camden Voices:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eo9M4-BrJA
THE LAST BOHEMIANS is a podcast and portrait series profiling fearless women and maverick outsiders in arts and culture: https://www.thelastbohemians.co.uk/
Galleries, Museums, Heritage Sites
Many galleries, museums, heritage sites in the UK and around the world, have created virtual tours for wider audiences to enjoy sites and collections during lockdown, and here is a taster of a few you may enjoy!
GALLERIES & EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUMS
Major London sites:
HERITAGE SITES
English Heritage Online tours:
Cambridge Museum of Technology:
Cambridge's David Parr House:
Free Films, Book Audios & Reviews
FREE FILM STREAMING SERVICES:
Here are some streams for movies and theatre shows available this week =
THE NATIONAL THEATRE in London are offering their archive of theatre performances free, releasing one show per week for the public to view. This week Jane Eyre at the NT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO0CXV0zEAQ
NATIONAL THEATRE youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/ntdiscovertheatre
THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE ARE OFFERING FREE STREAMING OF THEIR ARCHIVES, A GREAT PLACE TO FIND CLASSICS PLUS INTERVIEWS WITH DIRECTORS & PRODUCERS.
Explore BFI player with a wide-ranging archive of shorts and features, showing the best from the BFI, national and regional archives - including 120 years of Britain on film = https://player.bfi.org.uk/free
CURZON HAS A RANGE OF INTERNATIONAL FILMS TO DOWNLOAD, SOME FOR FREE.
Curzon home cinema - https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/
IMDB - list of movies (and streaming services)
https://www.imdb.com/chart/moviemeter?ref_=pe_3369030_489816550_eml
FILM REVIEWS WITH KERMODE AND MAYO - ALMOST 300 PODCASTS & OVER ONE THOUSAND REVIEWS:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lvdrj/episodes/player
RADICAL FILM ARCHIVE CURATED WITH CLIPS & SHORTS: https://soulvlog.blogspot.com/
SoulVlog site explores counter culture, activism, critical theory, unreasonable opinions, extreme art, noise, obscure philosophies, arcane knowledge, occult symbolism, irregular music, mediation, ecstatic attitudes, ancient wisdom and realness through the moving image. Curation and a desire to spread knowledge and opinions are what define the contents: James G. Barrett selects the material and is responsible for it = https://soulvlog.blogspot.com/
LIBRARIES & ARCHIVES - FREE ONLINE RESOURCES including audio books:
CAMBRIDGESHIRE library e-book and audio collections HERE
BBC audiobooks section, with latest book/poetry readings at top of list:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/category/audiobooks?sort=latest
Especially recommend Hilary Mantel's new epic series called The Mirror & The Light:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h0qn
BOOK REVIEWS AND PUBLIC HISTORY ARTICLES
Fantastic Book Review Website at NPR includes some readings too:
Also, BBC's book review series, 'A Good Read' is worth a listen: with over 500 episodes:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006v8jn/episodes/player
Over 270 policy articles available for free on History & Policy:
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/
Doing History in Public organized, researched, written by junior historians:
https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/
Podcast Recommendations
HISTORY PODCAST SERIES
You're Dead to Me - BBC Radio Podcast series:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07mdbhg/episodes/downloads
BBC World History Magazine Podcast series:
https://www.historyextra.com/article-type/podcast/
REVISIONIST HISTORY series - several gripping episodes available here:
FACT-FILLED PODCASTS 'NO SUCH THING AS A FISH'
MICHAEL'S 'WORD OF MOUTH' PODCAST SERIES (2015 TO 2020) EXPLORING THE WORLD OF LANGUAGE
Michael Rosen has an ongoing series on BBC Radio 4 'Word of Mouth' which looks at the world of language which includes in most epsidoes both the history of language and how we use it now - fascinating stuff - hours of engaging listening with wide-range of experts all available now as podcasts via BBC Radio4 here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtnz
'Key Words of Our Time' facoid-filled series looking at origins and meanings of terms such as 'snowflake' and 'patriarchy' and 'nanny state' and 'me too' all available via podcast, presented by Michael Rosen, here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09x9k59/episodes/player
HELEN'S 3 FAVOURITE PODCAST JOURNALIST STORY-TELLING SERIES PRODUCED BY BBC ARE:
FIND RADIO 4 FULL LISTING HERE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04sj2pt/episodes/downloads
1. TUNNEL 29
Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Helena Merriman tells the extraordinary true story of a man who dug a tunnel into the East, right under the feet of border guards, to help friends, family and strangers escape. It’s also the story of the Stasi spy who betrays the tunnel, the American TV network which funds it and the love that develops between refugees who find freedom together.
The series is based on original interviews with the survivors as well as thousands of documents from the Stasi archives and recordings from the tunnel.
TUNNEL 29 EPISODE ONE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07r39cw
2. THE RATLINE
Indefatitable Human Rights Lawyer Philippe Sands investigates the mysterious disappearance of senior Nazi, Otto Wachter, who was indicted for mass murder. The Ratline is a story of a curious death, political intrigue, spies, Nazi hunters, shadowy forces in the Vatican and a son grappling with the sins of his father. In episode one of this ten part series we travel to a castle outside Vienna to meet an old man who believes his Nazi father was murdered, and a voice from the past offers up clues to how it might have happened.
THE RATLINE EPISODE ONE: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06lh2b5
3. GIRL TAKEN
A stolen daughter, a grieving mother and a real life search for the truth. Join BBC Journalist Sue Mitchell and former soldier, Rob Lawrie, in the race to find a little girl taken. Across the world people were presented with what appeared to be a heart-breaking, but straight forward story of a father and his motherless daughter struggling to get to Britain. But behind those headlines lay a far more sinister truth and Sue and Rob discover that the little girl appears to have simply vanished: can they find her in time? Girl Taken is a 10-part podcast from BBC Radio 4.
GIRL TAKEN Preview Podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0874kh1
All podcasts to download for GIRL TAKEN: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ghxl/episodes/downloads
SUGGESTIONS OF SERIOUS PODCAST SERIES TO GET YOUR BRAIN FULLY ENGAGED!
1) S-Town : https://stownpodcast.org/
2) Caliphate : https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-new-york-times/caliphate
3) On Being : https://onbeing.org/
4) Talking Politics : https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/
5) Intelligence Squared : https://www.intelligencesquared.com/podcasts/
BIOGRAPHY - CHARLES DICKENS
Claire Tomalin's acclaimed biography of one of the nation's literary giants Charles Dickens is broadcast to mark the 150th anniversary of his death in June 2020. Omnibus of five parts read by Penelope Wilton:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000h0qj
Here Tomalin portrays Dickens as a writer "so charged with imaginative energy that he rendered nineteenth century England crackling, full of truth and life, with his laughter, horror and indignation - and sentimentality." The Artful Dodger, Mr Pickwick, Pip and David Copperfield are just a handful of the characters he created and who continue to endure. He was also a hard-working journalist, a philanthropist, a supporter of liberal social causes, and father of ten, and yet his genius also had a dark side which emerged with the breakdown of his marriage.
Claire Tomalin was literary editor of the The New Statesman and then the Sunday Times before becoming a full time writer. Her biographies are award winning. The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, won the Whitbread First Book Award, and Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self was Whitbread Book of the Year.
GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING by Tracy Chevalier - newly available on BBC Sounds:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j1j3/episodes/player
‘I gazed at him over my shoulder. My ear was burning, the weight of the pearl pulling at the lobe…’
Who is the young woman in Vermeer’s famous painting? And why are her eyes brimming with tears?
Tracy Chevalier’s much-loved novel vividly imagines the story behind the gaze of the unknown model in Vermeer’s painting and what her relationship with the renowned artist might have been. This dramatisation by Ayeesha Menon is the first for radio.
A fine cast includes Khalid Abdalla, Hattie Morahan, Tom Goodman-Hill and Eleanor Bron. Libby Mai, a second year student at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, makes her BBC debut as the passionate and artistically gifted young heroine.
Recorded on location at Keats House, in Hampstead.
Featuring 17th century Dutch harpsichord music by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, performed by Tim Motz and recorded at Handel House in London especially for the drama.
Episode 1: When Griet, a 16-year-old from a poor family, is forced to become a servant in Vermeer’s household, her world is shattered. She crosses Delft to the grand house where the artist is creating his 1660s masterpieces in his attic studio.
Cast in order of appearance:
Tanneke ….. Laura Elphinstone
Griet ….. Libby Mai
Franciscus ….. Liam Howes
Agnes ….. Flora Froment
Griet’s Mother ….. Jane Whittenshaw
Catharina ….. Hattie Morahan
Vermeer ….. Khalid Abdalla
Griet’s Father ….. Rufus Wright
Cornelia ….. Mia Wilks
Maria Thins ….. Eleanor Bron
Pieter ….. Tom Glenister
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Tombling
Sound Designer: David Chilton
Director / Producer: Amber Barnfather
Coding Clubs & Activities
There are lots of FREE coding activities and coding clubs, and many elders and families and youngsters are taking the time of lockdown as an opportunity to learn coding, so here are some examples for learning skills and playing games! Have a go:
PUPPY ADVENTURE IS A GOOD PLACE FOR YOUNGSTERS TO START:
https://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/puppy-adventure
CODING ACADEMY TO LEARN PYTHON:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-python
CODING GAMES USING SCRATCH:
BBC SOUNDS - "TECH TENT" CLASS DURING THE LOCKDOWN:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cszhnh
BBC MICRO-BIT - GET CREATIVE, GET CONNECTED, GET CODING:
RASPBERRY PI - DIGITAL MAKING AT HOME - BLOG:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/digital-making-at-home-make-us-laugh/
