A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones. (Going Solo, Roald Dahl)
I shall every morning administer to you my original quinte essence, obtained from an excellent matured white wine grown in mountainous regions, which I have distilled in a bain-marie, then enclosed in a glass decanter with a stopper of bitter herbs and buried upside-down in good, warm horse manure for twenty days and twenty nights. (Imprimatur, Monaldi & Sorti)
Nineteen months is a long time for a martini to sit unserved. ( No Time to Die review in FTWeekend)
Harry, my ginger-haired son, you’ll always be second to none. It’s the Thrilla in Manilla but with Diana and Camilla. James Hewitt, he did do it …Snap, click, won’t you admit, your storybook marriage is going to shit. (Lyrics from Diana: The Musical on Netflix) Oh dear.
At this time the Germans were sending over comparatively few bombers. They were making a determined effort to wipe out our entire Fighter Force, and from dawn till dusk the sky was filled with Messerschmitt 109s and 110s. Half a dozen of us always slept over at the Dispersal Hut to be ready for a surprise enemy attack at dawn. This entailed being up by four-thirty and by five o’clock having our machines warmed up and the oxygen, sights, and ammunition tested. The first Hun attack usually came over about breakfast-time and from then until eight o’clock at night we were almost continuously in the air. We ate when we could, baked beans and bacon and eggs being sent over from the Mess. (The Last Enemy, published 1942, Richard Hillary)
Thy dawn O Master of the world, thy dawn; The hour the lilies open on the lawn, The hour the grey wings pass beyond the mountains, The hour of silence, when we hear the fountains, The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder, The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder, O Master of the world, the Persian Dawn.
That hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee: Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea, The braves who fight thy war unsheathe the sabre, The slaves who work thy mines are lashed to labour, For thee the waggons of the world are drawn – The ebony of night, the red of dawn.
(Hassan, … How He Came to Make the Golden Journey to Samarkand, published 1926, James Elroy Flecker)
Reading is so much more than stories. For thousands of people in prison, learning to read will completely transform their life. People with poor reading skills are more likely to live in inadequate, overcrowded housing, experience poor physical and mental health, be in unskilled jobs or even pursue alternative methods of generating income that can leave them vulnerable to abuse and lead them into crime.
50% of people in prison have a literacy level below that of an 11 year old. Many cannot read at all. Ultimately, this means they have reduced access to education, training and rehabilitation programmes which could transform their lives, and give them hope for a better future outside of prison. Shannon Trust changes this through our reading programme. We train prisoners who can read to be Mentors. They are then paired up with a Learner, and work together through our Turning Pages guides. Learners work at their own pace in a safe, private space.
Mentors and Learners taking part in the Reading Programme have shown they are serious about changing their lives and taking control of their future. They develop sought-after skills that are critical for prospective employers, including communication, teamwork, resilience and a positive attitude. 9/10 Learners go on to engage in other educational courses. (Shannon Trust website)
Bizet composed his first Symphony, in C, when he was a student aged seventeen in 1855. It was never performed in his lifetime. The first performance was in 1935.