I would like to wish everyone a happy 2008 (still 11 hours to go here in Texas, but I know some of you have already changed calendars on the other side of the planet!)!

I have some updates and blog posts to make that were *supposed* to be done over the break, but my laptop died right after arriving in Alabama and then my boyfriend and I got really sick (I got the better end of the deal… he ended up with pneumonia, I just had a really bad cold). We made it back to Texas a couple of days ago but we’re both still recovering. And the laptop is a couple of days away from getting fixed, so I probably won’t be making any more posts until that is back up and running. I have back-ups of everything, but I like to keep my most up-to-date copies of everything in one place so I don’t get things mixed up. I usually have everything on my thumbdrive, but of course, I copied it all to the laptop shortly before it died so I wouldn’t have to worry about losing the thumddrive on the trip. Oh well! I’m guessing everything will be back up and running and as close to normal as they ever get the first full week in January.

So, once again, Happy New Year!

I’ll be on the road most of the day tomorrow and then visiting with friends and family for a while, so updates may be sparse and slow. So, if I don’t get a chance to post again until the new year, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy holiday season, no matter what you celebrate this time of year! Here’s to a great 2008!

Showtime has several new clips and promos from the next season of “The Tudors” on their You Tube channel. They have a playlist just for the clips from “The Tudors”. Enjoy!

The BBC Singers will be performing a Tudor Christmas concert to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Friday December 21. And you can listen to it online with their iPlayer (which worked fine on my Mac, so I’ll assume that it works on PCs).

Here’s the program description and the main BBC Radio 3 website.

(Tip of the French hood to Kathy for the email!)

I always forget that the Globes are both TV and movies, so I should have added The Golden Age’s nomination for Cate Blanchett has been nominated as Best Actress!

“The Tudors” has been nominated for Best Television Drama and Best Actor for Jonathan Rhys Meyers for Golden Globes. Congrats!

Full list of nominees

From 24 Hour Museum:

A chessboard of black ebony, the tusk of a sea bear, curtains of crimson satin with gold and silver lace… No, it’s not my Christmas wish-list, but some of the luxury items owned by Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite, in the 16th century.

English Heritage has just published, for the first time, details of these and hundreds more items as found on a 1578 inventory of the Earl of Leicester, Dudley’s Warwickshire residence, Kenilworth Castle.
…

Dr Elizabeth Goldring of Warwick University, an expert on Elizabethan court culture and English Heritage consultant, transcribed and annotated the inventory, which has been published in the second English Heritage Historical Review. The original manuscript is owned by the British Library.

Full article

No Amazon pre-order links yet, but you can sign-up to be notified when it becomes available. The release date is February 5, 2008 for the US and January 11, 2008 in the UK (according at Amazon).

Update: US Amazon pre-order link now added

The DVDs won’t be out here in the US until January 1st, but they are already out in the UK. Amazon affiliate links below, as usual!

First up, it looks like Showtime will be re-playing the first season of “The Tudors” in January [schedule], possibly as a lead-up to season two. Since the first season started at the first of April last year, I’m guessing the second season will run about the same time. Also, there have been stories floating across my news alerts that CBS is considering running edited versions of Showtime shows on the network, including Dexter, Weeds and The Tudors.

Next up was another thing that I kept seeing on my news alerts but I was dragging my heels about posting it (because I’m going to be green with envy for anyone who gets to do this!). Superbreak.com is offering a couple of Private Tours of Hampton Court Palace. You can find out more here (use the pull down menu to select the Hampton Court tour… there are two different date options right now).

It looks like things are gearing up for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s succession to the throne, so there will probably be a lot more announcements of cool Tudor exhibits and things to do over the next couple of years!

Ack! I missed posting this ahead of time, so you’ll probably have to scroll down, but the Dec. 1 entry at Executed Today is about Catholic Martyrs in the reign of Elizabeth I. Of course as we all know, there were a lot of people executed in the Tudor period, so keep an eye out for more entries in the future!