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Month: March 2008

Doing some website updates

At this point some old-time site visitors are recovering from a fainting spell. Yes, it’s true, I’m really working on the actual site, not just updating the blogs and podcast!

Whenever I starting working on the site proper after a long spell, I always think of when Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory started up again after he closed down because the workers were stealing his secrets. Well, I don’t have yummy chocolate and candy to share (or any creepy Oompa Loompas to help me out), but I will be updating some entries, adding some new pictures (including quite a few from my 2003 trip to the UK that I finally scanned from the negatives) and various other things. I need to re-organize and cross-link some things too, but that might take some more tweaking. I’m also going to start doing individual “updates” pages for each person, etc., so you can keep track of what I have added, updated or corrected. There will be a link at the bottom of each individual page to its “updates” page. I sort of borrowed the idea from Wikipedia, although I won’t be keeping copies of the old versions of the pages (some of them that I wrote over 10 years ago are almost painful to read since I think my historical writing has improved since I originally started the site!). I’ll try to do a blog post summarizing recent updates periodically for folks who are interested.

PS: And for those of you whose calendar already reads April 1, no, this isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke. I really am working on the site!

TudorCast #22- March 2008

Featured website: English Heritage http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/
Images of England: http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/
PastScape: http://www.pastscape.org/

Wikimedia link for fan vaults: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fan_vaults

Oriel window images:

Shakespeare’s Birthplace

Sudeley Castle

Hampton Court Palace

Portcullis images:

Bodiam Castle

Westminster Abbey exterior (can you find all five portcullises?)

Music from Magnatune.com
La Primavera, The Dufay Collective (album “Cancionero”) and Jacob Heringman (album “Jane Pickeringes Lute Book” and “Blame Not My Lute”)

Intro – “Greensleeves” by La Primavera on “English Renaissance Music”
After news – “Larouse” by Jacob Heringman on “Blame Not My Lute”
After “This Month” – “Galliard” by Jacob Heringman on “Jane Pickeringes Lute Book”
After glossary – “Baloo” by Jacob Heringman on “Blame Not My Lute”
After text – “Dindiridin” (excerpt) by Dufay Collective (album “Cancionero”)
After closing – “Differencias sobr’el canto” by Dufay Collective (album “Cancionero”)

Episode Transcript

Direct mp3 download

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More on the popularity of the Tudors

I wasn’t planning on posting this originally, since it sort of covers territory of other articles I’ve recently posted, but since several people have mailed me the link, I guess I had better post it! 🙂

From The New York Times:

Among the many things for which he will be remembered, Paul Scofield, who died on Wednesday at 86, helped to usher in a whole era of classy, lushly produced costume films set in the Tudor period. He made the 16th century seem glamorous.
…

Article on the upcoming second season of “The Tudors”

There have been lots of articles, but I thought this one was interesting because the writer addresses some issues that we discussed about the first season. I’ll pull a few quotes below:

The king’s physical appearance may be a minor point, really, when you consider the historical facts that “The Tudors” have played fast and loose with. And Michael Hirst, the show’s creator and writer, will defend every single decision.

“Showtime commissioned me to write an entertainment, a soap opera, and not history,” said Hirst, taking a break in an office at Ardmore Studios, near Dublin. “And we wanted people to watch it.”

It seems there have been practical moviemaking reasons for the misrepresentations. Take Henry’s sisters. In Season 1, Gabrielle Anwar played one, Princess Margaret, who marries an older man, the king of Spain, against her will. As any number of Internet history buffs will tell you, it was Henry’s other sister, Mary, who did that, and the older man was the king of France. So didn’t the writer do his research?

As it turns out, Hirst was well aware of both facts. But the list of characters already included a Princess Mary, Catherine of Aragon’s little daughter. “I didn’t want two Princess Marys on the call sheet,” he said, because it might have confused the crew. ” `Which one do you mean, Michael? Who do we dress?’ ”

As for Margaret/Mary’s husband, “The Tudors” had shown a French king in a different context in Season 1. Hirst feared that viewers might be confused, so he just chose another European country.

Full article

Paul Scofield dies at age 86

From The Telegraph:

Scofield, one of the finest classical actors of his generation, won his Academy award as well as a Bafta, in 1967 for his role as Sir Thomas More, the 16th century Lord Chancellor executed by Henry VIII, in the film of Robert Bolt

Watch the first episode of season two of “The Tudors”

The first episode of the second season is now available through the Showtime website and through the podcast for the show (which you can find through the iTunes podcast directory). I just downloaded it myself to watch later at home. The file size for the podcast is over 600MB, so be careful if you have bandwidth caps (like I do at home… pesky satellite internet!).

(Tip o’ the French hood to Holly!)

Spammers and phishing scams

I just wanted to put something out there that spammers and scammers are once again trying to spoof my domain or use the site address in emails to try to scam folks. The only two email addresses that I use are tudorhistory@tudorhistory.org and lara@tudorhistory.org. Anything else that appears to be coming from my domain has been faked. Generally the only email you will get from me is in response to an email you sent to begin with or to a question submitted through the Q&A form.

Also, I’ve seen at least one email of a Nigerian-type scam saying that they saw a person’s profile on tudorhistory.org. The only “profiles” that are on my site are from people who have commented on the blogs or have submitted listings on the penpal pages, so if you’ve done either of those, you might want to be on the lookout for that type of scammer email.

Tudor reviews at Open Letters Monthly

I don’t even TRY to make an attempt to keep up with all the book and movie reviews on Tudor topics since there are way too many, but here’s an exception. Open Letters Monthly, an arts and literature review site, is doing “A Year With the Tudors” with Steve Donoghue, and you can see the first three installments here:

January – Henry VIII: Court, Church, and Conflict By David Loades

February – Edward VI: The Lost King of England by Chris Skidmore

March – Henry VIII

Another fun You Tube video

Although I don’t intend to get into the habit of a bunch of funny You Tube videos here, I couldn’t resist to this one. Thanks to Stephen on the TudorTalk list for bringing it to our attention. BTW, it’s a parody of the “Leave Britney Alone” video, but you don’t necessarily have to have seen that to enjoy this one.