2018年7月30日 星期一

UK government should hold technology companies responsible and liable for "harmful and illegal content on their platforms," and that misinformation and "fake news" is threatening democracy.


A British parliamentary committee says the UK government should hold technology companies responsible and liable for "harmful and illegal content on their platforms," and that misinformation and "fake news" is threatening democracy.

2018年7月25日 星期三

UK Brexit bill 'threatens basic human rights'. Boris Johnson 脫歐魂歸何處



#ICYMI from January 2017 - The Brexit process threatens the UK’s most disadvantaged people, such as vulnerable women, LGBTI, disabled people, and ethnic minorities, said Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, a women’s rights organization. Women of color are among the most vulnerable, she said. http://ow.ly/dCDd30l6RWE
WIKITRIBUNE.COM

UK Brexit bill 'threatens basic human rights'
Experts warn the EU withdrawal bill puts human rights in jeopardy, with women, disabled people, and people of color "worse off"






Boris Johnson 在2~3周前辭職
So awesome


在Sir Isaiah Berlin OM CBE FBA (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) 的作品中,談到他的美國工作經驗,讓他自覺二戰後的英國淪為第二輪的強國之悲哀.......
Theresa May's appointment of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary suggests a drastic downgrade of Britain's ambitions on the world stage

ECON.ST

Britain's stature in the world is shrinking
The outlines of Britain’s post-Brexit place in the world begin to emerge


2018年7月21日 星期六

the state rooms at Buckingham Palace

Interior[edit]

Piano nobile of Buckingham Palace. The areas defined by shaded walls represent lower minor wings.
Note: This is an unscaled sketch plan for reference only. Proportions of some rooms may slightly differ in reality.
The palace measures 108 metres (354 ft) by 120 m (390 ft), is 24 m (79 ft) high and contains over 77,000 m2 (830,000 sq ft) of floorspace.[44]The floor area is smaller than the Royal Palace of Madrid, the Papal Palace and Quirinal Palace in Rome, the Louvre in Paris, the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, and the Forbidden City.[45] There are 775 rooms, including 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices, 78 bathrooms, 52 principal bedrooms, and 19 state rooms. It also has a post office, cinema, swimming pool, doctor's surgery,[44] and jeweller's workshop.[46]
The principal rooms are contained on the piano nobile behind the west-facing garden façade at the rear of the palace. The centre of this ornate suite of state rooms is the Music Room, its large bow the dominant feature of the façade. Flanking the Music Room are the Blue and the White Drawing Rooms. At the centre of the suite, serving as a corridor to link the state rooms, is the Picture Gallery, which is top-lit and 55 yards (50 m) long.[47] The Gallery is hung with numerous works including some by Rembrandtvan DyckRubens and Vermeer;[48] other rooms leading from the Picture Gallery are the Throne Room and the Green Drawing Room. The Green Drawing Room serves as a huge anteroom to the Throne Room, and is part of the ceremonial route to the throne from the Guard Room at the top of the Grand Staircase.[47] The Guard Room contains white marble statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in Roman costume, set in a tribune lined with tapestries. These very formal rooms are used only for ceremonial and official entertaining, but are open to the public every summer.[49]
Directly underneath the State Apartments are the less grand semi-state apartments. Opening from the Marble Hall, these rooms are used for less formal entertaining, such as luncheon parties and private audiences. Some of the rooms are named and decorated for particular visitors, such as the 1844 Room, decorated in that year for the state visit of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, and the 1855 Room, in honour of the visit of Emperor Napoleon III of France.[50] At the centre of this suite is the Bow Room, through which thousands of guests pass annually to the Queen's Garden Parties.[51] The Queen and Prince Philip use a smaller suite of rooms in the north wing.[52]
The Duke of Edinburgh in the Chinese Luncheon Room
Between 1847 and 1850, when Blore was building the new east wing, the Brighton Pavilion was once again plundered of its fittings. As a result, many of the rooms in the new wing have a distinctly oriental atmosphere. The red and blue Chinese Luncheon Room is made up from parts of the Brighton Banqueting and Music Rooms with a large oriental chimney piece designed by Robert Jones and sculpted by Richard Westmacott.[53] It was formerly in the Music Room at the Brighton Pavilion.[53] The ornate clock, known as the Kylin Clock was made in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, China, in the second half of the 18th century; it has a later movement by Benjamin Vulliamy circa 1820.[54] The Yellow Drawing Room has wallpaper supplied in 1817 for the Brighton Saloon, and a chimney piece which is a European vision of how the Chinese chimney piece may appear. It has nodding mandarins in niches and fearsome winged dragons, designed by Robert Jones.[55]
At the centre of this wing is the famous balcony with the Centre Room behind its glass doors. This is a Chinese-style saloon enhanced by Queen Mary, who, working with the designer Sir Charles Allom, created a more "binding"[56] Chinese theme in the late 1920s, although the lacquer doors were brought from Brighton in 1873. Running the length of the piano nobile of the east wing is the great gallery, modestly known as the Principal Corridor, which runs the length of the eastern side of the quadrangle.[57] It has mirrored doors, and mirrored cross walls reflecting porcelain pagodas and other oriental furniture from Brighton. The Chinese Luncheon Room and Yellow Drawing Room are situated at each end of this gallery, with the Centre Room obviously placed in the centre.[58]
The original early 19th-century interior designs, many of which still survive, included widespread use of brightly coloured scagliola and blue and pink lapis, on the advice of Sir Charles Long. King Edward VII oversaw a partial redecoration in a Belle époque cream and gold colour scheme.[59]
When paying a state visit to Britain, foreign heads of state are usually entertained by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. They are allocated a large suite of rooms known as the Belgian Suite, situated at the foot of the Minister's Staircase, on the ground floor of the north-facing Garden Wing. The rooms of the suite are linked by narrow corridors, one of them is given extra height and perspective by saucer domes designed by Nash in the style of Soane.[60] A second corridor in the suite has Gothic-influenced cross-over vaulting.[60] The Belgian Rooms themselves were decorated in their present style and named after Prince Albert's uncle Léopold I, first King of the Belgians. In 1936, the suite briefly became the private apartments of the palace when they were occupied by King Edward VIII.[44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckingham_Palace



Walk through the state rooms at Buckingham Palace and discover for yourself some of the most treasured and historic objects in the Royal Collection Trust. (via BBC London)

2018年7月19日 星期四

the seed of Europe (1920/1962) 到 Seed Cathedral 2010

"The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" is a poem by Wilfred Owen that compares the ascent of Abrahamto Mount Moriah and his near-sacrifice of Isaac there with the start of World War I. It had first been published by Siegfried Sassoon in 1920 with the title "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young", without the last line: "And half the seed of Europe, one by one".[1] The poem is an allusion to a story in the BibleGenesis 22:1-18.

According to the poem, the rulers of Europe believed that sacrificing their nations' (Ram of) Pride was too high a price, yet the irony is that the real cost of this Pride was millions of dead—the seed of Europe.


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The War RequiemOp. 66, is a large-scale, non-liturgical setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962.[1] The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid.


Offertorium (10 minutes)
  • Domine Jesu Christe (boys' choir)
  • Sed signifer sanctus (chorus)
  • Quam olim Abrahae (chorus)
  • Hostias et preces tibi (boys' choir)
  • Reprise of Quam olim Abrahae (chorus)


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UK Pavilion for Shanghai World Expo 2010 / Heatherwick Studio ...

https://www.archdaily.com/.../uk-pavilion-for-shanghai-world-expo-2010-heatherwic...
May 3, 2010 - The design process evolved to produce two interlinked and experiential elements: an architecturally iconic Seed Cathedral, and a multi-layered ...