This week’s selection comes from Dr Eva del Rey, Curator of Drama and Literature Recordings and Digital Performance. Zambian-born poet Kayo Chingonyi reads selections from his pamphlet Some Bright Elegance (Salt, 2012) and other works. In this recording you can hear some of the stories behind the poems. For example,… read more
You may not know it, but a global celebration of the world’s waterways has taken place on the last Sunday of September every year since 2005. From rallies and special film screenings to community cleanups and riverside get-togethers, this annual event highlights the importance of our rivers and the need… read more
This week’s selection comes from Tom Lean, Project Interviewer for An Oral History of British Science. For nearly 60 years much of Britain’s electricity was supplied by a fleet of eleven Magnox nuclear power stations, built between the 1950s and the 1970s. They were the first series of full-scale nuclear… read more
This week’s selection comes from Rosy Hall, an ESRC-funded PhD student from Oxford University working with the BL’s Spoken English collections. Epic 3. b. colloq. (orig. and chiefly U.S.). Particularly impressive or remarkable; excellent, outstanding. (www.oed.com) According to one Urban Dictionary entry, the birth of ‘epic’ as a popular catchphrase… read more
Jonnie Robinson, Lead Curator of Spoken English, writes: The recent publication of fixtures for the 2017-18 hockey season may have escaped the attention of many sports fans in the frenzy of Transfer Deadline Day, but this week’s friendly between Southgate and Durham University was a personal highlight as, with a… read more