Curtail bureaucratic red tape

At right, Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim, and Mary Rodgers at the Rodgers-Guettel Christmas party in 1965. Photo: Courtesy of the Rodgers-Beaty-Guettel family In the four years between her explosive separation from Jerry Beaty in 1957 and her Mexican wedding to Henry Guettel in 1961, Mary Rodgers (1931–2014) composed the music for Once Upon a Mattress, ushered the show to Broadway and London, assisted Leonard Bernstein on his Young People’s Concerts, and wrote songs for everyone from Bing Crosby to Captain Kangaroo. All this while raising three young children and juggling many unlikely husband prospects, including the producer Hal Prince; a married editor she called Boston Jack; her Mattress lyricist, Marshall Barer, who was gay; and a CIA operative named Cord Meyer. Finally, there was the man she had met and fallen hard for at Oscar Hammerstein’s farm when she was barely a teenager: Stephen Sondheim. Would their affection take the turn they’d described in a song they … [Read more...] about A Trial Marriage to Stephen Sondheim

Published 7 January 2019 Share close Share page Copy link About sharing After years at the heart of government, Mark Drakeford today starts in the top job. BBC Wales' political correspondent Daniel Davies has spoken to friends, colleagues and opponents of the Welsh Labour leader about his politics, personality and the sort of first minister he will be. Mark Drakeford's political awakening came early. Nationalist fervour swept his home town of Carmarthen when Gwynfor Evans was elected as Plaid Cymru's first MP in 1966. At grammar school, Mr Drakeford remembers groups of pupils marching around chanting political slogans. English-only road signs lay piled on the ground, torn down the night before. The political climate fired the imagination of the young Drakeford, a clarinet-playing cricket fan. Trashing road signs was, he thought, a "fantastic thing to be doing", he told me. … [Read more...] about Mark Drakeford: From Latin degree to Wales’ leader

By John Newton Published 29 December 2016 Share close Share page Copy link About sharing It is 30 years since McDonald's opened its first UK drive-thru - 1986 being a year of firsts for a brand that now has 1,200 restaurants across Britain. The figures show consumers really are "lovin' it", yet the concept is also ubiquitous - a familiar, disposable and repeatable experience. So how was it for customers when McDonald's was still new? Was what is now commonplace ever thought a thrill? It is 1975. UK cinemas are showing an advert for a brand whose name, at this point, is principally linked in the national consciousness to a nursery rhyme farmer. To the viewer, "golden arches" means nothing. They don't know chips by another name smell as sweetly. A Big Mac is just an oversized anorak. The ad comes a year after McDonald's opens its first UK restaurant in Woolwich, London. Few Brits, … [Read more...] about The McDonald’s drive-thru at 30: A journey back to an exotic experience

Published 19 July Share close Share page Copy link About sharing Fish and crayfish have been rescued from a "dried-up" river amid the ongoing heatwave. Fisheries workers from the Environment Agency worked to save the fish from the depleted River Redlake in Bucknell, Shropshire. Almost 100 brown trout, Atlantic salmon and an eel were rescued and relocated further downstream, the agency said. White-clawed crayfish were also moved from a section of the river to Malvern, Worcestershire. There, it added, it hoped they can breed and "help prevent extinction", it added. The UK's only native freshwater crayfish, it is listed as endangered on the global International Union for Conservation of Nature red list of threatened species. It is in decline due to the introduction of the invasive, non-native North American signal crayfish, which has brought disease to which the indigenous … [Read more...] about Fish and crayfish rescued from ‘dried-up’ Shropshire river

Published 21 February 2012 Share close Share page Copy link About sharing Beluga whales are among rare species spotted at, or near to, proposed Scottish sites for marine renewable energy projects, a report says. Also known as white whales and sea canaries, beluga whales live in Arctic and sub-Arctic waters. Sightings of the species were made off Caithness in 2005 and 2007, according to information gathered for the Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) report. The review looked at the Pentland Firth and the sea around Orkney. The study, called "Abundance and behaviour of cetaceans and basking sharks in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters", was prompted by the opening up of new sites for marine renewable energy. Among the findings was that some proposed locations for wave and tidal energy development overlapped with important areas for cetaceans. The report's authors - Hebog … [Read more...] about Beluga whale sightings in SNH marine renewables report

Published 22 October 2012 Share close Share page Copy link About sharing Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalisations were remarkably close to human speech. While dolphins have been taught to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech, no animal has spontaneously tried such mimicry. But researchers heard a nine-year-old whale named NOC make sounds octaves below normal, in clipped bursts. The researchers outline in Current Biology just how NOC did it. The first mystery, though, was figuring out where the sound was coming from. When a diver at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California surfaced saying, "Who told me to get out?" the researchers there knew they had another example on their hands. The whales are known as "canaries of the sea" for their high-pitched chirps, but while a number of anecdotal … [Read more...] about Beluga whale ‘makes human-like sounds’