Context Flashcards
1
Q
1.1 - Charlie Brooker: ‘Too much talk for one planet: why I’m reducing my word emissions’
A
- Brooker was born to a Quaker family in 1971. He was named after a character from the TV show ‘Bewitched’.
- As a teenager, he worked as a writer and cartoonist for ‘Oink!’, a comic series.
- He attended the Central London Polytechnic to study media, but he did not graduate because his dissertation was on video games, which was not considered an acceptable form of media.
- Brooker’s influences consist of Monty Python, The Young Ones, Blackadder, Chris Morris, and Vic Reeves.
- Brooker is an atheist and contributed to the satirical book, ‘An Atheist’s Guide to Christmas’.
- Brooker was the creator of the TV Show ‘Black Mirror’, which was centred around the flaws of technology.
2
Q
1.2 - Ian Birrell: ‘As gay people celebrate, the treatment of the disabled just gets worse’
A
- The article was published in the Independent, which is a British online newspaper which often gives airtime to social issues and issues regarding inequality.
- The author is Ian Birrell, who is an editor of The Mail on Sunday as a foreign affairs reporter.
- Birrell was an advisor and speech writer for David Cameron in the run-up to the 2010 General Election.
- Birrell is married with 2 children, the youngest of whom has a severe form of epilepsy known as CDKLS.
3
Q
2.1 - ‘De Profundis’ by Oscar Wilde
A
- Oscar Wilde was an Irish author who, at his peak in the 1890s, was considered one of the most popular playwrights in the UK.
- Wilde was sexually promiscuous, and was a homosexual, which was illegal at the time.
- In 1895, Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, who he affectionately called ‘Bosie’, was discovered by Bosie’s father. Wilde was accused of ‘posing as a sodomite’, and was found guilty of gross indecency and sentenced to 2 years of hard labour at Reading Gaol.
- Wilde suffered greatly whilst in prison, but was able to write letters during the latter stages of his sentence.
- Wilde wrote the letter ‘De Profundis’ (meaning ‘from the depths’) to Bosie, which served as a form of emotional catharsis for Wilde, as a means to critique both Bosie and society as a whole. It is both an apologia and literary essay.
- After his release, Wilde moved to France under a new alias, where he died soon after.
- Robert Ross, a friend of Wilde, published the letters after Wilde’s death and named it ‘De Profundis’, in reference to Psalm 130.
4
Q
2.2 - ‘Mom & Me & Mom’ by Maya Angelou
A
- Maya Angelou was an American author and civil rights activist known for her 1969 memoir, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’, which became the first African-American female non-fiction bestseller.
- Angelou was born in 1928. Her parents split up at an early age and she was forced to move out-of-state with her brother to live with their grandmother.
- Angelou experienced racism from an early age, and at the age of 8, was raped by her stepfather. As a result of this, Angelou became mute for 5 years.
- ‘Mom & Me & Mom’ focusses on Angelou’s relationship with her mother, and was published shortly before Mothers’ Day.
- The first section of the autobiography is called ‘Mom & Me’, which centres on Angelou’s resentment in her early years.
- After her mother helps Angelou after the birth of her second son, Angelou begins to refer to her mother as ‘Mom’.
- The second section is called ‘Me & Mom’, highlighting her newly-found love for her mother, and the help her mother provided through single motherhood and career ups and downs.
5
Q
3.1 - Diary: ‘What I did in 2013’ by Alan Bennett
A
- Alan Bennett is an English author and screenwriter. He was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University, where he studied History and performed with the Oxford Revue (a comedy club).
- Bennett taught and researched History at Oxford for several years, until his stage revue ‘Beyond the Fringe’ won him instant fame at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival.
- Bennett gave up academia and became a full-time writer, with his first play, ‘Forty Years On’, being produced in 1968.
- Bennett is also gay.
- Notable works of Bennett include ‘The Madness of George III’, ‘Talking Heads’, and ‘The History Boys’. Common themes in his plays include comedy combined with the sense of being intimidated or overwhelmed.
- Rievaulx Abbey is referenced in his diary, which was the centre of monasticism in Britain in the 12th century. After the monastery was forcibly closed by Henry VIII in 1538, it fell into disrepair. However, its ruins became a popular subject for romantic artists in the 18th/19th century.
- Richard III is also referenced. He was the King of England between 1483 and 1485, and has been regarded as a villain in British history, due to his links to the disappearance and likely murder of ‘the Princes in the Tower’. Richard III was killed during the Wars of the Roses, but his body was later rediscovered in 2015, and subsequently buried with full military and royal honours.
- Richard Griffiths is also referenced. Griffiths was a close friend of Bennett, who tragically died in 2013 following an operation. Griffiths often had roles in screenplays directed by Griffiths, a notable example being ‘The History Boys’. Griffiths was a highly-regarded actor, who is most widely known for his roles in the Harry Potter films.
6
Q
3.2 - Eye-witness account written by a young radio operator in the First World War
A
- The memoir was written by Sapper B. Neyland, who served between 1916 and 1919.
- Life at war for soldiers was harsh and brutal; the trenches were muddy and ridden with rats and disease, and due to the lack of awareness or support for those with PTSD, men lived in constant fear of being accused of cowardice, which would result in execution.
- Neyland implies the idea of the ‘War Myth’ at some points in his memoir, which was a version of the war which was built upon patriotism, heroism, and self-sacrifice, in order to encourage men to enlist.
- Jessie Pope was a poet who contributed to this myth through her patriotic, jingoistic poems, in which she encouraged enlistment and the targeting of those who would not. A famous poem is ‘Who’s for the Game?’. She attracted criticism from many soldiers, with notable examples being Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
- The government also portrayed misleading propaganda, such as the Kensington Garden Trenches, which were meant to be an accurate representation of the trenches. Of course, this was not true, which can shown through Neyland’s confusion upon arriving at the trenches.
- The rural idyll is an idealised, romanticised construct that focuses on the beauty of the natural world and pastoral tradition. Poems such as ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke tie this idea to England, which contributes to the war myth.
7
Q
4.1 - Blog by George Scott: ‘A ride of two halves’
A
8
Q
4.2 - Past Masters Podcast: ‘The Truth is in Here: UFOs at The National Archives’
A
9
Q
5.1 - BBC1 Panorama Interview between Martin Bashir and Princess Diana
A
- Princess Diana was born in 1961, and married Prince Charles, the heir to the Throne, in 1981.
- Diana was known for her charity work as a royal, and her attempts to make the Royal Family more modern; for example, she would dress her sons, William and Harry, in normal clothes and take them to McDonalds and theme parks.
- Diana’s marriage to Charles was an unhappy marriage: Charles was not allowed to marry his lover, Camilla Parker-Bowles, as she had been divorced. As a result, Charles and Camilla kept seeing one another throughout his marriage to Diana, which led Diana to also become unfaithful.
- Charles and Diana divorced in 1996.
- Diana died in 1997, following a fatal car crash in Paris.
- The BBC managed to arrange an interview with Diana in 1995, in the hope she would shed some light on her situation and expose the Royal Family.
- The BBC achieved the interview in a later-found controversial way, with Martin Bashir using false documents to gain access to Diana.
- The proximity between Diana’s death and this interview has been noted by some. Her brother, Earl Spencer, said: ‘The irony is that I met Martin Bashir on the 31st August 1995 - because exactly 2 years later she died, and I do draw a line between the 2 events’.
10
Q
5.2 - Jay Leno’s Interview with President Obama
A
- Jay Leno is an American Comedian, Writer, and Talk Show Host.
- Barack Obama was the 44th President of the United States of America, and was seen as fresh, invigorating as he was relatively young when taking office, and was the first ethnic minority to hold the role.
- The interview took place in August 2013.
- 2 days prior, a message from Al-Qaeda was intercepted, which raised terror threat levels.
- With these threats, Ramadan coming to an end, and concerns over major prison breaks in the region, all US diplomatic offices were shut down in the Middle East and North Africa.
11
Q
6.1 - ‘The King’s Speech’ by David Seidler
A
- ‘The King’s Speech’ is a film that focuses on the relationship between King George VI, his stammer, and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue.
- George VI was born as Prince Albert, and as such, his family and close friends would call him ‘Bertie’. He was not expected to become king.
- Bertie hated public speaking, as he had a severe stammer, caused by abuse he received from his nanny as a young child.
- When Bertie’s older brother Edward abdicated the throne in 1936, due to his unpopular marriage to Wallis Simpson, Bertie was forced to become king.
- He began working with Lionel Logue after giving a disastrous speech at the British Empire Exhibition. Logue was known for his unconventional methods, such as making his patients gargle warm water and practice tongue twisters.
- Bertie and Logue remained friends up until Bertie’s death in 1952.
12
Q
6.2 - ‘When I lived in Peru’ by Andrew Viner
A
13
Q
7.1 - Chris Rainier: ‘Tsunami Eyewitness Account by Nat Geo Photographer’
A
- Chris Rainier is an acclaimed documentary maker and photographer who specialises in highlighting endangered cultures, traditions, and languages around the globe.
- As a fellow at the National Geographic Society, he has founded and directed projects to support indigenous groups in documenting their culture to the outside world.
- In his reportage, Rainier documents the impacts of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which killed 17,000 people in Banda Aceh, with waves over 100ft tall in some places.
- Given that Indonesia is a poor country with poor infrastructure, the impacts were particularly adverse.
14
Q
7.2 - Jessica Read: ‘Experience: I survived an earthquake while scuba diving’
A
- In her reportage, Jessica Read documents the 2013 Philippines Earthquake.
- This earthquake had a magnitude of 7.2, which was the strongest in 25 years, and caught people off guard as it occurred on what was thought to be an inactive fault line.
- Many settlements in the Northwest of the country were hit, and 1.3 million people were thought to have been affected.
- A total of 222 people died, 90,000 houses were damaged or destroyed.
15
Q
8.1 - Flemmich Webb on ‘Boxer Handsome’ by Anna Whitwham
A
- ‘Boxer Handsome’ is written by Anna Whitwham, an English academic who was inspired by her grandfather’s background as an amateur boxer in London.
- The review is written by Flemmich Webb, a journalist who studied English Literature at university.
- ‘Boxer Handsome’ is about a boy called Bobby, who is half-Jewish and half-Irish.
- Bobby picks a fight with a rival Irish traveller, over a girl who he doesn’t really love.
- After meeting a girl who he does love, Bobby begins to hang out with the wrong people, creating complexities within his character and storyline.
