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The Latest Breaking News from John Betjeman

Cracking prog, Gromit! Some of Aardman Animations’ best-loved movies were made to a soundtrack of Jeff Wayne, Tangerine Dream, Focus, Goldfrapp, Alan Parsons and more, says veteran sculptor Jim Parkyn

“We had a clunky old vinyl player and people would bring in odd records…” Minds open to limitless music helped build a legacy leading up to Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Louder

John Keats statue to be unveiled near his birthplace in London’s Moorgate

Martin Jennings – whose previous public sculptures include John Betjeman, George Orwell and Philip Larkin – has based his bronze on a life cast of the poet, taken when he was 21

The Guardian - UK

OPINION - Of course Camilla scorned a fish knife — could anything be more middle class?

There is something cheering about a world in which we can argue about fish knives. Anne Glenconner, once lady in waiting to Princess Margaret, raised the issue this week at the Cheltenham Literary Festival where she was promoting her book on picnics. She recalled having lunch with Camilla and her…

Evening Standard

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

Herbie Flowers obituary

Bassist who played on an estimated 500 hit songs – the most recognisable being the motif he provided for Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side

The Guardian - UK

Simon Verity obituary

Master sculptor and stone carver who created grottoes, public memorials and ecclesiastial work in the UK and the US

The Guardian - UK

‘This idle prig’: the truth about CS Lewis and John Betjeman’s long-lasting feud

At Oxford, Lewis complained repeatedly in his diary about his student Betjeman’s attitude to work. A newly discovered letter throws light on their mutual antipathy

The Guardian - UK

Where tourists seldom tread, part 7: five more British towns with secret histories

From Slough to Stockton-on-Tees, these provincial towns have been derided, mocked and caricatured. But there are so many reasons to visit places that are snubbed by the guidebooks

The Guardian - UK

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A return trip to John Betjeman’s Metro-land, 50 years on from his classic TV documentary

The late poet laureate’s hymn to the commuter towns of Middlesex, Herts and Bucks is still a great guide to the Metropolitan line, the world’s first urban ‘underground’ railway

The Guardian - UK

An all-time great: how Michael Parkinson changed British television

He pioneered new formats, could get almost any guest in the world and conducted the best interviews ever. Parky was one of the finest broadcasters of any era

The Guardian - UK

OPINION - Farewell Jamie Reid, punk visionary who captured the spirit of generation

Jamie Reid, who has just died at the age of 76, was as important to London as Big Ben or Guy Fawkes. As influential as Martin Amis or John Betjeman. His work was as iconic as any London portrait by Monet, Pissarro or Canaletto. This Croydon-born boy was a colossal…

Evening Standard

Jim Parker obituary

Prolific Bafta-winning composer of music for Midsomer Murders, the BBC’s House of Cards and Victoria Wood’s TV dramas

The Guardian - UK

TV score composer and Betjeman collaborator Jim Parker dies aged 88

Bafta-winner wrote theme music for shows including Ground Force and made albums with poet laureate

The Guardian - UK

Digested week: jingoism in odd places on a visit to post-Brexit Blighty

Supermarket goods festooned with union jacks; ‘made in Britain’ labels everywhere. How my former homeland has changed

The Guardian - UK

All the poets turned down for the laureate in 1968

Prominent poets of the era — including John Betjeman, WH Auden, and Philip Larkin — were disparaged, accused of being drunkards, snobs, communists, mentally unstable, or even creators of explicit content

Evening Standard

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Evening Standard

‘Lightweight’ Betjeman was initially overlooked for poet laureate

Newly released government files reveal bitter in-fighting over the prestigious literary appointment

The Independent UK

No 10 dismissed ‘songster of tennis lawns’ Sir John Betjeman as poet laureate

Newly-released government files reveal bitter in-fighting over prestigious literary appointment

The Independent UK

No 10 turned down poets John Betjeman, Philip Larkin and Robert Graves for laureate job

Newly released government files reveal bitter in-fighting over the prestigious literary appointment

The Guardian - UK

John Betjeman dismissed as ‘songster of tennis lawns’ in 1967 search for poet laureate

Records from the National Archive reveal the cut-throat world of British poetry, and the politics behind selecting candidates

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The Independent UK

‘Lightweight’ Betjeman overlooked for poet laureate

Newly-released government files reveal bitter in-fighting over the prestigious literary appointment.

The Week

Barry Humphries obituary: cerebral satirist who created Dame Edna Everage

During an appearance on Desert Island Discs in 2009, Barry Humphries declared that he would be happy if his obituaries made no mention of Dame Edna Everage, the monstrous Melbourne housewife he had created half-a-century earlier. Some hope, said The Times. True, Dame Edna wasn’t his only alter ego: there was also…

Evening Standard

Your Friday night playlist curated by south London band HMLTD

As they release their dystopian second album The Worm, Isobel Van Dyke discovers lead singer Henry Spychalski’s go-to tracks for a Friday night spent alone with his inner demons

Chronicle Live

A vanished rural North East railway station - and its rebirth in a new location

Like so many rural railway stations, the early decades of the 20th century saw a fall in passenger numbers at Rowley, County Durham. After 1939 the station was only open to goods trains, and closed completely in 1966

The Guardian - UK

Griff Rhys Jones rails against plans to ‘smother’ Liverpool Street station

Comedian leads coalition against ‘exploitative’ proposal for 16-storey buildings over listed station

The Guardian - UK

We Danced on Our Desks by Philip Norman review – an unbeatable portrait of a writer finding his voice

The Beatles biographer evokes the energy and glamour of the 1960s in this droll and vivid account of his years on the Sunday Times Magazine

The Guardian - UK

Betjeman’s Liverpool Street campaign revived in face of new development

Conservationists hope spirit of late poet laureate’s 1970s protest will protect the Victorian station from ‘serious harm’

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