Kate watches the English tribes -fancy a glimpse?

BIT # 1

Kate Fox tells how awkwardness and hypocrisy rule a nation in Watching the English. 

 if you aren't English you'll finally understand all their peculiar little ways. 

PART ONE: CONVERSATION CODES

•  The Weather 
• Grooming-talk 
• Humour Rules 
• Linguistic Class Codes 
• Emerging Talk-rules: The Mobile Phone 
• Pub-talk

PART TWO: BEHAVIOUR CODES

• Home Rules 
• Rules of the Road 
• Work to Rule 
• Rules of Play 
• Dress Codes Food 
• Rules Rules of Sex 
• Rites of Passage

Kate Fox, the social anthropologist who put the quirks and hidden conditions of the English under a microscope, visits a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and bizarre codes of behavior. She demystifies the peculiar cultural rules that baffle us. An international bestseller, Watching the English is both an incisive and hilarious look at the English and their society.

BIT # 2

Round off.

Study the product at AMAZON, thenRead the comments to her book at Amazon's webpageWrite a comment on what you understood

BIT # 3

Catherine Bennett isn't so sure

Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour
by Kate Fox
424pp, Hodder, £20 -The GUARDIAN -REVIEW

• It was quite a consolation to finish Kate Fox's analysis of Englishness in the departure lounge of Heraklion airport, where a few hundred English people were unselfconsciously squabbling and cursing and barging into one another. For Fox says we are not like that at all. "Social dis-ease", she decides, is the "central core of Englishness". She holds this congenital awkwardness responsible for everything from our "obsession with privacy" to our celebrated courtesy, famous reserve and infinite capacity for embarrassment. "We do everything in moderation," she believes.

• Fox's curiosity about English behaviour, which she attempts to reduce, in this prodigously long investigation, into key constituent parts, is matched only by her regret that we are not a more free and easy nationality. (...) We are, in fact, "the most repressed and inhibited people on earth". 

• Since Fox is a leading social anthropologist, we must believe her when she tells us that our rites of passage also leave a good deal to be desired. It "seems a shame", she says, "that there is no special ritual to mark the completion of secondary education". Maybe we're too mean to pay for them. Contemplating the cautious attitudes of young English people towards work and money, Fox professes herself "disappointed" to find them planning for the future and "not much cheered" to discover an early aversion to being in debt. 

• Fox is happy to expose the working-class habit of saying things like "nuffink" and "serviette" along with other mannerisms. (...) Still, one day her exhaustive observations on these "hidden" rules may prove invaluable to visitors from another planet. 

• Fox has worked so hard to be charming and fun that she seems to lack the energy, or invention, that would be required to reconcile her theory of an inhibited and "dis-eased" nation with the evidence of increasingly unbuttoned, culturally diverse and unpredictable forms of Englishness. Or Europeanness. 

A good many of Fox's selected "English" traits - love of privacy, clubs, DIY and talking about the weather - seem remarkably similar to the French or German love of privacy, clubs, DIY and talking about the weather. 

Enjoy two reviews here:

• Dutton
• Susan

GRAPH -Reforming EU timetables

CATALONIA TODAY

JORDI PANYELLA

The report is based on two assumptions:

1. that reform of working timetables needs to be government-led, 
2. that any changes adopted should be carried out within the framework of a national cross-party agreement .

 The report stressed that “the key is to see timetable reform as a whole "

DEBATE:  
       
      A) You may bear in mind these bullet points:

• finding the “balance” between demand and supply in services and commerce 
• difference between Catalonia and the rest of Europe
• “squaring work and school timetables”. 
• balance in school and work timetables (lack of...)
• television schedules. 
• the sociological context (an ageing population and a low birth rate)

B) outline some proposals on these fields:

•  organisation of work, 
• the fostering of telecommuting and a more widespread 
• also takes into account use of technology 

C) Last, but without question of doubt no least,  foresee the outcomes

• gradual/drastic modification of behaviour  
• .....

Rounding off:

WRITE  WR_5A. Develop the topic using the figures in the graph above.

The second sex by the modern standard: Divas where Lucy Tantamount meets Nancy Cunard

Roaring twenties divas 

 ITEM# 1 

The depiction of a a new leisure pursuit, or a "liberated female".

 Personality. Internal power.Beauty in those fascinating and inspirational women who accepted “to live as I liked always and to die in my own way.”

Avant-garde artist Tamara de Lempicka's 1929 “auto-portrait” depicts her at the wheel: "Heavily eyelids armored with kohl cut decisively across the pupils as she confronts the viewer; unworried, unimpressed, unconcerned. Where we might expect to find liquid life, depth, and vulnerability, we find instead an eye barked hard by the experience of modernity." / Cool Shades -by  V. Brown -2014)

How is it the World of Publishing, Human Rights Organizations, have failed to acknowledge the innummerable achievements, accomplishments, contributions and sacrifice of Nancy Cunard. She is number 3 of my List for Women In History of Greatest Courage and Spirit! ( after Tamara de Lempicka and Mae West)

Judith Mackrell's book studies generously this generation. 

 ITEM# 2 

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), British novelist. Three examples.


which belong with the 'femme fatale' sketches of his earlier novels, Mrs Viveash and Lucy Tantamount, whose chief function is to deprive the hero of all normal concepts of morality.

Lucy Tantamount -character

 “Living modernly’s living quickly,  you can’t cart a wagonload of ideals and romanticism around you these days. When you travel by airplane, you must leave your heavy baggage behind. The good-old fashioned soul was all right when people lived slowly. But it’s too ponderous nowadays. There’s no room for it in the airplane.”     Point Counterpoint (A. Huxley - 1928)

Lucy Tantamount is a portrait of the 1920s femme fatale Nancy Cunard—with whom Huxley had a very brief but emotionally debilitating affair prior to writing Point Counter Point.

"To-morrow," Mrs. Viveash interrupted him, "will be as awful as to-day." She breathed it like a truth from beyond the grave prematurely revealed, expiringly from her death-bed within."                                    Antic Hay (A. Huxley - 1923)

Myra Viveash is Huxley's version of the rootless modern woman, a promiscuous temptress who lives on the edge of despair. Gumbril, Lypiatt and Shearwater should be so completely subjugated by Myra Viveash, who symbolizes the destructive nihilism. There is one person, however, whom Gumbril  is careful to avoid: Myra Viveash, the fashionable beauty whose eyes have “a formidable capacity for looking and expressing nothing.” She destroys whomever she allures with her expiring death-bed voice. Her life is a void, an infinite boredom, a cold and heartless game with other people’s lives. She is largely responsible for Gumbril’s disenchantment.

OTHER writers:
in the fashion of Hemingway's Brett Ashley and E. Waugh's Margot Metroland.]

 ITEM# 2 .  Live and let live.

Nancy Cunard was a writer and political activist. She was born into the British upper class but strongly rejected her family's values,devoting much of her life fighting racism and fascism.

There are two biographies of Nancy Cunard recommended by critics: Lois Gordon’s Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist. Columbia UP, New York 2007; and Anne Chisholm’s Nancy Cunard: A Biography. Sidgwick and Jackson, New York 1979. I’ve read the book by A. Chisholm, which motivated this entry, and recommend it highly.

PROFILE. For Nancy Cunard, the beautiful heiress to the Cunard shipping fortune, a life like Paris Hilton's wasn't an option.

Though she partied with celebrities and had many lovers, Cunard rejected her privilege and fortune to fight for the oppressed. She was a poet, a publisher and a paramour of many writers of the 1920s and '30s.

TASK. Listen to this 9-minute radio program from NPR

   Nancy Cunard: Rebellious Heiress, Inspired Life

Photographed by Man Ray -1926

while living in France Nancy learned typography and how to operate a printing press and became a publisher. The Hours Press 1928-31 published some of the most beautifully designed books of the period, works by Louis Aragon, Norman Douglas, Samuel Beckett, Robert Graves and Ezra Pound.  And in 1933 came Negro.

Negro was an immense book published by Nancy Cunard which was a statement of African achievement in politics and the arts, inspired by her association with Henry Crowder, who had been her lover since 1928. Crowder was an unsuccessful black musician from Atlanta Georgia USA, and what he had to tell Nancy about the condition of black people in the southern states of America changed her life. Negro was not significant for its publication alone.

French humour -Pierre Daninos

L'été c'est fait pour lire et... pour rire ! 

L’été c’est fait pour lire, c’est aussi l’occasion de sortir de la routine quotidienne et de sa morosité pour rire un peu. 

Mais pour les sources de rire, je voudrais évoquer un petit ouvrage atypique, Tout l’humour du monde, une anthologie de Pierre Daninos.  

Pierre Daninos n’est pas, je vous le concède, l’auteur le plus moderne et médiatique. Il faut dire que ses Carnets du Major Thompson sont maintenant assez vieux et peu de lecteurs les reprennent régulièrement en main. Pourtant, cet homme ne manquait ni de talent littéraire ni d’humour. C’est seulement la poussière qui est venu le couvrir de son manteau léger au fil du temps… Et pourtant, il n’est mort qu’en 2005, mais l’humour ne vieillit peut-être pas si bien que cela…

Bit #1 

Le tour du monde du rire -

   Pierre Daninos 

Pour commencer l’excellente année 2006, voici quelques extraits de ce livre qui fleure bon les années 50, voire l’époque du colonialisme:

• Chapitre IX : le rire jaune - En Chine  
• Chapitre X : En  Japon 

Chapitre IX : le rire jaune  -- En Chine (Robert Guillain)

 —————————— 

 Un jour Confucius rencontra une vieille femme qui était assise au milieu d’un champ semé de tombes fraîches. C’étaient, dit-elle sans larmes, celles de son père, de son mari et des ses deux fils.

« De quoi sont-ils donc morts ? dit le maître-         Du tigre, qui les a mangés ! dit la vieille avec un rire sonore.-         Mais quelle idée, de venir vivre dans un endroit aussi dangereux ! dit le maître.-         On est très bien ici, répliqua la vieille en riant de plus belle. Ici nous n’avons que le tigre, là-bas vous avez le gouvernement !
————————————————————
Dans la vieille tradition, le chinois s’abonne au service d’un médecin, auquel il paie une sorte d’abonnement mensuel pour être maintenu par lui en bonne santé. Vous payez donc le médecin aussi longtemps que vous allez bien, mais vous cessez de le payer dès que vous tombez malade, puisqu’il a manqué à sa tâche, et cela dure tout le temps de la maladie. On dit que la tête que fait le médecin non payé suffit à rendre un commencement de santé à son malade !Le rire, c’est un peu le médecin du chinois. Quand rien ne va plus, ou quand la vie le maltraite, le rire, au moins, ne lui coûte rien : c’est le traitement gratuit en attendant que le mal soit passé.
————————————————————
Voici une histoire qui se raconte à Shanghai, où les premiers soldats de Mao, sortant des campagnes, découvrirent avec stupeur les gratte-ciel, les ascenseurs et les réfrigérateurs.Wang le Shanghaien, qui loge chez lui une escouade, explique à ces grands enfants sortis du fond des campagnes l’usage de la chasse d’eau des WC, qui les intrigue fort.« Quand vous avez terminé, explique-t-il, vous faites couler l’eau. »Et il actionne à grand bruit la chasse d’eau. Les soldats regardent, médusés, ce torrent extraordinaire, puis l’un d’eux, secouant la tête :« Pour moi cela ne fera pas l’affaire. Je préfère encore le papier… Au moins, ajoute-t-il pour s’expliquer, on ne se mouille pas… ! »
————————————————————
Un vénérable lettré chinois est invité par des amis européens qui lui font visiter le cercle sportif de Pékin. Le petit groupe prend des boissons glacées sur la terrasse, en bordure de deux magnifiques courts de tennis. Sur un des courts, deux joueurs disputent une partie acharnée. Désignant les deux tennismen en nage, le vieillard remarque :« Etre obligés de travailler par une telle chaleur ! Pauvres gens !- Comment ! lui répond-on, mais ce sont des gens très riches, l’un est directeur de banque et l’autre principal actionnaire d’une importante société immobilière… »Perplexité du Chinois :« Mais alors, pourquoi ne paient-ils pas des coolies pour taper sur les balles ? »

————————————————————

Chapitre X au Japon, signé Jean A. Keim. 

 « au Japon, quand on veut plaisanter, il faut prévenir. » 

L’histoire du professeur Hackin, l’ancien conservateur du musée Guimet, à Tokyo.De passage dans la  ville, il était parti avec un interprète acheter un stylo. Le grand orientaliste n’aimait que les très grands stylos, et son choix, dans le magasin, fut long. Brusquement, dans la vitrine, il en avise un qui lui plaît.« c’est celui-là qu’il me faut… Mais, ajoute-t-il en regardant l’averse torrentielle qui a vidé la rue de tous les passants, n’en avez vous point un avec un parapluie au bout ? »Il s’attarde un moment dans la boutique et demande à son interprète s’il peut payer et s’en aller.« Il faut attendre la réponse.- Quelle réponse ?- Vous avez demandé un stylo avec parapluie ; l’employé a téléphoné à l’usine… vous aurez le devis dans un quart d’heure. » ———————————————————— Pour les japonais, l’étranger demeure par lui-même un être risible […] Lorsque la première troupe d’opéra italien vint au début du siècle donner des représentations, les spectateurs mouillaient de rire les larges manches de leur kimono. ———————————————————— Le père : – Tu es trop vieux, tu ne dois plus dormir avec ta mère        Le fils : – Mais papa, je ne suis pas plus vieux que vous !
————————————————————
Une jeune femme à un mendiant :« vous êtes bien constitué ; vous semblez bien portant ; pourquoi ne prenez vous pas un métier ?- Madame, vous avez un charme extraordinaire et pourtant vous ne montez pas sur les planches ; la situation est exactement la même. 

---

 Au restaurant les cure dents, stérilisés, sont souvent enveloppés d’un court poème comique ; un Senryu composé de trois vers. Parfois il raille la nouvelle condition de la femme qui ne veut plus demeurer l’esclave de son mari :

• Elle touche un salaire, elle est indépendante,
• C’est pourquoi elle ne peut pas attraper
• Un homme… Alors elle fait sa cuisine solitaire.

Parfois l’enveloppe du cure-dent vous livre une petite anecdote, une observation sur un fait de la vie courante, souvent faites aux dépens de femmes. Ainsi celle ci :

• Première femme : « je ne trouve vraiment rien à critiquer chez cette femme ! »
• Deuxième femme : « dans ce cas, si vous voulez, parlons d’une autre.»

  

---

Demeuré perplexe quand aux sources et à la manifestation de l’humour japonais, l’auteur a demandé à un journaliste nippon de le lui définir.« il n’y a pas d’humour japonais ! », lui a-t-il déclaré catégoriquement.L’auteur a insisté :« Mais les japonais ne rient donc jamais ? »Le japonais s’est alors mis à éclater de rire, parce que la question lui semblait fort comique.

---

 Ce dernier passage me semble le plus intéressant : il accepte que le rire soit partagé par tous les hommes, mais qu’on ne puisse pas encore, dans les années 50, se comprendre sur ses expressions culturelles.

Bit #2 

  

   The Major Thompson:

  Is France Still France?

PARIS— In 1954, Major William Marmaduke Thompson appeared on the Paris scene with his bowler hat, striped trousers, tightly furled umbrella and copy of The Times under his arm. The stereotypic Englishman let loose in Gay Paree.
Pierre Daninos, the French humorist who invented the Major in articles for Le Figaro, which he later expanded into "Les Carnets du Major Thompson," had no great expectations for the book, especially as he was romantically distracted in Venice when it came out. "I paid no attention, I thought it would sell 10,000 to 20,000 copies maximum. Happily, I was wrong," Daninos said in his Neuilly apartment. Sales promptly topped one million, the book was translated into 28 languages and has had five sequels, the latest being "Les Derniers Cahiers du Major Thompson," which Plon will publish in November.
The Major is now 98 (Daninos is a stripling of 87) and he is still baffled by the French despite his French wife who does not appear in the last volume. "I'm not interested in women," Daninos smoothly lies. What interests him is how the country has changed and how it hasn't: the odd and tiny fissures beneath the complacent cliché, "La France sera toujours la France." (...)


It is 25 years since the last Major Thompson book and Daninos agrees that the image is a bit dusty if still serviceable. Unfortunately, the book went to press before the recent news that the sacrosanct Michelin Guides will now be edited by an Englishman, an event the Major would find shocking, but there are still enough paradoxes to bewilder the gentle Major. "The word paradox should be engraved on the French character as the pursuit of happiness is on the American constitution," he says.  (...)

The biggest problem, and the one that most exercises Daninos, is the misuse of the French language today. The mode is for vulgarisms even among those who should know better — "has the land of 'La Princesse de Cleves' become one of four-letter words?" he wonders — and the sprinkling in conversation of English words or locutions that aren't really quite English is very odd.
"I sometimes have trouble understanding the French when they speak French, but when they think they are speaking English I don't understand a word," the Major complains.
"How," he adds, "can we take France at its word when its words are no longer French?"
In past books Daninos had fun mocking the nationalism of his compatriots. If not as virulent as in the sculptured phrases of de Gaulle, it is still around, he says.  (...)

========

• Le Figaro:  l'inventeur de l'humour anglo-gaulois
• Citations de Pierre Daninos

• Pierre  Daninos'  Translated books. 

Retrofitting South Liverpool - Penny Lane - very strange

      Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes.

 There beneath the blue suburban skies 

I sit, and meanwhile back

  BIT# 1    

 

• Songwriting History 

• John Lennon: “Penny Lane is a suburban district where I lived with my mother and father up until the age of four...It was one of those row houses like they always picture in the early Beatles' life stories.

• Paul: “There was a barber shop called Bioletti's with head shots of the haircuts you can have in the window and I just took it all and arted it up a little bit to make it sound like he was having a picture exhibition in his window. It was all based on real things. 

• In 1967, Paul explained: “It's part fact, part nostalgia for a great place – 'blue suburban skies,' as we remember it, and it's still there. And we put in a joke or two: 'four of fish and finger pie.'

McCartney and Lennon would meet at Penny Lane junction to catch a bus into the centre of the city. During the 1960s, this was a significant bus terminus for several routes, and buses with "Penny Lane" displayed were common throughout Liverpool. The name Penny Lane is also used for the area that surrounds its junction with Smithdown Road, Smithdown Place (where the terminus was located) and Allerton Road, including a busy shopping area.

Today the street is an important landmark. (source wikipedia)


  BIT# 2   

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A BRIEF AUDIO HISTORY OF THIS SONG ON OUR PARTNER WEBSITE "THE BEATLES SONG BY SONG"

Answer these questions:

1. What has become abundantly clear in the decades since The Beatles breakup?
2. How were Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever released? 
3. How did they work together?
4. when did recording begin for the Sgt Pepper LP?
5. Who was it named after? 
6. When they started recording the song, which was the main instrument?
7. How was Paul influenced to add another instrument?

  

  BIT# 3    

 Penny Lane Development Trust is a HUB in the local community. 

We are striving to engage our community by offering opportunities to participate in community life. 

The Beginning

Penny Lane is famous world wide for its association with the Beatles. In a local context Penny Lane is famous for its football. The Grove Mount playing fields was home to the hugely successful Liverpool School Boys FA for many years. When the Football Association moved to a new home, the site on Penny Lane became derelict, the changing rooms and no. 70 Penny Lane became unfit for purpose. The land on Penny Lane quickly became an eyesore for the local community and attracted vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

In 1998, the Liverpool City Council wanted to sell this derelict land to housing developers. A group of locals campaigned against this and a new Trust was set up. Part of the Grove Mount site was gifted to the Penny Lane Millennium Green Trust. At this time Paddy Ashdown, Leader of the Lib Dem Party showed his support to the Trust. Soon after, Cllr Mike Storey, the Leader of the City Council opened the Millennium Green to the community.

In 2003, Penny Lane Development Trust gained Charitable Status 1099720 with the aim of campaigning to improve the Grove Mount fields and the burnt out building for the benefit of the local community and surrounding area in South Liverpool.

After several long years of campaigning the Penny Lane Development Trust was successful in gaining an award from the Community Asset Fund to refurbish the burnt out building to create a warm, safe and welcoming facility for the local and wider community.

In 2010, the result of everyone's determination, campaigning and hard work paid off. The Penny Lane Development Trust community centre had been built.

source:  http://www.pldt.org.uk/the-history 

  BIT# 4    

What is Penny Lane by the Beatles about??? -yahooanswers

In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs Of every head he's had the pleasure to know. And all the people that come and go Stop and say hello.  

On the corner is a banker with a motorcar, The little children laugh at him behind his back. And the banker never wears a mack In the pouring rain, very strange. 
Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes. 

There beneath the blue suburban skies I sit, and meanwhile back 
In penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen. He likes to keep his fire engine clean, It's a clean machine. 

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes. A four of fish and finger pies In summer, meanwhile back 

Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray And tho' she feels as if she's in a play She is anyway. 

In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer, We see the banker sitting waiting for a trim. And then the fireman rushes in From the pouring rain, very strange. 

Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes. There beneath the blue suburban skies I sit, and meanwhile back. Penny lane is in my ears and in my eyes. There beneath the blue suburban skies, Penny Lane. 

Hospitals in my Hamlet -Though this be madness yet there is method in it

While listening to Changes, my Bowie's choice,  I remember'd  "Aladdin Sane"  (1972).
  The name is a pun on "A Lad Insane" -   inspired by his half-brother Terry,      diagnosed as a schizophrenic

       I will keep to myself: but first let me tell ye,

if ye should lead her into a fool's paradise*, as they say

Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet, 1592.        

*A state of happiness based on false hope.   

BIT 1# 

O hell! what have we here? ...
All that glitters is not gold;Often have you heard that told

Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice, 1596   

Lepe's Council and Junta de Andalucia take issues over access road 

THERE’S a fine new high-tech hospital in Lepe, Huelva. It cost around 21 million euros and took ten years to build and it is called ‘El Centro Hospitalario de Alta Resolución (CHARE) de la Costa de Huelva’. The facility was completed in December 2015, but there’s one problem. It is located two kilometres away from the nearest road, and neither the town hall of Lepe, nor the Junta de Andalucía, wants to be stuck with the bill of constructing the link.

Ended the lat 14 December 2015, still with no access! -Google MAPS

      
BIT 2#      BBC link

Hospitals workers hold a banner at the site saying: "We are saving lives while the forced demolition is trashing lives"

•                    Demolition team dismantle Chinese hospital                           with patients & doctors inside

Patients and doctors reportedly had to run for their lives after a demolition team began dismantling a hospital in China with them still inside.
Up to 30 people in camouflage uniform began demolishing part of the Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University with a bulldozer on Thursday morning, according to the Shanghai Daily.
The forced demolition is being linked to a land dispute with the local Huiji District government, after the hospital declined to relocate its radiology department and morgue to make way for a road expansion project.
Extensive damage was done to hospital equipment with national media reporting medical equipment worth around $607,000 was completely destroyed.
Three hospital staff were injured while trying to stop the destruction and six bodies being prepared in the mortuary were covered by falling debris.
Pictures of the Henan province hospital show collapsed walls and upturned medical devices.
Radiology department director Liu Chunguang described how he was conducting a chest scan on a patient when a “big hole” was stabbed in the side of the building forcing his patient to run to safety.
Millions of dollars worth of equipment was buried in the radiology department, along with six bodies in the hospital morgue, press officer for the hospital, Yuan Fang, told the state Xinhua news agency.
“Burying the bodies of patients in rubble is extremely disrespectful to the dead,” he said.
He confirmed the hospital has been forced to suspend activities.
Local government authorities have disputed claims people were inside during the incident and said the hospital had been asked to take down the areas designated for the road development.

GKC as the prince os paradox: Chesterton public domain library

(Chesterton, G. K. 
(Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936)

You name it,... he was considered a philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, biographer, and literary and art critic. Chesterton is often referred to as the "prince of paradox".

  Time magazine has observed of his writing style:

"Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories—first carefully turning them inside out.

Chesterton went on the public domain library with eager fellowship:

1) Written versions at Project Gutenberg Titlesthree scores and twelve titles   (.... click   here  )

2) LibriVox oral recordings are Public Domain in the USA.

2.1. From the many titles (click here) we recommend this one:

The Sign of the Broken Sword        (48 min)   by G. K. Chesterton      Listen to one of his heroic stories about patriotism   (chauvinistic or jingoistic) here

There were two mysteries:
1. why had “‘one of the wisest men in the world acted like and idiot,’” and
2. why had a supremely chivalrous man “‘acted like a fiend’”?

      Have fun and enjoy it! Notes on the tale, .... here. 

From the narrative: 

   Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur sleuth. Father Brown is featured in a series of short stories where he solves mysteries and crimes using his intuition and keen understanding of human nature. The character was loosely based by Chesterton on Father John O'Connor (1870–1952), a priest involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1920.

Father Brown speaks this line after catching a criminal, hearing his confession and letting him go: 

"I caught him, with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."

Book Three of Brideshead Revisited is called "A Twitch Upon the Thread"... and the quotation acts as a metaphor for the operation of grace in the characters' lives. They are free to wander the world according to their free will until they are ready and receptive to God's grace, at which point he acts in their lives and effects a conversion. 

In 1974,  Kenneth More starred in a 13-episode Father Brown TV series, each episode adapted from one of Chesterton's short stories. They were released on DVD in the UK in 2003 and in the USA four years later by Acorn Media.

Two links to discover him from SCRIBD: 

Discovering GK Chesterton Feb 13 09 Web


Orthodoxy Study Guide (Pub)