Nearly every hour for the better part of the last 157 years, Big Ben’s bongs could be heard around London. But after one last ring at noon local time next Monday, the bell will fall silent for the next four years as the Victorian-era timepiece undergoes much-needed repairs.
The Keeper of the Clock explained that the clock needs to be “dismantled piece by piece with each cog examined and restored” to assess an issue with the clock that rings the bell.
There are those who aren’t down with the plan. The Telegraph reported on a “backlash” from other MPs and columnist Frances Wilson wrote: “Silencing Big Ben is like stopping the heartbeat of our democracy.” An article in the Daily Mail said, “Not even Nazi bombs could silence the famous symbol of Britishness”.
The complete renovation is projected to cost $40 million. The tower will be encased in scaffolding during construction, but one of the four clock faces will remain uncovered, a small consolation to Londoners unhappy about saying goodbye for now to the clock’s hourly bongs.
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A letter written by John Lennon to his ex-wife disputing Yoko Ono’s involvement in their divorce is one of two letters up for auction.
Both letters were written by the Beatles legend on Nov. 15, 1976, and both refer to Cynthia Lennon and her relationship with the media. The lot is estimated to be sold for $25,000 at the auction this week.
Lennon and Powell, parents of Julian Lennon, were married in 1962. They divorced in 1968, and his affair with Ono, whom he’d met that same year, was cited as grounds for the split. Powell died in 2015.
One letter, titled “An Open Letter to Cynthia Twist” (which was her married name at the time), was written as a response to an interview she’d given to a magazine. “As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of L.S.D. or Yoko Ono … and that’s reality!” he wrote. “Your memory is impaired to say the least. Your version of our first L.S.D. trip is rather vague, and you seem to have forgotten subsequent trips altogether!
Lennon also referred to an episode involving mutual friends. “I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from your ‘Beatle’ past,” he concluded. “But if you are serious about it, you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers! We did have some good years, so dwell on them for a change, and, as [Bob] Dylan says, it was ‘A Simple Twist of Fate’! Love & good luck to the three of you, from the three of us.”
The letter was addressed to the editors of a magazine, with a handwritten introduction. “I would appreciate this letter being printed without any edits,” he wrote. “I think it only fair to me and your readers to present my side of the story. Thank you.”
The firm responsible for the sale, R&R Auction Company LLC, notes that “Lennon’s clever pun at the close of the first letter, ‘A Simple Twist of Fate’ – a takeoff on Bob Dylan’s ode to a lost love – likely inspired his former spouse in her decision to title her forthcoming tell-all memoirs, A Twist of Lennon, which Twist was then publicizing. As Lennon’s official ‘side of the story,’ a public he-said-she-said self defense, these letters represent the unique final chapter in the life of the former Beatle and are thus of the utmost rarity and importance.”
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Famously angsty Canadian singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette and American rapper Mario “Souleye” Treadway listed their longtime residence along one of the more choice streets in L.A.’s Brentwood area with an asking price of $5.495 million. Property records indicate the seven-time Grammy winner, an occasional actress who appeared on “Nip/Tuck” and “Weeds,” has owned the double-gated residence since the fall of 1996 — the year following the release of her seminal mega-hit album “Jagged Little Pill” — when it was purchased for $1.795 million. On a .61-acre parcel with open canyon views out the back, the two-story, butter yellow and clay tile roofed residence dates to the 1950s and, per listing descriptions, has been “painstakingly remodeled” into a “hybrid of Mediterranean with craftsman details” with five and potentially seven bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms.
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Disney on Tuesday said it will be pulling its movies from Netflix and will launch a Disney streaming service of its own in 2019. It also said it will launch an ESPN streaming service early next year.
To help do all that, Disney will acquire a majority of BAMTech, the streaming technology company owned by MLBAM, the internet company owned by Major League Baseball. Disney already owned a stake in BAMTech but will pay $1.58 billion for an additional 42 percent.
Details of the Disney streaming service were sketchy Tuesday, with CEO Bob Iger saying that if a movie is Pixar- or Disney-branded, it will probably appear exclusively on the new service — including shows and movies made specifically for the service — but the jury is still out on Marvel and Star Wars films.
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Two years after signing off CBS’ The Late Show, David Letterman is returning to the small screen.
The longest-serving host in U.S. late-night TV history is set to topline a new talk show for Netflix. The untitled six-episode series will premiere in 2018.
Unlike The Late Show, each hourlong episode of the Netflix series will be prerecorded and feature Letterman conducting longform conversations with a singular guest as well as exploring topics on his own — outside of the studio. A guest list has not yet been revealed.
“I feel excited and lucky to be working on this project for Netflix. Here’s what I have learned, if you retire to spend more time with your family, check with your family first. Thanks for watching, drive safely,” Letterman said.
The series is produced by RadicalMedia (What Happened, Miss Simone? and Oh Hello on Broadway and Abstract: The Art of Design) as well as Letterman’s Worldwide Pants banner.
“Just meeting David Letterman was a thrill; imagine how exciting it is for me to announce that we will be working together,” Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said. “David Letterman is a true television icon, and I can’t wait to see him out in the wild, out from behind the desk and interviewing the people he finds most interesting. We’ll have to see if he keeps the beard.”
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<a href=/post.php>Video Michelin China 2017</a>
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Bill Cosby has lost yet another lawyer as Brian McMonagle today made official his desire to depart the defense for the actor’s criminal case for the alleged 2004 rape of Andrea Constand.
With a mistrial declared on June 17 on the three felony charges of second-degree aggravated indecent assault that could see Cosby in jail for a decade if found guilty, a retrial has now been set to start on November 6 in Norristown, PA.
In paperwork filed Tuesday in Pennsylvania state court, the Philadelphia lawyer asked to be able to “withdrawal as counsel” to Cosby. “The defendant is taking necessary steps to secure new counsel,” McMonagle’s filing adds. “Defendant requests that he be given until August 21, 2017 to retain new counsel,” it goes on to state of Cosby, who has had local legal big shot McMonagle by his side since soon after the actor was arraigned December 30, 2015 in the criminal case and released on $1 million bail.
A hearing is set for August 22 on the motion along with other matters related to the case as it heads towards the retrial this fall.
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