A new kind of cultural hero – the geeky genius ... Video games have been the fastest growing cultural commodity in the world. ibid.
The Redlands’ drugs bust showed how the self-made stars of the ’60s were changing from street-fighting men to Lords of the manor. Dominic Sandbrook: Let Us Entertain You II: In With the Old
The outsiders became insiders – and the triumph of the old order. ibid.
Henry VIII is virtually an industry in his own right. ibid.
To me, Roger Moore’s Bond is basically the embodiment of effortless superiority. ibid.
It really was fashionable to stand up on this stage and make fun of Britain's politicians. ibid.
In the mid-eighties Spitting Image attracted some fifteen million viewers. ibid.
Westminster remains the domain of a gilded political elite ever more detached. ibid.
We share our predecessors’ anxieties about the dangers of scientific progress. Dominic Sandbrook: Let Us Entertain You III: Modern Victorians
Live Aid was the most ambitious live music event ever attempted. ibid.
Dr Who: remains every inch the Victorian adventurer. ibid.
In Cookson’s world, industry is a monstrous machine. An endless cycle of low pay, unreliable hours and sheer hard labour. ibid.
Trainspotting exploded into Britain’s cinemas in 1996. ibid.
What [Agatha] Christie’s books also reflect, though, is the Christian principles that she had learned as a girl in the last years of the nineteenth century. ibid.
The Prisoner was the ultimate cult hit: a TV series about a secret agent who is kidnapped and held captive in the mysterious village ... He is Number 6, and from the village there is no escape: ‘I am no a number; I am a free man’. Dominic Sandbrook: Let Us Entertain You IV: Me, Myself & I
Social mobility brought with it a growing tension between the individual and the collective. ibid.
’70s marked a watershed in the battle for sexual equality. ibid.
Britain in essence was to become a new client state of the US. Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States IV: The Cold War 1945-50, Showtime 2012
George V didn’t have much public charisma. Lucy Worsley, Fit to Rule: How Royal Illness Changed History: Happy Families III, BBC 2014
Edward VIII: he was declaring himself unfit to rule. He wasn’t a monarch: he was just a man. ibid.
The bombing of British cities during World War II was the defining moment for the country. 80 years on it still resonates profoundly. Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley, BBC 2021
Experts predicted that in two months bombs and poison gas dropped from planes could kill half a million civilians. The government’s biggest fear was that people would panic, and a collapse in morale would force a surrender. ibid.
Civil defence training exercises took place all over the country. ibid.
The Blitz: It was a time when Britain’s fate hung in the balance. Rob Bell & Michael Buerk & Angelica Bell, The Blitz: Britain on Fire I, Channel 5 2019
Hitler was determined to bring Britain to its knees and ordered a series of raids on the nation’s ports. ibid.
Now the bombers headed north-west to the biggest port in England … Liverpool was in the eye of the storm. ibid.
Tuesday 1st May 10.45 p.m. Day 1: After the sirens had sent the people of Liverpool scurrying for cover, the first German bombers appeared overhead.
A week of continual bombing … The May Blitz. ibid.
The story of one of the most intense bombings of a British city in World War II. The Blitz: Britain on Fire II
Bombing raids had already targeted the city centre, the docks, and residential areas. ibid.
Mill Road Hospital: The hospital was struck by a parachute mine, a direct hit. ibid.
This is the story of eight days in May when Britain and Liverpool in particular were in the eye of the storm. The Blitz: Britain on Fire III
On the morning of the fourth day of the onslaught, Liverpool was waking up from the worst night of bombing so far in the May Blitz. ibid.
The nurses gathered together all of the babies rescued from the rubble, and because there were no cots or cribs left, they placed them all in large clothes baskets. ibid.