Notes from the sketch book

If I say the name Nijinsky there may be a possibility that with Cheltenham Gold cup week, you might think I'm talking about a horse. I'm not. This week in history on the 12th of March marked the birth in 1890 of Vaslav Nijinsky who would go on to become one of the most famous and controversial ballet dancers of the 20th century. The story of Vaslav Nijinsky is a tragic one, filled with moments of intense beauty and creativity, but also marred by the devastating impact of mental illness. His parents were dancers with the Setov opera company and...

The evolution of communication technology is a fascinating journey that spans over a century. It all began with Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone in 1876, which revolutionized the way people communicated.  Today on March 7th in Alexander Graham Bell day as today in 1876 he recorded his first Patent for the telephone. Bell's origin traced back to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was born on March 3, 1847, to Alexander Melville Bell and Eliza Grace Symonds Bell. Alexander's father was a well-respected phonetician while his father, Alexander's grandfather, was also an expert in elocution, which involves speech and pronunciation...

Spain, a land of unparalleled culture, beauty, and traditions, has long been home to one of its most cherished and debated customs: bullfighting. This time-honored and polarizing practice has been interwoven into the very fabric of Spanish life for centuries, and no one has quite captured its essence like the legendary American writer, Ernest Hemingway. Bullfighting, a sport with roots dating back to ancient Roman times, has been an enduring fixture of Spanish culture for centuries. In the 18th century, the sport took on a modern form and quickly became a beloved pastime of the Spanish aristocracy. By the 20th...

Welcome to the last episode of Notes from a sketchbook for the Steven Spielberg Collection. Today we will be looking at his classic 80s film ET the extra terrestrial. After the success of Raiders of the lost Ark,  The movie starts with a spaceship landing on Earth and some aliens getting out of it. They are on a mission to collect plants and other specimens from our planet. However, when they are about to leave, they realize that one of their crew members, a little alien, is missing but with Government agents arriving they have no choice but to leave....

This and Spielberg's next project about a small squashy alien would be important films in my childhood diet of movies. I grew up on them and rewatched them over and over again. Indiana Jones inspired my dreams of travel, something that I have been very fortunate to do. Going through the jungles of Cambodia or visiting the Inca temples in Mexico I might have hummed the theme tune once or twice. Every year I still watch Raiders around the lazy days between the Christmas and new year holidays. Raiders of the Lost Ark was an important film for Steven Spielberg...