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Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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1441

The Selfish Giant

Based on the short story by Oscar Wilde

A giant gets angry when he finds children playing in his garden.

A giant has been staying with his friend the Cornish ogre; but after seven years he has run out of conversation, and come home.

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Posted January 8 2016

1442

Damon and Pythias

By Clay Lane

A tale of two friends with complete confidence in each other, and loyal to the death.

Dionysius, tyrant of the island of Sicily (probably Dionysius I, r. 405-367 BC), was deeply impressed by the bond of trust shared by Pythias and Damon. Given how he came to find out about it, though, it is understandable that they thought three would make a crowd.

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Posted January 4 2016

1443

The Gordian Knot

By Clay Lane

Alexander fulfilled the letter of a prophecy and he did become ruler of the world, but it wasn’t quite fair.

To ‘cut the Gordian knot’ is to solve an apparently intractable problem simply, by lateral thinking. I’m not sure, however, that Alexander really ‘solved’ the problem at all.

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Posted January 4 2016

1444

The Midas Touch

By Clay Lane

An ancient Greek myth about the dangers of easy wealth.

The ‘Midas Touch’ is the ability to make a success of anything to which you turn your hand, but the original myth carries a warning.

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Posted January 4 2016

1445

Pygmalion and Galatea

By Clay Lane

Pygmalion discovered that prudishness is not the same as purity.

Pygmalion assumed that Aphrodite, goddess of pure love, would bless a romance free from fleshly passion, but he had misunderstood the true meaning of purity.

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Posted January 4 2016

1446

The Caucus Race

By Lewis Carroll

Alice experiences for herself the very definition of a pointless exercise.

Alice and an assortment of animals have got very wet. A mouse tries to dry them out by reciting a passage from a dry history book, but when this doesn’t work, the Dodo suggests a Caucus Race.

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Posted January 3 2016

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★ Wulfstan and the Seal of Approval William the Conqueror’s purge of the English Church was halted by a humble bishop and a dead king.

For Today • January 9 • The Feast of St Wulfstan of Worcester

How the Cobra Got His Spectacles John Wood shares the wonder of the Indian cobra’s hood, in science and in myth.

Posted Yesterday • The Copy Book

Naughty Eppie Silas Marner has to harden his heart and teach little Eppie a lesson she will remember.

Posted January 20 • The Copy Book

Music Video Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Othello, Op. 79: II. Children’s Intermezzo

Posted January 20

Vocabulary Compose sentences to illustrate the meaning of these words.

Posted January 20 • Think and Speak

A European Fraud Dostoevsky had to break it to Moscow’s students that ordinary Russians found their brand of politics patronising.

Posted January 19 • The Copy Book

Pronunciation Suggest words in which the letter ‘o’ is pronounced as it is in ‘comely’.

Posted January 18 • Think and Speak

Tea Make as many words as you can using the letters of one nine-letter word. Can you beat our score?

Posted January 17 • Think and Speak

Film Video Professor Smith reluctantly confides his ‘guilty secret’ to his students.

Posted January 16

Sentegrams Unjumble these sentences from the novels of George Eliot.

Posted January 15 • Think and Speak

There’s Nae Good Luck in Durham Gaol On his visits to Durham Gaol, prison reformer John Howard found conditions that were all too familiar.

Posted January 15 • The Copy Book

Music Video Alexander Borodin: Petite Suite: VI. Rêverie

Posted January 14

Person, Object, Action! Make up sentences using these phrases, making sure you put plenty of action in.

Posted January 14 • Think and Speak

Rhymes Suggest words that rhyme with ‘love’.

Posted January 13 • Think and Speak

The Abuse of Literacy Reading and writing should have taught the people more than name-calling and how to manipulate opinion.

Posted January 13 • The Copy Book

Among Old Friends ‘Alpha of the Plough’ hoped Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not treat his old friends as he treated his favourite books.

Posted January 12 • The Copy Book

Music Video Orlando Gibbons: Thus Angels Sung

Posted January 12 • Comfortable Words

A Reckless Indifference to Life In eighteenth-century England, the death penalty was the solution to almost any crime.

Posted January 11 • The Copy Book

Music Video Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: Symphony No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 28 (Irish): II. Allegro molto vivace

Posted January 10

Vocabulary Express each of these phrases in a single word.

Posted January 10 • Think and Speak

Dear Anne Elliot Anne Thackeray saw something in Jane Austen’s heroines that she missed in their more modern sisters.

Posted January 4 • The Copy Book