On 16 Jun at 12:22, roy.stockdill@btinternet.com wrote: <big snip for brevity> > ... I recognise the exigencies of television demand a bit of emotion! Too right, a good dose of emotion brings in the the adverts. > However, am I being unfair in thinking these showbiz luvvies can turn > on the tears and emotion to demand? Of course you are right. I even remember once, in my days at a factory Up North, one lady freely admitted she could turn the tears on at the drop of a hat. I suspect there is a bit of technique to doing this and wonder what it is. Curiously in a Murdoch rag a couple of days ago a letter to the editor related how Churchill would be streaming with tears whenever he watched a film. I had heard something of this of him several decades back, not quite the bulldog breed. But then politicians have to do a bit of acting occasionally. > Clearly, none of them can be family historians since people such as > ourselves would take it all in our stride! Wouldn't we??? Not totally in my case. And I do know of some people who simply won't do genealogy for fear of the reds under the bed that they may discover. But what sort of performance should I have put on today on hearing that an ancestress who was judicially murdered most foully had lived in the house I was visiting? I have now found a total of 42 ancestors who were executed or hung, a fair number of them not without good cause. So I wonder if this could be the follow-up, to find some luvvies who could put on a good show as they were taken round all the various places of execution of their ancestors. We could have other luvvies acting the part of the to-be-hung ancestor. And the executioner. Jobs for the boys galore. Then we could have a competition for the luvvie who put on the greatest show of shock, horror, grief and dismay? With telephone voting of course. -- Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org for a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/

From: Tim Powys-Lybbe <tim@powys.org> > But what sort of performance should I have put on today on hearing that > an ancestress who was judicially murdered most foully had lived in the > house I was visiting? I have now found a total of 42 ancestors who were > executed or hung, a fair number of them not without good cause. > > So I wonder if this could be the follow-up, to find some luvvies who > could put on a good show as they were taken round all the various places > of execution of their ancestors. We could have other luvvies acting the > part of the to-be-hung ancestor. And the executioner. Jobs for the > boys galore. > > Then we could have a competition for the luvvie who put on the greatest > show of shock, horror, grief and dismay? With telephone voting of > course.> You are even more cynical than I am! It doesn't surprise me in the slightest to hear that many of your ancestors were executed. I suspect there are those on the Board of Trustees at the SoG who have harboured similar thoughts about both of us at one time or another! I wonder who's had the most ancestors executed, you or Clare Balding? I presume you don't descend from the Duke of Clarence who Shakespeare had being drowned in a butt of Malmsey, as she does? -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Famous family trees blog: http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/tag/roy-stockdill/ "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE