Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish - reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!
Last week, I encouraged people to visit British museums and historical sites, virtually. Tina shared the work of York landscape painter, Peter Brook.
First some coronavirus news from the UK:
- Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince Charles are among the famous people who have contracted COVID-19. Both reportedly exhibited only minor symptoms.
- The British have a shorthand for the concept of flattening the curve in order to prevent overwhelm of health care capacity: "Protect the NHS."
- The NHS is rapidly turning the ExCel Center, a huge convention venue in the East End of London, into a hospital. They are calling it NHS Nightingale after Florence Nightingale. The news stories are all missing this little gem - we'll be celebrating the 200th anniversary of her birth on May 12th.
The National Health Service is a source of pride for the British, as evidenced by its presence in the London Olympics Opening Ceremony. At about minute 48 in the video, we get to see the NHS and British children's literature in a mash-up.
A Kent family went viral this week with their funny quarantine version of " One More Day " from Les Miserables. We also get a sneak peak at sibling rivalry, British-style.
For some non-coronavirus news, Call the Midwife started its new season on PBS. They're dealing with an outbreak of diphtheria, so it's not entirely an escape from the real world. If you miss the Sunday evening show, you can stream it from the PBS website for about a month after the original airing.
About Joy Weese Moll
a librarian writing about books
