Reykjavík

Reykjavík (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈreiːcaˌviːk], English /ˈreɪkjəˌvik/; RAYK-yə-veek) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It has a latitude of 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state and a popular tourist destination. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of the Faxaflói Bay. With a population of around 120,000 (and over 200,000 in the Capital Region), it is the heart of Iceland's cultural, economic and governmental activity.

Reykjavík is believed to be the location of the first permanent settlement in Iceland, which Ingólfur Arnarson is said to have established in AD 874. Until the 18th century, there was no urban development in the city location. The city was founded in 1786 as an official trading town and grew steadily over the next decades, as it transformed into a regional and later national center of commerce, population, and governmental activities. It is among the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities in the world.

Mike Newell (director)

Michael Cormac "Mike" Newell (born 28 March 1942) is an English director and producer of motion pictures for film and television. Newell won the 1994 BAFTA Award for Best Direction for Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Early life

Newell was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, the son of amateur actors. Newell was educated at St Albans School and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He then attended a three-year training course at Granada Television, with the intention of entering the theatre.

Career

Newell directed various British TV shows from the 1960s onwards (such as Spindoe (1968), credited as Cormac Newell, and Big Breadwinner Hog). However, he eventually graduated into film direction.

His first film was The Man in the Iron Mask (1977), made for TV. His first critically acclaimed movie was Bad Blood (1982), concerning the 1941 manhunt for the New Zealand mass-killer, Stan Graham, played by Jack Thompson. This was followed by Dance with a Stranger (1985), a biographical drama starring Miranda Richardson as Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Great Britain. For his directing efforts, Newell won the Award of the Youth at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival.

101 Reykjavík

101 Reykjavík ( pronunciation ) is a 1996 novel by Hallgrímur Helgason which found international fame in 2000 when made into a film. Both are set in Reykjavík, Iceland. The film was directed by Baltasar Kormákur and stars Victoria Abril and Hilmir Snær Guðnason. The title is taken from the postal code for down-town Reykjavík, "the old city". The film won nine B-class film awards and received ten nominations most notably winning the Discovery Film Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Plot of the film

Geek Hlynur is approaching the grand old age of 30, he still lives with his mother who is divorced from his alcoholic father, downloads cyberporn and wanders around Reykjavík half-heartedly searching for a job while spending lots of time in Kaffibarinn, the central Reykjavík bar (the bar is owned in real life by writer/director Baltasar Kormákur and his soundtrack composer Damon Albarn, a long-standing Icelandophile). The cramped, dark and oddly furnished house in which Hlynur and his mother live features a bath which transfigures into a sofa as Hlynur steps naked out of it, in the middle of the lounge with his mother watching.

Living

Living may refer to:

Music

Other

Living Channel

Living Channel is a New Zealand television station. The channel focuses entirely on programming relating to lifestyle and is similar to The LifeStyle Channel in Australia or HGTV in the US. It broadcasts on Sky TV in New Zealand and features local programming as well as a range of international programming. It features programming in areas such as design, health, well-being, travel, pets, fashion, automotive, antiques, gardening, fitness, art and homemaking. Programmes include Antiques Roadshow UK, Jon and Kate Plus 8, Greatest Cities of the World with Griff Rhys Jones, Grand Designs, Homes Under the Hammer, Better Homes and Gardens, Holmes Inspection, Extreme Fishing with Robson Green, Location Location Location, What Not To Wear and The Secret Millionaire.

Since its launch Living has proven a surprise hit for Sky TV, especially its food and cuisine programming block, which no doubt was a major factor in the creation of its sister station, Food Television in 2005.

References

Living (novel)

Living is a 1929 novel by English writer Henry Green. It is a work of sharp social satire, documenting the lives of Birmingham factory workers in the interwar boom years. It is considered a modern classic by scholars, and appears on many University syllabi. The language is notable for its deliberate lack of conjunctives to reflect a Birmingham accent. As well, very few articles are used, allegedly to mimic foreign languages (such as Arabic) that use them infrequently. It is considered a work of Modernist literature.

The novel has been acclaimed for making Green "an honorary member of a literary movement to which he never belonged", i.e. the genre of proletarian literature. Despite his class origin and politics, the novel has been acclaimed as "closer to the world of the working class than those of some socialist or worker-writers themselves".

Plot

Living tells the story of several iron foundry workers in the west midlands city of Birmingham, England in the 1920s. It also follows, though in much less detail, the lives of the foundry's owners and, in particular, their social living. The key narrative progressions centre on Lily Gates, the novel's female protagonist, and her courting with Bert Jones, one of the factory workers. They seek an opportunity to escape the British working-class existence by travelling abroad. Crucial to their attempted elopement is Lily's desire to work. She is constantly stifled in this venture by the man she calls 'Grandad', Craigan, who is her father's best friend and with whom she lives. Craigan tells Lily that ' "[n]one o' the womanfolk go to work from the house I inhabit' ". This represents the male hierarchy's imposed ownership on everything physical and even metaphysical—Lily's freedom—in addition to the impossibility to seek an escape route. This is the struggle that drives the novel, and is one of the reasons it is considered Modernist.