Bright School No1

Spring in February? Why not? From time to time nature changes its habits. No, not for entertainment, for its diversity.

ENGLISH CLUB
Date: February 19 /Saturday/
Time: 2 p.m.

Célia Dyduck /Sens, France/
"Lac Vert, France - Lake Baikal, Russia. And let's imagine..."
https://bright-school-no1.webnode.ru/news/english-club-february2/

British time. Literature
Famous British Writers & Poets
Agatha Christie
February 12, National Plum Pudding Day

Agatha Christie is known all over the world as the Queen of Crime. She wrote 78 detective novels, 19 plays, and 6 romantic novels. Her books have been translated into 103 foreign languages. They are the third best-selling books in the world (after Shakespeare's works). Many of her novels and short stories have been filmed. The Mousetrap, her most famous play, is now the longest-running play in history of world theatre.

Agatha Christie was born at Torquay, Devonshire. She was educated at home and took singing lessons in Paris. She began writing at the end of the First World War. Her first novel, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" was published in 1920. That was the first appearance of Hercule Poirot, who became one of the most famous private detectives since Sherlock Holmes.

Agatha Christie became generally recognized in 1926, after the publishing of her novel "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". It is still considered her masterpiece.
When Agatha Christie got tired of Hercule Poirot she invented Miss Marple, a deceptively mild old lady with her own method of investigation.

Agatha Christie's success with millions of readers lies in her ability to combine clever plots with excellent character drawing and a keen sense of humour with a great observation. Her plots always mislead the reader and keep him in suspense. He cannot guess who the criminal is. Fortunately, evil is always conquered in her novels.

Though she also wrote romance novels like Unfinished Portrait (1934) and A Daughter's a Daughter (1952) under the name Mary Westmacott, Christie's success as an author of sleuth stories has earned her titles like the "Queen of Crime" and the "Queen of Mystery." Agatha Christie can also be considered a queen of all publishing genres as she is one of the top-selling authors in history, with her combined works selling more than 2 billion copies worldwide.

A. Christie was a renowned playwright as well, with works like The Hollow (1951) and Verdict (1958). Her play The Mousetrap opened in 1952 at the Ambassador Theatre and—at more than 8,800 showings during 21 years—holds the record for the longest unbroken run in a London theater. Additionally, several of Christie's works have become popular movies, including Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978).

In 1974, Agatha Christie made her last public appearance for the opening night of the play version of Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha Christie died on January 12, 1976.

__________

Plum Pudding. Which is also known as Christmas pudding. Or just "pud".

Fruit Mixture (To be made 4 days ahead)
1 pound seedless raisins
1 pound sultana raisins
1/2 pound currants
1 cup thinly sliced citron
1 cup chopped candied peel
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound finely chopped suet - powdery fine
1 1/4 cups cognac

Pudding
1 1/4 pounds (approximately) fresh bread crumbs
1 cup scalded milk
1 cup sherry or port
12 eggs, well beaten
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Cognac

Step 1
Blend the fruits, citron, peel, spices and suet and place in a bowl or jar. Add 1/4 cup cognac, cover tightly and refrigerate for 4 days, adding 1/4 cup cognac each day.
Step 2
Soak the bread crumbs in milk and sherry or port. Combine the well-beaten eggs and sugar. Blend with the fruit mixture. Add salt and mix thoroughly. Put the pudding in buttered bowls or tins, filling them about 2/3 full. Cover with foil and tie it firmly. Steam for 6-7 hours. Uncover and place in a 250°F. oven for 30 minutes. Add a dash of cognac to each pudding, cover with foil and keep in a cool place.
Step 3
To use, steam again for 2-3 hours and unmold. Sprinkle with sugar; add heated cognac. Ignite and bring to the table. Serve with hard sauce or cognac sauce.

Russian time. Literature
Famous Russian Writers & Poets
Pavel Bazhov

Pavel Petrovich Bazhov, a writer, a folklorist, a publicist and a journalist, who gained fame as the author of the Ural tales, was born on January 27 in 1879 near Yekaterinburg in the Urals. He was born in the family of a mining factory master and was the only child in the family. His childhood passed among the Ural masters.

The young man received his primary education at the Yekaterinburg Theological School and in 1899 he graduated with honors from the Perm Theological Seminary. When a student he took part in protest actions against reactionary teachers and as a result got a note of “political disloyalty” in his certificate. That record prevented him from entering Tomsk University, which he had dreamt of. Bazhov worked as a primary school teacher, then as a teacher of the Russian language and literature in Yekaterinburg, and then in Kamyshlov.

Love found Pavel Petrovich late, after 30. Among the students of the diocesan school, where he taught in those years, he liked a girl. For a long time, the teacher looked at her, and at the graduation he proposed. Despite the difference in age, Valentina Ivanitskaya reciprocated the man. In 1911, the lovers got married, the bride was 19 years old, the groom - 32. They had seven children but only four of them entered adulthood. All their sons tragically left.

Bazhov's great writing activity began rather late, with the creation of a special genre - the Uralic tale. This genre made the author famous. The first tale, An Expensive Name, appeared in 1936. The year 1939 saw the publication of Bazhov’s most famous work – the collection of fairy tales in The Malachite Casket which contains lots of mythological characters such as The Mistress of the Copper Mountain, The Great Poloz, Danila the Master, The Fire Rider and many others. The book inspired Sergei Prokofiev for his famous ballet The Flower of Stone.

After the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) Bazhov's eyesight started weakening dramatically, but he went on his editing work, as well as collecting and creative adaptation of folklore. The writer died in 1950 in Moscow and was laid to rest in Yekaterinburg. Next 20 years his wife dedicated to the memory of her beloved husband putting in order the remaining working notes, diaries and unfinished manuscripts.

British time. Literature
Famous British Writers & Poets
Alan Alexander Milne

"Some people care too much. I think it's called love."
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Alan Milne was born in London on the 18th of January in 1882. His father was the headmaster of a small preparatory school. One of the teachers at the school was the famous writer H. G. Wells.

Milne went to Westminster School at the age of 11 and then went on to Cambridge to become a mathematician. Then he went to London hoping to earn his living as a writer. At the age of 24 he was given a post of assistant editor of the famous magazine "Punch".

In 1913 he married Dorothy De Selincourt and the following year when the war broke out he joined the Army. The Milnes' only child was born on August 21st 1920. They called their son Christopher Robin. The Milnes bought him a teddy bear for his first birthday. The teddy bear was soon name Winnie, after a real-life bear that lived in London Zoo. A. A. Milne wrote a lot of poems for Christopher Robin and about him. In eleven days he wrote so many children's poems that they filled a book. It was published in 1924 under name "When We Were Very Young" and sold half a million copies.

In 1925 the Milnes bought a farm in Sussex, which they used for weekends away from London. From his old house it was a short walk over a bridge into the Ashdown Forest where Christopher Robin and his teddy, now known by the name of Winnie-the-Pooh or Pooh Bear, used to play. Each daily adventure in the Forest gave A. A. Milne more material for his now famous book Winnie-the-Pooh, published in 1926. After the book Winnie-the-Pooh A. A. Milne wrote another book of children's verses – Now We Are Six and The House at Pooh Corner.

But what happened to Winnie-the-Pooh?
Well, the bear was put into the glass case in the museum with all the other toy animals.
After Milne's death in 1956, his widow sold her rights to the Pooh characters to the Walt Disney Company, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies.