Thursday, March 22, 2007

Wanted: Your Advice

On three completely different issues:

  1. I need a resource for basic historical info on the period I am teaching: Does anyone know of a good, fairly concise 20th century history of England? or a good history of England that substantially covers the 19th/ 20th centuries? I have a good history on England and Empire during this period: I need England/ the UK proper. Suggestions welcome.
  2. I've just (I know, I know) discovered the joy of podcasts, and have been getting them on iTunes, but don't know how to get them from iTunes to my non-Apple mp3 player (a Creative Zen 40 GB). Any ideas?
  3. Any good recommendations on where to eat next week in London? I'll be staying near Paddington Station, and like vegetables (though not exclusively). A range of international cuisines is desireable.

4 comments:

Tenured Radical said...

Eric Hobsbawm worte a pretty good survey of modern England, I think. And undoubtedly Penguin has one.

TR

Sisyphus said...

I used a three volume Literature and Culture in Modern Britain, ed Clive Bloom, when I needed a crash course in recent Brit history and new authors. (They're short volumes, don't worry.) I couldn't find a "standard" history that covered the century and also glossed the 90s (in 2000) although I'm sure I was just not doing a good job of looking through my library. But the series was good as it had chapters on "documentaries" and "history of radio and tv" and "popular music" for each third of the century --- interesting stuff, but more cultural than political history.

Anonymous said...

For a quick and good noodle bar, try Wagamama. There are several in London, not sure where the closest one to Paddington is though.

have fun!

--leslie

Mel said...

I now use Zencast (which came with my Zen player) but I used to use Juice (opensource) with my old Iriver player. There are I suppose a few podcasters who only put their stuff in iTunes and the format is incompatible with nonApple players. But most you can get thru an RSS feed. Try these:
http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/
http://www.zencast.com/downloads/