For many people the White Cliffs of Dover are a clear symbol of Britain in the way the Statue of Liberty defines America for many.  Julius Caesar wrote about them in the Commentarii De Bello Gallico, Commentaries on the Gallic War, said to be the earliest surviving eye-witness account of Britain.  In the account, Caesar's first impression of Britain was of "a wild island with giant natural fortification", according to historian Dan Snow.  In 55 BC he arrived with two legions of soldiers looking for a good place to disembark.  Instead he faced the towering cliffs and "armed forces of the enemy" on them.  Shakespeare famously brought the cliffs to the attention of the nation in the play King Lear.  So much so, one of the cliffs is named after him.  The climax of the play takes place on and around Dover's white cliffs.  The blinded Earl of Gloucester wants to throw himself from the cliff tops and says the lines:  "There is a cliff, whose high and bending head looks fearfully in the confined deep:  Bring me to the very brim of it, and I'll repair the misery thou dost bear . . .  "  They are the site of the first electric lighthouse in the world, where Guglielmo Marconi made his first ever international radio transmission.  South Foreland Lighthouse was built in 1843 to guide ships through the dangerous offshore banks of the Goodwin Sands.  It was also used by Marconi for his work with radiowaves and is where he received the first international radio transmission from Wimereux, France, in 1899.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19343382 

The Seven Sisters is a series of chalk cliffs by the English Channel.  They form part of the South Downs in East Sussex, between the towns of Seaford and Eastbourne in southern England.  They are within the Seven Sisters Country Park which is bounded by the coast, the Cuckmere and the A259 road.  They are the remnants of dry valleys in the chalk South Downs, which are gradually being eroded by the  sea.  The Seven Sisters cliffs are occasionally used in filmmaking and television production as a stand-in for the more famous White Cliffs of Dover, since they are relatively free of anachronistic modern development and are also allowed to erode naturally.  As a result, the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head remain a bright white colour, whereas the White Cliffs of Dover are protected due to the important port and are therefore increasingly covered in vegetation and are greening as a result.  They are also featured at the beginning of the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and at the end of the film Atonement.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters,_Sussex  See also locations of South Downs and White Cliffs of Dover at  http://distancecalculator.globefeed.com/uk_Distance_Result.asp?fromplace=Dover+(County+of+Kent,England)&toplace=Brighton+(East+Sussex,England)&fromlat=51.1333333&tolat=50.8283849472495&fromlng=1.3&tolng=-0.139474868774414

The White Cliffs of Dover is a 1944 film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037462/  "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover" is a popular World War II song made famous by Vera Lynn with her 1942 version, written in 1941 by Walter Kent with lyrics by Nat Burton.  The song was one of Lynn's best-known recordings, and also among the most popular World War II tunes.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(There'll_Be_Bluebirds_Over)_The_White_Cliffs_of_Dover  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover

In Britain, a wing is a fender; a saloon car is a sedan--a biscuit is a cookie, and rocket is arugula.  See tables of comparative terms for cars and food  at http://www.bg-map.com/us-uk.html  More Britishisms:  landslip is an avalanche of earth or rocks from the side of a mountain or hill; incomer sometimes means a successor in a job.

Snugburys is an ice cream manufacturer based at Park Farm in Hurleston, near Nantwich, in the United Kingdom and makes over 35 flavours of ice cream.  Snugburys has been making straw sculptures since 1998, when its first straw sculpture portrayed the Millennium Dome.  The sculptures are reinforced with steel, and are constructed to attract visitors to the farm and to raise money for charity.  In 2015 the Guinness Book of Records included mention of Snugbury's straw Dalek (marking the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who) as the "Largest Dalek sculpture".  Find list of sculptures, some with pictures, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snugburys

National Library Week theme for 2017 is:  Libraries Transform.  What else do libraries do?  Find synonyms for transform at http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/transform and see if they apply to you.  Celebrate libraries during NLW (April 9-15, 2017) and all during the year. 

Gammon is the name given to the meat from the hind legs of a pig that has been cured in the same way as bacon.  The main difference between gammon and ham is that gammon will be sold raw and needs to be cooked; ham is sold cooked or dry-cured and ready for eating.  Once gammon is cooked it can be called a ham and may be sold as a gammon ham.  Find recipes at http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/gammon

Late in 1992, Bob Christianson was asked to submit samples for a new theme song for CBS’s coverage of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament.  In CBS’s original version of Christianson’s theme, one could still make out a subtle hardwood rhythm in the distance.  Then the sweeping melody hits, a simple ascending structure of notes that takes a quick dip before ending with a bang, like a ball hanging in midair before it is slammed as an alley-oop.  The hummable pattern—da-da-da-dat-dat-da-da-da—is now familiar to almost anyone even remotely near a television in March.  CBS started airing it in 1993 and has no plans to stop.  Veteran composer Christianson had no clue his version would become so embedded into the auditory cortex of American culture, or even that his version would be selected.  Christianson, now 66, still lives above the studio in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan where he wrote the N.C.A.A. tournament theme and hundreds of other jingles, including those for ESPN’s N.H.L. and “Sunday Night Baseball” telecasts and CBS’s coverage of the N.F.L. and the Olympics.  “The melody couldn’t be so fast that it would fly by and you wouldn’t get it,” Christianson said.  “It had to be a simple melody, but it had to have enough energy behind it to reflect the sport.”  James Kellaris, a composer and professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati who studies the influence of music on consumers, noted that the presto tempo of 168 beats per minute in Christianson’s tune is consistent with a human heart rate during exercise.  The percussive groove also lends an impression of forward motion.  “The theme clearly evokes excitement and motion, such as a person running,” Kellaris wrote in an email.  What makes the theme sound unique, however, is actually a small incongruity in the tune’s harmonic structure.  Instead of being based on a normal scale in C, the chords conform to F major, Kellaris said, a technique also used in the famous “Give me a break” jingle for Kit Kat bars.  The pattern of notes—E-E-F-G-C-A-G-G—also contains a leap from the C to the A, which is uncommon in melodies.  The modern version was arranged by Trevor Rabin—a former guitarist for Yes—who also composed the theme for the N.B.A. on TNT broadcasts.  But Christianson, who still receives 85 percent of the writer’s royalties, said only 7 percent of the new version was actually new.  The remainder is as he wrote it, using a Linn 9000 in his basement, albeit infused with more sound from a live orchestra.  Zach Schonbrun   Link to a 25-second recording of The Sound of March Madness performed on piano by Bob Christianson at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/sports/ncaabasketball/ncaa-march-madness-cbs-theme-song.html?partner=IFTTT

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1687  April 3, 2017  On this date in 1860, the first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, began.  On this date in 1933, the first flight over Mount Everest, a British expedition, led by the Marquis of Clydesdale, took place.