Bill Mccann

London's Blue Plaques in a Nutshell: Volume Two: Musical Plaques Bill Mccann

Publisher Marketing: London's Blue Plaques in fewer than 170 characters - including spaces! Never has a nutshell been bursting with such wisdom, humanity, dreams realised, and dreams dashed. The heart of London's Blue Plaques in a Nutshell lies in the aphorism - a short, pithy summing up of essential facts. The life and achievements of the subject of each plaque is summarised in a number of aphorisms, none of which contains more than 170 characters. Crammed into this nutshell you will find the character, achievements, peccadilloes and humanity of the great and good (and the not so great and not so good) who once lived and thrived in the great metropolis that is London. The Blue Plaques have now become part of the tradition of London, but a very special part. They are an adventure. They can be a planned adventure or a rollercoaster of discovery where the shades of London's past are waiting around practically every corner of the metropolis to delight and inform you. Part of the delight in walking the streets of London is the discovery of a Plaque on a house where someone famous once lived, and the sudden realisation that you are sharing a little bit of what was their daily view of the world. Less of a delight is the discovery of a plaque to someone whose name you are vaguely familiar with, but about whose life or achievements you can recall very little, or even nothing at all. Then there is the discovery of someone of whom you have never heard but who is tantalisingly briefly described on plaque itself. Experiences such as these provide stimuli to discover more, but very often, by the time we get home and have been distracted by other things, the stimulus has lost much of its power. Even if we make the effort to go to a library, or search the internet, there is no guarantee that we will find all the relevant, or most interesting, information. This is where Blue Plaques in a Nutshell comes in. This book is aimed at the habitue of London who walks the streets in fine weather or who sits on the top deck of a London bus on a rainy day, and at the tourist who tries to cram as much of London as possible into a short visit. It is designed to provide the essential information about each blue plaque instantly. Indeed it does more than that. For the armchair traveller or historical explorer, it provides a handy and ready source of information on the doings and undoings of the almost 900 residents of London who have made significant contributions to the historical, cultural, scientific and economic development of the western world over the past six centuries. Now revised updated in a series of lavishly illustrated individual volumes, the new edition includes all map and GPS coordinates to allow the modern traveller to precisely locate each plaque. Volume 2 is right up to date presents unique portraits of the 56 composers, singers, pianists, conductors, prime ballerine, and theatre managers who have been honoured with a Blue Plaque between 1881 and 2014. Contributor Bio:  McCann, Bill Born and educated in Ireland, Bill McCann has worked as a research chemist, archaeologist, project manager, departmental manager, geophysicist, company director, historical adviser and technical writer. He is currently working as a university lecturer in China. (In between that lot, he had great fun as a barman, dishwasher, hotel cook, movie house manager, taxi-cab dispatcher, hotel/bar stock controller and opinion survey interviewer.) Driven by a passionate curiosity and intense wanderlust, he has travelled widely and explored the cultures of many lands and peoples. He is a devoted bibliophile who has been an avid reader since the age of seven and continues to build his personal library which currently contains about 4,000 volumes on a range of subjects, including, Literature, Art, Music, Theatre, all the natural Sciences, Philosophy, Politics, Language, Mythology and, of course, History. The Nutshell Books project aims to distil the essence of the epochs, milestones, and personalities that made and shaped world history into a format more amenable and accessible to the denizens of the electronic age. He sees no sense in the notion of retirement and has every intention of avoiding the grave for as long as possible.