Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Philip Larkin, To The Sea.

"Everything crowds under the low horizon:

Steep beach, blue water, towels, red bathing caps..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 4th June, 1940, Britain completes the miracle of Dunkirk, rescuing 338,226 stranded troops from France with an improvised flotilla of 800 boats.

On this day: 4th June, 1910, Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, is born in Cambridge.

Music to wake you up – I Still Believe by Frank Turner

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

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Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Mark Jarman, Reminder.

"You're here and God's in heaven..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 28th May, 1936, Alan Turing submits his paper On Computable Numbers, setting out the theoretical basis for modern computers

On this day: 28th May, 1908, Ian Lancaster Fleming, the creator of James Bond, is born in London

Music to wake you up – Good Day Sunshine by The Beatles

Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Thom Gunn, The Hug.

"I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 14th May, 1796, Edward Jenner inaugurates the science of vaccination by infecting his gardener's son with cowpox, protecting him from smallpox. And while the Covid-19 vaccines have understandably dominated this year's news, the successful trials of the first highly effective malaria vaccine by researchers from the University of Oxford has been another piece of enormously good news. Malaria currently kills 400,000 people every year.

On this day: 14th May, 1771, Robert Owen is born in Newport, an important early voice for workers rights but also the father of English socialism, who refused to accept the failure of his more radical experiments

Music to wake you up – It's All Coming Back To Me Now by Celine Dion

Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Laurence Binyon, For The Fallen.

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 7th May 1945, General Jodl signs Germany's unconditional surrender, ending the Second World War in Europe

On this day: 7th May 1952, Geoffrey Dummer gives the first public talk laying out the idea of the integrated circuit, better known today as the microchip, and the basis for all modern computers

Music to wake you up – We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Billy Collins, Today.

"If ever there were a spring day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 30th April 1506, the signing of the so-called Intercursus Malus, a notoriously uneven trade treaty between England and the Duchy of Burgundy

On this day: 30th April 1602, the English Merlin, William Lilly, is born in Diseworth, Leicestershire

Music to wake you up – Iko Iko by Justin Wellington

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Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Lord Macaulay, an extract from Horatius.

"And how can man die better

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 16th April, 1953, the Queen launches the Royal Yacht, Britannia

On this day: 16th April, 1889, Charles Chaplin is born in Walworth, London

Music to wake you up – No I in Beer by Brad Paisley

Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Ezra Pound, The Ballad of the Goodly Fere.

"No capon priest was the Goodly Fere

But a man o' men was he..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 2nd April, 2020, the world's recorded cases of Covid-19 passed one million. As of yesterday, thanks to an unprecedented effort, more than 31 million people in the UK have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

On this day: 2nd April, 1827, William Holman Hunt was born in Cheapside. A major pre-Raphaelite painter, his religious canvases such as The Scapegoat still resonate today

Music to wake you up – Wade in the Water by Eva Cassidy

Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by AE Housman.

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 26th March, 1953, Jonas Salk announces he has successfully tested an experimental polio vaccine on himself and his family. In less than a decade, thanks to mass vaccination, polio cases in the US alone fell from more than 57,000 a year to fewer than 200.

Also on this day: 26th March, 1859, AE Housman was born in Bromsgrove. He became a superb classical scholar, but is best-known today for his poetry, especially the volume A Shropshire Lad

Music to wake you up – Rock Island Line by Lonnie Donegan

Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a sonnet by William Shakespeare.

"From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in everything..."

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 19th March, 1982, Argentines, claiming to be scrap metal dealers, land on South Georgia Island, the first manoeuvre in the Falklands War

On this day: 19th March, 1813, David Livingstone is born in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire. After a childhood working 12 hour days in a mill, he became a medic, explorer, missionary and anti-slavery campaigner

Music to wake you up – You're The One That I Want from the musical Grease

Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

With a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, in a translation by Alastair Reid, The Just.

"A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished.

From the show:

Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27

On this day: 12th March, 1710, Thomas Augustine Arne is born in Covent Garden. Arne made his name as a theatrical composer, and is chiefly remembered today for Rule, Britannia! and A-Hunting We Will Go.

On this day: 12th March, 1881, Andrew Watson makes his international debut as the captain of Scotland. The first black person to play association football at the international level, Watson led his team to a seismic, 6-1 victory over England.

Music to wake you up – The Best Day by Taylor Swift

Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com

Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message.

If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me.

Have a lovely day.