📚WBD, Opera, What to Revise, and the Shakespeare vs Dickens showdown!

Upstart English EXTRAordinary Tuition

Hi everyone, and welcome especially to my new subscribers! I hope this one’s interesting, mildly entertaining, and useful enough for you to share with someone else who needs to see it! And happy World Book Day to you all!

In the News:

Aria Ahoy! If you’re one of the very many who has tried to read Moby Dick and failed (no shame in that - it took me more attempts than I did driving tests), you should look out for Moby Dick: the Opera!

I laughed, a lot, even before I read the article. Then, suddenly, it all made sense ...

Moby Dick really has all the operatic grandeur that someone like Jim Steinman (RIP) could have got stuck into. And for several days I’ve been imagining Meatloaf (also much missed) as the seriously deranged Captain Ahab singing ‘thar she blows’ as a seventeen-minute epic. It also got me thinking about what other classic novels should be turned into operas (not musicals). Even more absurdly, I’m thinking about The Hound of the Baskervilles as a candidate …

What novels would you like to see get the operatic treatment?

Blog Posts:

🎶 Vincent and Mia wasted no time in throwing some shapes to Sonnet 130 ... 🎶

1 - Pulp Friction: Elvis or the Beatles? Coke or Pepsi? This week, The Guardian featured not one but two articles comparing Shakespeare to Dickens.

As if.

I had to wade in, in what I think is my cheekiest post in years. Be warned - my mojo is returning!

“Peter, you’re wrong. As wrong as Sheryl Crow’s cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

Iambic Pentameter? Is that some kind of Cockney Rhyming Slang?

2 - How To find the bits that 'might come up': in amongst what seems like hundreds of emails I get a week giving me advice on running a business / marketing myself, only one or two names stick out. One of those is the newsletter by Josh Spector (you can find him here, if you're interested). Recently, Josh suggested 'we' could be blogging about how we are helping our clients during the week. This one has been a common theme of late: knowing what to revise / pay most attention to. I hope it helps!

"I know it feels like the heaviest load in terms of material to cover. It’s no wonder that last time I checked on Reddit, English Lit was frequently nominated as one of the most difficult A-Level subjects. Who knew?

We did. We knew. You and I."

Waxing Lyrical for World Book Day:

I'm continuing to make an effort on LinkedIn, and combined with my newfound writing mojo, seriously expanded one of my little 'quote of the day' posts to celebrate today's literary birthday boy.

I hope you'll take a look, and respond - maybe even follow me!

In the Chilli-Zone:

Wow, you're less patient than I am - I only planted them a week or so ago!

I have no news. You'll be the first to know if and when I become a 'chilli-daddy' ...

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That's it for now.

Don't forget - I want to hear from YOU. Tell me about your bookish adventures, the literary labyrinths you're navigating, and how I can help.

Please share - or sign up if this has been shared with you. I'll send you a free resource, and if it isn't useful, a) I will eat my hat, and b) I will send you something else if you tell me which texts you are interested in.

I'm still debating whether to carry on doing this or go back to a slightly less personal blog, like the Shakespeare-based one here. What do you think? And I’m always open to suggestions. What would you like to see me doing more/less of, or just differently?

Abel