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By Daniel Parker

“My captain, my leader, my right-hand man. He was the spirit and the heartbeat of the team. A cool, calculating footballer I could trust with my life. He was the supreme professional, the best I ever worked with. Without him England would never have won the World Cup.” –Sir Alf Ramsey

Bobby Moore is an icon. He earned his place in football’s pantheon by captaining England to their only World Cup triumph in 1966 and his rightful place amongst the football greats is immortalised in bronze outside Wembley Stadium. He represented West Ham United over 500 times and was described by Pele as ‘the most accomplished defender [he has] ever played against’.

From the iconic image of Bobby Moore holding the World Cup trophy aloft to the famous embrace between him and Pele during the 1970 World Cup, from his loyalty to West Ham United Football Club to his brave struggle against bowel cancer in his later years, Bobby Moore represents a significant chapter in the history of world football. But what about the man behind the bronze? To mark the twentieth anniversary of his death (February 24), here are five things you might not have known about the man known as Mooro:

(1)      Bobby Moore was a good footballer as a schoolboy but he wasn’t exceptional. In fact, he was a better cricketer than he was a footballer and for a while it seemed he was more likely to make it as a professional cricketer. He represented Tom Hood Grammar School in Leyton at both cricket and football, and played county cricket for the Essex Youth team. It was only after a few years did his football ability begin to shine.

(2)      The England team that arrived in Mexico to defend the World Cup in 1970 were high in confidence. However, Bobby Moore was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t with the squad as they arrived in Mexico. Instead he was being held in Bogota, Columbia, arrested and facing charges of stealing an emerald-studded gold bracelet valued at over £600. The ordeal Moore went through before joining up with his England team-mates is common knowledge. What is less widely known, however, is that he still faced those charges when he went to Mexico to captain his country at the World Cup. He arguably even played the greatest game he had ever played for England against Brazil in the quarter-finals, despite not knowing whether he would be found innocent or guilty by the Columbian police. He was later found innocent.

(3)      Despite his fabled heroics with England, Moore’s club form never reached the same heights as his performances for the national team. West Ham had three England regulars in their side throughout the 1960s but they never finished higher than eighth in the league. It was suggested by his manager at the time, Ron Greenwood, that Moore concentrated harder on his performances for England than he did for West Ham. Although West Ham did win the FA Cup in 1964 and the European cup winners’ trophy in 1965, their star players, including Bobby Moore, were criticised for being ‘as erratic as dock work’.

(4)      After his playing career Bobby Moore part-owned pubs and clubs across east London. Many of these were successful business ventures, notably Mooro’s, and his status in London’s east end helped these businesses flourish. However, he also was part of the failed sports marketing and promotion company Challenge. After only a few years, in the early 1990s, Challenge went into liquidation, an illustration that leading a nation on the football pitch perhaps came more naturally to Moore than  leading a business.

(5)      Bobby Moore’s last appearance in an FA Cup final wasn’t for his beloved West Ham United but against them. The season after Moore transferred from West Ham to Fulham, he guided Fulham to an FA Cup Final in 1975. Having led West Ham to FA Cup glory in 1964, it is ironic that Moore’s last club game in England in 1975 came against the side that he represented 544 times. West Ham ended up winning in a game that provoked mixed emotions for Moore. Also, not only did Moore play for Fulham, one of Moore’s middle names is Chelsea. It’s unlikely that many Hammers would hold this against him though.

To read more about the life of Bobby Frederick Chelsea Moore, please visit his biography page on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Moore’s life story is also available as an episode in the ODNB’s free biography podcast.

Daniel Parker is Publicity Assistant for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography  is the national record of men and women who have shaped British history and culture, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. In addition to 58,500 life stories, the ODNB offers a free, twice monthly biography podcastwith over 175 life stories now available. You can also sign up for Life of the Day, a topical biography delivered to your inbox, or follow @odnb on Twitter for people in the news. The Oxford DNB is freely available via public libraries across the UK. Libraries offer ‘remote access’ allowing members to log-on to the complete dictionary, for free, from home (or any other computer) twenty-four hours a day.

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Image credit: Bobby Moore statue by John Dobson [Creative Commons License via Wikimedia Commons]. 

The post Five things you might not know about Bobby Moore appeared first on OUPblog.

By Philip Carter

Today, 11 February 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of the poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). It is an event that has significantly shaped biographies and critical studies of her work — particularly following the publication of Ariel (1965), her posthumous collection edited and prepared by Ted Hughes. Then, as now, many reviewers regarded these poems as foretelling the circumstances of her death. Plath’s biography in the Oxford DNB offers an alternative perspective. As its authors Sally Brown and Clare Taylor write:

‘Such criticism helped to perpetuate the idea that [Plath’s] death was the most famous thing about her, and encouraged further critics to read the poems as solely charting her increasing mental agitation. But even a cursory reading of the poems reveals the many voices of her work—the amused, hopeful, triumphant, as well as the enraged and vitriolic—and Plath herself, when talking about her work, was amusing and charming, her voice controlled, guttural, and powerful. … A writer and a mother, Plath provided a model for a new generation of poets of the consciousness-raising movement, and she remains enormously popular especially with young female readers. Her lasting triumph will be the power and precision of her poetic voice, and her vision of new possibilities for women writers.’

In addition to Plath’s life in the Oxford DNB, an edited audio version of her biography is also available.

[See post to listen to audio]

Or download the podcast directly.

Philip Carter is Publication Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Read more about Sylvia Plath on the Oxford DNB website. The Oxford DNB online is freely available via public libraries across the UK. Libraries offer ‘remote access’ allowing members to log-on to the complete dictionary, for free, from home (or any other computer) twenty-four hours a day. In addition to 58,500 life stories, the ODNB offers a free, twice monthly biography podcast with over 175 life stories now available. You can also sign up for Life of the Day, a topical biography delivered to your inbox, or follow @odnb on Twitter for people in the news.

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Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: By Jprw [Creative Commons] via Wikimedia Commons 

The post On this day: the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death appeared first on OUPblog.

To celebrate the publication of our second Philosophy Bites book, Philosophy Bites Back, authors Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds released a 39 minute podcast episode of a wide range of philosophers answering the question ‘Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?’

Listen to Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?

[See post to listen to audio]

Twitter Competition
We also asked you to let us know on Twitter who your favourite philosopher is and why. The competition is now closed and we received over 150 entries, which you can view on Storify. We can now reveal the winning entries,  as chosen by Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds!

View the story “Philosophy Bites Back: The Winning Tweets” on Storify

David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service and a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. They are co-authors of Philosophy Bites (OUP, 2010) and Philosophy Bites Back (OUP, 2012), which are based on their highly successful series of podcasts. You can also follow @philosophybites on Twitter.

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The post Competition results: who’s your favourite philosopher? appeared first on OUPblog.

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Welcome to the first Fiction Notes Podcast, where you’ll learn six ways to use the Shrunken Manuscript.

I teach a novel revision retreat; in order to attend, you must have a complete draft of a novel and we spend the weekend talking about how to revise that manuscript. The workbook for that is Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise. Traditionally, we only go into depth on the Shrunken Manuscript technique in the retreat, but for the first time publicly, I’m going to explain six ways to use the Shrunken Manuscript. It’s a fitting topic for Fiction Notes’ first Podcast.

ShowNotes for Fiction Notes 001: Shrunken Manuscript

1:45 Instructions on Shrinking a Manuscript
3:32 Seeing your strongest chapters
8:49 Seeing your major plot points
11:49 Seeing your antagonist v. protagonist
14:22 Seeing your character arc
17:17 Seeing your scenes
18:42 Seeing your novel’s pacing

Items Mentioned in this Podcast:

• The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler
• The Scene Book by Sara Scofield

Need more information on revising a manuscript?

• Click here for information on hosting Darcy Pattison’s Novel Revision Retreat in your area.
• The workbook for the retreat is Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise. Order now. Learn many other uncommon ways to revise your novel and break through to publication, or break out your novel to stronger sales.

Podcast FAQ

How do I listen to the podcast?
You can listen to it by simply clicking on the arrow on the Podcast PlayLink.
You can also download the podcast and play it on your iPod, iPhone, etc.
You can embed the podcast onto other websites. If you do this, please let me know! (darcy at darcypattison dot come).

The podcast will soon be syndicated on iTunes and when it is syndicated, you can use a variety of apps to download and listen to it from a variety of platforms, such as iPod, iPhone, iPad, Android, etc.

By Philip Carter

Published in 1937 The Hobbit was Tolkien’s first published work of fiction, though he had been writing on legends since at least 1915. His creation — a mythological race of ‘hobbits’, in which Bilbo Baggins takes the lead — had originally been intended for children. But from the outset Tolkien’s saga also proved popular with adults, perhaps appreciative of the hobbits’ curiously English blend of resourcefulness and respectability. The book was published by Stanley Unwin, following the recommendation of his 10-year old son, Rayner, who received a one shilling reader’s fee. Its success prompted Unwin to press for a sequel, and Tolkien now began work on The Lord of the Rings — a story that ‘grew in the telling’ at readings for the famous Inklings circle in Oxford.

[See post to listen to audio]

Or download the podcast directly.

Philip Carter is Publication Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Read more about J.R.R. Tolkien on the Oxford DNB website. The Oxford DNB online is freely available via public libraries across the UK. Libraries offer ‘remote access’ allowing members to log-on to the complete dictionary, for free, from home (or any other computer) twenty-four hours a day. In addition to 58,000 life stories, the ODNB offers a free, twice monthly biography podcast with over 130 life stories now available. You can also sign up for Life of the Day, a topical biography delivered to your inbox, or follow @ODNB on Twitter for people in the news.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post The life of J.R.R. Tolkien appeared first on OUPblog.

To celebrate the publication of our second Philosophy Bites book, Philosophy Bites Back, authors Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds have released a 39 minute podcast episode of a wide range of philosophers answering the question ‘Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?’

Listen to Who’s Your Favourite Philosopher?

[See post to listen to audio]

Twitter Competition
We’d like to hear who is your favourite philosopher. Pick your favourite philosopher and let us know why in a tweet (140 characters or fewer), incorporating the hashtag #philosophybites. We’ll be monitoring your suggestions from @oupacademic and @philosophybites. The competition closes on  10 January 2013 and our top five entrants will receive a copy of Philosophy Bites Back. The winning entries and a selection of shortlisted tweets will be posted to OUPblog in January 2013, and may well also appear in the next book in the Philosophy Bites series. To get you started, here are a few of ideas:

TIM CRANE: Descartes. Not because what I think what he said was true, but because he was incredibly clear in his vision of things.

ALAIN DE BOTTON: Nietzsche has a fascinating metaphysical structure to his thought, writes beautifully, and has a sense of humour.

RAYMOND GEUSS: Thucydides. My favourite philosopher because nobody else thinks he’s a philosopher, but I think he is.

BRIAN LEITER: Oh Fred. Nietzsche. I call him Fred. Because he’s a great writer, and he’s more right than wrong about most of the things he has views on.

GALEN STRAWSON: Kant. Every time I hear the words the Critique of Pure Reason I involuntarily salivate.

Good luck!

David Edmonds is an award-winning documentary maker for the BBC World Service and a Research Associate at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. Nigel Warburton is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. They are co-authors of Philosophy Bites (OUP, 2010) and Philosophy Bites Back (OUP, 2012), which are based on their highly successful series of podcasts. You can also follow @philosophybites on Twitter.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only philosophy articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Twitter ‘t’ icon by mfilej, Flickr.

The post Competition: who’s your favourite philosopher? appeared first on OUPblog.

On 1 December 1860, Charles Dickens published the first installment of Great Expectations in All the Year Round, the weekly literary periodical that he had founded in 1859. Perhaps Dickens’s best-loved work, it tells the story of young Pip, who lives with his sister and her husband the blacksmith. He has few prospects for advancement until a mysterious benefaction takes him from the Kent marshes to London. Pip is haunted by figures from his past — the escaped convict Magwitch, the time-withered Miss Havisham, and her proud and beautiful ward, Estella — and in time uncovers not just the origins of his great expectations but the mystery of his own heart.

A powerful and moving novel, Great Expectations is suffused with Dickens’s memories of the past and its grip on the present, and it raises disturbing questions about the extent to which individuals affect each other’s lives. Below is a sequence of podcasts with Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, editor of the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Great Expectations, recorded by George Miller of Podularity.

Title page of first edition of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, 1861

- What was going on in Dickens’s private life at the time?

[See post to listen to audio]

- Both Dickens and Pip were haunted by the ghosts of the past.

[See post to listen to audio]

- Are gentlemen in Victorian England born or made?

[See post to listen to audio]

- Why was Dickens persuaded to change his original ending to the novel?

[See post to listen to audio]

- Why does Great Expectations continue to hold such appeal for readers?

[See post to listen to audio]

- If you loved this novel, try…

[See post to listen to audio]

Charles Dickens was one of the most important writers of the 19th century and 2012 is the 200th anniversary year of his birth. The Oxford World’s Classics edition of Great Expectations reprints the definitive Clarendon text. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst’s new introduction ranges widely across critical issues raised by the novel: its biographical genesis, ideas of origin and progress and what makes a “gentleman,” memory, melodrama, and the book’s critical reception.

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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View more about this book on the

For this week’s contribution to OUPblog, we’ve gone audio — we are the Oral History Review, after all. In our first podcast, our guest Stephen Sloan elaborates on “On the Other Foot: Oral History Students as Narrators,” a piece he wrote for the most recent issue of the Oral History Review (volume 39, issue 2). This post represents another first: an effort to give current and future Oral History Review contributors room to discuss their articles further.

Listen below:

[See post to listen to audio]

Or download the mp3 directly from this link.

As with all of our efforts here, we welcome comments.

Stephen Sloan is the director of the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University where he teaches a graduate seminar in oral history. He also leads dozens of workshops on oral history each year for community groups, students, and faculty. Sloan, along with the entire staff of the Institute for Oral History, offers an online introduction to oral history twice yearly. To learn more about Dr. Sloan or the work of the Institute for Oral History visit baylor.edu/oralhistory. E-mail: Stephen_Sloan[at]baylor[dot]edu. His article “On the Other Foot: Oral History Students as Narrators” in the latest issue of Oral History Review is available to read for free for a limited time.

The Oral History Review, published by the Oral History Association, is the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history. Its primary mission is to explore the nature and significance of oral history and advance understanding of the field among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. Follow them on Twitter at @oralhistreview and like them on Facebook to preview the latest from the Review, learn about other oral history projects, connect with oral history centers across the world, and discover topics that you may have thought were even remotely connected to the study of oral history. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts on the OUPblog for addendum to past articles, interviews with scholars in oral history and related fields, and fieldnotes on conferences, workshops, etc.

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Image credit: All articles used with permission of Stephen Sloan. All rights reserved.

Introducing the Illustration Age Podcast. A new kind of listening experience for illustrators of refined taste.

Episode 1 features the lyrical stylings of illustrator Marshall Arisman like you’ve never heard him before, so go listen to it right now here.

Back in June at ALA, the wonderful Allison Tran and her guest-host Lalitha Nataraj interviewed me about my new books, my old books, and basically all things book for the Authors Are ROCKSTARS! podcast. It’s live today—fun! They asked great questions and even let me gush about Betsy-Tacy a bit. Thanks, Alli and Lali! I had a ball chatting with you.

Image from Radio Telephony, in the public domain

I was interviewed by Steve Thomas for his Circulating ideas podcast a few weeks ago and interviewed by Kayhan B., Erin Anderson and Doug Mirams for their Bibliotech podcast a week earlier. I don’t listen to many professional-type podcasts but both of these conversations were a really good chance to talk over some of the issues facing the profession today in addition to just me going “bla bla…” about myself. Both shows have had a host of other guests and I’ve been digging around in the archives finding other stuff to listen to. If you’re podcast-oriented, these are two shows to put in regular rotation.

I'm climbing the marketing curve--the toughest challenge for an author. At least, it is for me. I've learned a lot from David Hancock, author of "Guerrilla Marketing." I was fortunate to catch David's workshop on this subject at the Christopher Newport Writers Conference last February.

My interview on the Authors Show will be online for 48 hours, April 9-10. I'll be talking about my book, SEXUAL STRATEGIES: HOW FEMALES CHOOSE THEIR MATES. Here's link to show: http://www.wnbnetworkwest.com/WnbAuthorsShow1.html
This link should take you directly to the Nonfiction page, but if it doesn't just click on Nonfiction.

Tomorrow, April 9th, will be the fifth installment of my podcast, EXPLORING NATURE WITH MARY BATTEN. Show will be live from 2 to 2:30 ET. I welcome callers. If you miss the live time slot, you can listen to the archived edition.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/exploring-nature-with-mary-batten/2012/04/09/exploring-nature-with-mary-batten

This Saturday on Awesome Horse Studios, Aaron will do a live critique, and Cynthia will be doing a creature design from scratch with help from the viewers!

Come join in the live chat, ask questions, and paint along at 2PM EST.

View this episode live, or old episodes anytime on our website.

I'm at Erin Goodman's Behind the Blog today. Download the podcast here, and join us on Erin's Facebook page Saturday morning for a chat (8:00 am MST/ 10:00 am EST).

Here are some highlights:

1:50 --  Land of Enchantment

3:10 -- writing space
6:30 -- stranger in a strange land

7:10 -- topics I'm drawn to
9:20 -- my teaching years
11:30 -- Caroline by line
15:30 -- blogging with writing deadlines
16:45 -- meeting Mavis Betterly

17:10 -- graveyards and being nosey
19:10 -- learning disabilities in another era
20:30 -- the origins of May's name
23:00 -- when your children aren't ready for certain stories
27:20 -- wolf!