Prince Charles plays Hamlet in brilliant BBC sketch alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Dame Judi Dench

The Prince of Wales – briefly – became the Prince of Denmark on Saturday.

Prince Charles appeared on stage at Stratford as part of a stellar cast in Shakespeare Live, a light-hearted tribute to Britain’s most famous writer, 400 years to the day after he died.

Prince Charles uttered Shakespeare’s most famous line “to be or not to be”, managing to achieve not just every actor’s dream, but trump Dame Judi Dench.

His short contribution came as part of a complex and witty homage to Shakespeare and his soliloquy from Hamlet known the world over.

Prince Charles appeared alongside Tim Minchin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Harriet Walter, David Tennant, Rory Kinnear, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, and the RSC’s current Hamlet, Paapa Essiedu.

It was a fitting finale to a day of celebrations in Stratford that mixed solemnity, pomp, quite a bit of low farce – and royalty. William Shakespeare probably would have approved.

Thousands gathered in Stratford-Upon-Avon on Saturday to celebrate the 400^th anniversary of the death of Britain’s most famous writer – and his birthday too.

Tributes were led by the Prince of Wales, who – before his appearance on the Stratford stage – laid a wreath on the grave of the playwright in Holy Trinity Church, and had a tour of New Place, the site where Shakespeare spent the last 19 years of his life and wrote some of his most famous works, including it is believed his last play, The Tempest.

Now an archeological site, in the process of being turned into a garden and visitor centre, Prince Charles inspected some of the finds: medieval dice, dominos and a thimble that could have been used by Shakespeare’s father, who was a leather worker. Or at least that is the optimistic interpretation of the curators.

His wreath was made out of generous sprigs of rosemary — reference to Ophelia’s final act of handing out the herb, “for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.”

A TELJES VIDEÓT ITT NÉZHETITEK MEG: TELJES VIDEÓ 

source: telegraph.co.uk

In 1964, Bell created the Picturephone in the hopes of augmenting telephone services with long-distance video chat. The technology was awesome (for the time), but also insanely expensive. It flopped, costing Bell roughly half a billion dollars and attracting few actual customers. But how did it work, and why did it fail?

Commercial service started on June 25, 1964 at calling booths in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Interest was lukewarm, at best. For starters, customers needed to schedule their allotted 15 minutes of screen time in advance, which made video chatting nearly as tedious as a doctor’s appointment. Only three cities had access to the futuristic telephone, so its reach was pretty limited. Plus, it was also incredibly expensive. A 3-minute video call from New York to Washington, D.C. cost $16, or the equivalent of about $120 today.

The Picturephone had a video camera, screen, a push-button phone, speakers and a power supply. It even let users control whether the video feed was transmitted to the person they were calling. The sound and quality were good, and people generally liked seeing the person they were speaking to.

The following year, AT&T slashed prices almost 50 percent to encourage customers to make videophone calls. When that strategy failed, the company relocated the video booths to Bell-owned buildings. That didn’t help either. Finally in 1968, the company pulled up the white flag and admitted customers weren’t interested.

source: www.mentalfloss.com and www.wired.com

to augment – növelni, kiterjeszteni
long-distance – távolsági
insanely – őrülten
to flop – megbukni (ötlet, film, találmány)
to attract – vonzani
commercial service – kereskedelmi szolgáltatás
calling booth – hívófülke
lukewarm – langyos
tedious – unalmas
limited – korlátozott
equivalent – megfelelője valaminek
video feed – videójel
to slash – drasztikusan csökkenteni
percent – százalék
to relocate – áthelyezni
to pull up the white flag – kitűzni a fehér zászlót

Match the synonyms.

answers: 1-d 2-a 3-e 4-c 5-b

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-GB
X-NONE
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}
table.MsoTableGrid
{mso-style-name:”Table Grid”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-priority:59;
mso-style-unhide:no;
border:solid windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-alt:solid windowtext .5pt;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid windowtext;
mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid windowtext;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}