London: The Elizabeth Tower, popularly known as Big Ben and one of London’s most iconic landmarks, will be lit up with special royal imagery every night this week in the lead-up to the Coronation ceremony of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Saturday.
The colourful projection, inspired by the Coronation emblem of the national flowers of the UK, will take place every night from Thursday till Sunday.
The flowers will seem to grow around the clock tower in the colours of the Union Flag red, white and blue before the words of the country’s National Anthem God Save The King’ appear across the building.
The projection culminates with the Coronation emblem, designed by Sir Jony Ive.
“The design was inspired by King Charles’ love of the planet, nature, and his deep concern for the natural world. The emblem speaks to the happy optimism of spring and celebrates the beginning of this new Carolean era for the United Kingdom.
The gentle modesty of these natural forms combine to define an emblem that acknowledges both the joyful and profound importance of this occasion,” Ive said, explaining the design.
Big Ben refers to the Great Bell of one of the world’s most famous clocks within the Palace of Westminster. The clock tower was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, the mother of King Charles III.
The Coronation emblem has been dubbed one of the central images for the long celebratory Coronation weekend in the UK.
It will feature throughout the Coronation celebrations in May, including the service at Westminster Abbey in London and the Coronation Concert at Windsor Castle, as well as nationwide events, street parties and community gatherings.
The emblem is also being used for all official merchandise commemorating the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla and across digital and social media.
Born in Transylvania in 1920, Ferencz immigrated as a very young boy with his parents to New York to escape rampant antisemitism. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Ferencz joined the U.S. Army in time to take part in the Normandy invasion during World War II. Using his legal background, he became an investigator of Nazi war crimes against U.S. soldiers as part of a new War Crimes Section of the Judge Advocate’s Office.
When U.S. intelligence reports described soldiers encountering large groups of starving people in Nazi camps watched over by SS guards, Ferencz followed up with visits, first at the Ohrdruf labor camp in Germany and then at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. At those camps and later others, he found bodies “piled up like cordwood” and “helpless skeletons with diarrhea, dysentery, typhus, TB, pneumonia, and other ailments, retching in their louse ridden bunks or on the ground with only their pathetic eyes pleading for help,” Ferencz wrote in an account of his life.
“The Buchenwald concentration camp was a charnel house of indescribable horrors,” Ferencz wrote. “There is no doubt that I was indelibly traumatized by my experiences as a war crimes investigator of Nazi extermination centers. I still try not to talk or think about the details.”
At one point toward the end of the war, Ferencz was sent to Adolf Hitler’s mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps to search for incriminating documents but came back empty-handed.
After the war, Ferencz was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army and returned to New York to begin practicing law. But that was short-lived. Because of his experiences as a war crimes investigator, he was recruited to help prosecute Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials, which had begun under the leadership of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. Before leaving for Germany, he married his childhood sweetheart, Gertrude.
At the age of 27, with no previous trial experience, Ferencz became chief prosecutor for a 1947 case in which 22 former commanders were charged with murdering over 1 million Jews, Romani and other enemies of the Third Reich in Eastern Europe. Rather than depending on witnesses, Ferencz mostly relied on official German documents to make his case. All the defendants were convicted, and more than a dozen were sentenced to death by hanging even though Ferencz hadn’t asked for the death penalty.
“At the beginning of April 1948, when the long legal judgment was read, I felt vindicated,” he wrote. “Our pleas to protect humanity by the rule of law had been upheld.”
With the war crimes trials winding down, Ferencz went to work for a consortium of Jewish charitable groups to help Holocaust survivors regain properties, homes, businesses, art works, Torah scrolls, and other Jewish religious items that had been confiscated from them by the Nazis. He also later assisted in negotiations that would lead to compensation to the Nazi victims.
In later decades, Ferencz championed the creation of an international court which could prosecute any government’s leaders for war crimes. Those dreams were realized in 2002 with establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, though its effectiveness has been limited by the failure of countries like the United States to participate.
Ferencz is survived by a son and three daughters. His wife died in 2019.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Do you still think you would be working in a bookshop or as a painter if you hadn’t made it as an actor? EtienneJ I think I’ve got too much energy to work in a bookshop. But I’ve never worked in one. Maybe it is really energetic. I loved painting up to my early 20s, but completely dropped it. When I’m old, or no one wants to give me an acting job, I’m going to pick it up again, because it’s something I still love.
Your grandad was a British spy in the German army who changed his name from Stellmacher. Can I set you up with a scriptwriter and your next role? jesseriley That is true. He was a spy. He had a Ukrainian mother and a German father. We don’t know how he got to work as a spy for the British. After the war, he changed his name to Whishaw. It’s something I’m really interested in. My Auntie Ingrid and I are trying to research it, but we keep coming up against dead ends. If we could find a proper story, I’d be very interested. Spies fascinate me and I’m fascinated by my grandad. He was a mysterious and forbidding man.
Whishaw in This Is Going to Hurt. Photograph: Ludovic Robert/BBC/Sister/AMC
What was the goriest operation you had to perform in This Is Going to Hurt? Did the series change your perception of the NHS?Dantadanta and CarterP There was a really gory scene where we had to deliver a baby from a dead woman. It was horrendous, even in a pretend way. She came back to life when another doctor put his hand up inside her ribcage and massaged her heart. Even I couldn’t watch that bit. The series did change my perspective. I had to really think about what it’s like to work for the NHS. It’s easy to forget the people who do are human. They are fragile, exhausted and have private lives, but we conveniently forget that. I so wish we would fund it properly, but I don’t know what we have to do to make the government wake up.
How did you get into acting and what is your favourite of the films you have made? Disneylover12345 I got into acting when I was a child. I always loved dressing up and that didn’t ever stop. I got into it more seriously as a teenager when my dad took me to a youth theatre, near to where we lived. It was run by a very brilliant man, who treated us like adults. We did lots of amazing, experimental and weird productions. I fell in love and I realised maybe it could be my life. And the favourite film I’ve been in is Paddington 2, because it’s so popular.
I saw Women Talking last year and it was my favourite film of the year. What was your experience on set with a predominantly female cast? What was distinct about Sarah Polley’s directorial style? sophiarubino It was wonderful to work with that group of people. They were all great fun, no egos, and we were an ensemble, which is rare on a film set. Normally, you go back to your trailer, but we spent every day in a big room together. Sarah says it was happenstance, but I think it was intentional. She is sensitive and aware; she doesn’t want friction or stress. She listens, asks questions and watches everything like a hawk.
What animal did you study at drama school? Please say it was a bear! WeirdDug A horse. I spent hours watching this horse in a field in my village and fell in love with it. Most people at drama school hated the exercise, but I loved it.
Whishaw, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy in Women Talking, Sarah Polley’s film about sexual abuse in a religious community. Photograph: Michael Gibson
Which Hugh Grant would you rather fight again? The one from A Very English Scandal or the one from Paddington 2? djshuggg The Hugh in English Scandal is very complex, so definitely the Hugh in Paddington 2. His musical sequence at the end is so great. Maybe we could meet again in a musical. I’m surprised no one has done Bridget Jones: The Musical. Surely that must be in the works?
I heard you sing in Mojo at the Harold Pinter theatre in 2013. Your voice is rich and melodic – I was stunned! Do you secretly yearn to take a big musical lead?ard1970 I could only sing as that character, for some reason. I really can’t sing. I wish I could. I see other actors who are amazing singers, but I’m not, sadly. That character somehow gave me access to a voice I don’t actually have.
I was a close friend of your school drama teacher, Nessa Brown. She was so proud of you and now I’m proud on her behalf. What are your memories of her? JaneCQ That’s a lovely question. Vanessa was a very special person, for lots of reasons. She was astoundingly honest; brutally honest, at times. I was 16 and we were doing a play. Halfway through the rehearsal, she said: “Oh, stop acting!” She wasn’t frightened to push you, but it was always with love and intelligence. She was a real rebel spirit. We kept in regular contact. I really miss her.
If Paddingtonwere promoted to Q, what gadgets would he invent for James Bond? TopTramp and crodd Oh God, I hate these kinds of questions because I’m not a gadget person. A bulletproof duffel coat and exploding marmalade sandwiches sounds about right!
Whishaw as Q and Daniel Craig as James Bond in Skyfall. Photograph: Sony Pictures/Allstar
I saw your Brutus at the Bridge theatre. You were magnetic and lucid; a privilege to watch. As Richard II, your deposition speech took my breath away. What is the key to Shakespeare? Will you return to the theatre? Which Shakespeare would you do next? Hermione, KeepRunning, aquietanon and Justsit The key to Shakespeare is not to be afraid of it. What made Shakespeare revolutionary is that he allowed real rhythms of speech to come through within the iambic pentameter. Characters in Hamlet forget what they are saying, or change their minds, just like real people. It should sound as natural as someone chatting to you. It’s poetry, but natural and everyday. I’m not planning to do any more stage work. I don’t think there are any more Shakespeares I’d be good at, unfortunately.
How do you immerse yourself so completely in such different roles? milinovak I love the challenge of how you have to launch off one into another. You can go from Paddington Bear to Shakespeare to TV comedy. Someone told me a story about Helen Mirren playing Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. Apparently, before she’d go on stage to play this beautiful queen, she’d go into this alter ego of a fish-and-chip seller from the East End. She needed to launch from the opposite to balance out. I really understand how you need these different energies. Once you’ve done one kind of role, you need to go in the opposite direction.
Watch the trailer for Women Talking.
What is the best advice you have been given? carolodonovan76 In my late 20s, I did a film with Jane Campion [Bright Star]. She could tell I was a people pleaser and made it clear that wasn’t going be helpful on this particular project. She gave me the space to not be like that. It’s not helpful to feel like you have to please all the time. You have to find something deeper within yourself than a wish to be liked, or to keep the peace. That’s something I’m still very interested in.
The Guardian has called you “Britain’s most likable actor”. Are you? LaurenceN I never think of myself as likable. I don’t think of the characters I’ve played as likable. They are kind of messy. You can’t aim to be likable. Maybe I’m just likable because I’m Paddington. Who doesn’t like him?
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
