Benedict is a born and bred Londoner and he often mentions how much he loves the place. I understand completely. I have been madly in love with London for the last 15 years and living there for 6 blissful months only deepened my feelings for that magical city. Benedict often speaks about his favorite places in London (mostly when asked in interviews) and this post is an attempt to bring them all together. Not for stalking purposes, of course. When it comes to sprawling cities like London you can never get enough good recommendations. Especially when they come directly from a true Londoner! I have also added a few places related to Benedict and his work. Please feel free to make suggestions for more additions in the comments. If he mentions more places in the future they will be added to this post.

Restaurants

“Viet, the excellent noodle bar on Greek Street” (source)

Favourite after-show haunts:

“Osteria Emilia in Fleet Road, Hampstead, NW3 – an amazing north italian restaurant and local to me. Or The Ivy, but at the moment my bed” (The Osteria has since closed, sadly, source)

“The Tate Modern Restaurant overlooking St Paul’s” (source)

“I love Pollen Street Social, Jason Atherton’s restaurant and Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner in the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park hotel in Knightsbridge. I was fortunate to eat at the latter with Heston, having every dish and the history of it explained, which was a pretty spectacular way to understand what he was going for. ” (source)

“I also like Yalla Yalla, a great Lebanese restaurant just off Berwick Street in Soho. Try Brindisa just round the corner for fantastic tapas. If you want a really great vegetarian fest, go to The Gate restaurant in Hammersmith. ” (Brindisa, from THAT scene in A Study in Scarlet, source)

Speedy’s Café as featured in Sherlock belongs here, of course.

Bars & Pubs

“Near my home in Hampstead, I especially like a burger at The Stag — their burgers are fantastic — and one of my favourite local pubs is The Wells” (source)

Shopping

“There’s a great farmers’ market at the bottom of Parliament Hill which I enjoy because you feel like you’re part of a neighbourhood. I also love Marylebone High Street for the Sunday market.” (source)

“I love Beyond Retro and charity shops for everything a man needs, from shoes to suits. I rely on sample sales at The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane for T-shirts, original prints and one-offs. For food, I go to an Italian delicatessen called Giacobazzi’s near South End Green, Hampstead. For books, I visit Daunt’s and Foyles but I also love taking a book up to the fifth floor at Waterstone’s in Piccadilly and looking out across the skyline.” (source)

Places

What’s the most romantic place in London?

“The Tate Modern Restaurant overlooking St Paul’s, or standing on Waterloo Bridge because you feel like you’re part of one of the world’s great cities.” (source)

The wonderful Victoria & Albert museum which Benedict visited for a David Bowie exhibition.

The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill, for which Benedict starred in a pre-film ad (which has sadly been removed from Vimeo since). Stunning old cinema, lovely for special occasions.

“For a great view of London, walk over Waterloo Bridge, stop in the middle and look both ways – east to St Paul’s and beyond, west to Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster. There are some fantastic views in London, and this is one of my favourites. I also love the view from the top of St Bart’s Hospital, an amazing place that traces its history back to the 12th century. That view is very special, especially for me [it’s where Sherlock fell to his non-death at the end of the second series].” (source)

“Go to the top of St Paul’s Cathedral for fabulous views of London including the River Thames, Tate Modern and Shakespeare’s Globe. Plus the Dome itself is magnificent. This is architect Christopher Wren’s masterpiece.” (source)

Written by Cumberchicken on 18 April 2014. No comments »
Category: Places
Tags: London, Restaurants, Shopping, Travel

How To Disappear Completely by Radiohead is such a difficult song for me. I listened to it for the very first time after Benedict had mentioned his really surreal and heart wrenching history with the song it in this wonderful Two Paddocks article:

“The only reason for honing onto this track as opposed to any other in a back catalogue whose range defies belief is a personal one. It signifies how the best of times and the worst of times really do sidle up to one another.  I first met your dear proprietor when filming a mini-series called To the Ends of The Earth for dear old Auntie (BBC) in South Africa which and I’d had the most amazing time on the job and a weekend learning to scuba dive with two other cast members — the best of times. Then the front right tyre blew on our car, we pulled in and were surrounded by men who came out of the bush and we were carjacked — the worst of times.  A long (2.5 hours of ordeal) story but the intrinsic part for the song choice is that it was playing just before the tyre blew when I had lit a spiff and was contemplating how ridiculously blissfully happy I was. The next time I heard it was bundled against the windscreen of the car on the front passengers’ knees with my back and head hitting the windscreen as we were driven off road. My bum hit the car stereo and for a few surreal minutes Tom Yorke was sound tracking me to my death. I turned round as we bounced over the sand track, the headlights showing the passing sugar cane and kept thinking of the shallow graves they dug for themselves in the movie Casino as the master of introspection and modern ennui Mr T Yorke sang ‘I’m not here… This isn’t happening’ … We all lived.”

I can’t even imagine how this must have felt and how it must feel for Benedict to re-visit the song today. All I know is that How To Disappear Completely resonates deeply with me. It’s a song I often turn to when feeling desperately sad and am in need of a good cry. The feelings expressed in those lyrics sum up something I have felt a lot in the last few years after experiencing a very traumatic life changing event. This of course, says a lot about how universal music is and how it can speak to different people in completely different circumstance. I am glad about discovering this song through Benedict, even though listening to is cathartic rather than pleasant.

Written by Cumberchicken on 18 April 2014. 4 comments »
Category: Music
Tags: Abduction, Music, Radiohead

“All the things we didn’t talk about!” he lamented. “The Simpsons, New York at new year, Iceland… I’ve seen and swam and climbed and lived and driven and filmed. Should it all end tomorrow, I can definitely say there would be no regrets. I am very lucky, and I know it. I really have lived 5,000 times over.”

Quote from that lovely Caitlin Moran interview in The Times which sadly lives behind a pay wall.

Written by Cumberchicken on 18 April 2014. 2 comments »
Category: Quotes
Tags: Life, Quote

WHILE Benedict was filming series three of Sherlock last August, he did something a little out of the ordinary.

Clearly unhappy with press photographers lurking on set trying to get clues as to the plot direction of the series, and perhaps inspired somewhat by the filming and release of The Fifth Estate at the same time, Benedict held up messages about political issues.
His first message was direct and to the point :

“Go photograph Egypt and show the world something important.”

On a personal level I was absolutely delighted Benedict had focussed on the situation in Egypt. I have many friends in the country and the media’s portrayal of what is going on there is far different from everyday life in the likes of Port Said and Cairo. There are so many more terrifying tales to be told.

The response in the world media was very positive, some websites calling the message “awesome”. There was one site criticising it, saying many photographers were already documenting the situation and hardships in Egypt and that the comment was unnecessary. However, how many of us have seen their work?

Just a few days later, he had another message. This time a longer one, written on several pieces of paper, appearing to relate to the arrest of David Miranda, the partner of a Guardian journalist who had been covering the story on Edward Snowden.

He said: “Questions we have a right to ask in a democracy – [David] Cameron, Theresa May, GCHQ, teachers, parents, each other… Hard drives smashed, journalists detained at airports. Democracy? Schedule 7 Prior restraint – is this erosion of civil liberties winning the war on terror? What do they not want you to know? And how did they get to know it? Does the exposure of their techniques cause a threat to our security or does it just cause them embarrassment?”

Benedict clearly felt strongly enough about this to go to the effort of writing it out, for the press and waiting crowds to see. He confirmed this later in an interview with the New York Times:

“These are very complex questions and very difficult arguments to be very clear about, so to ask the questions is to stimulate the debate. I felt really strongly about it at the time.”

In my opinion, he is within his rights to speak his mind about issues which concern him. Just because he is in the public eye does not mean he should have to shy away from having a considered view on current affairs.

In addition, it is easy to discuss the day’s news over a few drinks at the pub, or over dinner at home, but it’s a braver move to put those thoughts on paper and broadcast them to the world, taking the risk that your audience may not share those views.

Yet another reason why I have profound respect for Benedict. And, for what it’s worth, I wholeheartedly agree with him.

Written by clareiow on 18 April 2014. No comments »
Category: Social & Political
Tags: paparazzi Benedict Sherlock Egypt Snowden

Elements of the Enigma Machine

A simplified circuit diagram of an Enigma machine (Figure 1) with 4 of the 26 keys and indicator lamps shows the principle of how the various elements are connected to each other. If no key is pressed, there is no closed circuit, electricity cannot flow, and the lamps remain dark. Before going into more detail it might be helpful to familiarize oneself with the different parts of the Enigma machine.

(For those who want to delve deeper, the websites of the Crypto Museum, Dirk Rijmenants and Tony Sale are great online resources.)

Keyboard: The keyboard (German Tastatur) has 26 letter keys arranged in the following order:

Q – W – E – R – T – Z – U – I – O
– A – S – D – F – G – H – J – K –
P – Y – X – C – V – B – N – M – L

Each key is connected to a 2-way switch. Pressing a key first causes one or more rotors to turn one step and then the switch closes a circuit. This allows electricity to flow from the battery through the plugboard and scrambling unit to one lamp on the lampboard. The exact electrical path is determined by the rotors, the reflector and (in military models) the plugboard settings.

Lampboard: The lampboard (German Lampenfeld) behind the keyboard has 26 round windows with letters, positioned over 26 small lamps. One of them lights up when a key is pressed, indicating the replacement for the plaintext letter typed on the keyboard.

Plugboard: The plugboard (German Steckerbrett) is at the very front of the Enigma machine and was added to the military models in the late 1920s, making it more secure than the commercial version (see further Chapter 2). Letters are swapped by connecting their plugboard sockets with a cable, thereby diverting the flow of electricity before it enters the scrambling unit. If the two letters J and S are connected, for example, and the key for J is pressed, then current enters the scrambling unit at the S position on the entry wheel.

Before and during World War II, information on what letters were to be connected and thereby swapped on a specific day was set down in codebooks.

Entry wheel (stator): The fixed entry wheel (German Eintrittswalze) is the first part of the scrambling unit. Wires leading from all 26 keys are attached to it in alphabetical order (in military models). This is where electricity enters and exits the scrambling unit.

Wheels (rotors): The wheels, also called rotors (German Walze), are the most important part of the Engima machine. Three different rotors (or four in the German Navy model) with different internal cross-wiring are mounted side by side on a spindle and placed between the entry wheel on the right and the reflector on the left. These three rotors are chosen according to the codebook information for that specific day from five (later eight) different possibilities: Rotors I, II, III, IV and V. Once placed into the machine, every rotor can be individually turned to the required setting.

The three rotors turn at different speeds. The “fast” rotor on the right moves one step every time a key is pressed. Once every 26 turns, a notch on the wheel causes the rotor in the middle to turn as well. Since every rotor has a notch (each in a different position), the middle wheel can at one point also cause the leftmost “slow” rotor to step one position.

Every rotor has 26 spring-loaded pins on the right side and 26 flat contacts on the left, connected to each other through complex internal cross-wiring. These pins and contacts represent the alphabet, as marked by letters on the outer rim of the rotor (called the ring), with one letter visible to the operator through small window.

Every pin on the right is connected with a wire to a flat contact on the left. The arrangement of these cross-wirings are different for every rotor. Rotor I for example connects the pin A to the contact E, while rotor III connects A with B.

Figure 2 shows the internal wiring of the three rotors I, II and III. (The colours are a visual help only and have no special meaning.) If electrical current enters the scrambling unit at A you can follow its path from right to left through the three rotors to the reflector, where it enters at Z and exits at T. From there electricity flows back through the three rotors from left to right on a different path, exiting at U. If any one of the rotors is moved by just one position, the entire constellation of wires changes. (Click image to magnify.)

Reflector: A unique feature of the Enigma machine is the aforementioned fixed reflector (German Umkehrwalze). Its 26 pins on the right side are connected to each other through 13 internal wires, creating 13 linked letter pairs (as can be seen in Figure 2). Electricity flows from the leftmost rotor into the reflector, through one of the wires to exit at another pin.

The nature of the reflector means that encoding and decoding are mirror processes. At the same setting, A is encoded as U and U is encoded as A (see further Chapter 3).  An unfortunate consequence of the reflector is the fact that no letter can ever be encoded as itself, which was helpful to codebreakers.

During World War II, the German Army and Air Force model used two different reflectors (B and C).

—

Continued in Chapter 4 Part 2

Previous posts:

Chapter 1 – Historical Background
Chapter 2 – The Invention of the Engima Machine
Chapter 3 – The Substitution Cipher
Chapter 4 – How Does the Machine Work? Part 1 and Part 2

FURTHER READING:

Books:
COPELAND, B. Jack. Turing. Pioneer of the Information Age. Oxford, 2012
SINGH, Simon. The Code Book. The Secret History of Codes and Code-Breaking. London, 1999
WELCHMAN, Gordon. The Hut Six Story. Breaking the Enigma Codes. Oxford, 1997

Websites:
Crypto Museum: Enigma (Retrieved April 2014)
RIJMENANTS, Dirk. Cipher Machines and Cryptology. Enigma Menu (Retrieved April 2014)
SALE, Tony. The components of the Enigma machine  and Technical Specification of the Enigma (Retrieved April 2014)

Images:
http://enigmamuseum.com/u_060.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Enigma-plugboard.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Enigma_rotors_with_alphabet_rings.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Enigma_rotors_and_spindle_showing_contacts_rachet_and_notch.jpg
http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/enigma/img/exploded.gif
Figure 1 and Figure 2 © elen_ancalima

Written by elen_ancalima on 17 April 2014. No comments »
Category: Film & TV, History
Tags: Benedict Cumberbatch, Enigma

Do you really love music?

I mean, REALLY love music? I’m not asking you to tell me. It’s not a formal inquiry – I promise. I’m asking you to be honest – with you. You have your ear candy music – the stuff that makes you sing or dance or remember a moment at a special place, or with a special someone. When you hear those first few notes of a song that takes you back – THAT’S the good stuff: the REALLY good stuff. It’s the music you’ll hum long after your hearing is gone. (Keep that in mind when Eminem or Justin Bieber land in your memory banks.)

Why do I bring this up? Well, I think it’s safe to say Benedict Cumberbatch’s appeal lies not only in his appearance, voice and talent, but also his image of intelligence, wit and sophistication (and not just in the acting and voiceover work he chooses). Whether or not fans agree with his self-deprecating comparisons to an otter or cartoon character – or a lineage suggesting inbreeding to result in looks best suited for costume drama, his range of interests engages us to read more, listen more – and learn more.  BE MORE.

One such interest he shares is an appreciation of a diverse musical library. Recently, a Q&A session with fans (and a mic on his iPhone set on shuffle) revealed an eclectic mix of musical selections, ranging from the sentimentally ridiculous “Puff the Magic Dragon” to Top 40 favorite Daft Punk’s “Doin’ it Right” – as well  his longtime favorites: Icelandic group Sigur Rós – and the work of friend and fellow Harrovian alum, pianist James Rhodes.

WAIT! DON’T GO. HE’S COOL.

REALLY.

Just give me a minute, okay?

(more…)

Written by Lisibelle87 on 17 April 2014. 7 comments »
Category: Music
Tags: Benedict Cumberbatch, Clair de Lune, Claude Debussy, Harrow, iTunes, James Rhodes, Music, Soundcloud, Top 10, Two Paddocks, YouTube

SO, I think we were all a little shocked and perhaps a little weirded out by the small video which cropped up on YouTube after the Oscars.

When Benedict Cumberbatch revealed his party trick – his ridiculously bendy hands…

Given how far back he can pull his fingers, I would hazard a guess that our favourite actor is, indeed, hypermobile.

Hypermobility – or being double-jointed –  means the joints extend farther than they should. This can cause problems, in particular joint and muscular pain, and in some extreme cases, easy dislocations of joints.

I am, what my doctor labels, a high-end hypermobile person, and so spotted that Ben was a member of the club straight away!

Of course we cannot say to what extent Benedict’s bendiness goes. However, in addition to his bendy hands, he has also had plantar fascitits (following Frankenstein), a common problem for people with flat feet (I also have this), which is in turn, related to hypermobility.

Here’s what he said in his interview with The Big Issue:  “My wrists are turning into ankles, I’ve joints coming out of my f***ing hips. I’ve had problems with my neck, my voice has come and gone. I’ve had concussions, I’ve had cuts. I’ve got a thing in my left foot called plantar fasciitis, which means that the tendons ball up into a ball of agony.”

Ouch.

So, in order to see if you are as bendy as Ben, you can of course try and repeat his trick. You can also try using the official guide to hypermobility, the Beighton Score.

The Beighton score is calculated as follows:
Give yourself, one point if, while standing forward bending you can place your palms on the ground with legs straight. One point for each elbow that bends backwards, one point for each knee that bends backwards, one point if you can pull each thumb downwards to touch your forearm, and one point for each little finger, that bends backwards beyond 90 degrees.

Many people do not score more than two points, but if you have any more than four, then you would be classed as hypermobile.

Written by clareiow on 14 April 2014. No comments »
Category: Various
Tags: hypermobile talent hands

Expanding your Vocabulary with Benedict – Part 1

One great aspect of being a Benedict Cumberbatch fan is that he’s always (inadvertently) inspiring us to improve and expand our vocabulary. Reading interviews every so often sends me scuttling to a dictionary to look up yet another word I’d never heard before. When he used “obfuscate” in his interview with the Hollywood Reporter last September, the word spiked on the Merriam Webster Website.

His introduction for WETA’s new book “SMAUG, Unleashing the Dragon” taught me the expression avarice, and it got me thinking about other words I’d come across through following his work. Here are a few off the top of my head – feel free to add more in the comments section and I’ll include them in a future post!

(On a related note: Ghent University’s Center for Reading Research has a fun Word test on their website – they present you with various words that are either English or made up, and you have to decide which ones are which.)

—

AVARICE noun \ˈa-və-rəs, ˈav-rəs\

a strong desire to have or get money

Origin: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin avaritia, from avarus avaricious, from avēre to crave — more at avid
First Known Use: 14th century

Benedict quote: “Along with his pride, anger and avarice are his other great stumbling blocks.”  (Introduction to “SMAUG, Unleashing the Dragon”)

—

BUFF  transitive verb \ˈbəf\

to make (a surface) smooth and shiny by rubbing it

Origin: Middle French buffle wild ox, from Old Italian bufalo
First Known Use (of this meaning): 1838

Benedict quote: “We like nothing better than buffing our Zygoma.” (Benedict’s Reddit AMA)

—

OBFUSCATE verb \ˈäb-fə-ˌskāt; äb-ˈfəs-ˌkāt, əb-\

to make (something) more difficult to understand

Origin: Late Latin obfuscatus, past participle of obfuscare, from Latin ob- in the way + fuscus dark brown — more at ob-, dusk
First Known Use: 1577

Benedict quote: “Well, ‘obfuscate’ is a distraction from truth.”  (The Hollywood Reporter – The Confessions of Benedict Cumberbatch)

—

VERTIGINOUS adjective \(ˌ)vər-ˈti-jə-nəs\

causing or likely to cause a feeling of dizziness especially because of great height

Origin: Latin vertiginosus, from vertigin-, vertigo
First Known Use: 1608

Benedict quote: “It’s all gone a little bit vertiginous recently.” (The Telegraph – Benedict Cumberbatch returns in Parade’s End)

—

ZYGOMA noun \zī-ˈgō-mə\

The bony arch of the cheek formed by connection of the zygomatic and temporal bones.

Origin: New Latin zygomat-, zygoma, from Greek zygōma, from zygoun to join, from zygon yoke
First Known Use: circa 1684

Benedict quote: “We like nothing better than buffing our Zygoma.” (Benedict’s Reddit AMA)

Written by elen_ancalima on 14 April 2014. 2 comments »
Category: Quotes, Various
Tags: Benedict Cumberbatch, Language

ENIGMA Chapter 1 – Historical Background
ENIGMA Chapter 2 – The Invention of the Enigma Machine

The Enigma machine is a polyalphabetic substitution cipher machine. This post will provide a little background information on the differences between monoalphabetic and polyalphabetic substitution ciphers and on the specific characteristics of cipher alphabets created by an Enigma machine.

Monoalphabetic and polyalphabetic substitution ciphers

In a substitution cipher system a single unit of plaintext (a letter, a group of letters, a number, etc) is replaced by a different unit according to a regular system. When a monoalphabetic substitution cipher system is used, an entire text is encoded with a single fixed cipher alphabet, like the one shown in Figure 1. In this example, A is always replaced by B, B by V, and so on. If you use it to encode the plaintext THE IMITATION GAME, the resulting ciphertext is HAK DSDHBHDOE NBSK.

A monoalphabetic substitution cipher can easily be broken using frequency analysis. In every language, certain letters are more common than others, e.g. in English E is the most frequent letter, whereas others like X and Z are rarely used. Therefore, if the letter K is the most common letter in a ciphertext, it is very likely that it stands for the letter E. General knowledge of a language’s structure, common words and phrases is also useful when deciphering an encoded text.

The cipher alphabet shown in Figure 1 is not reciprocal. This means that while A is replaced by B, B is not automatically replaced by A but by a different letter (V). It is also possible for a letter to encode itself, as in O does in this case. We will soon see how this differs from a cipher alphabet created by an Enigma machine.

Polyalphabetic substituion ciphers are more complex, as the cipher alphabet changes during encryption.

Figure 2 shows two different cipher alphabets, one for encoding the first letter of plaintext and the other for the second letter. The word TO is encrypted by looking up T in the first cipher alphabet (T-> H) and O in the second (O->F), resulting in the ciphertext HF.

Enigma – a polyalphabetic substitution cipher machine

The Enigma machine created a different cipher alphabet for every consecutive letter of plaintext. Two important characteristics were the result of the so-called reflector, which we will look at in more detail later: (1) the alphabet was reciprocal and (2) a letter could never be encoded as itself.

1. Cipher alphabets created by an Enigma machine were reciprocal. This means, for example, that if the letter A was encoded by U, then U was encoded by A. If you pressed A on the keyboard, the letter U lit up on the lampboard; if you pressed the key for U, A was illuminated. Consequently, encoding and decoding were mirror processes. If you set up two Enigma machines exactly the same way, typing a plaintext on one delivered an encoded ciphertext, and if you typed this ciphertext into the other machine using an identical setting, the result was the original plaintext. 

   

   For example: An operator set up an Enigma machine to encipher the plaintext THEXIMITATIONXGAME (the letter X indicated a space). Pressing the key for the first letter T illuminated the letter F on the lampboard. The operator wrote down F and then typed the next plaintext letter H, which lit up I, and so forth. The final result was the ciphertext FILRQ HLHXH ULMMZ MZT (letters were written down in groups of five). The ciphertext was then transmitted by a radio operator using Morse code.

   The receiver picked up the radio signal and translated the Morse code back into the ciphertext. If the operator on the receiving end knew the sender’s setting and set up the Enigma machine the same way, typing the ciphertext FILRQ HLHXH ULMMZ MZT produced the plaintext THEXIMITATIONXGAME.

   The Enigma machine could thus be used for both encoding and decoding.

 

2. A letter could never be encoded as itself. This feature proved to be extremely helpful to codebreakers during World War II. Cryptanalysts looked at a ciphertext trying to guess the position of words or phrases they expected to find (like WETTER i.e. weather). Codebreakers at Bletchley Park called these fragments cribs. An easy way to determine whether a crib was a possible solution, was to place it over the ciphertext and check to see if any letters were identical. If so, they knew that this guess was incorrect. Figure 3 shows three such guesses; the first and the third are possible, the second one is not because E can never be replaced by E.

   

Both characteristic features can bee seen in this cipher alphabet, created by an Enigma machine for encoding one letter of plaintext (Figure 4). A is encoded by U, and thus U is automatically encoded by A. B is replaced by E, so E is replaced by B, and so on. No letter is encoded as itself.

Part 4 will take a closer look at how the Enigma machine worked and how it created this large number of different cipher alphabets.

—
Previous posts:
ENIGMA Chapter 1 – Historical Background
ENIGMA Chapter 2 – The Invention of the Enigma Machine
Next post: ENIGMA Chapter 4 – How Does the Engima Machine Work? (Part 1 – The Elements of an Enigma Machine)

FURTHER READING:

Books:

SINGH, Simon. The Code Book – The Secret History of Codes and Code-Breaking. London, 1999

Articles:

SAUERBERG, Jim. Cryptology: An Historical Introduction DRAFT. 2006 http://galileo.stmarys-ca.edu/jsauerbe/bookshort.pdf and http://galileo.stmarys-ca.edu/jsauerbe/m10s11/ (Retrieved April 2014)

Websites:
SALE, Tony. Substitution cipher and the principle of the Enigma http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/enigma/enigma1.htm (Retrieved April 2014)

Crypto Museum: Enigma: http://www.cryptomuseum.com/crypto/enigma/index.htm (Retrieved April 2014)

—
Enigma Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-241-2173-09,_Russland,_Verschlüsselungsgerät_Enigma.jpg

Written by elen_ancalima on 13 April 2014. No comments »
Category: Film & TV, History
Tags: Benedict Cumberbatch, Bletchley Park, Enigma

During his stay at OZ Comic Con in Adelaide, Australia, Benedict Cumberbatch stated quite clearly how important it is to believe in education and which impacts education can have on a society. But what influences had education on the 37-year-old, who is often admired for his intellect, himself? The London born actor started boarding at the age of eight and later famously known attended Harrow School, not far from his family home. Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch at Harrow School: Being an arts scholar he lived with 70 other boys at “The Park”, one of Harrow’s twelve Houses. He played rugby on the school’s muddy fields and was concerned about becoming a barrister before his interest in acting turned into a thing for life. At 12 he played Titania, Queen of the Faries, and at 17 he declined the offer of playing Hamlet at Harrow’s own Ryan Theatre. Passing the A levels outweighed the Prince of Denmark at that time. Luckily he’s got a second chance now, twenty years later. It also was thanks to Harrow that Cumberbatch met his life-long friends pianist James Rhodes, his “Parade’s End” co-star Rebecca Hall and others.

I, for one, think it is only fair to say the actor’s attendance at Harrow School has never done him anything bad – except for the posh headlines in the papers but even these times have passed by now. Being a Harrovian is a true priviledge indeed and the Londoner has often stated his gratefulness towards his parents who did their very best to afford their only son the best education possible.

Harrow is a place with history and somewhat you can call an embarrassment of riches. It’s been home to some of the UK’s kings, politicians and other well-known people. Cumberbatch and Blunt both on the red sofa at “The Graham Norton Show”? It all comes back to Harrow with its old-age traditions, buildings which have been on that hill for centuries, its remarkable range of activities outside the classroom and the people who take care of the boys until they grow into young, well-mannered men.

Take a look at “Harrow – a very British school”, an eight part documentary available on Youtube, and be in awe of the English education that influenced Benedict Cumberbatch become the man he is today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80XIao_l9TE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBGCbwU2XaE

For more information on the boarding school, visit Harrow School’s official website.

Written by freewomenxgrape on 10 April 2014. 2 comments »
Category: Education, Places
Tags: Benedict Cumberbatch, documentary, education, Harrow, Harrow School, YouTube