Who's the best? (Elizabeth Film Review)

Elizabeth is an intense wartime drama based on the great religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants.

In 1585 the powerful Spanish Empire was represented by King Philip (an extremist catholic devout) who had dragged Europe down into the Saint War; only England rebelled against him governed by a Protestant Queen.

Philip was the head of the famous Enterprise (the main catholic goal to become the unique dominant religion which would be able to finish with all Protestants).

On the other hand, Queen Elizabeth had to deal with many other issues such as, to find a husband, to become pregnant for leaving an heir of the crown, and so on. In fact, she did not care about people’s opinions, she was aware of their speculations about her virginity or possible infertility. Therefore, Spanish town strongly believed that Mary Stuart was the best queen for England, because she was a devoutly Roman Catholic and she also had a son which made her worthy of the throne.

While giving emphasis to the historical issues, the film shows the other side of the reign explaining the difficult part of being powerful and venerable (how can a Queen be appraised or loved because of being herself and not because her possessions?). But, as a result, the film gives more emphasis to the comedy and the mischievous love stories of Queen Elizabeth.

In terms of the characters, there is a reasonable number of them and it is very clear which are the important ones (Queen Elizabeth, Philip of Spain, Mary Stuart, Mr.Walsingham, Mr. Raleigh and Miss Elizabeth Throckmorton).

For the above reasons, I think it is a good film that makes you realise that power have two faces (the good one and the bad one) and how always religion has been a matter of power. But, sometimes you can get sort of confused with the other details related to the private like of Queen Elizabeth which make the film more catching for the audience (of course).

The Ages of English

Related to The Ages of English, it is interesting to realise how the process of social people interactions exerts such inmense influence in the way a language can be developed and changed beyond the times.
According to this part of the course, I can confirm that historical events have a meaningful place into the use of language. In this case the evidence is in the Vikings Raids and how the fact of being a 'nomade tribe' affects the language people used to speak, in this case their influence on Old English.
On the other hand, the way that tribes behave means something interesting to be considered. The Vikings were violent and wherever they arrived they left significant marks, because they used to storm and assault the places they invaded.
To sum up, I think that the power of a tribe is going to state the influence they can have in a society. In this case, we can see that Vikings are the powerful ones in terms of their behaviour and how this can make the difference across language.

Suppositions about Stonehenge (the article).

According to the article, some experts believed Stonehenge was the original equivalent of Lourdes because one of them claimed that people used to come to the Stonehenge monument when they were in a state of distress, so that was the reason why people used to assign it such healing properties.
On the other hand, there were others who believed that Stonehenge could be a temple or a healing center as well, because of the two skulls which were found near it that showed evidence of primitive surgery.
Finally, when I was reading the article some ideas about what Stonehenge was came to my mind. I thought it was a place where primitive people were tortured and for that reason the experts had found skeletons, skulls, and so on. But, when I finished I thought that it was more related to the "folklore interest" which Darvill described, mentioning the lingering memory people had in modern times about the bluestones and their supposed healing powers.

*To conclude, I do not thing everything is said. I really thing that there is something hidden about this place...