Sharing Shakespeare around the Globe: UK and USA join forces to bring the bard to the worldwide web

The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford is joining forces with the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, to create the Shakespeare Quartos Archive, a freely-accessible digital collection.

The one-year project will unite all 75 quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays, pre-1641, into a single online collection. In the absence of surviving manuscripts, the quartos — Shakespeare’s earliest printed editions — offer the closest known evidence of what Shakespeare might actually have written, and what appeared on the early modern English stage.

They are of immense interest to scholars, teachers, editors, and theatre directors, yet due to their rarity and fragility, are not readily available for most to study. The Shakespeare Quartos Archive will make these earliest quartos freely accessible for in-depth study to Shakespeare students across the globe.

geekspeak

Alpha Geek - the most technically proficient person in the office

Cobweb - a website that hasn't been updated for a long time

Egosurfing - looking yourself up on the internet

Mashup - two or more interesting elements from different websites combined into one.

Mouse potato - the pc equivalent of a couch potato

Open collar workers - those who work from home

Screenager - a teen who has grown up using screens

Uninstalled - being fired

Wiiware - software for the Ninetnedo Wii

Gone With the Wind - the musical

Gone with the Wind is a classic tale that sweeps along on a grand scale, following the fortunes of spirited Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara through the turbulent times of the American civil war.

First published in 1936, the best-seller earned a Pulitzer prize for its author Margaret Mitchell and the 1939 film adaptation made box office history as the highest-grossing movie of all time. Now this epic story is storming onto the London stage as a musical.

American Jill Paice, who last appeared in the West End in Woman in White, plays Scarlett, while Darius Danesh takes on the role of the ruggedly handsome Rhett Butler.

At the start of the action, as a not-so-sweet seventeen-year-old, Scarlett spends a good deal of her time trying to snare Ashley Wilkes, her teenage crush blinding her to the fact that Rhett is clearly the only one man enough to tame her wild side.

Ten years on she finally realises her mistake, a bit late in the day: prompting Rhett’s now legendary response: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”

Her tough exterior melts for an instant but Scarlett is a survivor and hopefully proclaims:

“Tomorrow is another day!”

The musical version is now showing at the New London Theatre.

Do you have a bad novel in you?

If you think you can write the opening sentence to the world's worst novel, here's a challenge for you:

The competition is inspired by the immortal prose of Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton whose novel Paul Clifford begins with the classic cliche: "It was a dark and stormy night..."

Here are some examples of previous entries:

Historical fiction:

Samson looked in the mirror and, when he saw what a fantastic haircut Delilah had given him, he went weak at the knees."

Dishonourable mention:

"Miles Otterman thought he could get away with carving his initials on the old oak tree in the town square - and he just might have, if Sheriff Mitchell hadn't recognised his MO".

www.bulwer-lytton.com

What's out there?

The Drake Equation is used to attempt to calculate the number of detectable civilisations in the galaxy - N

This is the equation: N = Rs x Fp x Ne x Fl x Fi x Fc x L

Only the first two figures in the equation are known -

Rs = the rate of star formation

Fp = the fraction of stars with planetary systems

The rest are unknown, so this is hardly an exact science - merely a best guess.

Further details on how to make an estimate can be found on the BBC's Horizon pages.

www.bbc.co.uk/horizon