Yolanda's blog

The Pilgrims were English Separatists . In the first years of the 17th century, small numbers of English Puritans broke away from the Church of England because they felt that it had not completed the work of the Reformation. They committed themselves to a life based on the Bible. Most of these Separatists were farmers, poorly educated and without social or political standing. One of the Separatist congregations was led by William Brewster and the Rev. Richard Clifton in the village of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire. The Scrooby group emigrated to Amsterdam in 1608 to escape harassment and religious persecution. The next year they moved to Leiden, in Holland where, enjoying full religious freedom, they remained for almost 12 years. In 1617, discouraged by economic difficulties, the pervasive Dutch influence on their children, and their inability to secure civil autonomy, the congregation voted to emigrate to America. Through the Brewster family's friendship with Sir Edwin Sandys, tr...

It's been 30 years since one of the 20th century's biggest historic events: the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although the East German dictatorship subsequently collapsed, cultural and political divisions remain, more than a generation after reunification. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on the wall's legacy, the polarizing issue of immigration and the lingering stain of anti-Semitism.

What is Armistice Day, what time are we silent and why is it for two minutes?  READ MORE...

Alt-rock icon Amanda Palmer believes we shouldn't fight the fact that digital content is freely shareable — and suggests that artists can and should be directly supported by fans. Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.   TRANSCRIPT: CLICK HERE

If you’ve never heard of the American singer-songwriter known as Rodriquez, perhaps it’s because he reached his height of unlikely popularity in South Africa during the 1970s. After two albums that flopped in the U.S., Rodriquez’s songs improbably made their way to South Africa and spread like wildfire via bootlegs, motivating a generation of youth to join protests against the Apartheid regime of the time. Searching for Sugar Man  is a 2012 Swedish–British–Finnish documentary, directed and written by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him.  On 10 February 2013, the film won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary at the 66th British Academy Film Awards in London, and two weeks later it won...