Get the London look: Anna Neagle as the emblem of British fashion and femininity in Maytime in Mayfair

In the years following the Second World War, Britain experienced a prolonged period of austerity and an increase in rationing – a measure that had a direct effect on fashion. This was not always reflected on screen: during the war years, Margaret Lockwood, Patricia Roc et al. showed off sumptuous gowns in a succession of popular Gainsborough Studio period films. In 1946, Lockwood and her co-star James Mason were two of the biggest box-office stars in Britain. By 1947, however, Mason had left for America, and while Lockwood was still popular, her more subversive on-screen female sexuality was being displaced by a return to more traditional modes of femininity, as embodied by Anna Neagle. 1947 also saw the birth of the New Look and the golden age of couture, both in Paris and London. These aspects of British fashion and British femininity come together in Herbert Wilcox’s romantic comedy Maytime in Mayfair (1949). Set around the fashion boutiques of Mayfair, the film showcases designs by the leading houses of the day: Hardy Amies, Norman Hartnell, Worth and others. The luxury displayed on-screen would have been beyond the reach of most of the audience: however, the film works to promote the image of British fashion design for both a domestic and international market, while simultaneously presenting an image of resilient but glamorous British womanhood through Neagle’s star persona and on-screen presentation. This article examines the construction of ideas of British femininity on the post-war years through the mediation of stardom and fashion-on-film

Ganstagrass: Hybridity and Popular Culture in Justified

This article looks at the role of two of the most iconic figures in American popular culture: the gangster and the westerner. Drawing on genre theory from film and television, the way in which the westerner has been displaced by the gangster as the most common signifier of American identity is explored, focussing specifically on the television series Justified (2010-). The southern location of the series further complicates the set of referents by mobilizing aspects of Southern Gothic. While the western and the gangster film have often been viewed as oppositional in terms of location, era and their respective musings on and articulation of American identity, this article argues that the hybridity of genres in popular culture opens up a wider space in which to address aspects of myth, history and social concerns

An Absence of Modesty: The Male/Female Dichotomy in Modesty Blaise

This article examines the figure of Modesty Blaise as an action heroine in the canon of British espionage texts. It argues that the character and her stories offer multiple, liminal spaces for investigating and challenging ideas about gender, nation and class. It also addresses the current landscape of action-adventure films at a time when there are increased calls for more female-centric vehicles and gender-blind casting. While the gender politics of the Modesty Blaise franchise make for fascinating analysis, they are also played out against a backdrop of global politics. This can be seen in the first of the novels – simply entitled Modesty Blaise from 1965 – and to some extent in Joseph Losey’s loose adaptation of the text in 1966. Modesty’s employment by the British secret service coincides with the dismantling of the British Empire. The negotiation of gender identity that is a recurring theme in the stories intersects with the post-imperial, post-colonial concerns that dominated geo-politics at the time the original texts were released

Is there a "heat or eat" trade-off in the UK?

In this research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, we merge detailed household level expenditure data from older households with historical local weather information. We then test for a heat or eat trade off: do households cut back on food spending to finance the additional cost of keeping warm during cold shocks? We find evidence that the poorest of older households are unable to smooth spending over the worst temperature shocks. Statistically significant reductions in food spending are observed in response to temperatures two or more standard deviations colder than expected (which occur about one winter month in forty) and reductions in food expenditure are considerably larger in poorer households.

Is There a Heat or Eat Trade-off in the UK?

We merge detailed household level expenditure data from older households with historical local weather information. We then test for a heat or eat trade off: do households cut back on food spending to finance the additional cost of keeping warm during cold shocks? For households who cannot smooth consumption over time, cold weather shocks are equivalent to income shocks. We find evidence that the poorest of older households are unable to smooth spending over the worst temperature shocks. Statistically significant reductions in food spending are observed in response to winter temperatures two or more standard deviations colder than expected (which occur about one winter month in forty) and reductions in food expenditure are considerably larger in poorer households.

Cash by any other name? Evidence on labelling from the UK Winter Fuel Payment

Standard economic theory implies that the labelling of cash transfers or cash-equivalents (e.g. child benefits, food stamps) should have no effect on spending patterns. The empirical literature to date does not contradict this proposition. We study the UK Winter Fuel Payment (WFP), a cash transfer to older households. Exploiting sharp eligibility criteria in a regression discontinuity design, we find robust evidence of a behavioural effect of the labelling. On average households spend 41% of the WFP on fuel. If the payment was treated as cash, we would expect households to spend approximately 3% of the payment on fuel.

Modelling the effectiveness of grass buffer strips in managing muddy floods under a changing climate

Muddy floods occur when rainfall generates runoff on agricultural land, detaching and transporting sediment into the surrounding natural and built environment. In the Belgian Loess Belt, muddy floods occur regularly and lead to considerable economic costs associated with damage to property and infrastructure. Mitigation measures designed to manage the problem have been tested in a pilot area within Flanders and were found to be cost-effective within three years. This study assesses whether these mitigation measures will remain effective under a changing climate. To test this, the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model was used to examine muddy flooding diagnostics (precipitation, runoff, soil loss and sediment yield) for a case study hillslope in Flanders where grass buffer strips are currently used as a mitigation measure. The model was run for present day conditions and then under 33 future site-specific climate scenarios. These future scenarios were generated from three earth system models driven by four representative concentration pathways and downscaled using quantile mapping and the weather generator CLIGEN. Results reveal that under the majority of future scenarios, muddy flooding diagnostics are projected to increase, mostly as a consequence of large scale precipitation events rather than mean changes. The magnitude of muddy flood events for a given return period is also generally projected to increase. These findings indicate that present day mitigation measures may have a reduced capacity to manage muddy flooding given the changes imposed by a warming climate with an enhanced hydrological cycle. Revisions to the design of existing mitigation measures within existing policy frameworks are considered the most effective way to account for the impacts of climate change in future mitigation planni

Critical perspectives on writing analytics

Writing Analytics focuses on the measurement and analysis of written texts for the purpose of understanding writing processes and products, in their educational contexts, and improving the teaching and learning of writing. This workshop adopts a critical, holistic perspective in which the definition of "the system" and "success" is not restricted to IR metrics such as precision and recall, but recognizes the many wider issues that aid or obstruct analytics adoption in educational settings, such as theoretical and pedagogical grounding, usability, user experience, stakeholder design engagement, practitioner development, organizational infrastructure, policy and ethics