Jane Austen’s tips for “health and happiness”

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HISTORY EXTRA

Descriptions of health, says author Bryan Kozlowski, run throughout the work of famed novelist Jane Austen – from the character of Mr Woodhouse in Emma to the health resort setting of her unfinished Sanditon. Writing for History Extra, Kozlowski shares four tips that can be found in the Regency-era writer’s classic novels, and what they tell us about contemporary attitudes towards healthy figures, women’s exercise and more…

While most of us have focused on the heart of Jane Austen’s novels or its portrayal of the society of the period, Austen herself was equally fascinated by something rather more functional: health. For some time now, I’ve been following the Jane Austen diet. Yes, you did read that correctly. To quote the character Mr Collins in the author’s Pride and Prejudice, “do not make yourself uneasy”. Because not only is the diet real, it’s been hiding right under our literary noses for more than two centuries.

It is incorporated into nearly everything Austen wrote, as this quote from Emma (1816) shows: “Where health is at stake, nothing else should be considered.” Themes of health are woven into her earliest stories; they continue strongly throughout Emma and Persuasion (1817); and are centre-stage in her last, unfinished novel Sanditon (set in a seaside health resort). Ironically, as Austen’s own health was fading [she died at the age of 41 after becoming ill with what is today thought to have been Addison’s disease], she wrote about cherishing true health even more.

In fact, look closer at her fiction and you’ll find that “improvement of health” has always been a part of Austen’s happily-ever-after package, freely bestowed on her most worthy characters, from Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility (1811) to Anne Elliot in Persuasion, who begins her own story a bit “faded” in the physical department. Yet to gradually regain one’s natural “bloom” is the birthright of Austen’s great and good. Even the word “health” itself pops up more than a hundred times in her six classic novels.

What Austen had to say about health and what science says today are astonishingly similar

Yet if Austen’s passion for doling out “secure and permanent health” is news to you, join the club; I only recently discovered it myself. Though interested in Jane Austen since adolescence it wasn’t until I neared my 30th birthday that I noticed something remarkable. What Austen had to say about health more than 200 years ago, and what science says today, is astonishingly similar.

The way her healthiest characters eat, exercise and think about their bodies can be seen to have unique patterns and modern parallels to heed. The discovery led me on a personal research project that has forever transformed my image of Austen – from ‘dowdy Hampshire spinster’ to timeless health guru with a sparkling wit. So, for lack of a better description, I’ve been on the Jane Austen ‘diet’ for more than two years now, incorporating wellness strategies found her in her writing into everyday life, finding new and fascinating ways to approach old body problems. Here are just a few of the many health lessons that Jane Austen advocated in her writing…

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Jeremy Northam to play Charles II in Devil's Whore sequel New Worlds

The Tudors star will play a ruthless and unpleasant version of the Merry Monarch in the Channel 4 historical drama

RADIO TIMES

Ben Dowell

10:30 PM, 29 July 2013

New Worlds, Channel 4’s follow up to its acclaimed 2008 period drama The Devil’s Whore, will feature a very unpleasant, tyrannical and brutal Charles II who will be played by The Tudors’ Jeremy Northam, RadioTimes.com can reveal.

“In New Worlds, the restored King Charles II has betrayed his promise of tolerance and is now exerting a tyrannical and brutal rule over his people with torture, hangings, show trials and state terror being commonplace across England,” said Channel 4 of its four-part drama.

Also starring is The Fall’s Jamie Dornan and Games of Thrones’ Joe Dempsie.

Dornan, who played the handsome killer in The Fall, takes on the part of idealistic outlaw Abe in the drama set in England and America in the 1680s.

Dempsie, who stars as heroic blacksmith Gendry in GoT, plays an American colonist opposing the English crown.

The piece has been co-written by Peter Flannery with Martine Brant and is being seen by the boradcaster as a companion drama to Flannery's hit 2008 period piece The Devil’s Whore.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-07-29/jeremy-northam-to-play-charles-ii-in-devils-whore-sequel-new-worlds

Unforgettable Period Drama Couples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piZc7XXzZKw

Tiyera

Ewan McGregor Talks About “The Impossible” And Family POSTED DEC. 26, 2012, 6:00 AM BEVERLY COHN / EDITOR-AT-LARGE (SANTA MONICA MIRROR)

It is no accident that the perennial youthful and stunningly handsome Ewan McGregor is an international acting treasure who has racked up a list of impressive credits earning him the Number 9 spot on Channel 4’s Greatest Movie Stars of All Time.

His breakout role was in “Trainspotting” in which he played a heroin addict and since then starred in such films as the prequel trilogy of “Star Wars” playing Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, the love-struck poet in “Moulin Rouge,” the son in both “Big Fish” and “Beginners,” as well starring roles in “Black Hawk Down,” “Cassandra’s Dream,” “Emma,” “Ghost Writer,” and “Angels & Demons.” Theatre trained, McGregor also received accolades for his stage performances in “Guys and Dolls,” and “Othello.”

His latest film, “The Impossible,” is the heart-wrenching story of a family’s struggle for survival in the wake of the horrifying tsunami that hit Thailand the morning after Christmas in 2004. One of the worst natural disasters in history, it tells the story of determination and bravery under unimaginable conditions. McGregor plays Henry, the father and co-stars with Naomi Watts as his wife, Maria, and three wonderful young actors who play their sons – Tom Holland (Lucas), Samuel Joslin (Thomas), and Oaklee Pendergast (Simon). The film is a monument to honoring the best that human beings can be in the face of unspeakable carnage.

McGregor recently sat down with a group of select journalists to discuss the film, along with personal revelations, and the following has been edited for content and continuity for print purposes.

What this family went through is beyond belief. Did you meet the father who you played as Henry?

Ewan: I met him when the family came out to Kolok (Thailand) where we were shooting, after about a month of filming. I did have telephone calls with him. They are a Spanish family, but we decided not to play them as a Spanish family, so I felt like I was concentrating playing the guy on the page. The character in the script is Henry and I used the things I learned from the real father about his experience, but also things I learned from other survivors. I met this amazing woman in London who was very gracious and told me her story. She lost her husband in the tsunami and she has three children and her story is very similar to my character’s in that she was with her two younger kids and her husband and eldest daughter were separated. She didn’t know where they were. So her experience and journey was very similar to his (Henry) in that she was looking for them. She would find somewhere safe to leave her kids and then she would search for her daughter and her husband.

READ MORE: http://www.smmirror.com/articles/seven-days/Ewan-McGregor-Talks-About-The-Impossible-And-Family/36390

Happily Ever Every After - Period Movies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEVdeOvA-y4

JaneJunkie

Jane Austen Couples

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz4nwzjfJkE

Jeremy Northam: This much I know (The Guardian)

By Emma John

"People probably think I'm a toff, a public schoolboy and a Conservative voter. None of which I am": actor Jeremy Northam.

Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

Because of the parts I've played – Mr Knightley in Emma, Ivor Novello in Gosford Park – people probably think I'm a toff, a public schoolboy and a Conservative voter. None of which I am. My dad was an academic and the things that were valued in our household were conversation, sharing, books, music.

We didn't have money and my folks had to be cautious people, so there was a sense of sharing and fairness among the family. It was a very warm upbringing. I don't know much about that world of the aristocrat. But the business is what the business is and if you do something well you're liable to be hired for the same thing next time.

Part of turning 50 for me is going, fine, if you want to put me in a dinner jacket I might as well go with it. I once played two Sir Roberts back to back. We even filmed on the same location. I had to pinch myself and think, "This is ridiculous."

My mother died while I was doing a play. Five years later I finally agreed to do another play and while I was doing that my father died. People say it's a good thing to keep busy at those times, but going on stage and being out of control every night wasn't good for me.

 I feel less wise as I get older. There are uncertainties you have to deal with both in yourself and your understanding of the world and hopefully you get a bit more accepting of them.

You go to Hollywood in full knowledge of what it will be. America afforded me the chance to play Dean Martin, to be in a thriller or a sci-fi. But it's a daunting place, a hard place. I was happy to work there, but I never felt at home.

Read the rest of the article:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/19/this-much-know-jeremy-northam