Bad Poetry and Mad Inspiration
In this episode Suzie examines the work of the alleged worst poet in history and Trevor finds one of the stranger impacts of Rasputin’s legacy.
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REFERENCES
William McGonagall
Abrahams M 2011, ‘Cheesy poems get a new audience’ https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/mar/07/improbable-research-william-mcgonagall
BBC News 2019, ‘Worst poet’ outsells boy wizard http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/7402920.stm
Bort E 2011,’Review: Poet McGonagall’ https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/scot.2012.0034
Hunt C 2020, ‘McGonagall Online’ https://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/
Interesting Literature 2020, ‘Five Fascinating Facts about William McGonagall’ https://interestingliterature.com/2015/09/five-fascinating-facts-about-william-mcgonagall/
Johnson B n.d., ‘William McGonagall – The Bard of Dundee’ https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/William-McGonagall-The-bard-of-Dundee/
McSmith A 2008, ‘The story of William McGonagall, the worst poet in the history of the English language’ https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-story-of-william-mcgonagall-the-worst-poet-in-the-history-of-the-english-language-829993.html
Patowary K 2019, ‘The Tay Bridge Disaster And The World’s Worst Poem’ https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/11/the-tay-bridge-disaster-and-worlds.html
Poetry Foundation 2020, ‘Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah William McGonagall’ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-mcgonagall
Rasuputin and Felix Yusupov
Poisoned, shot and beaten: why cyanide alone may have failed to kill Rasputin – The Guardian 13 Jan 2017
How Rasputin Initiated the ‘All Persons Fictitious’ Disclaimer in Movies – The Vintage News 4 Mar 2019
The Shocking Story of Rasputin the Mad Monk – 13th Floor 2 Jan 2017The Strange Reason Nearly Every Film Ends by Saying It’s Fiction (You Guessed It: Rasputin!) – Slate 26 Aug 2016
Other stuff:
The word history in the opening theme has been extracted from…
History Never Repeats – Split Enz (1981)
History Repeating – Propellerheads feat: Miss Shirley Bassey (1998)
Flame Trees – Cold Chisel (1984)
You’re History – Shakespeare’s Sister (1989)
Centuries – Fall Out Boy (2015)
Fade out – Rasputin – Boney M
All music used under fair use provisions.
