On Mon, 2009-12-21 at 19:23 +0000, Charles Matthews wrote:
WMUK list CC Steve Virgin
Charles Matthews wrote:
Brian McNeil wrote:
Stephen Fry reading his favourite Yeats poem anyone?
Have you seen the recent Doonesbury strand about celeb voices for satnav? This one actually might have some legs.
So Stephen Fry is represented by Hamilton Hodell: http://www.hamiltonhodell.co.uk/page.asp?partid=3
And is so pro-Web it hurts: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7926509.stm
So this is to follow up, surely. Who would like to contact the agency, explain that a smallish gesture of recording a poem on own machine and posting it to Commons is something Stephen could do to back up his comment on the BBC page: "The past co-exists"? Which is very Yeatsian. And doing it on New Year's Day would be symbolic timing.
I would be more than happy to draft something and have a few people pick it over before sending. I would like to actually be cheeky enough to capitalise on the WikiVoices session Mike Peel and I are doing on Wednesday with Jimmy Wales. That is, if a good appeal for a "far more valuable than money" donation can be drawn up by Wednesday, why not ask Jimmy to send it to Stephen Fry's agent?
Anyone else we could target as poetry lovers and such? I know there is the talent within the Wikimedia fold to make up for sub-optimal recording conditions but, I do see an opportunity to make works entering the public domain a cause for celebration. So, who among the UK and Ireland's celebrities might want to do their bit for the Wikimedia fundraiser by donating their voice to a recording of Yeats, available from January 1, 2010?