Andrew Dalby

Andrew Dalby (b. 1947 in Liverpool) is an English linguist, translator and historian who has written articles and several books on a wide range of topics including food history, language, Classical texts, and Wikipedia.

Education and early career[link]

Dalby studied Latin, French and Greek at the Bristol Grammar School and University of Cambridge. Here he also studied Romance languages and linguistics, earning a bachelor's degree in 1970.

Dalby worked for fifteen years at Cambridge University Library, eventually specializing in Southern Asia. He gained familiarity with some other languages because of his work there, where he had to work with foreign serials and afterwards with South Asia and Southeast Asian materials. He also wrote articles on multilingual topics linked with the library and its collections.

In 1982 and 1983 he collaborated with Sao Saimong in cataloguing the Scott Collection of manuscripts and documents from Burma (especially the Shan States) and Indochina. Dalby later published a short biography of the colonial civil servant and explorer J. G. Scott, who formed the collection.^[1] To help him with this task, he took classes in Cambridge again in Sanskrit, Hindi and Pali and in London in Burmese and Thai.

Regent's College and food writing[link]

After his time at Cambridge, Dalby worked in London helping to start the library at Regent's College and on renovating another library at London House (Goodenough College). He also served as Honorary Librarian of the Institute of Linguists, for whose journal The Linguist he writes a regular column. He later did a part-time Ph.D. at Birkbeck College, London in ancient history (in 1987-93), which improved his Latin and Greek. His Dictionary of Languages was published in 1998. Language In Danger, on the extinction of languages and the threatened monolingual future, followed in 2002.

Meanwhile, he began to work on food history and contributed to Alan Davidson's journal Petits Propos Culinaires; He was eventually one of Davidson's informal helpers on the Oxford Companion to Food. Dalby's first food history book, Siren Feasts, appeared in 1995 and won a Runciman Award; it is also well known in Greece, where it was translated as Seireneia Deipna. At the same time he was working with Sally Grainger on The Classical Cookbook, the first historical cookbook to look beyond Apicius to other ancient Greek and Roman sources in which recipes are found.

Dangerous Tastes, on the history of spices, was the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year for 2001. Work on this also led to Dalby's first article for Gastronomica magazine, in which he traced the disastrous exploration of Gonzalo Pizarro in search of La Canela in eastern Ecuador, showing how the myth of the "Valley of Cinnamon" first arose and identifying the real tree species which was at the root of the legend.^[2] Dalby's light-hearted biography of Bacchus includes a retelling, rare in English, of the story of Prosymnus and the price he demanded for guiding Dionysus to Hades. His epilogue to Petronius' Satyrica combines a gastronomic commentary on the "Feast of Trimalchio" with a fictional dénouement inspired by the fate of Petronius himself.^[3]

Classics[link]

Dalby's Rediscovering Homer developed out of two academic papers from the 1990s in which he argued that the Iliad and Odyssey must be seen as belonging to the same world as that of the early Greek lyric poets but to a less aristocratic genre.^[4] Returning to these themes, he spotlit the unknown poet who, long after the time of the traditional Homer, at last saw the Iliad and Odyssey recorded in writing. As he teasingly suggested, based on what we can judge of this poet's interests and on the circumstances in which oral poetry has been recorded elsewhere, "it is possible, and even probable, that this poet was a woman."^[5]

Languages[link]

Dalby's book Language in Danger: The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to Our Future, focuses on the decline and extinction of languages from ancient times to the modern era. Dalby attributes the loss to the emergence of large centralised political groupings, the spread of communications technologies, and the hegemony of the English language.^[6]

Dalby profiles endangered languages and discusses the significance of their disappearance, which he estimates occurs at a rate of one every two weeks. He states that the world is diminished by each language lost because they encapsulate "local knowledge and ways of looking at the human condition that die with the last speaker." He also discusses the way stronger languages "squeeze out" others, using the rise of Latin and the extinctions that occurred around the Mediterranean in classical times as an example, and notes a similar pattern that Irish, Welsh, and various Native American languages and indigenous Australian languages have faced in the English-speaking world, where they "were banned in school to force minority groups to speak the language of the majority". Dalby writes that preferences have shifted toward encouraging minority languages and that many can be saved. His account was described as engrossing by The Wall Street Journal.^[7] The book disputes advocacy of a single common language as a means to a happier, more peaceful, and improved world.^[8]

Works[link]

• 1993: South East Asia: a guide to reference material
• 1995: Siren Feasts: a history of food and gastronomy in Greece
• 1996: The Classical Cookbook
• 1998: Cato: On Farming (translation and commentary)
• 1998: Dictionary of Languages
• 1998: Guide to World Language Dictionaries
• 2000: Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World
• 2000: Dangerous Tastes: the story of spices
• 2002: Language in Danger; The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to Our Future Columbia University 329 pages^[8]
• 2003: Flavours of Byzantium
• 2003: Food in the ancient world from A to Z
• 2005: Bacchus: a biography
• 2005: Venus: a biography
• 2006: Rediscovering Homer
• 2009: The World and Wikipedia
• 2009: Cheese: a global history

Notes[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Andrew Dalby

• Andrew Dalby's website

Kerri-Anne Kennerley
Kennerley in September 2011
Born	Kerri-Anne Wright (1953-09-22) 22 September 1953 (age 58) Sandgate, Queensland, Australia
Residence	Woollahra, Sydney, Australia
Occupation	Television presenter Singer
Known for	TV variety show
Spouse	John Kennerley

Kerri-Anne Wright Kennerley (born 22 September 1953 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) is an Australian television personality. She is one of Australia's most seasoned light entertainment hosts. She is noted for her very professional and personable hosting style, and her ability to handle awkward guests and situations with gentle humour and composure.

She is usually mentioned among the television industry as Australia's "Daytime TV Queen", because her television career is marked as hosting programs during the day.

Career[link]

Kennerley, known by her initials as KAK, has rarely been out of the public eye since her first television appearance in 1967 at the age of 13 on the children's shows The Channel Niners and Everybody's In on Brisbane's QTQ 9. Her audience stayed with her when she crossed to The Saturday Show on Network Ten, and when she tackled the New York cabaret circuit as a 19 year old singer.

Upon her return to Australia in 1981 after a five year stint in the US, Kennerley met her future husband. In that year she landed her first adult role on Australian TV, as the dowdy Melinda Burgess in TV series The Restless Years, a teen-oriented soap opera. She hosted the breakfast TV program Good Morning Australia on Network Ten a role she held for 11 years. During the 1980s Kennerley also performed as a singer, and released a self-titled album (Kerri-Anne) as well as a Christmas album in 1985.^[1] Her cabaret singing style was parodied by singer and comedian Gina Riley on the TV comedy show Fast Forward. She also appeared on the television show and later record album Andrew Denton's Musical Challenge with a rendition of the AC/DC song Dirty Deeds.

From 1996 until 1998, she was the compere of the daytime-variety TV show Midday. Her hosting duties on the show earnt her three Gold Logie nominations. Once Midday finished in late 1998, she joined the What's Cooking program in 1999. This role, however, (and the program itself) only lasted a few months. Both Midday and Whats Cooking aired on the Nine Network.

In 2001, she shifted to Channel Ten to host Greed and Moment of Truth. Both shows flopped and lasted a handful of episodes only. She has entered dancing with the stars In 2002 Kennerley returned to the Nine Network where she hosted Kerri-Anne (formally titled 'Mornings with Kerri-Anne') for nine years, before it was cancelled and replaced with Mornings. She has garnered considerable media attention from the program's dance instruction segments featuring prominent Australian politicians – Peter Costello and the macarena, Cheryl Kernot and the Cha-cha-cha and Kevin Rudd and the rumba. Her more memorable interviewees included the normally reticent Priscilla Presley who discussed her ex-husband Elvis and daughter Lisa Marie.^[2] American TV actor John Stamos who appeared on her show in June 2007 was arguably her most challenging interview. Two years later Stamos conceded that he was drunk, which confirmed media speculation raised at the time.^[3] Kennerley also persuaded Russell Crowe to hurl himself against a wall on her show. Kennerley caused controversy in 2010 while discussing sexual assault allegations involving two Collingwood Football Club players on her show by referring to women who socialize with footballers as "strays" and for suggesting that "responsibility cuts both ways".^[4]

Kennerley moved to the Seven Network in 2012, and is currently appearing as a contestant on the network's program Dancing with the Stars. She will also host a new as yet unamed prime-time program for the network as well as appearing regularly on other shows, such as Weekend Sunrise as a guest host/reporter.

Personal life[link]

Kerri-Anne was born Kerri-Anne Wright, the daughter of a builder/hobby farmer. Along with her three siblings, she was raised in Brisbane's bayside suburb of Sandgate.^[5] In 1984 she married divorcee John Kennerley at the Sydney Opera House, the first such event to be held there. "Meeting John was the biggest turning point in my life" she says. She has two step children, plus a pet dog Harvey, which she named after former band leader Geoff Harvey. In a recent^[when?] interview in Australian Women's Weekly, she revealed that she had a miscarriage 15 years ago and will always regret not having children.^{[citation needed]} Kennerley has received several nominations for the Australian Skeptics' annual Bent Spoon Awards due to her uncritical acceptance of psychics and psychic phenomena.^{[citation needed]}

Awards[link]

Kennerley has been nominated on numerous occasions for a Logie. She was nominated for the Gold Logie in 1997, 1998 and 1999 for her role as host of Midday. She has also been nominated for many other awards.

Kennerley was awarded a star on the Caloundra Walk of Stars in 1988. She is between Leo Sayer and Lucky Grills outside of a charcoal chicken restaurant.

TV and Radio work[link]

• Good Morning Australia (1981 – 1991)
• 2UE Fill in Announcer (1992 – 1993)
• 2CH Breakfast shift & CEO (1994 – 1995)
• Monday To Friday (1995)
• Midday with Kerri-Anne (1996 – 1998)
• What's Cooking? (1999)
• Greed (2001)
• Moment of Truth (2001)
• Kerri-Anne at Midday, Radio Show - 2GB (2001)
• Kerri-Anne (formally titled Mornings with Kerri-Anne) (Oct 2002 - Nov 2011)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site
• Kerri-Anne Kennerley at the Internet Movie Database