Richard Dimbleby TV - Ken Burns TV - William Shakespeare - Edward Fitzgerald - Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary Journey TV - Horace - The Sopranos TV - Honeydripper 2007 - America: The Story of the US TV - Exodus 9:9 - Job 34:15 - Matthew 10:14 - George Carlin - Mary Wollstonecraft - Peter Ackroyd - Edna St Vincent Millay - James Joyce - Dorothy Parker - Richard Hammond TV - Augustine Birrell - Red Dwarf TV - Horizon: Toxic Town: The Corby Poisonings TV - Pauline Robertson - How the Universe Works TV - World in Action TV -
I wish with all my heart that everyone fighting in this war could have come with me through the barbed wire fence that leads to the inner compound of the camp. Beyond the barrier was a whirling cloud of dust – the dust of thousands of slowly moving people and with the dust was a smell sickly and thick, the smell of death and decay of corruption and filth. I passed through the barrier and found myself in the world of a nightmare. Richard Dimbleby, report BBC 19th April 1945
By 1933 the people of the southern plains were already weary of the draught that had struck more than a year earlier, withering their crops and turning their barren fields into pulverized dust which the constant winds picked up and transformed into fearsome black blizzards ... In truth, the worst was yet to come. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: Dust to Eat, PBS 2012
‘Dust to eat, and dust to breathe, and dust to drink, dust in the beds and in the flower beds, on dishes and walls and windows … ibid.
One quarter of the county’s population now depended on New Deal jobs. ibid.
By 1936 nearly a quarter of the people living in the southern plains had begun to leave. Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl: Hardy Ones
By the end of July the number of destructive storms would rise to 79, by the end of the year to 110. ibid.
Then in the early 1950s, when the wet cycle ended and a two-year draught replaced it, the dust storms picked up once more. ibid.
Guiderius: Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun,
Nor the furious winters rages.
You thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Arviragus: Fear no more the frown o’ th’ great,
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.
Care no more to clothe and eat,
To thee the reed is as the oak.
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust. William Shakespeare, Cymbeline IV ii @259
Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie,
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer and – sans End! Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubdiyat of Omar Khayyam
Massive dust storms called haboobs ... Haboobs are produced in normally arid regions when the leading edge of a storm collapses. Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary Journey III, BBC 2012
We are but dust and shadow. Horace
Go find some dust. The Sopranos s3e4: Employee of the Month starring James Gandolfini & Lorriane Bracco & Edie Falco & Michael Imperioli & Dominic Chianese & Steven van Zandt & Tony Sirico & Robert Iler et al, Tony to servant, HBO 2001
The only thing to wash out t’ dust is whisky. Honeydripper 2007 starring Danny Glover & Yaya DaCosta & Charles S Dutton & Daryl Edwards & Vondie Curtis-Hall & Lisa Gay Hamilton & Stacy Keach & Mable John et al, director John Sayles, bloke in field
1934 and darkness falls across America. In the worst environmental disaster in American history – dust storms ... The dust storm rips across the country. America: The Story of the US: Bust, History 2010
And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt. Exodus 9:9
All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust. Job 34:15
When ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Matthew 10:14
Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established. George Carlin
It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should be only organized dust. Mary Wollstonecraft
‘Is Dust immortal then,’ I ask’d him, ‘so that we may see it blowing through the Centuries?’ But as Walter gave no Answer I jested with him further to break his Melancholy humour: ‘What is Dust, Master Pyne?’
And he reflected a little: ‘It is particles of Matter, no doubt.’
‘Then we are all Dust indeed, are we not?’
And in a feigned Voice he murmured, ‘For Dust thou art and shalt to Dust return.’ Then he made a Sour face, but only yo laugh the more. Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor
And you as well must die, beloved dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
This body of flame and steel, before the gust. Edna St Vincent Millay
Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, leprous and winedark stones. James Joyce, Ulysses
EXCUSE MY DUST Dorothy Parker, proposed inscription for gravestone 1925
Dust plays a central role in our weather. Wild Weather with Richard Hammond: Temperature – the Driving Force, BBC 2014
That great dust-heap called history. Augustine Birrell
I love dust. After fluff it’s my all-time favourite dirt. Red Dwarf s11e2: Samsara, Kryten, BBC 2016
In the 1990s strange things began to happen in the small town of Corby. Mothers began to give birth to children with severe deformities. As the number of cases grew, the mothers demanded to know why this had happened to their children. This is the unknown story of the worst child poisoning case since Thalidomide. A case that changed our understanding of the dangers of air pollution. Horizon: Toxic Town: The Corby Poisonings, BBC 2020
‘Mothers all from the same small area all of whom had given to birth to children with very similar deformities.’ ibid. Stephen Bevan, Sunday Time journalist
1The waste sites were located on land where the town’s steel works once stood. Corby started life as a village but in the 1930s one of the largest steel plants in Europe was built. But in 1980, faced with huge government cuts, the steel work shut down, leaving 11,000 people unemployed. Corby Council devised a plan to regenerate the town (1983). This tiny council took on the biggest land reclamation project in Europe with a ten-year regeneration programme to help bring Corby back to life. But demolishing a steel work is a complex process: steel making generates toxic waste that must be carefully disposed of. ibid.
As this story spread, more and more mothers started coming forward. ibid.
‘It was such a cover up.’ ibid.
With the Council claiming no evidence of a cluster, the mother’s fight for answers seemed to be over … ‘My reading the article in the Sunday Times was complete happenstance … I had back in the day worked in the steel works.’ ibid. Des Collins, solicitor
‘It isn’t normal for secret documents to turn up; it’s like something out of a John Grisham novel.’ ibid.
The advice included that the contractors cover their lorries and make sure no dust is created particularly on public roads … ‘Lorries weren’t covered, with sludge raining out of the back of these dump trucks. All the roads in this area are judged covered in this silt. And that’s where things went pear-shaped … a tremendous amount of pollution over the whole of the district. That is basically a toxic soup of dust hanging over a town … over many many years.’ ibid. Environmental health officer
18 families were now involved in the fight for compensation, and they were finally ready to go to trial … A case that had never been proven before: ten years after their battle began, all 18 mothers made their way to court … The judge visited the reclamation site … The issue of how far the dust could travel … [Corby Council] were hit with a legal bill of almost £15 million. It was the first case in the world to rule that air pollution could harm babies in the womb. ibid.
It’d blister your face. It would put your eyes out ... That steady blow of dirt. Pauline Robertson
The red planet [Mars] is covered in sticky dust. How the Universe Works s8e2: NASA Mission to Mars