Anthony Hopkins plays the legendary director in this biopic that chronicles the personal and professional relationship between Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) during the making of his 1960 classic 'Psycho'. It's 1959 and, increasingly worried about his relevance, Hitchcock decides a change of direction is what is needed. He settles on adapting Robert Bloch's true crime novel 'Psycho', despite the protestations of both Alma and Paramount President Barney Balaban (Richard Portnow).

Having to mortgage their house to pay for the film, Alma's initial opposition soon gives way to support, as she dutifully throws herself fully behind the project. But as her husband begins to indulge himself in his trademark flights of fancy with a variety of blonde stars, Alma, whilst trying to keep the marriage on the rails, is determined that her own needs take centre stage.

"We must religiously observe our engagements with China, but I fear that Hong Kong is a sorry possession and Chusan is a magnificent island admirably placed for our purposes." So wrote the home secretary Sir James Graham to the prime minister Sir Robert Peel, as British diplomats prepared to return the island of Chusan to Chinese rule during the winter of 1845. For years, this now little-known island off the coast of Zhejiang province had been home to thousands of men, women and children of all classes and backgrounds, of all races and religions, from across the British Empire and beyond. Before the Union Jack ever flew over Hong Kong, it had been raised on Chusan. From a wealth of primary archives, Liam D'Arcy-Brown pieces together the forgotten story of how the British wrested Chusan from the Qing dynasty, only to hand it back for the sake of Queen Victoria's honour and Britain's national prestige. At a time when the Chinese Communist Party is inspiring a new brand of patriotism by revisiting the shame inflicted during the Opium Wars, here is a book that puts Britain's incursions into nineteenth-century China in a fascinating and revealing new light.

Together With A Brief Outline Of The Origin And History Of The Militia Force Of Great Britain To The Present Time.

Together With A Brief Outline Of The Origin And History Of The Militia Force Of Great Britain To The Present Time.