Independent Brontës

The Telegraph looks at other parts of the UK wishing to break away such as:

Yorkshire
Devolutionary credibility: 7/10
The Yorkshire devolution movement may be fairly small but my, is it feisty. The largest historic county in the United Kingdom has a population the size of Scotland and an economy twice the size of Wales – and some residents feel Yorkshire’s identity doesn’t get enough recognition as just one part of Great Britain. A nation state of Yorkshire would already have a national cuisine (Wensleydale cheese and Yorkshire puddings), a strong literary culture (the Brontë sisters), and perform well at the Olympics – Yorkshire would have come 12th in 2012 if it had competed as its own country. Geoffrey Boycott could be a strong contender for state figurehead, but let’s not encourage this trend – Yorkshire’s flat caps are at the heart of Britishness, and there they should remain. (Olivia Goldhill)

The Huffington Post lists five books that celebrate Scotland.

The Bride of Lammermoor by Sir Walter ScottIt doesn't get more Scottish than Sir Walter Scott. Although he may be best known for his other works like Ivanhoe and Waverley, the Bride of Lammermoor is one of his more entertainingly bizarre works. It is a Wuthering Heights style story of brooding men and obsessive love and fallen families, but the conclusion is more absurd than anything the Brontës offered. (Lauren Sarner)

The Independent reviews Gwendolen: A Novel by Diana Souhami, which features Gwendolen Harleth out of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. This of course warrants a mention of Wide Sargasso Sea:

The novel re-costumes Gwendolen as the latest in a line of resurrected protagonists. Jean Rhys opened this terrain with Wide Sargasso Sea. Since then, heroines out of the Brontës, Austen and du Maurier have all made comebacks – even Virginia Woolf, if you count Michael Cunningham's The Hours. This sub-genre calls for a tricky blend of pastiche, homage, critique and re-imagining. (Boyd Tonkin)

The Guardian looks at the way some poets have written about death.

Rupert Brooke wanted some part of him to be “forever England”. Keith Douglas asked to be simplified when he was dead. Emily Brontë pleaded for death itself in Death. Emily Dickinson “heard a Fly buzz” when she died. Sylvia Plath assidously courted death in Lady Lazarus, and the poem made a conscious performance of it. (George Szirtes)

The Craven Herald and Pioneer tells its readers about the use of the long s:

Taking the easiest first, part of the answer lies in the use of the "long s", very similar to today’s "f", which was once standard with words that would now use a double "ss".
It went out of favour and fashion in the 1790s, but continued in more formal use for at least another 60 years. Charlotte Brontë writing to a friend in 1848 referred to the novelist Jane Austen as "Mifs Austen". (Lindsey Moore)

France TV Info features Coco Channel's apartment as seen by Sam Taylor-Wood.

De la bergère tendue de satin blanc sur laquelle Chanel fut photographiée par Horst en 1937, des paravents de Coromandel aux miroirs vénitiens, des murs recouverts d’éditions reliées de Shakespeare, Voltaire, Byron et Brontë, aux lustres en cristal de roche du salon sur lesquels un oeil attentif pourra déceler une floraison de camélias, sans oublier le chiffre 5, le double C, et les initiales G pour Gabrielle et W pour Westminster, aucun détail n’a été omis. (Corinne Jeammet) (Translation)

The latest on-screen Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester are mentioned in two different articles today. Here's how the Wall Street Journal describes Mia Wasikowska's portrayal of Jane:

In Cary Fukunaga's screen version of "Jane Eyre," she played Jane with calm, transfixing purity. (Joe Morgenstern)

While Stuff (New Zealand) shares an instagram image of a ferry passenger with Michel Fassbender. The passenger accompanied the pictures with a bit of fangirl gushing:

A-list actor and X-Men star Michael Fassbender is in in Marlborough.
"The Fass", as he is sometimes referred to, was spotted by fans on the ferry from Wellington to Picton yesterday.
One woman took to Instagram, a social media platform where you can share photos, posting a picture of herself with Fassbender on the ferry about noon.
She posted the photo with the caption: "Life is complete, met Michael Fassbender aka Mr Rochester [Jane Eyre] on the Wellington to Picton ferry!! #starstruck #michaelfassbender #newzealand."
People began commenting on the photo, to which the woman said she was "giggling like a school girl" after meeting him. (Chloe Winter)

The Big Issue interviews Amanda Owen, known as the Yorkshire Shepherdess. Her farm is described as

heather moorland – very Wuthering Heights. It’s all drystone walls and barns. The heather has started to flower so it’s got a purple hue. (Vicky Carroll)

An alert from Davis, California:

“Jane Eyre,” a 1996 multi-national film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, will be screened Friday, Sept. 19, as part of the International Film Series.
The series is co-sponsored by the United Nations Association of Davis and International House. Doors at I-House, 10 College Park, open at 7:30 p.m. and the film begins promptly at 8 p.m. (The Davis Enterprise)

The two latest screen adaptations of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are the subject of two posts: Film Intel gives 3 stars out of 5 to Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights Blu-Ray release and Cinema de novo writes in Portuguese about Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre. 

Finally, via the Brontë Parsonage Twitter, here's a clip of The Secret Life of Books episode on Jane Eyre featuring Ann Dinsdale and Bidisha. The programme is to be broadcast at the end of this month.