Thursday, Apr. 28, 2011 How the Monarchy Allows Britannia to Make Waves By Tristram Hunt At the Portmeirion pottery works at Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire, the kilns are fired up to get out the Kate and William commemorative cups and saucers. And so too at the Tangshan Hengrui Ceramics factory outside Beijing, where tens of thousands of “happy couple” plates are in production. At the TUI travel agency in Hanover, Germany the guided “Will and Kate Royal Wedding Tour” has done good business enticing tourists into London this balmy April. And at Franklin Mint in Philadelphia, the “Kate Middleton Royal Engagement Vinyl Doll” is proving a lucrative product line. This is…

April 28, 1925: T.S. Eliot accepts a job at Faber and Faber publishers Previous DayApril 28CalendarNext Day Poet T.S. Eliot accepts a position as editor at Faber and Faber publishers. The job allows Eliot, who is already recognized as a major poet, to quit his job as a bank clerk at Lloyd’s Bank in London. He holds the publishing position until his death, in 1965. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a well-established family. His grandfather had founded Washington University in St. Louis, his father was a businessman, and his mother was involved in local charities. Eliot took an undergraduate degree at Harvard, studied at the Sorbonne, returned…

APRIL 28, 2011, 5:00 AM Day by Day: A Personal Story From Japan By CHRISTOPH BANGERT When we asked Christoph Bangert to write a journal-style account of his trip through Japan in late March and early April, he hesitated at first, thinking that his life was not the story. However, because he is so frequently asked for details about his travels, he gave it a try. Uster, Switzerland. Friday, March 11. 8:35 a.m. My wife, Chiho, and I are both still wearing our pajamas. We’re staring in disbelief at our computer screens: 8.8. It’s massive. After several attempts, Chiho gets through to her 70-year-old mother in Mishima. She has never…