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Which form of strangulation was for years the official method of execution in Spain? | History of the garotte (or garrotte)
The garotte (or garrotte) was the standard civilian method of execution in
Spain
. It was introduced in 1812/13, at the beginning of the reign of Ferdinand
VII
, to replace the crude form of hanging previously used. At least 736 people, including 16 women, were executed in
Spain
in the 19th century.� It is not clear how complete earlier records are and even modern ones are somewhat patchy.
Some 96 people, including two women, were garotted between 1900 and 1935 with a further 110 men and three women being put to death in the post Civil War period.� Executions also took place by shooting during this period and Spain�s last executions were by firing squad.� Shooting was more commonly handed down by military tribunals, however, it is unclear why people were shot for civilian murders.� Most 20th century executions were for murder or terrorist related crimes, although banditry remained a capital crime, certainly into the 1950�s.
Sixty five men and two women were executed by garotte between 1950 and 1974 in various parts of
Spain
, including one man in
Las Palmas
on Grand Canaria.� All of these suffered either for murder, banditry or major acts of terrorism.� Eleven men were executed by firing squad in the same period.
Garotting appears to have developed from the early Chinese form of execution known as the bow-string. The criminal was tied to an upright post with two holes bored in it through which the ends of a cord from a long bow were passed and pulled tight round the neck by the executioner until the condemned strangled.� In the Spanish version, the prisoner was seated on top of a short post with his back to the main post and a rope loop was placed round his neck and around the post. The executioner twisted a stick inserted in the loop to tighten the rope and strangle the prisoner.
As in most countries, a more humane method of execution was sought and various improvements to the garotte were made.
The next form of garotte comprised a wooden stool on which the prisoner sat with his back to the post (pictured). In some later instances a strong wooden chair was used.� The condemned was strapped at the wrists, arms, waist and legs and the hinged iron collar closed around their neck. A heavy screw operated by a handle or a weighted lever connected to a spike or a small star shaped blade ran through the post. When the screw/lever mechanism was operated, the blade entered the criminal's neck and severed the spinal column, in an attempt to ensure that the prisoner did not strangle to death.
In some versions, two brass collars were used. One collar was attached to the lever whilst the other was fixed to the post. Both collars were hinged to admit the prisoner's neck. When all preparations were complete, the executioner operated the mechanism forcing one collar outwards whilst the other remained stationary thus, if correctly adjusted, dislocating the prisoner's neck and causing immediate unconsciousness followed by death. (As in modern hanging). Click here for a photo of a 20th century garrotting in
Cuba
An execution by garotting of a robber named Jose de Roxas in
Mexico
in the early 1800's was witnessed and described by journalist, Richard Ford, as follows: The condemned man mounted the platform and was seated on a short post with his back to a strong upright post. The executioner fastened the iron collar round his neck. When all was ready, he took the lever in both hands and at the pre-arranged signal, turned the lever so drawing the collar tight whilst his assistant threw a black cloth over Roxas's face.
A convulsive pressure of the hands and a heaving of the chest were the only visible signs of the passing of the robber's spirit. After a pause of a few seconds, the executioner peeped behind the cloth and after giving another turn to the screw, removed the cloth. The dead man was slightly convulsed, the mouth open and the eyeballs were turned into their sockets.
This description is very similar to those of executions carried out by hanging at the same period. �In most cases, the prisoner lost consciousness quite quickly and was dead after a few minutes. Garotting, even in its later forms, could never guarantee an instant loss of consciousness and was never considered to be as quick or humane as hanging.
The first woman to be garotted was Juana Rivero in
Madrid
on
the 3rd of November 1824
for robbery.� Twenty seven year old Mariana Pineda became the first woman to suffer for treason when she was executed on the 26th of May 1831 in Andalusia. Mariana had embroidered a flag with the words, "Equality,
Liberty
, Law." The flag was burned in front of her while she was being executed. It was reported that the spike of the garotte pierced her neck and protruded through her mouth. Afterwards, as customary, her body was taken away, stripped naked (the clothes went to charity), wrapped in a bedsheet, and placed in a cheap pine coffin for burial.� Twenty eight year old Higinia Balaguer, a Spanish maid, became the last woman to suffer public garrotting when she was executed on July the 19th, 1890 at 4.00 a.m., for her part in a robbery murder.� Her execution took place before several thousand spectators at the �Field of the Guards� in Madrid.� The actual garotte was mounted on the platform of scaffold about five feet high, reached by seven steps.� Public execution ended in
Spain
with the garrotting of Lluis M�s and three others, on
the 4th of May 1897
in
Barcelona
.� Silvestre Lluis became the first to suffer in private when he was garotted in
Barcelona
the 15th of June 1897
.
The last female garrotting took place on
May the 19th, 1959
, that of 28 year old Pilar Prades Exp�sito Santamaria, who was executed in
Valencia
for the murder by poisoning, of her employer, Do�a Adela Pascual Camps, on
the 18th of May 1955
.� She was put to death by Snr. A. L�pez Guerra. All three female post Civil War executions were for poisoning, the other two being 23 year old Mar�a Dom�nguez Mart�nez, who had also poisoned her employer and was executed on
the 23rd of May 1949
in
and Teresa G�mez Rubio who suffered on
the 16th of February 1954
in
for three murders committed in 1940/1.
Garotting was last used on
the 2nd of March 1974
, when two men were executed on the same day. Salvador Puig Antich was put to death in
Barcelona
, by A. L�pez Guerra, for the shooting of a police officer during a robbery the previous year and Heinz Chez suffered in
Tarragona
, at the hands of J. Monero Renomo, for the terrorist murder of a Civil Guard Lieutenant.� The garotte used for Antich�s execution is now on display in the Fundaci�n Camilo Jos� Cela, in Iria Flavia.
I am told that the last Spanish executions (in 1975) could not use this method because of a bureaucratic problem. At this time in
Spain
, there was only one executioner, and the condemned were in three different cities,
Madrid
. Thus they were carried out by firing squad on
the 27th of September 1975
when five men were shot for terrorist related murders (two female accomplices were reprieved).� Three of the men were shot in
Madrid
: they were 24 year old Jos� Humberto Francisco Baena Alonso, 27 year old Ram�n Garc�a Sanz and 21 year old Jos� Luis S�nchez-Bravo Sollas, all of whom had murdered policemen in 1975.� Twenty one year old Juan Paredes Manotas was shot in
Barcelona
for a similar crime, while 33 year old Angel Otaegui Echevarr�a was executed in
Burgos
. Capital punishment was effectively abolished in 1978.
The garotte was used in Spanish colonies, e.g.
Cuba
| Garrote |
Who sailed round the world in the yacht Lively Lady? | The History of Execution Methods - Unexplained - IN SEARCH FOR TRUTH
Unexplained / Anthropology / Legal Murder / The History of Execution Methods /
The History of Execution Methods
Execution has been a common punishment throughout the world since the Middle Ages, and was inflicted for a large number of crimes including petty offenses involving property. In England, during the 18th century, death was the punishment for several hundred specific offenses. Most death sentences also involved torture, such as burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, and slow strangulation.
Such severe punishment and torture began to die out in the 18th century when a democratic political philosophy and humanitarian movement grew in strength. The number of offenses punishable by death was reduced in all leading countries. Also, penalties involving torture disappeared with the idea that punishment and death should be swift and humane, whether by guillotine, hanging, the garotte, or the headman's axe.
A trend also began to develop in which life imprisonment was a suitable alternative punishment to death.
Burning at the Stake
Burning at the stake was a popular death sentence and means of torture, used mostly for heretics, witches, and suspicious women. Burning dates back to the Christian era, where, in 643, an edict declared it illegal to burn witches.
However, the increased persecution of witches throughout the centuries resulted in millions of women being burned at the stake. The first major witch-hunt occurred in Switzerland in 1427. Throughout the 1500 and 1600's, witch trials became common throughout Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and Spain during the Inquisition.
Soon after, witch trials began to decline in parts of Europe, and in England the death penalty for witches was abolished. The last legal execution by burning at the stake came with the end of the Spanish Inquisition in 1834.
The Wheel
The wheel as a method of torture and execution could be used in a number of ways. A person could be attached to the outer rim of the wheel and then rolled over sharp spikes, or down a hill, to their death.
Also, the wheel could be laid on its side, like a turntable, with the person tied to it. The wheel would turn, and people would take turns beating the victim with iron bars, breaking bones and eventually causing death.
This method was used throughout Europe, especially during the Middle Ages.
Guillotine
The guillotine became a popular form of execution in France in 1789, when Dr. Joseph Guillotin proposed that all criminals be executed by the same method and that torture should be kept to a minimum. Decapitation was thought to be the least painful and most humane method of execution at the time.
Guillotin suggested that a decapitation machine be built, which was subsequently named after him. The machine was first tested on sheep and calves, and then on human corpses. Finally, after many improvements and trials, the blade was perfected, and the first execution by guillotine took place in 1792. It was widely used during the French Revolution, where many of the executions were held publicly outside the prison of Versailles.
The last public execution by guillotine was held in France, in June 1939. The last official use came in 1977 in France, and the device has not officially been used since.
Hanging and the Garotte
Hanging was a popular way of both executing and torturing a person, with many devices available to aid in the procedure. The prisoner could simply be hanged with a noose, fracturing the neck. However, if torture was to be inflicted, many methods were available. Often, a person would be drawn and quartered before being hanged. For extremely serious crimes such as high treason, hanging alone was not enough. Therefore, a prisoner would be carved into pieces while still alive before being hanged.
The Garotte was also a popular method of torture, and similar to hanging. A mechanical device such as a rack or a gag would be tightened around the person's neck, causing slow strangulation, stretching, and obstruction of blood vessels. A device could also be placed in a prisoner's mouth and kept in place by tying and locking a chain around his or her neck.
Headman's Axe
This form of execution was quite popular in Germany and England during the 16th and 17th centuries, where decapitation was thought to be the most humane form of capital punishment. An executioner, usually hooded, would chop off the person's head with an axe or sword. The last beheading took place in 1747, and the axe used is on display at the Tower of London.
Today, with a greater interest in humanitarianism, capital punishment has become less gruesome than the beheadings and torture that were commonplace centuries before. Lethal injection, electrocution, and lethal gas have become the preferred methods of execution in the United States, mostly because these methods appear to be less offensive to the public, and more humane for the prisoner.
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Comment from Olaf Grouch for The History of Execution Methods
Unfortunately the article on methods of execution ismmisleading, or actually factually innacurate. 1) The wheel was widely used during the middle ages and baroque period, the last in France being in 1745 (?) when Carouche and his Gueps sufferedbthyat fate. Commoners were hoisted up the gallows aat Monfaucon, with separate areas for Christians, Jews, and Moslems. The French used two mnooses, set out at an angle, and pulling in opposite directions, theeby breaking he neck--a mixtuire of hanging and garotte. 2) The garotte has a more cloudy origin, being used in Ottoman Turkey before it was wirst used in Spain in 1814, It was last used in 1972. The last gartte execution under US jurisdiction was in Poerto Rico in 1906 0r 1907. 3) The guillotine was an adaptation of an older machine, the Scottish Maiden, and the Northumberlin Gibbit, as well as a German Fallbiel, used during medieval time. Although associated with the French Reign of Terror, far more Germans and others lost their heads under the Nazi Reime, under direction of herr Gröppler, Hitler's Lord High Executioner. Most Concentration Camps had their Fallbiel installed, and over 1000 heads lolled nin Prague after the assassinjation of Rynhardt Heydrich in June 1942. More than 3000 people lost their heads a Berlin's Plötzenzee Prison than the less than 2000 who were decapitated in France during the terror. ALthough rejected by New York State in the 1880s in favor of electrocution, the first users of lethal injection were the Nazi doctors in their T-4 "euthanasia" program. When Hitler asked Karl HBrandt what would be the mostn humane way to kill, Brandt suggested lethal gas (carbon monoxide) for mass murder, but T-4 took about 20,000 German Lives during the Nazi era. Injection was an alternate form of murder i the camps, under a medical illusion. Mengele used to swab the chest before inserting a large bore needle directly throuigh the chest wall and inject phenol, or used motor oil directly into the heart. One of his Goons, Klaer, was able to kill 20 people an hour that way, As best as can be asertained, lethal gas was used in Nevada; the attempt was to use carbon monoxide, and pipe it into the condemned man's cell while he slept; this was impossible, so they converted their barber shop into a primative gas chamber in 1924. Other states, except North Carolina, all bopiuightg heir gas chambers from Eaton, a firm in Salt Lake City, except North Carolina, which converted an old meat freezer in to their first gas chamber. It is not recognized that although the first gas executions were performed in North Carolina before those at San Quentin, both Central Prison in Raleigh and San Quentin -- 198 exeutions. Execution by firing squad dates from the 17th century, and on eof the earliest was that of Admiral Byng in 1757. Like all other methods, except perhaps the guillotine, it can be botched. The British developed hanging to a high degree, or excellence, but heads were occasiionally ripped off, or traps failoed to operate. It is not possible to adequately convey a hostory of capital punishment in a few lines on the internet. Ole_Grouch
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Comment from Tony Green for The History of Execution Methods
I agree that executions should be televised.To the person who said that "Relatives of the condemed would pull on their legs to break the neck". first of all prove it!!! I find it very doubtfull that the persons carrying out the execution would let family memebers near the condemed person. They would obviously attemp to lift that person to prevent death. secondly often after any stangalation of any sort the brain should go into a dormant or euphoric state there for the person being involved may have little if any idea of what is happing. Also keep in mind that this person commited a severe crime against mankind.
Comment from Don for The History of Execution Methods
I believe that countries that still use the gallows are doing themselves a service by doing away with these criminals in a judicial manner and sending a message to the criminal element. I don't think it would hurt to televise a couple of these hangings showing the mounting of the gallows, noose adjustment, hood, springing of the trapdoor and drop, the doctors pronouncement that the hanging is over.
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Comment from David for The History of Execution Methods
In your comment on the Headman's Axe in England, you fail to mention that beheading was reserved for royalty and those of noble blood. Ordinary commoners were just hanged. Death used to be by strangulation, and the family of the prisoner being executed would hold onto and pull his legs to add more weight, so the person they loved could die more quickly. The use of a trapdoor in hanging, so the drop broke the prisoner's neck, is a relatively recent development. Also, when malefactors were hanged, drawn and quartered, the hanging was first. Only enough to hurt them, make them choke to the edge of unconciousness... The executioner made sure they remained alive for the suffering to come. Their entrails were drawn out of their abdomen while they were still alive and were burned before their eyes. (The body can take a long time to die if vital organs are left intact.) Finally, the victim was attached to four strong horses and pulled apart. The executioner might have to assist the tearing process by hacking at the hips and shoulders so the limbs could be pulled off. The end came when the head was removed from the body, and it would then by displayed on a spike atop the city wall as a warning to others. I'm now in my 50s, but I read about all this in a book about crime and punishment many years ago.
| i don't know |
To which Mediterranean island were UN peacekeepers sent in 1964? | UNFICYP Background - United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus
United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus
Resources
UNFICYP Background
The Republic of Cyprus became an independent state on 16 August 1960, and a member of the United Nations one month later. The Constitution of the Republic, which came into effect on the day of independence, was intended to balance the interests of both the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot communities. Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom entered into a treaty to guarantee the basic provisions of the Constitution and the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Cyprus.
«In the absence of a political settlement to the Cyprus problem, UNFICYP has remained on the island to supervise ceasefire lines, maintain a buffer zone, undertake humanitarian activities and support the good offices mission of the Secretary-General.»
The application of the provisions of the Constitution, however, encountered difficulties from the very beginning and led to a succession of constitutional crises. The accumulated tension between the two communities resulted in the outbreak of violence on the island on 21 December 1963. On 27 December, the Security Council met to consider a complaint by Cyprus charging intervention in its internal affairs and aggression by Turkey. Turkey maintained that Greek Cypriot leaders had tried for more than two years to nullify the rights of the Turkish Cypriot community and denied all charges of aggression.
Establishment of UNFICYP
On 15 February 1964, after all attempts to restore peace on the island had failed, the representatives of the United Kingdom and of Cyprus requested urgent action by the Security Council. On 4 March 1964, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 186 (1964)
, by which it recommended the establishment of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). The Force became operationally established on 27 March 1964.
The mandate of UNFICYP was originally defined in the following terms: "…in the interest of preserving international peace and security, to use its best efforts to prevent a recurrence of fighting and, as necessary, to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order and a return to normal conditions." That mandate, which was conceived in the context of the confrontation between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities in 1964, has been periodically extended by the Security Council.
A coup d'état in Cyprus on 15 July 1974 by Greek Cypriot and Greek elements favouring union with Greece was followed by military intervention by Turkey, whose troops established Turkish Cypriot control over the northern part of the island. The Security Council called for a ceasefire and laid the basis for negotiations between Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom. A de facto ceasefire came into effect on 16 August 1974.
Maintenance of Ceasefire and Military Status Quo
Following the hostilities of July and August 1974, the Security Council adopted a number of resolutions which have affected the functioning of UNFICYP and have required the Force to perform certain additional functions relating, in particular, to the maintenance of the ceasefire. Following the de facto ceasefire, UNFICYP inspected the deployment of the Cyprus National Guard and the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot forces, and ceasefire lines and a buffer zone were established between the areas controlled by the opposing forces.
The ceasefire lines extend approximately 180 kilometres (111.85 miles) across the island. The buffer zone between the lines varies in width from less than 20 metres (21.87 yards) to some 7 kilometres (4.35 miles), and it covers about 3 per cent of the island, including some of the most valuable agricultural land. Strict adherence to the military status quo in the buffer zone, as recorded by UNFICYP at the time, has become a vital element in preventing a recurrence of fighting. UNFICYP maintains surveillance through a system of observation posts, and through air, vehicle and foot patrols. The task of the Force has significantly been complicated by the absence of a formal ceasefire agreement. As a result, UNFICYP has been confronted with hundreds of incidents each year. The most serious incidents tend to occur in areas where the ceasefire lines are in close proximity, particularly in Nicosia and its suburbs.
Over the years, UNFICYP’s structure, strength and its concept of operations have been reviewed and adjusted on several occasions, in light of the developments on the ground. The Force has continued to investigate and act upon all violations of the ceasefire and the military status quo. Its reaction in each case depends on the nature of the incident and may include the deployment of troops, verbal and written protests and follow-up action to ensure that the violation has been rectified or will not recur. In addition to maintaining the military status quo, UNFICYP must also preserve the integrity of the buffer zone from unauthorized entry or activities by civilians. As a result, UNFICYP has from time to time become involved in crowd control. The Force has also continued its activities relating to clearing minefields located in the buffer zone.
The situation in the buffer zone between the two sides remained calm, and there has been a decrease in military violations. The opposing forces demonstrated restraint and overall good cooperation with UNFICYP. Nevertheless, that generally good cooperation has been marred by increased restrictions imposed on the Force by the Turkish forces, which has constrained its ability to carry out its mandate and posed significant difficulties for its personnel.
UNFICYP Police Component
UNFICYP’s civilian police maintain close cooperation and liaison with the Cyprus police and the Turkish Cypriot police on matters having intercommunal aspects. Together with the line units they contribute to law and order in the buffer zone and assist in investigations and in the Force's humanitarian activities.
Reporting to the Security Council on 27 May 2003 [S/2003/572]
, the Secretary-General recommended an augmentation of the UNFICYP’s police component by up to 34 officers or 69 totals. The augmentation became necessary because as of April 2003 several crossing points were opened by the Turkish Cypriot authorities for visits in both directions. Ensuring safe and orderly passage within the buffer zone was essentially is the task of UN police. In addition to the considerably increased functions of the UN police and the military in the buffer zone, there had also been a significant increase in the number of incidents requiring UNFICYP's involvement outside the buffer zone since the crossings had began. By its resolution 1486 (2003)
, the Security Council endorsed the increase of UNFICYP's police component.
Humanitarian Activities
Another major function entrusted to UNFICYP is to encourage the fullest possible resumption of normal civilian activity in the buffer zone. To this end, it facilitates the resumption of farming in the buffer zone; assists both communities on matters related to the supply of electricity and water across the lines; facilitates normal contacts between Greek and Turkish Cypriots; provides emergency medical services; and delivers mail and Red Cross messages across the lines.
UNFICYP also discharges certain humanitarian functions for the Greek Cypriots and a small Maronite community living in the northern part of the island. It also periodically visits Turkish Cypriots living in the southern part of the island and helps them maintain contact with their relatives in the north.
The Force cooperates with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in providing humanitarian assistance to needy displaced persons in Cyprus, and with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) , in particular in facilitating projects involving both communities.
UNFICYP Mandate
In the absence of a political settlement to the Cyprus problem, the mandate of UNFICYP has been periodically extended. At the end of every six-month mandate period, the Secretary-General has reported to the Security Council, that in the light of the situation on the ground and of political developments, the continued presence of the Force remains indispensable, both in helping to maintain calm on the island and in creating the best conditions for his good offices efforts. For its part, the Council has regularly extended the mandate of the Force for six-month periods.
Secretary-General's Mission of Good Offices
Since the events of 1974, the situation in Cyprus has remained calm, although tension has arisen periodically. Both sides have generally respected the ceasefire and the military status quo. But, as the Secretary-General has repeatedly stated, the continuing quiet should not obscure the fact that there is only a ceasefire in Cyprus, not peace. The Security Council has declared on numerous occasions that the status quo is not an acceptable option. In the absence of progress towards a settlement between the two sides, the overall situation remains subject to sudden tensions, generated by events outside as well as within Cyprus.
The Secretary-General was first asked to you use his good offices in Cyprus by Security Council resolution 186 (1964)
of 4 March 1964. After the events of 1974, the Security Council, by its resolution 367 (1975)
of 12 March 1975, requested the Secretary-General to undertake a new mission of good offices with the representatives of the two communities. Since then, the successive Secretaries-General and their Special Representatives have tried to find a formula acceptable to both the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots. In the 1990s, there has been an intensification of efforts which led to fleshing out the essential elements of an overall settlement.
A further intensive effort was undertaken between 1999 and early 2003. Under the auspices of the Secretary-General, proximity talks were held between December 1999 and November 2000, and direct talks between January 2002 and February 2003. During the process the parties were not able to reach agreement without third party assistance. Accordingly, the Secretary-General submitted a comprehensive settlement proposal on 11 November 2002, a first revision on 10 December 2002, and a second revision on 26 February 2003. The plan, entitled "Basis for a Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem", required a referendum in advance of 16 April 2003 to approve it and re-unify Cyprus.
Unanimously adopting resolution 1475 (2003)
, the Council gave its full support to the Secretary-General's "carefully balanced plan" of 26 February 2003 as a unique basis for further negotiations, and called on all concerned to negotiate within the framework of the Secretary-General's good offices, using the plan to reach a comprehensive settlement as set forth in the Secretary-General's report S/2003/398
. The Council asked the Secretary-General to continue to make available his good offices for Cyprus.
On 10 February, 2004, following an invitation from the Secretary-General, the Greek Cypriot leader, Tassos Papadopoulos, and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, resumed negotiations on the basis of the Secretary-General's settlement plan. On 13 February, the Secretary-General announced that the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders had committed to his plan and a settlement was "in reach".
The proposed Foundation Agreement in “The Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem” as finalized was submitted to separate simultaneous referenda on 24 April 2004. It was rejected by the Greek Cypriot electorate by a margin of three to one, and approved by the Turkish Cypriot electorate by a margin of two to one. It therefore did not enter into force.
Reporting on these developments [S/2004/437]
to the Security Council on 28 May 2004, the Secretary-General said that this outcome represented another missed opportunity to resolve the Cyprus problem. The decision of the Greek Cypriots must be respected, he said.
The latest attempt to find a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem was launched under United Nations auspices in September of 2008. The end goal of the talks has been agreed between the Parties and endorsed by the Security Council: a bizonal, bi-communal federation, with political equality and a single international personality.
| Cyprus |
Who played Monica Geller in Friends? | Cyprus 'wall' coming down (PSEKA)
Cyprus 'wall' coming down
Hope springs for long troubled island as barrier dividing Nicosia is removed
Mar 09, 2007 04:30 AM
Michele Kambas
Reuters News Agency
NICOSIA–The Cypriot government dismantled a key concrete barrier that has divided the island's capital Nicosia for decades, challenging Turkey to respond by withdrawing its troops from the area.
Crowds gathered on both sides and welcomed the barrier's removal yesterday but Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos made clear no civilian could cross the so-called Green Line where the barrier had been until Turkey removed its troops.
No immediate comment was available from Turkey, although Rasit Pertev, chief adviser to Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat, said: "This is extremely symbolic. ... The dynamism created by this move will lead to the opening of the crossing."
It was not clear what prompted the Cypriot action but both sides on the divided Mediterranean island have been under intense pressure from the international community for the past few years to strike a lasting peace deal.
Cyprus has been split into an internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus in the unoccupied south of the island and Turkish occupied north, since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded the island.
The first sign of yesterday's Cypriot move came when heavy machinery rumbled along narrow Ledra St. in the heart of Nicosia's commercial district. Drilling was then heard and trucks carried debris away.
The five-metre-high Ledra St. barrier has been a symbolic wedge in the city between its Greek and Turkish Cypriot residents. It has been a popular vantage point to view Nicosia's buffer zone, a no man's land of abandoned shops and homes.
"It's a lovely thing to see the wall come down. We've waited years for this," said Turkish Cypriot Yusuf Alp, a construction worker.
His words were echoed by Greek Cypriots across the divide. "This is a very important day for Cyprus," said Tina Sophocleous, a member of a peace group. "This could lead to the reunification of Nicosia."
In the view of retired general Lewis MacKenzie, who served three terms with Canada's UN peacekeepers in Cyprus, the move was long overdue.
"I think it's ridiculous that it's still there," MacKenzie told the Star's Alwynne Gwilt.
Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960 and by 1963 a joint administration between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities had collapsed. Intercommunal fighting erupted and hundreds of people died.
By 1964, fighting had become so bad that UN peacekeepers, including Canadians, were sent to restore order. The Canadian mission was to remain for 29 years. A total of 28 Canadian soldiers died on Cyprus.
"The island's too beautiful to be abused the way it has been," said MacKenzie, who returned in 1993 to make a documentary.
Turkish Cypriot authorities eased restrictions on visits across the Green Line in 2003 and five crossing points have been erected since then between the north and south.
Cyprus remains a stumbling block to Turkey's EU membership aspirations and a source of tension with neighbouring Greece.
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What is the collective noun for kangaroos? | Collective nouns: Mob of kangaroos - Kidspot
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Collective nouns: Mob of kangaroos
Kids will love colouring in these free printables of collective nouns. Not only does it teach them about collective nouns in a fun way but they'll be fascinated by the story of how it came about. This one is a mob of kangaroos.
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What are collective nouns and how are they used?
Collective nouns are used to describe a group of objects or animals thinking or moving the same way.
For example, you may see a few bees in your garden: One flying over the garden, one sitting on a flower and the other is chasing your brother. This is just three bees.
If those bees are chasing your brother at the same time, he is facing a swarm of bees. Look out!
Mob of kangaroos
Kangaroos live in groups of 10 or more called mobs. They live in these mobs mostly for protection for the younger or the weaker members of the mob.
A kangaroo's main predator is the dingo, however other predators are foxes, dogs or feral cats.
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In which European capital is Bromma Airport? | What is a group of kangaroos called?
What is a group of kangaroos called?
Collective Noun for Kangaroos
The collective noun for kangaroos is the word you would use to describe a group of kangaroos.
We have identified the following word(s) that you could call a group of kangaroos:
herd
mob
troop
Used in a sentence, you could say "Look at the herd of kangaroos", where "herd" is the collective noun that means group.
As you can see, you simply substitute the word "group" with one of the collective nouns on our list above when describing a group of kangaroos.
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What is the collective noun for frogs? | List of collective nouns for frogs
frogs - collective nouns for frogs
army
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Which late rock singer was known as ‘The Electric Poet’? | Did You Know?: Collective Nouns for Reptiles and Amphibians
Collective Nouns for Reptiles and Amphibians
Published Saturday, October 14, 2006
A Collective noun is a noun (a word or term) that is singular in form but is used to define (refer) a group of people, animals, objects or concepts. Thus, it is a noun representing a group as a unit. So what is the difference between a reptile and an amphibian? Reptiles are any air-breathing cold-blooded (uses the heat of the sun to keep its blood warm) egg-laying vertebrate with an outer covering of scales or plates and a bony skeleton which, crawls or moves on its belly. On the other hand, an amphibians are cold-blooded vertebrate that spend some time on land but must breed and develop into an adult in water. In other words , they are a cold-blooded animal with an aquatic larval stage and a terrestrial adult stage where the aquatic larvae undergo metamorphosis into adult form. Thus, they are an intermediate form between fishes and reptiles (e.g. frogs & toads). Below you will find a short list for the collective nouns for reptiles and amphibians.
Axolotls: A harem of axolotls
Cobras: A quiver of cobras
Crocodiles: A bask of crocodiles (congregation, float, nest)
Dinosaurs: A herd of dinosaurs (pack)
Dragons: A flight of dragons (weyr, wing)
Frogs: An army of frogs (colony, knot)
Iguanas: A mess of iguanas
Monitors: A bank of monitors
Rattlesnakes: A rhumba of rattlesnakes
Snakes: A den of snakes (bed, knot, nest, pit, slither)
Toads: A knot of toads (knob, nest)
Turtles: A bale of turtles (dule, nest, turn)
Vipers: A nest of vipers (generation)
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Which American author created Tarzan Of The Apes? | Tarzan of the Apes
Citations
Tarzan of the Apes is the first of twenty-four novels in the Tarzan/Adventures of Lord Greystoke series by Sir Edgar Rice Burroughs. The book is an American publication and was first published in 1912 in a magazine titled the All Story .
Tarzan was born in the African jungle to Lord John and Lady Alice Greystoke. After the death of Lord and Lady Greystoke, Tarzan was taken and raised by the ape Kala. Tarzan grew knowing nothing of his "human" life, always thinking that he was an ape. With the help of the books and tools left in what was once the cabin where Tarzan's parents lived, he was able to teach himself to read and write, but not to speak.
Years later, an American gentleman and his daughter Jane visited the jungle in hopes of finding buried treasure. Instead, they found Tarzan, who worked to protect them. The Americans and other men in their group did not stay long, they returned to America. Tarzan was so in love with Jane that he followed her to America and once again protected her, this time from a forest fire and an unsuitable suitor, only to be turned down when she decided to marry another man.
About the Author
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950)
After a chain of unsuccessful jobs, Burroughs turned his efforts to writing in order to support his family. Although he was first successful with a series of stories set on Mars, Tarzan was the character that cemented his name into literary history.
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Dialogues
Tarzan of the Apes illustrates Tarzan as not only a jungle hero, but a man who is able to communicate in many languages and styles. He can speak with animals in their language and teaches himself to communicate in English writing and later the spoken word. However, he uses each language differently and treats the recipiants of his languages differently as well.
Tarzan to the Animals
Tarzan, though a citizen of the jungle, shows little respect for the other animals in the jungle. He is continually looking to kill lions and other animals for their skins and simply to show his brute strength. When dared by men, not knowing of his jungle upbringing, to kill a lion with nothing but a bit of rope and a knife, he complies. Having lived among these animals for so long does not influence his decision, he simply kills for sport.
Tarzan to Women
Lacking in respect for the animals of the jungle, Tarzan lacks none
for Jane. He loves her and tries his best to care for her. Although Jane's reactions to his advances seem somewhat shocking, she adores him and admires his strength and animal behavior. Tarzan likewise has fallen in love with Jane and gives up all he knows in order to follow her to the United States, and saves her life once again. This time, rather than take her away into the jungle, he chivilriously allows her to make her own decision in the face of marriage.
Unlike many of the male characters in African literature, Tarzan choses not to devote his life to any woman except Jane. In this way he is devoted like Mbenda in Agatha Moudio's Son , yet different from Okonkwo or El Hadji in Things Fall Apart and Xala .
Tarzan to the Villiage of Mbonga
Tarzan behaves essentially as a colonist toward the Villiage of Mbonga. He steals arrows from them and frightens them into thinking he is a god. Although these people look more like him than any ape in the jungle, Tarzan views them as completely different. The racism Tarzan shows toward this tribe in not unlike that which Kurtz and Marlow show toward the Africans in Heart of Darkness .
Tarzan to American and European Men
Tarzan shows great respect to the men who accompany Jane to his jungle. He protects them and makes sure that they are always safe. He then conforms to their ways, in a similar fashion as El Hadji does in Xala ending his colonization by taking the place of the colonizer.
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Notes
Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel Tarzan of the Apes seems to strongly indicate his feelings of the full civilization of white men and the lack of civilization of for other humans. "The immediate vision of the book figures those ideological correlatives of the Western sign - empiricism, idealism, mimeticism, monoculturalism - that sustain a tradition of discipline of Commonwealth history" (Berglund 55)
Tarzan, even though secluded in the jungle, teaches himself to read. Burroughs explains this simply by the fact that as a human his knowledge is superior to that of not only the apes, but to the villagers of Mbonga's tribe. In fact, when Jane Porter and her father arrive in the harbor, Tarzan writes them a note warning, "This is the house of Tarzan, the killer of beasts and many black men. Do not harm the things which are Tarzan's. Tarzan watches" (Burroughs 116). The "black men" that Tarzan killed, were lynched by his hand and his rope. In addition, Tarzan gives no thought to writing to the Porters, yet not once does he write to the village of Mbonga. In response to this, Jeff Berglund critiques, "If he [Tarzan] intuits that writing is a product of humans, why does he refrain from using it with other humans? If the binary opposite of textuality is orality, then the Africans of the Mbongan tribe in their extreme orality - cannibalism - are alienated from the English book, from all that it connotes, the power it bestows. Burroughs seems to be suggesting that WRITE = WHITE = RIGHT(CIVILIZATION). Moreover, he suggests that Tarzan senses an inherent connection between the written word, the self-created English book and whiteness: he intuits that writing is a means of communication between white humans, not just between paper and reader" (60). Through his writing, Burroughs creates a character that does not view life and humanity, but only to better his own circumstances and those of Jane Porter.
Films and Other Tarzan Paraphenalia
Tarzan is one of the best known characters in all fiction. In 1917, the first movie based on his adventures was made starring Elmo Lincoln. There were later movies, most recently a Disney version, as well as comic books, comic strips, Playstation games , and countless other forms of Tarzan paraphernalia. Tarzan has become an archetype of the great lover, and the strongest man. One could even say he was one of the sources for the hit series Survivor .
| Edgar Rice Burroughs |
Which T Rex hit was called 'Bang A Gong' when it was released in the USA? | The Project Gutenberg E-text of Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Tarzan of the Apes Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs Release Date: June 23, 2008 [EBook #78] Last updated: May 5, 2012 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TARZAN OF THE APES *** Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines.
Tarzan of the Apes
Chapter I
Out to Sea
I had this story from one who had no business to tell it to me, or to any other. I may credit the seductive influence of an old vintage upon the narrator for the beginning of it, and my own skeptical incredulity during the days that followed for the balance of the strange tale.
When my convivial host discovered that he had told me so much, and that I was prone to doubtfulness, his foolish pride assumed the task the old vintage had commenced, and so he unearthed written evidence in the form of musty manuscript, and dry official records of the British Colonial Office to support many of the salient features of his remarkable narrative.
I do not say the story is true, for I did not witness the happenings which it portrays, but the fact that in the telling of it to you I have taken fictitious names for the principal characters quite sufficiently evidences the sincerity of my own belief that it MAY be true.
The yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead, and the records of the Colonial Office dovetail perfectly with the narrative of my convivial host, and so I give you the story as I painstakingly pieced it out from these several various agencies.
If you do not find it credible you will at least be as one with me in acknowledging that it is unique, remarkable, and interesting.
From the records of the Colonial Office and from the dead man's diary we learn that a certain young English nobleman, whom we shall call John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, was commissioned to make a peculiarly delicate investigation of conditions in a British West Coast African Colony from whose simple native inhabitants another European power was known to be recruiting soldiers for its native army, which it used solely for the forcible collection of rubber and ivory from the savage tribes along the Congo and the Aruwimi. The natives of the British Colony complained that many of their young men were enticed away through the medium of fair and glowing promises, but that few if any ever returned to their families.
The Englishmen in Africa went even further, saying that these poor blacks were held in virtual slavery, since after their terms of enlistment expired their ignorance was imposed upon by their white officers, and they were told that they had yet several years to serve.
And so the Colonial Office appointed John Clayton to a new post in British West Africa, but his confidential instructions centered on a thorough investigation of the unfair treatment of black British subjects by the officers of a friendly European power. Why he was sent, is, however, of little moment to this story, for he never made an investigation, nor, in fact, did he ever reach his destination.
Clayton was the type of Englishman that one likes best to associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement upon a thousand victorious battlefields—a strong, virile man—mentally, morally, and physically.
In stature he was above the average height; his eyes were gray, his features regular and strong; his carriage that of perfect, robust health influenced by his years of army training.
Political ambition had caused him to seek transference from the army to the Colonial Office and so we find him, still young, entrusted with a delicate and important commission in the service of the Queen.
When he received this appointment he was both elated and appalled. The preferment seemed to him in the nature of a well-merited reward for painstaking and intelligent service, and as a stepping stone to posts of greater importance and responsibility; but, on the other hand, he had been married to the Hon. Alice Rutherford for scarce a three months, and it was the thought of taking this fair young girl into the dangers and isolation of tropical Africa that appalled him.
For her sake he would have refused the appointment, but she would not have it so. Instead she insisted that he accept, and, indeed, take her with him.
There were mothers and brothers and sisters, and aunts and cousins to express various opinions on the subject, but as to what they severally advised history is silent.
We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888, John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on their way to Africa.
A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their final destination.
And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his wife, vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.
Two months after they weighed anchor and cleared from the port of Freetown a half dozen British war vessels were scouring the south Atlantic for trace of them or their little vessel, and it was almost immediately that the wreckage was found upon the shores of St. Helena which convinced the world that the Fuwalda had gone down with all on board, and hence the search was stopped ere it had scarce begun; though hope lingered in longing hearts for many years.
The Fuwalda, a barkentine of about one hundred tons, was a vessel of the type often seen in coastwise trade in the far southern Atlantic, their crews composed of the offscourings of the sea—unhanged murderers and cutthroats of every race and every nation.
The Fuwalda was no exception to the rule. Her officers were swarthy bullies, hating and hated by their crew. The captain, while a competent seaman, was a brute in his treatment of his men. He knew, or at least he used, but two arguments in his dealings with them—a belaying pin and a revolver—nor is it likely that the motley aggregation he signed would have understood aught else.
So it was that from the second day out from Freetown John Clayton and his young wife witnessed scenes upon the deck of the Fuwalda such as they had believed were never enacted outside the covers of printed stories of the sea.
It was on the morning of the second day that the first link was forged in what was destined to form a chain of circumstances ending in a life for one then unborn such as has never been paralleled in the history of man.
Two sailors were washing down the decks of the Fuwalda, the first mate was on duty, and the captain had stopped to speak with John Clayton and Lady Alice.
The men were working backwards toward the little party who were facing away from the sailors. Closer and closer they came, until one of them was directly behind the captain. In another moment he would have passed by and this strange narrative would never have been recorded.
But just that instant the officer turned to leave Lord and Lady Greystoke, and, as he did so, tripped against the sailor and sprawled headlong upon the deck, overturning the water-pail so that he was drenched in its dirty contents.
For an instant the scene was ludicrous; but only for an instant. With a volley of awful oaths, his face suffused with the scarlet of mortification and rage, the captain regained his feet, and with a terrific blow felled the sailor to the deck.
The man was small and rather old, so that the brutality of the act was thus accentuated. The other seaman, however, was neither old nor small—a huge bear of a man, with fierce black mustachios, and a great bull neck set between massive shoulders.
As he saw his mate go down he crouched, and, with a low snarl, sprang upon the captain crushing him to his knees with a single mighty blow.
From scarlet the officer's face went white, for this was mutiny; and mutiny he had met and subdued before in his brutal career. Without waiting to rise he whipped a revolver from his pocket, firing point blank at the great mountain of muscle towering before him; but, quick as he was, John Clayton was almost as quick, so that the bullet which was intended for the sailor's heart lodged in the sailor's leg instead, for Lord Greystoke had struck down the captain's arm as he had seen the weapon flash in the sun.
Words passed between Clayton and the captain, the former making it plain that he was disgusted with the brutality displayed toward the crew, nor would he countenance anything further of the kind while he and Lady Greystoke remained passengers.
The captain was on the point of making an angry reply, but, thinking better of it, turned on his heel and black and scowling, strode aft.
He did not care to antagonize an English official, for the Queen's mighty arm wielded a punitive instrument which he could appreciate, and which he feared—England's far-reaching navy.
The two sailors picked themselves up, the older man assisting his wounded comrade to rise. The big fellow, who was known among his mates as Black Michael, tried his leg gingerly, and, finding that it bore his weight, turned to Clayton with a word of gruff thanks.
Though the fellow's tone was surly, his words were evidently well meant. Ere he had scarce finished his little speech he had turned and was limping off toward the forecastle with the very apparent intention of forestalling any further conversation.
They did not see him again for several days, nor did the captain accord them more than the surliest of grunts when he was forced to speak to them.
They took their meals in his cabin, as they had before the unfortunate occurrence; but the captain was careful to see that his duties never permitted him to eat at the same time.
The other officers were coarse, illiterate fellows, but little above the villainous crew they bullied, and were only too glad to avoid social intercourse with the polished English noble and his lady, so that the Claytons were left very much to themselves.
This in itself accorded perfectly with their desires, but it also rather isolated them from the life of the little ship so that they were unable to keep in touch with the daily happenings which were to culminate so soon in bloody tragedy.
There was in the whole atmosphere of the craft that undefinable something which presages disaster. Outwardly, to the knowledge of the Claytons, all went on as before upon the little vessel; but that there was an undertow leading them toward some unknown danger both felt, though they did not speak of it to each other.
On the second day after the wounding of Black Michael, Clayton came on deck just in time to see the limp body of one of the crew being carried below by four of his fellows while the first mate, a heavy belaying pin in his hand, stood glowering at the little party of sullen sailors.
Clayton asked no questions—he did not need to—and the following day, as the great lines of a British battleship grew out of the distant horizon, he half determined to demand that he and Lady Alice be put aboard her, for his fears were steadily increasing that nothing but harm could result from remaining on the lowering, sullen Fuwalda.
Toward noon they were within speaking distance of the British vessel, but when Clayton had nearly decided to ask the captain to put them aboard her, the obvious ridiculousness of such a request became suddenly apparent. What reason could he give the officer commanding her majesty's ship for desiring to go back in the direction from which he had just come!
What if he told them that two insubordinate seamen had been roughly handled by their officers? They would but laugh in their sleeves and attribute his reason for wishing to leave the ship to but one thing—cowardice.
John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, did not ask to be transferred to the British man-of-war. Late in the afternoon he saw her upper works fade below the far horizon, but not before he learned that which confirmed his greatest fears, and caused him to curse the false pride which had restrained him from seeking safety for his young wife a few short hours before, when safety was within reach—a safety which was now gone forever.
It was mid-afternoon that brought the little old sailor, who had been felled by the captain a few days before, to where Clayton and his wife stood by the ship's side watching the ever diminishing outlines of the great battleship. The old fellow was polishing brasses, and as he came edging along until close to Clayton he said, in an undertone:
"'Ell's to pay, sir, on this 'ere craft, an' mark my word for it, sir. 'Ell's to pay."
"What do you mean, my good fellow?" asked Clayton.
"Wy, hasn't ye seen wats goin' on? Hasn't ye 'eard that devil's spawn of a capting an' is mates knockin' the bloomin' lights outen 'arf the crew?
"Two busted 'eads yeste'day, an' three to-day. Black Michael's as good as new agin an' 'e's not the bully to stand fer it, not 'e; an' mark my word for it, sir."
"You mean, my man, that the crew contemplates mutiny?" asked Clayton.
"Mutiny!" exclaimed the old fellow. "Mutiny! They means murder, sir, an' mark my word for it, sir."
"When?"
"Hit's comin', sir; hit's comin' but I'm not a-sayin' wen, an' I've said too damned much now, but ye was a good sort t'other day an' I thought it no more'n right to warn ye. But keep a still tongue in yer 'ead an' when ye 'ear shootin' git below an' stay there.
"That's all, only keep a still tongue in yer 'ead, or they'll put a pill between yer ribs, an' mark my word for it, sir," and the old fellow went on with his polishing, which carried him away from where the Claytons were standing.
"Deuced cheerful outlook, Alice," said Clayton.
"You should warn the captain at once, John. Possibly the trouble may yet be averted," she said.
"I suppose I should, but yet from purely selfish motives I am almost prompted to 'keep a still tongue in my 'ead.' Whatever they do now they will spare us in recognition of my stand for this fellow Black Michael, but should they find that I had betrayed them there would be no mercy shown us, Alice."
"You have but one duty, John, and that lies in the interest of vested authority. If you do not warn the captain you are as much a party to whatever follows as though you had helped to plot and carry it out with your own head and hands."
"You do not understand, dear," replied Clayton. "It is of you I am thinking—there lies my first duty. The captain has brought this condition upon himself, so why then should I risk subjecting my wife to unthinkable horrors in a probably futile attempt to save him from his own brutal folly? You have no conception, dear, of what would follow were this pack of cutthroats to gain control of the Fuwalda."
"Duty is duty, John, and no amount of sophistries may change it. I would be a poor wife for an English lord were I to be responsible for his shirking a plain duty. I realize the danger which must follow, but I can face it with you."
"Have it as you will then, Alice," he answered, smiling. "Maybe we are borrowing trouble. While I do not like the looks of things on board this ship, they may not be so bad after all, for it is possible that the 'Ancient Mariner' was but voicing the desires of his wicked old heart rather than speaking of real facts.
"Mutiny on the high sea may have been common a hundred years ago, but in this good year 1888 it is the least likely of happenings.
"But there goes the captain to his cabin now. If I am going to warn him I might as well get the beastly job over for I have little stomach to talk with the brute at all."
So saying he strolled carelessly in the direction of the companionway through which the captain had passed, and a moment later was knocking at his door.
"Come in," growled the deep tones of that surly officer.
And when Clayton had entered, and closed the door behind him:
"Well?"
"I have come to report the gist of a conversation I heard to-day, because I feel that, while there may be nothing to it, it is as well that you be forearmed. In short, the men contemplate mutiny and murder."
"It's a lie!" roared the captain. "And if you have been interfering again with the discipline of this ship, or meddling in affairs that don't concern you you can take the consequences, and be damned. I don't care whether you are an English lord or not. I'm captain of this here ship, and from now on you keep your meddling nose out of my business."
The captain had worked himself up to such a frenzy of rage that he was fairly purple of face, and he shrieked the last words at the top of his voice, emphasizing his remarks by a loud thumping of the table with one huge fist, and shaking the other in Clayton's face.
Greystoke never turned a hair, but stood eying the excited man with level gaze.
"Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass."
Whereupon he turned and left the captain with the same indifferent ease that was habitual with him, and which was more surely calculated to raise the ire of a man of Billings' class than a torrent of invective.
So, whereas the captain might easily have been brought to regret his hasty speech had Clayton attempted to conciliate him, his temper was now irrevocably set in the mold in which Clayton had left it, and the last chance of their working together for their common good was gone.
"Well, Alice," said Clayton, as he rejoined his wife, "I might have saved my breath. The fellow proved most ungrateful. Fairly jumped at me like a mad dog.
"He and his blasted old ship may hang, for aught I care; and until we are safely off the thing I shall spend my energies in looking after our own welfare. And I rather fancy the first step to that end should be to go to our cabin and look over my revolvers. I am sorry now that we packed the larger guns and the ammunition with the stuff below."
They found their quarters in a bad state of disorder. Clothing from their open boxes and bags strewed the little apartment, and even their beds had been torn to pieces.
"Evidently someone was more anxious about our belongings than we," said Clayton. "Let's have a look around, Alice, and see what's missing."
A thorough search revealed the fact that nothing had been taken but Clayton's two revolvers and the small supply of ammunition he had saved out for them.
"Those are the very things I most wish they had left us," said Clayton, "and the fact that they wished for them and them alone is most sinister."
"What are we to do, John?" asked his wife. "Perhaps you were right in that our best chance lies in maintaining a neutral position.
"If the officers are able to prevent a mutiny, we have nothing to fear, while if the mutineers are victorious our one slim hope lies in not having attempted to thwart or antagonize them."
"Right you are, Alice. We'll keep in the middle of the road."
As they started to straighten up their cabin, Clayton and his wife simultaneously noticed the corner of a piece of paper protruding from beneath the door of their quarters. As Clayton stooped to reach for it he was amazed to see it move further into the room, and then he realized that it was being pushed inward by someone from without.
Quickly and silently he stepped toward the door, but, as he reached for the knob to throw it open, his wife's hand fell upon his wrist.
"No, John," she whispered. "They do not wish to be seen, and so we cannot afford to see them. Do not forget that we are keeping to the middle of the road."
Clayton smiled and dropped his hand to his side. Thus they stood watching the little bit of white paper until it finally remained at rest upon the floor just inside the door.
Then Clayton stooped and picked it up. It was a bit of grimy, white paper roughly folded into a ragged square. Opening it they found a crude message printed almost illegibly, and with many evidences of an unaccustomed task.
Translated, it was a warning to the Claytons to refrain from reporting the loss of the revolvers, or from repeating what the old sailor had told them—to refrain on pain of death.
"I rather imagine we'll be good," said Clayton with a rueful smile. "About all we can do is to sit tight and wait for whatever may come."
Chapter II
The Savage Home
Nor did they have long to wait, for the next morning as Clayton was emerging on deck for his accustomed walk before breakfast, a shot rang out, and then another, and another.
The sight which met his eyes confirmed his worst fears. Facing the little knot of officers was the entire motley crew of the Fuwalda, and at their head stood Black Michael.
At the first volley from the officers the men ran for shelter, and from points of vantage behind masts, wheel-house and cabin they returned the fire of the five men who represented the hated authority of the ship.
Two of their number had gone down before the captain's revolver. They lay where they had fallen between the combatants. But then the first mate lunged forward upon his face, and at a cry of command from Black Michael the mutineers charged the remaining four. The crew had been able to muster but six firearms, so most of them were armed with boat hooks, axes, hatchets and crowbars.
The captain had emptied his revolver and was reloading as the charge was made. The second mate's gun had jammed, and so there were but two weapons opposed to the mutineers as they bore down upon the officers, who now started to give back before the infuriated rush of their men.
Both sides were cursing and swearing in a frightful manner, which, together with the reports of the firearms and the screams and groans of the wounded, turned the deck of the Fuwalda to the likeness of a madhouse.
Before the officers had taken a dozen backward steps the men were upon them. An ax in the hands of a burly Negro cleft the captain from forehead to chin, and an instant later the others were down: dead or wounded from dozens of blows and bullet wounds.
Short and grisly had been the work of the mutineers of the Fuwalda, and through it all John Clayton had stood leaning carelessly beside the companionway puffing meditatively upon his pipe as though he had been but watching an indifferent cricket match.
As the last officer went down he thought it was time that he returned to his wife lest some members of the crew find her alone below.
Though outwardly calm and indifferent, Clayton was inwardly apprehensive and wrought up, for he feared for his wife's safety at the hands of these ignorant, half-brutes into whose hands fate had so remorselessly thrown them.
As he turned to descend the ladder he was surprised to see his wife standing on the steps almost at his side.
"How long have you been here, Alice?"
"Since the beginning," she replied. "How awful, John. Oh, how awful! What can we hope for at the hands of such as those?"
"Breakfast, I hope," he answered, smiling bravely in an attempt to allay her fears.
"At least," he added, "I'm going to ask them. Come with me, Alice. We must not let them think we expect any but courteous treatment."
The men had by this time surrounded the dead and wounded officers, and without either partiality or compassion proceeded to throw both living and dead over the sides of the vessel. With equal heartlessness they disposed of their own dead and dying.
Presently one of the crew spied the approaching Claytons, and with a cry of: "Here's two more for the fishes," rushed toward them with uplifted ax.
But Black Michael was even quicker, so that the fellow went down with a bullet in his back before he had taken a half dozen steps.
With a loud roar, Black Michael attracted the attention of the others, and, pointing to Lord and Lady Greystoke, cried:
"These here are my friends, and they are to be left alone. D'ye understand?
"I'm captain of this ship now, an' what I says goes," he added, turning to Clayton. "Just keep to yourselves, and nobody'll harm ye," and he looked threateningly on his fellows.
The Claytons heeded Black Michael's instructions so well that they saw but little of the crew and knew nothing of the plans the men were making.
Occasionally they heard faint echoes of brawls and quarreling among the mutineers, and on two occasions the vicious bark of firearms rang out on the still air. But Black Michael was a fit leader for this band of cutthroats, and, withal held them in fair subjection to his rule.
On the fifth day following the murder of the ship's officers, land was sighted by the lookout. Whether island or mainland, Black Michael did not know, but he announced to Clayton that if investigation showed that the place was habitable he and Lady Greystoke were to be put ashore with their belongings.
"You'll be all right there for a few months," he explained, "and by that time we'll have been able to make an inhabited coast somewhere and scatter a bit. Then I'll see that yer gover'ment's notified where you be an' they'll soon send a man-o'war to fetch ye off.
"It would be a hard matter to land you in civilization without a lot o' questions being asked, an' none o' us here has any very convincin' answers up our sleeves."
Clayton remonstrated against the inhumanity of landing them upon an unknown shore to be left to the mercies of savage beasts, and, possibly, still more savage men.
But his words were of no avail, and only tended to anger Black Michael, so he was forced to desist and make the best he could of a bad situation.
About three o'clock in the afternoon they came about off a beautiful wooded shore opposite the mouth of what appeared to be a land-locked harbor.
Black Michael sent a small boat filled with men to sound the entrance in an effort to determine if the Fuwalda could be safely worked through the entrance.
In about an hour they returned and reported deep water through the passage as well as far into the little basin.
Before dark the barkentine lay peacefully at anchor upon the bosom of the still, mirror-like surface of the harbor.
The surrounding shores were beautiful with semitropical verdure, while in the distance the country rose from the ocean in hill and tableland, almost uniformly clothed by primeval forest.
No signs of habitation were visible, but that the land might easily support human life was evidenced by the abundant bird and animal life of which the watchers on the Fuwalda's deck caught occasional glimpses, as well as by the shimmer of a little river which emptied into the harbor, insuring fresh water in plenitude.
As darkness settled upon the earth, Clayton and Lady Alice still stood by the ship's rail in silent contemplation of their future abode. From the dark shadows of the mighty forest came the wild calls of savage beasts—the deep roar of the lion, and, occasionally, the shrill scream of a panther.
The woman shrank closer to the man in terror-stricken anticipation of the horrors lying in wait for them in the awful blackness of the nights to come, when they should be alone upon that wild and lonely shore.
Later in the evening Black Michael joined them long enough to instruct them to make their preparations for landing on the morrow. They tried to persuade him to take them to some more hospitable coast near enough to civilization so that they might hope to fall into friendly hands. But no pleas, or threats, or promises of reward could move him.
"I am the only man aboard who would not rather see ye both safely dead, and, while I know that's the sensible way to make sure of our own necks, yet Black Michael's not the man to forget a favor. Ye saved my life once, and in return I'm goin' to spare yours, but that's all I can do.
"The men won't stand for any more, and if we don't get ye landed pretty quick they may even change their minds about giving ye that much show. I'll put all yer stuff ashore with ye as well as cookin' utensils an' some old sails for tents, an' enough grub to last ye until ye can find fruit and game.
"With yer guns for protection, ye ought to be able to live here easy enough until help comes. When I get safely hid away I'll see to it that the British gover'ment learns about where ye be; for the life of me I couldn't tell 'em exactly where, for I don't know myself. But they'll find ye all right."
After he had left them they went silently below, each wrapped in gloomy forebodings.
Clayton did not believe that Black Michael had the slightest intention of notifying the British government of their whereabouts, nor was he any too sure but that some treachery was contemplated for the following day when they should be on shore with the sailors who would have to accompany them with their belongings.
Once out of Black Michael's sight any of the men might strike them down, and still leave Black Michael's conscience clear.
And even should they escape that fate was it not but to be faced with far graver dangers? Alone, he might hope to survive for years; for he was a strong, athletic man.
But what of Alice, and that other little life so soon to be launched amidst the hardships and grave dangers of a primeval world?
The man shuddered as he meditated upon the awful gravity, the fearful helplessness, of their situation. But it was a merciful Providence which prevented him from foreseeing the hideous reality which awaited them in the grim depths of that gloomy wood.
Early next morning their numerous chests and boxes were hoisted on deck and lowered to waiting small boats for transportation to shore.
There was a great quantity and variety of stuff, as the Claytons had expected a possible five to eight years' residence in their new home. Thus, in addition to the many necessities they had brought, there were also many luxuries.
Black Michael was determined that nothing belonging to the Claytons should be left on board. Whether out of compassion for them, or in furtherance of his own self-interests, it would be difficult to say.
There was no question but that the presence of property of a missing British official upon a suspicious vessel would have been a difficult thing to explain in any civilized port in the world.
So zealous was he in his efforts to carry out his intentions that he insisted upon the return of Clayton's revolvers to him by the sailors in whose possession they were.
Into the small boats were also loaded salt meats and biscuit, with a small supply of potatoes and beans, matches, and cooking vessels, a chest of tools, and the old sails which Black Michael had promised them.
As though himself fearing the very thing which Clayton had suspected, Black Michael accompanied them to shore, and was the last to leave them when the small boats, having filled the ship's casks with fresh water, were pushed out toward the waiting Fuwalda.
As the boats moved slowly over the smooth waters of the bay, Clayton and his wife stood silently watching their departure—in the breasts of both a feeling of impending disaster and utter hopelessness.
And behind them, over the edge of a low ridge, other eyes watched—close set, wicked eyes, gleaming beneath shaggy brows.
As the Fuwalda passed through the narrow entrance to the harbor and out of sight behind a projecting point, Lady Alice threw her arms about Clayton's neck and burst into uncontrolled sobs.
Bravely had she faced the dangers of the mutiny; with heroic fortitude she had looked into the terrible future; but now that the horror of absolute solitude was upon them, her overwrought nerves gave way, and the reaction came.
He did not attempt to check her tears. It were better that nature have her way in relieving these long-pent emotions, and it was many minutes before the girl—little more than a child she was—could again gain mastery of herself.
"Oh, John," she cried at last, "the horror of it. What are we to do? What are we to do?"
"There is but one thing to do, Alice," and he spoke as quietly as though they were sitting in their snug living room at home, "and that is work. Work must be our salvation. We must not give ourselves time to think, for in that direction lies madness.
"We must work and wait. I am sure that relief will come, and come quickly, when once it is apparent that the Fuwalda has been lost, even though Black Michael does not keep his word to us."
"But John, if it were only you and I," she sobbed, "we could endure it I know; but—"
"Yes, dear," he answered, gently, "I have been thinking of that, also; but we must face it, as we must face whatever comes, bravely and with the utmost confidence in our ability to cope with circumstances whatever they may be.
"Hundreds of thousands of years ago our ancestors of the dim and distant past faced the same problems which we must face, possibly in these same primeval forests. That we are here today evidences their victory.
"What they did may we not do? And even better, for are we not armed with ages of superior knowledge, and have we not the means of protection, defense, and sustenance which science has given us, but of which they were totally ignorant? What they accomplished, Alice, with instruments and weapons of stone and bone, surely that may we accomplish also."
"Ah, John, I wish that I might be a man with a man's philosophy, but I am but a woman, seeing with my heart rather than my head, and all that I can see is too horrible, too unthinkable to put into words.
"I only hope you are right, John. I will do my best to be a brave primeval woman, a fit mate for the primeval man."
Clayton's first thought was to arrange a sleeping shelter for the night; something which might serve to protect them from prowling beasts of prey.
He opened the box containing his rifles and ammunition, that they might both be armed against possible attack while at work, and then together they sought a location for their first night's sleeping place.
A hundred yards from the beach was a little level spot, fairly free of trees; here they decided eventually to build a permanent house, but for the time being they both thought it best to construct a little platform in the trees out of reach of the larger of the savage beasts in whose realm they were.
To this end Clayton selected four trees which formed a rectangle about eight feet square, and cutting long branches from other trees he constructed a framework around them, about ten feet from the ground, fastening the ends of the branches securely to the trees by means of rope, a quantity of which Black Michael had furnished him from the hold of the Fuwalda.
Across this framework Clayton placed other smaller branches quite close together. This platform he paved with the huge fronds of elephant's ear which grew in profusion about them, and over the fronds he laid a great sail folded into several thicknesses.
Seven feet higher he constructed a similar, though lighter platform to serve as roof, and from the sides of this he suspended the balance of his sailcloth for walls.
When completed he had a rather snug little nest, to which he carried their blankets and some of the lighter luggage.
It was now late in the afternoon, and the balance of the daylight hours were devoted to the building of a rude ladder by means of which Lady Alice could mount to her new home.
All during the day the forest about them had been filled with excited birds of brilliant plumage, and dancing, chattering monkeys, who watched these new arrivals and their wonderful nest building operations with every mark of keenest interest and fascination.
Notwithstanding that both Clayton and his wife kept a sharp lookout they saw nothing of larger animals, though on two occasions they had seen their little simian neighbors come screaming and chattering from the near-by ridge, casting frightened glances back over their little shoulders, and evincing as plainly as though by speech that they were fleeing some terrible thing which lay concealed there.
Just before dusk Clayton finished his ladder, and, filling a great basin with water from the near-by stream, the two mounted to the comparative safety of their aerial chamber.
As it was quite warm, Clayton had left the side curtains thrown back over the roof, and as they sat, like Turks, upon their blankets, Lady Alice, straining her eyes into the darkening shadows of the wood, suddenly reached out and grasped Clayton's arms.
"John," she whispered, "look! What is it, a man?"
As Clayton turned his eyes in the direction she indicated, he saw silhouetted dimly against the shadows beyond, a great figure standing upright upon the ridge.
For a moment it stood as though listening and then turned slowly, and melted into the shadows of the jungle.
"What is it, John?"
"I do not know, Alice," he answered gravely, "it is too dark to see so far, and it may have been but a shadow cast by the rising moon."
"No, John, if it was not a man it was some huge and grotesque mockery of man. Oh, I am afraid."
He gathered her in his arms, whispering words of courage and love into her ears.
Soon after, he lowered the curtain walls, tying them securely to the trees so that, except for a little opening toward the beach, they were entirely enclosed.
As it was now pitch dark within their tiny aerie they lay down upon their blankets to try to gain, through sleep, a brief respite of forgetfulness.
Clayton lay facing the opening at the front, a rifle and a brace of revolvers at his hand.
Scarcely had they closed their eyes than the terrifying cry of a panther rang out from the jungle behind them. Closer and closer it came until they could hear the great beast directly beneath them. For an hour or more they heard it sniffing and clawing at the trees which supported their platform, but at last it roamed away across the beach, where Clayton could see it clearly in the brilliant moonlight—a great, handsome beast, the largest he had ever seen.
During the long hours of darkness they caught but fitful snatches of sleep, for the night noises of a great jungle teeming with myriad animal life kept their overwrought nerves on edge, so that a hundred times they were startled to wakefulness by piercing screams, or the stealthy moving of great bodies beneath them.
Chapter III
Life and Death
Morning found them but little, if at all refreshed, though it was with a feeling of intense relief that they saw the day dawn.
As soon as they had made their meager breakfast of salt pork, coffee and biscuit, Clayton commenced work upon their house, for he realized that they could hope for no safety and no peace of mind at night until four strong walls effectually barred the jungle life from them.
The task was an arduous one and required the better part of a month, though he built but one small room. He constructed his cabin of small logs about six inches in diameter, stopping the chinks with clay which he found at the depth of a few feet beneath the surface soil.
At one end he built a fireplace of small stones from the beach. These also he set in clay and when the house had been entirely completed he applied a coating of the clay to the entire outside surface to the thickness of four inches.
In the window opening he set small branches about an inch in diameter both vertically and horizontally, and so woven that they formed a substantial grating that could withstand the strength of a powerful animal. Thus they obtained air and proper ventilation without fear of lessening the safety of their cabin.
The A-shaped roof was thatched with small branches laid close together and over these long jungle grass and palm fronds, with a final coating of clay.
The door he built of pieces of the packing-boxes which had held their belongings, nailing one piece upon another, the grain of contiguous layers running transversely, until he had a solid body some three inches thick and of such great strength that they were both moved to laughter as they gazed upon it.
Here the greatest difficulty confronted Clayton, for he had no means whereby to hang his massive door now that he had built it. After two days' work, however, he succeeded in fashioning two massive hardwood hinges, and with these he hung the door so that it opened and closed easily.
The stuccoing and other final touches were added after they moved into the house, which they had done as soon as the roof was on, piling their boxes before the door at night and thus having a comparatively safe and comfortable habitation.
The building of a bed, chairs, table, and shelves was a relatively easy matter, so that by the end of the second month they were well settled, and, but for the constant dread of attack by wild beasts and the ever growing loneliness, they were not uncomfortable or unhappy.
At night great beasts snarled and roared about their tiny cabin, but, so accustomed may one become to oft repeated noises, that soon they paid little attention to them, sleeping soundly the whole night through.
Thrice had they caught fleeting glimpses of great man-like figures like that of the first night, but never at sufficiently close range to know positively whether the half-seen forms were those of man or brute.
The brilliant birds and the little monkeys had become accustomed to their new acquaintances, and as they had evidently never seen human beings before they presently, after their first fright had worn off, approached closer and closer, impelled by that strange curiosity which dominates the wild creatures of the forest and the jungle and the plain, so that within the first month several of the birds had gone so far as even to accept morsels of food from the friendly hands of the Claytons.
One afternoon, while Clayton was working upon an addition to their cabin, for he contemplated building several more rooms, a number of their grotesque little friends came shrieking and scolding through the trees from the direction of the ridge. Ever as they fled they cast fearful glances back of them, and finally they stopped near Clayton jabbering excitedly to him as though to warn him of approaching danger.
At last he saw it, the thing the little monkeys so feared—the man-brute of which the Claytons had caught occasional fleeting glimpses.
It was approaching through the jungle in a semi-erect position, now and then placing the backs of its closed fists upon the ground—a great anthropoid ape, and, as it advanced, it emitted deep guttural growls and an occasional low barking sound.
Clayton was at some distance from the cabin, having come to fell a particularly perfect tree for his building operations. Grown careless from months of continued safety, during which time he had seen no dangerous animals during the daylight hours, he had left his rifles and revolvers all within the little cabin, and now that he saw the great ape crashing through the underbrush directly toward him, and from a direction which practically cut him off from escape, he felt a vague little shiver play up and down his spine.
He knew that, armed only with an ax, his chances with this ferocious monster were small indeed—and Alice; O God, he thought, what will become of Alice?
There was yet a slight chance of reaching the cabin. He turned and ran toward it, shouting an alarm to his wife to run in and close the great door in case the ape cut off his retreat.
Lady Greystoke had been sitting a little way from the cabin, and when she heard his cry she looked up to see the ape springing with almost incredible swiftness, for so large and awkward an animal, in an effort to head off Clayton.
With a low cry she sprang toward the cabin, and, as she entered, gave a backward glance which filled her soul with terror, for the brute had intercepted her husband, who now stood at bay grasping his ax with both hands ready to swing it upon the infuriated animal when he should make his final charge.
"Close and bolt the door, Alice," cried Clayton. "I can finish this fellow with my ax."
But he knew he was facing a horrible death, and so did she.
The ape was a great bull, weighing probably three hundred pounds. His nasty, close-set eyes gleamed hatred from beneath his shaggy brows, while his great canine fangs were bared in a horrid snarl as he paused a moment before his prey.
Over the brute's shoulder Clayton could see the doorway of his cabin, not twenty paces distant, and a great wave of horror and fear swept over him as he saw his young wife emerge, armed with one of his rifles.
She had always been afraid of firearms, and would never touch them, but now she rushed toward the ape with the fearlessness of a lioness protecting its young.
"Back, Alice," shouted Clayton, "for God's sake, go back."
But she would not heed, and just then the ape charged, so that Clayton could say no more.
The man swung his ax with all his mighty strength, but the powerful brute seized it in those terrible hands, and tearing it from Clayton's grasp hurled it far to one side.
With an ugly snarl he closed upon his defenseless victim, but ere his fangs had reached the throat they thirsted for, there was a sharp report and a bullet entered the ape's back between his shoulders.
Throwing Clayton to the ground the beast turned upon his new enemy. There before him stood the terrified girl vainly trying to fire another bullet into the animal's body; but she did not understand the mechanism of the firearm, and the hammer fell futilely upon an empty cartridge.
Almost simultaneously Clayton regained his feet, and without thought of the utter hopelessness of it, he rushed forward to drag the ape from his wife's prostrate form.
With little or no effort he succeeded, and the great bulk rolled inertly upon the turf before him—the ape was dead. The bullet had done its work.
A hasty examination of his wife revealed no marks upon her, and Clayton decided that the huge brute had died the instant he had sprung toward Alice.
Gently he lifted his wife's still unconscious form, and bore her to the little cabin, but it was fully two hours before she regained consciousness.
Her first words filled Clayton with vague apprehension. For some time after regaining her senses, Alice gazed wonderingly about the interior of the little cabin, and then, with a satisfied sigh, said:
"O, John, it is so good to be really home! I have had an awful dream, dear. I thought we were no longer in London, but in some horrible place where great beasts attacked us."
"There, there, Alice," he said, stroking her forehead, "try to sleep again, and do not worry your head about bad dreams."
That night a little son was born in the tiny cabin beside the primeval forest, while a leopard screamed before the door, and the deep notes of a lion's roar sounded from beyond the ridge.
Lady Greystoke never recovered from the shock of the great ape's attack, and, though she lived for a year after her baby was born, she was never again outside the cabin, nor did she ever fully realize that she was not in England.
Sometimes she would question Clayton as to the strange noises of the nights; the absence of servants and friends, and the strange rudeness of the furnishings within her room, but, though he made no effort to deceive her, never could she grasp the meaning of it all.
In other ways she was quite rational, and the joy and happiness she took in the possession of her little son and the constant attentions of her husband made that year a very happy one for her, the happiest of her young life.
That it would have been beset by worries and apprehension had she been in full command of her mental faculties Clayton well knew; so that while he suffered terribly to see her so, there were times when he was almost glad, for her sake, that she could not understand.
Long since had he given up any hope of rescue, except through accident. With unremitting zeal he had worked to beautify the interior of the cabin.
Skins of lion and panther covered the floor. Cupboards and bookcases lined the walls. Odd vases made by his own hand from the clay of the region held beautiful tropical flowers. Curtains of grass and bamboo covered the windows, and, most arduous task of all, with his meager assortment of tools he had fashioned lumber to neatly seal the walls and ceiling and lay a smooth floor within the cabin.
That he had been able to turn his hands at all to such unaccustomed labor was a source of mild wonder to him. But he loved the work because it was for her and the tiny life that had come to cheer them, though adding a hundredfold to his responsibilities and to the terribleness of their situation.
During the year that followed, Clayton was several times attacked by the great apes which now seemed to continually infest the vicinity of the cabin; but as he never again ventured outside without both rifle and revolvers he had little fear of the huge beasts.
He had strengthened the window protections and fitted a unique wooden lock to the cabin door, so that when he hunted for game and fruits, as it was constantly necessary for him to do to insure sustenance, he had no fear that any animal could break into the little home.
At first he shot much of the game from the cabin windows, but toward the end the animals learned to fear the strange lair from whence issued the terrifying thunder of his rifle.
In his leisure Clayton read, often aloud to his wife, from the store of books he had brought for their new home. Among these were many for little children—picture books, primers, readers—for they had known that their little child would be old enough for such before they might hope to return to England.
At other times Clayton wrote in his diary, which he had always been accustomed to keep in French, and in which he recorded the details of their strange life. This book he kept locked in a little metal box.
A year from the day her little son was born Lady Alice passed quietly away in the night. So peaceful was her end that it was hours before Clayton could awake to a realization that his wife was dead.
The horror of the situation came to him very slowly, and it is doubtful that he ever fully realized the enormity of his sorrow and the fearful responsibility that had devolved upon him with the care of that wee thing, his son, still a nursing babe.
The last entry in his diary was made the morning following her death, and there he recites the sad details in a matter-of-fact way that adds to the pathos of it; for it breathes a tired apathy born of long sorrow and hopelessness, which even this cruel blow could scarcely awake to further suffering:
My little son is crying for nourishment—O Alice, Alice, what shall I do?
And as John Clayton wrote the last words his hand was destined ever to pen, he dropped his head wearily upon his outstretched arms where they rested upon the table he had built for her who lay still and cold in the bed beside him.
For a long time no sound broke the deathlike stillness of the jungle midday save the piteous wailing of the tiny man-child.
Chapter IV
The Apes
In the forest of the table-land a mile back from the ocean old Kerchak the Ape was on a rampage of rage among his people.
The younger and lighter members of his tribe scampered to the higher branches of the great trees to escape his wrath; risking their lives upon branches that scarce supported their weight rather than face old Kerchak in one of his fits of uncontrolled anger.
The other males scattered in all directions, but not before the infuriated brute had felt the vertebra of one snap between his great, foaming jaws.
A luckless young female slipped from an insecure hold upon a high branch and came crashing to the ground almost at Kerchak's feet.
With a wild scream he was upon her, tearing a great piece from her side with his mighty teeth, and striking her viciously upon her head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until her skull was crushed to a jelly.
And then he spied Kala, who, returning from a search for food with her young babe, was ignorant of the state of the mighty male's temper until suddenly the shrill warnings of her fellows caused her to scamper madly for safety.
But Kerchak was close upon her, so close that he had almost grasped her ankle had she not made a furious leap far into space from one tree to another—a perilous chance which apes seldom if ever take, unless so closely pursued by danger that there is no alternative.
She made the leap successfully, but as she grasped the limb of the further tree the sudden jar loosened the hold of the tiny babe where it clung frantically to her neck, and she saw the little thing hurled, turning and twisting, to the ground thirty feet below.
With a low cry of dismay Kala rushed headlong to its side, thoughtless now of the danger from Kerchak; but when she gathered the wee, mangled form to her bosom life had left it.
With low moans, she sat cuddling the body to her; nor did Kerchak attempt to molest her. With the death of the babe his fit of demoniacal rage passed as suddenly as it had seized him.
Kerchak was a huge king ape, weighing perhaps three hundred and fifty pounds. His forehead was extremely low and receding, his eyes bloodshot, small and close set to his coarse, flat nose; his ears large and thin, but smaller than most of his kind.
His awful temper and his mighty strength made him supreme among the little tribe into which he had been born some twenty years before.
Now that he was in his prime, there was no simian in all the mighty forest through which he roved that dared contest his right to rule, nor did the other and larger animals molest him.
Old Tantor, the elephant, alone of all the wild savage life, feared him not—and he alone did Kerchak fear. When Tantor trumpeted, the great ape scurried with his fellows high among the trees of the second terrace.
The tribe of anthropoids over which Kerchak ruled with an iron hand and bared fangs, numbered some six or eight families, each family consisting of an adult male with his females and their young, numbering in all some sixty or seventy apes.
Kala was the youngest mate of a male called Tublat, meaning broken nose, and the child she had seen dashed to death was her first; for she was but nine or ten years old.
Notwithstanding her youth, she was large and powerful—a splendid, clean-limbed animal, with a round, high forehead, which denoted more intelligence than most of her kind possessed. So, also, she had a great capacity for mother love and mother sorrow.
But she was still an ape, a huge, fierce, terrible beast of a species closely allied to the gorilla, yet more intelligent; which, with the strength of their cousin, made her kind the most fearsome of those awe-inspiring progenitors of man.
When the tribe saw that Kerchak's rage had ceased they came slowly down from their arboreal retreats and pursued again the various occupations which he had interrupted.
The young played and frolicked about among the trees and bushes. Some of the adults lay prone upon the soft mat of dead and decaying vegetation which covered the ground, while others turned over pieces of fallen branches and clods of earth in search of the small bugs and reptiles which formed a part of their food.
Others, again, searched the surrounding trees for fruit, nuts, small birds, and eggs.
They had passed an hour or so thus when Kerchak called them together, and, with a word of command to them to follow him, set off toward the sea.
They traveled for the most part upon the ground, where it was open, following the path of the great elephants whose comings and goings break the only roads through those tangled mazes of bush, vine, creeper, and tree. When they walked it was with a rolling, awkward motion, placing the knuckles of their closed hands upon the ground and swinging their ungainly bodies forward.
But when the way was through the lower trees they moved more swiftly, swinging from branch to branch with the agility of their smaller cousins, the monkeys. And all the way Kala carried her little dead baby hugged closely to her breast.
It was shortly after noon when they reached a ridge overlooking the beach where below them lay the tiny cottage which was Kerchak's goal.
He had seen many of his kind go to their deaths before the loud noise made by the little black stick in the hands of the strange white ape who lived in that wonderful lair, and Kerchak had made up his brute mind to own that death-dealing contrivance, and to explore the interior of the mysterious den.
He wanted, very, very much, to feel his teeth sink into the neck of the queer animal that he had learned to hate and fear, and because of this, he came often with his tribe to reconnoiter, waiting for a time when the white ape should be off his guard.
Of late they had quit attacking, or even showing themselves; for every time they had done so in the past the little stick had roared out its terrible message of death to some member of the tribe.
Today there was no sign of the man about, and from where they watched they could see that the cabin door was open. Slowly, cautiously, and noiselessly they crept through the jungle toward the little cabin.
There were no growls, no fierce screams of rage—the little black stick had taught them to come quietly lest they awaken it.
On, on they came until Kerchak himself slunk stealthily to the very door and peered within. Behind him were two males, and then Kala, closely straining the little dead form to her breast.
Inside the den they saw the strange white ape lying half across a table, his head buried in his arms; and on the bed lay a figure covered by a sailcloth, while from a tiny rustic cradle came the plaintive wailing of a babe.
Noiselessly Kerchak entered, crouching for the charge; and then John Clayton rose with a sudden start and faced them.
The sight that met his eyes must have frozen him with horror, for there, within the door, stood three great bull apes, while behind them crowded many more; how many he never knew, for his revolvers were hanging on the far wall beside his rifle, and Kerchak was charging.
When the king ape released the limp form which had been John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, he turned his attention toward the little cradle; but Kala was there before him, and when he would have grasped the child she snatched it herself, and before he could intercept her she had bolted through the door and taken refuge in a high tree.
As she took up the little live baby of Alice Clayton she dropped the dead body of her own into the empty cradle; for the wail of the living had answered the call of universal motherhood within her wild breast which the dead could not still.
High up among the branches of a mighty tree she hugged the shrieking infant to her bosom, and soon the instinct that was as dominant in this fierce female as it had been in the breast of his tender and beautiful mother—the instinct of mother love—reached out to the tiny man-child's half-formed understanding, and he became quiet.
Then hunger closed the gap between them, and the son of an English lord and an English lady nursed at the breast of Kala, the great ape.
In the meantime the beasts within the cabin were warily examining the contents of this strange lair.
Once satisfied that Clayton was dead, Kerchak turned his attention to the thing which lay upon the bed, covered by a piece of sailcloth.
Gingerly he lifted one corner of the shroud, but when he saw the body of the woman beneath he tore the cloth roughly from her form and seized the still, white throat in his huge, hairy hands.
A moment he let his fingers sink deep into the cold flesh, and then, realizing that she was already dead, he turned from her, to examine the contents of the room; nor did he again molest the body of either Lady Alice or Sir John.
The rifle hanging upon the wall caught his first attention; it was for this strange, death-dealing thunder-stick that he had yearned for months; but now that it was within his grasp he scarcely had the temerity to seize it.
Cautiously he approached the thing, ready to flee precipitately should it speak in its deep roaring tones, as he had heard it speak before, the last words to those of his kind who, through ignorance or rashness, had attacked the wonderful white ape that had borne it.
Deep in the beast's intelligence was something which assured him that the thunder-stick was only dangerous when in the hands of one who could manipulate it, but yet it was several minutes ere he could bring himself to touch it.
Instead, he walked back and forth along the floor before it, turning his head so that never once did his eyes leave the object of his desire.
Using his long arms as a man uses crutches, and rolling his huge carcass from side to side with each stride, the great king ape paced to and fro, uttering deep growls, occasionally punctuated with the ear-piercing scream, than which there is no more terrifying noise in all the jungle.
Presently he halted before the rifle. Slowly he raised a huge hand until it almost touched the shining barrel, only to withdraw it once more and continue his hurried pacing.
It was as though the great brute by this show of fearlessness, and through the medium of his wild voice, was endeavoring to bolster up his courage to the point which would permit him to take the rifle in his hand.
Again he stopped, and this time succeeded in forcing his reluctant hand to the cold steel, only to snatch it away almost immediately and resume his restless beat.
Time after time this strange ceremony was repeated, but on each occasion with increased confidence, until, finally, the rifle was torn from its hook and lay in the grasp of the great brute.
Finding that it harmed him not, Kerchak began to examine it closely. He felt of it from end to end, peered down the black depths of the muzzle, fingered the sights, the breech, the stock, and finally the trigger.
During all these operations the apes who had entered sat huddled near the door watching their chief, while those outside strained and crowded to catch a glimpse of what transpired within.
Suddenly Kerchak's finger closed upon the trigger. There was a deafening roar in the little room and the apes at and beyond the door fell over one another in their wild anxiety to escape.
Kerchak was equally frightened, so frightened, in fact, that he quite forgot to throw aside the author of that fearful noise, but bolted for the door with it tightly clutched in one hand.
As he passed through the opening, the front sight of the rifle caught upon the edge of the inswung door with sufficient force to close it tightly after the fleeing ape.
When Kerchak came to a halt a short distance from the cabin and discovered that he still held the rifle, he dropped it as he might have dropped a red hot iron, nor did he again attempt to recover it—the noise was too much for his brute nerves; but he was now quite convinced that the terrible stick was quite harmless by itself if left alone.
It was an hour before the apes could again bring themselves to approach the cabin to continue their investigations, and when they finally did so, they found to their chagrin that the door was closed and so securely fastened that they could not force it.
The cleverly constructed latch which Clayton had made for the door had sprung as Kerchak passed out; nor could the apes find means of ingress through the heavily barred windows.
After roaming about the vicinity for a short time, they started back for the deeper forests and the higher land from whence they had come.
Kala had not once come to earth with her little adopted babe, but now Kerchak called to her to descend with the rest, and as there was no note of anger in his voice she dropped lightly from branch to branch and joined the others on their homeward march.
Those of the apes who attempted to examine Kala's strange baby were repulsed with bared fangs and low menacing growls, accompanied by words of warning from Kala.
When they assured her that they meant the child no harm she permitted them to come close, but would not allow them to touch her charge.
It was as though she knew that her baby was frail and delicate and feared lest the rough hands of her fellows might injure the little thing.
Another thing she did, and which made traveling an onerous trial for her. Remembering the death of her own little one, she clung desperately to the new babe, with one hand, whenever they were upon the march.
The other young rode upon their mothers' backs; their little arms tightly clasping the hairy necks before them, while their legs were locked beneath their mothers' armpits.
Not so with Kala; she held the small form of the little Lord Greystoke tightly to her breast, where the dainty hands clutched the long black hair which covered that portion of her body. She had seen one child fall from her back to a terrible death, and she would take no further chances with this.
Chapter V
The White Ape
Tenderly Kala nursed her little waif, wondering silently why it did not gain strength and agility as did the little apes of other mothers. It was nearly a year from the time the little fellow came into her possession before he would walk alone, and as for climbing—my, but how stupid he was!
Kala sometimes talked with the older females about her young hopeful, but none of them could understand how a child could be so slow and backward in learning to care for itself. Why, it could not even find food alone, and more than twelve moons had passed since Kala had come upon it.
Had they known that the child had seen thirteen moons before it had come into Kala's possession they would have considered its case as absolutely hopeless, for the little apes of their own tribe were as far advanced in two or three moons as was this little stranger after twenty-five.
Tublat, Kala's husband, was sorely vexed, and but for the female's careful watching would have put the child out of the way.
"He will never be a great ape," he argued. "Always will you have to carry him and protect him. What good will he be to the tribe? None; only a burden.
"Let us leave him quietly sleeping among the tall grasses, that you may bear other and stronger apes to guard us in our old age."
"Never, Broken Nose," replied Kala. "If I must carry him forever, so be it."
And then Tublat went to Kerchak to urge him to use his authority with Kala, and force her to give up little Tarzan, which was the name they had given to the tiny Lord Greystoke, and which meant "White-Skin."
But when Kerchak spoke to her about it Kala threatened to run away from the tribe if they did not leave her in peace with the child; and as this is one of the inalienable rights of the jungle folk, if they be dissatisfied among their own people, they bothered her no more, for Kala was a fine clean-limbed young female, and they did not wish to lose her.
As Tarzan grew he made more rapid strides, so that by the time he was ten years old he was an excellent climber, and on the ground could do many wonderful things which were beyond the powers of his little brothers and sisters.
In many ways did he differ from them, and they often marveled at his superior cunning, but in strength and size he was deficient; for at ten the great anthropoids were fully grown, some of them towering over six feet in height, while little Tarzan was still but a half-grown boy.
Yet such a boy!
From early childhood he had used his hands to swing from branch to branch after the manner of his giant mother, and as he grew older he spent hour upon hour daily speeding through the tree tops with his brothers and sisters.
He could spring twenty feet across space at the dizzy heights of the forest top, and grasp with unerring precision, and without apparent jar, a limb waving wildly in the path of an approaching tornado.
He could drop twenty feet at a stretch from limb to limb in rapid descent to the ground, or he could gain the utmost pinnacle of the loftiest tropical giant with the ease and swiftness of a squirrel.
Though but ten years old he was fully as strong as the average man of thirty, and far more agile than the most practiced athlete ever becomes. And day by day his strength was increasing.
His life among these fierce apes had been happy; for his recollection held no other life, nor did he know that there existed within the universe aught else than his little forest and the wild jungle animals with which he was familiar.
He was nearly ten before he commenced to realize that a great difference existed between himself and his fellows. His little body, burned brown by exposure, suddenly caused him feelings of intense shame, for he realized that it was entirely hairless, like some low snake, or other reptile.
He attempted to obviate this by plastering himself from head to foot with mud, but this dried and fell off. Besides it felt so uncomfortable that he quickly decided that he preferred the shame to the discomfort.
In the higher land which his tribe frequented was a little lake, and it was here that Tarzan first saw his face in the clear, still waters of its bosom.
It was on a sultry day of the dry season that he and one of his cousins had gone down to the bank to drink. As they leaned over, both little faces were mirrored on the placid pool; the fierce and terrible features of the ape beside those of the aristocratic scion of an old English house.
Tarzan was appalled. It had been bad enough to be hairless, but to own such a countenance! He wondered that the other apes could look at him at all.
That tiny slit of a mouth and those puny white teeth! How they looked beside the mighty lips and powerful fangs of his more fortunate brothers!
And the little pinched nose of his; so thin was it that it looked half starved. He turned red as he compared it with the beautiful broad nostrils of his companion. Such a generous nose! Why it spread half across his face! It certainly must be fine to be so handsome, thought poor little Tarzan.
But when he saw his own eyes; ah, that was the final blow—a brown spot, a gray circle and then blank whiteness! Frightful! not even the snakes had such hideous eyes as he.
So intent was he upon this personal appraisement of his features that he did not hear the parting of the tall grass behind him as a great body pushed itself stealthily through the jungle; nor did his companion, the ape, hear either, for he was drinking and the noise of his sucking lips and gurgles of satisfaction drowned the quiet approach of the intruder.
Not thirty paces behind the two she crouched—Sabor, the huge lioness—lashing her tail. Cautiously she moved a great padded paw forward, noiselessly placing it before she lifted the next. Thus she advanced; her belly low, almost touching the surface of the ground—a great cat preparing to spring upon its prey.
Now she was within ten feet of the two unsuspecting little playfellows—carefully she drew her hind feet well up beneath her body, the great muscles rolling under the beautiful skin.
So low she was crouching now that she seemed flattened to the earth except for the upward bend of the glossy back as it gathered for the spring.
No longer the tail lashed—quiet and straight behind her it lay.
An instant she paused thus, as though turned to stone, and then, with an awful scream, she sprang.
Sabor, the lioness, was a wise hunter. To one less wise the wild alarm of her fierce cry as she sprang would have seemed a foolish thing, for could she not more surely have fallen upon her victims had she but quietly leaped without that loud shriek?
But Sabor knew well the wondrous quickness of the jungle folk and their almost unbelievable powers of hearing. To them the sudden scraping of one blade of grass across another was as effectual a warning as her loudest cry, and Sabor knew that she could not make that mighty leap without a little noise.
Her wild scream was not a warning. It was voiced to freeze her poor victims in a paralysis of terror for the tiny fraction of an instant which would suffice for her mighty claws to sink into their soft flesh and hold them beyond hope of escape.
So far as the ape was concerned, Sabor reasoned correctly. The little fellow crouched trembling just an instant, but that instant was quite long enough to prove his undoing.
Not so, however, with Tarzan, the man-child. His life amidst the dangers of the jungle had taught him to meet emergencies with self-confidence, and his higher intelligence resulted in a quickness of mental action far beyond the powers of the apes.
So the scream of Sabor, the lioness, galvanized the brain and muscles of little Tarzan into instant action.
Before him lay the deep waters of the little lake, behind him certain death; a cruel death beneath tearing claws and rending fangs.
Tarzan had always hated water except as a medium for quenching his thirst. He hated it because he connected it with the chill and discomfort of the torrential rains, and he feared it for the thunder and lightning and wind which accompanied them.
The deep waters of the lake he had been taught by his wild mother to avoid, and further, had he not seen little Neeta sink beneath its quiet surface only a few short weeks before never to return to the tribe?
But of the two evils his quick mind chose the lesser ere the first note of Sabor's scream had scarce broken the quiet of the jungle, and before the great beast had covered half her leap Tarzan felt the chill waters close above his head.
He could not swim, and the water was very deep; but still he lost no particle of that self-confidence and resourcefulness which were the badges of his superior being.
Rapidly he moved his hands and feet in an attempt to scramble upward, and, possibly more by chance than design, he fell into the stroke that a dog uses when swimming, so that within a few seconds his nose was above water and he found that he could keep it there by continuing his strokes, and also make progress through the water.
He was much surprised and pleased with this new acquirement which had been so suddenly thrust upon him, but he had no time for thinking much upon it.
He was now swimming parallel to the bank and there he saw the cruel beast that would have seized him crouching upon the still form of his little playmate.
The lioness was intently watching Tarzan, evidently expecting him to return to shore, but this the boy had no intention of doing.
Instead he raised his voice in the call of distress common to his tribe, adding to it the warning which would prevent would-be rescuers from running into the clutches of Sabor.
Almost immediately there came an answer from the distance, and presently forty or fifty great apes swung rapidly and majestically through the trees toward the scene of tragedy.
In the lead was Kala, for she had recognized the tones of her best beloved, and with her was the mother of the little ape who lay dead beneath cruel Sabor.
Though more powerful and better equipped for fighting than the apes, the lioness had no desire to meet these enraged adults, and with a snarl of hatred she sprang quickly into the brush and disappeared.
Tarzan now swam to shore and clambered quickly upon dry land. The feeling of freshness and exhilaration which the cool waters had imparted to him, filled his little being with grateful surprise, and ever after he lost no opportunity to take a daily plunge in lake or stream or ocean when it was possible to do so.
For a long time Kala could not accustom herself to the sight; for though her people could swim when forced to it, they did not like to enter water, and never did so voluntarily.
The adventure with the lioness gave Tarzan food for pleasurable memories, for it was such affairs which broke the monotony of his daily life—otherwise but a dull round of searching for food, eating, and sleeping.
The tribe to which he belonged roamed a tract extending, roughly, twenty-five miles along the seacoast and some fifty miles inland. This they traversed almost continually, occasionally remaining for months in one locality; but as they moved through the trees with great speed they often covered the territory in a very few days.
Much depended upon food supply, climatic conditions, and the prevalence of animals of the more dangerous species; though Kerchak often led them on long marches for no other reason than that he had tired of remaining in the same place.
At night they slept where darkness overtook them, lying upon the ground, and sometimes covering their heads, and more seldom their bodies, with the great leaves of the elephant's ear. Two or three might lie cuddled in each other's arms for additional warmth if the night were chill, and thus Tarzan had slept in Kala's arms nightly for all these years.
That the huge, fierce brute loved this child of another race is beyond question, and he, too, gave to the great, hairy beast all the affection that would have belonged to his fair young mother had she lived.
When he was disobedient she cuffed him, it is true, but she was never cruel to him, and was more often caressing him than chastising him.
Tublat, her mate, always hated Tarzan, and on several occasions had come near ending his youthful career.
Tarzan on his part never lost an opportunity to show that he fully reciprocated his foster father's sentiments, and whenever he could safely annoy him or make faces at him or hurl insults upon him from the safety of his mother's arms, or the slender branches of the higher trees, he did so.
His superior intelligence and cunning permitted him to invent a thousand diabolical tricks to add to the burdens of Tublat's life.
Early in his boyhood he had learned to form ropes by twisting and tying long grasses together, and with these he was forever tripping Tublat or attempting to hang him from some overhanging branch.
By constant playing and experimenting with these he learned to tie rude knots, and make sliding nooses; and with these he and the younger apes amused themselves. What Tarzan did they tried to do also, but he alone originated and became proficient.
One day while playing thus Tarzan had thrown his rope at one of his fleeing companions, retaining the other end in his grasp. By accident the noose fell squarely about the running ape's neck, bringing him to a sudden and surprising halt.
Ah, here was a new game, a fine game, thought Tarzan, and immediately he attempted to repeat the trick. And thus, by painstaking and continued practice, he learned the art of roping.
Now, indeed, was the life of Tublat a living nightmare. In sleep, upon the march, night or day, he never knew when that quiet noose would slip about his neck and nearly choke the life out of him.
Kala punished, Tublat swore dire vengeance, and old Kerchak took notice and warned and threatened; but all to no avail.
Tarzan defied them all, and the thin, strong noose continued to settle about Tublat's neck whenever he least expected it.
The other apes derived unlimited amusement from Tublat's discomfiture, for Broken Nose was a disagreeable old fellow, whom no one liked, anyway.
In Tarzan's clever little mind many thoughts revolved, and back of these was his divine power of reason.
If he could catch his fellow apes with his long arm of many grasses, why not Sabor, the lioness?
It was the germ of a thought, which, however, was destined to mull around in his conscious and subconscious mind until it resulted in magnificent achievement.
But that came in later years.
Chapter VI
Jungle Battles
The wanderings of the tribe brought them often near the closed and silent cabin by the little land-locked harbor. To Tarzan this was always a source of never-ending mystery and pleasure.
He would peek into the curtained windows, or, climbing upon the roof, peer down the black depths of the chimney in vain endeavor to solve the unknown wonders that lay within those strong walls.
His child-like imagination pictured wonderful creatures within, and the very impossibility of forcing entrance added a thousandfold to his desire to do so.
He could clamber about the roof and windows for hours attempting to discover means of ingress, but to the door he paid little attention, for this was apparently as solid as the walls.
It was in the next visit to the vicinity, following the adventure with old Sabor, that, as he approached the cabin, Tarzan noticed that from a distance the door appeared to be an independent part of the wall in which it was set, and for the first time it occurred to him that this might prove the means of entrance which had so long eluded him.
He was alone, as was often the case when he visited the cabin, for the apes had no love for it; the story of the thunder-stick having lost nothing in the telling during these ten years had quite surrounded the white man's deserted abode with an atmosphere of weirdness and terror for the simians.
The story of his own connection with the cabin had never been told him. The language of the apes had so few words that they could talk but little of what they had seen in the cabin, having no words to accurately describe either the strange people or their belongings, and so, long before Tarzan was old enough to understand, the subject had been forgotten by the tribe.
Only in a dim, vague way had Kala explained to him that his father had been a strange white ape, but he did not know that Kala was not his own mother.
On this day, then, he went directly to the door and spent hours examining it and fussing with the hinges, the knob and the latch. Finally he stumbled upon the right combination, and the door swung creakingly open before his astonished eyes.
For some minutes he did not dare venture within, but finally, as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light of the interior he slowly and cautiously entered.
In the middle of the floor lay a skeleton, every vestige of flesh gone from the bones to which still clung the mildewed and moldered remnants of what had once been clothing. Upon the bed lay a similar gruesome thing, but smaller, while in a tiny cradle near-by was a third, a wee mite of a skeleton.
To none of these evidences of a fearful tragedy of a long dead day did little Tarzan give but passing heed. His wild jungle life had inured him to the sight of dead and dying animals, and had he known that he was looking upon the remains of his own father and mother he would have been no more greatly moved.
The furnishings and other contents of the room it was which riveted his attention. He examined many things minutely—strange tools and weapons, books, paper, clothing—what little had withstood the ravages of time in the humid atmosphere of the jungle coast.
He opened chests and cupboards, such as did not baffle his small experience, and in these he found the contents much better preserved.
Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.
For a long time this amused him, but finally tiring he continued his explorations. In a cupboard filled with books he came across one with brightly colored pictures—it was a child's illustrated alphabet—
A is for Archer
Who shoots with a bow.
B is for Boy,
His first name is Joe.
The pictures interested him greatly.
There were many apes with faces similar to his own, and further over in the book he found, under "M," some little monkeys such as he saw daily flitting through the trees of his primeval forest. But nowhere was pictured any of his own people; in all the book was none that resembled Kerchak, or Tublat, or Kala.
At first he tried to pick the little figures from the leaves, but he soon saw that they were not real, though he knew not what they might be, nor had he any words to describe them.
The boats, and trains, and cows and horses were quite meaningless to him, but not quite so baffling as the odd little figures which appeared beneath and between the colored pictures—some strange kind of bug he thought they might be, for many of them had legs though nowhere could he find one with eyes and a mouth. It was his first introduction to the letters of the alphabet, and he was over ten years old.
Of course he had never before seen print, or ever had spoken with any living thing which had the remotest idea that such a thing as a written language existed, nor ever had he seen anyone reading.
So what wonder that the little boy was quite at a loss to guess the meaning of these strange figures.
Near the middle of the book he found his old enemy, Sabor, the lioness, and further on, coiled Histah, the snake.
Oh, it was most engrossing! Never before in all his ten years had he enjoyed anything so much. So absorbed was he that he did not note the approaching dusk, until it was quite upon him and the figures were blurred.
He put the book back in the cupboard and closed the door, for he did not wish anyone else to find and destroy his treasure, and as he went out into the gathering darkness he closed the great door of the cabin behind him as it had been before he discovered the secret of its lock, but before he left he had noticed the hunting knife lying where he had thrown it upon the floor, and this he picked up and took with him to show to his fellows.
He had taken scarce a dozen steps toward the jungle when a great form rose up before him from the shadows of a low bush. At first he thought it was one of his own people but in another instant he realized that it was Bolgani, the huge gorilla.
So close was he that there was no chance for flight and little Tarzan knew that he must stand and fight for his life; for these great beasts were the deadly enemies of his tribe, and neither one nor the other ever asked or gave quarter.
Had Tarzan been a full-grown bull ape of the species of his tribe he would have been more than a match for the gorilla, but being only a little English boy, though enormously muscular for such, he stood no chance against his cruel antagonist. In his veins, though, flowed the blood of the best of a race of mighty fighters, and back of this was the training of his short lifetime among the fierce brutes of the jungle.
He knew no fear, as we know it; his little heart beat the faster but from the excitement and exhilaration of adventure. Had the opportunity presented itself he would have escaped, but solely because his judgment told him he was no match for the great thing which confronted him. And since reason showed him that successful flight was impossible he met the gorilla squarely and bravely without a tremor of a single muscle, or any sign of panic.
In fact he met the brute midway in its charge, striking its huge body with his closed fists and as futilely as he had been a fly attacking an elephant. But in one hand he still clutched the knife he had found in the cabin of his father, and as the brute, striking and biting, closed upon him the boy accidentally turned the point toward the hairy breast. As the knife sank deep into its body the gorilla shrieked in pain and rage.
But the boy had learned in that brief second a use for his sharp and shining toy, so that, as the tearing, striking beast dragged him to earth he plunged the blade repeatedly and to the hilt into its breast.
The gorilla, fighting after the manner of its kind, struck terrific blows with its open hand, and tore the flesh at the boy's throat and chest with its mighty tusks.
For a moment they rolled upon the ground in the fierce frenzy of combat. More and more weakly the torn and bleeding arm struck home with the long sharp blade, then the little figure stiffened with a spasmodic jerk, and Tarzan, the young Lord Greystoke, rolled unconscious upon the dead and decaying vegetation which carpeted his jungle home.
A mile back in the forest the tribe had heard the fierce challenge of the gorilla, and, as was his custom when any danger threatened, Kerchak called his people together, partly for mutual protection against a common enemy, since this gorilla might be but one of a party of several, and also to see that all members of the tribe were accounted for.
It was soon discovered that Tarzan was missing, and Tublat was strongly opposed to sending assistance. Kerchak himself had no liking for the strange little waif, so he listened to Tublat, and, finally, with a shrug of his shoulders, turned back to the pile of leaves on which he had made his bed.
But Kala was of a different mind; in fact, she had not waited but to learn that Tarzan was absent ere she was fairly flying through the matted branches toward the point from which the cries of the gorilla were still plainly audible.
Darkness had now fallen, and an early moon was sending its faint light to cast strange, grotesque shadows among the dense foliage of the forest.
Here and there the brilliant rays penetrated to earth, but for the most part they only served to accentuate the Stygian blackness of the jungle's depths.
Like some huge phantom, Kala swung noiselessly from tree to tree; now running nimbly along a great branch, now swinging through space at the end of another, only to grasp that of a farther tree in her rapid progress toward the scene of the tragedy her knowledge of jungle life told her was being enacted a short distance before her.
The cries of the gorilla proclaimed that it was in mortal combat with some other denizen of the fierce wood. Suddenly these cries ceased, and the silence of death reigned throughout the jungle.
Kala could not understand, for the voice of Bolgani had at last been raised in the agony of suffering and death, but no sound had come to her by which she possibly could determine the nature of his antagonist.
That her little Tarzan could destroy a great bull gorilla she knew to be improbable, and so, as she neared the spot from which the sounds of the struggle had come, she moved more warily and at last slowly and with extreme caution she traversed the lowest branches, peering eagerly into the moon-splashed blackness for a sign of the combatants.
Presently she came upon them, lying in a little open space full under the brilliant light of the moon—little Tarzan's torn and bloody form, and beside it a great bull gorilla, stone dead.
With a low cry Kala rushed to Tarzan's side, and gathering the poor, blood-covered body to her breast, listened for a sign of life. Faintly she heard it—the weak beating of the little heart.
Tenderly she bore him back through the inky jungle to where the tribe lay, and for many days and nights she sat guard beside him, bringing him food and water, and brushing the flies and other insects from his cruel wounds.
Of medicine or surgery the poor thing knew nothing. She could but lick the wounds, and thus she kept them cleansed, that healing nature might the more quickly do her work.
At first Tarzan would eat nothing, but rolled and tossed in a wild delirium of fever. All he craved was water, and this she brought him in the only way she could, bearing it in her own mouth.
No human mother could have shown more unselfish and sacrificing devotion than did this poor, wild brute for the little orphaned waif whom fate had thrown into her keeping.
At last the fever abated and the boy commenced to mend. No word of complaint passed his tight set lips, though the pain of his wounds was excruciating.
A portion of his chest was laid bare to the ribs, three of which had been broken by the mighty blows of the gorilla. One arm was nearly severed by the giant fangs, and a great piece had been torn from his neck, exposing his jugular vein, which the cruel jaws had missed but by a miracle.
With the stoicism of the brutes who had raised him he endured his suffering quietly, preferring to crawl away from the others and lie huddled in some clump of tall grasses rather than to show his misery before their eyes.
Kala, alone, he was glad to have with him, but now that he was better she was gone longer at a time, in search of food; for the devoted animal had scarcely eaten enough to support her own life while Tarzan had been so low, and was in consequence, reduced to a mere shadow of her former self.
Chapter VII
The Light of Knowledge
After what seemed an eternity to the little sufferer he was able to walk once more, and from then on his recovery was so rapid that in another month he was as strong and active as ever.
During his convalescence he had gone over in his mind many times the battle with the gorilla, and his first thought was to recover the wonderful little weapon which had transformed him from a hopelessly outclassed weakling to the superior of the mighty terror of the jungle.
Also, he was anxious to return to the cabin and continue his investigations of its wondrous contents.
So, early one morning, he set forth alone upon his quest. After a little search he located the clean-picked bones of his late adversary, and close by, partly buried beneath the fallen leaves, he found the knife, now red with rust from its exposure to the dampness of the ground and from the dried blood of the gorilla.
He did not like the change in its former bright and gleaming surface; but it was still a formidable weapon, and one which he meant to use to advantage whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had in mind that no more would he run from the wanton attacks of old Tublat.
In another moment he was at the cabin, and after a short time had again thrown the latch and entered. His first concern was to learn the mechanism of the lock, and this he did by examining it closely while the door was open, so that he could learn precisely what caused it to hold the door, and by what means it released at his touch.
He found that he could close and lock the door from within, and this he did so that there would be no chance of his being molested while at his investigation.
He commenced a systematic search of the cabin; but his attention was soon riveted by the books which seemed to exert a strange and powerful influence over him, so that he could scarce attend to aught else for the lure of the wondrous puzzle which their purpose presented to him.
Among the other books were a primer, some child's readers, numerous picture books, and a great dictionary. All of these he examined, but the pictures caught his fancy most, though the strange little bugs which covered the pages where there were no pictures excited his wonder and deepest thought.
Squatting upon his haunches on the table top in the cabin his father had built—his smooth, brown, naked little body bent over the book which rested in his strong slender hands, and his great shock of long, black hair falling about his well-shaped head and bright, intelligent eyes—Tarzan of the apes, little primitive man, presented a picture filled, at once, with pathos and with promise—an allegorical figure of the primordial groping through the black night of ignorance toward the light of learning.
His little face was tense in study, for he had partially grasped, in a hazy, nebulous way, the rudiments of a thought which was destined to prove the key and the solution to the puzzling problem of the strange little bugs.
In his hands was a primer opened at a picture of a little ape similar to himself, but covered, except for hands and face, with strange, colored fur, for such he thought the jacket and trousers to be. Beneath the picture were three little bugs—
BOY.
And now he had discovered in the text upon the page that these three were repeated many times in the same sequence.
Another fact he learned—that there were comparatively few individual bugs; but these were repeated many times, occasionally alone, but more often in company with others.
Slowly he turned the pages, scanning the pictures and the text for a repetition of the combination B-O-Y. Presently he found it beneath a picture of another little ape and a strange animal which went upon four legs like the jackal and resembled him not a little. Beneath this picture the bugs appeared as:
A BOY AND A DOG
There they were, the three little bugs which always accompanied the little ape.
And so he progressed very, very slowly, for it was a hard and laborious task which he had set himself without knowing it—a task which might seem to you or me impossible—learning to read without having the slightest knowledge of letters or written language, or the faintest idea that such things existed.
He did not accomplish it in a day, or in a week, or in a month, or in a year; but slowly, very slowly, he learned after he had grasped the possibilities which lay in those little bugs, so that by the time he was fifteen he knew the various combinations of letters which stood for every pictured figure in the little primer and in one or two of the picture books.
Of the meaning and use of the articles and conjunctions, verbs and adverbs and pronouns he had but the faintest conception.
One day when he was about twelve he found a number of lead pencils in a hitherto undiscovered drawer beneath the table, and in scratching upon the table top with one of them he was delighted to discover the black line it left behind it.
He worked so assiduously with this new toy that the table top was soon a mass of scrawly loops and irregular lines and his pencil-point worn down to the wood. Then he took another pencil, but this time he had a definite object in view.
He would attempt to reproduce some of the little bugs that scrambled over the pages of his books.
It was a difficult task, for he held the pencil as one would grasp the hilt of a dagger, which does not add greatly to ease in writing or to the legibility of the results.
But he persevered for months, at such times as he was able to come to the cabin, until at last by repeated experimenting he found a position in which to hold the pencil that best permitted him to guide and control it, so that at last he could roughly reproduce any of the little bugs.
Thus he made a beginning of writing.
Copying the bugs taught him another thing—their number; and though he could not count as we understand it, yet he had an idea of quantity, the base of his calculations being the number of fingers upon one of his hands.
His search through the various books convinced him that he had discovered all the different kinds of bugs most often repeated in combination, and these he arranged in proper order with great ease because of the frequency with which he had perused the fascinating alphabet picture book.
His education progressed; but his greatest finds were in the inexhaustible storehouse of the huge illustrated dictionary, for he learned more through the medium of pictures than text, even after he had grasped the significance of the bugs.
When he discovered the arrangement of words in alphabetical order he delighted in searching for and finding the combinations with which he was familiar, and the words which followed them, their definitions, led him still further into the mazes of erudition.
By the time he was seventeen he had learned to read the simple, child's primer and had fully realized the true and wonderful purpose of the little bugs.
No longer did he feel shame for his hairless body or his human features, for now his reason told him that he was of a different race from his wild and hairy companions. He was a M-A-N, they were A-P-E-S, and the little apes which scurried through the forest top were M-O-N-K-E-Y-S. He knew, too, that old Sabor was a L-I-O-N-E-S-S, and Histah a S-N-A-K-E, and Tantor an E-L-E-P-H-A-N-T. And so he learned to read. From then on his progress was rapid. With the help of the great dictionary and the active intelligence of a healthy mind endowed by inheritance with more than ordinary reasoning powers he shrewdly guessed at much which he could not really understand, and more often than not his guesses were close to the mark of truth.
There were many breaks in his education, caused by the migratory habits of his tribe, but even when removed from his books his active brain continued to search out the mysteries of his fascinating avocation.
Pieces of bark and flat leaves and even smooth stretches of bare earth provided him with copy books whereon to scratch with the point of his hunting knife the lessons he was learning.
Nor did he neglect the sterner duties of life while following the bent of his inclination toward the solving of the mystery of his library.
He practiced with his rope and played with his sharp knife, which he had learned to keep keen by whetting upon flat stones.
The tribe had grown larger since Tarzan had come among them, for under the leadership of Kerchak they had been able to frighten the other tribes from their part of the jungle so that they had plenty to eat and little or no loss from predatory incursions of neighbors.
Hence the younger males as they became adult found it more comfortable to take mates from their own tribe, or if they captured one of another tribe to bring her back to Kerchak's band and live in amity with him rather than attempt to set up new establishments of their own, or fight with the redoubtable Kerchak for supremacy at home.
Occasionally one more ferocious than his fellows would attempt this latter alternative, but none had come yet who could wrest the palm of victory from the fierce and brutal ape.
Tarzan held a peculiar position in the tribe. They seemed to consider him one of them and yet in some way different. The older males either ignored him entirely or else hated him so vindictively that but for his wondrous agility and speed and the fierce protection of the huge Kala he would have been dispatched at an early age.
Tublat was his most consistent enemy, but it was through Tublat that, when he was about thirteen, the persecution of his enemies suddenly ceased and he was left severely alone, except on the occasions when one of them ran amuck in the throes of one of those strange, wild fits of insane rage which attacks the males of many of the fiercer animals of the jungle. Then none was safe.
On the day that Tarzan established his right to respect, the tribe was gathered about a small natural amphitheater which the jungle had left free from its entangling vines and creepers in a hollow among some low hills.
The open space was almost circular in shape. Upon every hand rose the mighty giants of the untouched forest, with the matted undergrowth banked so closely between the huge trunks that the only opening into the little, level arena was through the upper branches of the trees.
Here, safe from interruption, the tribe often gathered. In the center of the amphitheater was one of those strange earthen drums which the anthropoids build for the queer rites the sounds of which men have heard in the fastnesses of the jungle, but which none has ever witnessed.
Many travelers have seen the drums of the great apes, and some have heard the sounds of their beating and the noise of the wild, weird revelry of these first lords of the jungle, but Tarzan, Lord Greystoke, is, doubtless, the only human being who ever joined in the fierce, mad, intoxicating revel of the Dum-Dum.
From this primitive function has arisen, unquestionably, all the forms and ceremonials of modern church and state, for through all the countless ages, back beyond the uttermost ramparts of a dawning humanity our fierce, hairy forebears danced out the rites of the Dum-Dum to the sound of their earthen drums, beneath the bright light of a tropical moon in the depth of a mighty jungle which stands unchanged today as it stood on that long forgotten night in the dim, unthinkable vistas of the long dead past when our first shaggy ancestor swung from a swaying bough and dropped lightly upon the soft turf of the first meeting place.
On the day that Tarzan won his emancipation from the persecution that had followed him remorselessly for twelve of his thirteen years of life, the tribe, now a full hundred strong, trooped silently through the lower terrace of the jungle trees and dropped noiselessly upon the floor of the amphitheater.
The rites of the Dum-Dum marked important events in the life of the tribe—a victory, the capture of a prisoner, the killing of some large fierce denizen of the jungle, the death or accession of a king, and were conducted with set ceremonialism.
Today it was the killing of a giant ape, a member of another tribe, and as the people of Kerchak entered the arena two mighty bulls were seen bearing the body of the vanquished between them.
They laid their burden before the earthen drum and then squatted there beside it as guards, while the other members of the community curled themselves in grassy nooks to sleep until the rising moon should give the signal for the commencement of their savage orgy.
For hours absolute quiet reigned in the little clearing, except as it was broken by the discordant notes of brilliantly feathered parrots, or the screeching and twittering of the thousand jungle birds flitting ceaselessly amongst the vivid orchids and flamboyant blossoms which festooned the myriad, moss-covered branches of the forest kings.
At length as darkness settled upon the jungle the apes commenced to bestir themselves, and soon they formed a great circle about the earthen drum. The females and young squatted in a thin line at the outer periphery of the circle, while just in front of them ranged the adult males. Before the drum sat three old females, each armed with a knotted branch fifteen or eighteen inches in length.
Slowly and softly they began tapping upon the resounding surface of the drum as the first faint rays of the ascending moon silvered the encircling tree tops.
As the light in the amphitheater increased the females augmented the frequency and force of their blows until presently a wild, rhythmic din pervaded the great jungle for miles in every direction. Huge, fierce brutes stopped in their hunting, with up-pricked ears and raised heads, to listen to the dull booming that betokened the Dum-Dum of the apes.
Occasionally one would raise his shrill scream or thunderous roar in answering challenge to the savage din of the anthropoids, but none came near to investigate or attack, for the great apes, assembled in all the power of their numbers, filled the breasts of their jungle neighbors with deep respect.
As the din of the drum rose to almost deafening volume Kerchak sprang into the open space between the squatting males and the drummers.
Standing erect he threw his head far back and looking full into the eye of the rising moon he beat upon his breast with his great hairy paws and emitted his fearful roaring shriek.
One—twice—thrice that terrifying cry rang out across the teeming solitude of that unspeakably quick, yet unthinkably dead, world.
Then, crouching, Kerchak slunk noiselessly around the open circle, veering far away from the dead body lying before the altar-drum, but, as he passed, keeping his little, fierce, wicked, red eyes upon the corpse.
Another male then sprang into the arena, and, repeating the horrid cries of his king, followed stealthily in his wake. Another and another followed in quick succession until the jungle reverberated with the now almost ceaseless notes of their bloodthirsty screams.
It was the challenge and the hunt.
When all the adult males had joined in the thin line of circling dancers the attack commenced.
Kerchak, seizing a huge club from the pile which lay at hand for the purpose, rushed furiously upon the dead ape, dealing the corpse a terrific blow, at the same time emitting the growls and snarls of combat. The din of the drum was now increased, as well as the frequency of the blows, and the warriors, as each approached the victim of the hunt and delivered his bludgeon blow, joined in the mad whirl of the Death Dance.
Tarzan was one of the wild, leaping horde. His brown, sweat-streaked, muscular body, glistening in the moonlight, shone supple and graceful among the uncouth, awkward, hairy brutes about him.
None was more stealthy in the mimic hunt, none more ferocious than he in the wild ferocity of the attack, none who leaped so high into the air in the Dance of Death.
As the noise and rapidity of the drumbeats increased the dancers apparently became intoxicated with the wild rhythm and the savage yells. Their leaps and bounds increased, their bared fangs dripped saliva, and their lips and breasts were flecked with foam.
For half an hour the weird dance went on, until, at a sign from Kerchak, the noise of the drums ceased, the female drummers scampering hurriedly through the line of dancers toward the outer rim of squatting spectators. Then, as one, the males rushed headlong upon the thing which their terrific blows had reduced to a mass of hairy pulp.
Flesh seldom came to their jaws in satisfying quantities, so a fit finale to their wild revel was a taste of fresh killed meat, and it was to the purpose of devouring their late enemy that they now turned their attention.
Great fangs sunk into the carcass tearing away huge hunks, the mightiest of the apes obtaining the choicest morsels, while the weaker circled the outer edge of the fighting, snarling pack awaiting their chance to dodge in and snatch a dropped tidbit or filch a remaining bone before all was gone.
Tarzan, more than the apes, craved and needed flesh. Descended from a race of meat eaters, never in his life, he thought, had he once satisfied his appetite for animal food; and so now his agile little body wormed its way far into the mass of struggling, rending apes in an endeavor to obtain a share which his strength would have been unequal to the task of winning for him.
At his side hung the hunting knife of his unknown father in a sheath self-fashioned in copy of one he had seen among the pictures of his treasure-books.
At last he reached the fast disappearing feast and with his sharp knife slashed off a more generous portion than he had hoped for, an entire hairy forearm, where it protruded from beneath the feet of the mighty Kerchak, who was so busily engaged in perpetuating the royal prerogative of gluttony that he failed to note the act of LESE-MAJESTE.
So little Tarzan wriggled out from beneath the struggling mass, clutching his grisly prize close to his breast.
Among those circling futilely the outskirts of the banqueters was old Tublat. He had been among the first at the feast, but had retreated with a goodly share to eat in quiet, and was now forcing his way back for more.
So it was that he spied Tarzan as the boy emerged from the clawing, pushing throng with that hairy forearm hugged firmly to his body.
Tublat's little, close-set, bloodshot, pig-eyes shot wicked gleams of hate as they fell upon the object of his loathing. In them, too, was greed for the toothsome dainty the boy carried.
But Tarzan saw his arch enemy as quickly, and divining what the great beast would do he leaped nimbly away toward the females and the young, hoping to hide himself among them. Tublat, however, was close upon his heels, so that he had no opportunity to seek a place of concealment, but saw that he would be put to it to escape at all.
Swiftly he sped toward the surrounding trees and with an agile bound gained a lower limb with one hand, and then, transferring his burden to his teeth, he climbed rapidly upward, closely followed by Tublat.
Up, up he went to the waving pinnacle of a lofty monarch of the forest where his heavy pursuer dared not follow him. There he perched, hurling taunts and insults at the raging, foaming beast fifty feet below him.
And then Tublat went mad.
With horrifying screams and roars he rushed to the ground, among the females and young, sinking his great fangs into a dozen tiny necks and tearing great pieces from the backs and breasts of the females who fell into his clutches.
In the brilliant moonlight Tarzan witnessed the whole mad carnival of rage. He saw the females and the young scamper to the safety of the trees. Then the great bulls in the center of the arena felt the mighty fangs of their demented fellow, and with one accord they melted into the black shadows of the overhanging forest.
There was but one in the amphitheater beside Tublat, a belated female running swiftly toward the tree where Tarzan perched, and close behind her came the awful Tublat.
It was Kala, and as quickly as Tarzan saw that Tublat was gaining on her he dropped with the rapidity of a falling stone, from branch to branch, toward his foster mother.
Now she was beneath the overhanging limbs and close above her crouched Tarzan, waiting the outcome of the race.
She leaped into the air grasping a low-hanging branch, but almost over the head of Tublat, so nearly had he distanced her. She should have been safe now but there was a rending, tearing sound, the branch broke and precipitated her full upon the head of Tublat, knocking him to the ground.
Both were up in an instant, but as quick as they had been Tarzan had been quicker, so that the infuriated bull found himself facing the man-child who stood between him and Kala.
Nothing could have suited the fierce beast better, and with a roar of triumph he leaped upon the little Lord Greystoke. But his fangs never closed in that nut brown flesh.
A muscular hand shot out and grasped the hairy throat, and another plunged a keen hunting knife a dozen times into the broad breast. Like lightning the blows fell, and only ceased when Tarzan felt the limp form crumple beneath him.
As the body rolled to the ground Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his lifelong enemy and, raising his eyes to the full moon, threw back his fierce young head and voiced the wild and terrible cry of his people.
One by one the tribe swung down from their arboreal retreats and formed a circle about Tarzan and his vanquished foe. When they had all come Tarzan turned toward them.
"I am Tarzan," he cried. "I am a great killer. Let all respect Tarzan of the Apes and Kala, his mother. There be none among you as mighty as Tarzan. Let his enemies beware."
Looking full into the wicked, red eyes of Kerchak, the young Lord Greystoke beat upon his mighty breast and screamed out once more his shrill cry of defiance.
Chapter VIII
The Tree-top Hunter
The morning after the Dum-Dum the tribe started slowly back through the forest toward the coast.
The body of Tublat lay where it had fallen, for the people of Kerchak do not eat their own dead.
The march was but a leisurely search for food. Cabbage palm and gray plum, pisang and scitamine they found in abundance, with wild pineapple, and occasionally small mammals, birds, eggs, reptiles, and insects. The nuts they cracked between their powerful jaws, or, if too hard, broke by pounding between stones.
Once old Sabor, crossing their path, sent them scurrying to the safety of the higher branches, for if she respected their number and their sharp fangs, they on their part held her cruel and mighty ferocity in equal esteem.
Upon a low-hanging branch sat Tarzan directly above the majestic, supple body as it forged silently through the thick jungle. He hurled a pineapple at the ancient enemy of his people. The great beast stopped and, turning, eyed the taunting figure above her.
With an angry lash of her tail she bared her yellow fangs, curling her great lips in a hideous snarl that wrinkled her bristling snout in serried ridges and closed her wicked eyes to two narrow slits of rage and hatred.
With back-laid ears she looked straight into the eyes of Tarzan of the Apes and sounded her fierce, shrill challenge. And from the safety of his overhanging limb the ape-child sent back the fearsome answer of his kind.
For a moment the two eyed each other in silence, and then the great cat turned into the jungle, which swallowed her as the ocean engulfs a tossed pebble.
But into the mind of Tarzan a great plan sprang. He had killed the fierce Tublat, so was he not therefore a mighty fighter? Now would he track down the crafty Sabor and slay her likewise. He would be a mighty hunter, also.
At the bottom of his little English heart beat the great desire to cover his nakedness with CLOTHES for he had learned from his picture books that all MEN were so covered, while MONKEYS and APES and every other living thing went naked.
CLOTHES therefore, must be truly a badge of greatness; the insignia of the superiority of MAN over all other animals, for surely there could be no other reason for wearing the hideous things.
Many moons ago, when he had been much smaller, he had desired the skin of Sabor, the lioness, or Numa, the lion, or Sheeta, the leopard to cover his hairless body that he might no longer resemble hideous Histah, the snake; but now he was proud of his sleek skin for it betokened his descent from a mighty race, and the conflicting desires to go naked in prideful proof of his ancestry, or to conform to the customs of his own kind and wear hideous and uncomfortable apparel found first one and then the other in the ascendency.
As the tribe continued their slow way through the forest after the passing of Sabor, Tarzan's head was filled with his great scheme for slaying his enemy, and for many days thereafter he thought of little else.
On this day, however, he presently had other and more immediate interests to attract his attention.
Suddenly it became as midnight; the noises of the jungle ceased; the trees stood motionless as though in paralyzed expectancy of some great and imminent disaster. All nature waited—but not for long.
Faintly, from a distance, came a low, sad moaning. Nearer and nearer it approached, mounting louder and louder in volume.
The great trees bent in unison as though pressed earthward by a mighty hand. Farther and farther toward the ground they inclined, and still there was no sound save the deep and awesome moaning of the wind.
Then, suddenly, the jungle giants whipped back, lashing their mighty tops in angry and deafening protest. A vivid and blinding light flashed from the whirling, inky clouds above. The deep cannonade of roaring thunder belched forth its fearsome challenge. The deluge came—all hell broke loose upon the jungle.
The tribe shivering from the cold rain, huddled at the bases of great trees. The lightning, darting and flashing through the blackness, showed wildly waving branches, whipping streamers and bending trunks.
Now and again some ancient patriarch of the woods, rent by a flashing bolt, would crash in a thousand pieces among the surrounding trees, carrying down numberless branches and many smaller neighbors to add to the tangled confusion of the tropical jungle.
Branches, great and small, torn away by the ferocity of the tornado, hurtled through the wildly waving verdure, carrying death and destruction to countless unhappy denizens of the thickly peopled world below.
For hours the fury of the storm continued without surcease, and still the tribe huddled close in shivering fear. In constant danger from falling trunks and branches and paralyzed by the vivid flashing of lightning and the bellowing of thunder they crouched in pitiful misery until the storm passed.
The end was as sudden as the beginning. The wind ceased, the sun shone forth—nature smiled once more.
The dripping leaves and branches, and the moist petals of gorgeous flowers glistened in the splendor of the returning day. And, so—as Nature forgot, her children forgot also. Busy life went on as it had been before the darkness and the fright.
But to Tarzan a dawning light had come to explain the mystery of CLOTHES. How snug he would have been beneath the heavy coat of Sabor! And so was added a further incentive to the adventure.
For several months the tribe hovered near the beach where stood Tarzan's cabin, and his studies took up the greater portion of his time, but always when journeying through the forest he kept his rope in readiness, and many were the smaller animals that fell into the snare of the quick thrown noose.
Once it fell about the short neck of Horta, the boar, and his mad lunge for freedom toppled Tarzan from the overhanging limb where he had lain in wait and from whence he had launched his sinuous coil.
The mighty tusker turned at the sound of his falling body, and, seeing only the easy prey of a young ape, he lowered his head and charged madly at the surprised youth.
Tarzan, happily, was uninjured by the fall, alighting catlike upon all fours far outspread to take up the shock. He was on his feet in an instant and, leaping with the agility of the monkey he was, he gained the safety of a low limb as Horta, the boar, rushed futilely beneath.
Thus it was that Tarzan learned by experience the limitations as well as the possibilities of his strange weapon.
He lost a long rope on this occasion, but he knew that had it been Sabor who had thus dragged him from his perch the outcome might have been very different, for he would have lost his life, doubtless, into the bargain.
It took him many days to braid a new rope, but when, finally, it was done he went forth purposely to hunt, and lie in wait among the dense foliage of a great branch right above the well-beaten trail that led to water.
Several small animals passed unharmed beneath him. He did not want such insignificant game. It would take a strong animal to test the efficacy of his new scheme.
At last came she whom Tarzan sought, with lithe sinews rolling beneath shimmering hide; fat and glossy came Sabor, the lioness.
Her great padded feet fell soft and noiseless on the narrow trail. Her head was high in ever alert attention; her long tail moved slowly in sinuous and graceful undulations.
Nearer and nearer she came to where Tarzan of the Apes crouched upon his limb, the coils of his long rope poised ready in his hand.
Like a thing of bronze, motionless as death, sat Tarzan. Sabor passed beneath. One stride beyond she took—a second, a third, and then the silent coil shot out above her.
For an instant the spreading noose hung above her head like a great snake, and then, as she looked upward to detect the origin of the swishing sound of the rope, it settled about her neck. With a quick jerk Tarzan snapped the noose tight about the glossy throat, and then he dropped the rope and clung to his support with both hands.
Sabor was trapped.
With a bound the startled beast turned into the jungle, but Tarzan was not to lose another rope through the same cause as the first. He had learned from experience. The lioness had taken but half her second bound when she felt the rope tighten about her neck; her body turned completely over in the air and she fell with a heavy crash upon her back. Tarzan had fastened the end of the rope securely to the trunk of the great tree on which he sat.
Thus far his plan had worked to perfection, but when he grasped the rope, bracing himself behind a crotch of two mighty branches, he found that dragging the mighty, struggling, clawing, biting, screaming mass of iron-muscled fury up to the tree and hanging her was a very different proposition.
The weight of old Sabor was immense, and when she braced her huge paws nothing less than Tantor, the elephant, himself, could have budged her.
The lioness was now back in the path where she could see the author of the indignity which had been placed upon her. Screaming with rage she suddenly charged, leaping high into the air toward Tarzan, but when her huge body struck the limb on which Tarzan had been, Tarzan was no longer there.
Instead he perched lightly upon a smaller branch twenty feet above the raging captive. For a moment Sabor hung half across the branch, while Tarzan mocked, and hurled twigs and branches at her unprotected face.
Presently the beast dropped to the earth again and Tarzan came quickly to seize the rope, but Sabor had now found that it was only a slender cord that held her, and grasping it in her huge jaws severed it before Tarzan could tighten the strangling noose a second time.
Tarzan was much hurt. His well-laid plan had come to naught, so he sat there screaming at the roaring creature beneath him and making mocking grimaces at it.
Sabor paced back and forth beneath the tree for hours; four times she crouched and sprang at the dancing sprite above her, but might as well have clutched at the illusive wind that murmured through the tree tops.
At last Tarzan tired of the sport, and with a parting roar of challenge and a well-aimed ripe fruit that spread soft and sticky over the snarling face of his enemy, he swung rapidly through the trees, a hundred feet above the ground, and in a short time was among the members of his tribe.
Here he recounted the details of his adventure, with swelling chest and so considerable swagger that he quite impressed even his bitterest enemies, while Kala fairly danced for joy and pride.
Chapter IX
Man and Man
Tarzan of the Apes lived on in his wild, jungle existence with little change for several years, only that he grew stronger and wiser, and learned from his books more and more of the strange worlds which lay somewhere outside his primeval forest.
To him life was never monotonous or stale. There was always Pisah, the fish, to be caught in the many streams and the little lakes, and Sabor, with her ferocious cousins to keep one ever on the alert and give zest to every instant that one spent upon the ground.
Often they hunted him, and more often he hunted them, but though they never quite reached him with those cruel, sharp claws of theirs, yet there were times when one could scarce have passed a thick leaf between their talons and his smooth hide.
Quick was Sabor, the lioness, and quick were Numa and Sheeta, but Tarzan of the Apes was lightning.
With Tantor, the elephant, he made friends. How? Ask not. But this is known to the denizens of the jungle, that on many moonlight nights Tarzan of the Apes and Tantor, the elephant, walked together, and where the way was clear Tarzan rode, perched high upon Tantor's mighty back.
Many days during these years he spent in the cabin of his father, where still lay, untouched, the bones of his parents and the skeleton of Kala's baby. At eighteen he read fluently and understood nearly all he read in the many and varied volumes on the shelves.
Also could he write, with printed letters, rapidly and plainly, but script he had not mastered, for though there were several copy books among his treasure, there was so little written English in the cabin that he saw no use for bothering with this other form of writing, though he could read it, laboriously.
Thus, at eighteen, we find him, an English lordling, who could speak no English, and yet who could read and write his native language. Never had he seen a human being other than himself, for the little area traversed by his tribe was watered by no greater river to bring down the savage natives of the interior.
High hills shut it off on three sides, the ocean on the fourth. It was alive with lions and leopards and poisonous snakes. Its untouched mazes of matted jungle had as yet invited no hardy pioneer from the human beasts beyond its frontier.
But as Tarzan of the Apes sat one day in the cabin of his father delving into the mysteries of a new book, the ancient security of his jungle was broken forever.
At the far eastern confine a strange cavalcade strung, in single file, over the brow of a low hill.
In advance were fifty black warriors armed with slender wooden spears with ends hard baked over slow fires, and long bows and poisoned arrows. On their backs were oval shields, in their noses huge rings, while from the kinky wool of their heads protruded tufts of gay feathers.
Across their foreheads were tattooed three parallel lines of color, and on each breast three concentric circles. Their yellow teeth were filed to sharp points, and their great protruding lips added still further to the low and bestial brutishness of their appearance.
Following them were several hundred women and children, the former bearing upon their heads great burdens of cooking pots, household utensils and ivory. In the rear were a hundred warriors, similar in all respects to the advance guard.
That they more greatly feared an attack from the rear than whatever unknown enemies lurked in their advance was evidenced by the formation of the column; and such was the fact, for they were fleeing from the white man's soldiers who had so harassed them for rubber and ivory that they had turned upon their conquerors one day and massacred a white officer and a small detachment of his black troops.
For many days they had gorged themselves on meat, but eventually a stronger body of troops had come and fallen upon their village by night to revenge the death of their comrades.
That night the black soldiers of the white man had had meat a-plenty, and this little remnant of a once powerful tribe had slunk off into the gloomy jungle toward the unknown, and freedom.
But that which meant freedom and the pursuit of happiness to these savage blacks meant consternation and death to many of the wild denizens of their new home.
For three days the little cavalcade marched slowly through the heart of this unknown and untracked forest, until finally, early in the fourth day, they came upon a little spot near the banks of a small river, which seemed less thickly overgrown than any ground they had yet encountered.
Here they set to work to build a new village, and in a month a great clearing had been made, huts and palisades erected, plantains, yams and maize planted, and they had taken up their old life in their new home. Here there were no white men, no soldiers, nor any rubber or ivory to be gathered for cruel and thankless taskmasters.
Several moons passed by ere the blacks ventured far into the territory surrounding their new village. Several had already fallen prey to old Sabor, and because the jungle was so infested with these fierce and bloodthirsty cats, and with lions and leopards, the ebony warriors hesitated to trust themselves far from the safety of their palisades.
But one day, Kulonga, a son of the old king, Mbonga, wandered far into the dense mazes to the west. Warily he stepped, his slender lance ever ready, his long oval shield firmly grasped in his left hand close to his sleek ebony body.
At his back his bow, and in the quiver upon his shield many slim, straight arrows, well smeared with the thick, dark, tarry substance that rendered deadly their tiniest needle prick.
Night found Kulonga far from the palisades of his father's village, but still headed westward, and climbing into the fork of a great tree he fashioned a rude platform and curled himself for sleep.
Three miles to the west slept the tribe of Kerchak.
Early the next morning the apes were astir, moving through the jungle in search of food. Tarzan, as was his custom, prosecuted his search in the direction of the cabin so that by leisurely hunting on the way his stomach was filled by the time he reached the beach.
The apes scattered by ones, and twos, and threes in all directions, but ever within sound of a signal of alarm.
Kala had moved slowly along an elephant track toward the east, and was busily engaged in turning over rotted limbs and logs in search of succulent bugs and fungi, when the faintest shadow of a strange noise brought her to startled attention.
For fifty yards before her the trail was straight, and down this leafy tunnel she saw the stealthy advancing figure of a strange and fearful creature.
It was Kulonga.
Kala did not wait to see more, but, turning, moved rapidly back along the trail. She did not run; but, after the manner of her kind when not aroused, sought rather to avoid than to escape.
Close after her came Kulonga. Here was meat. He could make a killing and feast well this day. On he hurried, his spear poised for the throw.
At a turning of the trail he came in sight of her again upon another straight stretch. His spear hand went far back, the muscles rolled, lightning-like, beneath the sleek hide. Out shot the arm, and the spear sped toward Kala.
A poor cast. It but grazed her side.
With a cry of rage and pain the she-ape turned upon her tormentor. In an instant the trees were crashing beneath the weight of her hurrying fellows, swinging rapidly toward the scene of trouble in answer to Kala's scream.
As she charged, Kulonga unslung his bow and fitted an arrow with almost unthinkable quickness. Drawing the shaft far back he drove the poisoned missile straight into the heart of the great anthropoid.
With a horrid scream Kala plunged forward upon her face before the astonished members of her tribe.
Roaring and shrieking the apes dashed toward Kulonga, but that wary savage was fleeing down the trail like a frightened antelope.
He knew something of the ferocity of these wild, hairy men, and his one desire was to put as many miles between himself and them as he possibly could.
They followed him, racing through the trees, for a long distance, but finally one by one they abandoned the chase and returned to the scene of the tragedy.
None of them had ever seen a man before, other than Tarzan, and so they wondered vaguely what strange manner of creature it might be that had invaded their jungle.
On the far beach by the little cabin Tarzan heard the faint echoes of the conflict and knowing that something was seriously amiss among the tribe he hastened rapidly toward the direction of the sound.
When he arrived he found the entire tribe gathered jabbering about the dead body of his slain mother.
Tarzan's grief and anger were unbounded. He roared out his hideous challenge time and again. He beat upon his great chest with his clenched fists, and then he fell upon the body of Kala and sobbed out the pitiful sorrowing of his lonely heart.
To lose the only creature in all his world who ever had manifested love and affection for him was the greatest tragedy he had ever known.
What though Kala was a fierce and hideous ape! To Tarzan she had been kind, she had been beautiful.
Upon her he had lavished, unknown to himself, all the reverence and respect and love that a normal English boy feels for his own mother. He had never known another, and so to Kala was given, though mutely, all that would have belonged to the fair and lovely Lady Alice had she lived.
After the first outburst of grief Tarzan controlled himself, and questioning the members of the tribe who had witnessed the killing of Kala he learned all that their meager vocabulary could convey.
It was enough, however, for his needs. It told him of a strange, hairless, black ape with feathers growing upon its head, who launched death from a slender branch, and then ran, with the fleetness of Bara, the deer, toward the rising sun.
Tarzan waited no longer, but leaping into the branches of the trees sped rapidly through the forest. He knew the windings of the elephant trail along which Kala's murderer had flown, and so he cut straight through the jungle to intercept the black warrior who was evidently following the tortuous detours of the trail.
At his side was the hunting knife of his unknown sire, and across his shoulders the coils of his own long rope. In an hour he struck the trail again, and coming to earth examined the soil minutely.
In the soft mud on the bank of a tiny rivulet he found footprints such as he alone in all the jungle had ever made, but much larger than his. His heart beat fast. Could it be that he was trailing a MAN—one of his own race?
There were two sets of imprints pointing in opposite directions. So his quarry had already passed on his return along the trail. As he examined the newer spoor a tiny particle of earth toppled from the outer edge of one of the footprints to the bottom of its shallow depression—ah, the trail was very fresh, his prey must have but scarcely passed.
Tarzan swung himself to the trees once more, and with swift noiselessness sped along high above the trail.
He had covered barely a mile when he came upon the black warrior standing in a little open space. In his hand was his slender bow to which he had fitted one of his death dealing arrows.
Opposite him across the little clearing stood Horta, the boar, with lowered head and foam flecked tusks, ready to charge.
Tarzan looked with wonder upon the strange creature beneath him—so like him in form and yet so different in face and color. His books had portrayed the NEGRO, but how different had been the dull, dead print to this sleek thing of ebony, pulsing with life.
As the man stood there with taut drawn bow Tarzan recognized him not so much the NEGRO as the ARCHER of his picture book—
A stands for Archer
How wonderful! Tarzan almost betrayed his presence in the deep excitement of his discovery.
But things were commencing to happen below him. The sinewy black arm had drawn the shaft far back; Horta, the boar, was charging, and then the black released the little poisoned arrow, and Tarzan saw it fly with the quickness of thought and lodge in the bristling neck of the boar.
Scarcely had the shaft left his bow ere Kulonga had fitted another to it, but Horta, the boar, was upon him so quickly that he had no time to discharge it. With a bound the black leaped entirely over the rushing beast and turning with incredible swiftness planted a second arrow in Horta's back.
Then Kulonga sprang into a near-by tree.
Horta wheeled to charge his enemy once more; a dozen steps he took, then he staggered and fell upon his side. For a moment his muscles stiffened and relaxed convulsively, then he lay still.
Kulonga came down from his tree.
With a knife that hung at his side he cut several large pieces from the boar's body, and in the center of the trail he built a fire, cooking and eating as much as he wanted. The rest he left where it had fallen.
Tarzan was an interested spectator. His desire to kill burned fiercely in his wild breast, but his desire to learn was even greater. He would follow this savage creature for a while and know from whence he came. He could kill him at his leisure later, when the bow and deadly arrows were laid aside.
When Kulonga had finished his repast and disappeared beyond a near turning of the path, Tarzan dropped quietly to the ground. With his knife he severed many strips of meat from Horta's carcass, but he did not cook them.
He had seen fire, but only when Ara, the lightning, had destroyed some great tree. That any creature of the jungle could produce the red-and-yellow fangs which devoured wood and left nothing but fine dust surprised Tarzan greatly, and why the black warrior had ruined his delicious repast by plunging it into the blighting heat was quite beyond him. Possibly Ara was a friend with whom the Archer was sharing his food.
But, be that as it may, Tarzan would not ruin good meat in any such foolish manner, so he gobbled down a great quantity of the raw flesh, burying the balance of the carcass beside the trail where he could find it upon his return.
And then Lord Greystoke wiped his greasy fingers upon his naked thighs and took up the trail of Kulonga, the son of Mbonga, the king; while in far-off London another Lord Greystoke, the younger brother of the real Lord Greystoke's father, sent back his chops to the club's CHEF because they were underdone, and when he had finished his repast he dipped his finger-ends into a silver bowl of scented water and dried them upon a piece of snowy damask.
All day Tarzan followed Kulonga, hovering above him in the trees like some malign spirit. Twice more he saw him hurl his arrows of destruction—once at Dango, the hyena, and again at Manu, the monkey. In each instance the animal died almost instantly, for Kulonga's poison was very fresh and very deadly.
Tarzan thought much on this wondrous method of slaying as he swung slowly along at a safe distance behind his quarry. He knew that alone the tiny prick of the arrow could not so quickly dispatch these wild things of the jungle, who were often torn and scratched and gored in a frightful manner as they fought with their jungle neighbors, yet as often recovered as not.
No, there was something mysterious connected with these tiny slivers of wood which could bring death by a mere scratch. He must look into the matter.
That night Kulonga slept in the crotch of a mighty tree and far above him crouched Tarzan of the Apes.
When Kulonga awoke he found that his bow and arrows had disappeared. The black warrior was furious and frightened, but more frightened than furious. He searched the ground below the tree, and he searched the tree above the ground; but there was no sign of either bow or arrows or of the nocturnal marauder.
Kulonga was panic-stricken. His spear he had hurled at Kala and had not recovered; and, now that his bow and arrows were gone, he was defenseless except for a single knife. His only hope lay in reaching the village of Mbonga as quickly as his legs would carry him.
That he was not far from home he was certain, so he took the trail at a rapid trot.
From a great mass of impenetrable foliage a few yards away emerged Tarzan of the Apes to swing quietly in his wake.
Kulonga's bow and arrows were securely tied high in the top of a giant tree from which a patch of bark had been removed by a sharp knife near to the ground, and a branch half cut through and left hanging about fifty feet higher up. Thus Tarzan blazed the forest trails and marked his caches.
As Kulonga continued his journey Tarzan closed on him until he traveled almost over the black's head. His rope he now held coiled in his right hand; he was almost ready for the kill.
The moment was delayed only because Tarzan was anxious to ascertain the black warrior's destination, and presently he was rewarded, for they came suddenly in view of a great clearing, at one end of which lay many strange lairs.
Tarzan was directly over Kulonga, as he made the discovery. The forest ended abruptly and beyond lay two hundred yards of planted fields between the jungle and the village.
Tarzan must act quickly or his prey would be gone; but Tarzan's life training left so little space between decision and action when an emergency confronted him that there was not even room for the shadow of a thought between.
So it was that as Kulonga emerged from the shadow of the jungle a slender coil of rope sped sinuously above him from the lowest branch of a mighty tree directly upon the edge of the fields of Mbonga, and ere the king's son had taken a half dozen steps into the clearing a quick noose tightened about his neck.
So quickly did Tarzan of the Apes drag back his prey that Kulonga's cry of alarm was throttled in his windpipe. Hand over hand Tarzan drew the struggling black until he had him hanging by his neck in mid-air; then Tarzan climbed to a larger branch drawing the still threshing victim well up into the sheltering verdure of the tree.
Here he fastened the rope securely to a stout branch, and then, descending, plunged his hunting knife into Kulonga's heart. Kala was avenged.
Tarzan examined the black minutely, for he had never seen any other human being. The knife with its sheath and belt caught his eye; he appropriated them. A copper anklet also took his fancy, and this he transferred to his own leg.
He examined and admired the tattooing on the forehead and breast. He marveled at the sharp filed teeth. He investigated and appropriated the feathered headdress, and then he prepared to get down to business, for Tarzan of the Apes was hungry, and here was meat; meat of the kill, which jungle ethics permitted him to eat.
How may we judge him, by what standards, this ape-man with the heart and head and body of an English gentleman, and the training of a wild beast?
Tublat, whom he had hated and who had hated him, he had killed in a fair fight, and yet never had the thought of eating Tublat's flesh entered his head. It would have been as revolting to him as is cannibalism to us.
But who was Kulonga that he might not be eaten as fairly as Horta, the boar, or Bara, the deer? Was he not simply another of the countless wild things of the jungle who preyed upon one another to satisfy the cravings of hunger?
Suddenly, a strange doubt stayed his hand. Had not his books taught him that he was a man? And was not The Archer a man, also?
Did men eat men? Alas, he did not know. Why, then, this hesitancy! Once more he essayed the effort, but a qualm of nausea overwhelmed him. He did not understand.
All he knew was that he could not eat the flesh of this black man, and thus hereditary instinct, ages old, usurped the functions of his untaught mind and saved him from transgressing a worldwide law of whose very existence he was ignorant.
Quickly he lowered Kulonga's body to the ground, removed the noose, and took to the trees again.
Chapter X
The Fear-Phantom
From a lofty perch Tarzan viewed the village of thatched huts across the intervening plantation.
He saw that at one point the forest touched the village, and to this spot he made his way, lured by a fever of curiosity to behold animals of his own kind, and to learn more of their ways and view the strange lairs in which they lived.
His savage life among the fierce wild brutes of the jungle left no opening for any thought that these could be aught else than enemies. Similarity of form led him into no erroneous conception of the welcome that would be accorded him should he be discovered by these, the first of his own kind he had ever seen.
Tarzan of the Apes was no sentimentalist. He knew nothing of the brotherhood of man. All things outside his own tribe were his deadly enemies, with the few exceptions of which Tantor, the elephant, was a marked example.
And he realized all this without malice or hatred. To kill was the law of the wild world he knew. Few were his primitive pleasures, but the greatest of these was to hunt and kill, and so he accorded to others the right to cherish the same desires as he, even though he himself might be the object of their hunt.
His strange life had left him neither morose nor bloodthirsty. That he joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. He killed for food most often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does; for it has remained for man alone among all creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly for the mere pleasure of inflicting suffering and death.
And when he killed for revenge, or in self-defense, he did that also without hysteria, for it was a very businesslike proceeding which admitted of no levity.
So it was that now, as he cautiously approached the village of Mbonga, he was quite prepared either to kill or be killed should he be discovered. He proceeded with unwonted stealth, for Kulonga had taught him great respect for the little sharp splinters of wood which dealt death so swiftly and unerringly.
At length he came to a great tree, heavy laden with thick foliage and loaded with pendant loops of giant creepers. From this almost impenetrable bower above the village he crouched, looking down upon the scene below him, wondering over every feature of this new, strange life.
There were naked children running and playing in the village street. There were women grinding dried plantain in crude stone mortars, while others were fashioning cakes from the powdered flour. Out in the fields he could see still other women hoeing, weeding, or gathering.
All wore strange protruding girdles of dried grass about their hips and many were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets. Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire, while several were further ornamented by huge nose rings.
Tarzan of the Apes looked with growing wonder at these strange creatures. Dozing in the shade he saw several men, while at the extreme outskirts of the clearing he occasionally caught glimpses of armed warriors apparently guarding the village against surprise from an attacking enemy.
He noticed that the women alone worked. Nowhere was there evidence of a man tilling the fields or performing any of the homely duties of the village.
Finally his eyes rested upon a woman directly beneath him.
Before her was a small cauldron standing over a low fire and in it bubbled a thick, reddish, tarry mass. On one side of her lay a quantity of wooden arrows the points of which she dipped into the seething substance, then laying them upon a narrow rack of boughs which stood upon her other side.
Tarzan of the Apes was fascinated. Here was the secret of the terrible destructiveness of The Archer's tiny missiles. He noted the extreme care which the woman took that none of the matter should touch her hands, and once when a particle spattered upon one of her fingers he saw her plunge the member into a vessel of water and quickly rub the tiny stain away with a handful of leaves.
Tarzan knew nothing of poison, but his shrewd reasoning told him that it was this deadly stuff that killed, and not the little arrow, which was merely the messenger that carried it into the body of its victim.
How he should like to have more of those little death-dealing slivers. If the woman would only leave her work for an instant he could drop down, gather up a handful, and be back in the tree again before she drew three breaths.
As he was trying to think out some plan to distract her attention he heard a wild cry from across the clearing. He looked and saw a black warrior standing beneath the very tree in which he had killed the murderer of Kala an hour before.
The fellow was shouting and waving his spear above his head. Now and again he would point to something on the ground before him.
The village was in an uproar instantly. Armed men rushed from the interior of many a hut and raced madly across the clearing toward the excited sentry. After them trooped the old men, and the women and children until, in a moment, the village was deserted.
Tarzan of the Apes knew that they had found the body of his victim, but that interested him far less than the fact that no one remained in the village to prevent his taking a supply of the arrows which lay below him.
Quickly and noiselessly he dropped to the ground beside the cauldron of poison. For a moment he stood motionless, his quick, bright eyes scanning the interior of the palisade.
No one was in sight. His eyes rested upon the open doorway of a nearby hut. He would take a look within, thought Tarzan, and so, cautiously, he approached the low thatched building.
For a moment he stood without, listening intently. There was no sound, and he glided into the semi-darkness of the interior.
Weapons hung against the walls—long spears, strangely shaped knives, a couple of narrow shields. In the center of the room was a cooking pot, and at the far end a litter of dry grasses covered by woven mats which evidently served the owners as beds and bedding. Several human skulls lay upon the floor.
Tarzan of the Apes felt of each article, hefted the spears, smelled of them, for he "saw" largely through his sensitive and highly trained nostrils. He determined to own one of these long, pointed sticks, but he could not take one on this trip because of the arrows he meant to carry.
As he took each article from the walls, he placed it in a pile in the center of the room. On top of all he placed the cooking pot, inverted, and on top of this he laid one of the grinning skulls, upon which he fastened the headdress of the dead Kulonga.
Then he stood back, surveyed his work, and grinned. Tarzan of the Apes enjoyed a joke.
But now he heard, outside, the sounds of many voices, and long mournful howls, and mighty wailing. He was startled. Had he remained too long? Quickly he reached the doorway and peered down the village street toward the village gate.
The natives were not yet in sight, though he could plainly hear them approaching across the plantation. They must be very near.
Like a flash he sprang across the opening to the pile of arrows. Gathering up all he could carry under one arm, he overturned the seething cauldron with a kick, and disappeared into the foliage above just as the first of the returning natives entered the gate at the far end of the village street. Then he turned to watch the proceeding below, poised like some wild bird ready to take swift wing at the first sign of danger.
The natives filed up the street, four of them bearing the dead body of Kulonga. Behind trailed the women, uttering strange cries and weird lamentation. On they came to the portals of Kulonga's hut, the very one in which Tarzan had wrought his depredations.
Scarcely had half a dozen entered the building ere they came rushing out in wild, jabbering confusion. The others hastened to gather about. There was much excited gesticulating, pointing, and chattering; then several of the warriors approached and peered within.
Finally an old fellow with many ornaments of metal about his arms and legs, and a necklace of dried human hands depending upon his chest, entered the hut.
It was Mbonga, the king, father of Kulonga.
For a few moments all was silent. Then Mbonga emerged, a look of mingled wrath and superstitious fear writ upon his hideous countenance. He spoke a few words to the assembled warriors, and in an instant the men were flying through the little village searching minutely every hut and corner within the palisades.
Scarcely had the search commenced than the overturned cauldron was discovered, and with it the theft of the poisoned arrows. Nothing more they found, and it was a thoroughly awed and frightened group of savages which huddled around their king a few moments later.
Mbonga could explain nothing of the strange events that had taken place. The finding of the still warm body of Kulonga—on the very verge of their fields and within easy earshot of the village—knifed and stripped at the door of his father's home, was in itself sufficiently mysterious, but these last awesome discoveries within the village, within the dead Kulonga's own hut, filled their hearts with dismay, and conjured in their poor brains only the most frightful of superstitious explanations.
They stood in little groups, talking in low tones, and ever casting affrighted glances behind them from their great rolling eyes.
Tarzan of the Apes watched them for a while from his lofty perch in the great tree. There was much in their demeanor which he could not understand, for of superstition he was ignorant, and of fear of any kind he had but a vague conception.
The sun was high in the heavens. Tarzan had not broken fast this day, and it was many miles to where lay the toothsome remains of Horta the boar.
So he turned his back upon the village of Mbonga and melted away into the leafy fastness of the forest.
Chapter XI
"King of the Apes"
It was not yet dark when he reached the tribe, though he stopped to exhume and devour the remains of the wild boar he had cached the preceding day, and again to take Kulonga's bow and arrows from the tree top in which he had hidden them.
It was a well-laden Tarzan who dropped from the branches into the midst of the tribe of Kerchak.
With swelling chest he narrated the glories of his adventure and exhibited the spoils of conquest.
Kerchak grunted and turned away, for he was jealous of this strange member of his band. In his little evil brain he sought for some excuse to wreak his hatred upon Tarzan.
The next day Tarzan was practicing with his bow and arrows at the first gleam of dawn. At first he lost nearly every bolt he shot, but finally he learned to guide the little shafts with fair accuracy, and ere a month had passed he was no mean shot; but his proficiency had cost him nearly his entire supply of arrows.
The tribe continued to find the hunting good in the vicinity of the beach, and so Tarzan of the Apes varied his archery practice with further investigation of his father's choice though little store of books.
It was during this period that the young English lord found hidden in the back of one of the cupboards in the cabin a small metal box. The key was in the lock, and a few moments of investigation and experimentation were rewarded with the successful opening of the receptacle.
In it he found a faded photograph of a smooth faced young man, a golden locket studded with diamonds, linked to a small gold chain, a few letters and a small book.
Tarzan examined these all minutely.
The photograph he liked most of all, for the eyes were smiling, and the face was open and frank. It was his father.
The locket, too, took his fancy, and he placed the chain about his neck in imitation of the ornamentation he had seen to be so common among the black men he had visited. The brilliant stones gleamed strangely against his smooth, brown hide.
The letters he could scarcely decipher for he had learned little or nothing of script, so he put them back in the box with the photograph and turned his attention to the book.
This was almost entirely filled with fine script, but while the little bugs were all familiar to him, their arrangement and the combinations in which they occurred were strange, and entirely incomprehensible.
Tarzan had long since learned the use of the dictionary, but much to his sorrow and perplexity it proved of no avail to him in this emergency. Not a word of all that was writ in the book could he find, and so he put it back in the metal box, but with a determination to work out the mysteries of it later on.
Little did he know that this book held between its covers the key to his origin—the answer to the strange riddle of his strange life. It was the diary of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke—kept in French, as had always been his custom.
Tarzan replaced the box in the cupboard, but always thereafter he carried the features of the strong, smiling face of his father in his heart, and in his head a fixed determination to solve the mystery of the strange words in the little black book.
At present he had more important business in hand, for his supply of arrows was exhausted, and he must needs journey to the black men's village and renew it.
Early the following morning he set out, and, traveling rapidly, he came before midday to the clearing. Once more he took up his position in the great tree, and, as before, he saw the women in the fields and the village street, and the cauldron of bubbling poison directly beneath him.
For hours he lay awaiting his opportunity to drop down unseen and gather up the arrows for which he had come; but nothing now occurred to call the villagers away from their homes. The day wore on, and still Tarzan of the Apes crouched above the unsuspecting woman at the cauldron.
Presently the workers in the fields returned. The hunting warriors emerged from the forest, and when all were within the palisade the gates were closed and barred.
Many cooking pots were now in evidence about the village. Before each hut a woman presided over a boiling stew, while little cakes of plantain, and cassava puddings were to be seen on every hand.
Suddenly there came a hail from the edge of the clearing.
Tarzan looked.
It was a party of belated hunters returning from the north, and among them they half led, half carried a struggling animal.
As they approached the village the gates were thrown open to admit them, and then, as the people saw the victim of the chase, a savage cry rose to the heavens, for the quarry was a man.
As he was dragged, still resisting, into the village street, the women and children set upon him with sticks and stones, and Tarzan of the Apes, young and savage beast of the jungle, wondered at the cruel brutality of his own kind.
Sheeta, the leopard, alone of all the jungle folk, tortured his prey. The ethics of all the others meted a quick and merciful death to their victims.
Tarzan had learned from his books but scattered fragments of the ways of human beings.
When he had followed Kulonga through the forest he had expected to come to a city of strange houses on wheels, puffing clouds of black smoke from a huge tree stuck in the roof of one of them—or to a sea covered with mighty floating buildings which he had learned were called, variously, ships and boats and steamers and craft.
He had been sorely disappointed with the poor little village of the blacks, hidden away in his own jungle, and with not a single house as large as his own cabin upon the distant beach.
He saw that these people were more wicked than his own apes, and as savage and cruel as Sabor, herself. Tarzan began to hold his own kind in low esteem.
Now they had tied their poor victim to a great post near the center of the village, directly before Mbonga's hut, and here they formed a dancing, yelling circle of warriors about him, alive with flashing knives and menacing spears.
In a larger circle squatted the women, yelling and beating upon drums. It reminded Tarzan of the Dum-Dum, and so he knew what to expect. He wondered if they would spring upon their meat while it was still alive. The Apes did not do such things as that.
The circle of warriors about the cringing captive drew closer and closer to their prey as they danced in wild and savage abandon to the maddening music of the drums. Presently a spear reached out and pricked the victim. It was the signal for fifty others.
Eyes, ears, arms and legs were pierced; every inch of the poor writhing body that did not cover a vital organ became the target of the cruel lancers.
The women and children shrieked their delight.
The warriors licked their hideous lips in anticipation of the feast to come, and vied with one another in the savagery and loathsomeness of the cruel indignities with which they tortured the still conscious prisoner.
Then it was that Tarzan of the Apes saw his chance. All eyes were fixed upon the thrilling spectacle at the stake. The light of day had given place to the darkness of a moonless night, and only the fires in the immediate vicinity of the orgy had been kept alight to cast a restless glow upon the restless scene.
Gently the lithe boy dropped to the soft earth at the end of the village street. Quickly he gathered up the arrows—all of them this time, for he had brought a number of long fibers to bind them into a bundle.
Without haste he wrapped them securely, and then, ere he turned to leave, the devil of capriciousness entered his heart. He looked about for some hint of a wild prank to play upon these strange, grotesque creatures that they might be again aware of his presence among them.
Dropping his bundle of arrows at the foot of the tree, Tarzan crept among the shadows at the side of the street until he came to the same hut he had entered on the occasion of his first visit.
Inside all was darkness, but his groping hands soon found the object for which he sought, and without further delay he turned again toward the door.
He had taken but a step, however, ere his quick ear caught the sound of approaching footsteps immediately without. In another instant the figure of a woman darkened the entrance of the hut.
Tarzan drew back silently to the far wall, and his hand sought the long, keen hunting knife of his father. The woman came quickly to the center of the hut. There she paused for an instant feeling about with her hands for the thing she sought. Evidently it was not in its accustomed place, for she explored ever nearer and nearer the wall where Tarzan stood.
So close was she now that the ape-man felt the animal warmth of her naked body. Up went the hunting knife, and then the woman turned to one side and soon a guttural "ah" proclaimed that her search had at last been successful.
Immediately she turned and left the hut, and as she passed through the doorway Tarzan saw that she carried a cooking pot in her hand.
He followed closely after her, and as he reconnoitered from the shadows of the doorway he saw that all the women of the village were hastening to and from the various huts with pots and kettles. These they were filling with water and placing over a number of fires near the stake where the dying victim now hung, an inert and bloody mass of suffering.
Choosing a moment when none seemed near, Tarzan hastened to his bundle of arrows beneath the great tree at the end of the village street. As on the former occasion he overthrew the cauldron before leaping, sinuous and catlike, into the lower branches of the forest giant.
Silently he climbed to a great height until he found a point where he could look through a leafy opening upon the scene beneath him.
The women were now preparing the prisoner for their cooking pots, while the men stood about resting after the fatigue of their mad revel. Comparative quiet reigned in the village.
Tarzan raised aloft the thing he had pilfered from the hut, and, with aim made true by years of fruit and coconut throwing, launched it toward the group of savages.
Squarely among them it fell, striking one of the warriors full upon the head and felling him to the ground. Then it rolled among the women and stopped beside the half-butchered thing they were preparing to feast upon.
All gazed in consternation at it for an instant, and then, with one accord, broke and ran for their huts.
It was a grinning human skull which looked up at them from the ground. The dropping of the thing out of the open sky was a miracle well aimed to work upon their superstitious fears.
Thus Tarzan of the Apes left them filled with terror at this new manifestation of the presence of some unseen and unearthly evil power which lurked in the forest about their village.
Later, when they discovered the overturned cauldron, and that once more their arrows had been pilfered, it commenced to dawn upon them that they had offended some great god by placing their village in this part of the jungle without propitiating him. From then on an offering of food was daily placed below the great tree from whence the arrows had disappeared in an effort to conciliate the mighty one.
But the seed of fear was deep sown, and had he but known it, Tarzan of the Apes had laid the foundation for much future misery for himself and his tribe.
That night he slept in the forest not far from the village, and early the next morning set out slowly on his homeward march, hunting as he traveled. Only a few berries and an occasional grub worm rewarded his search, and he was half famished when, looking up from a log he had been rooting beneath, he saw Sabor, the lioness, standing in the center of the trail not twenty paces from him.
The great yellow eyes were fixed upon him with a wicked and baleful gleam, and the red tongue licked the longing lips as Sabor crouched, worming her stealthy way with belly flattened against the earth.
Tarzan did not attempt to escape. He welcomed the opportunity for which, in fact, he had been searching for days past, now that he was armed with something more than a rope of grass.
Quickly he unslung his bow and fitted a well-daubed arrow, and as Sabor sprang, the tiny missile leaped to meet her in mid-air. At the same instant Tarzan of the Apes jumped to one side, and as the great cat struck the ground beyond him another death-tipped arrow sunk deep into Sabor's loin.
With a mighty roar the beast turned and charged once more, only to be met with a third arrow full in one eye; but this time she was too close to the ape-man for the latter to sidestep the onrushing body.
Tarzan of the Apes went down beneath the great body of his enemy, but with gleaming knife drawn and striking home. For a moment they lay there, and then Tarzan realized that the inert mass lying upon him was beyond power ever again to injure man or ape.
With difficulty he wriggled from beneath the great weight, and as he stood erect and gazed down upon the trophy of his skill, a mighty wave of exultation swept over him.
With swelling breast, he placed a foot upon the body of his powerful enemy, and throwing back his fine young head, roared out the awful challenge of the victorious bull ape.
The forest echoed to the savage and triumphant paean. Birds fell still, and the larger animals and beasts of prey slunk stealthily away, for few there were of all the jungle who sought for trouble with the great anthropoids.
And in London another Lord Greystoke was speaking to HIS kind in the House of Lords, but none trembled at the sound of his soft voice.
Sabor proved unsavory eating even to Tarzan of the Apes, but hunger served as a most efficacious disguise to toughness and rank taste, and ere long, with well-filled stomach, the ape-man was ready to sleep again. First, however, he must remove the hide, for it was as much for this as for any other purpose that he had desired to destroy Sabor.
Deftly he removed the great pelt, for he had practiced often on smaller animals. When the task was finished he carried his trophy to the fork of a high tree, and there, curling himself securely in a crotch, he fell into deep and dreamless slumber.
What with loss of sleep, arduous exercise, and a full belly, Tarzan of the Apes slept the sun around, awakening about noon of the following day. He straightway repaired to the carcass of Sabor, but was angered to find the bones picked clean by other hungry denizens of the jungle.
Half an hour's leisurely progress through the forest brought to sight a young deer, and before the little creature knew that an enemy was near a tiny arrow had lodged in its neck.
So quickly the virus worked that at the end of a dozen leaps the deer plunged headlong into the undergrowth, dead. Again did Tarzan feast well, but this time he did not sleep.
Instead, he hastened on toward the point where he had left the tribe, and when he had found them proudly exhibited the skin of Sabor, the lioness.
"Look!" he cried, "Apes of Kerchak. See what Tarzan, the mighty killer, has done. Who else among you has ever killed one of Numa's people? Tarzan is mightiest amongst you for Tarzan is no ape. Tarzan is—" But here he stopped, for in the language of the anthropoids there was no word for man, and Tarzan could only write the word in English; he could not pronounce it.
The tribe had gathered about to look upon the proof of his wondrous prowess, and to listen to his words.
Only Kerchak hung back, nursing his hatred and his rage.
Suddenly something snapped in the wicked little brain of the anthropoid. With a frightful roar the great beast sprang among the assemblage.
Biting, and striking with his huge hands, he killed and maimed a dozen ere the balance could escape to the upper terraces of the forest.
Frothing and shrieking in the insanity of his fury, Kerchak looked about for the object of his greatest hatred, and there, upon a near-by limb, he saw him sitting.
"Come down, Tarzan, great killer," cried Kerchak. "Come down and feel the fangs of a greater! Do mighty fighters fly to the trees at the first approach of danger?" And then Kerchak emitted the volleying challenge of his kind.
Quietly Tarzan dropped to the ground. Breathlessly the tribe watched from their lofty perches as Kerchak, still roaring, charged the relatively puny figure.
Nearly seven feet stood Kerchak on his short legs. His enormous shoulders were bunched and rounded with huge muscles. The back of his short neck was as a single lump of iron sinew which bulged beyond the base of his skull, so that his head seemed like a small ball protruding from a huge mountain of flesh.
His back-drawn, snarling lips exposed his great fighting fangs, and his little, wicked, blood-shot eyes gleamed in horrid reflection of his madness.
Awaiting him stood Tarzan, himself a mighty muscled animal, but his six feet of height and his great rolling sinews seemed pitifully inadequate to the ordeal which awaited them.
His bow and arrows lay some distance away where he had dropped them while showing Sabor's hide to his fellow apes, so that he confronted Kerchak now with only his hunting knife and his superior intellect to offset the ferocious strength of his enemy.
As his antagonist came roaring toward him, Lord Greystoke tore his long knife from its sheath, and with an answering challenge as horrid and bloodcurdling as that of the beast he faced, rushed swiftly to meet the attack. He was too shrewd to allow those long hairy arms to encircle him, and just as their bodies were about to crash together, Tarzan of the Apes grasped one of the huge wrists of his assailant, and, springing lightly to one side, drove his knife to the hilt into Kerchak's body, below the heart.
Before he could wrench the blade free again, the bull's quick lunge to seize him in those awful arms had torn the weapon from Tarzan's grasp.
Kerchak aimed a terrific blow at the ape-man's head with the flat of his hand, a blow which, had it landed, might easily have crushed in the side of Tarzan's skull.
The man was too quick, and, ducking beneath it, himself delivered a mighty one, with clenched fist, in the pit of Kerchak's stomach.
The ape was staggered, and what with the mortal wound in his side had almost collapsed, when, with one mighty effort he rallied for an instant—just long enough to enable him to wrest his arm free from Tarzan's grasp and close in a terrific clinch with his wiry opponent.
Straining the ape-man close to him, his great jaws sought Tarzan's throat, but the young lord's sinewy fingers were at Kerchak's own before the cruel fangs could close on the sleek brown skin.
Thus they struggled, the one to crush out his opponent's life with those awful teeth, the other to close forever the windpipe beneath his strong grasp while he held the snarling mouth from him.
The greater strength of the ape was slowly prevailing, and the teeth of the straining beast were scarce an inch from Tarzan's throat when, with a shuddering tremor, the great body stiffened for an instant and then sank limply to the ground.
Kerchak was dead.
Withdrawing the knife that had so often rendered him master of far mightier muscles than his own, Tarzan of the Apes placed his foot upon the neck of his vanquished enemy, and once again, loud through the forest rang the fierce, wild cry of the conqueror.
And thus came the young Lord Greystoke into the kingship of the Apes.
Chapter XII
Man's Reason
There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.
For months the life of the little band went on much as it had before, except that Tarzan's greater intelligence and his ability as a hunter were the means of providing for them more bountifully than ever before. Most of them, therefore, were more than content with the change in rulers.
Tarzan led them by night to the fields of the black men, and there, warned by their chief's superior wisdom, they ate only what they required, nor ever did they destroy what they could not eat, as is the way of Manu, the monkey, and of most apes.
So, while the blacks were wroth at the continued pilfering of their fields, they were not discouraged in their efforts to cultivate the land, as would have been the case had Tarzan permitted his people to lay waste the plantation wantonly.
During this period Tarzan paid many nocturnal visits to the village, where he often renewed his supply of arrows. He soon noticed the food always standing at the foot of the tree which was his avenue into the palisade, and after a little, he commenced to eat whatever the blacks put there.
When the awe-struck savages saw that the food disappeared overnight they were filled with consternation and dread, for it was one thing to put food out to propitiate a god or a devil, but quite another thing to have the spirit really come into the village and eat it. Such a thing was unheard of, and it clouded their superstitious minds with all manner of vague fears.
Nor was this all. The periodic disappearance of their arrows, and the strange pranks perpetrated by unseen hands, had wrought them to such a state that life had become a veritable burden in their new home, and now it was that Mbonga and his head men began to talk of abandoning the village and seeking a site farther on in the jungle.
Presently the black warriors began to strike farther and farther south into the heart of the forest when they went to hunt, looking for a site for a new village.
More often was the tribe of Tarzan disturbed by these wandering huntsmen. Now was the quiet, fierce solitude of the primeval forest broken by new, strange cries. No longer was there safety for bird or beast. Man had come.
Other animals passed up and down the jungle by day and by night—fierce, cruel beasts—but their weaker neighbors only fled from their immediate vicinity to return again when the danger was past.
With man it is different. When he comes many of the larger animals instinctively leave the district entirely, seldom if ever to return; and thus it has always been with the great anthropoids. They flee man as man flees a pestilence.
For a short time the tribe of Tarzan lingered in the vicinity of the beach because their new chief hated the thought of leaving the treasured contents of the little cabin forever. But when one day a member of the tribe discovered the blacks in great numbers on the banks of a little stream that had been their watering place for generations, and in the act of clearing a space in the jungle and erecting many huts, the apes would remain no longer; and so Tarzan led them inland for many marches to a spot as yet undefiled by the foot of a human being.
Once every moon Tarzan would go swinging rapidly back through the swaying branches to have a day with his books, and to replenish his supply of arrows. This latter task was becoming more and more difficult, for the blacks had taken to hiding their supply away at night in granaries and living huts.
This necessitated watching by day on Tarzan's part to discover where the arrows were being concealed.
Twice had he entered huts at night while the inmates lay sleeping upon their mats, and stolen the arrows from the very sides of the warriors. But this method he realized to be too fraught with danger, and so he commenced picking up solitary hunters with his long, deadly noose, stripping them of weapons and ornaments and dropping their bodies from a high tree into the village street during the still watches of the night.
These various escapades again so terrorized the blacks that, had it not been for the monthly respite between Tarzan's visits, in which they had opportunity to renew hope that each fresh incursion would prove the last, they soon would have abandoned their new village.
The blacks had not as yet come upon Tarzan's cabin on the distant beach, but the ape-man lived in constant dread that, while he was away with the tribe, they would discover and despoil his treasure. So it came that he spent more and more time in the vicinity of his father's last home, and less and less with the tribe. Presently the members of his little community began to suffer on account of his neglect, for disputes and quarrels constantly arose which only the king might settle peaceably.
At last some of the older apes spoke to Tarzan on the subject, and for a month thereafter he remained constantly with the tribe.
The duties of kingship among the anthropoids are not many or arduous.
In the afternoon comes Thaka, possibly, to complain that old Mungo has stolen his new wife. Then must Tarzan summon all before him, and if he finds that the wife prefers her new lord he commands that matters remain as they are, or possibly that Mungo give Thaka one of his daughters in exchange.
Whatever his decision, the apes accept it as final, and return to their occupations satisfied.
Then comes Tana, shrieking and holding tight her side from which blood is streaming. Gunto, her husband, has cruelly bitten her! And Gunto, summoned, says that Tana is lazy and will not bring him nuts and beetles, or scratch his back for him.
So Tarzan scolds them both and threatens Gunto with a taste of the death-bearing slivers if he abuses Tana further, and Tana, for her part, is compelled to promise better attention to her wifely duties.
And so it goes, little family differences for the most part, which, if left unsettled would result finally in greater factional strife, and the eventual dismemberment of the tribe.
But Tarzan tired of it, as he found that kingship meant the curtailment of his liberty. He longed for the little cabin and the sun-kissed sea—for the cool interior of the well-built house, and for the never-ending wonders of the many books.
As he had grown older, he found that he had grown away from his people. Their interests and his were far removed. They had not kept pace with him, nor could they understand aught of the many strange and wonderful dreams that passed through the active brain of their human king. So limited was their vocabulary that Tarzan could not even talk with them of the many new truths, and the great fields of thought that his reading had opened up before his longing eyes, or make known ambitions which stirred his soul.
Among the tribe he no longer had friends as of old. A little child may find companionship in many strange and simple creatures, but to a grown man there must be some semblance of equality in intellect as the basis for agreeable association.
Had Kala lived, Tarzan would have sacrificed all else to remain near her, but now that she was dead, and the playful friends of his childhood grown into fierce and surly brutes he felt that he much preferred the peace and solitude of his cabin to the irksome duties of leadership amongst a horde of wild beasts.
The hatred and jealousy of Terkoz, son of Tublat, did much to counteract the effect of Tarzan's desire to renounce his kingship among the apes, for, stubborn young Englishman that he was, he could not bring himself to retreat in the face of so malignant an enemy.
That Terkoz would be chosen leader in his stead he knew full well, for time and again the ferocious brute had established his claim to physical supremacy over the few bull apes who had dared resent his savage bullying.
Tarzan would have liked to subdue the ugly beast without recourse to knife or arrows. So much had his great strength and agility increased in the period following his maturity that he had come to believe that he might master the redoubtable Terkoz in a hand to hand fight were it not for the terrible advantage the anthropoid's huge fighting fangs gave him over the poorly armed Tarzan.
The entire matter was taken out of Tarzan's hands one day by force of circumstances, and his future left open to him, so that he might go or stay without any stain upon his savage escutcheon.
It happened thus:
The tribe was feeding quietly, spread over a considerable area, when a great screaming arose some distance east of where Tarzan lay upon his belly beside a limpid brook, attempting to catch an elusive fish in his quick, brown hands.
With one accord the tribe swung rapidly toward the frightened cries, and there found Terkoz holding an old female by the hair and beating her unmercifully with his great hands.
As Tarzan approached he raised his hand aloft for Terkoz to desist, for the female was not his, but belonged to a poor old ape whose fighting days were long over, and who, therefore, could not protect his family.
Terkoz knew that it was against the laws of his kind to strike this woman of another, but being a bully, he had taken advantage of the weakness of the female's husband to chastise her because she had refused to give up to him a tender young rodent she had captured.
When Terkoz saw Tarzan approaching without his arrows, he continued to belabor the poor woman in a studied effort to affront his hated chieftain.
Tarzan did not repeat his warning signal, but instead rushed bodily upon the waiting Terkoz.
Never had the ape-man fought so terrible a battle since that long-gone day when Bolgani, the great king gorilla had so horribly manhandled him ere the new-found knife had, by accident, pricked the savage heart.
Tarzan's knife on the present occasion but barely offset the gleaming fangs of Terkoz, and what little advantage the ape had over the man in brute strength was almost balanced by the latter's wonderful quickness and agility.
In the sum total of their points, however, the anthropoid had a shade the better of the battle, and had there been no other personal attribute to influence the final outcome, Tarzan of the Apes, the young Lord Greystoke, would have died as he had lived—an unknown savage beast in equatorial Africa.
But there was that which had raised him far above his fellows of the jungle—that little spark which spells the whole vast difference between man and brute—Reason. This it was which saved him from death beneath the iron muscles and tearing fangs of Terkoz.
Scarcely had they fought a dozen seconds ere they were rolling upon the ground, striking, tearing and rending—two great savage beasts battling to the death.
Terkoz had a dozen knife wounds on head and breast, and Tarzan was torn and bleeding—his scalp in one place half torn from his head so that a great piece hung down over one eye, obstructing his vision.
But so far the young Englishman had been able to keep those horrible fangs from his jugular and now, as they fought less fiercely for a moment, to regain their breath, Tarzan formed a cunning plan. He would work his way to the other's back and, clinging there with tooth and nail, drive his knife home until Terkoz was no more.
The maneuver was accomplished more easily than he had hoped, for the stupid beast, not knowing what Tarzan was attempting, made no particular effort to prevent the accomplishment of the design.
But when, finally, he realized that his antagonist was fastened to him where his teeth and fists alike were useless against him, Terkoz hurled himself about upon the ground so violently that Tarzan could but cling desperately to the leaping, turning, twisting body, and ere he had struck a blow the knife was hurled from his hand by a heavy impact against the earth, and Tarzan found himself defenseless.
During the rollings and squirmings of the next few minutes, Tarzan's hold was loosened a dozen times until finally an accidental circumstance of those swift and everchanging evolutions gave him a new hold with his right hand, which he realized was absolutely unassailable.
His arm was passed beneath Terkoz's arm from behind and his hand and forearm encircled the back of Terkoz's neck. It was the half-Nelson of modern wrestling which the untaught ape-man had stumbled upon, but superior reason showed him in an instant the value of the thing he had discovered. It was the difference to him between life and death.
And so he struggled to encompass a similar hold with the left hand, and in a few moments Terkoz's bull neck was creaking beneath a full-Nelson.
There was no more lunging about now. The two lay perfectly still upon the ground, Tarzan upon Terkoz's back. Slowly the bullet head of the ape was being forced lower and lower upon his chest.
Tarzan knew what the result would be. In an instant the neck would break. Then there came to Terkoz's rescue the same thing that had put him in these sore straits—a man's reasoning power.
"If I kill him," thought Tarzan, "what advantage will it be to me? Will it not rob the tribe of a great fighter? And if Terkoz be dead, he will know nothing of my supremacy, while alive he will ever be an example to the other apes."
"KA-GODA?" hissed Tarzan in Terkoz's ear, which, in ape tongue, means, freely translated: "Do you surrender?"
For a moment there was no reply, and Tarzan added a few more ounces of pressure, which elicited a horrified shriek of pain from the great beast.
"KA-GODA?" repeated Tarzan.
"KA-GODA!" cried Terkoz.
"Listen," said Tarzan, easing up a trifle, but not releasing his hold. "I am Tarzan, King of the Apes, mighty hunter, mighty fighter. In all the jungle there is none so great.
"You have said: 'KA-GODA' to me. All the tribe have heard. Quarrel no more with your king or your people, for next time I shall kill you. Do you understand?"
"HUH," assented Terkoz.
"And you are satisfied?"
"HUH," said the ape.
Tarzan let him up, and in a few minutes all were back at their vocations, as though naught had occurred to mar the tranquility of their primeval forest haunts.
But deep in the minds of the apes was rooted the conviction that Tarzan was a mighty fighter and a strange creature. Strange because he had had it in his power to kill his enemy, but had allowed him to live—unharmed.
That afternoon as the tribe came together, as was their wont before darkness settled on the jungle, Tarzan, his wounds washed in the waters of the stream, called the old males about him.
"You have seen again to-day that Tarzan of the Apes is the greatest among you," he said.
"HUH," they replied with one voice, "Tarzan is great."
"Tarzan," he continued, "is not an ape. He is not like his people. His ways are not their ways, and so Tarzan is going back to the lair of his own kind by the waters of the great lake which has no farther shore. You must choose another to rule you, for Tarzan will not return."
And thus young Lord Greystoke took the first step toward the goal which he had set—the finding of other white men like himself.
Chapter XIII
His Own Kind
The following morning, Tarzan, lame and sore from the wounds of his battle with Terkoz, set out toward the west and the seacoast.
He traveled very slowly, sleeping in the jungle at night, and reaching his cabin late the following morning.
For several days he moved about but little, only enough to gather what fruits and nuts he required to satisfy the demands of hunger.
In ten days he was quite sound again, except for a terrible, half-healed scar, which, starting above his left eye ran across the top of his head, ending at the right ear. It was the mark left by Terkoz when he had torn the scalp away.
During his convalescence Tarzan tried to fashion a mantle from the skin of Sabor, which had lain all this time in the cabin. But he found the hide had dried as stiff as a board, and as he knew naught of tanning, he was forced to abandon his cherished plan.
Then he determined to filch what few garments he could from one of the black men of Mbonga's village, for Tarzan of the Apes had decided to mark his evolution from the lower orders in every possible manner, and nothing seemed to him a more distinguishing badge of manhood than ornaments and clothing.
To this end, therefore, he collected the various arm and leg ornaments he had taken from the black warriors who had succumbed to his swift and silent noose, and donned them all after the way he had seen them worn.
About his neck hung the golden chain from which depended the diamond encrusted locket of his mother, the Lady Alice. At his back was a quiver of arrows slung from a leathern shoulder belt, another piece of loot from some vanquished black.
About his waist was a belt of tiny strips of rawhide fashioned by himself as a support for the home-made scabbard in which hung his father's hunting knife. The long bow which had been Kulonga's hung over his left shoulder.
The young Lord Greystoke was indeed a strange and war-like figure, his mass of black hair falling to his shoulders behind and cut with his hunting knife to a rude bang upon his forehead, that it might not fall before his eyes.
His straight and perfect figure, muscled as the best of the ancient Roman gladiators must have been muscled, and yet with the soft and sinuous curves of a Greek god, told at a glance the wondrous combination of enormous strength with suppleness and speed.
A personification, was Tarzan of the Apes, of the primitive man, the hunter, the warrior.
With the noble poise of his handsome head upon those broad shoulders, and the fire of life and intelligence in those fine, clear eyes, he might readily have typified some demigod of a wild and warlike bygone people of his ancient forest.
But of these things Tarzan did not think. He was worried because he had not clothing to indicate to all the jungle folks that he was a man and not an ape, and grave doubt often entered his mind as to whether he might not yet become an ape.
Was not hair commencing to grow upon his face? All the apes had hair upon theirs but the black men were entirely hairless, with very few exceptions.
True, he had seen pictures in his books of men with great masses of hair upon lip and cheek and chin, but, nevertheless, Tarzan was afraid. Almost daily he whetted his keen knife and scraped and whittled at his young beard to eradicate this degrading emblem of apehood.
And so he learned to shave—rudely and painfully, it is true—but, nevertheless, effectively.
When he felt quite strong again, after his bloody battle with Terkoz, Tarzan set off one morning towards Mbonga's village. He was moving carelessly along a winding jungle trail, instead of making his progress through the trees, when suddenly he came face to face with a black warrior.
The look of surprise on the savage face was almost comical, and before Tarzan could unsling his bow the fellow had turned and fled down the path crying out in alarm as though to others before him.
Tarzan took to the trees in pursuit, and in a few moments came in view of the men desperately striving to escape.
There were three of them, and they were racing madly in single file through the dense undergrowth.
Tarzan easily distanced them, nor did they see his silent passage above their heads, nor note the crouching figure squatted upon a low branch ahead of them beneath which the trail led them.
Tarzan let the first two pass beneath him, but as the third came swiftly on, the quiet noose dropped about the black throat. A quick jerk drew it taut.
There was an agonized scream from the victim, and his fellows turned to see his struggling body rise as by magic slowly into the dense foliage of the trees above.
With frightened shrieks they wheeled once more and plunged on in their efforts to escape.
Tarzan dispatched his prisoner quickly and silently; removed the weapons and ornaments, and—oh, the greatest joy of all—a handsome deerskin breechcloth, which he quickly transferred to his own person.
Now indeed was he dressed as a man should be. None there was who could now doubt his high origin. How he should have liked to have returned to the tribe to parade before their envious gaze this wondrous finery.
Taking the body across his shoulder, he moved more slowly through the trees toward the little palisaded village, for he again needed arrows.
As he approached quite close to the enclosure he saw an excited group surrounding the two fugitives, who, trembling with fright and exhaustion, were scarce able to recount the uncanny details of their adventure.
Mirando, they said, who had been ahead of them a short distance, had suddenly come screaming toward them, crying that a terrible white and naked warrior was pursuing him. The three of them had hurried toward the village as rapidly as their legs would carry them.
Again Mirando's shrill cry of mortal terror had caused them to look back, and there they had seen the most horrible sight—their companion's body flying upwards into the trees, his arms and legs beating the air and his tongue protruding from his open mouth. No other sound did he utter nor was there any creature in sight about him.
The villagers were worked up into a state of fear bordering on panic, but wise old Mbonga affected to feel considerable skepticism regarding the tale, and attributed the whole fabrication to their fright in the face of some real danger.
"You tell us this great story," he said, "because you do not dare to speak the truth. You do not dare admit that when the lion sprang upon Mirando you ran away and left him. You are cowards."
Scarcely had Mbonga ceased speaking when a great crashing of branches in the trees above them caused the blacks to look up in renewed terror. The sight that met their eyes made even wise old Mbonga shudder, for there, turning and twisting in the air, came the dead body of Mirando, to sprawl with a sickening reverberation upon the ground at their feet.
With one accord the blacks took to their heels; nor did they stop until the last of them was lost in the dense shadows of the surrounding jungle.
Again Tarzan came down into the village and renewed his supply of arrows and ate of the offering of food which the blacks had made to appease his wrath.
Before he left he carried the body of Mirando to the gate of the village, and propped it up against the palisade in such a way that the dead face seemed to be peering around the edge of the gatepost down the path which led to the jungle.
Then Tarzan returned, hunting, always hunting, to the cabin by the beach.
It took a dozen attempts on the part of the thoroughly frightened blacks to reenter their village, past the horrible, grinning face of their dead fellow, and when they found the food and arrows gone they knew, what they had only too well feared, that Mirando had seen the evil spirit of the jungle.
That now seemed to them the logical explanation. Only those who saw this terrible god of the jungle died; for was it not true that none left alive in the village had ever seen him? Therefore, those who had died at his hands must have seen him and paid the penalty with their lives.
As long as they supplied him with arrows and food he would not harm them unless they looked upon him, so it was ordered by Mbonga that in addition to the food offering there should also be laid out an offering of arrows for this Munan-go-Keewati, and this was done from then on.
If you ever chance to pass that far off African village you will still see before a tiny thatched hut, built just without the village, a little iron pot in which is a quantity of food, and beside it a quiver of well-daubed arrows.
When Tarzan came in sight of the beach where stood his cabin, a strange and unusual spectacle met his vision.
On the placid waters of the landlocked harbor floated a great ship, and on the beach a small boat was drawn up.
But, most wonderful of all, a number of white men like himself were moving about between the beach and his cabin.
Tarzan saw that in many ways they were like the men of his picture books. He crept closer through the trees until he was quite close above them.
There were ten men, swarthy, sun-tanned, villainous looking fellows. Now they had congregated by the boat and were talking in loud, angry tones, with much gesticulating and shaking of fists.
Presently one of them, a little, mean-faced, black-bearded fellow with a countenance which reminded Tarzan of Pamba, the rat, laid his hand upon the shoulder of a giant who stood next him, and with whom all the others had been arguing and quarreling.
The little man pointed inland, so that the giant was forced to turn away from the others to look in the direction indicated. As he turned, the little, mean-faced man drew a revolver from his belt and shot the giant in the back.
The big fellow threw his hands above his head, his knees bent beneath him, and without a sound he tumbled forward upon the beach, dead.
The report of the weapon, the first that Tarzan had ever heard, filled him with wonderment, but even this unaccustomed sound could not startle his healthy nerves into even a semblance of panic.
The conduct of the white strangers it was that caused him the greatest perturbation. He puckered his brows into a frown of deep thought. It was well, thought he, that he had not given way to his first impulse to rush forward and greet these white men as brothers.
They were evidently no different from the black men—no more civilized than the apes—no less cruel than Sabor.
For a moment the others stood looking at the little, mean-faced man and the giant lying dead upon the beach.
Then one of them laughed and slapped the little man upon the back. There was much more talk and gesticulating, but less quarreling.
Presently they launched the boat and all jumped into it and rowed away toward the great ship, where Tarzan could see other figures moving about upon the deck.
When they had clambered aboard, Tarzan dropped to earth behind a great tree and crept to his cabin, keeping it always between himself and the ship.
Slipping in at the door he found that everything had been ransacked. His books and pencils strewed the floor. His weapons and shields and other little store of treasures were littered about.
As he saw what had been done a great wave of anger surged through him, and the new made scar upon his forehead stood suddenly out, a bar of inflamed crimson against his tawny hide.
Quickly he ran to the cupboard and searched in the far recess of the lower shelf. Ah! He breathed a sigh of relief as he drew out the little tin box, and, opening it, found his greatest treasures undisturbed.
The photograph of the smiling, strong-faced young man, and the little black puzzle book were safe.
What was that?
His quick ear had caught a faint but unfamiliar sound.
Running to the window Tarzan looked toward the harbor, and there he saw that a boat was being lowered from the great ship beside the one already in the water. Soon he saw many people clambering over the sides of the larger vessel and dropping into the boats. They were coming back in full force.
For a moment longer Tarzan watched while a number of boxes and bundles were lowered into the waiting boats, then, as they shoved off from the ship's side, the ape-man snatched up a piece of paper, and with a pencil printed on it for a few moments until it bore several lines of strong, well-made, almost letter-perfect characters.
This notice he stuck upon the door with a small sharp splinter of wood. Then gathering up his precious tin box, his arrows, and as many bows and spears as he could carry, he hastened through the door and disappeared into the forest.
When the two boats were beached upon the silvery sand it was a strange assortment of humanity that clambered ashore.
Some twenty souls in all there were, fifteen of them rough and villainous appearing seamen.
The others of the party were of different stamp.
One was an elderly man, with white hair and large rimmed spectacles. His slightly stooped shoulders were draped in an ill-fitting, though immaculate, frock coat, and a shiny silk hat added to the incongruity of his garb in an African jungle.
The second member of the party to land was a tall young man in white ducks, while directly behind came another elderly man with a very high forehead and a fussy, excitable manner.
After these came a huge Negress clothed like Solomon as to colors. Her great eyes rolled in evident terror, first toward the jungle and then toward the cursing band of sailors who were removing the bales and boxes from the boats.
The last member of the party to disembark was a girl of about nineteen, and it was the young man who stood at the boat's prow to lift her high and dry upon land. She gave him a brave and pretty smile of thanks, but no words passed between them.
In silence the party advanced toward the cabin. It was evident that whatever their intentions, all had been decided upon before they left the ship; and so they came to the door, the sailors carrying the boxes and bales, followed by the five who were of so different a class. The men put down their burdens, and then one caught sight of the notice which Tarzan had posted.
"Ho, mates!" he cried. "What's here? This sign was not posted an hour ago or I'll eat the cook."
The others gathered about, craning their necks over the shoulders of those before them, but as few of them could read at all, and then only after the most laborious fashion, one finally turned to the little old man of the top hat and frock coat.
"Hi, perfesser," he called, "step for'rd and read the bloomin' notis."
Thus addressed, the old man came slowly to where the sailors stood, followed by the other members of his party. Adjusting his spectacles he looked for a moment at the placard and then, turning away, strolled off muttering to himself: "Most remarkable—most remarkable!"
"Hi, old fossil," cried the man who had first called on him for assistance, "did je think we wanted of you to read the bloomin' notis to yourself? Come back here and read it out loud, you old barnacle."
The old man stopped and, turning back, said: "Oh, yes, my dear sir, a thousand pardons. It was quite thoughtless of me, yes—very thoughtless. Most remarkable—most remarkable!"
Again he faced the notice and read it through, and doubtless would have turned off again to ruminate upon it had not the sailor grasped him roughly by the collar and howled into his ear.
"Read it out loud, you blithering old idiot."
"Ah, yes indeed, yes indeed," replied the professor softly, and adjusting his spectacles once more he read aloud:
THIS IS THE HOUSE OF TARZAN, THE
KILLER OF BEASTS AND MANY BLACK
MEN. DO NOT HARM THE THINGS WHICH
ARE TARZAN'S. TARZAN WATCHES.
"Who the devil is Tarzan?" cried the sailor who had before spoken.
"He evidently speaks English," said the young man.
"But what does 'Tarzan of the Apes' mean?" cried the girl.
"I do not know, Miss Porter," replied the young man, "unless we have discovered a runaway simian from the London Zoo who has brought back a European education to his jungle home. What do you make of it, Professor Porter?" he added, turning to the old man.
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter adjusted his spectacles.
"Ah, yes, indeed; yes indeed—most remarkable, most remarkable!" said the professor; "but I can add nothing further to what I have already remarked in elucidation of this truly momentous occurrence," and the professor turned slowly in the direction of the jungle.
"But, papa," cried the girl, "you haven't said anything about it yet."
"Tut, tut, child; tut, tut," responded Professor Porter, in a kindly and indulgent tone, "do not trouble your pretty head with such weighty and abstruse problems," and again he wandered slowly off in still another direction, his eyes bent upon the ground at his feet, his hands clasped behind him beneath the flowing tails of his coat.
"I reckon the daffy old bounder don't know no more'n we do about it," growled the rat-faced sailor.
"Keep a civil tongue in your head," cried the young man, his face paling in anger, at the insulting tone of the sailor. "You've murdered our officers and robbed us. We are absolutely in your power, but you'll treat Professor Porter and Miss Porter with respect or I'll break that vile neck of yours with my bare hands—guns or no guns," and the young fellow stepped so close to the rat-faced sailor that the latter, though he bore two revolvers and a villainous looking knife in his belt, slunk back abashed.
"You damned coward," cried the young man. "You'd never dare shoot a man until his back was turned. You don't dare shoot me even then," and he deliberately turned his back full upon the sailor and walked nonchalantly away as if to put him to the test.
The sailor's hand crept slyly to the butt of one of his revolvers; his wicked eyes glared vengefully at the retreating form of the young Englishman. The gaze of his fellows was upon him, but still he hesitated. At heart he was even a greater coward than Mr. William Cecil Clayton had imagined.
Two keen eyes had watched every move of the party from the foliage of a nearby tree. Tarzan had seen the surprise caused by his notice, and while he could understand nothing of the spoken language of these strange people their gestures and facial expressions told him much.
The act of the little rat-faced sailor in killing one of his comrades had aroused a strong dislike in Tarzan, and now that he saw him quarreling with the fine-looking young man his animosity was still further stirred.
Tarzan had never seen the effects of a firearm before, though his books had taught him something of them, but when he saw the rat-faced one fingering the butt of his revolver he thought of the scene he had witnessed so short a time before, and naturally expected to see the young man murdered as had been the huge sailor earlier in the day.
So Tarzan fitted a poisoned arrow to his bow and drew a bead upon the rat-faced sailor, but the foliage was so thick that he soon saw the arrow would be deflected by the leaves or some small branch, and instead he launched a heavy spear from his lofty perch.
Clayton had taken but a dozen steps. The rat-faced sailor had half drawn his revolver; the other sailors stood watching the scene intently.
Professor Porter had already disappeared into the jungle, whither he was being followed by the fussy Samuel T. Philander, his secretary and assistant.
Esmeralda, the Negress, was busy sorting her mistress' baggage from the pile of bales and boxes beside the cabin, and Miss Porter had turned away to follow Clayton, when something caused her to turn again toward the sailor.
And then three things happened almost simultaneously. The sailor jerked out his weapon and leveled it at Clayton's back, Miss Porter screamed a warning, and a long, metal-shod spear shot like a bolt from above and passed entirely through the right shoulder of the rat-faced man.
The revolver exploded harmlessly in the air, and the seaman crumpled up with a scream of pain and terror.
Clayton turned and rushed back toward the scene. The sailors stood in a frightened group, with drawn weapons, peering into the jungle. The wounded man writhed and shrieked upon the ground.
Clayton, unseen by any, picked up the fallen revolver and slipped it inside his shirt, then he joined the sailors in gazing, mystified, into the jungle.
"Who could it have been?" whispered Jane Porter, and the young man turned to see her standing, wide-eyed and wondering, close beside him.
"I dare say Tarzan of the Apes is watching us all right," he answered, in a dubious tone. "I wonder, now, who that spear was intended for. If for Snipes, then our ape friend is a friend indeed.
"By jove, where are your father and Mr. Philander? There's someone or something in that jungle, and it's armed, whatever it is. Ho! Professor! Mr. Philander!" young Clayton shouted. There was no response.
"What's to be done, Miss Porter?" continued the young man, his face clouded by a frown of worry and indecision.
"I can't leave you here alone with these cutthroats, and you certainly can't venture into the jungle with me; yet someone must go in search of your father. He is more than apt to wandering off aimlessly, regardless of danger or direction, and Mr. Philander is only a trifle less impractical than he. You will pardon my bluntness, but our lives are all in jeopardy here, and when we get your father back something must be done to impress upon him the dangers to which he exposes you as well as himself by his absent-mindedness."
"I quite agree with you," replied the girl, "and I am not offended at all. Dear old papa would sacrifice his life for me without an instant's hesitation, provided one could keep his mind on so frivolous a matter for an entire instant. There is only one way to keep him in safety, and that is to chain him to a tree. The poor dear is SO impractical."
"I have it!" suddenly exclaimed Clayton. "You can use a revolver, can't you?"
"Yes. Why?"
"I have one. With it you and Esmeralda will be comparatively safe in this cabin while I am searching for your father and Mr. Philander. Come, call the woman and I will hurry on. They can't have gone far."
Jane did as he suggested and when he saw the door close safely behind them Clayton turned toward the jungle.
Some of the sailors were drawing the spear from their wounded comrade and, as Clayton approached, he asked if he could borrow a revolver from one of them while he searched the jungle for the professor.
The rat-faced one, finding he was not dead, had regained his composure, and with a volley of oaths directed at Clayton refused in the name of his fellows to allow the young man any firearms.
This man, Snipes, had assumed the role of chief since he had killed their former leader, and so little time had elapsed that none of his companions had as yet questioned his authority.
Clayton's only response was a shrug of the shoulders, but as he left them he picked up the spear which had transfixed Snipes, and thus primitively armed, the son of the then Lord Greystoke strode into the dense jungle.
Every few moments he called aloud the names of the wanderers. The watchers in the cabin by the beach heard the sound of his voice growing ever fainter and fainter, until at last it was swallowed up by the myriad noises of the primeval wood.
When Professor Archimedes Q. Porter and his assistant, Samuel T. Philander, after much insistence on the part of the latter, had finally turned their steps toward camp, they were as completely lost in the wild and tangled labyrinth of the matted jungle as two human beings well could be, though they did not know it.
It was by the merest caprice of fortune that they headed toward the west coast of Africa, instead of toward Zanzibar on the opposite side of the dark continent.
When in a short time they reached the beach, only to find no camp in sight, Philander was positive that they were north of their proper destination, while, as a matter of fact they were about two hundred yards south of it.
It never occurred to either of these impractical theorists to call aloud on the chance of attracting their friends' attention. Instead, with all the assurance that deductive reasoning from a wrong premise induces in one, Mr. Samuel T. Philander grasped Professor Archimedes Q. Porter firmly by the arm and hurried the weakly protesting old gentleman off in the direction of Cape Town, fifteen hundred miles to the south.
When Jane and Esmeralda found themselves safely behind the cabin door the Negress's first thought was to barricade the portal from the inside. With this idea in mind she turned to search for some means of putting it into execution; but her first view of the interior of the cabin brought a shriek of terror to her lips, and like a frightened child the huge woman ran to bury her face on her mistress' shoulder.
Jane, turning at the cry, saw the cause of it lying prone upon the floor before them—the whitened skeleton of a man. A further glance revealed a second skeleton upon the bed.
"What horrible place are we in?" murmured the awe-struck girl. But there was no panic in her fright.
At last, disengaging herself from the frantic clutch of the still shrieking Esmeralda, Jane crossed the room to look into the little cradle, knowing what she should see there even before the tiny skeleton disclosed itself in all its pitiful and pathetic frailty.
What an awful tragedy these poor mute bones proclaimed! The girl shuddered at thought of the eventualities which might lie before herself and her friends in this ill-fated cabin, the haunt of mysterious, perhaps hostile, beings.
Quickly, with an impatient stamp of her little foot, she endeavored to shake off the gloomy forebodings, and turning to Esmeralda bade her cease her wailing.
"Stop, Esmeralda, stop it this minute!" she cried. "You are only making it worse."
She ended lamely, a little quiver in her own voice as she thought of the three men, upon whom she depended for protection, wandering in the depth of that awful forest.
Soon the girl found that the door was equipped with a heavy wooden bar upon the inside, and after several efforts the combined strength of the two enabled them to slip it into place, the first time in twenty years.
Then they sat down upon a bench with their arms about one another, and waited.
Chapter XIV
At the Mercy of the Jungle
After Clayton had plunged into the jungle, the sailors—mutineers of the Arrow—fell into a discussion of their next step; but on one point all were agreed—that they should hasten to put off to the anchored Arrow, where they could at least be safe from the spears of their unseen foe. And so, while Jane Porter and Esmeralda were barricading themselves within the cabin, the cowardly crew of cutthroats were pulling rapidly for their ship in the two boats that had brought them ashore.
So much had Tarzan seen that day that his head was in a whirl of wonder. But the most wonderful sight of all, to him, was the face of the beautiful white girl.
Here at last was one of his own kind; of that he was positive. And the young man and the two old men; they, too, were much as he had pictured his own people to be.
But doubtless they were as ferocious and cruel as other men he had seen. The fact that they alone of all the party were unarmed might account for the fact that they had killed no one. They might be very different if provided with weapons.
Tarzan had seen the young man pick up the fallen revolver of the wounded Snipes and hide it away in his breast; and he had also seen him slip it cautiously to the girl as she entered the cabin door.
He did not understand anything of the motives behind all that he had seen; but, somehow, intuitively he liked the young man and the two old men, and for the girl he had a strange longing which he scarcely understood. As for the big black woman, she was evidently connected in some way to the girl, and so he liked her, also.
For the sailors, and especially Snipes, he had developed a great hatred. He knew by their threatening gestures and by the expression upon their evil faces that they were enemies of the others of the party, and so he decided to watch closely.
Tarzan wondered why the men had gone into the jungle, nor did it ever occur to him that one could become lost in that maze of undergrowth which to him was as simple as is the main street of your own home town to you.
When he saw the sailors row away toward the ship, and knew that the girl and her companion were safe in his cabin, Tarzan decided to follow the young man into the jungle and learn what his errand might be. He swung off rapidly in the direction taken by Clayton, and in a short time heard faintly in the distance the now only occasional calls of the Englishman to his friends.
Presently Tarzan came up with the white man, who, almost fagged, was leaning against a tree wiping the perspiration from his forehead. The ape-man, hiding safe behind a screen of foliage, sat watching this new specimen of his own race intently.
At intervals Clayton called aloud and finally it came to Tarzan that he was searching for the old man.
Tarzan was on the point of going off to look for them himself, when he caught the yellow glint of a sleek hide moving cautiously through the jungle toward Clayton.
It was Sheeta, the leopard. Now, Tarzan heard the soft bending of grasses and wondered why the young white man was not warned. Could it be he had failed to note the loud warning? Never before had Tarzan known Sheeta to be so clumsy.
No, the white man did not hear. Sheeta was crouching for the spring, and then, shrill and horrible, there rose from the stillness of the jungle the awful cry of the challenging ape, and Sheeta turned, crashing into the underbrush.
Clayton came to his feet with a start. His blood ran cold. Never in all his life had so fearful a sound smote upon his ears. He was no coward; but if ever man felt the icy fingers of fear upon his heart, William Cecil Clayton, eldest son of Lord Greystoke of England, did that day in the fastness of the African jungle.
The noise of some great body crashing through the underbrush so close beside him, and the sound of that bloodcurdling shriek from above, tested Clayton's courage to the limit; but he could not know that it was to that very voice he owed his life, nor that the creature who hurled it forth was his own cousin—the real Lord Greystoke.
The afternoon was drawing to a close, and Clayton, disheartened and discouraged, was in a terrible quandary as to the proper course to pursue; whether to keep on in search of Professor Porter, at the almost certain risk of his own death in the jungle by night, or to return to the cabin where he might at least serve to protect Jane from the perils which confronted her on all sides.
He did not wish to return to camp without her father; still more, he shrank from the thought of leaving her alone and unprotected in the hands of the mutineers of the Arrow, or to the hundred unknown dangers of the jungle.
Possibly, too, he thought, the professor and Philander might have returned to camp. Yes, that was more than likely. At least he would return and see, before he continued what seemed to be a most fruitless quest. And so he started, stumbling back through the thick and matted underbrush in the direction that he thought the cabin lay.
To Tarzan's surprise the young man was heading further into the jungle in the general direction of Mbonga's village, and the shrewd young ape-man was convinced that he was lost.
To Tarzan this was scarcely comprehensible; his judgment told him that no man would venture toward the village of the cruel blacks armed only with a spear which, from the awkward way in which he carried it, was evidently an unaccustomed weapon to this white man. Nor was he following the trail of the old men. That, they had crossed and left long since, though it had been fresh and plain before Tarzan's eyes.
Tarzan was perplexed. The fierce jungle would make easy prey of this unprotected stranger in a very short time if he were not guided quickly to the beach.
Yes, there was Numa, the lion, even now, stalking the white man a dozen paces to the right.
Clayton heard the great body paralleling his course, and now there rose upon the evening air the beast's thunderous roar. The man stopped with upraised spear and faced the brush from which issued the awful sound. The shadows were deepening, darkness was settling in.
God! To die here alone, beneath the fangs of wild beasts; to be torn and rended; to feel the hot breath of the brute on his face as the great paw crushed down upon his breast!
For a moment all was still. Clayton stood rigid, with raised spear. Presently a faint rustling of the bush apprised him of the stealthy creeping of the thing behind. It was gathering for the spring. At last he saw it, not twenty feet away—the long, lithe, muscular body and tawny head of a huge black-maned lion.
The beast was upon its belly, moving forward very slowly. As its eyes met Clayton's it stopped, and deliberately, cautiously gathered its hind quarters behind it.
In agony the man watched, fearful to launch his spear, powerless to fly.
He heard a noise in the tree above him. Some new danger, he thought, but he dared not take his eyes from the yellow green orbs before him. There was a sharp twang as of a broken banjo-string, and at the same instant an arrow appeared in the yellow hide of the crouching lion.
With a roar of pain and anger the beast sprang; but, somehow, Clayton stumbled to one side, and as he turned again to face the infuriated king of beasts, he was appalled at the sight which confronted him. Almost simultaneously with the lion's turning to renew the attack a half-naked giant dropped from the tree above squarely on the brute's back.
With lightning speed an arm that was banded layers of iron muscle encircled the huge neck, and the great beast was raised from behind, roaring and pawing the air—raised as easily as Clayton would have lifted a pet dog.
The scene he witnessed there in the twilight depths of the African jungle was burned forever into the Englishman's brain.
The man before him was the embodiment of physical perfection and giant strength; yet it was not upon these he depended in his battle with the great cat, for mighty as were his muscles, they were as nothing by comparison with Numa's. To his agility, to his brain and to his long keen knife he owed his supremacy.
His right arm encircled the lion's neck, while the left hand plunged the knife time and again into the unprotected side behind the left shoulder. The infuriated beast, pulled up and backwards until he stood upon his hind legs, struggled impotently in this unnatural position.
Had the battle been of a few seconds' longer duration the outcome might have been different, but it was all accomplished so quickly that the lion had scarce time to recover from the confusion of its surprise ere it sank lifeless to the ground.
Then the strange figure which had vanquished it stood erect upon the carcass, and throwing back the wild and handsome head, gave out the fearsome cry which a few moments earlier had so startled Clayton.
Before him he saw the figure of a young man, naked except for a loin cloth and a few barbaric ornaments about arms and legs; on the breast a priceless diamond locket gleaming against a smooth brown skin.
The hunting knife had been returned to its homely sheath, and the man was gathering up his bow and quiver from where he had tossed them when he leaped to attack the lion.
Clayton spoke to the stranger in English, thanking him for his brave rescue and complimenting him on the wondrous strength and dexterity he had displayed, but the only answer was a steady stare and a faint shrug of the mighty shoulders, which might betoken either disparagement of the service rendered, or ignorance of Clayton's language.
When the bow and quiver had been slung to his back the wild man, for such Clayton now thought him, once more drew his knife and deftly carved a dozen large strips of meat from the lion's carcass. Then, squatting upon his haunches, he proceeded to eat, first motioning Clayton to join him.
The strong white teeth sank into the raw and dripping flesh in apparent relish of the meal, but Clayton could not bring himself to share the uncooked meat with his strange host; instead he watched him, and presently there dawned upon him the conviction that this was Tarzan of the Apes, whose notice he had seen posted upon the cabin door that morning.
If so he must speak English.
Again Clayton attempted speech with the ape-man; but the replies, now vocal, were in a strange tongue, which resembled the chattering of monkeys mingled with the growling of some wild beast.
No, this could not be Tarzan of the Apes, for it was very evident that he was an utter stranger to English.
When Tarzan had completed his repast he rose and, pointing a very different direction from that which Clayton had been pursuing, started off through the jungle toward the point he had indicated.
Clayton, bewildered and confused, hesitated to follow him, for he thought he was but being led more deeply into the mazes of the forest; but the ape-man, seeing him disinclined to follow, returned, and, grasping him by the coat, dragged him along until he was convinced that Clayton understood what was required of him. Then he left him to follow voluntarily.
The Englishman, finally concluding that he was a prisoner, saw no alternative open but to accompany his captor, and thus they traveled slowly through the jungle while the sable mantle of the impenetrable forest night fell about them, and the stealthy footfalls of padded paws mingled with the breaking of twigs and the wild calls of the savage life that Clayton felt closing in upon him.
Suddenly Clayton heard the faint report of a firearm—a single shot, and then silence.
In the cabin by the beach two thoroughly terrified women clung to each other as they crouched upon the low bench in the gathering darkness.
The Negress sobbed hysterically, bemoaning the evil day that had witnessed her departure from her dear Maryland, while the white girl, dry eyed and outwardly calm, was torn by inward fears and forebodings. She feared not more for herself than for the three men whom she knew to be wandering in the abysmal depths of the savage jungle, from which she now heard issuing the almost incessant shrieks and roars, barkings and growlings of its terrifying and fearsome denizens as they sought their prey.
And now there came the sound of a heavy body brushing against the side of the cabin. She could hear the great padded paws upon the ground outside. For an instant, all was silence; even the bedlam of the forest died to a faint murmur. Then she distinctly heard the beast outside sniffing at the door, not two feet from where she crouched. Instinctively the girl shuddered, and shrank closer to the black woman.
"Hush!" she whispered. "Hush, Esmeralda," for the woman's sobs and groans seemed to have attracted the thing that stalked there just beyond the thin wall.
A gentle scratching sound was heard on the door. The brute tried to force an entrance; but presently this ceased, and again she heard the great pads creeping stealthily around the cabin. Again they stopped—beneath the window on which the terrified eyes of the girl now glued themselves.
"God!" she murmured, for now, silhouetted against the moonlit sky beyond, she saw framed in the tiny square of the latticed window the head of a huge lioness. The gleaming eyes were fixed upon her in intent ferocity.
"Look, Esmeralda!" she whispered. "For God's sake, what shall we do? Look! Quick! The window!"
Esmeralda, cowering still closer to her mistress, took one frightened glance toward the little square of moonlight, just as the lioness emitted a low, savage snarl.
The sight that met the poor woman's eyes was too much for the already overstrung nerves.
"Oh, Gaberelle!" she shrieked, and slid to the floor an inert and senseless mass.
For what seemed an eternity the great brute stood with its forepaws upon the sill, glaring into the little room. Presently it tried the strength of the lattice with its great talons.
The girl had almost ceased to breathe, when, to her relief, the head disappeared and she heard the brute's footsteps leaving the window. But now they came to the door again, and once more the scratching commenced; this time with increasing force until the great beast was tearing at the massive panels in a perfect frenzy of eagerness to seize its defenseless victims.
Could Jane have known the immense strength of that door, built piece by piece, she would have felt less fear of the lioness reaching her by this avenue.
Little did John Clayton imagine when he fashioned that crude but mighty portal that one day, twenty years later, it would shield a fair American girl, then unborn, from the teeth and talons of a man-eater.
For fully twenty minutes the brute alternately sniffed and tore at the door, occasionally giving voice to a wild, savage cry of baffled rage. At length, however, she gave up the attempt, and Jane heard her returning toward the window, beneath which she paused for an instant, and then launched her great weight against the timeworn lattice.
The girl heard the wooden rods groan beneath the impact; but they held, and the huge body dropped back to the ground below.
Again and again the lioness repeated these tactics, until finally the horrified prisoner within saw a portion of the lattice give way, and in an instant one great paw and the head of the animal were thrust within the room.
Slowly the powerful neck and shoulders spread the bars apart, and the lithe body protruded farther and farther into the room.
As in a trance, the girl rose, her hand upon her breast, wide eyes staring horror-stricken into the snarling face of the beast scarce ten feet from her. At her feet lay the prostrate form of the Negress. If she could but arouse her, their combined efforts might possibly avail to beat back the fierce and bloodthirsty intruder.
Jane stooped to grasp the black woman by the shoulder. Roughly she shook her.
"Esmeralda! Esmeralda!" she cried. "Help me, or we are lost."
Esmeralda opened her eyes. The first object they encountered was the dripping fangs of the hungry lioness.
With a horrified scream the poor woman rose to her hands and knees, and in this position scurried across the room, shrieking: "O Gaberelle! O Gaberelle!" at the top of her lungs.
Esmeralda weighed some two hundred and eighty pounds, and her extreme haste, added to her extreme corpulency, produced a most amazing result when Esmeralda elected to travel on all fours.
For a moment the lioness remained quiet with intense gaze directed upon the flitting Esmeralda, whose goal appeared to be the cupboard, into which she attempted to propel her huge bulk; but as the shelves were but nine or ten inches apart, she only succeeded in getting her head in; whereupon, with a final screech, which paled the jungle noises into insignificance, she fainted once again.
With the subsidence of Esmeralda the lioness renewed her efforts to wriggle her huge bulk through the weakening lattice.
The girl, standing pale and rigid against the farther wall, sought with ever-increasing terror for some loophole of escape. Suddenly her hand, tight-pressed against her bosom, felt the hard outline of the revolver that Clayton had left with her earlier in the day.
Quickly she snatched it from its hiding-place, and, leveling it full at the lioness's face, pulled the trigger.
There was a flash of flame, the roar of the discharge, and an answering roar of pain and anger from the beast.
Jane Porter saw the great form disappear from the window, and then she, too, fainted, the revolver falling at her side.
But Sabor was not killed. The bullet had but inflicted a painful wound in one of the great shoulders. It was the surprise at the blinding flash and the deafening roar that had caused her hasty but temporary retreat.
In another instant she was back at the lattice, and with renewed fury was clawing at the aperture, but with lessened effect, since the wounded member was almost useless.
She saw her prey—the two women—lying senseless upon the floor. There was no longer any resistance to be overcome. Her meat lay before her, and Sabor had only to worm her way through the lattice to claim it.
Slowly she forced her great bulk, inch by inch, through the opening. Now her head was through, now one great forearm and shoulder.
Carefully she drew up the wounded member to insinuate it gently beyond the tight pressing bars.
A moment more and both shoulders through, the long, sinuous body and the narrow hips would glide quickly after.
It was on this sight that Jane Porter again opened her eyes.
Chapter XV
The Forest God
When Clayton heard the report of the firearm he fell into an agony of fear and apprehension. He knew that one of the sailors might be the author of it; but the fact that he had left the revolver with Jane, together with the overwrought condition of his nerves, made him morbidly positive that she was threatened with some great danger. Perhaps even now she was attempting to defend herself against some savage man or beast.
What were the thoughts of his strange captor or guide Clayton could only vaguely conjecture; but that he had heard the shot, and was in some manner affected by it was quite evident, for he quickened his pace so appreciably that Clayton, stumbling blindly in his wake, was down a dozen times in as many minutes in a vain effort to keep pace with him, and soon was left hopelessly behind.
Fearing that he would again be irretrievably lost, he called aloud to the wild man ahead of him, and in a moment had the satisfaction of seeing him drop lightly to his side from the branches above.
For a moment Tarzan looked at the young man closely, as though undecided as to just what was best to do; then, stooping down before Clayton, he motioned him to grasp him about the neck, and, with the white man upon his back, Tarzan took to the trees.
The next few minutes the young Englishman never forgot. High into bending and swaying branches he was borne with what seemed to him incredible swiftness, while Tarzan chafed at the slowness of his progress.
From one lofty branch the agile creature swung with Clayton through a dizzy arc to a neighboring tree; then for a hundred yards maybe the sure feet threaded a maze of interwoven limbs, balancing like a tightrope walker high above the black depths of verdure beneath.
From the first sensation of chilling fear Clayton passed to one of keen admiration and envy of those giant muscles and that wondrous instinct or knowledge which guided this forest god through the inky blackness of the night as easily and safely as Clayton would have strolled a London street at high noon.
Occasionally they would enter a spot where the foliage above was less dense, and the bright rays of the moon lit up before Clayton's wondering eyes the strange path they were traversing.
At such times the man fairly caught his breath at sight of the horrid depths below them, for Tarzan took the easiest way, which often led over a hundred feet above the earth.
And yet with all his seeming speed, Tarzan was in reality feeling his way with comparative slowness, searching constantly for limbs of adequate strength for the maintenance of this double weight.
Presently they came to the clearing before the beach. Tarzan's quick ears had heard the strange sounds of Sabor's efforts to force her way through the lattice, and it seemed to Clayton that they dropped a straight hundred feet to earth, so quickly did Tarzan descend. Yet when they struck the ground it was with scarce a jar; and as Clayton released his hold on the ape-man he saw him dart like a squirrel for the opposite side of the cabin.
The Englishman sprang quickly after him just in time to see the hind quarters of some huge animal about to disappear through the window of the cabin.
As Jane opened her eyes to a realization of the imminent peril which threatened her, her brave young heart gave up at last its final vestige of hope. But then to her surprise she saw the huge animal being slowly drawn back through the window, and in the moonlight beyond she saw the heads and shoulders of two men.
As Clayton rounded the corner of the cabin to behold the animal disappearing within, it was also to see the ape-man seize the long tail in both hands, and, bracing himself with his feet against the side of the cabin, throw all his mighty strength into the effort to draw the beast out of the interior.
Clayton was quick to lend a hand, but the ape-man jabbered to him in a commanding and peremptory tone something which Clayton knew to be orders, though he could not understand them.
At last, under their combined efforts, the great body was slowly dragged farther and farther outside the window, and then there came to Clayton's mind a dawning conception of the rash bravery of his companion's act.
For a naked man to drag a shrieking, clawing man-eater forth from a window by the tail to save a strange white girl, was indeed the last word in heroism.
Insofar as Clayton was concerned it was a very different matter, since the girl was not only of his own kind and race, but was the one woman in all the world whom he loved.
Though he knew that the lioness would make short work of both of them, he pulled with a will to keep it from Jane Porter. And then he recalled the battle between this man and the great, black-maned lion which he had witnessed a short time before, and he commenced to feel more assurance.
Tarzan was still issuing orders which Clayton could not understand.
He was trying to tell the stupid white man to plunge his poisoned arrows into Sabor's back and sides, and to reach the savage heart with the long, thin hunting knife that hung at Tarzan's hip; but the man would not understand, and Tarzan did not dare release his hold to do the things himself, for he knew that the puny white man never could hold mighty Sabor alone, for an instant.
Slowly the lioness was emerging from the window. At last her shoulders were out.
And then Clayton saw an incredible thing. Tarzan, racking his brains for some means to cope single-handed with the infuriated beast, had suddenly recalled his battle with Terkoz; and as the great shoulders came clear of the window, so that the lioness hung upon the sill only by her forepaws, Tarzan suddenly released his hold upon the brute.
With the quickness of a striking rattler he launched himself full upon Sabor's back, his strong young arms seeking and gaining a full-Nelson upon the beast, as he had learned it that other day during his bloody, wrestling victory over Terkoz.
With a roar the lioness turned completely over upon her back, falling full upon her enemy; but the black-haired giant only closed tighter his hold.
Pawing and tearing at earth and air, Sabor rolled and threw herself this way and that in an effort to dislodge this strange antagonist; but ever tighter and tighter drew the iron bands that were forcing her head lower and lower upon her tawny breast.
Higher crept the steel forearms of the ape-man about the back of Sabor's neck. Weaker and weaker became the lioness's efforts.
At last Clayton saw the immense muscles of Tarzan's shoulders and biceps leap into corded knots beneath the silver moonlight. There was a long sustained and supreme effort on the ape-man's part—and the vertebrae of Sabor's neck parted with a sharp snap.
In an instant Tarzan was upon his feet, and for the second time that day Clayton heard the bull ape's savage roar of victory. Then he heard Jane's agonized cry:
"Cecil—Mr. Clayton! Oh, what is it? What is it?"
Running quickly to the cabin door, Clayton called out that all was right, and shouted to her to open the door. As quickly as she could she raised the great bar and fairly dragged Clayton within.
"What was that awful noise?" she whispered, shrinking close to him.
"It was the cry of the kill from the throat of the man who has just saved your life, Miss Porter. Wait, I will fetch him so you may thank him."
The frightened girl would not be left alone, so she accompanied Clayton to the side of the cabin where lay the dead body of the lioness.
Tarzan of the Apes was gone.
Clayton called several times, but there was no reply, and so the two returned to the greater safety of the interior.
"What a frightful sound!" cried Jane, "I shudder at the mere thought of it. Do not tell me that a human throat voiced that hideous and fearsome shriek."
"But it did, Miss Porter," replied Clayton; "or at least if not a human throat that of a forest god."
And then he told her of his experiences with this strange creature—of how twice the wild man had saved his life—of the wondrous strength, and agility, and bravery—of the brown skin and the handsome face.
"I cannot make it out at all," he concluded. "At first I thought he might be Tarzan of the Apes; but he neither speaks nor understands English, so that theory is untenable."
"Well, whatever he may be," cried the girl, "we owe him our lives, and may God bless him and keep him in safety in his wild and savage jungle!"
"Amen," said Clayton, fervently.
"For the good Lord's sake, ain't I dead?"
The two turned to see Esmeralda sitting upright upon the floor, her great eyes rolling from side to side as though she could not believe their testimony as to her whereabouts.
And now, for Jane Porter, the reaction came, and she threw herself upon the bench, sobbing with hysterical laughter.
Chapter XVI
"Most Remarkable"
Several miles south of the cabin, upon a strip of sandy beach, stood two old men, arguing.
Before them stretched the broad Atlantic. At their backs was the Dark Continent. Close around them loomed the impenetrable blackness of the jungle.
Savage beasts roared and growled; noises, hideous and weird, assailed their ears. They had wandered for miles in search of their camp, but always in the wrong direction. They were as hopelessly lost as though they suddenly had been transported to another world.
At such a time, indeed, every fiber of their combined intellects must have been concentrated upon the vital question of the minute—the life-and-death question to them of retracing their steps to camp.
Samuel T. Philander was speaking.
"But, my dear professor," he was saying, "I still maintain that but for the victories of Ferdinand and Isabella over the fifteenth-century Moors in Spain the world would be today a thousand years in advance of where we now find ourselves. The Moors were essentially a tolerant, broad-minded, liberal race of agriculturists, artisans and merchants—the very type of people that has made possible such civilization as we find today in America and Europe—while the Spaniards—"
"Tut, tut, dear Mr. Philander," interrupted Professor Porter; "their religion positively precluded the possibilities you suggest. Moslemism was, is, and always will be, a blight on that scientific progress which has marked—"
"Bless me! Professor," interjected Mr. Philander, who had turned his gaze toward the jungle, "there seems to be someone approaching."
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter turned in the direction indicated by the nearsighted Mr. Philander.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander," he chided. "How often must I urge you to seek that absolute concentration of your mental faculties which alone may permit you to bring to bear the highest powers of intellectuality upon the momentous problems which naturally fall to the lot of great minds? And now I find you guilty of a most flagrant breach of courtesy in interrupting my learned discourse to call attention to a mere quadruped of the genus FELIS. As I was saying, Mr.—"
"Heavens, Professor, a lion?" cried Mr. Philander, straining his weak eyes toward the dim figure outlined against the dark tropical underbrush.
"Yes, yes, Mr. Philander, if you insist upon employing slang in your discourse, a 'lion.' But as I was saying—"
"Bless me, Professor," again interrupted Mr. Philander; "permit me to suggest that doubtless the Moors who were conquered in the fifteenth century will continue in that most regrettable condition for the time being at least, even though we postpone discussion of that world calamity until we may attain the enchanting view of yon FELIS CARNIVORA which distance proverbially is credited with lending."
In the meantime the lion had approached with quiet dignity to within ten paces of the two men, where he stood curiously watching them.
The moonlight flooded the beach, and the strange group stood out in bold relief against the yellow sand.
"Most reprehensible, most reprehensible," exclaimed Professor Porter, with a faint trace of irritation in his voice. "Never, Mr. Philander, never before in my life have I known one of these animals to be permitted to roam at large from its cage. I shall most certainly report this outrageous breach of ethics to the directors of the adjacent zoological garden."
"Quite right, Professor," agreed Mr. Philander, "and the sooner it is done the better. Let us start now."
Seizing the professor by the arm, Mr. Philander set off in the direction that would put the greatest distance between themselves and the lion.
They had proceeded but a short distance when a backward glance revealed to the horrified gaze of Mr. Philander that the lion was following them. He tightened his grip upon the protesting professor and increased his speed.
"As I was saying, Mr. Philander," repeated Professor Porter.
Mr. Philander took another hasty glance rearward. The lion also had quickened his gait, and was doggedly maintaining an unvarying distance behind them.
"He is following us!" gasped Mr. Philander, breaking into a run.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander," remonstrated the professor, "this unseemly haste is most unbecoming to men of letters. What will our friends think of us, who may chance to be upon the street and witness our frivolous antics? Pray let us proceed with more decorum."
Mr. Philander stole another observation astern.
The lion was bounding along in easy leaps scarce five paces behind.
Mr. Philander dropped the professor's arm, and broke into a mad orgy of speed that would have done credit to any varsity track team.
"As I was saying, Mr. Philander—" screamed Professor Porter, as, metaphorically speaking, he himself "threw her into high." He, too, had caught a fleeting backward glimpse of cruel yellow eyes and half open mouth within startling proximity of his person.
With streaming coat tails and shiny silk hat Professor Archimedes Q. Porter fled through the moonlight close upon the heels of Mr. Samuel T. Philander.
Before them a point of the jungle ran out toward a narrow promontory, and it was for the haven of the trees he saw there that Mr. Samuel T. Philander directed his prodigious leaps and bounds; while from the shadows of this same spot peered two keen eyes in interested appreciation of the race.
It was Tarzan of the Apes who watched, with face a-grin, this odd game of follow-the-leader.
He knew the two men were safe enough from attack in so far as the lion was concerned. The very fact that Numa had foregone such easy prey at all convinced the wise forest craft of Tarzan that Numa's belly already was full.
The lion might stalk them until hungry again; but the chances were that if not angered he would soon tire of the sport, and slink away to his jungle lair.
Really, the one great danger was that one of the men might stumble and fall, and then the yellow devil would be upon him in a moment and the joy of the kill would be too great a temptation to withstand.
So Tarzan swung quickly to a lower limb in line with the approaching fugitives; and as Mr. Samuel T. Philander came panting and blowing beneath him, already too spent to struggle up to the safety of the limb, Tarzan reached down and, grasping him by the collar of his coat, yanked him to the limb by his side.
Another moment brought the professor within the sphere of the friendly grip, and he, too, was drawn upward to safety just as the baffled Numa, with a roar, leaped to recover his vanishing quarry.
For a moment the two men clung panting to the great branch, while Tarzan squatted with his back to the stem of the tree, watching them with mingled curiosity and amusement.
It was the professor who first broke the silence.
"I am deeply pained, Mr. Philander, that you should have evinced such a paucity of manly courage in the presence of one of the lower orders, and by your crass timidity have caused me to exert myself to such an unaccustomed degree in order that I might resume my discourse. As I was saying, Mr. Philander, when you interrupted me, the Moors—"
"Professor Archimedes Q. Porter," broke in Mr. Philander, in icy tones, "the time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in the mantle of virtue. You have accused me of cowardice. You have insinuated that you ran only to overtake me, not to escape the clutches of the lion. Have a care, Professor Archimedes Q. Porter! I am a desperate man. Goaded by long-suffering patience the worm will turn."
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!" cautioned Professor Porter; "you forget yourself."
"I forget nothing as yet, Professor Archimedes Q. Porter; but, believe me, sir, I am tottering on the verge of forgetfulness as to your exalted position in the world of science, and your gray hairs."
The professor sat in silence for a few minutes, and the darkness hid the grim smile that wreathed his wrinkled countenance. Presently he spoke.
"Look here, Skinny Philander," he said, in belligerent tones, "if you are lookin' for a scrap, peel off your coat and come on down on the ground, and I'll punch your head just as I did sixty years ago in the alley back of Porky Evans' barn."
"Ark!" gasped the astonished Mr. Philander. "Lordy, how good that sounds! When you're human, Ark, I love you; but somehow it seems as though you had forgotten how to be human for the last twenty years."
The professor reached out a thin, trembling old hand through the darkness until it found his old friend's shoulder.
"Forgive me, Skinny," he said, softly. "It hasn't been quite twenty years, and God alone knows how hard I have tried to be 'human' for Jane's sake, and yours, too, since He took my other Jane away."
Another old hand stole up from Mr. Philander's side to clasp the one that lay upon his shoulder, and no other message could better have translated the one heart to the other.
They did not speak for some minutes. The lion below them paced nervously back and forth. The third figure in the tree was hidden by the dense shadows near the stem. He, too, was silent—motionless as a graven image.
"You certainly pulled me up into this tree just in time," said the professor at last. "I want to thank you. You saved my life."
"But I didn't pull you up here, Professor," said Mr. Philander. "Bless me! The excitement of the moment quite caused me to forget that I myself was drawn up here by some outside agency—there must be someone or something in this tree with us."
"Eh?" ejaculated Professor Porter. "Are you quite positive, Mr. Philander?"
"Most positive, Professor," replied Mr. Philander, "and," he added, "I think we should thank the party. He may be sitting right next to you now, Professor."
"Eh? What's that? Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!" said Professor Porter, edging cautiously nearer to Mr. Philander.
Just then it occurred to Tarzan of the Apes that Numa had loitered beneath the tree for a sufficient length of time, so he raised his young head toward the heavens, and there rang out upon the terrified ears of the two old men the awful warning challenge of the anthropoid.
The two friends, huddled trembling in their precarious position on the limb, saw the great lion halt in his restless pacing as the blood-curdling cry smote his ears, and then slink quickly into the jungle, to be instantly lost to view.
"Even the lion trembles in fear," whispered Mr. Philander.
"Most remarkable, most remarkable," murmured Professor Porter, clutching frantically at Mr. Philander to regain the balance which the sudden fright had so perilously endangered. Unfortunately for them both, Mr. Philander's center of equilibrium was at that very moment hanging upon the ragged edge of nothing, so that it needed but the gentle impetus supplied by the additional weight of Professor Porter's body to topple the devoted secretary from the limb.
For a moment they swayed uncertainly, and then, with mingled and most unscholarly shrieks, they pitched headlong from the tree, locked in frenzied embrace.
It was quite some moments ere either moved, for both were positive that any such attempt would reveal so many breaks and fractures as to make further progress impossible.
At length Professor Porter made an attempt to move one leg. To his surprise, it responded to his will as in days gone by. He now drew up its mate and stretched it forth again.
"Most remarkable, most remarkable," he murmured.
"Thank God, Professor," whispered Mr. Philander, fervently, "you are not dead, then?"
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut," cautioned Professor Porter, "I do not know with accuracy as yet."
With infinite solicitude Professor Porter wiggled his right arm—joy! It was intact. Breathlessly he waved his left arm above his prostrate body—it waved!
"Most remarkable, most remarkable," he said.
"To whom are you signaling, Professor?" asked Mr. Philander, in an excited tone.
Professor Porter deigned to make no response to this puerile inquiry. Instead he raised his head gently from the ground, nodding it back and forth a half dozen times.
"Most remarkable," he breathed. "It remains intact."
Mr. Philander had not moved from where he had fallen; he had not dared the attempt. How indeed could one move when one's arms and legs and back were broken?
One eye was buried in the soft loam; the other, rolling sidewise, was fixed in awe upon the strange gyrations of Professor Porter.
"How sad!" exclaimed Mr. Philander, half aloud. "Concussion of the brain, superinducing total mental aberration. How very sad indeed! and for one still so young!"
Professor Porter rolled over upon his stomach; gingerly he bowed his back until he resembled a huge tom cat in proximity to a yelping dog. Then he sat up and felt of various portions of his anatomy.
"They are all here," he exclaimed. "Most remarkable!"
Whereupon he arose, and, bending a scathing glance upon the still prostrate form of Mr. Samuel T. Philander, he said:
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander; this is no time to indulge in slothful ease. We must be up and doing."
Mr. Philander lifted his other eye out of the mud and gazed in speechless rage at Professor Porter. Then he attempted to rise; nor could there have been any more surprised than he when his efforts were immediately crowned with marked success.
He was still bursting with rage, however, at the cruel injustice of Professor Porter's insinuation, and was on the point of rendering a tart rejoinder when his eyes fell upon a strange figure standing a few paces away, scrutinizing them intently.
Professor Porter had recovered his shiny silk hat, which he had brushed carefully upon the sleeve of his coat and replaced upon his head. When he saw Mr. Philander pointing to something behind him he turned to behold a giant, naked but for a loin cloth and a few metal ornaments, standing motionless before him.
"Good evening, sir!" said the professor, lifting his hat.
For reply the giant motioned them to follow him, and set off up the beach in the direction from which they had recently come.
"I think it the better part of discretion to follow him," said Mr. Philander.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander," returned the professor. "A short time since you were advancing a most logical argument in substantiation of your theory that camp lay directly south of us. I was skeptical, but you finally convinced me; so now I am positive that toward the south we must travel to reach our friends. Therefore I shall continue south."
"But, Professor Porter, this man may know better than either of us. He seems to be indigenous to this part of the world. Let us at least follow him for a short distance."
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander," repeated the professor. "I am a difficult man to convince, but when once convinced my decision is unalterable. I shall continue in the proper direction, if I have to circumambulate the continent of Africa to reach my destination."
Further argument was interrupted by Tarzan, who, seeing that these strange men were not following him, had returned to their side.
Again he beckoned to them; but still they stood in argument.
Presently the ape-man lost patience with their stupid ignorance. He grasped the frightened Mr. Philander by the shoulder, and before that worthy gentleman knew whether he was being killed or merely maimed for life, Tarzan had tied one end of his rope securely about Mr. Philander's neck.
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander," remonstrated Professor Porter; "it is most unbeseeming in you to submit to such indignities."
But scarcely were the words out of his mouth ere he, too, had been seized and securely bound by the neck with the same rope. Then Tarzan set off toward the north, leading the now thoroughly frightened professor and his secretary.
In deathly silence they proceeded for what seemed hours to the two tired and hopeless old men; but presently as they topped a little rise of ground they were overjoyed to see the cabin lying before them, not a hundred yards distant.
Here Tarzan released them, and, pointing toward the little building, vanished into the jungle beside them.
"Most remarkable, most remarkable!" gasped the professor. "But you see, Mr. Philander, that I was quite right, as usual; and but for your stubborn willfulness we should have escaped a series of most humiliating, not to say dangerous accidents. Pray allow yourself to be guided by a more mature and practical mind hereafter when in need of wise counsel."
Mr. Samuel T. Philander was too much relieved at the happy outcome to their adventure to take umbrage at the professor's cruel fling. Instead he grasped his friend's arm and hastened him forward in the direction of the cabin.
It was a much-relieved party of castaways that found itself once more united. Dawn discovered them still recounting their various adventures and speculating upon the identity of the strange guardian and protector they had found on this savage shore.
Esmeralda was positive that it was none other than an angel of the Lord, sent down especially to watch over them.
"Had you seen him devour the raw meat of the lion, Esmeralda," laughed Clayton, "you would have thought him a very material angel."
"There was nothing heavenly about his voice," said Jane Porter, with a little shudder at recollection of the awful roar which had followed the killing of the lioness.
"Nor did it precisely comport with my preconceived ideas of the dignity of divine messengers," remarked Professor Porter, "when the—ah—gentleman tied two highly respectable and erudite scholars neck to neck and dragged them through the jungle as though they had been cows."
Chapter XVII
Burials
As it was now quite light, the party, none of whom had eaten or slept since the previous morning, began to bestir themselves to prepare food.
The mutineers of the Arrow had landed a small supply of dried meats, canned soups and vegetables, crackers, flour, tea, and coffee for the five they had marooned, and these were hurriedly drawn upon to satisfy the craving of long-famished appetites.
The next task was to make the cabin habitable, and to this end it was decided to at once remove the gruesome relics of the tragedy which had taken place there on some bygone day.
Professor Porter and Mr. Philander were deeply interested in examining the skeletons. The two larger, they stated, had belonged to a male and female of one of the higher white races.
The smallest skeleton was given but passing attention, as its location, in the crib, left no doubt as to its having been the infant offspring of this unhappy couple.
As they were preparing the skeleton of the man for burial, Clayton discovered a massive ring which had evidently encircled the man's finger at the time of his death, for one of the slender bones of the hand still lay within the golden bauble.
Picking it up to examine it, Clayton gave a cry of astonishment, for the ring bore the crest of the house of Greystoke.
At the same time, Jane discovered the books in the cupboard, and on opening the fly-leaf of one of them saw the name, JOHN CLAYTON, LONDON. In a second book which she hurriedly examined was the single name, GREYSTOKE.
"Why, Mr. Clayton," she cried, "what does this mean? Here are the names of some of your own people in these books."
"And here," he replied gravely, "is the great ring of the house of Greystoke which has been lost since my uncle, John Clayton, the former Lord Greystoke, disappeared, presumably lost at sea."
"But how do you account for these things being here, in this savage African jungle?" exclaimed the girl.
"There is but one way to account for it, Miss Porter," said Clayton. "The late Lord Greystoke was not drowned. He died here in this cabin and this poor thing upon the floor is all that is mortal of him."
"Then this must have been Lady Greystoke," said Jane reverently, indicating the poor mass of bones upon the bed.
"The beautiful Lady Alice," replied Clayton, "of whose many virtues and remarkable personal charms I often have heard my mother and father speak. Poor woman," he murmured sadly.
With deep reverence and solemnity the bodies of the late Lord and Lady Greystoke were buried beside their little African cabin, and between them was placed the tiny skeleton of the baby of Kala, the ape.
As Mr. Philander was placing the frail bones of the infant in a bit of sail cloth, he examined the skull minutely. Then he called Professor Porter to his side, and the two argued in low tones for several minutes.
"Most remarkable, most remarkable," said Professor Porter.
"Bless me," said Mr. Philander, "we must acquaint Mr. Clayton with our discovery at once."
"Tut, tut, Mr. Philander, tut, tut!" remonstrated Professor Archimedes Q. Porter. "'Let the dead past bury its dead.'"
And so the white-haired old man repeated the burial service over this strange grave, while his four companions stood with bowed and uncovered heads about him.
From the trees Tarzan of the Apes watched the solemn ceremony; but most of all he watched the sweet face and graceful figure of Jane Porter.
In his savage, untutored breast new emotions were stirring. He could not fathom them. He wondered why he felt so great an interest in these people—why he had gone to such pains to save the three men. But he did not wonder why he had torn Sabor from the tender flesh of the strange girl.
Surely the men were stupid and ridiculous and cowardly. Even Manu, the monkey, was more intelligent than they. If these were creatures of his own kind he was doubtful if his past pride in blood was warranted.
But the girl, ah—that was a different matter. He did not reason here. He knew that she was created to be protected, and that he was created to protect her.
He wondered why they had dug a great hole in the ground merely to bury dry bones. Surely there was no sense in that; no one wanted to steal dry bones.
Had there been meat upon them he could have understood, for thus alone might one keep his meat from Dango, the hyena, and the other robbers of the jungle.
When the grave had been filled with earth the little party turned back toward the cabin, and Esmeralda, still weeping copiously for the two she had never heard of before today, and who had been dead twenty years, chanced to glance toward the harbor. Instantly her tears ceased.
"Look at them low down white trash out there!" she shrilled, pointing toward the Arrow. "They-all's a desecrating us, right here on this here perverted island."
And, sure enough, the Arrow was being worked toward the open sea, slowly, through the harbor's entrance.
"They promised to leave us firearms and ammunition," said Clayton. "The merciless beasts!"
"It is the work of that fellow they call Snipes, I am sure," said Jane. "King was a scoundrel, but he had a little sense of humanity. If they had not killed him I know that he would have seen that we were properly provided for before they left us to our fate."
"I regret that they did not visit us before sailing," said Professor Porter. "I had proposed requesting them to leave the treasure with us, as I shall be a ruined man if that is lost."
Jane looked at her father sadly.
"Never mind, dear," she said. "It wouldn't have done any good, because it is solely for the treasure that they killed their officers and landed us upon this awful shore."
"Tut, tut, child, tut, tut!" replied Professor Porter. "You are a good child, but inexperienced in practical matters," and Professor Porter turned and walked slowly away toward the jungle, his hands clasped beneath his long coat tails and his eyes bent upon the ground.
His daughter watched him with a pathetic smile upon her lips, and then turning to Mr. Philander, she whispered:
"Please don't let him wander off again as he did yesterday. We depend upon you, you know, to keep a close watch upon him."
"He becomes more difficult to handle each day," replied Mr. Philander, with a sigh and a shake of his head. "I presume he is now off to report to the directors of the Zoo that one of their lions was at large last night. Oh, Miss Jane, you don't know what I have to contend with."
"Yes, I do, Mr. Philander; but while we all love him, you alone are best fitted to manage him; for, regardless of what he may say to you, he respects your great learning, and, therefore, has immense confidence in your judgment. The poor dear cannot differentiate between erudition and wisdom."
Mr. Philander, with a mildly puzzled expression on his face, turned to pursue Professor Porter, and in his mind he was revolving the question of whether he should feel complimented or aggrieved at Miss Porter's rather backhanded compliment.
Tarzan had seen the consternation depicted upon the faces of the little group as they witnessed the departure of the Arrow; so, as the ship was a wonderful novelty to him in addition, he determined to hasten out to the point of land at the north of the harbor's mouth and obtain a nearer view of the boat, as well as to learn, if possible, the direction of its flight.
Swinging through the trees with great speed, he reached the point only a moment after the ship had passed out of the harbor, so that he obtained an excellent view of the wonders of this strange, floating house.
There were some twenty men running hither and thither about the deck, pulling and hauling on ropes.
A light land breeze was blowing, and the ship had been worked through the harbor's mouth under scant sail, but now that they had cleared the point every available shred of canvas was being spread that she might stand out to sea as handily as possible.
Tarzan watched the graceful movements of the ship in rapt admiration, and longed to be aboard her. Presently his keen eyes caught the faintest suspicion of smoke on the far northern horizon, and he wondered over the cause of such a thing out on the great water.
About the same time the look-out on the Arrow must have discerned it, for in a few minutes Tarzan saw the sails being shifted and shortened. The ship came about, and presently he knew that she was beating back toward land.
A man at the bows was constantly heaving into the sea a rope to the end of which a small object was fastened. Tarzan wondered what the purpose of this action might be.
At last the ship came up directly into the wind; the anchor was lowered; down came the sails. There was great scurrying about on deck.
A boat was lowered, and in it a great chest was placed. Then a dozen sailors bent to the oars and pulled rapidly toward the point where Tarzan crouched in the branches of a tree.
In the stern of the boat, as it drew nearer, Tarzan saw the rat-faced man.
It was but a few minutes later that the boat touched the beach. The men jumped out and lifted the great chest to the sand. They were on the north side of the point so that their presence was concealed from those at the cabin.
The men argued angrily for a moment. Then the rat-faced one, with several companions, ascended the low bluff on which stood the tree that concealed Tarzan. They looked about for several minutes.
"Here is a good place," said the rat-faced sailor, indicating a spot beneath Tarzan's tree.
"It is as good as any," replied one of his companions. "If they catch us with the treasure aboard it will all be confiscated anyway. We might as well bury it here on the chance that some of us will escape the gallows to come back and enjoy it later."
The rat-faced one now called to the men who had remained at the boat, and they came slowly up the bank carrying picks and shovels.
"Hurry, you!" cried Snipes.
"Stow it!" retorted one of the men, in a surly tone. "You're no admiral, you damned shrimp."
"I'm Cap'n here, though, I'll have you to understand, you swab," shrieked Snipes, with a volley of frightful oaths.
"Steady, boys," cautioned one of the men who had not spoken before. "It ain't goin' to get us nothing by fightin' amongst ourselves."
"Right enough," replied the sailor who had resented Snipes' autocratic tones; "but it ain't a-goin' to get nobody nothin' to put on airs in this bloomin' company neither."
"You fellows dig here," said Snipes, indicating a spot beneath the tree. "And while you're diggin', Peter kin be a-makin' of a map of the location so's we kin find it again. You, Tom, and Bill, take a couple more down and fetch up the chest."
"Wot are you a-goin' to do?" asked he of the previous altercation. "Just boss?"
"Git busy there," growled Snipes. "You didn't think your Cap'n was a-goin' to dig with a shovel, did you?"
The men all looked up angrily. None of them liked Snipes, and this disagreeable show of authority since he had murdered King, the real head and ringleader of the mutineers, had only added fuel to the flames of their hatred.
"Do you mean to say that you don't intend to take a shovel, and lend a hand with this work? Your shoulder's not hurt so all-fired bad as that," said Tarrant, the sailor who had before spoken.
"Not by a damned sight," replied Snipes, fingering the butt of his revolver nervously.
"Then, by God," replied Tarrant, "if you won't take a shovel you'll take a pickax."
With the words he raised his pick above his head, and, with a mighty blow, he buried the point in Snipes' brain.
For a moment the men stood silently looking at the result of their fellow's grim humor. Then one of them spoke.
"Served the skunk jolly well right," he said.
One of the others commenced to ply his pick to the ground. The soil was soft and he threw aside the pick and grasped a shovel; then the others joined him. There was no further comment on the killing, but the men worked in a better frame of mind than they had since Snipes had assumed command.
When they had a trench of ample size to bury the chest, Tarrant suggested that they enlarge it and inter Snipes' body on top of the chest.
"It might 'elp fool any as 'appened to be diggin' 'ereabouts," he explained.
The others saw the cunning of the suggestion, and so the trench was lengthened to accommodate the corpse, and in the center a deeper hole was excavated for the box, which was first wrapped in sailcloth and then lowered to its place, which brought its top about a foot below the bottom of the grave. Earth was shovelled in and tramped down about the chest until the bottom of the grave showed level and uniform.
Two of the men rolled the rat-faced corpse unceremoniously into the grave, after first stripping it of its weapons and various other articles which the several members of the party coveted for their own.
They then filled the grave with earth and tramped upon it until it would hold no more.
The balance of the loose earth was thrown far and wide, and a mass of dead undergrowth spread in as natural a manner as possible over the new-made grave to obliterate all signs of the ground having been disturbed.
Their work done the sailors returned to the small boat, and pulled off rapidly toward the Arrow.
The breeze had increased considerably, and as the smoke upon the horizon was now plainly discernible in considerable volume, the mutineers lost no time in getting under full sail and bearing away toward the southwest.
Tarzan, an interested spectator of all that had taken place, sat speculating on the strange actions of these peculiar creatures.
Men were indeed more foolish and more cruel than the beasts of the jungle! How fortunate was he who lived in the peace and security of the great forest!
Tarzan wondered what the chest they had buried contained. If they did not want it why did they not merely throw it into the water? That would have been much easier.
Ah, he thought, but they do want it. They have hidden it here because they intend returning for it later.
Tarzan dropped to the ground and commenced to examine the earth about the excavation. He was looking to see if these creatures had dropped anything which he might like to own. Soon he discovered a spade hidden by the underbrush which they had laid upon the grave.
He seized it and attempted to use it as he had seen the sailors do. It was awkward work and hurt his bare feet, but he persevered until he had partially uncovered the body. This he dragged from the grave and laid to one side.
Then he continued digging until he had unearthed the chest. This also he dragged to the side of the corpse. Then he filled in the smaller hole below the grave, replaced the body and the earth around and above it, covered it over with underbrush, and returned to the chest.
Four sailors had sweated beneath the burden of its weight—Tarzan of the Apes picked it up as though it had been an empty packing case, and with the spade slung to his back by a piece of rope, carried it off into the densest part of the jungle.
He could not well negotiate the trees with his awkward burden, but he kept to the trails, and so made fairly good time.
For several hours he traveled a little north of east until he came to an impenetrable wall of matted and tangled vegetation. Then he took to the lower branches, and in another fifteen minutes he emerged into the amphitheater of the apes, where they met in council, or to celebrate the rites of the Dum-Dum.
Near the center of the clearing, and not far from the drum, or altar, he commenced to dig. This was harder work than turning up the freshly excavated earth at the grave, but Tarzan of the Apes was persevering and so he kept at his labor until he was rewarded by seeing a hole sufficiently deep to receive the chest and effectually hide it from view.
Why had he gone to all this labor without knowing the value of the contents of the chest?
Tarzan of the Apes had a man's figure and a man's brain, but he was an ape by training and environment. His brain told him that the chest contained something valuable, or the men would not have hidden it. His training had taught him to imitate whatever was new and unusual, and now the natural curiosity, which is as common to men as to apes, prompted him to open the chest and examine its contents.
But the heavy lock and massive iron bands baffled both his cunning and his immense strength, so that he was compelled to bury the chest without having his curiosity satisfied.
By the time Tarzan had hunted his way back to the vicinity of the cabin, feeding as he went, it was quite dark.
Within the little building a light was burning, for Clayton had found an unopened tin of oil which had stood intact for twenty years, a part of the supplies left with the Claytons by Black Michael. The lamps also were still useable, and thus the interior of the cabin appeared as bright as day to the astonished Tarzan.
He had often wondered at the exact purpose of the lamps. His reading and the pictures had told him what they were, but he had no idea of how they could be made to produce the wondrous sunlight that some of his pictures had portrayed them as diffusing upon all surrounding objects.
As he approached the window nearest the door he saw that the cabin had been divided into two rooms by a rough partition of boughs and sailcloth.
In the front room were the three men; the two older deep in argument, while the younger, tilted back against the wall on an improvised stool, was deeply engrossed in reading one of Tarzan's books.
Tarzan was not particularly interested in the men, however, so he sought the other window. There was the girl. How beautiful her features! How delicate her snowy skin!
She was writing at Tarzan's own table beneath the window. Upon a pile of grasses at the far side of the room lay the Negress asleep.
For an hour Tarzan feasted his eyes upon her while she wrote. How he longed to speak to her, but he dared not attempt it, for he was convinced that, like the young man, she would not understand him, and he feared, too, that he might frighten her away.
At length she arose, leaving her manuscript upon the table. She went to the bed upon which had been spread several layers of soft grasses. These she rearranged.
Then she loosened the soft mass of golden hair which crowned her head. Like a shimmering waterfall turned to burnished metal by a dying sun it fell about her oval face; in waving lines, below her waist it tumbled.
Tarzan was spellbound. Then she extinguished the lamp and all within the cabin was wrapped in Cimmerian darkness.
Still Tarzan watched. Creeping close beneath the window he waited, listening, for half an hour. At last he was rewarded by the sounds of the regular breathing within which denotes sleep.
Cautiously he intruded his hand between the meshes of the lattice until his whole arm was within the cabin. Carefully he felt upon the desk. At last he grasped the manuscript upon which Jane Porter had been writing, and as cautiously withdrew his arm and hand, holding the precious treasure.
Tarzan folded the sheets into a small parcel which he tucked into the quiver with his arrows. Then he melted away into the jungle as softly and as noiselessly as a shadow.
Chapter XVIII
The Jungle Toll
Early the following morning Tarzan awoke, and his first thought of the new day, as the last of yesterday, was of the wonderful writing which lay hidden in his quiver.
Hurriedly he brought it forth, hoping against hope that he could read what the beautiful white girl had written there the preceding evening.
At the first glance he suffered a bitter disappointment; never before had he so yearned for anything as now he did for the ability to interpret a message from that golden-haired divinity who had come so suddenly and so unexpectedly into his life.
What did it matter if the message were not intended for him? It was an expression of her thoughts, and that was sufficient for Tarzan of the Apes.
And now to be baffled by strange, uncouth characters the like of which he had never seen before! Why, they even tipped in the opposite direction from all that he had ever examined either in printed books or the difficult script of the few letters he had found.
Even the little bugs of the black book were familiar friends, though their arrangement meant nothing to him; but these bugs were new and unheard of.
For twenty minutes he pored over them, when suddenly they commenced to take familiar though distorted shapes. Ah, they were his old friends, but badly crippled.
Then he began to make out a word here and a word there. His heart leaped for joy. He could read it, and he would.
In another half hour he was progressing rapidly, and, but for an exceptional word now and again, he found it very plain sailing.
Here is what he read:
WEST COAST OF AFRICA, ABOUT 10 DEGREES SOUTH
LATITUDE. (So Mr. Clayton says.)
February 3 (?), 1909.
DEAREST HAZEL:
It seems foolish to write you a letter that you may never see, but I simply must tell somebody of our awful experiences since we sailed from Europe on the ill-fated Arrow.
If we never return to civilization, as now seems only too likely, this will at least prove a brief record of the events which led up to our final fate, whatever it may be.
As you know, we were supposed to have set out upon a scientific expedition to the Congo. Papa was presumed to entertain some wondrous theory of an unthinkably ancient civilization, the remains of which lay buried somewhere in the Congo valley. But after we were well under sail the truth came out.
It seems that an old bookworm who has a book and curio shop in Baltimore discovered between the leaves of a very old Spanish manuscript a letter written in 1550 detailing the adventures of a crew of mutineers of a Spanish galleon bound from Spain to South America with a vast treasure of "doubloons" and "pieces of eight," I suppose, for they certainly sound weird and piraty.
The writer had been one of the crew, and the letter was to his son, who was, at the very time the letter was written, master of a Spanish merchantman.
Many years had elapsed since the events the letter narrated had transpired, and the old man had become a respected citizen of an obscure Spanish town, but the love of gold was still so strong upon him that he risked all to acquaint his son with the means of attaining fabulous wealth for them both.
The writer told how when but a week out from Spain the crew had mutinied and murdered every officer and man who opposed them; but they defeated their own ends by this very act, for there was none left competent to navigate a ship at sea.
They were blown hither and thither for two months, until sick and dying of scurvy, starvation, and thirst, they had been wrecked on a small islet.
The galleon was washed high upon the beach where she went to pieces; but not before the survivors, who numbered but ten souls, had rescued one of the great chests of treasure.
This they buried well up on the island, and for three years they lived there in constant hope of being rescued.
One by one they sickened and died, until only one man was left, the writer of the letter.
The men had built a boat from the wreckage of the galleon, but having no idea where the island was located they had not dared to put to sea.
When all were dead except himself, however, the awful loneliness so weighed upon the mind of the sole survivor that he could endure it no longer, and choosing to risk death upon the open sea rather than madness on the lonely isle, he set sail in his little boat after nearly a year of solitude.
Fortunately he sailed due north, and within a week was in the track of the Spanish merchantmen plying between the West Indies and Spain, and was picked up by one of these vessels homeward bound.
The story he told was merely one of shipwreck in which all but a few had perished, the balance, except himself, dying after they reached the island. He did not mention the mutiny or the chest of buried treasure.
The master of the merchantman assured him that from the position at which they had picked him up, and the prevailing winds for the past week he could have been on no other island than one of the Cape Verde group, which lie off the West Coast of Africa in about 16 degrees or 17 degrees north latitude.
His letter described the island minutely, as well as the location of the treasure, and was accompanied by the crudest, funniest little old map you ever saw; with trees and rocks all marked by scrawly X's to show the exact spot where the treasure had been buried.
When papa explained the real nature of the expedition, my heart sank, for I know so well how visionary and impractical the poor dear has always been that I feared that he had again been duped; especially when he told me he had paid a thousand dollars for the letter and map.
To add to my distress, I learned that he had borrowed ten thousand dollars more from Robert Canler, and had given his notes for the amount.
Mr. Canler had asked for no security, and you know, dearie, what that will mean for me if papa cannot meet them. Oh, how I detest that man!
We all tried to look on the bright side of things, but Mr. Philander, and Mr. Clayton—he joined us in London just for the adventure—both felt as skeptical as I.
Well, to make a long story short, we found the island and the treasure—a great iron-bound oak chest, wrapped in many layers of oiled sailcloth, and as strong and firm as when it had been buried nearly two hundred years ago.
It was SIMPLY FILLED with gold coin, and was so heavy that four men bent underneath its weight.
The horrid thing seems to bring nothing but murder and misfortune to those who have anything to do with it, for three days after we sailed from the Cape Verde Islands our own crew mutinied and killed every one of their officers.
Oh, it was the most terrifying experience one could imagine—I cannot even write of it.
They were going to kill us too, but one of them, the leader, named King, would not let them, and so they sailed south along the coast to a lonely spot where they found a good harbor, and here they landed and have left us.
They sailed away with the treasure to-day, but Mr. Clayton says they will meet with a fate similar to the mutineers of the ancient galleon, because King, the only man aboard who knew aught of navigation, was murdered on the beach by one of the men the day we landed.
I wish you could know Mr. Clayton; he is the dearest fellow imaginable, and unless I am mistaken he has fallen very much in love with me.
He is the only son of Lord Greystoke, and some day will inherit the title and estates. In addition, he is wealthy in his own right, but the fact that he is going to be an English Lord makes me very sad—you know what my sentiments have always been relative to American girls who married titled foreigners. Oh, if he were only a plain American gentleman!
But it isn't his fault, poor fellow, and in everything except birth he would do credit to my country, and that is the greatest compliment I know how to pay any man.
We have had the most weird experiences since we were landed here. Papa and Mr. Philander lost in the jungle, and chased by a real lion.
Mr. Clayton lost, and attacked twice by wild beasts. Esmeralda and I cornered in an old cabin by a perfectly awful man-eating lioness. Oh, it was simply "terrifical," as Esmeralda would say.
But the strangest part of it all is the wonderful creature who rescued us. I have not seen him, but Mr. Clayton and papa and Mr. Philander have, and they say that he is a perfectly god-like white man tanned to a dusky brown, with the strength of a wild elephant, the agility of a monkey, and the bravery of a lion.
He speaks no English and vanishes as quickly and as mysteriously after he has performed some valorous deed, as though he were a disembodied spirit.
Then we have another weird neighbor, who printed a beautiful sign in English and tacked it on the door of his cabin, which we have preempted, warning us to destroy none of his belongings, and signing himself "Tarzan of the Apes."
We have never seen him, though we think he is about, for one of the sailors, who was going to shoot Mr. Clayton in the back, received a spear in his shoulder from some unseen hand in the jungle.
The sailors left us but a meager supply of food, so, as we have only a single revolver with but three cartridges left in it, we do not know how we can procure meat, though Mr. Philander says that we can exist indefinitely on the wild fruit and nuts which abound in the jungle.
I am very tired now, so I shall go to my funny bed of grasses which Mr. Clayton gathered for me, but will add to this from day to day as things happen.
Lovingly,
JANE PORTER.
TO HAZEL STRONG, BALTIMORE, MD.
Tarzan sat in a brown study for a long time after he finished reading the letter. It was filled with so many new and wonderful things that his brain was in a whirl as he attempted to digest them all.
So they did not know that he was Tarzan of the Apes. He would tell them.
In his tree he had constructed a rude shelter of leaves and boughs, beneath which, protected from the rain, he had placed the few treasures brought from the cabin. Among these were some pencils.
He took one, and beneath Jane Porter's signature he wrote:
I am Tarzan of the Apes
He thought that would be sufficient. Later he would return the letter to the cabin.
In the matter of food, thought Tarzan, they had no need to worry—he would provide, and he did.
The next morning Jane found her missing letter in the exact spot from which it had disappeared two nights before. She was mystified; but when she saw the printed words beneath her signature, she felt a cold, clammy chill run up her spine. She showed the letter, or rather the last sheet with the signature, to Clayton.
"And to think," she said, "that uncanny thing was probably watching me all the time that I was writing—oo! It makes me shudder just to think of it."
"But he must be friendly," reassured Clayton, "for he has returned your letter, nor did he offer to harm you, and unless I am mistaken he left a very substantial memento of his friendship outside the cabin door last night, for I just found the carcass of a wild boar there as I came out."
From then on scarcely a day passed that did not bring its offering of game or other food. Sometimes it was a young deer, again a quantity of strange, cooked food—cassava cakes pilfered from the village of Mbonga—or a boar, or leopard, and once a lion.
Tarzan derived the greatest pleasure of his life in hunting meat for these strangers. It seemed to him that no pleasure on earth could compare with laboring for the welfare and protection of the beautiful white girl.
Some day he would venture into the camp in daylight and talk with these people through the medium of the little bugs which were familiar to them and to Tarzan.
But he found it difficult to overcome the timidity of the wild thing of the forest, and so day followed day without seeing a fulfillment of his good intentions.
The party in the camp, emboldened by familiarity, wandered farther and yet farther into the jungle in search of nuts and fruit.
Scarcely a day passed that did not find Professor Porter straying in his preoccupied indifference toward the jaws of death. Mr. Samuel T. Philander, never what one might call robust, was worn to the shadow of a shadow through the ceaseless worry and mental distraction resultant from his Herculean efforts to safeguard the professor.
A month passed. Tarzan had finally determined to visit the camp by daylight.
It was early afternoon. Clayton had wandered to the point at the harbor's mouth to look for passing vessels. Here he kept a great mass of wood, high piled, ready to be ignited as a signal should a steamer or a sail top the far horizon.
Professor Porter was wandering along the beach south of the camp with Mr. Philander at his elbow, urging him to turn his steps back before the two became again the sport of some savage beast.
The others gone, Jane and Esmeralda had wandered into the jungle to gather fruit, and in their search were led farther and farther from the cabin.
Tarzan waited in silence before the door of the little house until they should return. His thoughts were of the beautiful white girl. They were always of her now. He wondered if she would fear him, and the thought all but caused him to relinquish his plan.
He was rapidly becoming impatient for her return, that he might feast his eyes upon her and be near her, perhaps touch her. The ape-man knew no god, but he was as near to worshipping his divinity as mortal man ever comes to worship. While he waited he passed the time printing a message to her; whether he intended giving it to her he himself could not have told, but he took infinite pleasure in seeing his thoughts expressed in print—in which he was not so uncivilized after all. He wrote:
I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You are mine. We live here together always in my house. I will bring you the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that roam the jungle. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of the jungle fighters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of the jungle fighters. You are Jane Porter, I saw it in your letter. When you see this you will know that it is for you and that Tarzan of the Apes loves you.
As he stood, straight as a young Indian, by the door, waiting after he had finished the message, there came to his keen ears a familiar sound. It was the passing of a great ape through the lower branches of the forest.
For an instant he listened intently, and then from the jungle came the agonized scream of a woman, and Tarzan of the Apes, dropping his first love letter upon the ground, shot like a panther into the forest.
Clayton, also, heard the scream, and Professor Porter and Mr. Philander, and in a few minutes they came panting to the cabin, calling out to each other a volley of excited questions as they approached. A glance within confirmed their worst fears.
Jane and Esmeralda were not there.
Instantly, Clayton, followed by the two old men, plunged into the jungle, calling the girl's name aloud. For half an hour they stumbled on, until Clayton, by merest chance, came upon the prostrate form of Esmeralda.
He stopped beside her, feeling for her pulse and then listening for her heartbeats. She lived. He shook her.
"Esmeralda!" he shrieked in her ear. "Esmeralda! For God's sake, where is Miss Porter? What has happened? Esmeralda!"
Slowly Esmeralda opened her eyes. She saw Clayton. She saw the jungle about her.
"Oh, Gaberelle!" she screamed, and fainted again.
By this time Professor Porter and Mr. Philander had come up.
"What shall we do, Mr. Clayton?" asked the old professor. "Where shall we look? God could not have been so cruel as to take my little girl away from me now."
"We must arouse Esmeralda first," replied Clayton. "She can tell us what has happened. Esmeralda!" he cried again, shaking the black woman roughly by the shoulder.
"O Gaberelle, I want to die!" cried the poor woman, but with eyes fast closed. "Let me die, dear Lord, don't let me see that awful face again."
"Come, come, Esmeralda," cried Clayton.
"The Lord isn't here; it's Mr. Clayton. Open your eyes."
Esmeralda did as she was bade.
"O Gaberelle! Thank the Lord," she said.
"Where's Miss Porter? What happened?" questioned Clayton.
"Ain't Miss Jane here?" cried Esmeralda, sitting up with wonderful celerity for one of her bulk. "Oh, Lord, now I remember! It must have took her away," and the Negress commenced to sob, and wail her lamentations.
"What took her away?" cried Professor Porter.
"A great big giant all covered with hair."
"A gorilla, Esmeralda?" questioned Mr. Philander, and the three men scarcely breathed as he voiced the horrible thought.
"I thought it was the devil; but I guess it must have been one of them gorilephants. Oh, my poor baby, my poor little honey," and again Esmeralda broke into uncontrollable sobbing.
Clayton immediately began to look about for tracks, but he could find nothing save a confusion of trampled grasses in the close vicinity, and his woodcraft was too meager for the translation of what he did see.
All the balance of the day they sought through the jungle; but as night drew on they were forced to give up in despair and hopelessness, for they did not even know in what direction the thing had borne Jane.
It was long after dark ere they reached the cabin, and a sad and grief-stricken party it was that sat silently within the little structure.
Professor Porter finally broke the silence. His tones were no longer those of the erudite pedant theorizing upon the abstract and the unknowable; but those of the man of action—determined, but tinged also by a note of indescribable hopelessness and grief which wrung an answering pang from Clayton's heart.
"I shall lie down now," said the old man, "and try to sleep. Early to-morrow, as soon as it is light, I shall take what food I can carry and continue the search until I have found Jane. I will not return without her."
His companions did not reply at once. Each was immersed in his own sorrowful thoughts, and each knew, as did the old professor, what the last words meant—Professor Porter would never return from the jungle.
At length Clayton arose and laid his hand gently upon Professor Porter's bent old shoulder.
"I shall go with you, of course," he said.
"I knew that you would offer—that you would wish to go, Mr. Clayton; but you must not. Jane is beyond human assistance now. What was once my dear little girl shall not lie alone and friendless in the awful jungle.
"The same vines and leaves will cover us, the same rains beat upon us; and when the spirit of her mother is abroad, it will find us together in death, as it has always found us in life.
"No; it is I alone who may go, for she was my daughter—all that was left on earth for me to love."
"I shall go with you," said Clayton simply.
The old man looked up, regarding the strong, handsome face of William Cecil Clayton intently. Perhaps he read there the love that lay in the heart beneath—the love for his daughter.
He had been too preoccupied with his own scholarly thoughts in the past to consider the little occurrences, the chance words, which would have indicated to a more practical man that these young people were being drawn more and more closely to one another. Now they came back to him, one by one.
"As you wish," he said.
"You may count on me, also," said Mr. Philander.
"No, my dear old friend," said Professor Porter. "We may not all go. It would be cruelly wicked to leave poor Esmeralda here alone, and three of us would be no more successful than one.
"There be enough dead things in the cruel forest as it is. Come—let us try to sleep a little."
Chapter XIX
The Call of the Primitive
From the time Tarzan left the tribe of great anthropoids in which he had been raised, it was torn by continual strife and discord. Terkoz proved a cruel and capricious king, so that, one by one, many of the older and weaker apes, upon whom he was particularly prone to vent his brutish nature, took their families and sought the quiet and safety of the far interior.
But at last those who remained were driven to desperation by the continued truculence of Terkoz, and it so happened that one of them recalled the parting admonition of Tarzan:
"If you have a chief who is cruel, do not do as the other apes do, and attempt, any one of you, to pit yourself against him alone. But, instead, let two or three or four of you attack him together. Then, if you will do this, no chief will dare to be other than he should be, for four of you can kill any chief who may ever be over you."
And the ape who recalled this wise counsel repeated it to several of his fellows, so that when Terkoz returned to the tribe that day he found a warm reception awaiting him.
There were no formalities. As Terkoz reached the group, five huge, hairy beasts sprang upon him.
At heart he was an arrant coward, which is the way with bullies among apes as well as among men; so he did not remain to fight and die, but tore himself away from them as quickly as he could and fled into the sheltering boughs of the forest.
Two more attempts he made to rejoin the tribe, but on each occasion he was set upon and driven away. At last he gave it up, and turned, foaming with rage and hatred, into the jungle.
For several days he wandered aimlessly, nursing his spite and looking for some weak thing on which to vent his pent anger.
It was in this state of mind that the horrible, man-like beast, swinging from tree to tree, came suddenly upon two women in the jungle.
He was right above them when he discovered them. The first intimation Jane Porter had of his presence was when the great hairy body dropped to the earth beside her, and she saw the awful face and the snarling, hideous mouth thrust within a foot of her.
One piercing scream escaped her lips as the brute hand clutched her arm. Then she was dragged toward those awful fangs which yawned at her throat. But ere they touched that fair skin another mood claimed the anthropoid.
The tribe had kept his women. He must find others to replace them. This hairless white ape would be the first of his new household, and so he threw her roughly across his broad, hairy shoulders and leaped back into the trees, bearing Jane away.
Esmeralda's scream of terror had mingled once with that of Jane, and then, as was Esmeralda's manner under stress of emergency which required presence of mind, she swooned.
But Jane did not once lose consciousness. It is true that that awful face, pressing close to hers, and the stench of the foul breath beating upon her nostrils, paralyzed her with terror; but her brain was clear, and she comprehended all that transpired.
With what seemed to her marvelous rapidity the brute bore her through the forest, but still she did not cry out or struggle. The sudden advent of the ape had confused her to such an extent that she thought now that he was bearing her toward the beach.
For this reason she conserved her energies and her voice until she could see that they had approached near enough to the camp to attract the succor she craved.
She could not have known it, but she was being borne farther and farther into the impenetrable jungle.
The scream that had brought Clayton and the two older men stumbling through the undergrowth had led Tarzan of the Apes straight to where Esmeralda lay, but it was not Esmeralda in whom his interest centered, though pausing over her he saw that she was unhurt.
For a moment he scrutinized the ground below and the trees above, until the ape that was in him by virtue of training and environment, combined with the intelligence that was his by right of birth, told his wondrous woodcraft the whole story as plainly as though he had seen the thing happen with his own eyes.
And then he was gone again into the swaying trees, following the high-flung spoor which no other human eye could have detected, much less translated.
At boughs' ends, where the anthropoid swings from one tree to another, there is most to mark the trail, but least to point the direction of the quarry; for there the pressure is downward always, toward the small end of the branch, whether the ape be leaving or entering a tree. Nearer the center of the tree, where the signs of passage are fainter, the direction is plainly marked.
Here, on this branch, a caterpillar has been crushed by the fugitive's great foot, and Tarzan knows instinctively where that same foot would touch in the next stride. Here he looks to find a tiny particle of the demolished larva, ofttimes not more than a speck of moisture.
Again, a minute bit of bark has been upturned by the scraping hand, and the direction of the break indicates the direction of the passage. Or some great limb, or the stem of the tree itself has been brushed by the hairy body, and a tiny shred of hair tells him by the direction from which it is wedged beneath the bark that he is on the right trail.
Nor does he need to check his speed to catch these seemingly faint records of the fleeing beast.
To Tarzan they stand out boldly against all the myriad other scars and bruises and signs upon the leafy way. But strongest of all is the scent, for Tarzan is pursuing up the wind, and his trained nostrils are as sensitive as a hound's.
There are those who believe that the lower orders are specially endowed by nature with better olfactory nerves than man, but it is merely a matter of development.
Man's survival does not hinge so greatly upon the perfection of his senses. His power to reason has relieved them of many of their duties, and so they have, to some extent, atrophied, as have the muscles which move the ears and scalp, merely from disuse.
The muscles are there, about the ears and beneath the scalp, and so are the nerves which transmit sensations to the brain, but they are under-developed because they are not needed.
Not so with Tarzan of the Apes. From early infancy his survival had depended upon acuteness of eyesight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste far more than upon the more slowly developed organ of reason.
The least developed of all in Tarzan was the sense of taste, for he could eat luscious fruits, or raw flesh, long buried with almost equal appreciation; but in that he differed but slightly from more civilized epicures.
Almost silently the ape-man sped on in the track of Terkoz and his prey, but the sound of his approach reached the ears of the fleeing beast and spurred it on to greater speed.
Three miles were covered before Tarzan overtook them, and then Terkoz, seeing that further flight was futile, dropped to the ground in a small open glade, that he might turn and fight for his prize or be free to escape unhampered if he saw that the pursuer was more than a match for him.
He still grasped Jane in one great arm as Tarzan bounded like a leopard into the arena which nature had provided for this primeval-like battle.
When Terkoz saw that it was Tarzan who pursued him, he jumped to the conclusion that this was Tarzan's woman, since they were of the same kind—white and hairless—and so he rejoiced at this opportunity for double revenge upon his hated enemy.
To Jane the strange apparition of this god-like man was as wine to sick nerves.
From the description which Clayton and her father and Mr. Philander had given her, she knew that it must be the same wonderful creature who had saved them, and she saw in him only a protector and a friend.
But as Terkoz pushed her roughly aside to meet Tarzan's charge, and she saw the great proportions of the ape and the mighty muscles and the fierce fangs, her heart quailed. How could any vanquish such a mighty antagonist?
Like two charging bulls they came together, and like two wolves sought each other's throat. Against the long canines of the ape was pitted the thin blade of the man's knife.
Jane—her lithe, young form flattened against the trunk of a great tree, her hands tight pressed against her rising and falling bosom, and her eyes wide with mingled horror, fascination, fear, and admiration—watched the primordial ape battle with the primeval man for possession of a woman—for her.
As the great muscles of the man's back and shoulders knotted beneath the tension of his efforts, and the huge biceps and forearm held at bay those mighty tusks, the veil of centuries of civilization and culture was swept from the blurred vision of the Baltimore girl.
When the long knife drank deep a dozen times of Terkoz' heart's blood, and the great carcass rolled lifeless upon the ground, it was a primeval woman who sprang forward with outstretched arms toward the primeval man who had fought for her and won her.
And Tarzan?
He did what no red-blooded man needs lessons in doing. He took his woman in his arms and smothered her upturned, panting lips with kisses.
For a moment Jane lay there with half-closed eyes. For a moment—the first in her young life—she knew the meaning of love.
But as suddenly as the veil had been withdrawn it dropped again, and an outraged conscience suffused her face with its scarlet mantle, and a mortified woman thrust Tarzan of the Apes from her and buried her face in her hands.
Tarzan had been surprised when he had found the girl he had learned to love after a vague and abstract manner a willing prisoner in his arms. Now he was surprised that she repulsed him.
He came close to her once more and took hold of her arm. She turned upon him like a tigress, striking his great breast with her tiny hands.
Tarzan could not understand it.
A moment ago and it had been his intention to hasten Jane back to her people, but that little moment was lost now in the dim and distant past of things which were but can never be again, and with it the good intentions had gone to join the impossible.
Since then Tarzan of the Apes had felt a warm, lithe form close pressed to his. Hot, sweet breath against his cheek and mouth had fanned a new flame to life within his breast, and perfect lips had clung to his in burning kisses that had seared a deep brand into his soul—a brand which marked a new Tarzan.
Again he laid his hand upon her arm. Again she repulsed him. And then Tarzan of the Apes did just what his first ancestor would have done.
He took his woman in his arms and carried her into the jungle.
Early the following morning the four within the little cabin by the beach were awakened by the booming of a cannon. Clayton was the first to rush out, and there, beyond the harbor's mouth, he saw two vessels lying at anchor.
One was the Arrow and the other a small French cruiser. The sides of the latter were crowded with men gazing shoreward, and it was evident to Clayton, as to the others who had now joined him, that the gun which they had heard had been fired to attract their attention if they still remained at the cabin.
Both vessels lay at a considerable distance from shore, and it was doubtful if their glasses would locate the waving hats of the little party far in between the harbor's points.
Esmeralda had removed her red apron and was waving it frantically above her head; but Clayton, still fearing that even this might not be seen, hurried off toward the northern point where lay his signal pyre ready for the match.
It seemed an age to him, as to those who waited breathlessly behind, ere he reached the great pile of dry branches and underbrush.
As he broke from the dense wood and came in sight of the vessels again, he was filled with consternation to see that the Arrow was making sail and that the cruiser was already under way.
Quickly lighting the pyre in a dozen places, he hurried to the extreme point of the promontory, where he stripped off his shirt, and, tying it to a fallen branch, stood waving it back and forth above him.
But still the vessels continued to stand out; and he had given up all hope, when the great column of smoke, rising above the forest in one dense vertical shaft, attracted the attention of a lookout aboard the cruiser, and instantly a dozen glasses were leveled on the beach.
Presently Clayton saw the two ships come about again; and while the Arrow lay drifting quietly on the ocean, the cruiser steamed slowly back toward shore.
At some distance away she stopped, and a boat was lowered and dispatched toward the beach.
As it was drawn up a young officer stepped out.
"Monsieur Clayton, I presume?" he asked.
"Thank God, you have come!" was Clayton's reply. "And it may be that it is not too late even now."
"What do you mean, Monsieur?" asked the officer.
Clayton told of the abduction of Jane Porter and the need of armed men to aid in the search for her.
"MON DIEU!" exclaimed the officer, sadly. "Yesterday and it would not have been too late. Today and it may be better that the poor lady were never found. It is horrible, Monsieur. It is too horrible."
Other boats had now put off from the cruiser, and Clayton, having pointed out the harbor's entrance to the officer, entered the boat with him and its nose was turned toward the little landlocked bay, into which the other craft followed.
Soon the entire party had landed where stood Professor Porter, Mr. Philander and the weeping Esmeralda.
Among the officers in the last boats to put off from the cruiser was the commander of the vessel; and when he had heard the story of Jane's abduction, he generously called for volunteers to accompany Professor Porter and Clayton in their search.
Not an officer or a man was there of those brave and sympathetic Frenchmen who did not quickly beg leave to be one of the expedition.
The commander selected twenty men and two officers, Lieutenant D'Arnot and Lieutenant Charpentier. A boat was dispatched to the cruiser for provisions, ammunition, and carbines; the men were already armed with revolvers.
Then, to Clayton's inquiries as to how they had happened to anchor off shore and fire a signal gun, the commander, Captain Dufranne, explained that a month before they had sighted the Arrow bearing southwest under considerable canvas, and that when they had signaled her to come about she had but crowded on more sail.
They had kept her hull-up until sunset, firing several shots after her, but the next morning she was nowhere to be seen. They had then continued to cruise up and down the coast for several weeks, and had about forgotten the incident of the recent chase, when, early one morning a few days before the lookout had described a vessel laboring in the trough of a heavy sea and evidently entirely out of control.
As they steamed nearer to the derelict they were surprised to note that it was the same vessel that had run from them a few weeks earlier. Her forestaysail and mizzen spanker were set as though an effort had been made to hold her head up into the wind, but the sheets had parted, and the sails were tearing to ribbons in the half gale of wind.
In the high sea that was running it was a difficult and dangerous task to attempt to put a prize crew aboard her; and as no signs of life had been seen above deck, it was decided to stand by until the wind and sea abated; but just then a figure was seen clinging to the rail and feebly waving a mute signal of despair toward them.
Immediately a boat's crew was ordered out and an attempt was successfully made to board the Arrow.
The sight that met the Frenchmen's eyes as they clambered over the ship's side was appalling.
A dozen dead and dying men rolled hither and thither upon the pitching deck, the living intermingled with the dead. Two of the corpses appeared to have been partially devoured as though by wolves.
The prize crew soon had the vessel under proper sail once more and the living members of the ill-starred company carried below to their hammocks.
The dead were wrapped in tarpaulins and lashed on deck to be identified by their comrades before being consigned to the deep.
None of the living was conscious when the Frenchmen reached the Arrow's deck. Even the poor devil who had waved the single despairing signal of distress had lapsed into unconsciousness before he had learned whether it had availed or not.
It did not take the French officer long to learn what had caused the terrible condition aboard; for when water and brandy were sought to restore the men, it was found that there was none, nor even food of any description.
He immediately signalled to the cruiser to send water, medicine, and provisions, and another boat made the perilous trip to the Arrow.
When restoratives had been applied several of the men regained consciousness, and then the whole story was told. That part of it we know up to the sailing of the Arrow after the murder of Snipes, and the burial of his body above the treasure chest.
It seems that the pursuit by the cruiser had so terrorized the mutineers that they had continued out across the Atlantic for several days after losing her; but on discovering the meager supply of water and provisions aboard, they had turned back toward the east.
With no one on board who understood navigation, discussions soon arose as to their whereabouts; and as three days' sailing to the east did not raise land, they bore off to the north, fearing that the high north winds that had prevailed had driven them south of the southern extremity of Africa.
They kept on a north-northeasterly course for two days, when they were overtaken by a calm which lasted for nearly a week. Their water was gone, and in another day they would be without food.
Conditions changed rapidly from bad to worse. One man went mad and leaped overboard. Soon another opened his veins and drank his own blood.
When he died they threw him overboard also, though there were those among them who wanted to keep the corpse on board. Hunger was changing them from human beasts to wild beasts.
Two days before they had been picked up by the cruiser they had become too weak to handle the vessel, and that same day three men died. On the following morning it was seen that one of the corpses had been partially devoured.
All that day the men lay glaring at each other like beasts of prey, and the following morning two of the corpses lay almost entirely stripped of flesh.
The men were but little stronger for their ghoulish repast, for the want of water was by far the greatest agony with which they had to contend. And then the cruiser had come.
When those who could had recovered, the entire story had been told to the French commander; but the men were too ignorant to be able to tell him at just what point on the coast the professor and his party had been marooned, so the cruiser had steamed slowly along within sight of land, firing occasional signal guns and scanning every inch of the beach with glasses.
They had anchored by night so as not to neglect a particle of the shore line, and it had happened that the preceding night had brought them off the very beach where lay the little camp they sought.
The signal guns of the afternoon before had not been heard by those on shore, it was presumed, because they had doubtless been in the thick of the jungle searching for Jane Porter, where the noise of their own crashing through the underbrush would have drowned the report of a far distant gun.
By the time the two parties had narrated their several adventures, the cruiser's boat had returned with supplies and arms for the expedition.
Within a few minutes the little body of sailors and the two French officers, together with Professor Porter and Clayton, set off upon their hopeless and ill-fated quest into the untracked jungle.
Chapter XX
Heredity
When Jane realized that she was being borne away a captive by the strange forest creature who had rescued her from the clutches of the ape she struggled desperately to escape, but the strong arms that held her as easily as though she had been but a day-old babe only pressed a little more tightly.
So presently she gave up the futile effort and lay quietly, looking through half-closed lids at the face of the man who strode easily through the tangled undergrowth with her.
The face above her was one of extraordinary beauty.
A perfect type of the strongly masculine, unmarred by dissipation, or brutal or degrading passions. For, though Tarzan of the Apes was a killer of men and of beasts, he killed as the hunter kills, dispassionately, except on those rare occasions when he had killed for hate—though not the brooding, malevolent hate which marks the features of its own with hideous lines.
When Tarzan killed he more often smiled than scowled, and smiles are the foundation of beauty.
One thing the girl had noticed particularly when she had seen Tarzan rushing upon Terkoz—the vivid scarlet band upon his forehead, from above the left eye to the scalp; but now as she scanned his features she noticed that it was gone, and only a thin white line marked the spot where it had been.
As she lay more quietly in his arms Tarzan slightly relaxed his grip upon her.
Once he looked down into her eyes and smiled, and the girl had to close her own to shut out the vision of that handsome, winning face.
Presently Tarzan took to the trees, and Jane, wondering that she felt no fear, began to realize that in many respects she had never felt more secure in her whole life than now as she lay in the arms of this strong, wild creature, being borne, God alone knew where or to what fate, deeper and deeper into the savage fastness of the untamed forest.
When, with closed eyes, she commenced to speculate upon the future, and terrifying fears were conjured by a vivid imagination, she had but to raise her lids and look upon that noble face so close to hers to dissipate the last remnant of apprehension.
No, he could never harm her; of that she was convinced when she translated the fine features and the frank, brave eyes above her into the chivalry which they proclaimed.
On and on they went through what seemed to Jane a solid mass of verdure, yet ever there appeared to open before this forest god a passage, as by magic, which closed behind them as they passed.
Scarce a branch scraped against her, yet above and below, before and behind, the view presented naught but a solid mass of inextricably interwoven branches and creepers.
As Tarzan moved steadily onward his mind was occupied with many strange and new thoughts. Here was a problem the like of which he had never encountered, and he felt rather than reasoned that he must meet it as a man and not as an ape.
The free movement through the middle terrace, which was the route he had followed for the most part, had helped to cool the ardor of the first fierce passion of his new found love.
Now he discovered himself speculating upon the fate which would have fallen to the girl had he not rescued her from Terkoz.
He knew why the ape had not killed her, and he commenced to compare his intentions with those of Terkoz.
True, it was the order of the jungle for the male to take his mate by force; but could Tarzan be guided by the laws of the beasts? Was not Tarzan a Man? But what did men do? He was puzzled; for he did not know.
He wished that he might ask the girl, and then it came to him that she had already answered him in the futile struggle she had made to escape and to repulse him.
But now they had come to their destination, and Tarzan of the Apes with Jane in his strong arms, swung lightly to the turf of the arena where the great apes held their councils and danced the wild orgy of the Dum-Dum.
Though they had come many miles, it was still but midafternoon, and the amphitheater was bathed in the half light which filtered through the maze of encircling foliage.
The green turf looked soft and cool and inviting. The myriad noises of the jungle seemed far distant and hushed to a mere echo of blurred sounds, rising and falling like the surf upon a remote shore.
A feeling of dreamy peacefulness stole over Jane as she sank down upon the grass where Tarzan had placed her, and as she looked up at his great figure towering above her, there was added a strange sense of perfect security.
As she watched him from beneath half-closed lids, Tarzan crossed the little circular clearing toward the trees upon the further side. She noted the graceful majesty of his carriage, the perfect symmetry of his magnificent figure and the poise of his well-shaped head upon his broad shoulders.
What a perfect creature! There could be naught of cruelty or baseness beneath that godlike exterior. Never, she thought had such a man strode the earth since God created the first in his own image.
With a bound Tarzan sprang into the trees and disappeared. Jane wondered where he had gone. Had he left her there to her fate in the lonely jungle?
She glanced nervously about. Every vine and bush seemed but the lurking-place of some huge and horrible beast waiting to bury gleaming fangs into her soft flesh. Every sound she magnified into the stealthy creeping of a sinuous and malignant body.
How different now that he had left her!
For a few minutes that seemed hours to the frightened girl, she sat with tense nerves waiting for the spring of the crouching thing that was to end her misery of apprehension.
She almost prayed for the cruel teeth that would give her unconsciousness and surcease from the agony of fear.
She heard a sudden, slight sound behind her. With a cry she sprang to her feet and turned to face her end.
There stood Tarzan, his arms filled with ripe and luscious fruit.
Jane reeled and would have fallen, had not Tarzan, dropping his burden, caught her in his arms. She did not lose consciousness, but she clung tightly to him, shuddering and trembling like a frightened deer.
Tarzan of the Apes stroked her soft hair and tried to comfort and quiet her as Kala had him, when, as a little ape, he had been frightened by Sabor, the lioness, or Histah, the snake.
Once he pressed his lips lightly upon her forehead, and she did not move, but closed her eyes and sighed.
She could not analyze her feelings, nor did she wish to attempt it. She was satisfied to feel the safety of those strong arms, and to leave her future to fate; for the last few hours had taught her to trust this strange wild creature of the forest as she would have trusted but few of the men of her acquaintance.
As she thought of the strangeness of it, there commenced to dawn upon her the realization that she had, possibly, learned something else which she had never really known before—love. She wondered and then she smiled.
And still smiling, she pushed Tarzan gently away; and looking at him with a half-smiling, half-quizzical expression that made her face wholly entrancing, she pointed to the fruit upon the ground, and seated herself upon the edge of the earthen drum of the anthropoids, for hunger was asserting itself.
Tarzan quickly gathered up the fruit, and, bringing it, laid it at her feet; and then he, too, sat upon the drum beside her, and with his knife opened and prepared the various fruits for her meal.
Together and in silence they ate, occasionally stealing sly glances at one another, until finally Jane broke into a merry laugh in which Tarzan joined.
"I wish you spoke English," said the girl.
Tarzan shook his head, and an expression of wistful and pathetic longing sobered his laughing eyes.
Then Jane tried speaking to him in French, and then in German; but she had to laugh at her own blundering attempt at the latter tongue.
"Anyway," she said to him in English, "you understand my German as well as they did in Berlin."
Tarzan had long since reached a decision as to what his future procedure should be. He had had time to recollect all that he had read of the ways of men and women in the books at the cabin. He would act as he imagined the men in the books would have acted were they in his place.
Again he rose and went into the trees, but first he tried to explain by means of signs that he would return shortly, and he did so well that Jane understood and was not afraid when he had gone.
Only a feeling of loneliness came over her and she watched the point where he had disappeared, with longing eyes, awaiting his return. As before, she was appraised of his presence by a soft sound behind her, and turned to see him coming across the turf with a great armful of branches.
Then he went back again into the jungle and in a few minutes reappeared with a quantity of soft grasses and ferns.
Two more trips he made until he had quite a pile of material at hand.
Then he spread the ferns and grasses upon the ground in a soft flat bed, and above it leaned many branches together so that they met a few feet over its center. Upon these he spread layers of huge leaves of the great elephant's ear, and with more branches and more leaves he closed one end of the little shelter he had built.
Then they sat down together again upon the edge of the drum and tried to talk by signs.
The magnificent diamond locket which hung about Tarzan's neck, had been a source of much wonderment to Jane. She pointed to it now, and Tarzan removed it and handed the pretty bauble to her.
She saw that it was the work of a skilled artisan and that the diamonds were of great brilliancy and superbly set, but the cutting of them denoted that they were of a former day. She noticed too that the locket opened, and, pressing the hidden clasp, she saw the two halves spring apart to reveal in either section an ivory miniature.
One was of a beautiful woman and the other might have been a likeness of the man who sat beside her, except for a subtle difference of expression that was scarcely definable.
She looked up at Tarzan to find him leaning toward her gazing on the miniatures with an expression of astonishment. He reached out his hand for the locket and took it away from her, examining the likenesses within with unmistakable signs of surprise and new interest. His manner clearly denoted that he had never before seen them, nor imagined that the locket opened.
This fact caused Jane to indulge in further speculation, and it taxed her imagination to picture how this beautiful ornament came into the possession of a wild and savage creature of the unexplored jungles of Africa.
Still more wonderful was how it contained the likeness of one who might be a brother, or, more likely, the father of this woodland demi-god who was even ignorant of the fact that the locket opened.
Tarzan was still gazing with fixity at the two faces. Presently he removed the quiver from his shoulder, and emptying the arrows upon the ground reached into the bottom of the bag-like receptacle and drew forth a flat object wrapped in many soft leaves and tied with bits of long grass.
Carefully he unwrapped it, removing layer after layer of leaves until at length he held a photograph in his hand.
Pointing to the miniature of the man within the locket he handed the photograph to Jane, holding the open locket beside it.
The photograph only served to puzzle the girl still more, for it was evidently another likeness of the same man whose picture rested in the locket beside that of the beautiful young woman.
Tarzan was looking at her with an expression of puzzled bewilderment in his eyes as she glanced up at him. He seemed to be framing a question with his lips.
The girl pointed to the photograph and then to the miniature and then to him, as though to indicate that she thought the likenesses were of him, but he only shook his head, and then shrugging his great shoulders, he took the photograph from her and having carefully rewrapped it, placed it again in the bottom of his quiver.
For a few moments he sat in silence, his eyes bent upon the ground, while Jane held the little locket in her hand, turning it over and over in an endeavor to find some further clue that might lead to the identity of its original owner.
At length a simple explanation occurred to her.
The locket had belonged to Lord Greystoke, and the likenesses were of himself and Lady Alice.
This wild creature had simply found it in the cabin by the beach. How stupid of her not to have thought of that solution before.
But to account for the strange likeness between Lord Greystoke and this forest god—that was quite beyond her, and it is not strange that she could not imagine that this naked savage was indeed an English nobleman.
At length Tarzan looked up to watch the girl as she examined the locket. He could not fathom the meaning of the faces within, but he could read the interest and fascination upon the face of the live young creature by his side.
She noticed that he was watching her and thinking that he wished his ornament again she held it out to him. He took it from her and taking the chain in his two hands he placed it about her neck, smiling at her expression of surprise at his unexpected gift.
Jane shook her head vehemently and would have removed the golden links from about her throat, but Tarzan would not let her. Taking her hands in his, when she insisted upon it, he held them tightly to prevent her.
At last she desisted and with a little laugh raised the locket to her lips.
Tarzan did not know precisely what she meant, but he guessed correctly that it was her way of acknowledging the gift, and so he rose, and taking the locket in his hand, stooped gravely like some courtier of old, and pressed his lips upon it where hers had rested.
It was a stately and gallant little compliment performed with the grace and dignity of utter unconsciousness of self. It was the hall-mark of his aristocratic birth, the natural outcropping of many generations of fine breeding, an hereditary instinct of graciousness which a lifetime of uncouth and savage training and environment could not eradicate.
It was growing dark now, and so they ate again of the fruit which was both food and drink for them; then Tarzan rose, and leading Jane to the little bower he had erected, motioned her to go within.
For the first time in hours a feeling of fear swept over her, and Tarzan felt her draw away as though shrinking from him.
Contact with this girl for half a day had left a very diferent Tarzan from the one on whom the morning's sun had risen.
Now, in every fiber of his being, heredity spoke louder than training.
He had not in one swift transition become a polished gentleman from a savage ape-man, but at last the instincts of the former predominated, and over all was the desire to please the woman he loved, and to appear well in her eyes.
So Tarzan of the Apes did the only thing he knew to assure Jane of her safety. He removed his hunting knife from its sheath and handed it to her hilt first, again motioning her into the bower.
The girl understood, and taking the long knife she entered and lay down upon the soft grasses while Tarzan of the Apes stretched himself upon the ground across the entrance.
And thus the rising sun found them in the morning.
When Jane awoke, she did not at first recall the strange events of the preceding day, and so she wondered at her odd surroundings—the little leafy bower, the soft grasses of her bed, the unfamiliar prospect from the opening at her feet.
Slowly the circumstances of her position crept one by one into her mind. And then a great wonderment arose in her heart—a mighty wave of thankfulness and gratitude that though she had been in such terrible danger, yet she was unharmed.
She moved to the entrance of the shelter to look for Tarzan. He was gone; but this time no fear assailed her for she knew that he would return.
In the grass at the entrance to her bower she saw the imprint of his body where he had lain all night to guard her. She knew that the fact that he had been there was all that had permitted her to sleep in such peaceful security.
With him near, who could entertain fear? She wondered if there was another man on earth with whom a girl could feel so safe in the heart of this savage African jungle. Even the lions and panthers had no fears for her now.
She looked up to see his lithe form drop softly from a near-by tree. As he caught her eyes upon him his face lighted with that frank and radiant smile that had won her confidence the day before.
As he approached her Jane's heart beat faster and her eyes brightened as they had never done before at the approach of any man.
He had again been gathering fruit and this he laid at the entrance of her bower. Once more they sat down together to eat.
Jane commenced to wonder what his plans were. Would he take her back to the beach or would he keep her here? Suddenly she realized that the matter did not seem to give her much concern. Could it be that she did not care!
She began to comprehend, also, that she was entirely contented sitting here by the side of this smiling giant eating delicious fruit in a sylvan paradise far within the remote depths of an African jungle—that she was contented and very happy.
She could not understand it. Her reason told her that she should be torn by wild anxieties, weighted by dread fears, cast down by gloomy forebodings; but instead, her heart was singing and she was smiling into the answering face of the man beside her.
When they had finished their breakfast Tarzan went to her bower and recovered his knife. The girl had entirely forgotten it. She realized that it was because she had forgotten the fear that prompted her to accept it.
Motioning her to follow, Tarzan walked toward the trees at the edge of the arena, and taking her in one strong arm swung to the branches above.
The girl knew that he was taking her back to her people, and she could not understand the sudden feeling of loneliness and sorrow which crept over her.
For hours they swung slowly along.
Tarzan of the Apes did not hurry. He tried to draw out the sweet pleasure of that journey with those dear arms about his neck as long as possible, and so he went far south of the direct route to the beach.
Several times they halted for brief rests, which Tarzan did not need, and at noon they stopped for an hour at a little brook, where they quenched their thirst, and ate.
So it was nearly sunset when they came to the clearing, and Tarzan, dropping to the ground beside a great tree, parted the tall jungle grass and pointed out the little cabin to her.
She took him by the hand to lead him to it, that she might tell her father that this man had saved her from death and worse than death, that he had watched over her as carefully as a mother might have done.
But again the timidity of the wild thing in the face of human habitation swept over Tarzan of the Apes. He drew back, shaking his head.
The girl came close to him, looking up with pleading eyes. Somehow she could not bear the thought of his going back into the terrible jungle alone.
Still he shook his head, and finally he drew her to him very gently and stooped to kiss her, but first he looked into her eyes and waited to learn if she were pleased, or if she would repulse him.
Just an instant the girl hesitated, and then she realized the truth, and throwing her arms about his neck she drew his face to hers and kissed him—unashamed.
"I love you—I love you," she murmured.
From far in the distance came the faint sound of many guns. Tarzan and Jane raised their heads.
From the cabin came Mr. Philander and Esmeralda.
From where Tarzan and the girl stood they could not see the two vessels lying at anchor in the harbor.
Tarzan pointed toward the sounds, touched his breast and pointed again. She understood. He was going, and something told her that it was because he thought her people were in danger.
Again he kissed her.
"Come back to me," she whispered. "I shall wait for you—always."
He was gone—and Jane turned to walk across the clearing to the cabin.
Mr. Philander was the first to see her. It was dusk and Mr. Philander was very near sighted.
"Quickly, Esmeralda!" he cried. "Let us seek safety within; it is a lioness. Bless me!"
Esmeralda did not bother to verify Mr. Philander's vision. His tone was enough. She was within the cabin and had slammed and bolted the door before he had finished pronouncing her name. The "Bless me" was startled out of Mr. Philander by the discovery that Esmeralda, in the exuberance of her haste, had fastened him upon the same side of the door as was the close-approaching lioness.
He beat furiously upon the heavy portal.
"Esmeralda! Esmeralda!" he shrieked. "Let me in. I am being devoured by a lion."
Esmeralda thought that the noise upon the door was made by the lioness in her attempts to pursue her, so, after her custom, she fainted.
Mr. Philander cast a frightened glance behind him.
Horrors! The thing was quite close now. He tried to scramble up the side of the cabin, and succeeded in catching a fleeting hold upon the thatched roof.
For a moment he hung there, clawing with his feet like a cat on a clothesline, but presently a piece of the thatch came away, and Mr. Philander, preceding it, was precipitated upon his back.
At the instant he fell a remarkable item of natural history leaped to his mind. If one feigns death lions and lionesses are supposed to ignore one, according to Mr. Philander's faulty memory.
So Mr. Philander lay as he had fallen, frozen into the horrid semblance of death. As his arms and legs had been extended stiffly upward as he came to earth upon his back the attitude of death was anything but impressive.
Jane had been watching his antics in mild-eyed surprise. Now she laughed—a little choking gurgle of a laugh; but it was enough. Mr. Philander rolled over upon his side and peered about. At length he discovered her.
"Jane!" he cried. "Jane Porter. Bless me!"
He scrambled to his feet and rushed toward her. He could not believe that it was she, and alive.
"Bless me!" Where did you come from? Where in the world have you been? How—"
"Mercy, Mr. Philander," interrupted the girl, "I can never remember so many questions."
"Well, well," said Mr. Philander. "Bless me! I am so filled with surprise and exuberant delight at seeing you safe and well again that I scarcely know what I am saying, really. But come, tell me all that has happened to you."
Chapter XXI
The Village of Torture
As the little expedition of sailors toiled through the dense jungle searching for signs of Jane Porter, the futility of their venture became more and more apparent, but the grief of the old man and the hopeless eyes of the young Englishman prevented the kind hearted D'Arnot from turning back.
He thought that there might be a bare possibility of finding her body, or the remains of it, for he was positive that she had been devoured by some beast of prey. He deployed his men into a skirmish line from the point where Esmeralda had been found, and in this extended formation they pushed their way, sweating and panting, through the tangled vines and creepers. It was slow work. Noon found them but a few miles inland. They halted for a brief rest then, and after pushing on for a short distance further one of the men discovered a well-marked trail.
It was an old elephant track, and D'Arnot after consulting with Professor Porter and Clayton decided to follow it.
The path wound through the jungle in a northeasterly direction, and along it the column moved in single file.
Lieutenant D'Arnot was in the lead and moving at a quick pace, for the trail was comparatively open. Immediately behind him came Professor Porter, but as he could not keep pace with the younger man D'Arnot was a hundred yards in advance when suddenly a half dozen black warriors arose about him.
D'Arnot gave a warning shout to his column as the blacks closed on him, but before he could draw his revolver he had been pinioned and dragged into the jungle.
His cry had alarmed the sailors and a dozen of them sprang forward past Professor Porter, running up the trail to their officer's aid.
They did not know the cause of his outcry, only that it was a warning of danger ahead. They had rushed past the spot where D'Arnot had been seized when a spear hurled from the jungle transfixed one of the men, and then a volley of arrows fell among them.
Raising their rifles they fired into the underbrush in the direction from which the missiles had come.
By this time the balance of the party had come up, and volley after volley was fired toward the concealed foe. It was these shots that Tarzan and Jane Porter had heard.
Lieutenant Charpentier, who had been bringing up the rear of the column, now came running to the scene, and on hearing the details of the ambush ordered the men to follow him, and plunged into the tangled vegetation.
In an instant they were in a hand-to-hand fight with some fifty black warriors of Mbonga's village. Arrows and bullets flew thick and fast.
Queer African knives and French gun butts mingled for a moment in savage and bloody duels, but soon the natives fled into the jungle, leaving the Frenchmen to count their losses.
Four of the twenty were dead, a dozen others were wounded, and Lieutenant D'Arnot was missing. Night was falling rapidly, and their predicament was rendered doubly worse when they could not even find the elephant trail which they had been following.
There was but one thing to do, make camp where they were until daylight. Lieutenant Charpentier ordered a clearing made and a circular abatis of underbrush constructed about the camp.
This work was not completed until long after dark, the men building a huge fire in the center of the clearing to give them light to work by.
When all was safe as possible against attack of wild beasts and savage men, Lieutenant Charpentier placed sentries about the little camp and the tired and hungry men threw themselves upon the ground to sleep.
The groans of the wounded, mingled with the roaring and growling of the great beasts which the noise and firelight had attracted, kept sleep, except in its most fitful form, from the tired eyes. It was a sad and hungry party that lay through the long night praying for dawn.
The blacks who had seized D'Arnot had not waited to participate in the fight which followed, but instead had dragged their prisoner a little way through the jungle and then struck the trail further on beyond the scene of the fighting in which their fellows were engaged.
They hurried him along, the sounds of battle growing fainter and fainter as they drew away from the contestants until there suddenly broke upon D'Arnot's vision a good-sized clearing at one end of which stood a thatched and palisaded village.
It was now dusk, but the watchers at the gate saw the approaching trio and distinguished one as a prisoner ere they reached the portals.
A cry went up within the palisade. A great throng of women and children rushed out to meet the party.
And then began for the French officer the most terrifying experience which man can encounter upon earth—the reception of a white prisoner into a village of African cannibals.
To add to the fiendishness of their cruel savagery was the poignant memory of still crueler barbarities practiced upon them and theirs by the white officers of that arch hypocrite, Leopold II of Belgium, because of whose atrocities they had fled the Congo Free State—a pitiful remnant of what once had been a mighty tribe.
They fell upon D'Arnot tooth and nail, beating him with sticks and stones and tearing at him with claw-like hands. Every vestige of clothing was torn from him, and the merciless blows fell upon his bare and quivering flesh. But not once did the Frenchman cry out in pain. He breathed a silent prayer that he be quickly delivered from his torture.
But the death he prayed for was not to be so easily had. Soon the warriors beat the women away from their prisoner. He was to be saved for nobler sport than this, and the first wave of their passion having subsided they contented themselves with crying out taunts and insults and spitting upon him.
Presently they reached the center of the village. There D'Arnot was bound securely to the great post from which no live man had ever been released.
A number of the women scattered to their several huts to fetch pots and water, while others built a row of fires on which portions of the feast were to be boiled while the balance would be slowly dried in strips for future use, as they expected the other warriors to return with many prisoners. The festivities were delayed awaiting the return of the warriors who had remained to engage in the skirmish with the white men, so that it was quite late when all were in the village, and the dance of death commenced to circle around the doomed officer.
Half fainting from pain and exhaustion, D'Arnot watched from beneath half-closed lids what seemed but the vagary of delirium, or some horrid nightmare from which he must soon awake.
The bestial faces, daubed with color—the huge mouths and flabby hanging lips—the yellow teeth, sharp filed—the rolling, demon eyes—the shining naked bodies—the cruel spears. Surely no such creatures really existed upon earth—he must indeed be dreaming.
The savage, whirling bodies circled nearer. Now a spear sprang forth and touched his arm. The sharp pain and the feel of hot, trickling blood assured him of the awful reality of his hopeless position.
Another spear and then another touched him. He closed his eyes and held his teeth firm set—he would not cry out.
He was a soldier of France, and he would teach these beasts how an officer and a gentleman died.
Tarzan of the Apes needed no interpreter to translate the story of those distant shots. With Jane Porter's kisses still warm upon his lips he was swinging with incredible rapidity through the forest trees straight toward the village of Mbonga.
He was not interested in the location of the encounter, for he judged that that would soon be over. Those who were killed he could not aid, those who escaped would not need his assistance.
It was to those who had neither been killed or escaped that he hastened. And he knew that he would find them by the great post in the center of Mbonga village.
Many times had Tarzan seen Mbonga's black raiding parties return from the northward with prisoners, and always were the same scenes enacted about that grim stake, beneath the flaring light of many fires.
He knew, too, that they seldom lost much time before consummating the fiendish purpose of their captures. He doubted that he would arrive in time to do more than avenge.
On he sped. Night had fallen and he traveled high along the upper terrace where the gorgeous tropic moon lighted the dizzy pathway through the gently undulating branches of the tree tops.
Presently he caught the reflection of a distant blaze. It lay to the right of his path. It must be the light from the camp fire the two men had built before they were attacked—Tarzan knew nothing of the presence of the sailors.
So sure was Tarzan of his jungle knowledge that he did not turn from his course, but passed the glare at a distance of a half mile. It was the camp fire of the Frenchmen.
In a few minutes more Tarzan swung into the trees above Mbonga's village. Ah, he was not quite too late! Or, was he? He could not tell. The figure at the stake was very still, yet the black warriors were but pricking it.
Tarzan knew their customs. The death blow had not been struck. He could tell almost to a minute how far the dance had gone.
In another instant Mbonga's knife would sever one of the victim's ears—that would mark the beginning of the end, for very shortly after only a writhing mass of mutilated flesh would remain.
There would still be life in it, but death then would be the only charity it craved.
The stake stood forty feet from the nearest tree. Tarzan coiled his rope. Then there rose suddenly above the fiendish cries of the dancing demons the awful challenge of the ape-man.
The dancers halted as though turned to stone.
The rope sped with singing whir high above the heads of the blacks. It was quite invisible in the flaring lights of the camp fires.
D'Arnot opened his eyes. A huge black, standing directly before him, lunged backward as though felled by an invisible hand.
Struggling and shrieking, his body, rolling from side to side, moved quickly toward the shadows beneath the trees.
The blacks, their eyes protruding in horror, watched spellbound.
Once beneath the trees, the body rose straight into the air, and as it disappeared into the foliage above, the terrified negroes, screaming with fright, broke into a mad race for the village gate.
D'Arnot was left alone.
He was a brave man, but he had felt the short hairs bristle upon the nape of his neck when that uncanny cry rose upon the air.
As the writhing body of the black soared, as though by unearthly power, into the dense foliage of the forest, D'Arnot felt an icy shiver run along his spine, as though death had risen from a dark grave and laid a cold and clammy finger on his flesh.
As D'Arnot watched the spot where the body had entered the tree he heard the sounds of movement there.
The branches swayed as though under the weight of a man's body—there was a crash and the black came sprawling to earth again,—to lie very quietly where he had fallen.
Immediately after him came a white body, but this one alighted erect.
D'Arnot saw a clean-limbed young giant emerge from the shadows into the firelight and come quickly toward him.
What could it mean? Who could it be? Some new creature of torture and destruction, doubtless.
D'Arnot waited. His eyes never left the face of the advancing man. Nor did the other's frank, clear eyes waver beneath D'Arnot's fixed gaze.
D'Arnot was reassured, but still without much hope, though he felt that that face could not mask a cruel heart.
Without a word Tarzan of the Apes cut the bonds which held the Frenchman. Weak from suffering and loss of blood, he would have fallen but for the strong arm that caught him.
He felt himself lifted from the ground. There was a sensation as of flying, and then he lost consciousness.
Chapter XXII
The Search Party
When dawn broke upon the little camp of Frenchmen in the heart of the jungle it found a sad and disheartened group.
As soon as it was light enough to see their surroundings Lieutenant Charpentier sent men in groups of three in several directions to locate the trail, and in ten minutes it was found and the expedition was hurrying back toward the beach.
It was slow work, for they bore the bodies of six dead men, two more having succumbed during the night, and several of those who were wounded required support to move even very slowly.
Charpentier had decided to return to camp for reinforcements, and then make an attempt to track down the natives and rescue D'Arnot.
It was late in the afternoon when the exhausted men reached the clearing by the beach, but for two of them the return brought so great a happiness that all their suffering and heartbreaking grief was forgotten on the instant.
As the little party emerged from the jungle the first person that Professor Porter and Cecil Clayton saw was Jane, standing by the cabin door.
With a little cry of joy and relief she ran forward to greet them, throwing her arms about her father's neck and bursting into tears for the first time since they had been cast upon this hideous and adventurous shore.
Professor Porter strove manfully to suppress his own emotions, but the strain upon his nerves and weakened vitality were too much for him, and at length, burying his old face in the girl's shoulder, he sobbed quietly like a tired child.
Jane led him toward the cabin, and the Frenchmen turned toward the beach from which several of their fellows were advancing to meet them.
Clayton, wishing to leave father and daughter alone, joined the sailors and remained talking with the officers until their boat pulled away toward the cruiser whither Lieutenant Charpentier was bound to report the unhappy outcome of his adventure.
Then Clayton turned back slowly toward the cabin. His heart was filled with happiness. The woman he loved was safe.
He wondered by what manner of miracle she had been spared. To see her alive seemed almost unbelievable.
As he approached the cabin he saw Jane coming out. When she saw him she hurried forward to meet him.
"Jane!" he cried, "God has been good to us, indeed. Tell me how you escaped—what form Providence took to save you for—us."
He had never before called her by her given name. Forty-eight hours before it would have suffused Jane with a soft glow of pleasure to have heard that name from Clayton's lips—now it frightened her.
"Mr. Clayton," she said quietly, extending her hand, "first let me thank you for your chivalrous loyalty to my dear father. He has told me how noble and self-sacrificing you have been. How can we repay you!"
Clayton noticed that she did not return his familiar salutation, but he felt no misgivings on that score. She had been through so much. This was no time to force his love upon her, he quickly realized.
"I am already repaid," he said. "Just to see you and Professor Porter both safe, well, and together again. I do not think that I could much longer have endured the pathos of his quiet and uncomplaining grief.
"It was the saddest experience of my life, Miss Porter; and then, added to it, there was my own grief—the greatest I have ever known. But his was so hopeless—his was pitiful. It taught me that no love, not even that of a man for his wife may be so deep and terrible and self-sacrificing as the love of a father for his daughter."
The girl bowed her head. There was a question she wanted to ask, but it seemed almost sacrilegious in the face of the love of these two men and the terrible suffering they had endured while she sat laughing and happy beside a godlike creature of the forest, eating delicious fruits and looking with eyes of love into answering eyes.
But love is a strange master, and human nature is still stranger, so she asked her question.
"Where is the forest man who went to rescue you? Why did he not return?"
"I do not understand," said Clayton. "Whom do you mean?"
"He who has saved each of us—who saved me from the gorilla."
"Oh," cried Clayton, in surprise. "It was he who rescued you? You have not told me anything of your adventure, you know."
"But the wood man," she urged. "Have you not seen him? When we heard the shots in the jungle, very faint and far away, he left me. We had just reached the clearing, and he hurried off in the direction of the fighting. I know he went to aid you."
Her tone was almost pleading—her manner tense with suppressed emotion. Clayton could not but notice it, and he wondered, vaguely, why she was so deeply moved—so anxious to know the whereabouts of this strange creature.
Yet a feeling of apprehension of some impending sorrow haunted him, and in his breast, unknown to himself, was implanted the first germ of jealousy and suspicion of the ape-man, to whom he owed his life.
"We did not see him," he replied quietly. "He did not join us." And then after a moment of thoughtful pause: "Possibly he joined his own tribe—the men who attacked us." He did not know why he had said it, for he did not believe it.
The girl looked at him wide eyed for a moment.
"No!" she exclaimed vehemently, much too vehemently he thought. "It could not be. They were savages."
Clayton looked puzzled.
"He is a strange, half-savage creature of the jungle, Miss Porter. We know nothing of him. He neither speaks nor understands any European tongue—and his ornaments and weapons are those of the West Coast savages."
Clayton was speaking rapidly.
"There are no other human beings than savages within hundreds of miles, Miss Porter. He must belong to the tribes which attacked us, or to some other equally savage—he may even be a cannibal."
Jane blanched.
"I will not believe it," she half whispered. "It is not true. You shall see," she said, addressing Clayton, "that he will come back and that he will prove that you are wrong. You do not know him as I do. I tell you that he is a gentleman."
Clayton was a generous and chivalrous man, but something in the girl's breathless defense of the forest man stirred him to unreasoning jealousy, so that for the instant he forgot all that they owed to this wild demi-god, and he answered her with a half sneer upon his lip.
"Possibly you are right, Miss Porter," he said, "but I do not think that any of us need worry about our carrion-eating acquaintance. The chances are that he is some half-demented castaway who will forget us more quickly, but no more surely, than we shall forget him. He is only a beast of the jungle, Miss Porter."
The girl did not answer, but she felt her heart shrivel within her.
She knew that Clayton spoke merely what he thought, and for the first time she began to analyze the structure which supported her newfound love, and to subject its object to a critical examination.
Slowly she turned and walked back to the cabin. She tried to imagine her wood-god by her side in the saloon of an ocean liner. She saw him eating with his hands, tearing his food like a beast of prey, and wiping his greasy fingers upon his thighs. She shuddered.
She saw him as she introduced him to her friends—uncouth, illiterate—a boor; and the girl winced.
She had reached her room now, and as she sat upon the edge of her bed of ferns and grasses, with one hand resting upon her rising and falling bosom, she felt the hard outlines of the man's locket.
She drew it out, holding it in the palm of her hand for a moment with tear-blurred eyes bent upon it. Then she raised it to her lips, and crushing it there buried her face in the soft ferns, sobbing.
"Beast?" she murmured. "Then God make me a beast; for, man or beast, I am yours."
She did not see Clayton again that day. Esmeralda brought her supper to her, and she sent word to her father that she was suffering from the reaction following her adventure.
The next morning Clayton left early with the relief expedition in search of Lieutenant D'Arnot. There were two hundred armed men this time, with ten officers and two surgeons, and provisions for a week.
They carried bedding and hammocks, the latter for transporting their sick and wounded.
It was a determined and angry company—a punitive expedition as well as one of relief. They reached the site of the skirmish of the previous expedition shortly after noon, for they were now traveling a known trail and no time was lost in exploring.
From there on the elephant-track led straight to Mbonga's village. It was but two o'clock when the head of the column halted upon the edge of the clearing.
Lieutenant Charpentier, who was in command, immediately sent a portion of his force through the jungle to the opposite side of the village. Another detachment was dispatched to a point before the village gate, while he remained with the balance upon the south side of the clearing.
It was arranged that the party which was to take its position to the north, and which would be the last to gain its station should commence the assault, and that their opening volley should be the signal for a concerted rush from all sides in an attempt to carry the village by storm at the first charge.
For half an hour the men with Lieutenant Charpentier crouched in the dense foliage of the jungle, waiting the signal. To them it seemed like hours. They could see natives in the fields, and others moving in and out of the village gate.
At length the signal came—a sharp rattle of musketry, and like one man, an answering volley tore from the jungle to the west and to the south.
The natives in the field dropped their implements and broke madly for the palisade. The French bullets mowed them down, and the French sailors bounded over their prostrate bodies straight for the village gate.
So sudden and unexpected the assault had been that the whites reached the gates before the frightened natives could bar them, and in another minute the village street was filled with armed men fighting hand to hand in an inextricable tangle.
For a few moments the blacks held their ground within the entrance to the street, but the revolvers, rifles and cutlasses of the Frenchmen crumpled the native spearmen and struck down the black archers with their bows halfdrawn.
Soon the battle turned to a wild rout, and then to a grim massacre; for the French sailors had seen bits of D'Arnot's uniform upon several of the black warriors who opposed them.
They spared the children and those of the women whom they were not forced to kill in self-defense, but when at length they stopped, parting, blood covered and sweating, it was because there lived to oppose them no single warrior of all the savage village of Mbonga.
Carefully they ransacked every hut and corner of the village, but no sign of D'Arnot could they find. They questioned the prisoners by signs, and finally one of the sailors who had served in the French Congo found that he could make them understand the bastard tongue that passes for language between the whites and the more degraded tribes of the coast, but even then they could learn nothing definite regarding the fate of D'Arnot.
Only excited gestures and expressions of fear could they obtain in response to their inquiries concerning their fellow; and at last they became convinced that these were but evidences of the guilt of these demons who had slaughtered and eaten their comrade two nights before.
At length all hope left them, and they prepared to camp for the night within the village. The prisoners were herded into three huts where they were heavily guarded. Sentries were posted at the barred gates, and finally the village was wrapped in the silence of slumber, except for the wailing of the native women for their dead.
The next morning they set out upon the return march. Their original intention had been to burn the village, but this idea was abandoned and the prisoners were left behind, weeping and moaning, but with roofs to cover them and a palisade for refuge from the beasts of the jungle.
Slowly the expedition retraced its steps of the preceding day. Ten loaded hammocks retarded its pace. In eight of them lay the more seriously wounded, while two swung beneath the weight of the dead.
Clayton and Lieutenant Charpentier brought up the rear of the column; the Englishman silent in respect for the other's grief, for D'Arnot and Charpentier had been inseparable friends since boyhood.
Clayton could not but realize that the Frenchman felt his grief the more keenly because D'Arnot's sacrifice had been so futile, since Jane had been rescued before D'Arnot had fallen into the hands of the savages, and again because the service in which he had lost his life had been outside his duty and for strangers and aliens; but when he spoke of it to Lieutenant Charpentier, the latter shook his head.
"No, Monsieur," he said, "D'Arnot would have chosen to die thus. I only grieve that I could not have died for him, or at least with him. I wish that you could have known him better, Monsieur. He was indeed an officer and a gentleman—a title conferred on many, but deserved by so few.
"He did not die futilely, for his death in the cause of a strange American girl will make us, his comrades, face our ends the more bravely, however they may come to us."
Clayton did not reply, but within him rose a new respect for Frenchmen which remained undimmed ever after.
It was quite late when they reached the cabin by the beach. A single shot before they emerged from the jungle had announced to those in camp as well as on the ship that the expedition had been too late—for it had been prearranged that when they came within a mile or two of camp one shot was to be fired to denote failure, or three for success, while two would have indicated that they had found no sign of either D'Arnot or his black captors.
So it was a solemn party that awaited their coming, and few words were spoken as the dead and wounded men were tenderly placed in boats and rowed silently toward the cruiser.
Clayton, exhausted from his five days of laborious marching through the jungle and from the effects of his two battles with the blacks, turned toward the cabin to seek a mouthful of food and then the comparative ease of his bed of grasses after two nights in the jungle.
By the cabin door stood Jane.
"The poor lieutenant?" she asked. "Did you find no trace of him?"
"We were too late, Miss Porter," he replied sadly.
"Tell me. What had happened?" she asked.
"I cannot, Miss Porter, it is too horrible."
"You do not mean that they had tortured him?" she whispered.
"We do not know what they did to him BEFORE they killed him," he answered, his face drawn with fatigue and the sorrow he felt for poor D'Arnot and he emphasized the word before.
"BEFORE they killed him! What do you mean? They are not—? They are not—?"
She was thinking of what Clayton had said of the forest man's probable relationship to this tribe and she could not frame the awful word.
"Yes, Miss Porter, they were—cannibals," he said, almost bitterly, for to him too had suddenly come the thought of the forest man, and the strange, unaccountable jealousy he had felt two days before swept over him once more.
And then in sudden brutality that was as unlike Clayton as courteous consideration is unlike an ape, he blurted out:
"When your forest god left you he was doubtless hurrying to the feast."
He was sorry ere the words were spoken though he did not know how cruelly they had cut the girl. His regret was for his baseless disloyalty to one who had saved the lives of every member of his party, and offered harm to none.
The girl's head went high.
"There could be but one suitable reply to your assertion, Mr. Clayton," she said icily, "and I regret that I am not a man, that I might make it." She turned quickly and entered the cabin.
Clayton was an Englishman, so the girl had passed quite out of sight before he deduced what reply a man would have made.
"Upon my word," he said ruefully, "she called me a liar. And I fancy I jolly well deserved it," he added thoughtfully. "Clayton, my boy, I know you are tired out and unstrung, but that's no reason why you should make an ass of yourself. You'd better go to bed."
But before he did so he called gently to Jane upon the opposite side of the sailcloth partition, for he wished to apologize, but he might as well have addressed the Sphinx. Then he wrote upon a piece of paper and shoved it beneath the partition.
Jane saw the little note and ignored it, for she was very angry and hurt and mortified, but—she was a woman, and so eventually she picked it up and read it.
MY DEAR MISS PORTER:
I had no reason to insinuate what I did. My only excuse is that my nerves must be unstrung—which is no excuse at all.
Please try and think that I did not say it. I am very sorry. I would not have hurt YOU, above all others in the world. Say that you forgive me.
WM. CECIL CLAYTON.
"He did think it or he never would have said it," reasoned the girl, "but it cannot be true—oh, I know it is not true!"
One sentence in the letter frightened her: "I would not have hurt YOU above all others in the world."
A week ago that sentence would have filled her with delight, now it depressed her.
She wished she had never met Clayton. She was sorry that she had ever seen the forest god. No, she was glad. And there was that other note she had found in the grass before the cabin the day after her return from the jungle, the love note signed by Tarzan of the Apes.
Who could be this new suitor? If he were another of the wild denizens of this terrible forest what might he not do to claim her?
"Esmeralda! Wake up," she cried.
"You make me so irritable, sleeping there peacefully when you know perfectly well that the world is filled with sorrow."
"Gaberelle!" screamed Esmeralda, sitting up. "What is it now? A hipponocerous? Where is he, Miss Jane?"
"Nonsense, Esmeralda, there is nothing. Go back to sleep. You are bad enough asleep, but you are infinitely worse awake."
"Yes honey, but what's the matter with you, precious? You acts sort of disgranulated this evening."
"Oh, Esmeralda, I'm just plain ugly to-night," said the girl. "Don't pay any attention to me—that's a dear."
"Yes, honey; now you go right to sleep. Your nerves are all on edge. What with all these ripotamuses and man eating geniuses that Mister Philander been telling about—Lord, it ain't no wonder we all get nervous prosecution."
Jane crossed the little room, laughing, and kissing the faithful woman, bid Esmeralda good night.
Chapter XXIII
Brother Men.
When D'Arnot regained consciousness, he found himself lying upon a bed of soft ferns and grasses beneath a little "A" shaped shelter of boughs.
At his feet an opening looked out upon a green sward, and at a little distance beyond was the dense wall of jungle and forest.
He was very lame and sore and weak, and as full consciousness returned he felt the sharp torture of many cruel wounds and the dull aching of every bone and muscle in his body as a result of the hideous beating he had received.
Even the turning of his head caused him such excruciating agony that he lay still with closed eyes for a long time.
He tried to piece out the details of his adventure prior to the time he lost consciousness to see if they would explain his present whereabouts—he wondered if he were among friends or foes.
At length he recollected the whole hideous scene at the stake, and finally recalled the strange white figure in whose arms he had sunk into oblivion.
D'Arnot wondered what fate lay in store for him now. He could neither see nor hear any signs of life about him.
The incessant hum of the jungle—the rustling of millions of leaves—the buzz of insects—the voices of the birds and monkeys seemed blended into a strangely soothing purr, as though he lay apart, far from the myriad life whose sounds came to him only as a blurred echo.
At length he fell into a quiet slumber, nor did he awake again until afternoon.
Once more he experienced the strange sense of utter bewilderment that had marked his earlier awakening, but soon he recalled the recent past, and looking through the opening at his feet he saw the figure of a man squatting on his haunches.
The broad, muscular back was turned toward him, but, tanned though it was, D'Arnot saw that it was the back of a white man, and he thanked God.
The Frenchman called faintly. The man turned, and rising, came toward the shelter. His face was very handsome—the handsomest, thought D'Arnot, that he had ever seen.
Stooping, he crawled into the shelter beside the wounded officer, and placed a cool hand upon his forehead.
D'Arnot spoke to him in French, but the man only shook his head—sadly, it seemed to the Frenchman.
Then D'Arnot tried English, but still the man shook his head. Italian, Spanish and German brought similar discouragement.
D'Arnot knew a few words of Norwegian, Russian, Greek, and also had a smattering of the language of one of the West Coast negro tribes—the man denied them all.
After examining D'Arnot's wounds the man left the shelter and disappeared. In half an hour he was back with fruit and a hollow gourd-like vegetable filled with water.
D'Arnot drank and ate a little. He was surprised that he had no fever. Again he tried to converse with his strange nurse, but the attempt was useless.
Suddenly the man hastened from the shelter only to return a few minutes later with several pieces of bark and—wonder of wonders—a lead pencil.
Squatting beside D'Arnot he wrote for a minute on the smooth inner surface of the bark; then he handed it to the Frenchman.
D'Arnot was astonished to see, in plain print-like characters, a message in English:
I am Tarzan of the Apes. Who are you? Can you read this language?
D'Arnot seized the pencil—then he stopped. This strange man wrote English—evidently he was an Englishman.
"Yes," said D'Arnot, "I read English. I speak it also. Now we may talk. First let me thank you for all that you have done for me."
The man only shook his head and pointed to the pencil and the bark.
"MON DIEU!" cried D'Arnot. "If you are English why is it then that you cannot speak English?"
And then in a flash it came to him—the man was a mute, possibly a deaf mute.
So D'Arnot wrote a message on the bark, in English.
I am Paul d'Arnot, Lieutenant in the navy of France. I thank you for what you have done for me. You have saved my life, and all that I have is yours. May I ask how it is that one who writes English does not speak it?
Tarzan's reply filled D'Arnot with still greater wonder:
I speak only the language of my tribe—the great apes who were Kerchak's; and a little of the languages of Tantor, the elephant, and Numa, the lion, and of the other folks of the jungle I understand. With a human being I have never spoken, except once with Jane Porter, by signs. This is the first time I have spoken with another of my kind through written words.
D'Arnot was mystified. It seemed incredible that there lived upon earth a full-grown man who had never spoken with a fellow man, and still more preposterous that such a one could read and write.
He looked again at Tarzan's message—"except once, with Jane Porter." That was the American girl who had been carried into the jungle by a gorilla.
A sudden light commenced to dawn on D'Arnot—this then was the "gorilla." He seized the pencil and wrote:
Where is Jane Porter?
Back with her people in the cabin of Tarzan of the Apes.
She is not dead then? Where was she? What happened to her?
She is not dead. She was taken by Terkoz to be his wife; but Tarzan of the Apes took her away from Terkoz and killed him before he could harm her.
None in all the jungle may face Tarzan of the Apes in battle, and live. I am Tarzan of the Apes—mighty fighter.
D'Arnot wrote:
I am glad she is safe. It pains me to write, I will rest a while.
And then Tarzan:
Yes, rest. When you are well I shall take you back to your people.
For many days D'Arnot lay upon his bed of soft ferns. The second day a fever had come and D'Arnot thought that it meant infection and he knew that he would die.
An idea came to him. He wondered why he had not thought of it before.
He called Tarzan and indicated by signs that he would write, and when Tarzan had fetched the bark and pencil, D'Arnot wrote:
Can you go to my people and lead them here? I will write a message that you may take to them, and they will follow you.
Tarzan shook his head and taking the bark, wrote:
I had thought of that—the first day; but I dared not. The great apes come often to this spot, and if they found you here, wounded and alone, they would kill you.
D'Arnot turned on his side and closed his eyes. He did not wish to die; but he felt that he was going, for the fever was mounting higher and higher. That night he lost consciousness.
For three days he was in delirium, and Tarzan sat beside him and bathed his head and hands and washed his wounds.
On the fourth day the fever broke as suddenly as it had come, but it left D'Arnot a shadow of his former self, and very weak. Tarzan had to lift him that he might drink from the gourd.
The fever had not been the result of infection, as D'Arnot had thought, but one of those that commonly attack whites in the jungles of Africa, and either kill or leave them as suddenly as D'Arnot's had left him.
Two days later, D'Arnot was tottering about the amphitheater, Tarzan's strong arm about him to keep him from falling.
They sat beneath the shade of a great tree, and Tarzan found some smooth bark that they might converse.
D'Arnot wrote the first message:
What can I do to repay you for all that you have done for me?
And Tarzan, in reply:
Teach me to speak the language of men.
And so D'Arnot commenced at once, pointing out familiar objects and repeating their names in French, for he thought that it would be easier to teach this man his own language, since he understood it himself best of all.
It meant nothing to Tarzan, of course, for he could not tell one language from another, so when he pointed to the word man which he had printed upon a piece of bark he learned from D'Arnot that it was pronounced HOMME, and in the same way he was taught to pronounce ape, SINGE and tree, ARBRE.
He was a most eager student, and in two more days had mastered so much French that he could speak little sentences such as: "That is a tree," "this is grass," "I am hungry," and the like, but D'Arnot found that it was difficult to teach him the French construction upon a foundation of English.
The Frenchman wrote little lessons for him in English and had Tarzan repeat them in French, but as a literal translation was usually very poor French Tarzan was often confused.
D'Arnot realized now that he had made a mistake, but it seemed too late to go back and do it all over again and force Tarzan to unlearn all that he had learned, especially as they were rapidly approaching a point where they would be able to converse.
On the third day after the fever broke Tarzan wrote a message asking D'Arnot if he felt strong enough to be carried back to the cabin. Tarzan was as anxious to go as D'Arnot, for he longed to see Jane again.
It had been hard for him to remain with the Frenchman all these days for that very reason, and that he had unselfishly done so spoke more glowingly of his nobility of character than even did his rescuing the French officer from Mbonga's clutches.
D'Arnot, only too willing to attempt the journey, wrote:
But you cannot carry me all the distance through this tangled forest.
Tarzan laughed.
"MAIS OUI," he said, and D'Arnot laughed aloud to hear the phrase that he used so often glide from Tarzan's tongue.
So they set out, D'Arnot marveling as had Clayton and Jane at the wondrous strength and agility of the apeman.
Mid-afternoon brought them to the clearing, and as Tarzan dropped to earth from the branches of the last tree his heart leaped and bounded against his ribs in anticipation of seeing Jane so soon again.
No one was in sight outside the cabin, and D'Arnot was perplexed to note that neither the cruiser nor the Arrow was at anchor in the bay.
An atmosphere of loneliness pervaded the spot, which caught suddenly at both men as they strode toward the cabin.
Neither spoke, yet both knew before they opened the closed door what they would find beyond.
Tarzan lifted the latch and pushed the great door in upon its wooden hinges. It was as they had feared. The cabin was deserted.
The men turned and looked at one another. D'Arnot knew that his people thought him dead; but Tarzan thought only of the woman who had kissed him in love and now had fled from him while he was serving one of her people.
A great bitterness rose in his heart. He would go away, far into the jungle and join his tribe. Never would he see one of his own kind again, nor could he bear the thought of returning to the cabin. He would leave that forever behind him with the great hopes he had nursed there of finding his own race and becoming a man among men.
And the Frenchman? D'Arnot? What of him? He could get along as Tarzan had. Tarzan did not want to see him more. He wanted to get away from everything that might remind him of Jane.
As Tarzan stood upon the threshold brooding, D'Arnot had entered the cabin. Many comforts he saw that had been left behind. He recognized numerous articles from the cruiser—a camp oven, some kitchen utensils, a rifle and many rounds of ammunition, canned foods, blankets, two chairs and a cot—and several books and periodicals, mostly American.
"They must intend returning," thought D'Arnot.
He walked over to the table that John Clayton had built so many years before to serve as a desk, and on it he saw two notes addressed to Tarzan of the Apes.
One was in a strong masculine hand and was unsealed. The other, in a woman's hand, was sealed.
"Here are two messages for you, Tarzan of the Apes," cried D'Arnot, turning toward the door; but his companion was not there.
D'Arnot walked to the door and looked out. Tarzan was nowhere in sight. He called aloud but there was no response.
"MON DIEU!" exclaimed D'Arnot, "he has left me. I feel it. He has gone back into his jungle and left me here alone."
And then he remembered the look on Tarzan's face when they had discovered that the cabin was empty—such a look as the hunter sees in the eyes of the wounded deer he has wantonly brought down.
The man had been hard hit—D'Arnot realized it now—but why? He could not understand.
The Frenchman looked about him. The loneliness and the horror of the place commenced to get on his nerves—already weakened by the ordeal of suffering and sickness he had passed through.
To be left here alone beside this awful jungle—never to hear a human voice or see a human face—in constant dread of savage beasts and more terribly savage men—a prey to solitude and hopelessness. It was awful.
And far to the east Tarzan of the Apes was speeding through the middle terrace back to his tribe. Never had he traveled with such reckless speed. He felt that he was running away from himself—that by hurtling through the forest like a frightened squirrel he was escaping from his own thoughts. But no matter how fast he went he found them always with him.
He passed above the sinuous body of Sabor, the lioness, going in the opposite direction—toward the cabin, thought Tarzan.
What could D'Arnot do against Sabor—or if Bolgani, the gorilla, should come upon him—or Numa, the lion, or cruel Sheeta?
Tarzan paused in his flight.
"What are you, Tarzan?" he asked aloud. "An ape or a man?"
"If you are an ape you will do as the apes would do—leave one of your kind to die in the jungle if it suited your whim to go elsewhere.
"If you are a man, you will return to protect your kind. You will not run away from one of your own people, because one of them has run away from you."
D'Arnot closed the cabin door. He was very nervous. Even brave men, and D'Arnot was a brave man, are sometimes frightened by solitude.
He loaded one of the rifles and placed it within easy reach. Then he went to the desk and took up the unsealed letter addressed to Tarzan.
Possibly it contained word that his people had but left the beach temporarily. He felt that it would be no breach of ethics to read this letter, so he took the enclosure from the envelope and read:
TO TARZAN OF THE APES:
We thank you for the use of your cabin, and are sorry that you did not permit us the pleasure of seeing and thanking you in person.
We have harmed nothing, but have left many things for you which may add to your comfort and safety here in your lonely home.
If you know the strange white man who saved our lives so many times, and brought us food, and if you can converse with him, thank him, also, for his kindness.
We sail within the hour, never to return; but we wish you and that other jungle friend to know that we shall always thank you for what you did for strangers on your shore, and that we should have done infinitely more to reward you both had you given us the opportunity.
Very respectfully,
"'Never to return,'" muttered D'Arnot, and threw himself face downward upon the cot.
An hour later he started up listening. Something was at the door trying to enter.
D'Arnot reached for the loaded rifle and placed it to his shoulder.
Dusk was falling, and the interior of the cabin was very dark; but the man could see the latch moving from its place.
He felt his hair rising upon his scalp.
Gently the door opened until a thin crack showed something standing just beyond.
D'Arnot sighted along the blue barrel at the crack of the door—and then he pulled the trigger.
Chapter XXIV
Lost Treasure
When the expedition returned, following their fruitless endeavor to succor D'Arnot, Captain Dufranne was anxious to steam away as quickly as possible, and all save Jane had acquiesced.
"No," she said, determinedly, "I shall not go, nor should you, for there are two friends in that jungle who will come out of it some day expecting to find us awaiting them.
"Your officer, Captain Dufranne, is one of them, and the forest man who has saved the lives of every member of my father's party is the other.
"He left me at the edge of the jungle two days ago to hasten to the aid of my father and Mr. Clayton, as he thought, and he has stayed to rescue Lieutenant D'Arnot; of that you may be sure.
"Had he been too late to be of service to the lieutenant he would have been back before now—the fact that he is not back is sufficient proof to me that he is delayed because Lieutenant D'Arnot is wounded, or he has had to follow his captors further than the village which your sailors attacked."
"But poor D'Arnot's uniform and all his belongings were found in that village, Miss Porter," argued the captain, "and the natives showed great excitement when questioned as to the white man's fate."
"Yes, Captain, but they did not admit that he was dead and as for his clothes and accouterments being in their possession—why more civilized peoples than these poor savage negroes strip their prisoners of every article of value whether they intend killing them or not.
"Even the soldiers of my own dear South looted not only the living but the dead. It is strong circumstantial evidence, I will admit, but it is not positive proof."
"Possibly your forest man, himself was captured or killed by the savages," suggested Captain Dufranne.
The girl laughed.
"You do not know him," she replied, a little thrill of pride setting her nerves a-tingle at the thought that she spoke of her own.
"I admit that he would be worth waiting for, this superman of yours," laughed the captain. "I most certainly should like to see him."
"Then wait for him, my dear captain," urged the girl, "for I intend doing so."
The Frenchman would have been a very much surprised man could he have interpreted the true meaning of the girl's words.
They had been walking from the beach toward the cabin as they talked, and now they joined a little group sitting on camp stools in the shade of a great tree beside the cabin.
Professor Porter was there, and Mr. Philander and Clayton, with Lieutenant Charpentier and two of his brother officers, while Esmeralda hovered in the background, ever and anon venturing opinions and comments with the freedom of an old and much-indulged family servant.
The officers arose and saluted as their superior approached, and Clayton surrendered his camp stool to Jane.
"We were just discussing poor Paul's fate," said Captain Dufranne. "Miss Porter insists that we have no absolute proof of his death—nor have we. And on the other hand she maintains that the continued absence of your omnipotent jungle friend indicates that D'Arnot is still in need of his services, either because he is wounded, or still is a prisoner in a more distant native village."
"It has been suggested," ventured Lieutenant Charpentier, "that the wild man may have been a member of the tribe of blacks who attacked our party—that he was hastening to aid THEM—his own people."
Jane shot a quick glance at Clayton.
"It seems vastly more reasonable," said Professor Porter.
"I do not agree with you," objected Mr. Philander. "He had ample opportunity to harm us himself, or to lead his people against us. Instead, during our long residence here, he has been uniformly consistent in his role of protector and provider."
"That is true," interjected Clayton, "yet we must not overlook the fact that except for himself the only human beings within hundreds of miles are savage cannibals. He was armed precisely as are they, which indicates that he has maintained relations of some nature with them, and the fact that he is but one against possibly thousands suggests that these relations could scarcely have been other than friendly."
"It seems improbable then that he is not connected with them," remarked the captain; "possibly a member of this tribe."
"Otherwise," added another of the officers, "how could he have lived a sufficient length of time among the savage denizens of the jungle, brute and human, to have become proficient in woodcraft, or in the use of African weapons."
"You are judging him according to your own standards, gentlemen," said Jane. "An ordinary white man such as any of you—pardon me, I did not mean just that—rather, a white man above the ordinary in physique and intelligence could never, I grant you, have lived a year alone and naked in this tropical jungle; but this man not only surpasses the average white man in strength and agility, but as far transcends our trained athletes and 'strong men' as they surpass a day-old babe; and his courage and ferocity in battle are those of the wild beast."
"He has certainly won a loyal champion, Miss Porter," said Captain Dufranne, laughing. "I am sure that there be none of us here but would willingly face death a hundred times in its most terrifying forms to deserve the tributes of one even half so loyal—or so beautiful."
"You would not wonder that I defend him," said the girl, "could you have seen him as I saw him, battling in my behalf with that huge hairy brute.
"Could you have seen him charge the monster as a bull might charge a grizzly—absolutely without sign of fear or hesitation—you would have believed him more than human.
"Could you have seen those mighty muscles knotting under the brown skin—could you have seen them force back those awful fangs—you too would have thought him invincible.
"And could you have seen the chivalrous treatment which he accorded a strange girl of a strange race, you would feel the same absolute confidence in him that I feel."
"You have won your suit, my fair pleader," cried the captain. "This court finds the defendant not guilty, and the cruiser shall wait a few days longer that he may have an opportunity to come and thank the divine Portia."
"For the Lord's sake honey," cried Esmeralda. "You all don't mean to tell ME that you're going to stay right here in this here land of carnivable animals when you all got the opportunity to escapade on that boat? Don't you tell me THAT, honey."
"Why, Esmeralda! You should be ashamed of yourself," cried Jane. "Is this any way to show your gratitude to the man who saved your life twice?"
"Well, Miss Jane, that's all jest as you say; but that there forest man never did save us to stay here. He done save us so we all could get AWAY from here. I expect he be mighty peevish when he find we ain't got no more sense than to stay right here after he done give us the chance to get away.
"I hoped I'd never have to sleep in this here geological garden another night and listen to all them lonesome noises that come out of that jumble after dark."
"I don't blame you a bit, Esmeralda," said Clayton, "and you certainly did hit it off right when you called them 'lonesome' noises. I never have been able to find the right word for them but that's it, don't you know, lonesome noises."
"You and Esmeralda had better go and live on the cruiser," said Jane, in fine scorn. "What would you think if you HAD to live all of your life in that jungle as our forest man has done?"
"I'm afraid I'd be a blooming bounder as a wild man," laughed Clayton, ruefully. "Those noises at night make the hair on my head bristle. I suppose that I should be ashamed to admit it, but it's the truth."
"I don't know about that," said Lieutenant Charpentier. "I never thought much about fear and that sort of thing—never tried to determine whether I was a coward or brave man; but the other night as we lay in the jungle there after poor D'Arnot was taken, and those jungle noises rose and fell around us I began to think that I was a coward indeed. It was not the roaring and growling of the big beasts that affected me so much as it was the stealthy noises—the ones that you heard suddenly close by and then listened vainly for a repetition of—the unaccountable sounds as of a great body moving almost noiselessly, and the knowledge that you didn't KNOW how close it was, or whether it were creeping closer after you ceased to hear it? It was those noises—and the eyes.
"MON DIEU! I shall see them in the dark forever—the eyes that you see, and those that you don't see, but feel—ah, they are the worst."
All were silent for a moment, and then Jane spoke.
"And he is out there," she said, in an awe-hushed whisper. "Those eyes will be glaring at him to-night, and at your comrade Lieutenant D'Arnot. Can you leave them, gentlemen, without at least rendering them the passive succor which remaining here a few days longer might insure them?"
"Tut, tut, child," said Professor Porter. "Captain Dufranne is willing to remain, and for my part I am perfectly willing, perfectly willing—as I always have been to humor your childish whims."
"We can utilize the morrow in recovering the chest, Professor," suggested Mr. Philander.
"Quite so, quite so, Mr. Philander, I had almost forgotten the treasure," exclaimed Professor Porter. "Possibly we can borrow some men from Captain Dufranne to assist us, and one of the prisoners to point out the location of the chest."
"Most assuredly, my dear Professor, we are all yours to command," said the captain.
And so it was arranged that on the next day Lieutenant Charpentier was to take a detail of ten men, and one of the mutineers of the Arrow as a guide, and unearth the treasure; and that the cruiser would remain for a full week in the little harbor. At the end of that time it was to be assumed that D'Arnot was truly dead, and that the forest man would not return while they remained. Then the two vessels were to leave with all the party.
Professor Porter did not accompany the treasure-seekers on the following day, but when he saw them returning empty-handed toward noon, he hastened forward to meet them—his usual preoccupied indifference entirely vanished, and in its place a nervous and excited manner.
"Where is the treasure?" he cried to Clayton, while yet a hundred feet separated them.
Clayton shook his head.
"Gone," he said, as he neared the professor.
"Gone! It cannot be. Who could have taken it?" cried Professor Porter.
"God only knows, Professor," replied Clayton. "We might have thought the fellow who guided us was lying about the location, but his surprise and consternation on finding no chest beneath the body of the murdered Snipes were too real to be feigned. And then our spades showed us that SOMETHING had been buried beneath the corpse, for a hole had been there and it had been filled with loose earth."
"But who could have taken it?" repeated Professor Porter.
"Suspicion might naturally fall on the men of the cruiser," said Lieutenant Charpentier, "but for the fact that sub-lieutenant Janviers here assures me that no men have had shore leave—that none has been on shore since we anchored here except under command of an officer. I do not know that you would suspect our men, but I am glad that there is now no chance for suspicion to fall on them," he concluded.
"It would never have occurred to me to suspect the men to whom we owe so much," replied Professor Porter, graciously. "I would as soon suspect my dear Clayton here, or Mr. Philander."
The Frenchmen smiled, both officers and sailors. It was plain to see that a burden had been lifted from their minds.
"The treasure has been gone for some time," continued Clayton. "In fact the body fell apart as we lifted it, which indicates that whoever removed the treasure did so while the corpse was still fresh, for it was intact when we first uncovered it."
"There must have been several in the party," said Jane, who had joined them. "You remember that it took four men to carry it."
"By jove!" cried Clayton. "That's right. It must have been done by a party of blacks. Probably one of them saw the men bury the chest and then returned immediately after with a party of his friends, and carried it off."
"Speculation is futile," said Professor Porter sadly. "The chest is gone. We shall never see it again, nor the treasure that was in it."
Only Jane knew what the loss meant to her father, and none there knew what it meant to her.
Six days later Captain Dufranne announced that they would sail early on the morrow.
Jane would have begged for a further reprieve, had it not been that she too had begun to believe that her forest lover would return no more.
In spite of herself she began to entertain doubts and fears. The reasonableness of the arguments of these disinterested French officers commenced to convince her against her will.
That he was a cannibal she would not believe, but that he was an adopted member of some savage tribe at length seemed possible to her.
She would not admit that he could be dead. It was impossible to believe that that perfect body, so filled with triumphant life, could ever cease to harbor the vital spark—as soon believe that immortality were dust.
As Jane permitted herself to harbor these thoughts, others equally unwelcome forced themselves upon her.
If he belonged to some savage tribe he had a savage wife—a dozen of them perhaps—and wild, half-caste children. The girl shuddered, and when they told her that the cruiser would sail on the morrow she was almost glad.
It was she, though, who suggested that arms, ammunition, supplies and comforts be left behind in the cabin, ostensibly for that intangible personality who had signed himself Tarzan of the Apes, and for D'Arnot should he still be living, but really, she hoped, for her forest god—even though his feet should prove of clay.
And at the last minute she left a message for him, to be transmitted by Tarzan of the Apes.
She was the last to leave the cabin, returning on some trivial pretext after the others had started for the boat.
She kneeled down beside the bed in which she had spent so many nights, and offered up a prayer for the safety of her primeval man, and crushing his locket to her lips she murmured:
"I love you, and because I love you I believe in you. But if I did not believe, still should I love. Had you come back for me, and had there been no other way, I would have gone into the jungle with you—forever."
Chapter XXV
The Outpost of the World
With the report of his gun D'Arnot saw the door fly open and the figure of a man pitch headlong within onto the cabin floor.
The Frenchman in his panic raised his gun to fire again into the prostrate form, but suddenly in the half dusk of the open door he saw that the man was white and in another instant realized that he had shot his friend and protector, Tarzan of the Apes.
With a cry of anguish D'Arnot sprang to the ape-man's side, and kneeling, lifted the latter's head in his arms—calling Tarzan's name aloud.
There was no response, and then D'Arnot placed his ear above the man's heart. To his joy he heard its steady beating beneath.
Carefully he lifted Tarzan to the cot, and then, after closing and bolting the door, he lighted one of the lamps and examined the wound.
The bullet had struck a glancing blow upon the skull. There was an ugly flesh wound, but no signs of a fracture of the skull.
D'Arnot breathed a sigh of relief, and went about bathing the blood from Tarzan's face.
Soon the cool water revived him, and presently he opened his eyes to look in questioning surprise at D'Arnot.
The latter had bound the wound with pieces of cloth, and as he saw that Tarzan had regained consciousness he arose and going to the table wrote a message, which he handed to the ape-man, explaining the terrible mistake he had made and how thankful he was that the wound was not more serious.
Tarzan, after reading the message, sat on the edge of the couch and laughed.
"It is nothing," he said in French, and then, his vocabulary failing him, he wrote:
You should have seen what Bolgani did to me, and Kerchak, and Terkoz, before I killed them—then you would laugh at such a little scratch.
D'Arnot handed Tarzan the two messages that had been left for him.
Tarzan read the first one through with a look of sorrow on his face. The second one he turned over and over, searching for an opening—he had never seen a sealed envelope before. At length he handed it to D'Arnot.
The Frenchman had been watching him, and knew that Tarzan was puzzled over the envelope. How strange it seemed that to a full-grown white man an envelope was a mystery. D'Arnot opened it and handed the letter back to Tarzan.
Sitting on a camp stool the ape-man spread the written sheet before him and read:
TO TARZAN OF THE APES:
Before I leave let me add my thanks to those of Mr. Clayton for the kindness you have shown in permitting us the use of your cabin.
That you never came to make friends with us has been a great regret to us. We should have liked so much to have seen and thanked our host.
There is another I should like to thank also, but he did not come back, though I cannot believe that he is dead.
I do not know his name. He is the great white giant who wore the diamond locket upon his breast.
If you know him and can speak his language carry my thanks to him, and tell him that I waited seven days for him to return.
Tell him, also, that in my home in America, in the city of Baltimore, there will always be a welcome for him if he cares to come.
I found a note you wrote me lying among the leaves beneath a tree near the cabin. I do not know how you learned to love me, who have never spoken to me, and I am very sorry if it is true, for I have already given my heart to another.
But know that I am always your friend,
JANE PORTER.
Tarzan sat with gaze fixed upon the floor for nearly an hour. It was evident to him from the notes that they did not know that he and Tarzan of the Apes were one and the same.
"I have given my heart to another," he repeated over and over again to himself.
Then she did not love him! How could she have pretended love, and raised him to such a pinnacle of hope only to cast him down to such utter depths of despair!
Maybe her kisses were only signs of friendship. How did he know, who knew nothing of the customs of human beings?
Suddenly he arose, and, bidding D'Arnot good night as he had learned to do, threw himself upon the couch of ferns that had been Jane Porter's.
D'Arnot extinguished the lamp, and lay down upon the cot.
For a week they did little but rest, D'Arnot coaching Tarzan in French. At the end of that time the two men could converse quite easily.
One night, as they were sitting within the cabin before retiring, Tarzan turned to D'Arnot.
"Where is America?" he said.
D'Arnot pointed toward the northwest.
"Many thousands of miles across the ocean," he replied. "Why?"
"I am going there."
"It is impossible, my friend," he said.
Tarzan rose, and, going to one of the cupboards, returned with a well-thumbed geography.
Turning to a map of the world, he said:
"I have never quite understood all this; explain it to me, please."
When D'Arnot had done so, showing him that the blue represented all the water on the earth, and the bits of other colors the continents and islands, Tarzan asked him to point out the spot where they now were.
D'Arnot did so.
"Now point out America," said Tarzan.
And as D'Arnot placed his finger upon North America, Tarzan smiled and laid his palm upon the page, spanning the great ocean that lay between the two continents.
"You see it is not so very far," he said; "scarce the width of my hand."
D'Arnot laughed. How could he make the man understand?
Then he took a pencil and made a tiny point upon the shore of Africa.
"This little mark," he said, "is many times larger upon this map than your cabin is upon the earth. Do you see now how very far it is?"
Tarzan thought for a long time.
"Do any white men live in Africa?" he asked.
"Yes."
D'Arnot pointed out a spot on the shore just north of them.
"So close?" asked Tarzan, in surprise.
"Yes," said D'Arnot; "but it is not close."
"Have they big boats to cross the ocean?"
"Yes."
"We shall go there to-morrow," announced Tarzan.
Again D'Arnot smiled and shook his head.
"It is too far. We should die long before we reached them."
"Do you wish to stay here then forever?" asked Tarzan.
"No," said D'Arnot.
"Then we shall start to-morrow. I do not like it here longer. I should rather die than remain here."
"Well," answered D'Arnot, with a shrug, "I do not know, my friend, but that I also would rather die than remain here. If you go, I shall go with you."
"It is settled then," said Tarzan. "I shall start for America to-morrow."
"How will you get to America without money?" asked D'Arnot.
"What is money?" inquired Tarzan.
It took a long time to make him understand even imperfectly.
"How do men get money?" he asked at last.
"They work for it."
"Very well. I will work for it, then."
"No, my friend," returned D'Arnot, "you need not worry about money, nor need you work for it. I have enough money for two—enough for twenty. Much more than is good for one man and you shall have all you need if ever we reach civilization."
So on the following day they started north along the shore. Each man carrying a rifle and ammunition, beside bedding and some food and cooking utensils.
The latter seemed to Tarzan a most useless encumbrance, so he threw his away.
"But you must learn to eat cooked food, my friend," remonstrated D'Arnot. "No civilized men eat raw flesh."
"There will be time enough when I reach civilization," said Tarzan. "I do not like the things and they only spoil the taste of good meat."
For a month they traveled north. Sometimes finding food in plenty and again going hungry for days.
They saw no signs of natives nor were they molested by wild beasts. Their journey was a miracle of ease.
Tarzan asked questions and learned rapidly. D'Arnot taught him many of the refinements of civilization—even to the use of knife and fork; but sometimes Tarzan would drop them in disgust and grasp his food in his strong brown hands, tearing it with his molars like a wild beast.
Then D'Arnot would expostulate with him, saying:
"You must not eat like a brute, Tarzan, while I am trying to make a gentleman of you. MON DIEU! Gentlemen do not thus—it is terrible."
Tarzan would grin sheepishly and pick up his knife and fork again, but at heart he hated them.
On the journey he told D'Arnot about the great chest he had seen the sailors bury; of how he had dug it up and carried it to the gathering place of the apes and buried it there.
"It must be the treasure chest of Professor Porter," said D'Arnot. "It is too bad, but of course you did not know."
Then Tarzan recalled the letter written by Jane to her friend—the one he had stolen when they first came to his cabin, and now he knew what was in the chest and what it meant to Jane.
"To-morrow we shall go back after it," he announced to D'Arnot.
"Go back?" exclaimed D'Arnot. "But, my dear fellow, we have now been three weeks upon the march. It would require three more to return to the treasure, and then, with that enormous weight which required, you say, four sailors to carry, it would be months before we had again reached this spot."
"It must be done, my friend," insisted Tarzan. "You may go on toward civilization, and I will return for the treasure. I can go very much faster alone."
"I have a better plan, Tarzan," exclaimed D'Arnot. "We shall go on together to the nearest settlement, and there we will charter a boat and sail back down the coast for the treasure and so transport it easily. That will be safer and quicker and also not require us to be separated. What do you think of that plan?"
"Very well," said Tarzan. "The treasure will be there whenever we go for it; and while I could fetch it now, and catch up with you in a moon or two, I shall feel safer for you to know that you are not alone on the trail. When I see how helpless you are, D'Arnot, I often wonder how the human race has escaped annihilation all these ages which you tell me about. Why, Sabor, single handed, could exterminate a thousand of you."
D'Arnot laughed.
"You will think more highly of your genus when you have seen its armies and navies, its great cities, and its mighty engineering works. Then you will realize that it is mind, and not muscle, that makes the human animal greater than the mighty beasts of your jungle.
"Alone and unarmed, a single man is no match for any of the larger beasts; but if ten men were together, they would combine their wits and their muscles against their savage enemies, while the beasts, being unable to reason, would never think of combining against the men. Otherwise, Tarzan of the Apes, how long would you have lasted in the savage wilderness?"
"You are right, D'Arnot," replied Tarzan, "for if Kerchak had come to Tublat's aid that night at the Dum-Dum, there would have been an end of me. But Kerchak could never think far enough ahead to take advantage of any such opportunity. Even Kala, my mother, could never plan ahead. She simply ate what she needed when she needed it, and if the supply was very scarce, even though she found plenty for several meals, she would never gather any ahead.
"I remember that she used to think it very silly of me to burden myself with extra food upon the march, though she was quite glad to eat it with me, if the way chanced to be barren of sustenance."
"Then you knew your mother, Tarzan?" asked D'Arnot, in surprise.
"Yes. She was a great, fine ape, larger than I, and weighing twice as much."
"And your father?" asked D'Arnot.
"I did not know him. Kala told me he was a white ape, and hairless like myself. I know now that he must have been a white man."
D'Arnot looked long and earnestly at his companion.
"Tarzan," he said at length, "it is impossible that the ape, Kala, was your mother. If such a thing can be, which I doubt, you would have inherited some of the characteristics of the ape, but you have not—you are pure man, and, I should say, the offspring of highly bred and intelligent parents. Have you not the slightest clue to your past?"
"Not the slightest," replied Tarzan.
"No writings in the cabin that might have told something of the lives of its original inmates?"
"I have read everything that was in the cabin with the exception of one book which I know now to be written in a language other than English. Possibly you can read it."
Tarzan fished the little black diary from the bottom of his quiver, and handed it to his companion.
D'Arnot glanced at the title page.
"It is the diary of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, an English nobleman, and it is written in French," he said.
Then he proceeded to read the diary that had been written over twenty years before, and which recorded the details of the story which we already know—the story of adventure, hardships and sorrow of John Clayton and his wife Alice, from the day they left England until an hour before he was struck down by Kerchak.
D'Arnot read aloud. At times his voice broke, and he was forced to stop reading for the pitiful hopelessness that spoke between the lines.
Occasionally he glanced at Tarzan; but the ape-man sat upon his haunches, like a carven image, his eyes fixed upon the ground.
Only when the little babe was mentioned did the tone of the diary alter from the habitual note of despair which had crept into it by degrees after the first two months upon the shore.
Then the passages were tinged with a subdued happiness that was even sadder than the rest.
One entry showed an almost hopeful spirit.
To-day our little boy is six months old. He is sitting in Alice's lap beside the table where I am writing—a happy, healthy, perfect child.
Somehow, even against all reason, I seem to see him a grown man, taking his father's place in the world—the second John Clayton—and bringing added honors to the house of Greystoke.
There—as though to give my prophecy the weight of his endorsement—he has grabbed my pen in his chubby fists and with his inkbegrimed little fingers has placed the seal of his tiny finger prints upon the page.
And there, on the margin of the page, were the partially blurred imprints of four wee fingers and the outer half of the thumb.
When D'Arnot had finished the diary the two men sat in silence for some minutes.
"Well! Tarzan of the Apes, what think you?" asked D'Arnot. "Does not this little book clear up the mystery of your parentage?
"Why man, you are Lord Greystoke."
"The book speaks of but one child," he replied. "Its little skeleton lay in the crib, where it died crying for nourishment, from the first time I entered the cabin until Professor Porter's party buried it, with its father and mother, beside the cabin.
"No, that was the babe the book speaks of—and the mystery of my origin is deeper than before, for I have thought much of late of the possibility of that cabin having been my birthplace. I am afraid that Kala spoke the truth," he concluded sadly.
D'Arnot shook his head. He was unconvinced, and in his mind had sprung the determination to prove the correctness of his theory, for he had discovered the key which alone could unlock the mystery, or consign it forever to the realms of the unfathomable.
A week later the two men came suddenly upon a clearing in the forest.
In the distance were several buildings surrounded by a strong palisade. Between them and the enclosure stretched a cultivated field in which a number of negroes were working.
The two halted at the edge of the jungle.
Tarzan fitted his bow with a poisoned arrow, but D'Arnot placed a hand upon his arm.
"What would you do, Tarzan?" he asked.
"They will try to kill us if they see us," replied Tarzan. "I prefer to be the killer."
"Maybe they are friends," suggested D'Arnot.
"They are black," was Tarzan's only reply.
And again he drew back his shaft.
"You must not, Tarzan!" cried D'Arnot. "White men do not kill wantonly. MON DIEU! but you have much to learn.
"I pity the ruffian who crosses you, my wild man, when I take you to Paris. I will have my hands full keeping your neck from beneath the guillotine."
Tarzan lowered his bow and smiled.
"I do not know why I should kill the blacks back there in my jungle, yet not kill them here. Suppose Numa, the lion, should spring out upon us, I should say, then, I presume: Good morning, Monsieur Numa, how is Madame Numa; eh?"
"Wait until the blacks spring upon you," replied D'Arnot, "then you may kill them. Do not assume that men are your enemies until they prove it."
"Come," said Tarzan, "let us go and present ourselves to be killed," and he started straight across the field, his head high held and the tropical sun beating upon his smooth, brown skin.
Behind him came D'Arnot, clothed in some garments which had been discarded at the cabin by Clayton when the officers of the French cruiser had fitted him out in more presentable fashion.
Presently one of the blacks looked up, and beholding Tarzan, turned, shrieking, toward the palisade.
In an instant the air was filled with cries of terror from the fleeing gardeners, but before any had reached the palisade a white man emerged from the enclosure, rifle in hand, to discover the cause of the commotion.
What he saw brought his rifle to his shoulder, and Tarzan of the Apes would have felt cold lead once again had not D'Arnot cried loudly to the man with the leveled gun:
"Do not fire! We are friends!"
"Halt, then!" was the reply.
"Stop, Tarzan!" cried D'Arnot. "He thinks we are enemies."
Tarzan dropped into a walk, and together he and D'Arnot advanced toward the white man by the gate.
The latter eyed them in puzzled bewilderment.
"What manner of men are you?" he asked, in French.
"White men," replied D'Arnot. "We have been lost in the jungle for a long time."
The man had lowered his rifle and now advanced with outstretched hand.
"I am Father Constantine of the French Mission here," he said, "and I am glad to welcome you."
"This is Monsieur Tarzan, Father Constantine," replied D'Arnot, indicating the ape-man; and as the priest extended his hand to Tarzan, D'Arnot added: "and I am Paul D'Arnot, of the French Navy."
Father Constantine took the hand which Tarzan extended in imitation of the priest's act, while the latter took in the superb physique and handsome face in one quick, keen glance.
And thus came Tarzan of the Apes to the first outpost of civilization.
For a week they remained there, and the ape-man, keenly observant, learned much of the ways of men; meanwhile black women sewed white duck garments for himself and D'Arnot so that they might continue their journey properly clothed.
Chapter XXVI
The Height of Civilization
Another month brought them to a little group of buildings at the mouth of a wide river, and there Tarzan saw many boats, and was filled with the timidity of the wild thing by the sight of many men.
Gradually he became accustomed to the strange noises and the odd ways of civilization, so that presently none might know that two short months before, this handsome Frenchman in immaculate white ducks, who laughed and chatted with the gayest of them, had been swinging naked through primeval forests to pounce upon some unwary victim, which, raw, was to fill his savage belly.
The knife and fork, so contemptuously flung aside a month before, Tarzan now manipulated as exquisitely as did the polished D'Arnot.
So apt a pupil had he been that the young Frenchman had labored assiduously to make of Tarzan of the Apes a polished gentleman in so far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.
"God made you a gentleman at heart, my friend," D'Arnot had said; "but we want His works to show upon the exterior also."
As soon as they had reached the little port, D'Arnot had cabled his government of his safety, and requested a three-months' leave, which had been granted.
He had also cabled his bankers for funds, and the enforced wait of a month, under which both chafed, was due to their inability to charter a vessel for the return to Tarzan's jungle after the treasure.
During their stay at the coast town "Monsieur Tarzan" became the wonder of both whites and blacks because of several occurrences which to Tarzan seemed the merest of nothings.
Once a huge black, crazed by drink, had run amuck and terrorized the town, until his evil star had led him to where the black-haired French giant lolled upon the veranda of the hotel.
Mounting the broad steps, with brandished knife, the Negro made straight for a party of four men sitting at a table sipping the inevitable absinthe.
Shouting in alarm, the four took to their heels, and then the black spied Tarzan.
With a roar he charged the ape-man, while half a hundred heads peered from sheltering windows and doorways to witness the butchering of the poor Frenchman by the giant black.
Tarzan met the rush with the fighting smile that the joy of battle always brought to his lips.
As the Negro closed upon him, steel muscles gripped the black wrist of the uplifted knife-hand, and a single swift wrench left the hand dangling below a broken bone.
With the pain and surprise, the madness left the black man, and as Tarzan dropped back into his chair the fellow turned, crying with agony, and dashed wildly toward the native village.
On another occasion as Tarzan and D'Arnot sat at dinner with a number of other whites, the talk fell upon lions and lion hunting.
Opinion was divided as to the bravery of the king of beasts—some maintaining that he was an arrant coward, but all agreeing that it was with a feeling of greater security that they gripped their express rifles when the monarch of the jungle roared about a camp at night.
D'Arnot and Tarzan had agreed that his past be kept secret, and so none other than the French officer knew of the ape-man's familiarity with the beasts of the jungle.
"Monsieur Tarzan has not expressed himself," said one of the party. "A man of his prowess who has spent some time in Africa, as I understand Monsieur Tarzan has, must have had experiences with lions—yes?"
"Some," replied Tarzan, dryly. "Enough to know that each of you are right in your judgment of the characteristics of the lions—you have met. But one might as well judge all blacks by the fellow who ran amuck last week, or decide that all whites are cowards because one has met a cowardly white.
"There is as much individuality among the lower orders, gentlemen, as there is among ourselves. Today we may go out and stumble upon a lion which is over-timid—he runs away from us. To-morrow we may meet his uncle or his twin brother, and our friends wonder why we do not return from the jungle. For myself, I always assume that a lion is ferocious, and so I am never caught off my guard."
"There would be little pleasure in hunting," retorted the first speaker, "if one is afraid of the thing he hunts."
D'Arnot smiled. Tarzan afraid!
"I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear," said Tarzan. "Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt."
"Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of beasts," laughed the other, good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.
"And a piece of rope," added Tarzan.
Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distant jungle, as though to challenge whoever dared enter the lists with him.
"There is your opportunity, Monsieur Tarzan," bantered the Frenchman.
"I am not hungry," said Tarzan simply.
The men laughed, all but D'Arnot. He alone knew that a savage beast had spoken its simple reason through the lips of the ape-man.
"But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go out there naked, armed only with a knife and a piece of rope," said the banterer. "Is it not so?"
"No," replied Tarzan. "Only a fool performs any act without reason."
"Five thousand francs is a reason," said the other. "I wager you that amount you cannot bring back a lion from the jungle under the conditions we have named—naked and armed only with a knife and a piece of rope."
Tarzan glanced toward D'Arnot and nodded his head.
"Make it ten thousand," said D'Arnot.
"Done," replied the other.
Tarzan arose.
"I shall have to leave my clothes at the edge of the settlement, so that if I do not return before daylight I shall have something to wear through the streets."
"You are not going now," exclaimed the wagerer—"at night?"
"Why not?" asked Tarzan. "Numa walks abroad at night—it will be easier to find him."
"No," said the other, "I do not want your blood upon my hands. It will be foolhardy enough if you go forth by day."
"I shall go now," replied Tarzan, and went to his room for his knife and rope.
The men accompanied him to the edge of the jungle, where he left his clothes in a small storehouse.
But when he would have entered the blackness of the undergrowth they tried to dissuade him; and the wagerer was most insistent of all that he abandon his foolhardy venture.
"I will accede that you have won," he said, "and the ten thousand francs are yours if you will but give up this foolish attempt, which can only end in your death."
Tarzan laughed, and in another moment the jungle had swallowed him.
The men stood silent for some moments and then slowly turned and walked back to the hotel veranda.
Tarzan had no sooner entered the jungle than he took to the trees, and it was with a feeling of exultant freedom that he swung once more through the forest branches.
This was life! Ah, how he loved it! Civilization held nothing like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance.
At last he was free. He had not realized what a prisoner he had been.
How easy it would be to circle back to the coast, and then make toward the south and his own jungle and cabin.
Now he caught the scent of Numa, for he was traveling up wind. Presently his quick ears detected the familiar sound of padded feet and the brushing of a huge, fur-clad body through the undergrowth.
Tarzan came quietly above the unsuspecting beast and silently stalked him until he came into a little patch of moonlight.
Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the tawny throat, and, as he had done it a hundred times in the past, Tarzan made fast the end to a strong branch and, while the beast fought and clawed for freedom, dropped to the ground behind him, and leaping upon the great back, plunged his long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.
Then with his foot upon the carcass of Numa, he raised his voice in the awesome victory cry of his savage tribe.
For a moment Tarzan stood irresolute, swayed by conflicting emotions of loyalty to D'Arnot and a mighty lust for the freedom of his own jungle. At last the vision of a beautiful face, and the memory of warm lips crushed to his dissolved the fascinating picture he had been drawing of his old life.
The ape-man threw the warm carcass of Numa across his shoulders and took to the trees once more.
The men upon the veranda had sat for an hour, almost in silence.
They had tried ineffectually to converse on various subjects, and always the thing uppermost in the mind of each had caused the conversation to lapse.
"MON DIEU," said the wagerer at length, "I can endure it no longer. I am going into the jungle with my express and bring back that mad man."
"I will go with you," said one.
"And I"—"And I"—"And I," chorused the others.
As though the suggestion had broken the spell of some horrid nightmare they hastened to their various quarters, and presently were headed toward the jungle—each one heavily armed.
"God! What was that?" suddenly cried one of the party, an Englishman, as Tarzan's savage cry came faintly to their ears.
"I heard the same thing once before," said a Belgian, "when I was in the gorilla country. My carriers said it was the cry of a great bull ape who has made a kill."
D'Arnot remembered Clayton's description of the awful roar with which Tarzan had announced his kills, and he half smiled in spite of the horror which filled him to think that the uncanny sound could have issued from a human throat—from the lips of his friend.
As the party stood finally near the edge of the jungle, debating as to the best distribution of their forces, they were startled by a low laugh near them, and turning, beheld advancing toward them a giant figure bearing a dead lion upon its broad shoulders.
Even D'Arnot was thunderstruck, for it seemed impossible that the man could have so quickly dispatched a lion with the pitiful weapons he had taken, or that alone he could have borne the huge carcass through the tangled jungle.
The men crowded about Tarzan with many questions, but his only answer was a laughing depreciation of his feat.
To Tarzan it was as though one should eulogize a butcher for his heroism in killing a cow, for Tarzan had killed so often for food and for self-preservation that the act seemed anything but remarkable to him. But he was indeed a hero in the eyes of these men—men accustomed to hunting big game.
Incidentally, he had won ten thousand francs, for D'Arnot insisted that he keep it all.
This was a very important item to Tarzan, who was just commencing to realize the power which lay beyond the little pieces of metal and paper which always changed hands when human beings rode, or ate, or slept, or clothed themselves, or drank, or worked, or played, or sheltered themselves from the rain or cold or sun.
It had become evident to Tarzan that without money one must die. D'Arnot had told him not to worry, since he had more than enough for both, but the ape-man was learning many things and one of them was that people looked down upon one who accepted money from another without giving something of equal value in exchange.
Shortly after the episode of the lion hunt, D'Arnot succeeded in chartering an ancient tub for the coastwise trip to Tarzan's land-locked harbor.
It was a happy morning for them both when the little vessel weighed anchor and made for the open sea.
The trip to the beach was uneventful, and the morning after they dropped anchor before the cabin, Tarzan, garbed once more in his jungle regalia and carrying a spade, set out alone for the amphitheater of the apes where lay the treasure.
Late the next day he returned, bearing the great chest upon his shoulder, and at sunrise the little vessel worked through the harbor's mouth and took up her northward journey.
Three weeks later Tarzan and D'Arnot were passengers on board a French steamer bound for Lyons, and after a few days in that city D'Arnot took Tarzan to Paris.
The ape-man was anxious to proceed to America, but D'Arnot insisted that he must accompany him to Paris first, nor would he divulge the nature of the urgent necessity upon which he based his demand.
One of the first things which D'Arnot accomplished after their arrival was to arrange to visit a high official of the police department, an old friend; and to take Tarzan with him.
Adroitly D'Arnot led the conversation from point to point until the policeman had explained to the interested Tarzan many of the methods in vogue for apprehending and identifying criminals.
Not the least interesting to Tarzan was the part played by finger prints in this fascinating science.
"But of what value are these imprints," asked Tarzan, "when, after a few years the lines upon the fingers are entirely changed by the wearing out of the old tissue and the growth of new?"
"The lines never change," replied the official. "From infancy to senility the fingerprints of an individual change only in size, except as injuries alter the loops and whorls. But if imprints have been taken of the thumb and four fingers of both hands one must needs lose all entirely to escape identification."
"It is marvelous," exclaimed D'Arnot. "I wonder what the lines upon my own fingers may resemble."
"We can soon see," replied the police officer, and ringing a bell he summoned an assistant to whom he issued a few directions.
The man left the room, but presently returned with a little hardwood box which he placed on his superior's desk.
"Now," said the officer, "you shall have your fingerprints in a second."
He drew from the little case a square of plate glass, a little tube of thick ink, a rubber roller, and a few snowy white cards.
Squeezing a drop of ink onto the glass, he spread it back and forth with the rubber roller until the entire surface of the glass was covered to his satisfaction with a very thin and uniform layer of ink.
"Place the four fingers of your right hand upon the glass, thus," he said to D'Arnot. "Now the thumb. That is right. Now place them in just the same position upon this card, here, no—a little to the right. We must leave room for the thumb and the fingers of the left hand. There, that's it. Now the same with the left."
"Come, Tarzan," cried D'Arnot, "let's see what your whorls look like."
Tarzan complied readily, asking many questions of the officer during the operation.
"Do fingerprints show racial characteristics?" he asked. "Could you determine, for example, solely from fingerprints whether the subject was Negro or Caucasian?"
"I think not," replied the officer.
"Could the finger prints of an ape be detected from those of a man?"
"Probably, because the ape's would be far simpler than those of the higher organism."
"But a cross between an ape and a man might show the characteristics of either progenitor?" continued Tarzan.
"Yes, I should think likely," responded the official; "but the science has not progressed sufficiently to render it exact enough in such matters. I should hate to trust its findings further than to differentiate between individuals. There it is absolute. No two people born into the world probably have ever had identical lines upon all their digits. It is very doubtful if any single fingerprint will ever be exactly duplicated by any finger other than the one which originally made it."
"Does the comparison require much time or labor?" asked D'Arnot.
"Ordinarily but a few moments, if the impressions are distinct."
D'Arnot drew a little black book from his pocket and commenced turning the pages.
Tarzan looked at the book in surprise. How did D'Arnot come to have his book?
Presently D'Arnot stopped at a page on which were five tiny little smudges.
He handed the open book to the policeman.
"Are these imprints similar to mine or Monsieur Tarzan's or can you say that they are identical with either?" The officer drew a powerful glass from his desk and examined all three specimens carefully, making notations meanwhile upon a pad of paper.
Tarzan realized now what was the meaning of their visit to the police officer.
The answer to his life's riddle lay in these tiny marks.
With tense nerves he sat leaning forward in his chair, but suddenly he relaxed and dropped back, smiling.
D'Arnot looked at him in surprise.
"You forget that for twenty years the dead body of the child who made those fingerprints lay in the cabin of his father, and that all my life I have seen it lying there," said Tarzan bitterly.
The policeman looked up in astonishment.
"Go ahead, captain, with your examination," said D'Arnot, "we will tell you the story later—provided Monsieur Tarzan is agreeable."
Tarzan nodded his head.
"But you are mad, my dear D'Arnot," he insisted. "Those little fingers are buried on the west coast of Africa."
"I do not know as to that, Tarzan," replied D'Arnot. "It is possible, but if you are not the son of John Clayton then how in heaven's name did you come into that God forsaken jungle where no white man other than John Clayton had ever set foot?"
"You forget—Kala," said Tarzan.
"I do not even consider her," replied D'Arnot.
The friends had walked to the broad window overlooking the boulevard as they talked. For some time they stood there gazing out upon the busy throng beneath, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
"It takes some time to compare finger prints," thought D'Arnot, turning to look at the police officer.
To his astonishment he saw the official leaning back in his chair hastily scanning the contents of the little black diary.
D'Arnot coughed. The policeman looked up, and, catching his eye, raised his finger to admonish silence. D'Arnot turned back to the window, and presently the police officer spoke.
"Gentlemen," he said.
Both turned toward him.
"There is evidently a great deal at stake which must hinge to a greater or lesser extent upon the absolute correctness of this comparison. I therefore ask that you leave the entire matter in my hands until Monsieur Desquerc, our expert returns. It will be but a matter of a few days."
"I had hoped to know at once," said D'Arnot. "Monsieur Tarzan sails for America tomorrow."
"I will promise that you can cable him a report within two weeks," replied the officer; "but what it will be I dare not say. There are resemblances, yet—well, we had better leave it for Monsieur Desquerc to solve."
Chapter XXVII
The Giant Again
A taxicab drew up before an oldfashioned residence upon the outskirts of Baltimore.
A man of about forty, well built and with strong, regular features, stepped out, and paying the chauffeur dismissed him.
A moment later the passenger was entering the library of the old home.
"Ah, Mr. Canler!" exclaimed an old man, rising to greet him.
"Good evening, my dear Professor," cried the man, extending a cordial hand.
"Who admitted you?" asked the professor.
"Esmeralda."
"Then she will acquaint Jane with the fact that you are here," said the old man.
"No, Professor," replied Canler, "for I came primarily to see you."
"Ah, I am honored," said Professor Porter.
"Professor," continued Robert Canler, with great deliberation, as though carefully weighing his words, "I have come this evening to speak with you about Jane.
"You know my aspirations, and you have been generous enough to approve my suit."
Professor Archimedes Q. Porter fidgeted in his armchair. The subject always made him uncomfortable. He could not understand why. Canler was a splendid match.
"But Jane," continued Canler, "I cannot understand her. She puts me off first on one ground and then another. I have always the feeling that she breathes a sigh of relief every time I bid her good-by."
"Tut, tut," said Professor Porter. "Tut, tut, Mr. Canler. Jane is a most obedient daughter. She will do precisely as I tell her."
"Then I can still count on your support?" asked Canler, a tone of relief marking his voice.
"Certainly, sir; certainly, sir," exclaimed Professor Porter. "How could you doubt it?"
"There is young Clayton, you know," suggested Canler. "He has been hanging about for months. I don't know that Jane cares for him; but beside his title they say he has inherited a very considerable estate from his father, and it might not be strange,—if he finally won her, unless—" and Canler paused.
"Tut—tut, Mr. Canler; unless—what?"
"Unless, you see fit to request that Jane and I be married at once," said Canler, slowly and distinctly.
"I have already suggested to Jane that it would be desirable," said Professor Porter sadly, "for we can no longer afford to keep up this house, and live as her associations demand."
"What was her reply?" asked Canler.
"She said she was not ready to marry anyone yet," replied Professor Porter, "and that we could go and live upon the farm in northern Wisconsin which her mother left her.
"It is a little more than self-supporting. The tenants have always made a living from it, and been able to send Jane a trifle beside, each year. She is planning on our going up there the first of the week. Philander and Mr. Clayton have already gone to get things in readiness for us."
"Clayton has gone there?" exclaimed Canler, visibly chagrined. "Why was I not told? I would gladly have gone and seen that every comfort was provided."
"Jane feels that we are already too much in your debt, Mr. Canler," said Professor Porter.
Canler was about to reply, when the sound of footsteps came from the hall without, and Jane entered the room.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed, pausing on the threshold. "I thought you were alone, papa."
"It is only I, Jane," said Canler, who had risen, "won't you come in and join the family group? We were just speaking of you."
"Thank you," said Jane, entering and taking the chair Canler placed for her. "I only wanted to tell papa that Tobey is coming down from the college tomorrow to pack his books. I want you to be sure, papa, to indicate all that you can do without until fall. Please don't carry this entire library to Wisconsin, as you would have carried it to Africa, if I had not put my foot down."
"Was Tobey here?" asked Professor Porter.
"Yes, I just left him. He and Esmeralda are exchanging religious experiences on the back porch now."
"Tut, tut, I must see him at once!" cried the professor. "Excuse me just a moment, children," and the old man hastened from the room.
As soon as he was out of earshot Canler turned to Jane.
"See here, Jane," he said bluntly. "How long is this thing going on like this? You haven't refused to marry me, but you haven't promised either. I want to get the license tomorrow, so that we can be married quietly before you leave for Wisconsin. I don't care for any fuss or feathers, and I'm sure you don't either."
The girl turned cold, but she held her head bravely.
"Your father wishes it, you know," added Canler.
"Yes, I know."
She spoke scarcely above a whisper.
"Do you realize that you are buying me, Mr. Canler?" she said finally, and in a cold, level voice. "Buying me for a few paltry dollars? Of course you do, Robert Canler, and the hope of just such a contingency was in your mind when you loaned papa the money for that hair-brained escapade, which but for a most mysterious circumstance would have been surprisingly successful.
"But you, Mr. Canler, would have been the most surprised. You had no idea that the venture would succeed. You are too good a businessman for that. And you are too good a businessman to loan money for buried treasure seeking, or to loan money without security—unless you had some special object in view.
"You knew that without security you had a greater hold on the honor of the Porters than with it. You knew the one best way to force me to marry you, without seeming to force me.
"You have never mentioned the loan. In any other man I should have thought that the prompting of a magnanimous and noble character. But you are deep, Mr. Robert Canler. I know you better than you think I know you.
"I shall certainly marry you if there is no other way, but let us understand each other once and for all."
While she spoke Robert Canler had alternately flushed and paled, and when she ceased speaking he arose, and with a cynical smile upon his strong face, said:
"You surprise me, Jane. I thought you had more self-control—more pride. Of course you are right. I am buying you, and I knew that you knew it, but I thought you would prefer to pretend that it was otherwise. I should have thought your self respect and your Porter pride would have shrunk from admitting, even to yourself, that you were a bought woman. But have it your own way, dear girl," he added lightly. "I am going to have you, and that is all that interests me."
Without a word the girl turned and left the room.
Jane was not married before she left with her father and Esmeralda for her little Wisconsin farm, and as she coldly bid Robert Canler goodby as her train pulled out, he called to her that he would join them in a week or two.
At their destination they were met by Clayton and Mr. Philander in a huge touring car belonging to the former, and quickly whirled away through the dense northern woods toward the little farm which the girl had not visited before since childhood.
The farmhouse, which stood on a little elevation some hundred yards from the tenant house, had undergone a complete transformation during the three weeks that Clayton and Mr. Philander had been there.
The former had imported a small army of carpenters and plasterers, plumbers and painters from a distant city, and what had been but a dilapidated shell when they reached it was now a cosy little two-story house filled with every modern convenience procurable in so short a time.
"Why, Mr. Clayton, what have you done?" cried Jane Porter, her heart sinking within her as she realized the probable size of the expenditure that had been made.
"S-sh," cautioned Clayton. "Don't let your father guess. If you don't tell him he will never notice, and I simply couldn't think of him living in the terrible squalor and sordidness which Mr. Philander and I found. It was so little when I would like to do so much, Jane. For his sake, please, never mention it."
"But you know that we can't repay you," cried the girl. "Why do you want to put me under such terrible obligations?"
"Don't, Jane," said Clayton sadly. "If it had been just you, believe me, I wouldn't have done it, for I knew from the start that it would only hurt me in your eyes, but I couldn't think of that dear old man living in the hole we found here. Won't you please believe that I did it just for him and give me that little crumb of pleasure at least?"
"I do believe you, Mr. Clayton," said the girl, "because I know you are big enough and generous enough to have done it just for him—and, oh Cecil, I wish I might repay you as you deserve—as you would wish."
"Why can't you, Jane?"
"Canler?"
"No."
"But you are going to marry him. He told me as much before I left Baltimore."
The girl winced.
"I do not love him," she said, almost proudly.
"Is it because of the money, Jane?"
She nodded.
"Then am I so much less desirable than Canler? I have money enough, and far more, for every need," he said bitterly.
"I do not love you, Cecil," she said, "but I respect you. If I must disgrace myself by such a bargain with any man, I prefer that it be one I already despise. I should loathe the man to whom I sold myself without love, whomsoever he might be. You will be happier," she concluded, "alone—with my respect and friendship, than with me and my contempt."
He did not press the matter further, but if ever a man had murder in his heart it was William Cecil Clayton, Lord Greystoke, when, a week later, Robert Canler drew up before the farmhouse in his purring six cylinder.
A week passed; a tense, uneventful, but uncomfortable week for all the inmates of the little Wisconsin farmhouse.
Canler was insistent that Jane marry him at once.
At length she gave in from sheer loathing of the continued and hateful importuning.
It was agreed that on the morrow Canler was to drive to town and bring back the license and a minister.
Clayton had wanted to leave as soon as the plan was announced, but the girl's tired, hopeless look kept him. He could not desert her.
Something might happen yet, he tried to console himself by thinking. And in his heart, he knew that it would require but a tiny spark to turn his hatred for Canler into the blood lust of the killer.
Early the next morning Canler set out for town.
In the east smoke could be seen lying low over the forest, for a fire had been raging for a week not far from them, but the wind still lay in the west and no danger threatened them.
About noon Jane started off for a walk. She would not let Clayton accompany her. She wanted to be alone, she said, and he respected her wishes.
In the house Professor Porter and Mr. Philander were immersed in an absorbing discussion of some weighty scientific problem. Esmeralda dozed in the kitchen, and Clayton, heavy-eyed after a sleepless night, threw himself down upon the couch in the living room and soon dropped into a fitful slumber.
To the east the black smoke clouds rose higher into the heavens, suddenly they eddied, and then commenced to drift rapidly toward the west.
On and on they came. The inmates of the tenant house were gone, for it was market day, and none was there to see the rapid approach of the fiery demon.
Soon the flames had spanned the road to the south and cut off Canler's return. A little fluctuation of the wind now carried the path of the forest fire to the north, then blew back and the flames nearly stood still as though held in leash by some master hand.
Suddenly, out of the northeast, a great black car came careening down the road.
With a jolt it stopped before the cottage, and a black-haired giant leaped out to run up onto the porch. Without a pause he rushed into the house. On the couch lay Clayton. The man started in surprise, but with a bound was at the side of the sleeping man.
Shaking him roughly by the shoulder, he cried:
"My God, Clayton, are you all mad here? Don't you know you are nearly surrounded by fire? Where is Miss Porter?"
Clayton sprang to his feet. He did not recognize the man, but he understood the words and was upon the veranda in a bound.
"Scott!" he cried, and then, dashing back into the house, "Jane! Jane! where are you?"
In an instant Esmeralda, Professor Porter and Mr. Philander had joined the two men.
"Where is Miss Jane?" cried Clayton, seizing Esmeralda by the shoulders and shaking her roughly.
"Oh, Gaberelle, Mister Clayton, she done gone for a walk."
"Hasn't she come back yet?" and, without waiting for a reply, Clayton dashed out into the yard, followed by the others. "Which way did she go?" cried the black-haired giant of Esmeralda.
"Down that road," cried the frightened woman, pointing toward the south where a mighty wall of roaring flames shut out the view.
"Put these people in the other car," shouted the stranger to Clayton. "I saw one as I drove up—and get them out of here by the north road.
"Leave my car here. If I find Miss Porter we shall need it. If I don't, no one will need it. Do as I say," as Clayton hesitated, and then they saw the lithe figure bound away cross the clearing toward the northwest where the forest still stood, untouched by flame.
In each rose the unaccountable feeling that a great responsibility had been raised from their shoulders; a kind of implicit confidence in the power of the stranger to save Jane if she could be saved.
"Who was that?" asked Professor Porter.
"I do not know," replied Clayton. "He called me by name and he knew Jane, for he asked for her. And he called Esmeralda by name."
"There was something most startlingly familiar about him," exclaimed Mr. Philander, "And yet, bless me, I know I never saw him before."
"Tut, tut!" cried Professor Porter. "Most remarkable! Who could it have been, and why do I feel that Jane is safe, now that he has set out in search of her?"
"I can't tell you, Professor," said Clayton soberly, "but I know I have the same uncanny feeling."
"But come," he cried, "we must get out of here ourselves, or we shall be shut off," and the party hastened toward Clayton's car.
When Jane turned to retrace her steps homeward, she was alarmed to note how near the smoke of the forest fire seemed, and as she hastened onward her alarm became almost a panic when she perceived that the rushing flames were rapidly forcing their way between herself and the cottage.
At length she was compelled to turn into the dense thicket and attempt to force her way to the west in an effort to circle around the flames and reach the house.
In a short time the futility of her attempt became apparent and then her one hope lay in retracing her steps to the road and flying for her life to the south toward the town.
The twenty minutes that it took her to regain the road was all that had been needed to cut off her retreat as effectually as her advance had been cut off before.
A short run down the road brought her to a horrified stand, for there before her was another wall of flame. An arm of the main conflagration had shot out a half mile south of its parent to embrace this tiny strip of road in its implacable clutches.
Jane knew that it was useless again to attempt to force her way through the undergrowth.
She had tried it once, and failed. Now she realized that it would be but a matter of minutes ere the whole space between the north and the south would be a seething mass of billowing flames.
Calmly the girl kneeled down in the dust of the roadway and prayed for strength to meet her fate bravely, and for the delivery of her father and her friends from death.
Suddenly she heard her name being called aloud through the forest:
"Jane! Jane Porter!" It rang strong and clear, but in a strange voice.
"Here!" she called in reply. "Here! In the roadway!"
Then through the branches of the trees she saw a figure swinging with the speed of a squirrel.
A veering of the wind blew a cloud of smoke about them and she could no longer see the man who was speeding toward her, but suddenly she felt a great arm about her. Then she was lifted up, and she felt the rushing of the wind and the occasional brush of a branch as she was borne along.
She opened her eyes.
Far below her lay the undergrowth and the hard earth.
About her was the waving foliage of the forest.
From tree to tree swung the giant figure which bore her, and it seemed to Jane that she was living over in a dream the experience that had been hers in that far African jungle.
Oh, if it were but the same man who had borne her so swiftly through the tangled verdure on that other day! but that was impossible! Yet who else in all the world was there with the strength and agility to do what this man was now doing?
She stole a sudden glance at the face close to hers, and then she gave a little frightened gasp. It was he!
"My forest man!" she murmured. "No, I must be delirious!"
"Yes, your man, Jane Porter. Your savage, primeval man come out of the jungle to claim his mate—the woman who ran away from him," he added almost fiercely.
"I did not run away," she whispered. "I would only consent to leave when they had waited a week for you to return."
They had come to a point beyond the fire now, and he had turned back to the clearing.
Side by side they were walking toward the cottage. The wind had changed once more and the fire was burning back upon itself—another hour like that and it would be burned out.
"Why did you not return?" she asked.
"I was nursing D'Arnot. He was badly wounded."
"Ah, I knew it!" she exclaimed.
"They said you had gone to join the blacks—that they were your people."
He laughed.
"But you did not believe them, Jane?"
"No;—what shall I call you?" she asked. "What is your name?"
"I was Tarzan of the Apes when you first knew me," he said.
"Tarzan of the Apes!" she cried—"and that was your note I answered when I left?"
"Yes, whose did you think it was?"
"I did not know; only that it could not be yours, for Tarzan of the Apes had written in English, and you could not understand a word of any language."
Again he laughed.
"It is a long story, but it was I who wrote what I could not speak—and now D'Arnot has made matters worse by teaching me to speak French instead of English.
"Come," he added, "jump into my car, we must overtake your father, they are only a little way ahead."
As they drove along, he said:
"Then when you said in your note to Tarzan of the Apes that you loved another—you might have meant me?"
"I might have," she answered, simply.
"But in Baltimore—Oh, how I have searched for you—they told me you would possibly be married by now. That a man named Canler had come up here to wed you. Is that true?"
"Yes."
She buried her face in her hands.
"I am promised to another. I cannot answer you, Tarzan of the Apes," she cried.
"You have answered. Now, tell me why you would marry one you do not love."
"My father owes him money."
Suddenly there came back to Tarzan the memory of the letter he had read—and the name Robert Canler and the hinted trouble which he had been unable to understand then.
He smiled.
"If your father had not lost the treasure you would not feel forced to keep your promise to this man Canler?"
"I could ask him to release me."
"And if he refused?"
"I have given my promise."
He was silent for a moment. The car was plunging along the uneven road at a reckless pace, for the fire showed threateningly at their right, and another change of the wind might sweep it on with raging fury across this one avenue of escape.
Finally they passed the danger point, and Tarzan reduced their speed.
"Suppose I should ask him?" ventured Tarzan.
"He would scarcely accede to the demand of a stranger," said the girl. "Especially one who wanted me himself."
"Terkoz did," said Tarzan, grimly.
Jane shuddered and looked fearfully up at the giant figure beside her, for she knew that he meant the great anthropoid he had killed in her defense.
"This is not the African jungle," she said. "You are no longer a savage beast. You are a gentleman, and gentlemen do not kill in cold blood."
"I am still a wild beast at heart," he said, in a low voice, as though to himself.
Again they were silent for a time.
"Jane," said the man, at length, "if you were free, would you marry me?"
She did not reply at once, but he waited patiently.
The girl was trying to collect her thoughts.
What did she know of this strange creature at her side? What did he know of himself? Who was he? Who, his parents?
Why, his very name echoed his mysterious origin and his savage life.
He had no name. Could she be happy with this jungle waif? Could she find anything in common with a husband whose life had been spent in the tree tops of an African wilderness, frolicking and fighting with fierce anthropoids; tearing his food from the quivering flank of fresh-killed prey, sinking his strong teeth into raw flesh, and tearing away his portion while his mates growled and fought about him for their share?
Could he ever rise to her social sphere? Could she bear to think of sinking to his? Would either be happy in such a horrible misalliance?
"You do not answer," he said. "Do you shrink from wounding me?"
"I do not know what answer to make," said Jane sadly. "I do not know my own mind."
"You do not love me, then?" he asked, in a level tone.
"Do not ask me. You will be happier without me. You were never meant for the formal restrictions and conventionalities of society—civilization would become irksome to you, and in a little while you would long for the freedom of your old life—a life to which I am as totally unfitted as you to mine."
"I think I understand you," he replied quietly. "I shall not urge you, for I would rather see you happy than to be happy myself. I see now that you could not be happy with—an ape."
There was just the faintest tinge of bitterness in his voice.
"Don't," she remonstrated. "Don't say that. You do not understand."
But before she could go on a sudden turn in the road brought them into the midst of a little hamlet.
Before them stood Clayton's car surrounded by the party he had brought from the cottage.
Chapter XXVIII
Conclusion
At the sight of Jane, cries of relief and delight broke from every lip, and as Tarzan's car stopped beside the other, Professor Porter caught his daughter in his arms.
For a moment no one noticed Tarzan, sitting silently in his seat.
Clayton was the first to remember, and, turning, held out his hand.
"How can we ever thank you?" he exclaimed. "You have saved us all. You called me by name at the cottage, but I do not seem to recall yours, though there is something very familiar about you. It is as though I had known you well under very different conditions a long time ago."
Tarzan smiled as he took the proffered hand.
"You are quite right, Monsieur Clayton," he said, in French. "You will pardon me if I do not speak to you in English. I am just learning it, and while I understand it fairly well I speak it very poorly."
"But who are you?" insisted Clayton, speaking in French this time himself.
"Tarzan of the Apes."
Clayton started back in surprise.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "It is true."
And Professor Porter and Mr. Philander pressed forward to add their thanks to Clayton's, and to voice their surprise and pleasure at seeing their jungle friend so far from his savage home.
The party now entered the modest little hostelry, where Clayton soon made arrangements for their entertainment.
They were sitting in the little, stuffy parlor when the distant chugging of an approaching automobile caught their attention.
Mr. Philander, who was sitting near the window, looked out as the car drew in sight, finally stopping beside the other automobiles.
"Bless me!" said Mr. Philander, a shade of annoyance in his tone. "It is Mr. Canler. I had hoped, er—I had thought or—er—how very happy we should be that he was not caught in the fire," he ended lamely.
"Tut, tut! Mr. Philander," said Professor Porter. "Tut, tut! I have often admonished my pupils to count ten before speaking. Were I you, Mr. Philander, I should count at least a thousand, and then maintain a discreet silence."
"Bless me, yes!" acquiesced Mr. Philander. "But who is the clerical appearing gentleman with him?"
Jane blanched.
Clayton moved uneasily in his chair.
Professor Porter removed his spectacles nervously, and breathed upon them, but replaced them on his nose without wiping.
The ubiquitous Esmeralda grunted.
Only Tarzan did not comprehend.
Presently Robert Canler burst into the room.
"Thank God!" he cried. "I feared the worst, until I saw your car, Clayton. I was cut off on the south road and had to go away back to town, and then strike east to this road. I thought we'd never reach the cottage."
No one seemed to enthuse much. Tarzan eyed Robert Canler as Sabor eyes her prey.
Jane glanced at him and coughed nervously.
"Mr. Canler," she said, "this is Monsieur Tarzan, an old friend."
Canler turned and extended his hand. Tarzan rose and bowed as only D'Arnot could have taught a gentleman to do it, but he did not seem to see Canler's hand.
Nor did Canler appear to notice the oversight.
"This is the Reverend Mr. Tousley, Jane," said Canler, turning to the clerical party behind him. "Mr. Tousley, Miss Porter."
Mr. Tousley bowed and beamed.
Canler introduced him to the others.
"We can have the ceremony at once, Jane," said Canler. "Then you and I can catch the midnight train in town."
Tarzan understood the plan instantly. He glanced out of half-closed eyes at Jane, but he did not move.
The girl hesitated. The room was tense with the silence of taut nerves.
All eyes turned toward Jane, awaiting her reply.
"Can't we wait a few days?" she asked. "I am all unstrung. I have been through so much today."
Canler felt the hostility that emanated from each member of the party. It made him angry.
"We have waited as long as I intend to wait," he said roughly. "You have promised to marry me. I shall be played with no longer. I have the license and here is the preacher. Come Mr. Tousley; come Jane. There are plenty of witnesses—more than enough," he added with a disagreeable inflection; and taking Jane Porter by the arm, he started to lead her toward the waiting minister.
But scarcely had he taken a single step ere a heavy hand closed upon his arm with a grip of steel.
Another hand shot to his throat and in a moment he was being shaken high above the floor, as a cat might shake a mouse.
Jane turned in horrified surprise toward Tarzan.
And, as she looked into his face, she saw the crimson band upon his forehead that she had seen that other day in far distant Africa, when Tarzan of the Apes had closed in mortal combat with the great anthropoid—Terkoz.
She knew that murder lay in that savage heart, and with a little cry of horror she sprang forward to plead with the ape-man. But her fears were more for Tarzan than for Canler. She realized the stern retribution which justice metes to the murderer.
Before she could reach them, however, Clayton had jumped to Tarzan's side and attempted to drag Canler from his grasp.
With a single sweep of one mighty arm the Englishman was hurled across the room, and then Jane laid a firm white hand upon Tarzan's wrist, and looked up into his eyes.
"For my sake," she said.
The grasp upon Canler's throat relaxed.
Tarzan looked down into the beautiful face before him.
"Do you wish this to live?" he asked in surprise.
"I do not wish him to die at your hands, my friend," she replied. "I do not wish you to become a murderer."
Tarzan removed his hand from Canler's throat.
"Do you release her from her promise?" he asked. "It is the price of your life."
Canler, gasping for breath, nodded.
"Will you go away and never molest her further?"
Again the man nodded his head, his face distorted by fear of the death that had been so close.
Tarzan released him, and Canler staggered toward the door. In another moment he was gone, and the terror-stricken preacher with him.
Tarzan turned toward Jane.
"May I speak with you for a moment, alone," he asked.
The girl nodded and started toward the door leading to the narrow veranda of the little hotel. She passed out to await Tarzan and so did not hear the conversation which followed.
"Wait," cried Professor Porter, as Tarzan was about to follow.
The professor had been stricken dumb with surprise by the rapid developments of the past few minutes.
"Before we go further, sir, I should like an explanation of the events which have just transpired. By what right, sir, did you interfere between my daughter and Mr. Canler? I had promised him her hand, sir, and regardless of our personal likes or dislikes, sir, that promise must be kept."
"I interfered, Professor Porter," replied Tarzan, "because your daughter does not love Mr. Canler—she does not wish to marry him. That is enough for me to know."
"You do not know what you have done," said Professor Porter. "Now he will doubtless refuse to marry her."
"He most certainly will," said Tarzan, emphatically.
"And further," added Tarzan, "you need not fear that your pride will suffer, Professor Porter, for you will be able to pay the Canler person what you owe him the moment you reach home."
"Tut, tut, sir!" exclaimed Professor Porter. "What do you mean, sir?"
"Your treasure has been found," said Tarzan.
"What—what is that you are saying?" cried the professor. "You are mad, man. It cannot be."
"It is, though. It was I who stole it, not knowing either its value or to whom it belonged. I saw the sailors bury it, and, ape-like, I had to dig it up and bury it again elsewhere. When D'Arnot told me what it was and what it meant to you I returned to the jungle and recovered it. It had caused so much crime and suffering and sorrow that D'Arnot thought it best not to attempt to bring the treasure itself on here, as had been my intention, so I have brought a letter of credit instead.
"Here it is, Professor Porter," and Tarzan drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the astonished professor, "two hundred and forty-one thousand dollars. The treasure was most carefully appraised by experts, but lest there should be any question in your mind, D'Arnot himself bought it and is holding it for you, should you prefer the treasure to the credit."
"To the already great burden of the obligations we owe you, sir," said Professor Porter, with trembling voice, "is now added this greatest of all services. You have given me the means to save my honor."
Clayton, who had left the room a moment after Canler, now returned.
"Pardon me," he said. "I think we had better try to reach town before dark and take the first train out of this forest. A native just rode by from the north, who reports that the fire is moving slowly in this direction."
This announcement broke up further conversation, and the entire party went out to the waiting automobiles.
Clayton, with Jane, the professor and Esmeralda occupied Clayton's car, while Tarzan took Mr. Philander in with him.
"Bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Philander, as the car moved off after Clayton. "Who would ever have thought it possible! The last time I saw you you were a veritable wild man, skipping about among the branches of a tropical African forest, and now you are driving me along a Wisconsin road in a French automobile. Bless me! But it is most remarkable."
"Yes," assented Tarzan, and then, after a pause, "Mr. Philander, do you recall any of the details of the finding and burying of three skeletons found in my cabin beside that African jungle?"
"Very distinctly, sir, very distinctly," replied Mr. Philander.
"Was there anything peculiar about any of those skeletons?"
Mr. Philander eyed Tarzan narrowly.
"Why do you ask?"
"It means a great deal to me to know," replied Tarzan. "Your answer may clear up a mystery. It can do no worse, at any rate, than to leave it still a mystery. I have been entertaining a theory concerning those skeletons for the past two months, and I want you to answer my question to the best of your knowledge—were the three skeletons you buried all human skeletons?"
"No," said Mr. Philander, "the smallest one, the one found in the crib, was the skeleton of an anthropoid ape."
"Thank you," said Tarzan.
In the car ahead, Jane was thinking fast and furiously. She had felt the purpose for which Tarzan had asked a few words with her, and she knew that she must be prepared to give him an answer in the very near future.
He was not the sort of person one could put off, and somehow that very thought made her wonder if she did not really fear him.
And could she love where she feared?
She realized the spell that had been upon her in the depths of that far-off jungle, but there was no spell of enchantment now in prosaic Wisconsin.
Nor did the immaculate young Frenchman appeal to the primal woman in her, as had the stalwart forest god.
Did she love him? She did not know—now.
She glanced at Clayton out of the corner of her eye. Was not here a man trained in the same school of environment in which she had been trained—a man with social position and culture such as she had been taught to consider as the prime essentials to congenial association?
Did not her best judgment point to this young English nobleman, whose love she knew to be of the sort a civilized woman should crave, as the logical mate for such as herself?
Could she love Clayton? She could see no reason why she could not. Jane was not coldly calculating by nature, but training, environment and heredity had all combined to teach her to reason even in matters of the heart.
That she had been carried off her feet by the strength of the young giant when his great arms were about her in the distant African forest, and again today, in the Wisconsin woods, seemed to her only attributable to a temporary mental reversion to type on her part—to the psychological appeal of the primeval man to the primeval woman in her nature.
If he should never touch her again, she reasoned, she would never feel attracted toward him. She had not loved him, then. It had been nothing more than a passing hallucination, super-induced by excitement and by personal contact.
Excitement would not always mark their future relations, should she marry him, and the power of personal contact eventually would be dulled by familiarity.
Again she glanced at Clayton. He was very handsome and every inch a gentleman. She should be very proud of such a husband.
And then he spoke—a minute sooner or a minute later might have made all the difference in the world to three lives—but chance stepped in and pointed out to Clayton the psychological moment.
"You are free now, Jane," he said. "Won't you say yes—I will devote my life to making you very happy."
"Yes," she whispered.
That evening in the little waiting room at the station Tarzan caught Jane alone for a moment.
"You are free now, Jane," he said, "and _I_ have come across the ages out of the dim and distant past from the lair of the primeval man to claim you—for your sake I have become a civilized man—for your sake I have crossed oceans and continents—for your sake I will be whatever you will me to be. I can make you happy, Jane, in the life you know and love best. Will you marry me?"
For the first time she realized the depths of the man's love—all that he had accomplished in so short a time solely for love of her. Turning her head she buried her face in her arms.
What had she done? Because she had been afraid she might succumb to the pleas of this giant, she had burned her bridges behind her—in her groundless apprehension that she might make a terrible mistake, she had made a worse one.
And then she told him all—told him the truth word by word, without attempting to shield herself or condone her error.
"What can we do?" he asked. "You have admitted that you love me. You know that I love you; but I do not know the ethics of society by which you are governed. I shall leave the decision to you, for you know best what will be for your eventual welfare."
"I cannot tell him, Tarzan," she said. "He too, loves me, and he is a good man. I could never face you nor any other honest person if I repudiated my promise to Mr. Clayton. I shall have to keep it—and you must help me bear the burden, though we may not see each other again after tonight."
The others were entering the room now and Tarzan turned toward the little window.
But he saw nothing outside—within he saw a patch of greensward surrounded by a matted mass of gorgeous tropical plants and flowers, and, above, the waving foliage of mighty trees, and, over all, the blue of an equatorial sky.
In the center of the greensward a young woman sat upon a little mound of earth, and beside her sat a young giant. They ate pleasant fruit and looked into each other's eyes and smiled. They were very happy, and they were all alone.
His thoughts were broken in upon by the station agent who entered asking if there was a gentleman by the name of Tarzan in the party.
"I am Monsieur Tarzan," said the ape-man.
"Here is a message for you, forwarded from Baltimore; it is a cablegram from Paris."
Tarzan took the envelope and tore it open. The message was from D'Arnot.
It read:
Fingerprints prove you Greystoke. Congratulations.
D'ARNOT.
As Tarzan finished reading, Clayton entered and came toward him with extended hand.
Here was the man who had Tarzan's title, and Tarzan's estates, and was going to marry the woman whom Tarzan loved—the woman who loved Tarzan. A single word from Tarzan would make a great difference in this man's life.
It would take away his title and his lands and his castles, and—it would take them away from Jane Porter also. "I say, old man," cried Clayton, "I haven't had a chance to thank you for all you've done for us. It seems as though you had your hands full saving our lives in Africa and here.
"I'm awfully glad you came on here. We must get better acquainted. I often thought about you, you know, and the remarkable circumstances of your environment.
"If it's any of my business, how the devil did you ever get into that bally jungle?"
"I was born there," said Tarzan, quietly. "My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn't tell me much about it. I never knew who my father was."
FOR THE
FURTHER ADVENTURES OF LORD GREYSTOKE
READ THE RETURN OF TARZAN
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| i don't know |
Prince William adopted which title in 2011? | What Is Prince William’s Surname And Could The Royal Baby Take His Last Name?
What Is Prince William’s Surname And Could The Royal Baby Take His Last Name?
07/23/13 AT 10:35 AM
Close
Did you know that Prince William, along with his royal title, actually has a last name? Well, he does, and now that the royal baby has been born , will the new little prince adopt the family surname?
William’s official title is Duke of Cambridge, but the public generally refers to him as Prince William. And though we call his wife Kate Middleton, as she was known when she first came into the public eye while dating William before the wedding in 2011, she is officially Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. Prince William and his brother, Harry, also often go by William Wales and Harry Wales, respectively, based on their father’s title, Charles Prince of Wales.
And if that’s not confusing enough for us non-royals to understand, it gets even muddier when it comes to the royal baby. Though we do not know the child’s first name yet -- he was born just yesterday afternoon in London -- the newborn prince’s full name could vary. Or he may not have one at all, according to the BBC .
Prince William
Photo: Reuters
It all depends on what Kate and William decide, but the royal baby could have a few options when it comes to his name. According to the royal family website , members of the British royalty can choose whether to have a surname or simply use the name of the royal house in which they reside.
The couple could decide the baby’s surname will be Wales, as William often goes by William Wales from his father’s house. Option two: The baby could adopt the Cambridge surname, taken from the royal house in which his parents, William and Kate, live. Or, finally, the biggest mouthful of them all, Mountbatten-Windsor, which would make the baby’s full name… His Royal Highness Prince (Name) Mountbatten-Windsor of Cambridge. (Perhaps they should just name him Bob?)
So where does the surname Mountbatten-Windsor come from?
The Windsor portion of the surname comes from Queen Elizabeth II’s father, King George V, who selected that surname for the family in 1917 during the first world war. Before that, there was no royal surname and members of the British royal family simply used the name of whatever house they lived in. In 1917, he declared that Windsor, after the castle of the same name, would be used for the future.
When the queen succeeded to the throne in 1952, she confirmed the surname Windsor. She'd married Prince Philip in 1947, and the Mountbatten part of the last name comes from him, the Duke of Edinburgh, who got the name from his maternal grandparents. The queen and the duke decided to distinguish their royal descendants from the rest of the royal family and adopted the full surname of Mountbatten-Windsor. That’s when the Privy Council decided on the surname for all the queen’s children moving forward.
According to the official royal family website, the baby will likely adopt the Mountbatten-Windsor surname, though there is a choice involved. “Unless the Prince of Wales chooses to alter the present decisions when he becomes king, he will continue to be of the House of Windsor and his grandchildren will use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor,” the site said .
So the royal baby, whose first name we await with bated breath, will indeed likely be: His Royal Highness Prince (Name) Mountbatten-Windsor of Cambridge.
I’ll still put my money on Bob.
| Duke of Cambridge |
The Gay Gordons is commonly danced to which tune? | Prince William's Title Becomes Duke Of Cambridge, Kate Named 'Duchess' | The Huffington Post
Prince William's Title Becomes Duke Of Cambridge, Kate Named 'Duchess'
04/29/2011 01:56 pm ET | Updated Jun 29, 2011
120
Queen Elizabeth II bestowed new titles upon Prince William and Kate Middleton just prior to their royal wedding today: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
And that's not all. William also becomes Earl of Strathearn and Baron of Carrickfergus, making Kate a countess and baroness as well.
There had been local speculation in the days leading up to the wedding that the city of Cambridge would be involved in the new titles, typically reserved for younger members of the royal family.
The Guardian notes that Prince William is the 10th royal family member to be named an earl, marquess or duke of Cambridge, but the monarchy's relationship with the city has been rocky in the past:
Relations between Cambridge and the monarchy have been about as stable as the average royal marriage (present company excluded, of course). In the Reformation and in the British revolutions of the 17th century, Oxford was always seen as the loyal university, Cambridge as the stroppy one. There were puritans in both universities, of course, but Cambridge puritans always seemed the noisier and more offensive and in Emmanuel College, Cambridge developed a veritable factory for the production of preachers intent on poking Stuart kings in the eye.
The last time a Duke of Cambridge was instated was 1801 (Prince Adolphus and his son Prince George held the title). It was first created in the 17th century.
| i don't know |
In the USA unidentified women are usually assigned which name? | Unidentified Dead Common on the Border | Latino America | ASU News21
2009 Story Archive
Unidentified Dead Common on the Border
Families of missing immigrants, law enforcement and medical examiners band together in a macabre effort to match unidentified dead bodies with missing persons.
By Rebekah Zemansky
TUCSON, Ariz. — The calls come in every day from people who are searching for sons and fathers, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers. Robin Reineke seems unfazed by the volume as she patiently asks the same questions case after case.
Where was he going? When was she last seen? How tall? How much does he weigh? Does she have any tattoos or scars? Has he had any dental work, and do you have a picture where he’s smiling?
Death on the Border
An Execution on the Border
Reineke, a University of Arizona graduate student, is working for the Pima County, Arizona Medical Examiner’s Office, trying to identify the unidentified — scores of people who have died in the desert, most of them migrants crossing illegally from Mexico to the U.S.
Pima County is more successful than most at the task — it identifies 70 percent of the bodies brought in. Yet staff members push themselves to do better — they know that for the 30 percent of their cases that are unresolved they cannot return the body to family members. And those mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands and wives may never be at peace.
“The tragedy of the situation is similar to the tragedy that we see on a daily basis here of people who often through no fault of their own or maybe were naive to some degree end up dying at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Dr. Bruce Parks, Pima County’s medical examiner.
Since 2001, Parks’ office has handled more than 1,500 border-crosser deaths, a major increase from prior decades. More than 500 are John or Jane Does — people whose bodies have been too damaged by the harsh desert conditions or who carry no verifiable identification.
Southern Arizona became a preferred place to cross in the 1990s, when U.S. immigration officials implemented tougher border enforcement through Operation Gatekeeper in California and Operation Hold the Line in Texas. The clamp down in those states funneled more illegal immigrant traffic into Arizona. In the meantime, border security has been increased across the board, with more formidable fences and an increase in Border Patrol officers. All this has resulted in smugglers leading migrants through more remote territory — higher into the mountains, farther from towns and highways and deeper into the desert.
Workers from Adair’s Carroon Mortuary help Santa Cruz County officials recover an unidentified dead body in the desert near Nogales, Ariz.
“It’s been going on now for over 10 years and there are offices like this which are involved in finding out who the people are and there’re offices doing other aspects of the work to try to locate these people and save them and take care of them and render medical care, if they’re lucky enough to survive,” said Parks. “So in southern Arizona, and a few other places along the border, it’s a big deal and it’s a sad situation.”
And the problem continues to grow worse. So far 2010 has broken records for migrant deaths each month: 18 deaths in January; 24 in February; 11 in March; 14 in April; 17 in May; and 25 in June.
The process of identifying the dead is a painstaking one. Sometimes things fall into place — a missing person’s report matches physical descriptions of a body or other descriptions provided by relatives searching for loved ones.
Reineke is the last person relatives of missing persons call. It means they’ve already spoken to other family members and aid workers searching for loved ones; they’ve already checked with the detention centers and the consulate offices. They’re facing an unpleasant possibility — that their search will have a quick ending and a very permanent resolution. The reality is that, for many of them, a process with an uncertain ending has only just begun.
After each phone call, Reineke hangs up, and the detailed work of cross-checking the missing persons report with possible matches in the medical examiner’s records begins.
As she goes through clothing and effects, she’s looking for anything that stands out as unusual, something that might make the person identifiable to relatives searching for missing loved ones. For one John Doe, it was a religious token.
“I always enter all of the clothing this person was wearing, and I try to enter as much detail as I can about any words on personal documents,” Reineke said. “One of the documents that was found with this body was this saint card.”
Photo Gallery: Identifying the Dead in Southern Arizona
Many migrants carry scapulars, saint cards that they pray will give them extra protection on the dangerous journey north. When Reineke began cataloging effects for the body recovered July 7, 2008, the saint card stood out not because it was there but because it wasn’t the Virgin of Guadalupe or another familiar saint. Instead, Señor Santiago Apostol, venerated in the town of Oxtotitlan , state of Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico, was someone she had never heard of.
“But the important thing was that on the back, there’s this handwriting here,” Reinke said.
Some words were clear — “Victorino,” “Grande” and possibly “Cruz” — while others, like what might be “Acattandela,” were puzzling.
“I wrote that in the notes,” Reineke said. “And then I actually had a couple of dreams about that word I think ‘cause it stuck in my head and I was Googling it a lot because I was trying to figure out if it was a town or a village or someone’s last name and I kept coming up with nothing. These two t’s, that’s really unusual in Spanish, so I couldn’t figure it out.”
Also noted in the John Doe’s case file — a rosary, a blue shirt, black pants, red and black shoes. Reineke looked at the information, entered it and searched among the missing based on time, location, and physical descriptions — but among nearly 500 unique, complicated cases, there was no instant match.
A match was finally made — seven months later.
Each time an unidentified body is found, a new story starts for Reineke. Each missing person report becomes a file with a case number assigned to the name, the story and the family’s contact information. Carmen Antunez Grande, Estefany Lisseth Chavez Chavez and Luis Yair Zamudio Rodriguez are among the Pima County cases.
Luis Yair Zamudio Rodriguez, 31, was from the state of Oaxaca, Mexico but had lived in Phoenix for over 20 years. When his attorney called Reineke to file a missing person report, Luis had last been seen Aug. 19, 2008.
Estefany Lisseth Chavez Chavez was also trying to reach family. The 17-year-old from El Salvador hadn’t seen her parents since they left her with relatives to try to make a living in Southern California. Of the cases reviewed for this story, she is the only person who had never lived in the United States. According to her missing person report, she was last seen May 16, 2008.
Carmen Antunez Grande was going to rejoin his brothers, partner and child in North Carolina after visiting Mexico to take care of family there.
Luis
Luis Yair Zamudio Rodriguez, 31, had lived in Phoenix for more than a decade. He was married with three children who were all U.S. citizens. But his missing person report was filed by his attorney in Florence, Ariz., because after a year of struggling for legal residency, Luis had exhausted all options but voluntary departure. So he left but decided to return.
“He tried to re-cross to join his wife and three children in Phoenix, but he was never seen again after Aug. 19,” Reineke said. “All his family knows is that he was crossing with one other man who had been deported. This man said that Luis’ feet had become damaged and he couldn’t continue.”
The man traveling with Luis remembered part of the name of the place where he had left Luis — at “Marshall Station,” “Mars Station” or maybe “Marsh Station.”
There had been no new word for two weeks. At the same time, Luis’ wife and children were facing eviction in Phoenix, because without him working, rent was unaffordable.
When they filed a missing person report on Sept. 12, 2008, Luis’s family thought they knew where he had been left and heard that a body had been recovered from the area. The family attorney faxed a missing person’s report with his name, photograph and fingerprints to Reineke.
Along with a pair of Nike tennis shoes and a receipt from a Mexican drugstore dated Aug. 16, three days before Luis was last seen, the body recovered on Aug. 31 near Marsh Station road and Interstate 10 had legal documents with Luis’ name and a Phoenix address.
Luis’ autopsy report lists the cause of death as hyperthermia — overheating of the body. His wife’s examination of his teeth finalized the identification. She was now officially a widow with three young children.
Reineke said the deaths and disappearances she deals with has the biggest impact on citizen children of immigrants, who are often left without one or both parents, sometimes far from other family members. “They’re probably being more affected than their relatives in Mexico, for instance,” she said.
Most unidentified cases handled by the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office do not move so quickly.
Luis’ travel companion was willing to talk and gave important, accurate information about when and where Luis was last seen. The family and Luis’ attorney acted quickly, contacting the Mexican Consulate and the medical examiner; Luis himself was carrying identifying paperwork that helped make the circumstantial identification. That led straight to a positive identification based on his medical and dental records.
Without documents, with a bigger gap in time, or with less information known, a case quickly becomes much more complicated.
Estefany
The call came in to law enforcement shortly after 6 p.m. on May 26, 2008, from a mile marker on Arizona state route 286. A local man walking his dog spotted buzzards in the sky. He investigated, thinking one of his cattle had died. Instead, he found a young woman face down, a shoe nearby.
The Border Patrol arrived, secured the area and took his statement. A deputy and then a forensics officer arrived from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. They photographed the scene. The deputy helped place the body into a bag and then into the Medical Examiner’s vehicle that would take her to Tucson. She was another Jane Doe.
The Mexican Consulate was notified and came to examine the body as well, looking, like Reineke, for clues that would lead them to her name and family: her glittery belt, her crooked front teeth — a condition known as maxillary winging — her young age and tiny stature.
About the same time, the family of Estefany Lisseth Chavez Chavez was contacting the El Salvadoran Consulate, worried about their daughter.
Estefany was 17 on May 16, 2008, when she last communicated with her father from Puebla, Mexico. This was not the start of her journey, but the middle. She had already traveled a long way since she left her home with relatives in El Salvador on May 8. She was coming to join her parents, who’d been living in Southern California for years now, saving enough money first to send back to her and then to bring her to them.
Reineke said Estefany set out to cross the border into Arizona on May 20. Many people in the group she had traveled with ended up in detention — but Estefany did not. “She wasn’t detained and they don’t know what happened to her.”
The Salvadoran consulate put together a flier with Estefany’s name, information and the dates. At the top, her photograph shows her alone, in graduation regalia from her school in El Salvador and with serious expression on her face.
Reineke began her search after she got the report from the Salvadoran consulate. And she called the family to ask follow up questions, including whether Estafany had crooked front teeth — like the body that was found on May 26.
“I talked to the dad in California, and this was on a Friday, and he showed up here on a Monday,” Reineke remembers. “He drove all the way with three of his other family members, to come here. And they were waiting in my office when I showed up here on Monday morning.”
That office is a testament to the ongoing identification process. One set of shelves holds the case files of the unidentified, two others hold the case files of the missing. A corner desk is available for staffers of the federal database known as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NAMUS, described on its website as “a clearinghouse for missing persons and unidentified decedent records.”
Two walls are covered with maps — the state of Arizona, the cities along the border. One of the maps includes the GIS readings of water stations, Border Patrol rescue beacons and death locations. It was put together by the Tucson-based humanitarian group Humane Borders.
Another wall has a few photographs of memorable effects — a handwritten note, a sneaker with a name inked into the stripes, a penciled sketch of a horse. Press releases, missing posters, a list of aliases and a full map of the United States. Also, the story of Josseline Hernandez Quinteros — a 14-year-old El Salvadoran girl who died in the desert.
Reineke’s desk is perpetually covered in the paperwork of the moment.
The conference room around the corner is larger, yet still private, with bookshelves and a Southwestern décor. Here, Reineke and Dr. Bruce Anderson who has been with the office for more than a decade, went through descriptions of Estefany’s possible routes and her clothing when last seen — blue sweater, blue jeans, black tennis shoes with red decorations, a hair tie. They discussed Estefany’s stature — a little over 5 feet and maybe 125 pounds — and her teeth: all natural, no dental work.
They compared everything to the Jane Doe in the lab. Because of the condition of the body, the evidence discussed in the conference room would be important, if not conclusive, in narrowing down who the Jane Doe might really be.
“You can’t count on it obviously because sometimes people change clothing,” Reineke. “And there’s always the possibility that even if they didn’t change clothing that someone changed their clothing for them, it’s just a … possibility that you have to entertain.”
Finally, the aunt and uncle went to look. Afterward, they were sure the body was Estafany.
“They really believed that it was her, based on the crooked central incisors,” Reineke said.
The circumstantial identification was noted in the file: ML 08-0996. A DNA sample was prepared for processing by BODE Technology, a Virginia DNA identification lab that works with law enforcement nationwide.
Reineke said family and friends pooled their money to pay for the DNA exam, which cost around $600. Everything hinged on the results.
The DNA was not a match. The body was not Estefany’s.
“And it turned out not to be her, which is sadder like three times over because that means that there’s another 17-year-old or 16-year-old dead girl that’s not Estefany, and the family went through all of this and they didn’t find their daughter, so… we’re still looking for her,” Reineke said.
A case photo of the glittery belt hangs on the computer screen. It poses the same challenge, more forlornly, as Estefany’s graduation photograph.
“So that’s Estefany, and the girl that turned out not to be Estefany.”
John Doe
“He was found on the 25th of February,” Dr. Bruce Anderson said, standing over a table in his pathology lab, looking at fragments of what used to be a complete body — a cranium, shoulder blade, pelvis, left leg bones, and teeth. When little else is found with a body, the identification process focuses on the bones.
According to Anderson, there should be about 200 bones in a complete human skeleton. But if the body was undiscovered for 2 to 5 years like this one, there had been “a lot of time for animals and critters to haul stuff away — we’ve had time for people to take portions away if they wanted to,” Anderson said.
The more complete a skeleton is, the more accurate Anderson can be with gender, age, height and weight — the markers that begin to recreate the missing person and create a profile for comparison against the missing.
Anderson said the best indicator of sex is the pelvic bone — women have a birth canal that men do not. Also, adult female skeletons are basically larger versions of the same bones the woman had as a child. Males on the other change over time — they “look rougher” in the face and forehead after puberty.
For the pieces on the table, a determination is cumulative.
“So the combination of a big body, big muscles, rough skull and a male-looking pelvis, argues very strongly that this is not a woman,” Anderson said. “Here, there’s little doubt in my mind this is a man, it’d be the first woman that combined all these features that I’ve ever seen in my career, so, I’d be very surprised if this turns out to be a woman.”
This John Doe has been given the case number ML 10-00438 — the 24th unidentified body found in February 2010, the 29th of the year.
“The bones and then these shoes were delivered, so my assumption is that the police think these shoes are related to the bones,” Anderson said.
But it’s hard to be sure. In fact, nothing about this case will be easy. The trail is cold from the beginning.
“This guy’s been dead for several years, I don’t think he died last summer, so we’re probably looking at ’07, ’06, maybe even longer than that.”
Anderson goes through the case step by step, recording every observation.
“Bone is about yellow,” Anderson said. “It turns white because of solar radiation, so this is what we call sun bleaching. That almost never happens before about a year of direct exposure, daily exposure to the sun. “
Bone by bone, he looks for clues that can narrow the possibilities on when the man died.
“The cracking usually doesn’t start till about a year, this checking on the surface doesn’t occur till after a year. This pinkish hue sometimes takes several years to form.”
Once again, unique factors stand out — rare age or height marks left on a bone broken in childhood, unusual dental work.
Anderson points out that teeth can dramatically narrow the possibilities for a match with a missing person. Dental work or missing teeth means that Reineke can sometimes narrow down the possible matches to a list a few hundred people. But if the dead person has all of his or her teeth? “What can we do with that?” Anderson asks rhetorically. “You can’t do anything with that, it’s too big of a number.”
These are the cases where databases will make the most difference.
“In a perfect world if we had blood or saliva samples from the families of all 420 men or whatever that was, we could then sample this for DNA and run that against there and hope and hope that one of those families actually were the family of this guy,” Anderson said.
Databases like NAMUS allow families to look for cases similar to those of the relatives they’re searching for and then contact the office that posted the information. In too many cases, the searches last for years.
“I’ve talked to enough mothers and fathers of missing people who, that consumes them, and that they go home and night and they can’t do something constructive — they feel like they’re not doing enough to find their child,” said Anderson. “So with NAMUS, every time you want to go online and you search the case that came in today… it’s a terrible thought, but the case that came in today could be the child you’ve been missing for 20 years … If we could get the families of every missing person, which is never going to happen, but if you could get all those families looking at NAMUS, there’d be hundreds or thousands of ID’s rather quickly. Because the families would see something amongst the descriptions of the dead.”
A name association can be a case’s break through point.
“The family now is in a position to either tell us something about him that we can evaluate him by and say, ‘Yeah, we believe that’s him, or give us a blood or saliva sample and we’ll try to analyze using that,’” Anderson said.
For this John Doe, it may be a deciding factor, since today’s technology makes it possible for any bone in a human body to potentially provide testable DNA.
“[E]very time we identify someone I get the anthropology report out and we grade ourselves — how did we do — did we get the age right, did we get the sex right, hopefully we got the sex right,” Anderson said.
They’ll verify the nationality, too, as the office’s unidentified cases are not limited to migrants or border crossers.
“I say we probably have over-counted,” Anderson said. “If we were lucky enough to have all of these people identified eventually, I’ll be very surprised if not one or more or several are actually missing Americans.”
Who is John Doe, case ML 10-00438; a missing American or a border crosser?
“Until he’s identified, we’ll never know,” Anderson said.
Carmen
Carmen Antunez Grande had made the trip before. Not only were seven older brothers in North Carolina – a wife and, soon, a baby waited for his return.
His family reported Carmen missing in July to Kat Rodriguez at the humanitarian organization Derechos Humanos. They provided Rodriguez, and later Reineke directly, with information, photographs, and ultimately X-rays in the hopes of tracing him.
The family said he had large birthmarks on his face and black hair, and on his right knee he had a scar from an operation. He had been wearing a dark blue long-sleeve shirt with black dress pants.
“What caught my eye was I was entering Carmen’s information into the database and I noticed his red shoes, blue shirt and black pants combination, and I remembered there being some combination that was really similar,” Reineke said. She started going through the cases again — until she got to one John Doe, case ML 08-01295. “And I was like, wow, well, that’s exactly what they said — dark blue long sleeve-shirt, black dress pants, this is what the family reported, black tennis shoes with red stripes.”
The age range and stature were close — 28 to 45, 68 inches, more than 145 pounds. Carmen was 26, tall and around 170. It was close enough.
“I decided to call the brother and ask him if he would view these photographs of the clothing, and if they would be familiar to him,” Reineke said. “And I asked him while I was on the phone with him, you know, do these names, Victorino, Attendela ring a bell?”
They didn’t, so Reineke sent photographs of the shirt, the shoes, the rosary, the front and back of the saint card.
“He called back and he said ‘First of all, I’m certain that this is my brother and I know because this card, this is our saint that we venerate in our town,’” Reineke remembers. The brother deciphered the rest of the writing on the card: “Acatlan de la Cruz,” the name of the family’s home town in Guerrero. And “Grande,” part of Carmen’s full name: Carmen Antunez Grande.
Carmen’s family sent photographs, and then skeletal radiographs taken after knee surgery.
“It actually wasn’t the injury or the surgery that identified him, it was the morphology of the bone,” Reineke said. “So we were able to take the ante-mortem — prior to death — X-rays and compare them to post-mortem X-rays and just look at the shape, the contour of the patella, and compare those between ante-mortem and post-mortem to say it’s the same individual.”
In Carmen’s case, that resulted in a positive ID. But the process wasn’t over.
“Once you get to the positive ID point for the scientist, it’s not necessarily easy from then on out, for a number of reasons,” Reineke said. “A lot of times … it’s not good enough for the family, why should they trust you. Your belief in those methodologies, you might have those for specific reasons that you’ve been educated to believe and you understand statistics and why it’s more likely to be him than anyone else, but when a family can’t look someone in the face, it’s very hard for them to take a set of bones and trust you that this is their brother.”
For Carmen’s family, the handwriting helped with absorbing the technical and medical conclusions.
“For them, it was just really challenging because, and I remember him calling — this is one family I gave them my cell phone number because they were really nice and really upset and I wanted to be able to respond to them if they needed something.”
But officially, Reineke’s role — and the role of the medical examiner’s office as a whole — ends once one of its doctors signs off on paperwork that releases the body to the family, consulate or funeral home.
Carmen’s family waited more than six months for an answer that might never have come.
Reneike said she felt bad because the body was found on July 7 and the family reported Carmen missing a couple of weeks later. But it was winter before a match was made. The delay bothers her.
“He was one of eight brothers and they all had migrated, and he was the very last one, he was the youngest, and he basically was staying there to help out with his parents, and he was very connected to his family,” Reineke remembered. “He fell in love with someone and got married.”
When Carmen’s identification was finished, there was one more person waiting for the news.
“By the time we ID’d him he had a 3 or 4 month little baby son.”
System Overwhelmed
Each closed case is a step — but the staircase keeps growing.
The staff members of the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office are realistic about the challenges they face, as well as the solutions they’re working to implement.
“The identification process is always part of our biggest challenge,” Parks said. “And storage space — we end up holding on to people for a long time to get all the work done that we need to do.”
Also at issue are time and money. Grant funding is being sought for additional forensic consultants to work under Anderson, and for database building. Currently, a sample is collected from each unidentified person so that if relatives come forward now or in several years, a DNA test will be possible. Databasing these samples and samples from families may produce matches that were missed before. So might the geospatial database that Reineke is building that will prioritize her record cross-checks and hopefully save valuable time for both families and staff, leading to even more matches – and more returns.
“It’s going to save hours and hours of time,” Reineke said. “Ideally, if they call up today, Friday, maybe on Monday I can come up and the system will have processed several possibilities, and at least I can say, ok, we have a possibility — two of them have tattoos, one of them has this characteristic, do you know, you know, could this, did your brother ever have some particular dental thing, or did they ever have surgery, or did they speak with a lisp, or did they have a painful tooth — you can try to narrow it down and rule people out that way.”
Reineke believes the database will also mean more matches. Cases like Carmen’s “made me wonder how many cases are like that that I’m overlooking or that we’re overlooking.”
This meticulous cross-checking is how Carmen and Luis were both returned to their families. Parents, siblings, spouses and friends made decisions about their funerals and burials.
For John Does and Jane Does, there comes a time when that decision is made by medical staff and county officials to bury or cremate them.
In Pima County, the medical examiner releases bodies to the county’s public fiduciary that makes the arrangements for a burial or, as Arizona state law allows, the more affordable option of cremation.
The county cemetery sits within a corner of Evergreen Mortuary, Cemetery and Crematory next to a busy intersection. The county has a contract, regularly put up for bid with local mortuaries, to handle unidentified cases.
The later burial plots in the county section hold two bodies per grave said William B. Addison, Evergreen’s president who worked there since 1965. Addison said that, though it has the option, the county does not usually cremate remains.
“The problem with cremation is that you can’t undo it. You bury somebody, no problem — you really want to be cremated, we can handle that — disinter them, cremate them, and there you go. But if you’ve cremated somebody first, you can’t un-cremate them, haven’t quite figured out a way to put all that together yet, so they’re still sensitive to the possible issues and will usually hold off on cremation unless they have some reason to believe that wouldn’t be a problem.”
The sensitivity lies in the question of identity. Personal or religious wishes are just as indecipherable as name and nationality.
It is here, at the very end, that the impact of being identified or unidentified – between closed case and open case, found and not found, between knowing and not knowing, becomes most immediate and final.
“The sooner, obviously, the sooner they find out, the better off they are, no matter what the news is,” Addison said. “No news is good news is not necessarily true if they’re expecting the worst in the first place.”
| John Doe |
Athlete Florence Griffith was given which nickname after her marriage in 1987? | Unidentified dead common on the border | THE UNCERTAIN JOURNEY
Unidentified dead common on the border
(also available at the News21 2010 ASU Team site and in pdf )
click to enlarge
TUCSON, Ariz. -- The calls come in every day from people who are searching for sons and fathers, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers. Robin Reineke seems unfazed by the volume as she patiently asks the same questions case after case.
Where was he going? When was she last seen? How tall? How much does he weigh? Does she have any tattoos or scars? Has he had any dental work, and do you have a picture where he’s smiling?
Reineke, a University of Arizona graduate student, is working for the Pima County, Arizona Medical Examiner's Office, trying to identify the unidentified -- scores of people who have died in the desert, most of them migrants crossing illegally from Mexico to the U.S.
Pima County is more successful than most at the task -- it identifies 70 percent of the bodies brought in. Yet staff members push themselves to do better -- they know that for the 30 percent of their cases that are unresolved they cannot return the body to family members. And those mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands and wives may never be at peace.
“The tragedy of the situation is similar to the tragedy that we see on a daily basis here of people who often through no fault of their own or maybe were naive to some degree end up dying at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Dr. Bruce Parks, Pima County’s medical examiner.
click to enlarge
Since 2001, Parks’ office has handled more than 1,500 border-crosser deaths, a major increase from prior decades. More than 500 are John or Jane Does -- people whose bodies have been too damaged by the harsh desert conditions or who carry no verifiable identification.
Southern Arizona became a preferred place to cross in the 1990s, when U.S. immigration officials implemented tougher border enforcement through Operation Gatekeeper in California and Operation Hold the Line in Texas. The clamp down in those states funneled more illegal immigrant traffic into Arizona. In the meantime, border security has been increased across the board, with more formidable fences and an increase in Border Patrol officers. All this has resulted in smugglers leading migrants through more remote territory -- higher into the mountains, farther from towns and highways and deeper into the desert.
“It’s been going on now for over 10 years and there are offices like this which are involved in finding out who the people are and there're offices doing other aspects of the work to try to locate these people and save them and take care of them and render medical care, if they're lucky enough to survive,” said Parks. “So in southern Arizona, and a few other places along the border, it's a big deal and it's a sad situation.”
And the problem continues to grow worse. So far 2010 has broken records for migrant deaths each month: 18 deaths in January; 24 in February; 11 in March; 14 in April; 17 in May; and 25 in June.
The process of identifying the dead is a painstaking one. Sometimes things fall into place -- a missing person’s report matches physical descriptions of a body or other descriptions provided by relatives searching for loved ones.
Reineke is the last person relatives of missing persons call. It means they’ve already spoken to other family members and aid workers searching for loved ones; they’ve already checked with the detention centers and the consulate offices. They’re facing an unpleasant possibility -- that their search will have a quick ending and a very permanent resolution. The reality is that, for many of them, a process with an uncertain ending has only just begun.
After each phone call, Reineke hangs up, and the detailed work of cross-checking the missing persons report with possible matches in the medical examiner’s records begins.
click to enlarge
As she goes through clothing and effects, she’s looking for anything that stands out as unusual, something that might make the person identifiable to relatives searching for missing loved ones. For one John Doe, it was a religious token.
“I always enter all of the clothing this person was wearing, and I try to enter as much detail as I can about any words on personal documents," Reineke said. "One of the documents that was found with this body was this saint card.”
Many migrants carry scapulars, saint cards that they pray will give them extra protection on the dangerous journey north. When Reineke began cataloging effects for the body recovered July 7, 2008, the saint card stood out not because it was there but because it wasn’t the Virgin of Guadalupe or another familiar saint. Instead, Señor Santiago Apostol, venerated in the town of Oxtotitlan , state of Guerrero, in southwestern Mexico, was someone she had never heard of.
“But the important thing was that on the back, there’s this handwriting here,” Reinke said.
Some words were clear -- “Victorino,” “Grande” and possibly “Cruz” -- while others, like what might be “Acattandela,” were puzzling.
“I wrote that in the notes,” Reineke said. “And then I actually had a couple of dreams about that word I think ‘cause it stuck in my head and I was Googling it a lot because I was trying to figure out if it was a town or a village or someone's last name and I kept coming up with nothing. These two t's, that's really unusual in Spanish, so I couldn't figure it out.”
Also noted in the John Doe’s case file -- a rosary, a blue shirt, black pants, red and black shoes. Reineke looked at the information, entered it and searched among the missing based on time, location, and physical descriptions -- but among nearly 500 unique, complicated cases, there was no instant match.
A match was finally made – seven months later.
Each time an unidentified body is found, a new story starts for Reineke. Each missing person report becomes a file with a case number assigned to the name, the story and the family’s contact information. Carmen Antunez Grande, Estefany Lisseth Chavez Chavez and Luis Yair Zamudio Rodriguez are among the Pima County cases.
Luis Yair Zamudio Rodriguez, 31, was from the state of Oaxaca, Mexico but had lived in Phoenix for over 20 years. When his attorney called Reineke to file a missing person report, Luis had last been seen Aug. 19, 2008.
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Estefany Lisseth Chavez Chavez was also trying to reach family. The 17-year-old from El Salvador hadn’t seen her parents since they left her with relatives to try to make a living in Southern California. Of the cases reviewed for this story, she is the only person who had never lived in the United States. According to her missing person report, she was last seen May 16, 2008.
Carmen Antunez Grande was going to rejoin his brothers, partner and child in North Carolina after visiting Mexico to take care of family there.
LUIS
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Luis Yair Zamudio Rodriguez, 31, had lived in Phoenix for more than a decade. He was married with three children who were all U.S. citizens. But his missing person report was filed by his attorney in Florence, Ariz., because after a year of struggling for legal residency, Luis had exhausted all options but voluntary departure. So he left but decided to return.
“He tried to re-cross to join his wife and three children in Phoenix, but he was never seen again after Aug. 19,” Reineke said. “All his family knows is that he was crossing with one other man who had been deported. This man said that Luis' feet had become damaged and he couldn't continue.” The man traveling with Luis remembered part of the name of the place where he had left Luis -- at “Marshall Station,” “Mars Station” or maybe “Marsh Station.”
There had been no new word for two weeks. At the same time, Luis’ wife and children were facing eviction in Phoenix, because without him working, rent was unaffordable.
When they filed a missing person report on Sept. 12, 2008, Luis’s family thought they knew where he had been left and heard that a body had been recovered from the area. The family attorney faxed a missing person’s report with his name, photograph and fingerprints to Reineke.
Along with a pair of Nike tennis shoes and a receipt from a Mexican drugstore dated Aug. 16, three days before Luis was last seen, the body recovered on Aug. 31 near Marsh Station road and Interstate 10 had legal documents with Luis’ name and a Phoenix address.
Luis’ autopsy report lists the cause of death as hyperthermia -- overheating of the body. His wife’s examination of his teeth finalized the identification. She was now officially a widow with three young children.
Reineke said the deaths and disappearances she deals has the biggest impact on citizen children of immigrants, who are often left without one or both parents, sometimes far from other family members. “They're probably being more affected then their relatives in Mexico, for instance,” she said. Most unidentified cases handled by the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office do not move so quickly.
Luis’ travel companion was willing to talk and gave important, accurate information about when and where Luis was last seen. The family and Luis’ attorney acted quickly, contacting the Mexican Consulate and the medical examiner; Luis himself was carrying identifying paperwork that helped make the circumstantial identification. That led straight to a positive identification based on his medical and dental records.
Without documents, with a bigger gap in time, or with less information known, a case quickly becomes much more complicated.
ESTEFANY
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The call came in to law enforcement shortly after 6 p.m. on May 26, 2008, from a mile marker on Arizona state route 286. A local man walking his dog spotted buzzards in the sky. He investigated, thinking one of his cattle had died. Instead, he found a young woman face down, a shoe nearby.
The Border Patrol arrived, secured the area and took his statement. A deputy and then a forensics officer arrived from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. They photographed the scene. The deputy helped place the body into a bag and then into the Medical Examiner's vehicle that would take her to Tucson. She was another Jane Doe.
The Mexican Consulate was notified and came to examine the body as well, looking, like Reineke, for clues that would lead them to her name and family: her glittery belt, her crooked front teeth -- a condition known as maxillary winging -- her young age and tiny stature.
About the same time, the family of Estefany Lisseth Chavez Chavez was contacting the El Salvadoran Consulate, worried about their daughter. Estefany was 17 on May 16, 2008, when she last communicated with her father from Puebla, Mexico. This was not the start of her journey, but the middle. She had already traveled a long way since she left her home with relatives in El Salvador on May 8. She was coming to join her parents, who’d been living in Southern California for years now, saving enough money first to send back to her and then to bring her to them.
Reineke said Estefany went set out to cross the border into Arizona on May 20. Many people in the group she had traveled with ended up in detention -- but Estefany did not. “She wasn't detained and they don't know what happened to her.”
The Salvadoran consulate put together a flier with Estefany’s name, information and the dates. At the top, her photograph shows her alone, in graduation regalia from her school in El Salvador and with serious expression on her face.
Reineke began her search after she got the report from the Salvadoran consulate. And she called the family to ask follow up questions, including whether Estafany had crooked front teeth -- like the body that was found on May 26.
“I talked to the dad in California, and this was on a Friday, and he showed up here on a Monday,” Reineke remembers. “He drove all the way with three of his other family members, to come here. And they were waiting in my office when I showed up here on Monday morning.”
That office is a testament to the ongoing identification process. One set of shelves holds the case files of the unidentified, two others hold the case files of the missing. A corner desk is available for staffers of the federal database known as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NAMUS, described on its website as “a clearinghouse for missing persons and unidentified decedent records.”
Two walls are covered with maps -- the state of Arizona, the cities along the border. One of the maps includes the GIS readings of water stations, Border Patrol rescue beacons and death locations. It was put together by the Tucson-based humanitarian group Humane Borders.
Another wall has a few photographs of memorable effects -- a handwritten note, a sneaker with a name inked into the stripes, a penciled sketch of a horse. Press releases, missing posters, a list of aliases and a full map of the United States. Also, the story of Josseline Hernandez Quinteros -- a 14-year-old El Salvadoran girl who died in the desert.
Reineke’s desk is perpetually covered in the paperwork of the moment.
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The conference room around the corner is larger, yet still private, with bookshelves and a Southwestern décor. Here, Reineke and Dr. Bruce Anderson who has been with the office for more than decade, went through descriptions of Estefany’s possible routes and her clothing when last seen -- blue sweater, blue jeans, black tennis shoes with red decorations, a hair tie. They discussed Estefany’s stature -- a little over 5 feet and maybe 125 pounds -- and her teeth: all natural, no dental work.
They compared everything to the Jane Doe in the lab. Because of the condition of the body, the evidence discussed in the conference room would be important, if not conclusive, in narrowing down who the Jane Doe might really be.
“You can't count on it obviously because sometimes people change clothing,” Reineke. “And there's always the possibility that even if they didn't change clothing that someone changed their clothing for them, it's just a … possibility that you have to entertain.”
Finally, the aunt and uncle went to look. Afterward, they were sure the body was Estafany.
“They really believed that it was her, based on the crooked central incisors,” Reineke said.
The circumstantial identification was noted in the file: ML 08- 0996 . A DNA sample was prepared for processing by BODE Technology, a Virginia DNA identification lab that works with law enforcement nationwide.
Reineke said family and friends pooled their money to pay for the DNA exam, which cost around $600. Everything hinged on the results. The DNA was not a match. The body was not Estefany's.
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“And it turned out not to be her, which is sadder like three times over because that means that there's another 17-year-old or 16-year-old dead girl that's not Estefany, and the family went through all of this and they didn't find their daughter, so… we're still looking for her," Reineke said.
A case photo of the glittery belt hangs on the computer screen. It poses the same challenge, more forlornly, as Estefany’s graduation photograph.
“So that’s Estefany, and the girl that turned out not to be Estefany.”
JOHN DOE
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“He was found on the 25th of February,” Dr. Bruce Anderson said, standing over a table in his pathology lab, looking at fragments of what used to be a complete body -- a cranium, shoulder blade, pelvis, left leg bones, and teeth. When little else is found with a body, the identification process focuses on the bones.
According to Anderson, there should be about 200 bones in a complete human skeleton. But if the body was undiscovered for 2 to 5 years like this one, there had been "a lot of time for animals and critters to haul stuff away -- we've had time for people to take portions away if they wanted to,” Anderson said.
The more complete a skeleton is, the more accurate Anderson can be with gender, age, height and weight -- the markers that begin to recreate the missing person and create a profile for comparison against the missing. Anderson said the best indicator of sex is the pelvic bone -- women have a birth canal that men do not. Also, adult female skeletons are basically larger versions of the same bones the woman had as a child. Males on the other change over time -- they "look rougher" in the face and forehead after puberty.
For the pieces on the table, a determination is cumulative.
“So the combination of a big body, big muscles, rough skull and a male-looking pelvis, argues very strongly that this is not a woman,” Anderson said. “Here, there's little doubt in my mind this is a man, it'd be the first woman that combined all these features that I've ever seen in my career, so, I'd be very surprised if this turns out to be a woman.”
This John Doe has been given the case number ML 10-00438 -- the 24th unidentified body found in February 2010, the 29th of the year.
“The bones and then these shoes were delivered, so my assumption is that the police think these shoes are related to the bones,” Anderson said.
But it’s hard to be sure. In fact, nothing about this case will be easy. The trail is cold from the beginning.
“This guy's been dead for several years, I don't think he died last summer, so we're probably looking at '07, '06, maybe even longer than that.” Anderson goes through the case step by step, recording every observation.
“Bone is about yellow,” Anderson said. “It turns white because of solar radiation, so this is what we call sun bleaching. That almost never happens before about a year of direct exposure, daily exposure to the sun."
Bone by bone, he looks for clues that can narrow the possibilities on when the man died.
“The cracking usually doesn't start till about a year, this checking on the surface doesn't occur till after a year. This pinkish hue sometimes takes several years to form.”
Once again, unique factors stand out -- rare age or height marks left on a bone broken in childhood, unusual dental work.
Anderson points out that teeth can dramatically narrow the possibilities for a match with a missing person. Dental work or missing teeth means that Reineke can sometimes narrow down the possible matches to a list a few hundred people. But if the dead person has all of his or her teeth? "What can we do with that?" Anderson asks rhetorically. "You can't do anything with that, it's too big of a number.”
These are the cases where databases will make the most difference.
“In a perfect world if we had blood or saliva samples from the families of all 420 men or whatever that was, we could then sample this for DNA and run that against there and hope and hope that one of those families actually were the family of this guy,” Anderson said.
Databases like NAMUS allow families to look for cases similar to those of the relatives they’re searching for and then contact the office that posted the information. In too many cases, the searches last for years.
“I've talked to enough mothers and fathers of missing people who, that consumes them, and that they go home and night and they can't do something constructive -- they feel like they're not doing enough to find their child,” said Anderson. “So with NAMUS, every time you want to go online and you search the case that came in today… it's a terrible thought, but the case that came in today could be the child you've been missing for 20 years … If we could get the families of every missing person, which is never going to happen, but if you could get all those families looking at NAMUS, there'd be hundreds or thousands of ids rather quickly. Because the families would see something amongst the descriptions of the dead.”
A name association can be a case’s break through point.
“The family now is in a position to either tell us something about him that we can evaluate him by and say, 'Yeah, we believe that's him, or give us a blood or saliva sample and we'll try to analyze using that,'” Anderson said.
For this John Doe, it may be a deciding factor, since today’s technology makes it possible for any bone in a human body to potentially provide testable DNA.
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“[E]very time we identify someone I get the anthropology report out and we grade ourselves -- how did we do -- did we get the age right, did we get the sex right, hopefully we got the sex right,” Anderson said.
They’ll verify the nationality, too, as the office’s unidentified cases are not limited to migrants or border crossers.
“I say we probably have over-counted,” Anderson said. “If we were lucky enough to have all of these people identified eventually, I'll be very surprised if not one or more or several are actually missing Americans.”
Who is John Doe, case ML 10-00438; a missing American or a border crosser?
“Until he's identified, we'll never know,” Anderson said.
CARMEN
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Carmen Antunez Grande had made the trip before. Not only were seven older brothers in North Carolina – a wife and, soon, a baby waited for his return.
His family reported Carmen missing in July to Kat Rodriguez at the humanitarian organization Derechos Humanos. They provided Rodriguez, and later Reineke directly, with information, photographs, and ultimately X-rays in the hopes of tracing him.
The family said he had large birthmarks on his face and black hair, and on his right knee he had a scar from an operation. He had been wearing a dark blue long-sleeve shirt with black dress pants.
“What caught my eye was I was entering Carmen's information into the database and I noticed this red shoes, blue shirt and black pants combination, and I remembered there being some combination that was really similar,” Reineke said. She started going through the cases again -- until she got to one John Doe, case ML 08-01295. “And I was like, wow, well, that's exactly what they said -- dark blue long sleeve-shirt, black dress pants, this is what the family reported, black tennis shoes with red stripes.”
The age range and stature were close -- 28 to 45, 68 inches, more than 145 pounds. Carmen was 26, tall and around 170. It was close enough. “I decided to call the brother and ask him if he would view these photographs of the clothing, and if they would be familiar to him,” Reineke said. “And I asked him while I was on the phone with him, you know, do these names, Victorino, Attendela ring a bell?”
They didn’t, so Reineke sent photographs of the shirt, the shoes, the rosary, the front and back of the saint card.
“He called back and he said ‘First of all, I'm certain that this is my brother and I know because this card, this is our saint that we venerate in our town,'" Reineke remembers. The brother deciphered the rest of the writing on the card: "Acatlan de la Cruz," the name of the family's home town in Guerrero. And "Grande," part of Carmen's full name: Carmen Antunez Grande.
Carmen’s family sent photographs, and then skeletal radiographs taken after knee surgery.
“It actually wasn't the injury or the surgery that identified him, it was the morphology of the bone,” Reineke said. “So we were able to take the ante-mortem -- prior to death -- X-rays and compare them to post-mortem X-rays and just look at the shape, the contour of the patella, and compare those between ante-mortem and post-mortem to say it's the same individual.”
In Carmen’s case, that resulted in a positive id. But process wasn’t over.
“Once you get to the positive ID point for the scientist, it's not necessarily easy from then on out, for a number of reasons,” Reineke said. “A lot of times … it's not good enough for the family, why should they trust you. Your belief in those methodologies, you might have those for specific reasons that you've been educated to believe and you understand statistics and why it's more likely to be him than anyone else, but when a family can't look someone in the face, it's very hard for them to take a set of bones and trust you that this is their brother.”
For Carmen’s family, the handwriting helped with absorbing the technical and medical conclusions.
“For them, it was just really challenging because, and I remember him calling -- this is one family I gave them my cell phone number because they were really nice and really upset and I wanted to be able to respond to them if they needed something.” But officially, Reineke’s role -- and the role of the medical examiner’s office as a whole -- ends once one of its doctors signs off on paperwork that releases the body to the family, consulate or funeral home.
Carmen’s family waited more than six months for an answer that might never have come.
“I felt really bad because they reported the person, they reported Carmen missing on the 16th of July … and the body was found … on the 7th of July,” Reneike said. “It was in the winter by the time I figured it out.”
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The delay bothers her.
“He was one of eight brothers and they all had migrated, and he was the very last one, he was the youngest, and he basically was staying there to help out with his parents, and he was very connected to his family,” Reineke remembered. “He fell in love with someone and got married.”
When Carmen’s was identification was finished, there was one more person waiting for the news.
“By the time we ID'd him he had a 3 or 4 month little baby son.”
THE UNIDENTIFIED
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Each closed case is a step – but the staircase keeps growing.
The staff members of the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office are realistic about the challenges they face, as well as the solutions they’re working to implement.
“The identification process is always part of our biggest challenge,” Parks said. “And storage space -- we end up holding on to people for a long time to get all the work done that we need to do.”
Also at issue are time and money. Grant funding is being sought for additional forensic consultants to work under Dr. Anderson, and for database building. Currently, a sample is collected from each unidentified person so that if relatives come forward now or in several years, a DNA test will be possible. Databasing these samples and samples from families may produce matches that were missed before. So might the geospatial database that Reineke is building that will prioritize her record cross-checks and hopefully save valuable time for both families and staff, leading to even more matches – and more returns.
“It's going to save hours and hours of time,” Reineke said. “Ideally, if they call up today, Friday, maybe on Monday I can come up and the system will have processed several possibilities, and at least I can say, ok, we have a possibility -- two of them have tattoos, one of them has this characteristic, do you know, you know, could this, did your brother ever have some particular dental thing, or did they ever have surgery, or did they speak with a lisp, or did they have a painful tooth -- you can try to narrow it down and rule people out that way.”
Reineke believes the database will also mean more matches. Cases like Carmen’s “made me wonder how many cases are like that that I'm overlooking or that we're overlooking.”
This meticulous cross-checking is how Carmen and Luis were both returned to their families. Parents, siblings, spouses and friends made decisions about their funerals and burials.
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For John Does and Jane Does, there comes a time when that decision is made by medical staff and county officials to bury or cremate them. In Pima County, the medical examiner releases bodies to the county’s public fiduciary that makes the arrangements for a burial or, as Arizona state law allows, the more affordable option of cremation.
The county cemetery sits within a corner of Evergreen Mortuary, Cemetery and Crematory next to a busy intersection. The county has a contract, regularly put up for bid with local mortuaries, to handle unidentified cases.
The later burial plots in the county section hold two bodies per grave said William B. Addison, Evergreen’s president who worked there since 1965. Addison said that, though it has the option, the county does not usually cremate remains.
“The problem with cremation is that you can't undo it. You bury somebody, no problem -- you really want to be cremated, we can handle that -- disinter them, cremate them, and there you go. But if you've cremated somebody first, you can't un-cremate them, haven't quite figured out a way to put all that together yet, so they're still sensitive to the possible issues and will usually hold off on cremation unless they have some reason to believe that wouldn't be a problem.”
The sensitivity lies in the question of identity. Personal or religious wishes are just as indecipherable as name and nationality.
It is here, at the very end, that the impact of being identified or unidentified – between closed case and open case, found and not found, between knowing and not knowing, becomes most immediate and final.
“The sooner, obviously, the sooner they find out, the better off they are, no matter what the news is,” Addison said. “No news is good news is not necessarily true if they're expecting the worst in the first place.”
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Who was the second woman elected to the House of Commons? | Women in the House of Commons - UK Parliament
Women and the Lords
Women in the House of Commons
In 1918 some women over the age of 30 got the vote. It was also the year that, a separate law was passed - the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act - which allowed women to stand as candidates and be elected as MPs.
The following year the first woman MP took her seat in the House of Commons.
The first woman MP
The first woman to be elected to the Commons was Constance Markievicz, in the general election of 1918. However as a member of Sinn Fein, she did not take her seat.
The first women to take her seat was Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor), after a by-election in December 1919. She was elected as a Conservative for the Plymouth Sutton constituency after her husband, Waldorf Astor, the former MP, was elevated to the peerage.
She held the seat until she stood down in 1945. Although she had never been involved in campaigns for women’s suffrage, she was a great supporter of the women’s movement once in Parliament.
Her husband also worked to promote the admission of women to the House of Lords during the 1920s.
| Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor |
Mary of Modena was the second wife of which of our monarchs? | Women in Parliament and Government - Commons Library briefing - UK Parliament
Women in Parliament and Government
Women in Parliament and Government
House of Commons Library
Women in Parliament and Government
Published Tuesday, December 13, 2016
191 women MPs were elected at the 2015 General Election, 29% of all MPs and a record high. Prior to 1987 women had never been more than 5% of MPs. 455 women have been elected to the Commons since 1918, equal to the current number of male MPs.
This briefing sets out key statistics for women in Parliament and other elected bodies in the UK.
Parliament
191 women MPs were elected at the 2015 General Election, 29% of all MPs and a record high.
211 women, 26%, are Members of the House of Lords.
Devolved Legislatures
Just over one-third (35%) of members in the Scottish Parliament are women, compared to just over two-fifths (42%) of members of National Assembly for Wales and 28% of Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
UK MEPs
Following the 2014 European Parliament elections, women are 40% of UK MEPs.
Local Government councillors
32% of local authority councillors in England are women, as of 2013. In Scotland, 24% of councillors are women. Women hold 26% of council seats in Wales. In Northern Ireland 25% of councillors are women.
Women MPs since 1918
Since 1918, 455 women have been elected as Members of the House of Commons. In 1918 Constance Markievicz became the first women to be elected as an MP though, elected for Sinn Féin, she did not take her seat. Nancy Astor was the first women to take a seat in the House of Commons, in 1919. The total number of women to have been elected to the House since 1918 is now equal to the number of men, 455 elected in the current Parliament.
Women ministers
Currently there are eight women in the Cabinet (including the Prime Minister) which is 35% of 23 Cabinet posts.
Margaret Bondfield was the first ever woman appointed to Cabinet, in 1929; Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first woman Prime Minister in 1979, and Theresa May the second in 2016.
Commons Briefing papers SN01250
Authors: Richard Keen; Richard Cracknell; Vyara Apostolova
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In 1932 which record breaker was the second person to fly the Atlantic solo? | Amelia Earhart | 8 famous female aviators | MNN - Mother Nature Network
8 famous female aviators
4 of 11
Amelia Earhart
This pioneering female aviator's claim to fame is well-known: in May 1932, the Kansas-born record-breaker became the first woman to fly solo, nonstop, across the Atlantic Ocean. Only one person, Charles Lindbergh, had previously accomplished that feat. In 1937, she disappeared at the age of 39 under mysterious circumstances in the central Pacific while making a round-the-world trip.
In addition to her famous transatlantic flight, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo, nonstop, across the United States from Los Angeles to Newark in 1932. Earhart was the first pilot, male or female, to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland (1935). Additionally, she was the first person to fly solo between Los Angeles and Mexico City and between Mexico City and Newark (also in 1935). Before taking control in the cockpit during her famous long-haul solo flights in 1932, Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger (1928).
A prolific author and essayist, Earhart served as an editor of Cosmopolitan magazine from 1928 to 1930. An accomplished seamstress, Earhart designed and endorsed her own fashion line sold at Macy's . She is believed to be the first celebrity to do so.
10 surprising cities with great museums
Amelia Earhart
This pioneering female aviator's claim to fame is well-known: in May 1932, the Kansas-born record-breaker became the first woman to fly solo, nonstop, across the Atlantic Ocean. Only one person, Charles Lindbergh, had previously accomplished that feat. In 1937, she disappeared at the age of 39 under mysterious circumstances in the central Pacific while making a round-the-world trip.
In addition to her famous transatlantic flight, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo, nonstop, across the United States from Los Angeles to Newark in 1932. Earhart was the first pilot, male or female, to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland (1935). Additionally, she was the first person to fly solo between Los Angeles and Mexico City and between Mexico City and Newark (also in 1935). Before taking control in the cockpit during her famous long-haul solo flights in 1932, Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger (1928).
A prolific author and essayist, Earhart served as an editor of Cosmopolitan magazine from 1928 to 1930. An accomplished seamstress, Earhart designed and endorsed her own fashion line sold at Macy's . She is believed to be the first celebrity to do so.
SPONSORED
| Amelia Earhart |
Which dictator moved into the Casa Rosada in June 1946? | The Official Website of Amelia Earhart
January 3, 1921 - Began flying lessons with Neta Snook
July 1921 - Bought first plane, the Kinner Airster (named “The Canary”)
October 22, 1922 - Broke women's altitude record when she rose to 14,000 feet
June 17-18, 1928 - First woman to fly across the Atlantic; 20hrs 40min (Fokker F7, Friendship)
Summer 1928 - Bought an Avro Avian, a small English plane famous because Lady Mary Heath, Britain's foremost woman pilot, had flown it solo from Capetown, South Africa, to London
Fall 1928 - Published book, 20 Hours 40 Minutes, toured, and lectured; became aviation editor of Cosmopolitan magazine
August 1929 - Placed third in the First Women's Air Derby, also known as the Powder Puff Derby; upgraded from her Avian to a Lockheed Vega
Fall 1929 - Elected as an official for National Aeronautic Association and encouraged the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) to establish separate world altitude, speed, and endurance records for women
June 25, 1930 - Set women's speed record for 100 kilometers with no load and with a load of 500 kilograms
July 5, 1930 - Set speed record for of 181.18mph over a 3K course
September 1930 - Helped to organize and became vice president of public relations for new airline, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington Airways
April 8, 1931 - Set woman's autogiro altitude record with 18,415 feet (in a Pitcairn autogiro)
May 20-21, 1932 - First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic; 14 hrs 56 min (it was also the 5th anniversary of Lindberg's Atlantic flight; awarded National Geographic Society's gold medal from President Herbert Hoover; Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross; wrote The Fun of It about her journey
August 24-25, 1932 - First woman to fly solo nonstop coast to coast; set women's nonstop transcontinental speed record, flying 2,447.8 miles in 19hrs 5min
Fall 1932 - Elected president of the Ninety Nines, a new women's aviation club which she helped to form
July 7-8, 1933 - Broke her previous transcontinental speed record by making the same flight in 17hrs 7min
January 11, 1935 - First person to solo the 2,408-mile distance across the Pacific between Honolulu and Oakland, California; also first flight where a civilian aircraft carried a two-way radio
April l9 - 20, 1935 - First person to fly solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City; 13hrs 23min
May 8, 1935 - First person to fly solo nonstop from Mexico City to Newark; 14hrs 19min
March 17, 1937 - Amelia and her navigator, Fred Noonan, along with Captain Harry Manning and stunt pilot Paul Mantz, fly the first leg of the trip from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, in 15 hours and 47 minutes
June 1, 1937 - Began flight around the world June 1937; first person to fly from the Red Sea to India
© Family of Amelia Earhart
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Pope Gregory XI was the last Pope to live in which French city? | Abridged History of Rome - PART II - V - The Popes Leave Rome
Iconography
Pope Clement V and the Move to Avignon
The circumstances which caused the death of Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 led to the submission of the popes to the will of Philip the Fair, King of France. At the end of a twelve months long conclave which followed the short period in office of Pope Benedict XI, the king saw his efforts rewarded by the election of his candidate, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who was not even a cardinal. The new pope summoned the cardinals and the key members of the Curia, the papal court, to Lyons where he was anointed and became Pope Clement V on November 14, 1305. The ceremony was attended by King Philip, accompanied by the top members of the French aristocracy, but the day was marked by dire portents: in particular a wall collapsed on the pope during the procession, he lost his balance and his crown fell to the ground.
It was not the first time that a pope was conferred his office outside Rome, nor was it unusual for a pope to spend long periods away from his diocese, so the decision of the new pope not to hurry to Rome and to stay for a while in several towns of southern France was not particularly odd. Things changed in 1309 when the pope decided to permanently settle at Avignon , a town in Provence which belonged to the Angevin King of Naples , in his capacity of Count of Provence.
In addition to choosing to stay in France, Pope Clement V appointed nine new French cardinals. At the request of the French king he excommunicated the powerful Order of the Knights Templar and gave the king a free hand in getting hold of their large possessions.
S. Giovanni in Laterano : new ciborium (1370)
The French popes who resided in Avignon for seventy years did not care about the maintenance and improvement of the great Roman basilicas. S. Giovanni in Laterano was partially destroyed by a fire in 1308 and again damaged by another fire in 1361. These fires caused a silver ciborium to melt down. It was only in 1370 that a new ciborium was erected. Its design, elegant but very similar to that of the ciboria erected eighty years earlier by Arnolfo di Cambio in S. Cecilia and in S. Paolo fuori le Mura, shows that Rome was lagging behind the artistic developments which in the meantime occurred in Tuscany and northern Italy.
Decline of the Roman Economy
The administration of Rome in the first half of the XIVth century was entrusted to a legate, a cardinal representing the pope, and to the Senator of Rome (also appointed by the pope), who had jurisdiction over some municipal matters. These two key positions were in the hands respectively of the Orsini and the Colonna. These two families were at loggerheads, but were united in the spoliation of Rome and in particular of its countryside. During this period of time the small villages around Rome were abandoned and replaced by casali, (farms) belonging to few important families who rented their estates to owners of cattle who used the land as grazing ground. The confrontation between the Colonna and the Orsini also led to a reduction of the security level both in Rome and along the roads used by the pilgrims to reach the city.
The absence from Rome impacted on the authority of the pope: Pope John XXII tried to exert the traditional papal role in the appointment of the German emperor, but his excommunication of Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria had very little impact. The emperor invaded Italy, was welcomed in Rome by Senator Sciarra Colonna and he appointed a new pope, a member of the spiritual Franciscans, who advocated evangelical poverty. The emperor decided to be crowned in Rome, but he did not care about the religious aspects of the ceremony: the event took place on the Campidoglio and the crown of Holy Roman Emperor was placed on Louis' head by Sciarra Colonna, as representative of the City of Rome: after a thousand years (the practice had been dismissed by Constantine the Great in 313) an emperor was crowned on the sacred hill of Ancient Rome.
In the XIVth century the great nations of Europe were taking shape and the words of a French pope had little to say to a German audience.
S. Maria sopra Minerva : Monument to Cardinal Matteo Orsini
It would be inappropriate to assume a rivalry between the Dominicans and the Franciscans, but for sure in the XIVth century there was a spirit of competition between these two monastic orders.
Pope John XXII in 1323 proclaimed the sainthood of Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican monk whose works had an enormous influence on the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.
In Rome the new church of S. Maria sopra Minerva was the Dominican response to the Franciscan church of S. Maria in Aracoeli. It was a very large church, the only one in Rome to have a distinct Gothic design. Knowing that the pope liked the Dominicans, who, unlike some Franciscans, did not criticize the pomp of the papal court, the Orsini chose to build their family chapel in this church (which was not yet completed). Today's visitors however do not find any longer an Orsini chapel in the church: this is now known as Cappella Aldobrandini, it has a lavish early Baroque marble decoration and it contains the monuments to the parents of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini (you may see it in a page covering the colours of Baroque Rome ). The chapel was sold by the Orsini to the Aldobrandini in 1587 and the new landlords evicted the monument to Cardinal Matteo Orsini, the founder of the chapel. It was placed (without its Gothic baldachin) in a dark corridor leading to the church rear entrance (sic transit gloria mundi - thus passes the glory of the world).
Cola di Rienzo's Attempts to Restore the Roman Republic
The vexations to which the people of Rome were subjected eventually led to a revolt against the Colonna and the Orsini.
(Ni)Cola di Rienzo, a notary who had spent some time at the papal court in Avignon, arranged a public meeting in the square below the Capitol on Whit Sunday 1347. There he spoke with eloquence about the need to redeem Rome and proposed new laws which were acclaimed by the crowd. The enthusiasm was such that both Colonna and Orsini chose to leave Rome. Cola di Rienzo (or Rienzi) took the ancient title of Tribune of the People , an office of Republican Rome.
Cola went ahead with his ambitious plan to renovate the political role of Rome by calling an assembly of the representatives of the Italian towns during which he proposed to them a federation under the leadership of Rome. He also wrote to the kings and emperors of Europe asking them to recognize the Republic of Rome.
With the fall of the first leaves, his words lost their appeal and both the great families and the pope started to plot against him. The Colonna led a small army to Rome to execute a papal order of arrest: Cola fled the city and hid into a monastery. The short season of the new Roman Republic came to an end.
S. Maria in Aracoeli : steps and monument to Cola di Rienzo
The Romans soon lost interest in the whereabouts of Cola di Rienzo because in 1348 a major pestilence spread throughout Europe. The Black Death, as this outbreak of bubonic plague became known, is estimated to have halved the population of Europe. In Rome the disease was accompanied by another calamity: a strong earthquake damaged several buildings including the Colosseo . The end of the plague was celebrated by providing S. Maria in Aracoeli with steps which allowed direct access to its main entrance: the church had initially had the entrance facing the Roman Forum, then the Franciscans rebuilt the church and reversed its orientation, but people continued to access the church from the Forum through a still existing side door. The new steps were a clear indication that the centre of Rome had moved from the Forum to Campo Marzio, the flat area between the hills and the river.
Cola di Rienzo was eventually arrested and brought to Avignon. In 1353 however Pope Innocent VI thought the man could help him in restoring the papal authority in Rome and he was sent back with a small military force. He was initially greeted by the Romans, but the taxes he levied to maintain his troops and his personal greed soon made him unpopular. In addition, notwithstanding Cola's current role as papal envoy, the Colonna were less than enthusiastic about having him back in Rome. In September 1354 a hostile mob gathered at Palazzo Senatorio : Cola tried to speak, but he was soon interrupted and had to escape in disguise. He was identified from the gold bracelets he wore and killed without a trial. The body was left for two days outside the houses of the Colonna .
Cola's role as a forerunner of the Italian nation and a victim of the theocratic power was emphasized in the XIXth century and on September 20, 1887 (the anniversary of the 1870 entrance of the Italian troops in Rome through a breach near Porta Pia ) a monument to him was inaugurated in a small garden between the two staircases of Campidoglio. He was portrayed in the act of haranguing the Romans: the statue was placed on a high base decorated with pieces of ancient lintels.
Calls for the Return of the Pope
In June 1348 Pope Clement VI bought Avignon from the king of Naples; this act coupled with the construction of a very large palace indicated that the French popes were determined to establish their permanent residence in that town. It was in a sense a forced choice. After the death of Philip the Fair, a string of successors ruled France for short periods until the crown passed to Philip VI of Valois, who in 1337 started the Hundred Years' War by declaring that Edward III, King of England had lost his rights over Aquitaine. With France weakened by the effects of the war, the popes felt relatively safe in Avignon while Rome and in general the Italian regions under the formal authority of the popes were in a state of anarchy.
From a religious point of view however the decision to stay in Avignon was highly criticized. The great Italian poets Dante and Petrarca had harsh words for the papal reluctance to return to Rome.
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), who had a direct experience of the life at the papal court, described Avignon as a new Babylon:
De l'empia Babilonia, ond'� fuggita
ogni vergogna, ond'ogni bene � fori,
albergo di dolor, madre d'errori,
son fuggito io per allungar la vita...
Canzoniere - CXIV
From the impious Babylon, from which
all shame has fled, all good is banished,
the house of grief, the mother of error,
I've also fled, to prolong my life....
Translation by A. S. Kline
The comparison between Babylon and the papal court had more lasting effects than Petrarca could have imagined when he wrote his sonnet. It was used again by Martin Luther in a letter to Pope Leo X : "Your See, however, which is called the Court of Rome, and which neither you nor any man can deny to be more corrupt than any Babylon ..".
1962 Monument to St. Catherine of Siena by Francesco Messina in the gardens of Castel Sant'Angelo
Saint Catherine of Siena played a very important role in calling for the return of the popes. She was a Dominican Tertiary (a lay member of a monastic order) and in Rome she lived in a house near S. Maria sopra Minerva : after a series of visions, she felt she had to write to popes and kings begging for peace and for the return of the papacy to Rome. In June 1376 she was sent to Avignon as ambassador of the Republic of Florence to settle a long dispute with the pope and on that occasion she so impressed Pope Gregory XI that he decided to move to Rome.
For the 500th anniversary of her canonization in 1462 a monument was dedicated to St. Catherine in the gardens of Castel Sant'Angelo: the saint was portrayed on her way to St Peter's where she used to go every day to pray for the return of the pope. One of the reliefs of the monument shows the saint asking the pope to make a firm decision.
Cardinal Albornoz
The popes were able to restore their authority over their Italian possessions due to the services of Gil Alvarez De Albornoz, a Spanish cardinal, who had military experience because of the particular situation of his country where the Christian kingdoms were trying to conquer the last Arab strongholds. Albornoz, as archbishop of Toledo, personally led his troops in several battles. In addition to his military skills, Albornoz had a shrewd knowledge of how to survive in the treacherous environment of the papal court. In 1353 he was sent to Italy as papal legate and, apart from a short interval, he held this office until his death in 1367. By following a systematic approach and by exploiting the rivalries among the various towns of the Papal State, he gradually managed by force or by consent to restore the pope's authority. He was so successful that in 1367 Pope Urban V decided to make an attempt to return to Rome; he left the papal court at Avignon and escorted by ships sent by Venice, Naples, Pisa and Genoa, he landed at Corneto where he was greeted by Albornoz.
The pope set his residence in the Vatican but soon he started to regret his decision: Albornoz died of malaria, the Romans were not too happy about the first papal decrees aimed at reducing their municipal powers, the French cardinals who had accompanied the pope missed the wines of Burgundy. Pope Urban V preferred to move his residence to Viterbo and Montefiascone and in September 1370 he left Italy to return to Avignon, notwithstanding the fact that St. Bridget of Sweden had warned him that he would die if he left Rome. In December of that same year the pope actually died.
Rocca di Spoleto
Cardinal Albornoz did not trust the unwilling professions of allegiance made by the citizens of the towns he forced to surrender. He therefore built fortresses in many of these towns; they were not meant to protect the town from external enemies, but to allow a small garrison to repel rebellions against papal decisions. These fortresses were usually called la Rocca because they were located on the rocky top of a hill in a commanding position. A major fortress was built in Spoleto ; other fortresses built by Cardinal Albornoz can be seen in a page covering the fortresses of the popes .
Pope Gregory XI and his Return to Rome
The new pope, Gregory XI, was the nephew of Pope Clement VI who in 1348 bought the town of Avignon. He did not seem very interested in leaving his French palace although he had committed to move to Rome in May 1372. In the Italian papal possessions the absence of the firm grip of Cardinal Albornoz, was soon felt.
Florence and Milan supported the rebellion of many towns; the pope excommunicated the city of Florence, but that did not have a great impact on its inhabitants who were enjoying themselves reading the Decameron, a book of tales where priests and monks were ridiculed. It was written by Giovanni Boccaccio and it described how a group of ten young men and women spent ten days in a countryside villa outside Florence where they hoped to escape the 1348 pestilence: every day each member of the happy brigade told a tale so the book was also known as Centonovelle (100 tales). Overall Boccaccio's tales portrayed a wealthy and active society which showed little interest in the teachings of the Church.
Other political initiatives of Pope Gregory XI met with similar failures to the point that he realized that only the return to Rome could restore the authority of the pope, both in spiritual and political matters.
He sent an army of 10,000 mercenaries led by Cardinal Robert de Genevois to restore order in the papal state: this cardinal lacked the balance of Cardinal Albornoz and his troops left behind them a series of horrible massacres.
In September 1376 Pope Gregory XI left Avignon and by moving at a very slow pace he reached Rome in January 1377. In the meantime Cardinal Robert was unable to control the country without excessive use of force: the massacre of 4,000 inhabitants of Cesena, a town near Bologna, earned him the unflattering title of Boia (executioner) di Cesena. The pope felt unsafe in the Vatican and spent several months in Anagni . He returned to Rome only in November when Gomez Albornoz, nephew of Cardinal Albornoz, managed to improve the acceptance of the pope, at least among the Romans. It was a short stay as Pope Gregory XI died a few months later and was buried in S. Francesca Romana.
S. Francesca Romana : Monument to Pope Gregory XI: relief portraying his arrival in Rome
In 1584 the municipality of Rome built a monument to celebrate Pope Gregory XI and his return to Rome; the decision can be regarded as an indirect homage to the pope of the time, another Gregory (XIII). The monument was designed by Pietro Paolo Olivieri who in a large relief portrayed the arrival of the pope at Porta S. Paolo where he was greeted by a personification of Rome. Behind the pope one can see a series of cardinals.
During the period the popes spent in Avignon the role and power of the cardinals grew significantly: they were in charge of the most important branches of the administration or they were sent as legate (governors) to the main towns of the papal state. The Curia became a very large body, not very different from the court of a king of a major European nation. Its maintenance required significant financial resources; the cardinals too had a personal court and they exploited their offices to find the means to maintain it. This large financial burden had a significant impact on the events which eventually led to the Reformation.
Iconography
The following links show works of art portraying characters and events mentioned in this page:
| Avignon |
Adrian IV, the first English Pope, was educated in which city named after the first English martyr? | Historically Irrelevant | The Western Schism
The Western Schism
The resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has, to put it mildly, come as a surprise to many across the world. It has also turned eyes back to the last pope to resign almost 600 years ago: Pope Gregory XII, who resigned in 1415. The circumstances of Pope Benedict’s resignation have been cited as health issues, but Gregory’s resignation was a bit… messier. 1 To understand why he resigned and the circumstances regarding his departure, we must first delve back into understanding what the Papacy used to be.
The Vatican as we know it in the 21st century is vastly different from its 15th century relative. First and foremost, the Papacy was a secular as well as religious body. It frequently wrestled with the Holy Roman Empire for secular domination of Christendom’s forces. It commanded armies and led Crusades. Pope Julius II, who reigned a century after Gregory XII, has been dubbed the warrior pope because he led the Papal armies on the battlefield. 2 The Papacy had real political clout; it did much more than simply directing the spiritual positions of the Catholic Church as it does today.
And with this in mind we enter the world of the 1300’s. In 1305, after much deliberation, the Conclave 3 selected a French pope, Clement V. Clement, so fond of his French heritage, declined to move to Rome and instead decided to set up his Papal court in the French city of Avignon. 4 Referred to by many as the “Babylonian Captivity,” the Papacy spent the next 67 years in Avignon rather than Rome, seeing seven (French) [opes reign and die on French soil. As to be expected, the popes of Avignon became steadily more corrupt and more connected to the French crown, much to the chagrin of the rest of the continent. Hence, Pope Gregory XI decided to end his stay in Avignon and returned the Papacy to its seat in Rome during the winter of 1377. 5
Pope Gregory XI died soon after, and the Romans clamored for the Conclave to elect a Italian pope. It had been eight popes since the last Italian—a rather long period of time for the Papacy to be vacant an Italian seat. So came about the appointment of Pope Urban VI in 1388. The cardinals soon began to regret their decision, for Urban VI was incompetent, to say the least. 6 He attempted too many reforms for the Conclave’s liking, and was prone to violent outbursts due to his uncontrollable temper. Attempting to rectify the situation, the majority of the Conclave fled Rome for the Italian city of Anagni and elected a new pope: Pope Clement VII. Clement, knowing it was not safe to stay in Italy, packed his bags and set up court back in the old Papal city of Avignon, France. 7
This was not the first time two claimants to the papacy had shown up. Popes and antipopes 8 had been vying for the throne ever since the 5th century. However, this was the first time that two popes had been elected by the same Conclave. This posed an issue for Christendom: which Pope was legitimate? Both had the same claim to power for they were both given power by the same body. No theological issues characterized this Western Schism 9 ; rather, it was a purely political split. In fact, the two popes split Europe right in half. The French, Spanish, Neapolitans, and Scots supported Clement VII of Avignon, whilst the English, Venetians, Germans (the Holy Roman Empire at the time), and Nordic countries backed Urban VI of Rome. The split even caused a few conflicts, mostly centered in the Iberian Peninsula between the Avignon-supporting Spaniards and the Roman-loving English and Portuguese. 10
The split continued long after the deaths of each initial claimant; Pope Boniface IX was coronated in 1389 in Rome whilst the Avignon antipope Benedict XIII rose to power in 1394. The problem posed a rather tricky one for Church intellectuals to solve. Canon law stated that only a pope can call council to solve a Church crisis of claimants, but neither pope was willing to do so. Eventually, a few ecclesiastical lawyers found their way around the problem by claiming that the Church could flaunt their own laws when the well-being of the Church itself was at stake, and called a council at Pisa in 1409. Comically, the council went horribly wrong and they somehow ended up electing another antipope by the name of Pope Alexander V. He died a year later, and John XXIII rose to take his place. 11
By this time in 1410, there were now three claimants to the papal seat. Pope Benedict XIII reigned in Avignon, Gregory XII in Rome, and John XXIII in Pisa. Each had their own supporters, their own court, and made their own theological decisions. Needless to say, the Catholic Church was in a state of utter disarray.
Finally, the Catholic Church was able to organize another council that miraculously solved the crisis rather than appointing another antipope. The Council of Constance convened in 1414 and had a number of sweeping proclamations. It first secured the resignations of the Pisa pope, John XXIII, and the Roman pope, Gregory XII. Gregory XII has the distinction of being the most modern pope to resign 12 , and is the reason why this post is being written at all. The council failed to get the Avignon pope, Benedict XIII, to resign, so they excommunicated 13 him instead. He soon fell into irrelevance with only the Kingdom of Aragon in Spain still supporting him. With the three popes essentially eliminated, the Council of Constance then appointed a new pope to take up the reigns of the Church and restore it to unity. This pope, Pope Martin V, was almost universally supported by the secular leaders of Europe, tired of the decades of infighting the schism had caused. 14
The Council of Constance ended the Western Schism in a very subtle yet clever way. By getting rid of all three popes and appointing a single new leader, they never legitimized any of the three claimants. This avoided insulting any of the backers of any one of the three, and helped to keep church unity. Even today, the “official popes” of the Western Schism are unclear. The Catholic Church has never made a clear pronouncement on the issue, so the line of succession is still in question.
The Western Schism, and indeed the Avignon Papacy, are generally agreed to be massive contributing factors to the dissatisfaction with the Church leading to the Protestant Reformation some centuries later. The Southern games of the Italians and French disturbed the Germans and northern countries, who were disillusioned with the corrupt nature of the Church after the two events. 15 The Western Schism can be seen as the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church’s absolute dominance over medieval Europe. So long as Pope Benedict XVI has no ambitions of founding his own church or challenging his successor as an antipope, it’s guaranteed that his resignation will be void of the controversy and messiness that defined Gregory XII abdication from power.
| i don't know |
Alexander Graham Bell discovered that which type of cabling cancels out electrical interference? | Some interesting twists about Ethernet cabling - TechRepublic
TechRepublic
Networking
Some interesting twists about Ethernet cabling
Michael Kassner answers the question: why does Ethernet cabling use twisted-pair conductors? Here is the explanation, including some tips learned from cable installers about proper installation.
In a recent post , Jack Wallen explained how to make Ethernet cable connections. In the ensuing comments, I noticed some interest in Ethernet cabling itself. That's understandable, Ethernet cabling does not look or act like normal wiring.
Differential signaling
To understand why Ethernet cable is built the way it is, it requires familiarity with how the signals are transmitted over the wires. The fancy term is differential signaling . During a digital pulse, each wire in the pair carries a signal that is the same voltage, but opposite polarity. The slide below (courtesy of Wikipedia) exemplifies the process:
The greater the difference between the input pulses, the larger the output pulse, making it easier for the receiver logic to differentiate ones and zeros. I might add that this becomes more important as throughput rates increase.
As you can see in the slide, differential signaling has some noise-canceling capability, but not enough when it comes to Ethernet cabling. That's because two types of interference come into play, electromagnetic radiation from sources such as power wires or crosstalk from other pairs in the same cable. Both introduce noise that reduces the differential. If there is enough noise, the receiver can misread what was sent.
It's all about the twists
The Ethernet cabling most of us are familiar with consists of four pairs of wires, twisted together, and enclosed in a single insulating cover jacket. Those twists are a pain when making connections, but are there for a reason. Transmitting Ethernet signals over a cable that small would not be possible without them.
To understand the importance of twisting the wires requires learning about common-mode rejection . It seems that digital electronics connected with balanced lines , such as twisted pair Ethernet cabling are capable of rejecting noise, as long as the spurious emission is common to both leads in the twisted pair.
It might help to use an example. I mentioned crosstalk earlier. If pairs were not twisted in Ethernet cabling, it is entirely possible for two wires in adjacent pairs to be next to each other for the entire length of the cable. That could skew the results by adding cross talk to only one leg of the pairing.
If the wires in the pair were twisted, both wires in the pair would be affected the same. Then the receiver using common-mode rejection would be able to filter out the crosstalk interference.
Geek trivia alert: This phenomenon was discovered by Alexander Graham Bell. In fact, telegraph wires were the first twisted pair. The wires switched position on the pole after a certain distance (courtesy of Wikipedia):
Another twist
Ever notice that some of the twisted pairs are easier to un-ravel? There is a reason for that. If adjacent pairs have an equivalent twist rate or pitch, the same wires of each pair could be next to each other for the entire run, negating differential signaling. In order to prevent that, Ethernet cable manufacturers use different twist rates (courtesy of Wikipedia):
One last note, according to cabling best practices, pair wires should not be untwisted more than 13 mm. This comes into play when using punch-down blocks.
UTP versus STP
There are two types of Ethernet cabling, Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) and Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) . Everything that I mentioned up until now, applies to both. STP cabling is used if there is an abnormal amount of electromagnetic interference. STP uses metal-foil shielding that directs any external noise to ground. The metal foil can surround each twisted pair (STP), all the twisted pairs S/UTP), or both (S/STP).
Some installation tips
Every time I work with cable installers, I bug them mercilessly, trying to learn what they consider important. Here are some of their pointers:
For solid wire UTP, the minimum bend radius is eight times the outside diameter of the cable. Anything less affects the twist rate, reducing noise rejection.
When installing long runs be careful not to stretch the cable, doing so could alter the twist rate, again reducing noise rejections.
Due to the high frequency of digital transmissions, the phenomenon of skin effect comes into play. So be careful not to nick the copper wire.
Make sure to use plenum-rated Ethernet cabling , if the run is located in a space that is used for air circulation.
Run Ethernet cabling at least 15 cm from any high-voltage lines, 30 cm is better.
If Ethernet cabling must cross a high-voltage line, do so at a 90 degree angle.
If I missed a tip you feel is important, please share it with the rest of us.
Final thoughts
As digital throughput rates keep increasing the margin for error decreases rapidly. Make sure to keep those pairs twisted.
| Twisted pair |
What was Reginald Perrin's middle name? | What Is UTP Cable?
What Is UTP Cable?
March 31, 2015
By: Nathan E. Baker
Unshielded Twisted Pair cable is low-cost network cable built with a pair of insulated conductors twisted together and covered with a plastic jacket for protection. It is called unshielded because it has no additional foil wrap, or shield, which is added to cables when electromagnetic shielding is required. UTP cable is used extensively in local area networks, or LANs.
UTP cable is a group if single conductors wrapped around each other inside an insulated jacket.
credit: Georgios Alexandris/iStock/Getty Images
Origins of UTP Cable
Alexander Graham Bell was the first person to make a UTP cable by simply twisting two wires together. The basic design has changed little since 1881, and is still a pair of single conductors wrapped around each other inside an insulated jacket. Some cables include up to four pairs of twisted cable. There's no foil wrap shielding and no braided shield screen, so this kind of cable is more susceptible to interference than a shielded twisted pair.
Electrical Interference
Electrical signals carried through any conductor can create electromagnetic fields. Two or more electromagnetic fields in close proximity can interact with each other, which usually means loss of data or signal strength. Losing data in a computer network can result in a variety of problems. Shielded twisted pair cable is an option when interference is an issue.
Shielded and Unshielded Cables
Shielded and unshielded twisted pair cables carry several designations. Each type of cable has different electrical characteristics, varies in its ability to shield a signal, and is appropriate for different environments. Typical cable designations include UTP or U/UTP, the basic two-conductor without foil or braid shield; STP or U/FTP, which includes a foil shield under the jacket; and FTP or F/UTP, which includes a braided screen for additional protection. For some special environments, there are also heavier cable configurations with more shielding.
Cable Categories
There are different categories of cable, with CAT1 through CAT5, CAT5E and CAT6 being the most common. CAT1 is telephone wire and is not suitable for LAN communication. CAT2 through CAT5 are suitable for telephone or network communication, and differ in their ability to transmit high-speed data. CAT2 can support up to 4 Mbps, and CAT3 can go to 10 Mbps. CAT5 cable should be used for any high data speeds, up to 100 Mbps. CAT3, CAT4 and CAT5 carry more wires inside the jacket, with four pairs of twisted wire. In addition to having more conductors, conductors in a CAT5 cable are twisted more tightly together than in CAT4 and CAT3, which helps to prevent unwanted interference. CAT6 wire physically separates all four pairs of twisted conductors, further reducing the chance of interference, which makes it suitable for gigabit data speeds.
CAT5 and CAT5E Cable
CAT5E cable includes a variety of engineering improvements that make it superior in all respects to CAT5 cable. CAT5E cable is less susceptible to crosstalk, or interference between conductors, is rated at 350 MHz, can support gigabit Ethernet speeds, and has a tougher PVC jacket. The tougher jacket makes CAT5E cable less likely to be damaged during installation. Except for some networks that specifically call for CAT5 cable, CAT5E is suitable for all applications.
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What sort of sea creature is a Medusa? | 1000+ images about Medusa (jellyfish) on Pinterest | Fish swimming, Darth vader and Swimming
In pictures: The world's best underwater photographs 2010
'Inner glow' - jellyfish in Ningaloo Reef, Australia
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| Jellyfish |
The name of which Titan was given to a large flightless bird of South America? | Jellyfish and Comb Jellies | Smithsonian Ocean Portal
Jellyfish and Comb Jellies
by The Ocean Portal Team; Reviewed by Allen Collins
Chrysaora melanaster, one of the largest jellyfish commonly found in the Arctic, swims underneath the Arctic ice.
Credit:
K. Raskoff, Monterey Peninsula College, Arctic Exploration 2002, NOAA
Jellyfish and comb jellies are gelatinous animals that drift through the ocean's water column around the world. They are both beautiful—the jellyfish with their pulsating bells and long, trailing tentacles, and the comb jellies with their paddling combs generating rainbow-like colors. Yet though they look similar in some ways, jellyfish and comb jellies are not very close relatives (being in different phyla—Cnidaria and Ctenophora, respectively) and have very different life histories.
Both groups are ancient animals, having roamed the seas for at least 500 million years. And, in the modern age, they are having similar effects on ecosystems. As seawater temperature rises, predators of jellies are removed by fishing, more structures are built in seawater, and more nutrients flow into the ocean, some types of jellyfish and comb jellies may be finding it easier to grow and survive. Whatever the reason, huge explosions in jelly numbers (a jelly bloom) can disrupt fisheries, make for unpleasant swimming, or foul up the works of power plants that use seawater for cooling. Invasive jellies have also wreaked havoc in some parts of the world.
Many jellyfish in the class Hydrozoa, such as this hydromedusa Aglantha digitale, are transparent and easily overlooked.
Credit:
K. Raskoff, Monterey Peninsula College, Hidden Ocean 2005, NOAA
While jellyfish and comb jellies have several anatomical differences, the basics are the same. Both have two major cell layers: the external epidermis and the internal gastrodermis. (Ctenophores also have musculature in their in-between layer, the mesoderm, but it likely evolved separately from the mesoderm found in bilaterians like people.)
The gastrodermis lines the all-purpose gut and an opening where food enters and reproductive cells are released and taken in. Jellies have no need for a stomach, intestine, or lungs: nutrients and oxygen slip in and out of their cell walls through the gastrodermis or even their bodies' outer cells. The outer cells that make up the epidermis contain a loose network of nerves called the "nerve net." This is the most basic nervous system known in a multicellular animal. (See Brains of Jelly? for more.)
Between these layers is a gelatinous material called mesoglea, which makes up most of their bodies. (Although some small species have very thin mesoglea.) Jellyfish and comb jellies are 95 percent water and so, rightly, mesoglea is mostly water! It also contains some structural proteins, muscle cells, and nerve cells, forming a kind of internal skeleton.
Dryodora glandiformis is a ctenophore found in Arctic and Northern European waters, bearing a pair of long and lovely tentacles.
Credit:
© Alexander Semenov
Comb jellies are named for their unique feature: plates of giant fused cilia, known as combs, which run in eight rows up and down their bodies. The combs act like tiny oars, propelling the comb jelly through the water. Many microscopic organisms, such as bacteria, also use cilia to swim—but comb jellies are the largest known animals to do so. The comb-rows often produce a rainbow effect. This is not bioluminescence, but occurs when light is scattered in different directions by the moving cilia.
Until 2015 scientists believed that comb jellies removed their waste via their "mouth," or what was believed to be the one hole in their body plan. A new study showed that comb jellies in fact release indigestible particles through pores on the rear end of the animal. This discovery adds another piece to the evolutionary puzzle of when animals evolved to have anuses.
Many comb jellies have a single pair of tentacles (often each tentacle is branched, giving the illusion of many tentacles) that they use like fishing lines to catch prey. They are armed with sticky cells (colloblasts) and unlike jellyfish, the tentacles of comb jellies don’t sting. (See The Stings: Nematocysts and Colloblasts for more.)
Alien-looking creatures , like this deep red jellyfish, Crossota norvegica , float in the Arctic Sea .
Credit:
K. Raskoff, Monterey Peninsula College, Hidden Ocean 2005, NOAA.
Jellyfish transition between two different body forms throughout their lives. The familiar body plan that looks like an upside down bell with tentacles hanging down from the inside is called the medusa. The polyp, the other cnidarian body plan, is the opposite, with the mouth and tentacles above, like a sea anemone. (See more in Reproduction & Lifecycle .)
Jellyfish also have a stinging adaptation that is unique to them and their close relatives (including sea anemones and hydras): nematocysts, or stinging cells. (See The Stings: Nematocysts and Colloblasts for more.)
"Big red" is the nickname that MBARI marine biologists gave to this startlingly large jellyfish, Tiburonia granrojo (also called the giant jellyfish), which grows over one meter (three feet) in diameter.
Credit:
©2002 MBARI
Jellyfish and comb jellies vary greatly in size depending on the species. Most jellies range from less than half an inch (1 cm) wide to about 16 inches (40 cm), though the smallest are just one millimeter wide! The largest jellies are the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish ( Cyanea capillata ), which can be almost 6 feet wide (1.8 m) with tentacles over 49 feet (15 m) long. Larger individuals have been seen, but they are not typical. Venus’s girdle ( Cestum veneris ), a belt shaped comb jelly, can be 40 inches (1 meter) long.
The Nervous System
Chiropsalmus quadrumanus, a venomous box jelly (Cubozoan) collected off the coast of South Carolina.
Credit:
Bastian Bentlage
Jellies don't have brains as we typically think of them: rather, they have a network of neurons ("nerve net") that allows jellies to sense their environments, such as changes in water chemistry indicating food or the touch of another animal. The nerve net has some specialized structures such as statocysts, which are balance sensors that help jellies know whether they are facing up or down, and light-sensing organs called ocelli, which can sense the presence and absence of light.
Additionally, some jellyfish have sensory structures called rhopalia, which contain receptors to detect light, chemicals and movement. One group of jellyfish, the cubozoan jellyfish, have complex eyes with lenses, corneas and retinas in their rhopalia. Although they respond to visual stimuli, scientists don’t know how the jellyfish interpret the images created by their eyes since they don’t have a brain with which to process them. Their nerve ring, a ring-shaped concentration of nerves found in jellyfish, seems to be involved, however.
This rare staurozoan , or stalked jellyfish, Haliclystus californiensis, is about 2 centimeters in length and was collected off the coast of California.
Credit:
Allen Collins
All jellyfish are Cnidaria, an animal phylum that contains jellies, sea anemones, and corals , among others. There are more than 10,000 species of Cnidaria, and less than 4,000 of these are Medusazoa—those animals we think of as jellyfish. Those 4,000 jellyfish can be divided into four different groups.
SCYPHOZOA are the most familiar jellyfish, including most of the bigger and more colorful jellies that interact with humans, and are sometimes called "true jellyfish" for this reason. Scyphozoa spend most of their lives in the medusa body form, and there are at least 200 species.
HYDROZOA are jellyfish look-alikes but not in the same group as the “true jellyfish.” The swimming medusa stages of this group are often small and inconspicuous, whereas the bottom-dwelling polyps, or hydroids, usually take the form of large colonies. (See Reproduction & Lifecycle .) In the water column, the colonial siphonophores may be quite spectacular. These include the notorious Portuguese Man-o-Wars and many deep-sea forms, some of which stretch out up to 50 meters in length like giant fishing nets. Colonial siphonophores are composed of many specialized individuals called zooids that are genetically identical because they all come from a single fertilized egg. There are around 3,700 species of Hydrozoa.
CUBOZOA are the box jellyfish, named for their box-like bells. Some cubozoans, such as the sea wasp ( Chironex fleckeri ), produce some of the most potent venom known. Cubozoan jellyfish also have a more developed nervous system than other jellyfish, including complex eyes with lenses, corneas and retinas. Some even engage in elaborate (for a jellyfish) courtship behavior! There are at least 36 species. In 2011, Allen Collins, a jellyfish expert at the Smithsonian, discovered a new species, which was named Tamoya ohboya in a public naming contest . (Listen to a podcast about box jellies .)
STAUROZOA are the stalked jellyfishes , which don't float through the water like other jellies, but rather live attached to rocks or seaweed. They are trumpet-shaped, and mostly live in cold water. There are around 50 staurozoan species, many notable for their unique combination of beauty and camouflage.
Jellies are found in oceans worldwide, in shallow and deep water, and a few can even be found living in freshwater.
Like this comb jelly (Aulococtena acuminata), many midwater animals are red. Red is an easier pigment to produce than black, and in dark water, can't be seen.
Credit:
Marsh Youngbluth/MAR-ECO, Census of Marine Life
Compared to jellyfish, there are far fewer species of ctenophores: only 100-150 species have been found, but quite a few are out there yet to be discovered and fully documented. The best-known comb jellies are those found close to shore because, there, they are most likely to run into people. Those can be roughly divided into three groups.
CYDIPPIDS all have rounded bodies—some spherical, some oval—with branched tentacles. (This means that their tentacles are fringed with smaller tentacles.) These tentacles can be withdrawn into the jelly's body into special sheaths or pouches on either side of their mouths.
LOBATES are defined by two flattened lobes that extend from the typical rounded ctenophore body down below their mouths. They also have short tentacles and tend to grow larger than cydippids.
BEROIDS (also known as "nuda") are sack-shaped and have no tentacles at all—but they do have a very large mouth, which they can zip shut very tightly .
Open ocean ctenophores are much less known. They tend to be very fragile because they don't have to endure rough coastal waves; many of them are so fragile that they cannot be collected by submersibles and are known only by photographs. They come in a great diversity of forms. Some are shaped like belts ( Cestida ), while others don't float in the water column at all, but live on the seafloor ! (These are known as benthic ctenophores.)
Comb jellies live throughout the world's ocean, although most species prefer warmer water.
Evolution
Comb jellies (such as this Bolinopsis species) are named for their combs: the rows of cilia lining their bodies that propel them through the ocean.
Credit:
© Alexander Semenov
Jellyfish and comb jellies are in different phyla, but scientists have long argued over whether they have an especially close relationship apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. To distinguish them, all Cnidaria and Ctenophora were once described as Coelenterata—but that term is no longer commonly used.
To this day, some researchers believe they are sister groups, while others think they are not closely related. Either way, there are still plenty of other questions to argue about, such as how long ago the two groups diverged, and even whether ctenophores might be the most ancient group of animals, diverging even earlier than sponges in the animal tree of life. These arguments continue because, as some of the simplest animals alive today, understanding their place in the tree of life helps people understand how all other animals—including people—evolved.
This jellyfish fossil is from the Cambrian period, more than 500 million years ago.
Credit:
Paulyn Cartwright et al. 2007 (PLOS ONE)
Whichever came first, comb jellies and jellyfish (and other Cnidarians) made an important step in evolutionary history: they are the earliest known animals to have organized tissues—their epidermis and gastrodermis—and a nervous system. They're also the first animals known to swim using muscles instead of drifting with the whims of the waves.
The oldest ancestors of modern day jellies lived at least 500 million years ago, and maybe as long as 700 million years ago. That makes jellyfish three-times as old as the first dinosaurs!
Because jellies have no bones or other hard parts, finding jellyfish fossils is rare. But in 2007, a group of scientists including Allen Collins from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, discovered some beautifully-preserved jellyfish fossils buried in Utah from 505 million years ago. From around the same period, scientists have also found well-preserved comb jelly fossils in the Burgess Shale.
Credit:
Mary Elizabeth Miller, Dauphin Island Sea Lab
Jellyfish and ctenophores are carnivorous, and will eat just about anything they run into! Most jellies primarily eat plankton, tiny organisms that drift along in the water, although larger ones may also eat crustaceans, fish and even other jellyfish along in the water, although larger ones may also eat crustaceans, fish and even other jellyfish and comb jellies. Some jellyfish sit upside down on the bottom and have symbiotic algae ( zooxanthellae ) in their tissues, which photosynthesize, and so get much of their energy the way plants do.
While their nematocysts and colloblasts do help them defend themselves, plenty of animals manage to catch and eat jellies: more than 150 animal species are known to eat jellies, including fish, sea turtles, crustaceans, and even other jellyfish. Jellies are the favorite food of the ocean sunfish (Mola mola) and endangered leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), which will migrate thousands of miles for the gelatinous delicacy. Young jellyfish are small enough to be part of the general zooplankton population and are eaten by many animals.
Humans also eat jellyfish: people have fished for jellies for at least 1700 years off the coast of China. Some 425,000 tons (more than 900 million pounds) of jellyfish are caught each year by fisheries in 15 countries, and most are consumed in Southeast Asia. Eating jellyfish may become more common around the world as we overfish more preferable fish species.
Feeding Adaptations
Stinging cells (nematocysts) line the tentacles of this moon jelly ( Aurelia aurita ).
Credit:
© Alexander Semenov
Jellyfish and ctenophores both have tentacles with specialized cells to capture prey: nematocysts and colloblasts, respectively. Jellyfishes' nematocysts are organelles within special cells (cnidocytes) that contain venom-bearing harpoons. The cell is activated upon touch or chemical cue, causing the harpoon to shoot out of the cell and spear the prey or enemy, releasing toxin—a process that takes only 700 nanoseconds. A small number of jellyfish are very toxic to humans, such as the box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri) and Irukandji jellyfish (Carukia barnesi), which can cause severe reactions and even death in some people.
Many comb jellies have colloblasts lining their tentacles, which work like nematocysts but release glue instead of venom. Upon touch, a spiral filament automatically bursts out of colloblast cells that releases the sticky glue. Once an item is stuck, the comb jelly reels in its tentacle and brings the food into its mouth. One species of ctenophore (Haeckelia rubra) recycles nematocysts from hydrozoan jellyfish it consumes and uses these to stun and kill prey.
A beroid ctenophore lunges toward prey with its mouth wide open.
Credit:
NOAA/OAR/National Undersea Research Program (NURP)
Comb jellies come in many shapes and sizes , and so within the group there are many ways to feed. The rounded and tentacled cydippids have branched tentacles lined with colloblasts that they use, in the traditional jelly style, like a fishing line to trap food and bring it to their mouths.
The lobate ctenophores have two flattened lobes that reach below their mouths. Special cilia waving between the lobes generate a current to pull planktonic food between the lobes and into the jelly's mouth, allowing them to feed on plankton continuously. They also use colloblast-lined tentacles to catch food.
The tentacle-less beroids depend on their large mouths. Instead of catching food with colloblasts, they swallow their prey (often other ctenophores!) whole and then clamp their mouths shut , giving them no escape route. Inside their mouths they have small cilia that act as teeth, pulling food apart, which also direct the food into the comb jelly's gut.
Defense Adaptations
A transparent body helps this tiny comb jelly (Bathocyroe fosteri) blend into the water.
Credit:
Marsh Youngbluth/MAR-ECO, Census of Marine Life
Many jellyfish and comb jellies are able to produce light—an ability known as bioluminescence. They have proteins in some tissues that undergo a chemical reaction to produce blue or green light in response to stimuli such as touch. No one's quite sure why jellies bioluminesce, but it seems to be mainly a defense tactic. A bright enough flash could be enough to startle a predator—or to attract an even bigger predator to make the jelly's predator into prey.
Jellies have also adapted their body color to camouflage in the darkness. Most are nearly colorless and transparent, so they can be difficult for predators to see. However, some deep sea jellyfish and comb jellies are a bright red or orange color. Why would they be red instead of black to blend in with the dark water? Red cannot be seen in dark water (deeper than 200 meters), so there's no greater protection from black than red. But red is preferred to black because pigment is easier for animals to produce. Some deep sea jellies just have dark red guts, possibly serving to mask luminescent prey from other larger predators with eyes.
Throughout their lifecycle, jellyfish take on two different body forms: medusa and polyps. Polyps can reproduce asexually by budding, while medusae spawn eggs and sperm to reproduce sexually.
Credit:
Smithsonian Ocean Portal
Jellyfish have a complex life cycle: a single jellyfish reproduces both sexually and asexually during its lifetime, and takes on two different body forms.
An adult jellyfish is called a medusa, which is the familiar umbrella-shaped form that we see in the water. Medusa jellyfish reproduce sexually by spawning—the mass release of eggs and sperm into the open ocean—with entire populations sometimes spawning all together. Male and female jellyfish (there aren't many hermaphrodites) release the sperm and eggs from their mouths. In most species, fertilization takes place in the water; in others, the sperm swim up into the female's mouth and fertilize the eggs within.
The fertilized eggs then develop into planulae (singular: planula), which are ciliated free-swimming larvae shaped a bit like a miniature flattened pear. After several days of development, the planulae attach to a firm surface and transform into flower-like polyps. The polyps have a mouth and tentacles that are used to feed on zooplankton.
Polyps reproduce asexually by budding—when a polyp divides roughly in half to produce a new genetically identical polyp—or they can produce or transform into medusae, depending on the type of jellyfish. Hydrozoan polyps bud medusae from their sides; cubozoan polyps each transform into a medusa.
Video of And jellyfish are born: scyphozoa strobilation
In schyphozoans, a process called strobilation takes place (shown in video and in diagram). During strobilation, a polyp splits into 10-15 plate-like segments stacked atop one another in a tower called a strobila. After a segment separates from the strobila, it is called an ephyra, a juvenile jellyfish. Ephyrae mature into the medusa form.
Most jellyfish are short lived. Medusa or adult jellyfish typically live for a few months, depending on the species, although some species can live for 2-3 years in captivity. Polyps can live and reproduce asexually for several years, or even decades.
One jellyfish species is almost immortal. Turritopsis nutricula, a small hydrozoan, can revert back to the polyp stage after reaching adult medusa stage through a process called transdifferentiation. This is the only animal known to do so.
© Alexander Semenov
In comparison to the jellyfish, comb jellies have a very simple lifecycle. Most species are hermaphroditic and able to release both eggs and sperm into the water, which drift with the waves until they find other gametes. Because most species have both male and female gametes, it's thought that they can self-fertilize as well.
This method may not seem very efficient, since it's likely that most of the gametes never find a match. But ctenophores make up for this by releasing them every day. If they run out of food while producing so many eggs and sperm, they can shrink and hunker down until they run into more food and can start reproducing again.
Once eggs and sperm find each other, the embryo develops into a larva that looks just like a small adult ctenophore—and, from there, all it has to do is grow up.
One species (Mertensia ovum) can reproduce even when it is still larva , and scientists think other species are also able to reproduce at a young age. This means that comb jelly populations can grow very fast under certain conditions.
A cameraman navigates a smack of sea nettles (Chrysaora fuscescens) in Monterey Bay. Sea nettle blooms have become more common in recent years.
Credit:
© 2010 Walt Disney Pictures
Around the world, vast aggregations of jellyfish and comb jellies seem to be more common. These aggregations are known as "jellyfish blooms" or "jellyfish outbreaks," which can cause a wide array of problems. Too many jellies in the water can be a danger to swimmers, forcing towns to close their beaches. Jellies have clogged up machinery at coastal power plants, causing power outages. They can interfere with fisheries by eating fish larvae, and fisherman catch jellies instead of the fish they want. Where they occur, blooms of jellyfish even change seawater chemistry.
Why are jellies becoming more common around the world? It seems likely that their spread is human-caused, although some scientists have argued that the blooms are part of a natural cycle. If the blooms are human-caused, there are several probable culprits.
OVERFISHING Over the past two decades, between 100 and 120 million tons of marine life have been removed from the ocean by fisheries each year on average. A lot of these marine species, including fish and invertebrates such as squid, eat some of the same food that jellies do: mainly, zooplankton. As these other predators of plankton are fished from the sea, jellies have less competition for food, and are able to grow and reproduce with fewer limits.
NUTRIENTS When fertilizers runoff from the rivers to the seas, they can create dead zones: areas of ocean where little life survives. The nitrogen and phosphorus in fertilizer helps phytoplankton grow very quickly, and there can be so many of these single-celled plant-like animals that they deplete oxygen from the water. Most animals can't survive in these conditions, but many jellies can better tolerate low-oxygen environments.
CLIMATE CHANGE The ocean is warming, and this might give some jellies a boost. The warmer water could help jelly embryos and larvae develop more quickly, allowing their populations to grow more quickly. And jellies that prefer warmer water will have more area to live in. However, this could also hurt some species as cold-water jelly species see their habitat shrink.
SUBMARINE SPRAWL Many industries, such as shipping, drilling and aquaculture, build docks, oil platforms and other structures in the water—sometimes referred to as “ocean sprawl"—which can serve as nurseries for jellyfish . To undergo their polyp stage, jellyfish need solid surfaces to settle upon. It’s much easier for jellyfish polyps to attach to man-made structures made of wood, brick and concrete than sand. Ocean sprawl provides more and better habitat for jellyfish to reproduce and complete their lifecycles.
This ctenophore is native to the east coast of North and South America. In 1982, it was discovered in the Black Sea, where it was transported in ballast water . It subsequently spread to the Caspian Sea.
Credit:
Marco Faasse, World Register of Marine Species
Jellies are very good at surviving: they have broad diets, reproduce quickly, can shrink down if food runs out and then revive, and tolerate low-oxygen water. So, as you can imagine, they are also very good at thriving in new ecosystems once they arrive.
In the 1980s, the sea walnut ( Mnemiopsis leidyi ), a type of comb jelly, was brought to the Black Sea in ship ballast water . It reproduced and spread quickly, gobbling up zooplankton and leaving little behind for the larvae of commercial fish species, including anchovy, scad and sprat. Within a decade, the comb jellies took over the Black Sea and many of the fish populations collapsed, bringing local fisheries down with them. In a stroke of accidental luck, a different species of comb jelly (Beroe ovum)—a predator of the sea walnut—was brought over in a ship, and it's helping to bring down the population. A similar story of fishery collapse coinciding with jellyfish blooms is playing out off the coast of Japan .
However, the collapse of a fishery doesn't always end in jellyfish. A crash in the pollock and walleye fishery in the Bering Sea left an opening for jellyfish but, after reigning for a few years, the jellies gave up their crown as the fish returned. And when the Peruvian anchovy fishery collapsed in the 1970s, no jellyfish swarmed in to take their place.
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Which part of the body is named after the goddess of the rainbow? | 1000+ images about Iris, Messenger Goddess of the Rainbow on Pinterest | Nymphs, Goddesses and The rainbow
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Iris, Messenger Goddess of the Rainbow
Dedicated to the Great Handmaiden of Hera, Iris Thaumaturgis. Flower, Rainbow, Messenger, Shapeshifter, Perjurer, Oath Taker.
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Named after Mrs Gamp, a character in a Dickens' novel, what is a Gamp? | Amphibious Gods - Crystalinks
Amphibious Gods
Water is a reference to the flow of the collective unconsciousness - that which creates realities in which we learn through experience and emotions. Water Deities refers to Gods and Goddesses who allegedly came from the sea of consciousness to create a biogenetic program that goes back to the beginning and is about to end. Most deities arrived from the sky (higher frequency) ---> moving into the sea to create, then left, usually saying they would return one day.
Amphitrite
In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite (not to be confused with Aphrodite) was a sea-goddess. Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became merely the consort of Poseidon, and was further diminished by poets to a symbolic representation of the sea. In Roman mythology, the consort of Neptune, a comparatively minor figure, was Salacia.
Amphitrite was a daughter of Nereus and Doris - and thus a Nereid - according to Hesiod's Theogony, but of Oceanus and Tethys and thus an Oceanid according to Apollodorus, who actually lists her among both the Nereids and the Oceanids. Amphitrite's offspring included seals and dolphins. By her, Poseidon had a son, Triton, and a daughter, Rhode (if this Rhode was not actually fathered by Poseidon on Halia or was not the daughter of Asopus as others claim). Apollodorus (3.15.4) also mentions a daughter of Poseidon and Amphitrite named Benthesikyme. Amphitrite is not fully personified in the Homeric epics: "out on the open sea, in Amphitrite's breakers" (Odyssey iii.101); she shares her Homeric epithet Halosydne ("sea-nourished") with Thetis: in some sense the sea-nymphs are doublets.
Cybele
The mitre on the head of the goddess Cybele is striking similarity to the 'fish head' of the God Dagon. The Great Goddess of Asia Minor is the oldest true Goddess known, predating the Goddesses of the Sumerian and Egyptians by at least 5,000 years. Cybele was worshipped in Rome and was also called the "Magna Mater", or the great queen mother goddess, which evolved into Catholic Mariology.
Originally a Phrygian goddess, Cybele (sometimes given the etymology "she of the hair" if her name is Greek, not Phrygian, but more widely considered of Luwian origin, from Kubaba) (Roman equivalent: Magna Mater or 'Great Mother') was a manifestation of the Earth Mother goddess who was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. Like Gaia or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals (especially lions and bees).
Her title 'Mistress of the Animals' (potnia theron) which is also associated with the Minoan Great Mother, alludes to her ancient Paleolithic roots. She is a life-death-rebirth deity. Her consort, whose cult was introduced , is her son Attis.Cybele was supposed to have been born on Mount Ida in Asia Minor; this is the source of her epithet Idaea.
Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves, after which they were given womens clothing and assumed female identities, who were referred to by contemporary commentator Kallimachos in the feminine Gallai , and who other contemporary commetators in ancient Greece and Rome reffered to as Gallos or Galli. Her Priestesses led the people in orgiastic ceremonies with wild music, drumming and dancing and drink. She was associated with the mystery religion concerning her son, Attis, who was castrated and resurrected. The dactyls were part of her retinue. Other followers of Cybele, Phrygian kurbantes or Corybantes expressed her ecstatic and orgiastic cult in music especially drumming, clashing of shields and spears, dancing, singing, shouts, all at night. Atalanta and Hippomenes were turned into lions by Cybele after having sex in one of her temples.
Dagon or Atargis
Dagon was the god of the Philistines. The idol was represented in the combination of both man and fish. The name 'Dagon' is derived from 'dag' which means 'fish'. Although there was a deep affection from Dagon's worshippers to their deity, the symbol of a fish in human form was really meant to represent fertility and the vivifying powers of nature and reproduction. His name is a lot like 'Dogon'.
Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god, the god of grain and agriculture according to the few sources to speak of the matter, worshipped by the early Amorites, by the people of Ebla, by the people of Ugarit and a chief god (perhaps the chief god) of the Biblical Philistines. His name appears in Hebrew as (in modern transcription Dagon, Tiberian Hebrew), in Ugaritic as dgn (probably vocalized as Dagnu), and in Akkadian as Dagana, Daguna usually rendered in English translations as Dagan.
Enki or Ea-in
Sumer where kingship first descended from heaven. EA was thought to live in the 'Apsu' or submarine palace. Zoroaster can be seen above the amphibious gods
Ancient painting of Nuwa and Fuxi
unearthed in Xinjiang.
The Chinese have maintained that their civilization was founded by amphibious beings that had a man's head and a fish tail. The entity, named Fuxi, has been depicted as both male or female. The date traditionally ascribed to him is 3,322BC. In Chinese mythology, Fu Xi or Fu Hsi was the first of the mythical Three Sovereigns of ancient China. He is a culture hero reputed to be the inventor of writing, fishing, and trapping.
Fu Xi was born on the lower-middle reaches of the Yellow River in a place called Chengji (possibly modern Lantian, Shaanxi or Tianshui, Gansu). According to legend the land was swept by a great flood and only Fuxi and his sister Nuwa survived. The retired to Kunlun Mountain where they prayed for a sign from the Emperor of Heaven. The divine being approved their union and the siblings set about procreating the human race. Fu Xi then came to rule over his decedents although reports of his long reign vary between sources from 115 years (2852 - 2737 BCE) to 116 years (2952-2836 BCE). He lived for 197 years altogether and died at a place called Chen (modern Huaiyang, Henan) where his mausoleum can still be found.
During the time of his predecessor Nuwa (who according to some sources was also his wife and/or sister) society was matriarchal and primitive. Childbirth was seen to be miraculous not requiring the participation of the male and children only knew their mothers. As the reproductive process became better understood ancient Chinese society moved towards a patriarchal system and Fu Xi assumed primary importance.
Fu Hsi taught his subjects to cook, to fish with nets, and to hunt with weapons made of iron. He instituted marriage and offered the first open air sacrifices to heaven. A stone tablet, dated 160 CE shows Fu Hsi with Nuwa, who was both his wife and his sister.
Traditionally, Fu Hsi is considered the originator of the I Ching (also known as the Yi Jing or Zhou Yi), which work is attributed to his reading of the He Map (or the Yellow River Map). By this tradition, Fu Hsi had the arrangement of the trigrams of the I Ching revealed to him supernaturally. This arrangement precedes the compilation of the I Ching during the Zhou dynasty. Fu Hsi is said to have discovered the arrangement in markings on the back of a mythical dragon-horse (sometimes said to be a turtle) that emerged from the river Luo. This discovery is also said to have been the origin of calligraphy. Fu Hsi is also credited with the invention of the Guqin, together with Shennong and Huang Di.
Glaucus
Glaucus And Scylla
In Greek mythology, Glaucus ("shiny," "bright" or "bluish-green") was the name of several different figures, including one God. These figures are sometimes referred to as Glaukos or Glacus. Glaucus was a Greek sea-god.
According to Ovid, Glaucus began life as a mortal fisherman living in the Boeotian city of Anthedon. He discovered by accident a magical herb which could bring the fish he caught back to life, and decided to try eating it. The herb made him immortal, but also caused him to grow fins instead of arms and a fish's tail instead of legs, forcing him to dwell forever in the sea. Glaucus was initially upset by this side-effect, but Oceanus and Tethys received him well and he was quickly accepted among the deities of the sea, learning from them the art of prophecy.
Glaucus fell in love with the beautiful nymph Scylla, but she was appalled by his fish-like features and fled onto land when he tried to approach her. He asked the witch Circe for a potion to make Scylla fall in love with him, but Circe fell in love with him. She tried to win his heart with her most passionate and loving words, telling him to scorn Scylla and stay with her. But he replied that trees would grow on the ocean floor and seaweed would grow on the highest mountain before he would stop loving Scylla. In her anger, Circe poisoned the pool where Scylla bathed, transforming her into a terrible monster with twelve feet and six heads.
In Euripides' play Orestes, Glaucus was a son of Nereus and says that he assisted Menelaus on his homeward journey with good advice. He also helped the Argonauts. It was believed that he commonly came to the rescue of sailors in storms, having once been one himself.
Iris
In Greek mythology, Iris was the daughter of Thaumas and the ocean nymph Electra and one of the Oceanids (according to Hesiod), the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. As the rainbow unites Earth and heaven, Iris is the messenger of the gods to men; in this capacity she is mentioned frequently in the Iliad, but never in the Odyssey, where Hermes takes her place.
Iris is represented as a youthful virgin, with wings of gold, who hurries with the swiftness of the wind from one end of the world to the other, into the depths of the sea and the underworld. She is especially the messenger of Hera, and is associated with Hermes, whose caduceus or staff she often holds.
By command of Zeus she carries in an ewer water from the Styx, with which she puts to sleep all who perjure themselves. Her attributes are the caduceus and a vase. She is also represented as supplying the clouds with the water needed to deluge the world. Iris is the personal messenger of Hera, queen of the gods and is Hera's go-between from Mount Olympus to the mortal world.The word iridescence is derived in part from the name of this goddess.
Many were the progeny of the sea; some of them we shall meet later in saga, for example the Graeae, Gorgons, and the Harpies.
Progeny of the sea often appear grotesque or fantastic. At this point, however, we single out only Iris [eye'ris], a beautiful descendant of Pontus and Gaia.
Iris, fleet-footed and winged, is the lovely goddess of the rainbow, the meaning of her name. She is also (like Hermes ) a messenger of the gods.
Aristotle's friend, Eudoxus, visited Egypt and returned claiming that the Egyptians had a tradition that one of their gods, Osiris or Ra (from Ray of Light), could not walk because his legs had grown together.
Osiris was the god of the Dead. He is a god of agriculture, for his death and resurrection are like those of a seed, cast in to the dark Earth, motionless. New life breaks through its husk to push its way to the surface of the earth as a green shoot. He became one of the most important of Egyptian gods because he symbolized the triumph of life over death.
Osiris has never been shown with the body of a fish but
this image depicts his mummified form looking like the scales of a fish.
Matsya the Fish appeared in the Satya Yuga and represents beginning of life.
The Fish Incarnation is the first incarnation of Vishnu. Lord Vishnu takes the form of a fish in order to retrieve the Vedas from the demon Hayagriva, who stole them from Lord Brahma. Without the Vedas, Creation of the Universe cannot take place. He slayed the demon Hayagriva, recovered the Vedas, and also saved the pious king Satyavrata from the deluge so that life and religion can be preserved for the next cycle of Creation.
According to legend, the king Manu was washing his hands in a river when a little fish swam into his hands and begged him to save it. He put it in a jar, which it soon outgrew; he successively moved it to a tank, a river and then the ocean. The fish then warned him that a Great Flood would occur in a week that would destroy all life. Manu therefore built a boat which the fish towed to a mountaintop when the flood came, and thus he survived along with some "seeds of life" to re-establish life on earth.
Naiad
In Greek mythology, the Naiads (from the Greek, "to flow," and, "running water") were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks, as river gods embodied rivers, and some very ancient spirits inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes, such as pre-Mycenaean Lerna in the Argolid. Naiads were associated with fresh water, as the Oceanids were with saltwater and the Nereids specifically with the Mediterranean; but because the Greeks thought of the world's waters as all one system, which percolated in from the sea in deep cavernous spaces within the bosom of the earth, to rise freshened in seeps and springs, there was some overlap. Arethusa, the nymph of a spring, could make her way through subterranean flows from the Peloponnesus, to surface on the island of Sicily. In his Dionisiaca, (XVI.356; XXIV.123) Nonnus gave the naiads the nonce-name Hydriades ("water ladies").
Otherwise, the essence of a naiad was bound to her spring. If a naiad's body of water dried, she died. Though Walter Burkert points out, "When in the Iliad [xx.4-9] Zeus calls the gods into assembly on Mount Olympus, it is not only the well-known Olympians who come along, but also all the nymphs and all the rivers; Okeanos alone remains at his station," (Burkert 1985), Greek hearers recognized this impossibility as the poet's hyperbole, which proclaimed the universal power of Zeus over the ancient natural world: "the worship of these deities," Burkert confirms, "is limited only by the fact that they are inseparably identified with a specific locality."
They were often the object of archaic local cults, worshipped as essential to fertility and human life. Boys and girls at coming-of-age dedicated their childish locks to the local naiad of the spring. In places like Lerna their waters' ritual cleansings were credited with magical medical properties. Animals were ritually drowned there. Oracles might be sited by ancient springs.
When a mythic king is credited with marrying a naiad and founding a city, Robert Graves offers a sociopolitical reading: the new arriving Hellenes justify their presence by taking to wife the naiad of the spring, so, in the back-story of the myth of Aristaeus, Hypseus, a king of the Lapiths wed Chlidanope, a naiad, who bore him Cyrene. In parallels among the Immortals, the loves and rapes of Zeus, according to Graves' readings, record the supplanting of ancient local cults by Olympian ones (Graves 1955, passim). Aristaeus had more than ordinary mortal experience with the naiads: when his bees died in Thessaly, he went to consult the naiads. His aunt Arethusa invited him below the water's surface, where he was washed with water from a perpetual spring and given advice. A less well-connected mortal might have drowned, being sent as a messenger in this way to gain the advice and favor of the naiads for his people.
Naiads could be dangerous: Hylas of the Argo's crew was lost when he was taken by naiads fascinated by his beauty (illustration, above right). The naiads were also known to exhibit jealous tendencies. Theocritus' story of naiad jealousy was that of a shepherd, Daphnis, who was the lover of Nomia; Daphnis had on several occasions been unfaithful to Nomia and as revenge she permanently blinded him. Salmacis forced the god Hermaphroditus into a carnal embrace and, when he sought to get away, fused with him.
The Naiads were either daughters of Zeus or various Oceanids, but a genealogy for such ancient, ageless creatures is easily overstated. The water nymph associated with particular springs was known all through Europe in places with no direct connection with Greece, surviving in the Celtic wells of northwest Europe that have been rededicated to Saints, and in the medieval Melusine.
Nereids
In Greek mythology, the Nereids (neer'-ee-eds) are sea nymphs, the fifty daughters of Nereus and Doris. They often accompany Poseidon and are always friendly and helpful towards sailors fighting perilous storms. They are particularly associated with the Aegean Sea, where they dwelt with their father in the depths within a silvery cave. The most notable of them is Thetis, wife of Peleus and mother of Achilles; Amphitrite, wife of Poseidon; and Galatea, love of the Cyclops Polyphemus. In classical art they are frequently depicted riding an assortment of sea creatures - dolphins, sea monsters, and hippocampi.
Nereus
Nereus was an ancient sea god with prophetic powers and the ability to change his shape. Nereus mated with one of the Oceanids (Doris) and became the father of fifty daughters called Nereids [nee're-idz]; three of these are important: Thetis, Galatea and Amphitrite. Nereids are beautiful and often, but not always, depicted as mermaids; and usually they can shange their shape. He was known for his truthfulness and virtue.
Nereus, in Greek Mythology, was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia, the Sea and the Earth, a Titan who (with Doris) fathered the Nereids, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea. In the Iliad the Old Man of the Sea is the father of Nereids, though Nereus is not directly named. He was one of the manifestations of the Old Man of the Sea, never more so than when he was described, like Proteus, as a shapeshifter with the power of prophecy, who would aid heroes such as Heracles who managed to catch him even as he changed shapes. Nereus and Proteus ("first") seem to be two manifestations of the god of the sea who was supplanted by Poseidon when Zeus overthrew Cronus. The earliest poet to link Nereus with the labours of Heracles was Pherekydes, according to a scholion on Apollonius of Rhodes.
During the course of the fifth century BCE, Nereus was gradually replaced by Triton, who does not appear in Homer, in the imagery of the struggle between Heracles and the sea-god who had to be restrained in order to deliver his information that was employed by the vase-painters, independent of any literary testimony.
Nommo
The Nommo are ancestral spirits (sometimes referred to as deities) worshipped by the Dogon tribe of Mali, Africa. The word Nommos is derived from a Dogon word meaning, 'to make one drink'. The Nommos are usually described as amphibious, hermaphroditic, fish-like creatures.
Folk art depictions of the Nommos show creatures with humanoid upper torsos, legs/feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. The Nommos are also referred to as Masters of the Water, the Monitors, and "the Teachers. Nommo can be a proper name of an individual, or can refer to the group of spirits as a whole.
Dogon mythology states that Nommo was the first living creature created by the sky god Amma. Shortly after his creation, Nommo underwent a transformation and multiplied into four pairs of twins. One of the twins rebelled against the universal order created by Amma.
To restore order to his creation, Amma sacrificed another of the Nommo progeny, whose body was dismembered and scattered throughout the world. This dispersal of body parts is seen by the Dogon as the source for the proliferation of Binu shrines throughout the Dogons' traditional territory; wherever a body part fell, a shrine was erected.
In the latter part of the 1940's, French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen (who had been working with the Dogon since 1931) were the recipients of additional, secret mythologies, concerning the Nommo. The Dogon reportedly related to Griaule and Dieterlen a belief that the Nommos were inhabitants of a world circling the star Sirius (see the main article on the Dogon for a discussion of their astronomical knowledge).
The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. After arriving, the Nommos created a reservoir of water and subsequently dove into the water. The Dogon legends state that the Nommos required a watery environment in which to live.
According to the myth related to Griaule and Dieterlen: "The Nommo divided his body among men to feed them; that is why it is also said that as the universe "had drunk of his body," the Nommo also made men drink. He gave all his life principles to human beings." The Nommo was crucified on a tree, but was resurrected and returned to his home world. Dogon legend has it that he will return in the future to revisit the Earth in a human form.
The Nommos bear some physical resemblance to several other mythological beings: the Oannes (Babylon), the Enki (Sumeria), Fuxi (China), Dagon (Philistine), and Nereus (Greece), to name a few. It is also interesting to note the motifs common to the story of Nommo with the story of Osiris (dismemberment and the erection of temples at the final resting places of their respective body parts). There are also numerous parallels between the story of Nommo and the traditions of Jesus: both were crucified, both instructed followers to 'drink of my body', and both were associated with the fish
In the 1970's a book by Robert Temple titled The Sirius Mystery popularized the traditions of the Dogon concerning Sirius and the Nommos. In The Sirius Mystery, Temple came to the conclusion that the Dogon's knowledge of astronomy and non-visible cosmic phenomenon could only be explained if said knowledge was imparted upon them by an extraterrestrial race that had visited the Dogon at some point in the past and given them information concerning the cosmos. Temple related this race to the legend of the Nommos and contended that the Nommos were extraterrestrial inhabitants of the Sirius star system who had traveled to earth at some point in the distant past and had imparted knowledge about the Sirius star system as well as our own solar system upon the Dogon tribes.
Some anthropologists studying the Dogon (notably Walter van Beek) found no evidence that they had any historical advanced knowledge of Sirius. Van Beek postulated that Griaule engaged in such leading and forceful questioning of his Dogon sources that new myths were created in the process by confabulation.
Carl Sagan has noted that the first reported association of the Dogon with the knowledge of Sirius as a binary star was in the 1940's, giving the Dogon ample opportunity to gain cosmological knowledge about Sirius and the solar system from more scientifically advanced, terrestrial societies whom they had come in contact with. It has also been pointed out that binary star systems like Sirius are theorized to have a very narrow or non-existent Goldilocks Zone, and thus a high improbability of containing a planet capable of sustaining life (particularly life as dependant on water as the Nommos were reported to be).
It should also be noted that by the 1940's when Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen recorded the Nommo legends, the Dogon had already come into contact with Islam and Christianity, which could have influenced some of their earlier Nommo traditions, notably those that are similar to Christian traditions concerning Jesus.
Oannes
The Repulsive or Repellent Ones, a demon, the fish-men who the Babylonians said brought them civilization. The first and most famous was called Oannes or Oe, who was thought to have come from a 'great egg'. This one during the day stayed on the surface among people, but for all the night he had to go into the sea. He, with other similar beings called Annedotus, is the creator of the Babylonian civilization (Berosso). Later Oannes will become the Fish-God for the Philistines.
Oceanids
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Oceanids were the three thousand daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. One of these many daughters was also said to have been the wife of the god Poseidon, typically named as Amphitrite. Each of these nymphs was the patron of a particular spring, river, ocean, lake, pond, pasture, flower or cloud. Oceanus and Tethys also had 3000 sons, the river-gods (Potamoi). Whereas most sources limit the term Oceanids or Oceaniades to the daughters, others include both the sons and daughters under this term.
Oceanus
Oceanus was believed to be the world-ocean in classical antiquity, which the ancient Romans and Greeks considered to be an enormous river encircling the world. Strictly speaking, Okeanos was the ocean-stream at the Equator in which floated the habitable hemisphere (oikoumene). In Greek mythology, this world-ocean was personified as a Titan, a son of Uranus and Gaia. In Hellenistic and Roman mosaics, this Titan was often depicted as having the upper body of a muscular man with a long beard and horns, and the lower torso of a serpent (cf. Typhon). On a fragmentary archaic vessel (British Museum 1971.11-1.1) of ca 580 BCE, among the gods arriving at the wedding of Peleus and the sea-nymph Thetis, is a fish-tailed Oceanus, with a fish in one hand and a serpent in the other, gifts of bounty and prophecy. In Roman mosaics he might carry a steering-oar and cradle a ship.
Some scholars believe that Oceanus originally represented all bodies of salt water, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, the two largest bodies known to the ancient Greeks. However, as geography became more accurate, Oceanus came to represent the stranger, more unknown waters of the Atlantic Ocean (also called the "Ocean Sea"), while the newcomer of a later generation, Poseidon, ruled over the Mediterranean.
Oceanus' consort is his sister Tethys, and from their union came the ocean nymphs, also known as the three-thousand Oceanids, and all the rivers of the world, fountains, and lakes. From Cronus, of the race of Titans, the Olympian gods have their birth, and Hera mentions twice in Iliad book xiv her intended journey "to the ends of the generous earth on a visit to Okeanos, whence the gods have risen, and Tethys our mother who brought me up kindly in their own house." In most variations of the war between the Titans and the Olympians, or Titanomachy, Oceanus, along with Prometheus and Themis, did not take the side of his fellow Titans against the Olympians, but instead withdrew from the conflict. In most variations of this myth, Oceanus also refused to side with Cronus in the latter's revolt against their father, Uranus.
Olokun
Olokun is experienced in male and female personifications, depending on what region and of West Africa He/She is worshipped. Olokun is personified in several human characteristics; patience, endurance, sternness, observation, meditation, appreciation for history, future visions, and royalty personified. Its characteristics are found and displayed in the depths of the Ocean. Its name means Owner (Olo) of Oceans (Okun).
Olokun is considered the patron orisa of the descendants of Africans that were carried away during the Maafa, or what is sometimes referred to as the Transatlantic Slave Trade or Middle Passage. Olokun works closely with Oya (Deity of Sudden Change)and Egungun (Collective Ancestral Spirits) to herald the way for those that pass to ancestorship, as it plays a critical role in Death (Iku), Life and the transition of human beings and spirits between these two existences.
Olokun also signifies unfathomable wisdom. That is, the instinct that there is something worth knowing, perhaps more than can ever be learned, especially the spiritual sciences that most people spend a lifetime pondering. Olokun also governs material wealth, psychic abilities, dreaming, meditation, mental health and water-based healing.
Olokun is one of many Orisa known to help women that desire children. Olokun also is worshipped by those that seek political and social ascension, which is why heads of state, royalty, entrepreneurs and socialites often turn to Olokun to not only protect their reputations, but propel them further among the ranks of their peers.
Phorcys
In Greek mythology, Phorcys, or Phorkys was one of the names of the "Old One of the Sea", the primeval sea god, who, according to Hesiod, was the son of Pontus and Gaia. According to the Orphic hymns Phorcys, Cronos and Rhea were the eldest offspring of Oceanus and Tethys (Kerenyi p 42). Other names for the Old Man are Nereus and Proteus (Kerenyi pp 42-43). His wife was Ceto and together they had many children, all hideous monsters (except for the Hesperides) collectively known as the Phorcydes. The Gorgons and Scylla were four of his beautiful children, but they were turned into monsters. In ancient mosaics he was depicted as a fish-tailed merman with crab-claw fore-legs and red.
Ceto with Pontus and a lion attacking the Titans
in the Titanomachy from the Pergamon Zeus Altar,
Pontus
In Greek mythology, Pontus (or Pontos, "sea") was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, son of Gaia and Aether, the Earth and the Air. Hesiod (Theogony, line 116) says that Gaia brought forth Pontos out of herself, without coupling. For Hesiod, Pontos seems little more than a personification of Sea. With Gaia, he was the father of the Old Man of the Sea, Nereus and Thaumas (the awe-striking "wonder" of the Sea), of the Sea's dangerous aspects, Phorcys and his sister-consort Ceto, and of the "Strong Goddess" Eurybia. With Thalassa, whose own name simply means "Sea" but in a pre-Greek root, he was the father of the Telchines. Compare the sea-Titan Oceanus, who was more vividly realized than Pontus among the Hellenes.
Poseidon Greek god of the seas
Proteus
'Proteus' was an ancient sea-god and the herdsman of Poseidon's seals. Like the other sea-gods he had the gift of prophecy and the ability to change his shape at will. He used to rest in caves to 'shelter from the heat of the Sirius . He was a son of Neptune and subject to thesea god Poseidon, and his dwelling place was either the island of Pharos, near the mouth of the Nile River, or the island of Carpathus, between Crete and Rhodes. He knew all things--past, present, and future--but would not share his knowledge unless compelled by a captur who could restrain the God--no matter what forms he might assume.
Scylla
Scylla is one of the two sea monsters in Greek mythology (the other being Charybdis) which lives on one side of a narrow channel of water. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other, so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis will pass too close to Scylla and vice versa. The phrase between Scylla and Charybdis has come to mean being in a state where one is between two dangers and moving away from one will cause you to be in danger from the other.
Traditionally the aforementioned strait has been associated with the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily but more recently this theory has been challenged and the alternative location of Cape Skilla in north west Greece suggested.
Scylla has the face and torso of a woman, but from her flanks grow six long necks equipped with dog heads, each of which contained three rows of sharp teeth. Her body consisted of twelve canine legs and a fish's tail. She was one of the children of Phorcys and either Hecate, Crataeis, Lamia or Ceto (where Scylla would also be known as one of the Phorcydes).
In Greek mythology, Ceto, or Keto (Greek: "sea monster") was a hideous aquatic monster, a daughter of Gaia and Pontus. The asteroid (65489) Ceto is named after her, and its satellite (65489) Ceto I Phorcys after her husband. She was the personification of the dangers of the sea, unknown terrors and bizarre creatures. Eventually, the word "ceto" became simple shorthand for any sea monster. It is still used in this way - cetacean is a derivation. Her husband was Phorcys and they had many children, collectively known as the Phorcydes or Phorcydides. In Greek art Ceto was drawn as a serpentine fish. Ceto also gave name to the constellation Cetus.
In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus is given advice by Circe to sail closer to Scylla, for Charybdis could drown his whole ship. Odysseus then successfully navigates his ship past Scylla and Charybdis, but Scylla manages to catch six of his men, devouring them alive.As retold by Thomas Bulfinch, Scylla was originally a beautiful nymph.
She scorned her many suitors and chose to live among the Nereids instead, until one day Glaucus saw and fell in love with her. Glaucus was a mortal fisherman who had previously been transformed by chewing a plant, gaining the form of a fish from his waist down. When Glaucus declared his love to Scylla she fled, taking him for a monster.
Glaucus sought the help of Circe, hoping that this witch could make Scylla to love him with her herbs, but Circe fell in love with Glaucus herself and asked him to forget Scylla. Glaucus rejected her request, declaring that his love for Scylla was eternal.Circe was enraged by Glaucus' refusal, and turned her anger on the girl whom he loved.
She went and poisoned the water which Scylla used to bathe with her magical herbs. When Scylla waded into the water, the submerged half of her body was transformed into a combination of fish joined with six ferocious dogs' heads sprouting from around her waist.
The dogs attacked and devoured anyone who came near, beyond her ability to control, and Scylla fled to the shore of the strait to live there alone.It is said that by the time Aeneas' fleet came through the strait after the fall of Troy, Scylla had been changed into a dangerous rock outcropping which still stands there to this day. Scylla and Charybdis are believed to have been the entities from which the term, "Between a rock and a hard place" (ie: a difficult place) originated.
Sedna
In Inuit mythology, Sedna is a sea goddess and master of the animals, especially mammals such as seals, of the ocean. She lives in Adlivun, the Inuit underworld. Sedna is also known as Arnakuagsak or Arnarquagssaq (Greenland) and Nerrivik or Nuliajuk (Alaskan). According to myth, Sedna was the daughter of the creator-god Anguta and his wife. She is said to have been so huge and hungry that she ate everything in her parents' home, and even gnawed off one of her father's arms as he slept. According to some versions of the myth, she took a dog for her husband. Anguta was so angry that he threw her over the side of his canoe. She clung to its sides, whereupon he chopped her fingers off one by one until she let go. She sank to the underworld, becoming the queen of the monsters of the deep, and her huge fingers became the seals, sea-lions and whales hunted by the Inuit.
Thetis
In Greek mythology, silver-footed Thetis is a sea nymph, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of "the ancient one of the seas," Nereus, and Doris (Hesiod, Theogony), a grand-daughter of Tethys. While most extant material about Thetis concerns her role as mother of Achilles, and while she is largely a creature of poetic fancy rather than cult worship in the historical period, with one exception, a few fragmentary hints and references suggest an older layer of the tradition, in which the sea-goddess Thetis played a far more central role in the religious practices and imagination of certain Greeks. The pre-modern etymology of her name, from tithemi, "to set up, establish", suggests the perception among Classical Greeks of an early political role. Walter Burkert considers her name a transformed doublet of Tethys.
Quintus of Smyrna, recalling this passage, does write that Thetis once released Zeus from chains; but there is no other reference to this rebellion among the Olympians, and some readers, like M.M. Willcock, have understood the episode as an ad hoc invention of Homer's to support Achilles' request that his mother intervene with Zeus. Laura Slatkin explores the apparent contradiction, in that the immediate presentation of Thetis in the Iliad is as a helpless minor goddess overcome by grief and lamenting to her Nereid sisters, and links the goddess's present and past through her grief. She draws comparisons with Thetis' role in another work of the epic Cycle concerning Troy, the lost Aethiopis, which presents a strikingly similar relationship that of the divine Dawn, Eos, with her slain son Memnon; she supplements the parallels with images from the repertory of archaic vase-painters, where Eros and Thetis flank the symmetrical opposed heroes. Thetis does not need to appeal to Zeus for immortality for her son, but snatches him away to the White Island Leuke in the Black Sea, an alternate Elysium where he has transcended death, and where an Achilles cult lingered into historic times.
Triton
Triton is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the deep. He is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea. He is usually represented as a merman, having the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish.
Like his father, he carried a trident. However, Triton's special attribute was a twisted conch shell, on which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. Its sound was so terrible, that when loudly blown, it put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a mighty wild beast (Hyginus, Poet. astronom. ii. 23). According to Hesiod's Theogony, Triton dwelt with his parents in a golden palace in the depths of the sea. The story of the Argonauts places his home on the coast of Libya. When the Argo was driven ashore on the Lesser Syrtes, the crew carried the vessel to Lake Tritonis, whence Triton, the local deity, guided them across to the Mediterranean (Apollonius Rhodius iv. 1552).
Triton was the father of Pallas and foster parent to the goddess Athena. Pallas was killed by Athena during a fight between the two goddesses. Triton is also sometimes cited as the father of Scylla by Lamia. Triton also appeared in Roman myths and epics. In the Aeneid, Misenus, the trumpeter of Aeneas, challenged Triton to a contest of trumpeting. The god flung him into the sea for his arrogance.
Over time, Triton's name and image came to be associated with a class of merman-like creatures, the Tritons, which could be male or female, and usually formed the escort of marine divinities. Ordinary Tritons were described in detail by the geographer Pausanias (ix. 21). A variety of Triton, the Centauro-Triton or Ichthyocentaur ("Fish-centaur"), was described as having the forefeet of a horse in addition to the human body and the fish tail. It is probable that the idea of Triton owes its origin to the Phoenician fish-deities.
Among the things named after Triton include Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune. This name is symbolic, as Neptune is the Roman name for Triton's father. Triton is also associated in industry with tough, hard wearing machines such as Ford's Triton Engines and Mitsubishi's Triton pickup trucks.
The six-sided or hexagram star is revered as a religious symbol
by the Hebrews who call it the Seal of Solomon, and the Hindus
who call it the Mark of Vishnu, a god-man who was half-man, half-fish.
Yamaja
In Yoruba mythology, Yemoja is a mother goddess; patron deity of women, especially pregnant women; and the Ogun river (the waters of which are said to cure infertility). Her parents are Oduduwa and Obatala. She had one son, Orungan, who raped her successfully one time and attempted a second time; she exploded instead, and fifteen Orishas came forth from her. They include Ogun, Olokun, Shopona and Shango.Yemoja is also venerated in Vodun. Among the Umbandists, Yemoja is a goddess of the ocean and patron deity of the survivors of shipwrecks. In Santeria, Yemoja is the equivalent of Our Lady of Regla.
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Which Spanish queen sponsored the expeditions of Christopher Columbus? | Christopher Columbus - Exploration - HISTORY.com
Christopher Columbus
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Introduction
The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he accidentally stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not really “discover” the New World–millions of people already lived there–his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of trans-Atlantic conquest and colonization.
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Christopher Columbus: The Age of Discovery
During the 15th and 16th centuries, leaders of several European nations sponsored expeditions abroad in the hope that explorers would find great wealth and vast undiscovered lands. The Portuguese were the earliest participants in this “Age of Discovery.” Starting in about 1420, small Portuguese ships known as caravels zipped along the African coast, carrying spices, gold, slaves and other goods from Asia and Africa to Europe.
Did You Know?
Christopher Columbus was not the first person to propose that a person could reach Asia by sailing west from Europe. In fact, scholars argue that the idea is almost as old as the idea that the Earth is round. (That is, it dates back to early Rome.)
Other European nations, particularly Spain, were eager to share in the seemingly limitless riches of the “Far East.” By the end of the 15th century, Spain’s “Reconquista”–the expulsion of Jews and Muslims out of the kingdom after centuries of war–was complete, and the nation turned its attention to exploration and conquest in other areas of the world.
Christopher Columbus: Early Life
Christopher Columbus, the son of a wool merchant, was born in Genoa in about 1451. When he was still a teenager, he got a job on a merchant ship. He remained at sea until 1470, when French privateers attacked his ship as it sailed north along the Portuguese coast. The boat sank, but the young Columbus floated to shore on a scrap of wood and made his way to Lisbon, where he studied mathematics, astronomy, cartography and navigation. He also began to hatch the plan that would change the world forever.
Christopher Columbus: The First Voyage
At the end of the 15th century, it was nearly impossible to reach Asia from Europe by land. The route was long and arduous, and encounters with hostile armies were difficult to avoid. Portuguese explorers solved this problem by taking to the sea: They sailed south along the West African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope.
But Columbus had a different idea: Why not sail west across the Atlantic instead of around the massive African continent? The young navigator’s logic was sound, but his math was faulty. He argued (incorrectly) that the circumference of the Earth was much smaller than his contemporaries believed it was; accordingly, he believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only possible but comparatively easy. He presented his plan to officials in Portugal and England, but it was not until 1491 that he found a sympathetic audience: the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Columbus wanted fame and fortune. Ferdinand and Isabella wanted the same, along with the opportunity to export Catholicism to lands across the globe. (Columbus, a devout Catholic, was equally enthusiastic about this possibility.) Columbus’ contract with the Spanish rulers promised that he could keep 10 percent of whatever riches he found, along with a noble title and the governorship of any lands he should encounter.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in three ships: the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall–not in Asia, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands. For months, Columbus sailed from island to island in what we now know as the Caribbean, looking for the “pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, and other objects and merchandise whatsoever” that he had promised to his Spanish patrons, but he did not find much. In March 1493, leaving 40 men behind in a makeshift settlement on Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he returned to Spain.
Christopher Columbus: Later Voyages
About six months later, in September 1493, Columbus returned to the Americas. He found the Hispaniola settlement destroyed (to this day, no one knows what happened there) and left his brothers Bartolomeo and Diego behind to rebuild, along with part of his ships’ crew and hundreds of enslaved natives. Then he headed west, with his own complement of native slaves, to continue his mostly fruitless search for gold and other goods. In lieu of the material riches he had promised the Spanish monarchs, he sent some 500 slaves to Queen Isabella. The queen was horrified–she believed that any people Columbus “discovered” were Spanish subjects who could not be enslaved–and she promptly and sternly returned the explorer’s gift.
In May 1498, Columbus sailed west across the Atlantic for the third time. He visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before returning to the ill-fated Hispaniola settlement, where the colonists had staged a bloody revolt against the Columbus brothers’ mismanagement and brutality. Conditions were so bad that Spanish authorities had to send a new governor to take over. Christopher Columbus was arrested and returned to Spain in chains.
In 1502, cleared of the most serious charges but stripped of his noble titles, the aging Columbus persuaded the Spanish king to pay for one last trip across the Atlantic. This time, Columbus made it all the way to Panama–just miles from the Pacific Ocean–where he had to abandon two of his four ships in the face of an attack from hostile natives. Empty-handed, the elderly explorer returned to Spain, where he died in 1506.
Christopher Columbus: Legacy
Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, nor was he even the first European to visit the “New World.” (Viking explorers had sailed to Greenland and Newfoundland in the 11th century.) However, his journey kicked off centuries of exploration and exploitation on the American continents. The consequences of his explorations were severe for the native populations of the areas he and the conquistadores conquered. Disease and environmental changes resulted in the destruction of the majority of the native population over time, while Europeans continued to extract natural resources from these territories. Today, Columbus has a mixed legacy—he is remembered as a daring and path-breaking explorer who transformed the New World, yet his actions also unleashed changes that would eventually devastate the native populations he and his fellow explorers encountered.
Tags
| Isabella |
Which meal is regarded as the Spanish national dish, although it is more specific to Valencia? | Before the Voyage, Christopher Columbus, Social Studies, Glencoe
Biography of Christopher Columbus
A portrait of Christopher Columbus
According to most historians, Christopher Columbus , or Cristobal Colón in Spanish, was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. There is little concrete evidence about the background of the man who came to be known as the discoverer of America. Some have speculated that Christopher Columbus was not even his real name! A current theory being discussed by historians is that Columbus may actually have been Jewish, at a time when Jews were being expelled from Spain. The threat of expulsion may have been enough to persuade Columbus to change his name and identity in order to fit in with the Christian populous. If this is the case, he hid his Jewish identity so well that historians—until recently—had no doubt that he was Christian.
His ancestry aside, historians have not yet been able to pinpoint the exact date or location of Columbus’s birth. While prominent biographer Samuel Morison claims that Columbus was born between August and October 1451 in Genoa, other researchers have made very different claims. The suggested dates of his birth have ranged from as early as 1436 to as late as 1455. With these two extremes Columbus would have been setting out on his voyage to America as young as 37 or as old as 56. To imagine that, in a time of plague and poor health, a man could live into his seventies (the later date would place Columbus at seventy years old at his death) is unlikely. Most historians agree with Morison’s choice of a birth date.
The location of Columbus’s birth has also caused confusion. Morison’s suggestion of Genoa is widely accepted to be Columbus’s birthplace. But one of the most startling pieces of evidence, or lack of evidence, which disputes Morison’s findings is the fact that Columbus neither wrote nor spoke Italian. There is no letter, diary entry, or contract written in Italian and no mention of Columbus speaking Italian at court or on his ships. Furthermore, all of his names for islands and bodies of water in the New World were Spanish in origin. Supporters of Morison’s theory have argued that letters, diaries, and contracts were mostly written in Latin, so the lack of Italian is not surprising. As for the lack of spoken Italian, they argue that in the Spanish court and while on a voyage under the Spanish flag, it is not surprising that Columbus would have used primarily Spanish. To speak Italian in the presence of Spain’s king and queen would have been in terribly poor taste.
Regardless of when and where Columbus was born, it is evident from his earliest writings and from testimonies by friends and family members that he had a fascination with the ocean. From a young age he would watch boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea as they traded up and down the European coast. Columbus read everything about the sea that he could find. This passion for adventure and exploration led Columbus to take his life to the waters. He set out from home, wherever that may have been, with the intent to explore and discover unknown and interesting places.
Columbus spent much of his youth sailing on small vessels in and around Europe. He built up a small reputation as a successful and talented mariner. Around the age of 25 he settled in Lisbon, Portugal, where he worked with his brother as a mapmaker. During his time in Lisbon, Columbus continued to pursue life on the ocean. During the 1480s he sailed and explored frequently in Africa. It was here that the ideas he would later apply to his New World voyage were born. By the late 1480s he was certain that his theories about the world were correct, and he took his ideas to the king of Portugal in hopes of being given an expedition of his own. He no longer wanted to be a mere sailor on small expeditions. He wanted to be Christopher Columbus, Explorer.
Fifteenth Century Europe and Spain
Inscription on the front of the house where Columbus is believed to have been born, Genoa, Italy
Spain in the time of Christopher Columbus was, generally, violent and unstable. Outbreaks of plague, tortures of citizens, and religious inquisitions against Jews and Muslims contributed to the turbulence. According to historians, the outbreak of diseases throughout Europe killed 10 to 20 percent of many towns’ populations with each new wave. An unpredictable, unstable economic climate contributed to famine and malnutrition. Large pits of sewage and mass graves were breeding grounds for disease, and most of the population neither bathed nor kept clean. Ill health and squalid conditions were not the only hardships with which the people of the late fifteenth century had to contend. Wars, riots, and crime also killed tens of thousands in Europe. Often, the leaders of each country were powerless to stop the deadly sweep of war and disease. At times, they were the ones to encourage it.
During the years in which Columbus was traveling from court to court in search of someone to support his trip and his theories, the Inquisition was raging in Spain. The powerful leaders within Spain tortured, maimed, and killed those believed to be non-Christian. Jews and Muslims received the brunt of the attack. They were forced to give up their own religion in favor of Christianity, or face the penalty of torture, expulsion, or death. Nearly 150,000 Jews were expelled from the country, with most being shipped to Africa.
Columbus’s Idea and How He Supported It
Columbus at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella
There are many theories concerning Christopher Columbus and the origin of the idea that, because the world was round, a person could set sail from one side and journey back around to the other. While Columbus was sure that the idea was sound, so much so that he withstood ridicule from his peers, he was not the first to come up with the theory. Scholars and historians have found evidence that Columbus had researched the works of significant scientists and explorers like Ptolemy , Marco Polo , and Eratosthenes . With their influence and his own naturally stubborn will, Columbus set out to prove that a journey across the Atlantic to China and Japan was possible.
In order to pay for his voyage, and to gain the fame and power he desired, Columbus needed to find support from the royal court of a European nation. In 1483, Columbus approached the royal court of Portugal and presented his idea to King John II. King John rejected Columbus, having conferred with other explorers and mariners who claimed that the idea was unthinkable and unrealistic. Thus dismissed, Columbus sought out the King and Queen of Spain. His first attempt to convince Ferdinand and Isabella of his intended journey left them with many questions. They did not, however, reject his proposal. Queen Isabella was quite impressed with Columbus and his presentation. The King and Queen strongly desired a chance to catch up with the power and influence of their Portuguese neighbors, and Columbus’s plan—if it succeeded—offered this chance. They soon agreed to finance and support his expedition. After many years at many courts, Christopher Columbus had finally convinced a nation to support his journey across the Atlantic.
Columbus’s journey did not come cheap, however. He demanded lofty payments for his services. Columbus asked for one-tenth of all the wealth (gold, spices, textiles, slaves, etc.) Spain would receive from the lands which he visited. He asked that he receive this money for all trips made by Spain to the new lands, for all time. He wanted to secure a financial gain not only for himself, but for his heirs as well. On top of this he requested that he be named “Viceroy” of the lands he discovered and “Admiral of the Ocean Seas.” After much negotiation the King and Queen consented. In April 1492 Columbus signed the contract with the King and Queen of Spain guaranteeing him all that he desired, setting in motion the first steps toward the New World.
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What was Esther and Abi Ofarim's only number one single in Britain? | Cinderella Rockefella: Steyn's Song of the Week :: SteynOnline
Steyn's Song of the Week
Steyn's Song of the Week
by Mason Williams and Nancy Ames
July 20, 2014
http://www.steynonline.com/6481/cinderella-rockefella
Neue Lieder und Songs - from the days when Israeli pop stars could have big hits singing in German
What with all the Jew-hate around on the streets of Europe in recent days, I thought it would be nice to have a big Europop hit from that fleeting cultural moment when the Continentals regarded Israel not merely as a normal sovereign state but in fact a rather cool and enviable one. Half-a-century ago there was a slightly goofy Israeli zeitgeist that made global stars of such unlikely figures as Topol.
The great cultural artifact of the era was a nutty novelty song that I last heard in London a couple of years back. Zapping my remote, I came across one of those Channel 4 specials in which various style gurus dote snidely on naff pop culture. In this case, it was the all-time Top Ten duets: there was John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Grease, Frank and Nancy doing "Somethin' Stupid", a ton of Peters and Lee – and Esther and Abi Ofarim singing this:
Try it the next time you're strolling round the Place de la Bastille and you come across some excitable young lads from les banlieues besieging a synagogue. At least then they'll have a reason for denying Israel's right to exist:
You're the lady
(I'm the little lady)
Oooo-oo-oo-oo…
"Cinderella Rockefella" was everywhere in 1967 and '68: Number One in Britain , Number One in Germany , Number One all over the Continent, and in multiple languages – English, French, German – and Hebrew. The Ofarims were an Israeli husband and wife and, in the United Kingdom, one of only two spousal couples ever to get to the top of the charts, Sonny and Cher being the other. And at least Mr and Mrs Bono got "I Got You, Babe". Imagine that every time you turn to your loved one and say "Darling, they're playing our song", it's this:
I love your touch
(Say it again)
I love your chin chinny chin chin…
Oh, but le tout Europe sang along to that chinny-chin-chin line day in day out in the late Sixties.
Abi Ofarim was born Abraham Reichstadt in Tel Aviv, in British Mandatory Palestine, in 1939; Esther was born Esther Zaied in Safed, near Nazareth , in 1941. They met at the Israeli National Theatre, married, started singing at home and, by the time of "Cinderella Rockefella", had amassed a bunch of credits. Well, Esther had. Nobody seemed to have much use for Abi, though he bravely took it on his chinny-chin-chin. Esther appeared in the movie Exodus, opened for Frank Sinatra's Israeli gigs, and represented Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest. On that last point, don't ask me why - Eurovision has very strange eligibility rules, and Switzerland even stranger: my compatriot Céline Dion also represented the Swiss at Eurovision, but then, in mitigation, her own country isn't eligible. Like Canada, Israel isn't in Europe (despite President Ahmadinejad's pitch to the Germans and Austrians that that's where they should put it) but for some reason it is a Eurovision member. The last Israeli entrant I recall was a glamorous transsexual called Dana International – a transgendered vocalist representing a transMediterranean country.
Anyway, Esther and Abi thought the Swiss had hired both of them to sing "T'en va pas" ("Please don't go") for Eurovision, but the gnomes of Zurich decided dumping Abi would increase their chances of winning, so Esther sang "Please don't go" solo, while Abi was told please go. She was invited to New York and made an album with the alarmingly punctuated title of Is It Really Me! Unfortunately it was, though the liner notes did their best:
When was the last time you were knocked over by an impossibly great and new talent? If you can remember how you dusted your pants off and straightened your tie, then prepare yourself once again for that particular kind of rare moment…Esther is that one in a million combination of all the right ingredients that make for stardom, and when I say stardom, I don't mean it in the loose sense. What I mean is, she will sit eventually on one of the highest peaks of the entertainment industry's Olympus... Prepare yourself now to be knocked over and as you fall, be sure you don't hit me laying there.
For all I know, he's still laying there. Esther flew back across the Atlantic and had a few minor Europop hits in assorted tongues. I'm quite partial to "One More Dance (Your Husband Is Worse)", but it was no "Cinderella Rockefella". I see some Dutch radio expert has described "Cinderella" as "written somewhat in a 1920s style". The instrumentation certainly is. The main tune is in a 12-bar blues form, so, if you want, you can sing along some "My baby left me..."-type lyrics and come up with the perkiest blues you've ever heard. Yodeling was around in the Twenties, too. But the sum of all those parts doesn't really add up to a 1920s song, other than I suppose the sort of thing Kurt Weill might have knocked off if he and Bert Brecht had been asked to do a jingle for a carbonated beverage or a soap powder. Even more than most big novelty hits,it seems to exist in a category all its own. An instant smash, it was first heard in Britain when the Ofarims sang it on "The Eamonn Andrews Show" in early 1968 and were such a sensation that viewers demanded the song be released as a single. It's one of those insinuating pop songs full of tricks that once stuck in your head are hard to dislodge but manage to stay just the right side of murderous rage-inducing. There's that chinny-chin-chin thing, and the yodelesque "You're the lady, you're the lady", and the "ooo-oo-oo-oo", and the repetitions for no good reason of the word "Rockefella":
You're the fella
(I'm your Rockefella)
Ooo-oo-oo-oo…
When Starbucks gets around to its compilation CD of the Rockefeller Songbook, that's second only to "Sunny Side Of The Street" ("If I never have a cent, I'll be rich as Rockefeller..."). The Ofarims worked out their routine to the song early on. Esther liked to go saucer-eyed on "I love your touch" so Abi went cross-eyed on "I love your eyes". And once they'd got their moves figured out they rarely deviated. The press played up their Israeliness, as if this was the sort of thing the kids were digging down on the kibbutz. Kitschbutz, maybe.
Years after the Ofarims hit Number One, I played "Cinderella Rockefella" on the radio. In those days, we had to fill in the copyright details by hand and I was amazed to discover, on transcribing the writing credits, that it is in fact an American song. It was written by Mason Williams, who later had a monster instrumental hit with "Classical Gas", and Nancy Ames, another figure who's been around the American music business a long time: she had a minor success with her "answer" song to Staff Sgt Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Berets". Williams and Ames wrote the theme song for the Smothers Brothers, and, after the Ofarims' "Cinderella Rockefella" became a Euro-hit, sang it on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hours. I was stunned. "Cinderella Rockefella" sounds as if it's written by someone who's learned English from listening to pop songs on Radio Luxembourg and learned pop music from a Bulgarian wedding band. It's full of askew Americana - Rockefella, Rockefella - and has an exquisite mastery of weirdly dated slang:
I love your face
(Razzamatazz)
I love your jazz razzamatazz…
In other words, it's a perfect piece of Europop. How could two American writers concoct such immaculate Eurogibberish? Mason Williams later cut it with Jennifer Warnes, and Anne and Johnny Hawker had a hit with it Down Under, and Glenn Campbell and dear old Lulu recorded it in the only encounter of these two colossi. And yet in the hands of these native anglophones "Cinderella Rockefella" loses all its goofy power. As I think back on them, Esther Ofarim was a black-eyed creamy-skinned temptress in a kaftan; Abi was just a doofus in a ruffled shirt. But that was very normal in Continental pop duos: hot gals with dorky boys – look at the Abba guys with their dolls. The fact that an Israeli couple could be accepted as just another naff ja-ja-mit-der-Hit-Parade-boogie Europop act seems in hindsight a heartening cultural signifier.
Instead, it was only a moment. The year they recorded "Cinderella Rockefella" was also the year the Arabs loosed another flop invasion against Israel and lost the West Bank and Gaza, leading to the so-called "occupation", and the Arab League's anointment of Arafat's PLO, and Oslo and intifadas, and the transformation of Israel's image in Europe from plucky little underdog to the oppressors of their new pet cause. Esther and Abi divorced in 1970 and that was that: in "Cinderella Rockefella" terms, they were closer to the former than the latter, although Esther's still out there singing Noel Coward, of all things.
About six months after 9/11, I was in a Paris taxicab en route to Charles De Gaulle, when the Ofarims came on the oldies station. "Oh, turn this up," I said to the driver. "I haven't heard this in years." And, until "Honey" by Bobby Goldsboro came on and ruined everything, he and I sang along happily, with him eventually taking Abi's part and me doing Esther's, riding through the incendiary Muslim banlieues bellowing out Israel's greatest hit:
Abi: You're the lady
| Cinderella Rockefella |
Elizabeth Taylor, Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Ladd all advertised which brand of shampoo? | Gil Ofarim | ZoomInfo.com
Gil Ofarim
...
Gil Ofarim
Gil is a singer, musician, and actor who was born August 13, 1982 in Munich, Germany.
As a solo artist, Gil has released 4 studio albums and a "Best Of" CD from 1998 - 2003.
He
has also fronted the bands Zoo Army and Acht. In 2012, Gil competed in Season 2 of the reality competition series The Voice Of Germany.
As an actor, Gil has appeared in the movies Endlich Sex!
, Die Sturmflut, and Strip Mind .
He
has also made appearances in the television series A Case For B.A.R.Z., and Ein Starkes Team.
Gil Ofarim
Gil Ofarim - Gil was born August 13, 1982 - Gil's Twitter
Gil Ofarim
Gil Ofarim - The Reason
...
Gil Ofarim (Gil Doron Reichstadt Ofarim) was born on August 13, 1982 in Munich, Bavaria, is a German singer, songwriter, actor, and is also known as the lead singer for the band Zoo Army.
His
album Here I Am that was released back in 1998 was a big hit among Asian countries like Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.
i think to post this music ...
popintheair.tumblr.com [cached]
i think to post this music video because minutes ago i opened wikipedia and accidentally i opened TIm mcgraw's page, and i read
his
song "it's your love" which covered by Gil Ofarim , a singer from germany who made a music video in Braga, bandung years ago...
and then while i scrolled down the page i found out that Gil was one of the singer who joined the collaboration with N Sync, Aaron Carter as Bravo All Stars with the song called "Let The Music Heal Your Soul"... nice catchy tune pop song ... and i love the song back then..
Gil Ofarim
Gil Ofarim was born Gil Doron Reichstadt on Friday, 13 August 1982 in Munchen, Germany.
...
The family name Ofarim was apparently adopted by
his
father so Gil's full name is now Gil Doron Reichstadt Ofarim.Gil means joy or happiness in Hebrew, Doron means gift and Ofarim means Bambies (?)
He
is the son of Abraham Reichstadt (born 5 October 1937 in Zafed, near Nazareth), who was internationally famous in the 60's as Abi in the duo Esther & Abi Ofarim singing million seller Cinderella Rockefella in 1968.
Abi and Esther married in 1961 but divorced in 1970 and Abi was living with Sandra when Gil was born.
...
Gil has a younger brother Tal Emanuel, born 24 August 1984.
...
At that age Gil was also a talented tennis player and was a member of the German National Junior team playing in ATP tournaments and had a promising tennis career ahead of him.
His
musical abilities started to become apparent at 14-15 years of age and
he
The next single "Never Giving Up Now" came in March 1998, followed closely by
his
debut album "Here I Am" in May.This album proved a smash in Singapore, Malaysia, Korea and Taiwan, going gold in those countries and was to be the beginning of the love affair between Gil Ofarim and the Asian market.Because of
his
success in Asia, Gil spent the next 3-4 years concentrating on the Asian market, making a number of tours to the Philippines, Taiwan and Korea.
His
Gil and father Abi
Gil in the pool
More singles came in May "If You Only Knew" (recorded with The Moffats) and "Talk To You" in November 1998.
Such was
his
success in Asia that Gil became the first musician to have 3 songs in Thailand's top 5 simultaneously.
Though not quite as popular in
his
home country, Gil grabbed another acting spot on the German soap "Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten" (Good Times, Bad Times) as a guest for a few episodes, and also released two charity singles in 1999.
...
Gil is very popular in Taiwan
Flagging record sales in Germany prompted BMG Germany to drop him from their label, though the company did release a single "Live Your Dreams" in May 2001 and a compilation album "Best Of Gil".
In late 2001 Gil did a duet of a song titled "Calling" was Karylle, a female Philippines singer.
Gil Ofarim then dropped out of the music scene and the public spotlight for over a year, with many stories circulating that
he
had quit music altogether.During that period
he
suffered severe depression, stemming from
his
inability to accept the commercialized, teen idol status that had been thrust upon him.In other words, the adulation simply got too much for him.
Fortunately, Gil slowly came back into the music scene and, in 2003, signed up with Neotane, a subsidiary of Sony.
He
music for 17 minutes.
He
also secured a leading role as Christoph in a 90 minute TV romantic comedy "Endlich Sex".Singles "The Reason", "
She
", "In Your Eyes" and an album "On My Own" had also been put in the market and Gil was back doing what
he
had always loved - playing music.
He
had also formed a new band, ditching
his
first band which had included
his
brother Tal who, Gil says, is
his
best friend.In addition, Gil has done some modeling for a German modeling agency Louisa-models and has written three books.
Gil is still single (he has 12 ‘girlfriends' -
his
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The Gregorian Calendar replaced which earlier calendar in western Europe? | 6 Things You May Not Know About the Gregorian Calendar - History in the Headlines
6 Things You May Not Know About the Gregorian Calendar
September 13, 2012 By Jennie Cohen
William Hogarth’s painting “An Election Entertainment,” thought to have sparked rumors that English citizens rioted after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
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6 Things You May Not Know About the Gregorian Calendar
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If you were living in England or one of the American colonies 260 years ago, this date—September 13, 1752—didn’t exist. Neither did the 10 days preceding it. Instead, you would have gone to bed on the evening of September 2 and woken up on the morning of September 14. Eleven days had been effectively skipped over as part of the parliamentary measure that implemented the Gregorian calendar, aligning Britain and its overseas possessions with the rest of Western Europe. In most of the world today, people continue to track their days, months and years using the centuries-old system, so chances are you’re intimately familiar with its workings. Still, there are a few things about the Gregorian calendar that might come as a surprise.
1. The original goal of the Gregorian calendar was to change the date of Easter.
In 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar, Europe adhered to the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Since the Roman emperor’s system miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, the calendar had since fallen out of sync with the seasons. This concerned Gregory because it meant that Easter, traditionally observed on March 21, fell further away from the spring equinox with each passing year.
2. Leap years don’t really occur every four years in the Gregorian calendar.
The Julian calendar included an extra day in February every four years. But Aloysus Lilius, the Italian scientist who developed the system Pope Gregory would unveil in 1582, realized that the addition of so many days made the calendar slightly too long. He devised a variation that adds leap days in years divisible by four, unless the year is also divisible by 100. If the year is also divisible by 400, a leap day is added regardless. While this formula may sound confusing, it did resolve the lag created by Caesar’s earlier scheme—almost.
3. The Gregorian calendar differs from the solar year by 26 seconds per year.
Despite Lilius’ ingenious method for syncing the calendar with the seasons, his system is still off by 26 seconds. As a result, in the years since Gregory introduced his calendar in 1582, a discrepancy of several hours has arisen. By the year 4909, the Gregorian calendar will be a full day ahead of the solar year.
4. Some Protestants viewed the Gregorian calendar as a Catholic plot.
Though Pope Gregory’s papal bull reforming the calendar had no power beyond the Catholic Church, Catholic countries—including Spain, Portugal and Italy—swiftly adopted the new system for their civil affairs. European Protestants, however, largely rejected the change because of its ties to the papacy, fearing it was an attempt to silence their movement. It wasn’t until 1700 that Protestant Germany switched over, and England held out until 1752. Orthodox countries clung to the Julian calendar until even later, and their national churches have never embraced Gregory’s reforms.
5. Britain’s adoption of the Gregorian calendar sparked riots and protest—maybe.
According to some accounts, English citizens did not react kindly after an act of Parliament advanced the calendar overnight from September 2 to September 14, 1752. Rioters supposedly took to the streets, demanding that the government “give us our 11 days.” However, most historians now believe that these protests never occurred or were greatly exaggerated. On the other side of the Atlantic, meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin welcomed the change, writing, “It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.”
6. Before the Gregorian calendar’s adoption, the English new year began on March 25, or Lady Day.
Julius Caesar’s calendar reform of 46 B.C. instituted January 1 as the first of the year. During the Middle Ages, however, European countries replaced it with days that carried greater religious significance, such as December 25 (the anniversary of Jesus’ birth) and March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation). The latter, known as Lady Day because it celebrates the Virgin Mary, marked the beginning of the year in Britain until January 1, 1752.
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| Julian |
In 1910 Leo Tolstoy died in what type of building? | SSA - POMS: GN 00307.180 - Gregorian/Julian Calendar - 08/26/2005
A. Background
Although most countries in Western Europe adopted the Gregorian calendar by the end of the 18th century, Eastern Europe did not convert from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar until early in the 20th century.
B. Policy
SSA assumes the Julian calendar was used and converts the date to the Gregorian calendar date if a document (other than a Roman Catholic record) was issued or recorded in Eastern Europe at the time the Julian calendar was used (see GN 00307.180D. ).
SSA does not assume all documents or records made after the dates in GN 00307.180D. used the Gregorian calendar since some registrars continued to use the old calendar.
SSA assumes records issued in countries not listed in GN 00307.180D. show Gregorian dates.
Convert a Julian calendar date to the Gregorian calendar date by adding:
12 days to dates prior to March 1, 1900; and
13 days to dates after February 28, 1900.
D. Exhibit
This chart gives information on the dates the countries listed converted to the Gregorian calendar and the calendar by which dates are shown on subsequent certifications.
Country
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In 1812 who was shot while walking through the lobby of the House of Commons? | 10 Historical Brits Who Died Gruesome And Unusual Deaths - Listverse
10 Historical Brits Who Died Gruesome And Unusual Deaths
Oli Foster
February 23, 2016
Benjamin Franklin once mused that one of life’s only certainties was death. Across the Atlantic from him, on the British Isles, is a rich tapestry of history within which many unusual and gruesome deaths feature. Here is a list of some of the more peculiar and grisly ways that British historical figures met their maker.
10William Huskisson
Photo credit: Edwardx /Wikimedia
William Huskisson was an influential 19th-century British politician, a pioneer of free trade, a liberal reformer—and the first man to be killed by a train.
This sticky end to a successful career was not the first calamity to which the accident-prone member of parliament had fallen victim. He had previously been flattened by a pole in London, fallen on by a horse just before his marriage, and severely injured his legs trying to jump over a moat in Scotland. However, the morning of September 15, 1830, would prove to be Huskisson’s final accident.
When the train that Huskisson was on came to a stop, he alighted to reconcile with his old colleague, the Duke of Wellington, who was in a different carriage. Meanwhile, George Stephenson’s famous Rocket locomotive approached at speed on the adjacent track. In the confusion, Huskisson panicked and ended up falling beneath the wheels of the Rocket, which ran right over him, crushing and mangling his legs. Several hours later, Huskisson died of the horrific wounds he had incurred.
Ironically, there had been considerable opposition in parliament to the building of the rail track on which Huskisson died. Believing trains were the future, Huskisson had strongly advocated the track’s development. Had he not, he may have not met such an untimely and gruesome end.
9King Edward II
Photo credit: Philip Halling
Edward II, king of England from 1307–1327, was a rather unsuccessful ruler. The son of the crusading, warlike, and conquering Edward I, Edward II proved more effeminate and was believed by many at the time (and since) to have been gay. Whether his close relationship with nobleman Pier Gaveston was anything more than a simple friendship, we cannot be sure. However, Edward’s aptitude for alienating his supporters led to his own wife, Isabella, joining forces with Edward’s enemies and revolting against him.
Once deposed, Edward appeared too dangerous to be kept alive, so he was murdered at Berkley Castle on September 21, 1327. His murder, according to some chroniclers, involved having a red-hot poker inserted up his anus and into his body, with his screams being heard for miles around the castle. It was a humiliating and grisly end for anyone, let alone a king of England.
8William The Conqueror
Photo credit: Urban/Wikimedia
Although William the Conqueror was technically born in Normandy, France, his status as king of England means he makes our list of famous Brits.
Best known for his conquering of England in 1066, William became rather overweight in his later years. When riding a horse, his stomach protruded over the saddle. In July 1087, his horse reared, and he was thrown onto the pommel , rupturing his internal organs. He died of his injuries several agonizing months later.
His funeral would prove even more undignified. When his body was being lowered into its coffin, he was too large to fit. As priests tried desperately to stuff the bloated corpse into the coffin, the abdomen exploded , and a disgusting smell filled the entire room. Subsequently, the ceremony was a rushed affair—an undignified and grim end for one of history’s greatest conquering kings.
7King Aella Of Northumbria
Photo credit: Berig/Wikimedia
King Aella was ruler of the Anglo-Saxon Northumbrian Kingdom of England in the ninth century. Although we know very little about Aella because of the lack of credible sources from the time, one well-known (if semi-legendary) bit of trivia is the bloody and gruesome death he suffered at the hands of Viking invaders.
At the time, Anglo-Saxon England was being devastated by highly mobile and ferocious Viking armies. York, Aella’s seat of power and the capital of Northumbria, was burned to the ground by Vikings in 867, and the defeated Aella was subjected to the Blood Eagle ritual. The description of this ordeal has become more graphic and lurid over time and with each account.
Earlier accounts describe the act as carving a picture of an eagle into the victim’s back. Later accounts are far more horrific. Aella would have been tied up and offered to the Norse god Oden. He then had his back cut open and his ribs and lungs pulled out and spread like the wings of an eagle. This torturous death served as a warning to the other Saxon Kingdoms—Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex—all of which would soon face the wrath of further Viking invaders.
6John Speke
Photo credit: Southwell Brothers
John Hanning Speke was a British Army officer and then a famous African explorer. He also accidentally shot himself in the chest with a shotgun while he was climbing over a wall in Wiltshire, England, on September 15, 1864.
Speke is most well known for his search for the source of the Nile, his mapping of much of central Africa, and for being the first European to reach Lake Victoria. He greatly influenced later adventurers such as David Livingstone and Henry Stanley, who subsequently mapped much of the Nile and Congo rivers and their tributaries. However, rather than dying at the hands of natives, wild animals, or tropical disease, Speke blew a hole through his own body while casually climbing over a 60-centimeter (2 ft) wall when he was out shooting one afternoon back in England.
He quickly died from his injuries before a doctor could reach him, and his future plans for further exploration met a swift and brutal ending.
5Archbishop Thomas Becket
Photo credit: Master Alpais
Thomas Becket rose from humble beginnings to become the most powerful clerical figure in England—the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, he became embroiled in a very public spat with King Henry II and subsequently met a bloody and shocking end.
Upon starting his tenure, Becket was very much the king’s man and had a close friendship with Henry, who had promoted Becket over more experienced churchmen. Relations soon turned sour when the two disagreed over Henry’s attempts to remove the church’s judicial powers. After returning from an initial exile, Becket continued to infuriate Henry to the point where the king supposedly exclaimed, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?!” Four of Henry’s knights left immediately. On December 29, 1170, they reached Canterbury Cathedral.
Although the knights probably only initially meant to capture Becket, the Archbishop’s stolid resistance led one of the knights to cut the top of Becket’s skull from his head with the swing of a sword. After another blow, Becket still stood firm, but a third hack from one of the knights’ swords forced him to the floor. Becket’s brains seeped out, dying the ground.
As a final insult, the knight’s clerk stood on the back of Becket’s neck and further scattered the Archbishop’s bloody brains across the cathedral floor . The knights fled, and Europe was shocked that a clergy leader could suffer such a sacrilegious death in the most important religious building in England.
Becket became a martyr . He was canonized by the Pope, and the spot where he fell became a pilgrimage point for followers. Henry would fast and wear a sackcloth in penitence for the guilt he felt over his old friend’s death. Over 300 years later, during the English Reformation and split from the Catholic Church, Henry VIII desecrated Becket’s remains showing that—even in death—Becket was still a threat to royal power.
4Lord Castlereagh
Photo via Wikimedia
Lord Castlereagh, an influential British statesman, met a grisly end by his own hands. As foreign secretary from 1812, he was influential in the defeat of Napoleon and was the principal British representative at the subsequent Congress of Vienna 1815, which reshaped the map of Europe for decades.
Despite his many achievements, Castlereagh was also a controversial figure, hated by many in Britain. His attempts at justifying the cavalry charge on British civilians at the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 led the famous romantic poet Lord Byron to write, “I met Murder on the way—He had a mask like Castlereagh.” Public criticism and the heavy workload of the Foreign Office led Castlereagh into a downward spiral of paranoid nervous depression.
On August 12, 1822, he cut his own throat with a penknife, gasping at his doctor, “I have done for myself . . . I have opened my neck.” Lord Byron’s reaction upon hearing the news was cold: “So he has cut his throat at last !” The epitaph he later wrote was colder still:
“Posterity will ne’er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Photo credit: Walter Stanley Paget
Spencer Perceval is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated while in office. The Tory aristocrat had rapidly risen to the highest office of power in British politics. He was a respectable and decent man who supported the abolition of the slave trade.
On May 11, 1812, while walking through the lobby into the House of Commons, he was shot with a pistol at point-blank range in the chest. Perceval fell to floor, exclaiming, “I am murdered!” His assassin, John Bellingham, walked casually over to the fireplace, making no attempt to escape.
Perceval was carried into a side room, where he died shortly afterward. Bellingham was seized and later hanged for the assassination. He claimed to have carried out the act because of a compensation grievance with the government. After concealing a pistol in a specially made pocket of his jacket, he took his revenge on the head of the government he blamed, leaving Perceval’s wife a widow and his 12 children orphans.
2Thomas Urquhart
Photo credit: George Glover
Sir Thomas Urquhart was an eccentric Scottish writer famous for his adventurous lifestyle and bizarre, stylistic publications. During the English Civil War, he fought on the Royalist side, first for King Charles I and then later for King Charles II at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. When Charles was defeated, Urquhart was captured by Oliver Cromwell’s forces and imprisoned firstly in the Tower of London and later at Windsor Castle—one of the current residences of Queen Elizabeth II. It was during Urquhart’s containment that he wrote some of his most famous works and also found the time to chart his own descent from Adam and Eve.
When he was eventually released, he traveled to Europe and continued to write, working on his own concept of a universal language. But Urquhart’s death is more unusual than gruesome. In 1660, upon hearing of the restoration of Charles II to the throne , Urquhart supposedly died in an inordinate fit of “excessive laughter.” All men die eventually, and Thomas Urquhart met his end in a manner very fitting of his eccentricity.
1Lord Mountbatten
Photo credit: John Armagh
Lord Mountbatten, a cousin to Queen Elizabeth II and former Viceroy of India, was a powerful British statesman and naval officer. On August 27, 1979, he was assassinated by the IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) while on his fishing boat, Shadow V.
IRA members had planted a radio-controlled bomb aboard the night before and waited for Mountbatten and his companions to set sail before detonating the device and blowing the boat “ to smithereens .” All seven people aboard were thrown into the sea by the blast. Mountbatten was pulled from the water by fishermen, but his legs had been almost completely severed by the blast. He died shortly afterward.
Several others were tragically killed by the explosion, including Mountbatten’s 14-year-old grandson. Just hours later, 18 British soldiers were also killed by further IRA attacks.
Oli Foster is a British history postgraduate with a love of music, travel, and milkshakes.
More Great Lists
| Spencer Perceval |
The Sequoia trees of the Sierra Nevada are better known as what? | The 11th of May 1812 AD, Prime Minister Spencer Perceval Assassinated
Prime Minister Spencer Perceval Assassinated
Westminster , London The 11th of May 1812 AD
Given the endless conflicts, both internal and external, with which Britain has been involved since Robert Walpole was the first to hold the office of Prime Minister, it is almost surprising that only one premier has been assassinated. The IRA came close in Brighton in 1984 to killing Margaret Thatcher , but Spencer Perceval remains the only such figure to have fallen victim to an assassin.
The seventh son of an Irish Earl, after a career in the law he entered Parliament in his mid-thirties. He soon served as solicitor and attorney general; and as Chancellor. Perceval became Prime Minister in 1809, the scrupulously incorrupt head of a fragile Tory government.
Perceval was shot through the heart at close range while walking through the lobby of Parliament in the late afternoon. His killer was John Bellingham, a merchant from Liverpool � though born in St Neots - ruined by five years of unjust imprisonment in Russia. He felt the government failed him there; and resented its refusal of compensation.
Bellingham prepared well: he knew the lobby; purchased pistols; had a tailor sew a hidden pocket for them into his coat; and awaited Perceval calmly. Justice was swift: he was tried and found guilty on May 15, and hanged three days later.
Both Perceval�s and Bellingham�s family were subsequently provided for. Perceval died with little more than �100 in the bank; his widow and 12 children were granted �50,000 by Parliament. Public subscription raised considerable funds for his killer's dependents, there being sympathy for a man the system had abandoned.
| i don't know |
When explaining the Doppler Effect which suffix follows the words 'Red' and 'Blue'? | Color – The Physics Hypertextbook
Discussion
red green blue
Color is a function of the human visual system, and is not an intrinsic property. Objects don't "have" color, they give off light that "appears" to be a color. Spectral power distributions exist in the physical world, but color exists only in the mind of the beholder.
Color is determined first by frequency and then by how those frequencies are combined or mixed when they reach they eye. This is the physics part of the topic. Light falls on specialized receptor cells (called rods) at the back of the eye (called the retina) and a signal is sent to the brain along a neural pathway (called the optic nerve). This signal is processed by the part of the brain near the back of the skull (called the occipital lobe). Here's where the biology kicks in, or maybe it's the psychology, or maybe it's both. They eye is very much like a camera, but the brain is not like a video recorder. The brain is not like a computer with fixed hardware of transistors and capacitors executing some sort of software code. The neurons of the brain are probably best thought of as wetware — a fusion of hardware and software or maybe something completely different. I don't feel qualified to say much about that end of this process. Once the visual information leaves the eye, basic physics ends and neurocognition takes over.
Color is determined first by frequency. Let's start by determining what a typical person would see when looking at electromagnetic radiation of a single frequency. Physicists call this monochromatic light. (The literal meaning of this word is "single color", but the actual meaning is "single frequency".) Low frequency radiation is invisible. With an adequately bright source, starting somewhere around 400 THz (1 THz = 1012 Hz) most humans begin to perceive a dull red. As the frequency is increased, the perceived color gradually changes from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to violet. The eye doesn't perceive violet so well. It always seems to look dark compared to other sources at equal intensity. Somewhere between 700 THz and 800 THz the world goes dark again.
How many colors are there in the spectrum above? How many did I name?
red
blue
violet
The simple named colors are mostly monosyllabic English words — red, green, brown, black, white, gray. Brevity indicates an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) origin. Monosyllabic words are generally the oldest words in the English language — head, eye, nose, foot, cat, dog, cow, eat, drink, man, wife, house, sleep, rain, snow, sword, sheath, God…. These words go back more than fifteen centuries. Yellow, purple, and blue are exceptions to the one-syllable-equals-English rule. Yellow and purple are Old English color words with two syllables. Blue is a one syllable French word (bleu) that replaced a two syllable Old English word (hǽwen) eight hundred years ago.
Some of the names for colors are loan words from French (many of which are loan words from other languages). Since the ʒ (zh) sound doesn't exist in Old English, orange and beige are obviously French. (Garage is also a very French word.) The words violet and orange were the names of plants (nouns) before they were the names of colors (adjectives). Violet came from 14th Century French, which came from Latin. Orange came from 16th Century French, which came from Italian, which came from Arabic, which came from Persian, which came from Sanskrit.
English arose when three Germanic tribes — the Angles, The Saxons, and the Jutes — migrated from continental Europe to the British Isles in the Fifth Century. The language they spoke is called Anglo-Saxon or Old English. You would hardly recognize this language if you heard it spoken or saw it written today. Danes probably have the best chance of understanding spoken Old English, Icelanders the best chance of understanding written Old English. Of the six named colors in my spectrum, only four were known to the Anglo-Saxons: reád, geolu, grÉne, hǽwen. Do you recognize any of them?
réad
grÉne
hǽwen
In the year 1066, an invasion of French speaking peoples — the Normans, the Bretons, and the French — swept over the British Isles. The last Anglo-Saxon King of England, King Harold II, was succeeded by the first Norman king, William the Conqueror. The Normans had an odd empire (if that's the word for it) that included the British Isles, northern France (appropriately named Normandy), southern Italy, Sicily, Syria, Cyprus, and Libya. William was a Norman, descended from Norsemen, but he spoke French not Swedish or Norwegian or Danish. One factor leading to the rise of the Normans in their scattered empire is their ability to quickly integrate themselves into the culture of the peoples they conquered. For purposes of this discussion, we care about language. When the Normans got to northern France, they started speaking French. When the Normans got to England they got the Anglo-Saxons to start speaking French too (sort of). In about a hundred years, Anglo-Saxon had mutated into something closer to what we would recognize as English today — neither French nor Anglo-Saxon. Old English became Middle English. This is when English acquired the words blue (which replaced hǽwen) and violet (which never existed as an English color word before).
rede
blu
violet
The next change in the English language was one of pronunciation — the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700). This is when silent e and other spelling rules that frustrate both native and second language speakers arose. The notion of long and short vowels also changed. At one time a long vowel was one that was pronounced for a longer time than a short vowel. Take the words pan and pane. Before the Great Vowel Shift, pan was pronounced "pan" and pane was pronounced "paaaneh" with a literal looong vowel and a non-silent "eh" at the end. Being mostly a change in pronunciation, the rise of Modern English around 1550 doesn't affect our discussion of color words. Movable type printing invented in Germany around 1445 is probably more important. Books became relatively plentiful, spelling became standardized, and tracking down the first occurrence of a word became easier. The Modern English period is when the words orange and indigo were first used to identify colors.
red
The Compleat Gentleman by Henry Peacham (1622)
There is no physical significance in color names. It's all a matter of culture and culture depends on where you live, what language you speak, and what century it is. A given wave of light has the same frequency no matter who is viewing it, but the person perceiving the color will call it a word appropriate to their culture.
Color discrimination is probably the same for all people in all cultures (all people with properly working eyeballs). Did the English see orange or violet before the French told them about it? Of course they could. They probably called orange reád (red) or geolo-reád (yellow-red) and violet hǽwen (blue) or blæc-hǽwen (dark blue) because those were the words they had available.
Why is an orange called an orange but a lemon not called a yellow and a lime not called a green?
What would you call indigo if I showed it to you? Most certainly blue. I don't know anyone who uses the word indigo in everyday conversation. Maybe some painters do. That'd be about it for indigo as far as Modern English speakers were concerned. In some languages blue and indigo are equally significant color words. Maybe the real question is do we need blue, indigo, and violet?
…World Color Survey…
Frequency determines color, but when it comes to light, wavelength is the easier thing to measure. A good approximate range of wavelengths for the visible spectrum is 400 nm to 700 nm (1 nm = 10−9 m) although most humans can detect light just outside that range. Since wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency the color sequence gets reversed. 400 nm is a dull violet (but violet always appears dull). 700 nm is a dull red.
Wavelength varies with the speed of light, which varies with medium. The speed of light is about 0.03% slower in air than in vacuum. If you're trying to understand color, wavelength is just as good as frequency.
We humans who speak English and live at the dawn of the 21st Century have identified six wavelength bands in the electromagnetic spectrum as significant enough to warrant a designation with a special name. They are: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Where one color ends and another begins is a matter of debate as you will see in the table below.
Wavelength ranges for monochromatic light (nm)
1 CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. 1966.
2 Hazel Rossotti. Color. Princeton University Press, 1983.
3 Edwin R. Jones. Physics 153 Class Notes . University of South Carolina, 1999.
4 Deane B. Judd. Goethe's Theory of Colors. MIT Press, 1970.
color
400–450
400–450
Which brings us to indigo. How many of you reading this learned about "Roy G. Biv" (Americans, I presume) or that "Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain" (Britons, I presume)? Who among you learned that between blue and violet there was this special color called indigo?
Indigo. The only time I ever hear it is when students recite the visible spectrum. Indigo is a color of relatively little importance. If indigo counts as a color then so should canary, and mauve, and puce, and brick, and teal, and so on. Where is their place in the spectrum?
How many colors are there in this swatch? How many were you taught in elementary school? The inclusion of indigo in the spectrum goes back to Isaac Newton . More on this after the data table. If you believe that indigo is an important color, then here's a set of spectral tables for you.
Wavelength ranges for monochromatic light (nm) with indigo
5 Howard L. Cohen. AST 1002 Study Guide . University of Florida, 1999–2003.
6 J.L. Morton. Color Matters , 1995–2002.
7 A Dictionary of Science. Oxford University Press, 2000.
390–425
425–460
Did Richard of York give battle in vain so that future citizens in the dismantled British Empire would forever remember indigo? Did Mr. and Mrs. Biv conceive little Roy G. so that future generations of Americans might learn the true nature of light? Where did indigo come from?
When Newton attempted to reckon up the rays of light decomposed by the prism and ventured to assign the famous number seven, he was apparently influenced by some lurking disposition towards mysticism, If any unprejudiced person will fairly repeat the experiment, he must soon be convinced that the various coloured spaces which paint the spectrum slide into each other by indefinite shadings: he may name four or five principal colors, but the subordinate spaces are evidently so multiplied as to be incapable of enumeration. The same illustrious mathematician, we can hardly doubt, was betrayed by a passion for analogy, when he imagined that the primary colours are distributed over the spectrum after the proportion of the diatonic scale of music, since those intermediate spaces have really no precise defined limits.
фиолетовый
fiolyetoviy
The human eye can distinguish something on the order of 7 to 10 million colors — that's a number greater than the number of words in the English language (the largest language on earth).
The retina…
The rods, which far outnumber the cones, respond to wavelengths in the middle portion of the spectrum of light. If you had only rods in your retina, you would see in black and white. The cones in our eyes provide us with our color vision. There are three types of cone, identified by a capital letter, each of which responds primarily to a region of the visible spectrum: L to red, M to green, and S to blue.
The peak sensitivities are 580 nm for red (L), 540 nm for green (M), and 440 nm for blue (S). Red and green cones respond to nearly all visible wavelengths, while blue cones are insensitive to wavelengths longer than 550 nm. The total response of all three cones together peaks at 560 nm — somewhere between yellow and green in the spectrum.
Paraphrase…
While red, green, and blue are spaced somewhat equally across the visible spectrum, the specific sensitivities of the L, M, and S cones are not. This might seem a little confusing, especially since the L cones aren't even closely centered on the red area of the spectrum. Fortunately, the spectral sensitivity of the cones is only one part of how the brain decodes color information. Additional processing takes these sensitivities into account.
Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage
The relative response of the red and green cones to different colors of light are plotted on the horizontal and vertical axes, respectively. Values on the tongue shaped perimeter are for light of a single wavelength (in nanometers). Values within the curve are for light of mixed frequency. The point in the center labeled D65 corresponds to light from a blackbody radiator at 6500 K — the effective temperature of daylight at midday, a generally accepted standard value of white light.
white & black
Spectral Classification of Stars
additive color mixing
The absence of light is darkness. Add light and human eyes to the darkness and you get color — a perception of the human visual system. The retina at the back of the human eye has three types of neurons called cones, each sensitive to a different band of wavelengths — one long, one medium, and one short. The long wavelength cones are most stimulated by light that appears red, the medium wavelength cones by light that appears green, and the short wavelength cones by light that appears blue. A monochromatic wavelength of light (or a narrow band of wavelengths) can be selected as a representative for each of these colors. These become the primary colors of a system that can be used to reproduce other colors in a process known as additive color mixing.
Additive Primary Colors
=
white
Most of us with typical human eyes and a basic knowledge of the English language are familar with the color yellow. This is probably not the case for cyan and magenta. Because inkjet printers (which have cyan, magenta, yellow, and black cartridges) are commonplace nowadays, it's not uncommon for people to recognise the words cyan and magenta, but not know how to pronounce them (ˈsīˌan and məˈjentə). As you'd expect given that it's a combination of blue and green light, cyan appears blue-green — something like the blue of the sky but not exactly. I'd say more like the semiprecious stone turquois than anything else. Magenta is often confused with pink, but magenta is much more vibrant. Pink is desaturated red. Magenta is considered a pure color. (More on this later.) A close relative of magenta is fuschia, which is a synthetic dye. I can't think of anything natural that looks like magenta.
These rules are better understood with a diagram than a series of equations.
Color mixing is not an all or nothing process. Red light and green light together appear yellow, it's true, but they can also appear orange when mixed if the red light is brighter than the green light. Red light and green light can be combined in other proportions to produce light that appears to be a color halfway between red and orange, and orange and yellow, and yellow and green. We can keep dividing and subdividing like this to produce new, distinct colors.
red
yellow-green
green
One convenient way to represent some of the possibilities is with a continuous color wheel. Starting on the right side and going counterclockwise as is the tradition in mathematics, red is placed on the circumference at 0°, green at 120°, and blue at 240°. The complimentary colors are halfway between the primaries — yellow at 60°, cyan at 180°, and magenta at 300°. These numbers are called hue angles. White is at the origin. The distance from the origin to any point on the colorwheel stated as a fraction of the radius is known as the saturation. White is completely desaturated. Its saturation is 0%. Colors with low saturation are often identified as pale or pastel. Colors with a high saturation are bright or vibrant. Colors with 100% saturation are said to be pure.
more talk
optical, superposition: lamp overlap, projection TV with 3 CRTs
temporal, rapid alternation, persistence of vision: biased LED
spatial, small elements: TV/computer monitor pixels
[insert image - pixels?]
Purple and violet are similar, though purple is closer to red. In optics, there is an important difference; purple is a composite color made by combining red and blue, while violet is a spectral color, with its own wavelength on the visible spectrum of light.
subtractive color mixing
The absence of pigment is white paper. (The absence of pigment is paper that appears white when illuminated with white light.)
Add pigment to it. (Subtract certain wavelength ranges.)
Subtractive Primary Colors
optical, superposition: paints, dyes and pigments are reflective filters
spatial, small elements: halftone dots
A five color press: yellow, magenta, cyan, black, spot color.
historical junk
The painter's color wheel is a convenient way to understand how to mimic some colors by mixing red, yellow, and blue pigments. This does not make red, yellow, and blue the primary colors of the human visual system. They do not satisfy the definition of primary. They can't reproduce the widest variety of colors when combined. Cyan, magenta, and yellow have a greater chromatic range as evidenced by their ability to produce a reasonable black. No combination of red, yellow, and blue pigments will approach black as closely as do cyan, magenta, and yellow. The primary colors are red, green, and blue — not red, yellow, and blue.
more talk
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), student of the arts, theatrical director, and author (Iphigenia at Taurus, Egmont, Faust). Lots of interesting descriptive information on the subjective nature of color, which many physicists of his day ignored, but does not propose a physical model of color.
The theory of colors, in particular, has suffered much, and its progress has been incalculably retarded by having been mixed up with optics generally, a science which cannot dispense with mathematics; whereas the theory of colors, in strictness, may be investigated quite independently of optics.
Colour is a law of nature in relation with the sense of sight… [It] is an elementary phenomenon in nature adapted to the sense of vision…
It is not light, in an abstract sense, but a luminous image that we have to consider.
Yellow, blue, and red, may be assumed as pure elementary colors, already existing; from these, violet, orange, and green, are the simplest combined results.
That all the colours mixed together produce white, is an absurdity which people have credulously been accustomed to repeat for a century, in opposition to the evidence of their senses.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1810
Hmmm. Alright then.
Now, as it is almost impossible to conceive each sensitive point of the retina to contain an infinite number of particles, each capable of vibrating in perfect unison with every possible undulation, it becomes necessary to suppose the number limited, for instance, to the three principal colours, red, yellow, and blue, of which the undulations are related in magnitude nearly as the numbers 8, 7, and 6; and that each of the particles is capable of being put in motion less or more forcibley by undulations differing less or more from a perfect unison; for instance the undulations of green light being nearly in the ratio of 6½, will affect equally the particles in unison with yellow and blue, and produce the same effect as a light composed of these two species: and each sensitive filament of the nerve may consist of three portions, one for each principal colour.
paints, inks, dyes, pigments
hemoglobin
chlorophyll a is bright blue-green and is twice as common as the olive colored chlorophyll b; carotenoids are yellow orange (carrots, squash, tomatoes) two kinds of carotenes have nutritional significance; anthocyanins provide the red purple blue color of red grapes, red cabbage, apples, radishes, eggplants; anthoxanthins pale yellow of potatoes, onions, cauliflower;
transmission
stained glass, photographic filters, tinted sunglasses, red sunsets
scattering
nitrogen molecules make the sky blue
foam, froth, clouds, smoke
a colloid is basically a suspension of very small particles in another substance: clouds, smoke, haze
emulsions are suspensions of one liquid in another: mayonnaise, cosmetic creams
milk (fat globules 1-5 μm diameter reduced to <1 μm after homogenization, micelles of milk protein casein 0.1 μm diameter)
gels are liquids dispersed in a solid: pudding is water dispersed in starch
sols are solids particles dispersed in a liquid: flour and cornstarch thickened sauces
dispersion
rainbows, diamonds, flint glass, chromatic aberration
interference
path length differences
thin films, insect wings & shells, pigeon necks, peacock feathers, mother of pearl, heat stains on metals, spider webs, halos, bubbles, watered silks, mist on glass, photoelastic stress,
iridescence, opalescence, pearlescence
| Jazireh-ye Shif |
Kate Philips played which wife of Henry VIII in 'Wolf Hall'? | Redshift and Distance in the Expanding Universe – Starts With A Bang
Last week, we began talking about understanding the size of the Universe , and we continued this week with some information on distances and motion in the Universe . This brings us to my favorite application, which leads to the Hubble expansion :
Redshift. You see, whenever an atom or molecule emits light, it gives off that light at a very few particular wavelengths. For instance, if you have hydrogen, you’ll always get light at wavelengths of 656 nanometers (red), 486 nm (cyan), 434 nm (indigo), 410 nm (violet), and 397 nm (on the border of violet/ultraviolet):
Now there are three things — and only three things (unless you really want to get technical ) — that can happen to this light to change the wavelengths that you see. Let’s go over what they are.
1. Gravitational Redshift. If you’re deep in a gravitational field (like close to a black hole), you have to use up energy to climb out of it. For light of all types, energy and wavelength are very closely related to each other. Smaller wavelength = higher energy and larger wavelength = lower energy, so if you need to climb out of a strong gravitational field, you lose energy, and therefore your light gets shifted towards the red. This is what we call redshift , where something happens to make the wavelength of your light longer and lower in energy. But gravitational redshift is rarely significant; two other effects are far more important.
2. Redshift due to motion. If an object that emits light moves away from you, the light from it gets redshifted . This is the same exact effect — the doppler shift — that causes police sirens to sound lower pitched when they move away from you. One thing that’s neat? If a light-emitting object moves towards you, the light gets blue-shifted, and becomes more energetic! (We see this happening for the Andromeda galaxy, one of the only ones in the Universe that moves towards us.) And although this is incredibly useful, this is not what’s happening to light in the Universe. Remember, I told you that these distant galaxies aren’t moving, the space between them is just expanding . Well, guess what?
3. Expanding space causes a redshift! (And thanks to av8n.com for the image!) You see, as space expands (above), the wavelengths of the light in it also expand, as you can see below.
And this last effect is so important for the expanding Universe. Why? Well, if we measure the light from many, many distant objects and determine their distances, we can — simply based on the objects’ redshifts — learn the entire history of how the Universe expanded. The redshift isn’t hard to measure, either:
It is from literally millions and millions of these individual measurements that we’ve been able to determine the entire history of how the Universe expanded. That, among other things, is how we discovered dark energy and the accelerating Universe ! Pretty remarkable stuff, and yet, not intuitive at all.
So what should you take away from this? That as light travels through space and space expands, it causes the wavelength of that very light to expand, too. And that’s how we learn about the history of cosmic expansion in our Universe. Again, it’s expansion that’s causing this redshift, and not motion. Hope this helps shed some light on some of the most confusing stuff out there!
| i don't know |
Which commercial television company had its studios at Teddington? | History of Teddington Studios
Remind Me
History of Teddington Studios
For close to a century, Teddington Studios has been an important source of production for the entertainment industry, with an output ranging from silent films to contemporary television shows.
The studio, located in Teddington in South-West London, had its origins in the early 20th century when stockbroker Henry Chinnery, the owner of a property in Teddington called Weir House, permitted local filmmakers to use his greenhouse as an impromptu studio. Within a few years studio facilities had been built, and from 1916 to 1922 a company called Master Films produced full-length features at Teddington.
In 1931 filmmaker E.G. Norman and actor Henry Edwards bought the property and renamed it Teddington Film Studios Limited. Facilities were expanded to include up-to-date cameras, lighting and recording equipment, along with workshops, dressing rooms and other amenities. The company had produced only one film, Stranglehold (1931), when Warner Bros. leased the studio as its British base later in 1931.
Under the title Warner Bros. First National Productions Ltd., the American company began producing "quota quickies," low-budget films with short shooting schedules that were made to meet the quota of British-made films required by the Cinematograph Films Act of 1927. (The act, created to diminish the dominance of American-made films in The United Kingdom, was modified by the Cinematograph Films Act 1938 and further acts, and eventually repealed by the Films Act of 1960.)
In 1934 Warners bought the studio and initiated some major rebuilding. The facility thrived throughout the 1930s, producing a long line of thrillers, crime dramas and "women's pictures," along with occasional musicals. Among the actors who appeared in Teddington films of the period were Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood and Ida Lupino. Errol Flynn was featured in Murder at Monte Carlo (1934), a Teddington movie credited with bringing him to the attention of Warner Bros. executives back in the States.
The distinguished English director Michael Powell had some of his early experience in Warners' "quota quickies." Other directors, from both sides of the Atlantic, included Monty Banks, John Daumery, Leslie Hiscott, Ralph Ince, John Rawlins and Frank Richardson. Many of Britain's most accomplished scriptwriters worked on these cheaply made movies, including Guy Bolton, John Dighton, Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder, Reginald Purdell and A.R. Rawlinson.
As one of the few British film studios that managed to continue operating during World War II, Teddington produced a series of patriotic films designed to help the war effort. In July 1944 a German rocket exploded on the property, destroying several buildings and killing three employees including the American studio manager Doc Salomon.
At the war's end, reconstruction began, with some buildings being completely rebuilt. The studios were formally reopened in 1948 and attracted such noted film actors as Richard Burton, Joan Greenwood, Peter Lorre, Burgess Meredith, Kenneth More and Richard Todd.
After a decline in British filmmaking in the 1950s, Teddington rebounded when it was bought for use as a television studio by Associated British Corporation (ABC) in 1958. Among the studio's most famous television productions was The Avengers, which began filming at Teddington in 1960. In 1968, ABC merged with the London company Rediffusion to form Thames Television, which based itself at Teddington and, during the following two decades, created an impressive array of distinguished TV productions.
Today Teddington is a part of the Pinewood Studios Group and, with its modern, multi-stage facility, provides a production site for various companies including the BBC.
by Roger Fristoe
| River Thames |
What does the Morrison's supermarket chain call its delicatessen counters? | TV History | Archive of American Television
HAL KANTER , Comedy Writer
Television was never one person's vision -- as early as the 1820s, the idea began to germinate. Certainly by 1880, when a speculative article appeared in The Scientific American magazine, the concept of a working television system began to spread on an international scale.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, there were a few American laboratories leading the way: Bell, RCA, and GE. It wasn't until 1927, when 21-year-old Philo T. Farnsworth , beat everyone to the punch by producing the first electronic television picture. This historic breakthrough catapulted him into a decades-long patent battle against major corporations, including RCA and CBS. The battle took its toll on everyone and RCA’s David Sarnoff brilliantly marketed this invention to the public and became known as the father of television -- while Philo T. Farnsworth died in relative obscurity.
Experimental broadcast television began in the early 1930s, transmitting fuzzy images of wrestling, music and dance to a handful of screen. It wasn't until the 1939 World's Fair in New York, where RCA unveiled their new NBC TV studios in Rockefeller Plaza, that network television was introduced. A few months later, William Paley’s CBS began broadcasting from its new TV studios in Grand Central Station.
Now that television worked, how could these networks profit on their investment? Who would create the programming that would sell their TV sets? How would they dominate this new commercial medium, without destroying their hugely profitable radio divisions?
Ready! Sets! Go! (1940s)
“We had a rating of 80, a share of 83.9. Of course I used to say there were only 83 sets, but there weren't.”
MILTON BERLE , host Texaco Star Theatre
Four months after NBC station W2XBS began regular programming in 1939, Red Barber announced the first televised major league baseball game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Even though television was still considered a fad, throughout the 1940s, the deep-pocketed television divisions of NBC and CBS -- and soon ABC – cashed in on the tastes of the American public. Networks expanded their reach as key cities built broadcast facilities.
Television showed signs of becoming a commercial success, at least until the US entered World War II . The war interrupted its growth significantly, as personnel shortages forced stations to shut down. Only the DuMont network remained on the air.
It wasn't until 1947 that television’s growth truly exploded. Some of the biggest shows premiered including: The Ed Sullivan Show , Candid Camera, Howdy Doody , Philco Playhouse, and Kukla, Fran & Ollie . Meet the Press began broadcasting out of the nation's capitol to become the longest-running news program ever.
Perhaps the brightest star of the era was Milton Berle , “America’s favorite uncle.” Berle brought his vaudeville sensibilities to NBC’s Texaco Star Theatre and made it an unprecedented success. City water levels dropped during commercials, stores closed early. Television set sales skyrocketed.
As networks raced to provide content for the popular new medium, many radio stars and shows attempted to make the transition to television -- Burns and Allen, The Jack Benny Program, The Shadow, Fred Allen, and Fibber McGee and Molly.
Television News Finds Its Way (1950s)
“None of us had any ax to grind, none of us had any political ambitions. Our only real purpose in life, and in work, was to tell people what we knew to be true.”
DAVID BRINKLEY , News anchor
In 1949, a young girl named Kathy Fiscus fell into a Los Angeles-area well. Television provided continuous local coverage for over 27 hours. The unfolding tragedy proved that live television news coverage could not only inform, but also unite a community.
At the dawn of the 1950s, with over seven million TV sets in circulation, the need to broadcast fresh news images was magnified. The networks had initially offered short newscasts peppered with filmed newsreel footage – but that didn’t last long. Those who had built their careers in radio news ultimately provided television network news expansion. CBS News in particular established a protocol for television reporting - airing stories about topical, political and worldwide events that impacted its viewers. Plus, each night, viewers could see the newsmen they had trusted for years.
One of the biggest national concerns of the decade, along with the Korean War , involved The Cold War and the national fear of communist infiltration. Senator Joseph McCarthy used his “Red scare” tactics to ferret out communism on every level. The networks were not immune to scrutiny – in fact, to keep in good graces with sponsors, they often enforced blacklists within their ranks.
On a Sunday night in 1954, Murrow and his associates put their careers on the line to take on Senator McCarthy. The See It Now broadcast turned the tables on the Senator and acted as a political mallet. The indecency of McCarthy was further exposed when ABC and DuMont aired gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1955.
There was another bright spot in the development of network news programs. In 1951, NBC programming head Pat Weaver conceived Today as a news and entertainment wake-up show called Rise and Shine. It worked for the ratings. But the events that loomed on the horizon in the 1950s made the show into one of the most important news programs ever produced by that network.
As the decade closed, the television industry was hit again with the quiz show scandals . The $64,000 Question, made its debut in 1955 and within a month had turned television on its ear. The opportunity to see everyday people win enormous cash prizes pushed that show past I Love Lucy and Ed Sullivan to become number one in the ratings. Other quiz and game shows followed the craze. It wasn't until Charles Van Doren won $129,000 on Twenty-One, defeating Herbert Stempel , that the machinations behind quiz shows were exposed. Van Doren was disgraced when it was revealed that he and other contestants were given answers in advance. The scandals caused viewers to question television practices, and it prompted the networks to take responsibility, and ultimately control, of their programming.
Instances like the Blacklist and the quiz show scandals placed the television news divisions in awkward positions – they had the delicate task of exposing their own networks’ dirty laundry. It was through the integrity of the broadcasters that television news survived virtually unscathed and was seen as a trusted, objective source.
Storytellers to a Nation (1950s Entertainment)
“There was gold dust in the air.”
TAD MOSEL , Live Drama Writer
Now that television had proved itself, the linking of both coasts by coaxial cable in 1951 meant that the same programs could be seen simultaneously nationwide. The new challenge was to feed a program-hungry nation. Television devoured more material than radio and motion pictures had ever done, and it was up to writers, performers, producers and directors to keep the ideas coming.
LIVE DRAMA: First as children of the Depression, then as war heroes, they followed their dreams via the GI Bill to attend the colleges of their choice. As students of theatre, they were in the right place at the right time when television was in its infancy. Live drama showrunners like Fred Coe, Worthington Minor and Martin Manulis. Writers like Paddy Chayefsky, Rod Serling, Tad Mosel, Horton Foote, JP Miller and Reginald Rose. Directors like John Frankenheimer, Delbert Mann and Arthur Penn. Actors like Rod Steiger, Paul Newman, Kim Hunter, E.G. Marshall, Jack Lemmon, Angela Lansbury, and James Dean.
We will highlight the live television anthologies and explore the reasons why their era earned the moniker “The Golden Age of Television.” It will explore the challenges of presenting a live production using the emerging technology of television, and explore the influence of business interests on the creative process.
Some of the live drama programs of the era include:
U.S. Steel Hour
COMEDY: Individuals from vastly different backgrounds, family trades, cultural heritages and varying interests came together and figured out how to make television work. They were curious, talented, brilliant, and determined to do something…really funny.
As the decade took hold, the vaudevillian antics of the 1940s television gave way to more sophisticated sketch and variety comedy, and ultimately, sitcoms. NBC’s Your Show of Shows starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, was a prime example of the new variety trend. Plus, due to coaxial cable, unknown comedians from local stations showcased themselves to larger audiences. Philadelphia's favorite comedian Ernie Kovacs’ zany mischief, as well as Chicago-based shows including Stud's Place and Garroway at Large found new audiences.
As film studios relaxed their restrictions on their stars appearing on television, production moved west. With the premiere of CBS’ I Love Lucy and the subsequent rise of Desilu, situation comedies came to the forefront. In fact, on January 19, 1953, history was made as over 44 million Lucy fans tuned in to watch Little Ricky's birth.
Some of the programs of the era include:
Your Show of Shows
FILMED DRAMA: Filmed shows began to replace live programming starting in the mid-1950s. The use of filmed drama increased the scope of expression of television, including many popular police, courtroom, hospital and mystery series. Suddenly the camera could change point of view or leave the studio, close-ups could be shot separately, and new stories could be told with budget as the only restraint. It also made syndication a viable option for independent producers, including the "father of syndication," Fred Ziv.
Early on, Hollywood motion picture studios usually refused to enter television. The tables turned when ABC’s Leonard Goldenson invested $500,000 into the completion of Walt Disney’s cash-strapped Disneyland, in exchange for Disney programming for ABC. In 1954, ABC premiered Davy Crockett , which became a goldmine and proved that television and studio collaborations could work.
In daytime programming, although advertising was gaining momentum, writer Irna Phillips had to personally fund her Guiding Light pilot, because Procter & Gamble claimed that soap operas would never work on TV. They came aboard soon after. Guiding Light recently celebrated its 65th anniversary.
On the darker side, television entertainment divisions did not escape the "Red Scare" and McCarthyism. Government regulators forced CBS to instituted a loyalty oath that it required all employees to sign. The Blacklist permeated all aspects of the industry, and many lives and careers were ruined by it.
Television News Come of Age (1960s News)
“I went to CBS and said, in all those minutes of entertainment, couldn't you find 60 minutes of some kind of newsmagazine?”
DON HEWITT , 60 Minutes Executive Producer
By 1960, one third of all network programs were taped, a third were filmed, and the remaining shows were produced live. One vital example of the continued value of live television was the “Great Debate” between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy . Many believe it changed presidential politics forever – as it handed the presidency to John Kennedy.
Technologically, 1962 was perhaps the watershed year for TV news: the Telstar and Relay satellites were launched. By 1963, those 15-minute news wrap-ups were now half-hour broadcasts featuring satellite images from around the globe.
The field of long-form documentaries hit home in this decade. Many not only received critical acclaim, but also tested the political boundaries, reaching as high as the White House. They include, CBS Reports: Harvest of Shame, NBC’s series entitled White Paper, and The Tunnel, a documentary which showed German students escaping East Germany by tunneling under the Berlin Wall. Producer David Wolper had his first hits, The Race for Space, and The Making of a President. He also introduced the underwater world of Jacques Cousteau to television.
President Kennedy became the first U.S. President to embrace television as he invited cameras into his first press conference and allowed Jackie Kennedy to host a televised White House tour. But it was Kennedy's assassination, on November 22, 1963, that demonstrated the power of television, as all networks suspended entertainment programming for four days to cover the tragedy.
Other significant images were the 1963 televised footage of Civil Rights demonstrators being attacked by police dogs and fire hoses. This disturbing footage helped to validate the existence of the Civil Rights movement for the American public. The Civil Rights Act was signed into law the following year.
Considering the tumultuous events of the decade, trusted newsmen became a requirement for each of the networks as the acclaimed team of Huntley-Brinkley began reporting on NBC; Walter Cronkite began his reign as the anchor of the CBS Evening News ; and in 1968, the landmark newsmagazine, 60 Minutes debuted.
In 1964, President Johnson addressed the television cameras for eight minutes. He told the American people that he had ordered an air strike against North Vietnamese bases in the Gulf of Tonkin. This signaled the beginning of the Vietnam War . It was not until 1968, when Walter Cronkite broadcast a negative report on the Vietnam War, that the consensus of America's involvement in the war changed. Television was the window through which the public saw their sons and daughters returning home in body bags. Cronkite’s criticism forced President Johnson to state that if he had lost Cronkite, he had lost the entire country. Johnson declined to run for re-election.
As coverage of the Vietnam War intensified, there was a bright spot in the news -- the Apollo 7 flight made the first televised transmission from space. Nine months later, in 1969, a worldwide audience witnessed Apollo 11's moon landing . As the words “…one small step for man” echoed through the airwaves, the world reveled in the moment.
Sports on television made huge strides during the early 1960s. The landmark Wide World of Sports debuted on ABC, conceived by Roone Arledge. Also during this period, the instant replay became a standard in sports broadcasting. Plus, ABC's major coverage of the 1964 Winter Olympics proved to networks and sponsors that the once-lackluster Games could produce significant revenue. By 1967, sports broadcasting joined the big leagues -- CBS and NBC agreed to simulcast Super Bowl One in color.
As news events unfolded daily, technology advancements continued to prove that large corporations were in for the long haul. In 1965, COMSAT became the first commercial communications satellite. The same year, Sony introduced the VCR to the public.
Also, at the beginning of the decade, FCC Chairman Newton Minow made headlines after he delivered a speech calling television a “vast wasteland.” Soon thereafter, because of his direct efforts, public television was born, as New York's Channel 13 was sold to educational broadcasters. By 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was established -- public television was here to stay.
“Mr. Ed, Dr. Kildare will see you in Room 222” (1960s Entertainment)
“Short hair, long hair, dove, hawk or right wing, left wing. Everything was extreme and we went to the other side, which was not being represented in network television, or any television.”
TOM SMOTHERS , performer
Now that television was no longer a seat-of-the-pants experiment, many more decisions were based in board rooms, rather than writers’ rooms. After the quiz show scandals of the late 1950s, television networks took production out of the hands of sponsors and became proactive in programming.
As television news broadcast the stories of the evolving Civil Rights movement, many racial barriers were broken in television entertainment. With a few exceptions including Amos 'n Andy and Beulah, television would continue to feature white Americans until the 1960s. Ossie Davis made an appearance on The Defenders and a black woman became one of June Taylor’s dancers for Jackie Gleason. Later in the decade, Julia would become one of the first programs to feature a progressive African-American title character – and I Spy would pair Bill Cosby with Robert Culp in starring roles.
The 1960s premiered some of the major series considered classic television today. It was also the decade that westerns and urban sitcoms flourished.
Some of the programs of the era include:
Another format that capitalized on American culture was the talk show. Prime examples include: The Mike Douglas Show , The Phil Donahue Show , The 700 Club , and The Dick Cavett Show .
Children’s television underwent its own revolution with the premieres of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street on PBS. These groundbreaking programs would hit their strides in the 1970s and become educational staples for years to come.
In animation produced for television, Hanna-Barbera introduced Scooby-Doo Where Are You? and the prime-time series, The Flintstones. Meanwhile, Jay Ward produced the irreverent Rocky and Bullwinkle. And probably one of the strangest productions to come out of 1960s kids’ television was Sid and Marty Krofft’s H.R. Pufnstuf, a surreal live-action puppet show.
Throughout the 1960s, game shows truly blossomed after the dark days of the late 1950s including Password , Match Game , Let's Make a Deal , Jeopardy , The Dating Game , The Newlywed Game , Hollywood Squares , and more.
Soaps continued their rise to the domination of daytime with new entries including Another World and Days of our Lives.
As the tumultuous decade came to a close, television audiences had been barraged with everything from hard-hitting dramas to flights of fantasy and camp.
In Watergate's Wake (1970s News)
“Nixon made that speech saying ‘I want you to know that your president is not a crook.’ When it was over, there was Cronkite saying, ‘Dan, what do you think of his saying that?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, except the evidence indicates he is one, right?’ The White House called Paley and told him they didn’t like that ‘instant analysis.’”
DANIEL SCHORR, CBS news correspondent/commentator
By the early 1970s, a Roper poll found that the majority of Americans relied more on television than on newspapers for their news. The U.S. government also understood television to be a powerful tool. In fact, the 1970s became the decade where television news felt the true weight of government intervention, as embattled networks gallantly fought to preserve their independence.
The decade began with the government decision that cigarettes would never be on television again. The congressional ban on radio and television cigarette advertising caused broadcasters to lose $220 million in revenue annually.
A documentary detailing the Defense Department's use of the media to gain public support, The Selling of the Pentagon, brought CBS President Frank Stanton’s lifelong stand on First Amendment rights to the forefront. The House committee asked for outtakes of the documentary, but CBS refused -- and won.
When President Richard Nixon made his historic trip to China, television cameras accompanied him. It was the first time America saw for themselves, through the eyes of a news camera, life under Maoism.
Throughout his career, Nixon had a love-hate relationship with television; during his presidency, it became his undoing. It may have begun when CBS Evening News devoted an unprecedented 14 minutes to recap the breaking Watergate scandal. Certainly by 1973, as the events led up to the Senate Watergate Hearings, which the networks rotated over 300 hours of coverage, it was clearly the endgame. After the House committee hearings called for impeachment, Nixon appeared on television to resign his presidency.
Sports arrived in primetime as NBC aired the first ever World Series night game. Tragically, ABC's coverage of the summer 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany turned grim as Palestinians held Israeli athletes hostage. Broadcaster Jim McKay covered the terrifying events live – even as the hostages were killed.
In 1979, another hostage crisis hit the airwaves, this time, Americans in Iran. ABC's nightly coverage, America Held Hostage was renamed and became the basis of Nightline, anchored by Ted Koppel.
In 1976, Barbara Walters made history by becoming television's first woman co-anchor as she joined Harry Reasoner on The ABC Evening News. Two years later, the newsmagazine 20/20 was launched on ABC.
PBS joined ranks with serious television journalism when it premiered The Robert MacNeil Report on public television. It was later renamed The MacNeil-Lehrer Report, when newsman Jim Lehrer joined the program.
Morning newsmagazine programs continued to sprout up. Originally entitled, A.M. America, Good Morning America, with hosts David Hartman and Nancy Dussault was launched to good ratings. And, the soft spoken, thoughtful newsman Charles Kuralt began his duties of hosting Sunday Morning, on CBS.
Other televised historic moments include:
1972 Olympic Games
President Nixon's trip to China
The Selling of the Pentagon hearings
Three Mile Island accident
The Watergate Scandal
From Bradys to Bunkers (1970s Entertainment)
“We saw All in the Family, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, because this thing was, compared to the crap that we were canceling, really setting new boundaries. And, to Bob Wood’s credit he said ‘I love the show, we’ve got to put this on the air. This is good for television and it’s good for the nation.’”
FRED SILVERMAN , CBS executive
One of biggest programming gambles in television history occurred in the early 1970s, as CBS cancelled The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres and other "rural shows" the network considered unsophisticated. The gamble paid off as replacement programs including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple and All in the Family garnered high ratings and critical acclaim.
The 1970s could also be labeled, "The Decade of Norman Lear." Lear and his partner, Bud Yorkin, used situation comedy to encourage American society to see itself reflected in characters like Archie Bunker, Fred Sanford, and Maude Findlay. The shows covered new territory previously feared by the networks. Maude examined women's rights and abortion. Good Times explored poverty in America’s ghettos. One Day at a Time made heroes out of single moms.
There was a passing of the baton as some shows were retired. On continuously since 1948, The Ed Sullivan Show was cancelled in 1971. By 1975, Saturday Night Live premiered on NBC and became the new generation’s showcase for popular performers.
Some of the programs of the era include:
Wheel of Fortune
The 1970s also ushered in a spate of offbeat “reality” shows like The Gong Show and Real People. Wheel of Fortune , created by Merv Griffin also began its long run. Daytime's All My Children and Ryan's Hope premiered and became afternoon rituals for millions.
Dramatically, the 1970s launched America's love affair with the miniseries – with Rich Man, Poor Man being the first. In 1977, Roots , a monumental miniseries, traced the history of an African-American family on nine consecutive evenings. It broke viewing records and racial barriers.
Dramatic series featuring quirky detectives in gritty settings lead the pack during this decade. Plus, contrary to hip cultural trends, family programs like Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons garnered respectable audiences.
In the movies-made-for-television category, a young director named Steven Spielberg drove his first big hit to the television screen, with the TV movie, Duel.
And, as cable continued to snake its way around the country, cable networks began to deliver. Home Box Office became the first pay cable network to go on the air. Billboard businessman Ted Turner made his first big move and introduced the WTBS Superstation to the masses. Cable networks Showtime, ESPN, and Nickelodeon debuted as well. Perhaps this would be the end of the “Big Three” networks’ domination. Stay tuned.
Some of the drama programs of the era include:
The Waltons
The Rise of CNN to the Fall of the Berlin Wall (1980s News)
“I knew that our biggest challenge would be, other than to make a good news product, to get the cable systems to carry it. And I thought if we used the name Cable in there -- Cable News Network -- how could a cable system not be carrying the Cable News Network?”
TED TURNER , CNN founder
At the dawn of the 1980s, Ted Turner risked everything to build on the success of his Superstation. Ignoring the skeptics, he launched Cable News Network (CNN). Two years later, CNN Headline News premiered. By 1987, CNN was the only network providing live coverage of what turned out to be the tragic NASA Challenger space shuttle launch. It was moments like these that proved that CNN was making its mark as a leading news source. Also, at a huge risk to his fledgling operation, Turner sued the Reagan administration and the big networks, for access to the White House pool. CNN won and earned the respect of the industry.
Even with the proliferation of entertainment viewing choices, television continued to present world and national news events for a collective audience. Breaking transatlantic barriers, as well as television viewing records, over 750 million people watched live as Great Britain's Prince Charles wed Lady Diana.
When President Ronald Reagan was hit by an assassin’s bullet, television vividly brought the news to the American public. The images of the failed attempt aired on the networks for years and helped make wounded White House Press Secretary James Brady a national hero and a symbol for gun control advocacy.
The decade also marked changes for veteran newsmen. David Brinkley began hosting duties for ABC with This Week with David Brinkley. The “most trusted man in America,” Walter Cronkite, retired as CBS news anchor and passed the baton to Dan Rather.
On the business side, new government regulations created complications as Congress passed the Cable Communication Policy Act of 1984. The Act deregulated much of the cable industry and caused subscriber rates to increase significantly.
The groundbreaking "1984" Macintosh television commercial aired during the Super Bowl, justifying the record-breaking airtime costs of special event television spots. Along with introducing feature film production values to television advertising, it signaled the beginning of the personal computer revolution.
Another major news story of the decade was the Iran-Contra scandal and its subsequent hearings. Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North was a major player in secret transactions relating to the overthrow of the socialist government of Nicaragua while secretly financing the operation by selling arms to Iran. The televised hearings, where North admitted his guilt, made him an unlikely national hero.
News coverage of the protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square reached around the world and shined a grim light on modern communism. CBS News correspondent Richard Roth was imprisoned because of his reporting. And the television image of a lone man defying an approaching tank remains a symbol of modern anti-government protest.
The decade finished with the worldwide coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Newsman Tom Brokaw reported the momentous occasion live, as the symbol of the Iron Curtain was dismantled, piece by piece. A powerful way to end a decade.
Who Watched J.R.? (1980s Entertainment)
“We benefited from the fact that we were on NBC, which in the early eighties, if you wanted to hide from the FBI you’d go on NBC.”
MICHAEL J. FOX , actor
Based on the significant success of the few cable networks from the 1970s, this decade saw the explosion of the cable industry. Successful cable networks launched during this period included: Black Entertainment Television, Music Television, Home Shopping Network, The Disney Channel, Lifetime Television, The Arts & Entertainment, Discovery Channel, VH1, QVC Network, Telemundo, E! Entertainment Television, Turner Network Television, and The Family Channel.
In the beginning of the decade, new breakthrough sitcoms were scarce. Even an old standard like M*A*S*H aired its final episode in 1983 – garnering 107 million viewers – the largest U.S. audience for a single TV program. Some of the hits from the last decade began to lose their steam, including Taxi and Soap. Drama shows from the late 1970s continued their success into the 1980s.
The 1980s signaled a shift in series themes as well. After years of watching shows that tackled tough issues of the Vietnam War, inflation and women's rights, the public’s interests shifted to escapist themes. One way to deliver that was to peek inside of the lives of the super-rich. Shows such as Dynasty, Dallas, Hotel, and even Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous fed that appetite. Millions of loyal viewers watched as Luke and Laura exchanged vows in a storybook wedding on the daytime soap, General Hospital.
The police drama again became popular with shows such as Hill St. Blues, Magnum P.I., and Simon and Simon.
Some of the drama programs to be featured include:
Wiseguy
The dramas were working, but how about comedy? When Grant Tinker became the chairman of the third-rated NBC, he quickly greenlit Cheers and Family Ties, which slowly rose up the ratings ladder. Plus, it was Tinker's decision to air a groundbreaking Carsey-Werner sitcom called The Cosby Show which catapulted NBC back on top.
The Cosby Show was the keystone of the network's Thursday night "Must See TV" mantra. Audiences became interested in comedies again. The other networks filled their slates with family sitcoms -- nuclear and nontraditional ones. The success of Cosby turned Carsey-Werner Productions into an independent powerhouse. They solidified their ability to deliver hit shows with the blue-collar family comedy Roseanne, which redefined the idea of a functional family.
Some favorite stars made their return to television throughout the decade including, Lee Majors, Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Beatrice Arthur, and Tom Bosley. Programs which introduced the talents of individuals who would make their mark in television history included: Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I., Tom Hanks in Bosom Buddies, Michael J. Fox in Family Ties, and Oprah Winfrey as The Oprah Winfrey Show became nationally syndicated from Chicago. Another daytime program The David Letterman Show premiered on NBC, but soon moved to nighttime.
Although regular star-studded variety programs were long-gone, programs that showcased the talents of newer singers and dancers began their runs, including: Solid Gold, Star Search, It's Showtime at the Apollo, and the first annual Soul Train Music Awards.
The variations of the comedy genre continued to evolve towards the end of the decade, including Moonlighting, which introduced the hour-long romantic comedy to the world. Thirtysomething soon followed.
Some of the comedy programs of the era include:
The Wonder Years
In children’s television, the decade may be remembered for introducing us to The Smurfs and Pee Wee's Playhouse.
Toward the end of the decade, The Wonder Years became a nostalgic favorite, and the weekly real-life problems of Roseanne began directly competing with Bill Cosby's family dilemmas. And as the 1980s began to dim, the fledgling Fox network caught a hit with the controversial domestic show, Married…With Children, triggering a wave of irreverant series.
Roseanne vs. O.J. Simpson (1990s through today)
“I got a call from Barry Diller, who was the head of Fox, and he said, I’d like you to do a high school show and I said, ‘Barry, at my age, what the hell do I know about high school?’ And he said, ‘you have two kids idiot.’”
AARON SPELLING , producer, Beverly Hills, 90210
If nothing else, American audiences in the economically booming 1980s had more choices than ever before. Cable expansion continued as The History Channel, Fox News Channel, and TV Land debuted. The upstart networks of Fox and the WB seriously challenged the Big Three. The competition remained intense for quality programs. Networks fought for pieces of the shrinking market share.
In comedy, the wry irony of Seinfeld, a “show about nothing,” and the racy humor of Friends made it abundantly clear that viewers, who grew up with television, would gather to watch young, hip characters work out everyday problems. Family shows subsided -- being single was all the rage. This trend changed the writers' room dramatically -- young writers became “hot,” as networks looked to cash in on the tastes of a new generation.
Whether it was the end of the Reagan era or the end of the Cold War, sitcoms stopped being polite and started getting honest and true. As we reveled in the sarcasm of Roseanne, we enjoyed the humor and wit of shows such as Murphy Brown, Coach, Designing Women, Grace Under Fire, and Home Improvement. Another milestone occurred when both Ellen DeGeneres and her character Ellen Morgan on Ellen came out as a lesbian on national television.
Some of the comedy programs of the era include:
X-Files
Prime examples of living in a postmodern world are clearly illustrated throughout the last decade of the century, and news divisions again took the lead. One key instance came in 1991, when Americans rushed home from work to watch the start of a war against Saddam Hussein. The bombing runs, shown live on CNN, secured that network's foothold in world news coverage. Time magazine and daily newspapers couldn't keep up with the minute-to-minute updates that television coverage provided.
With the proliferation of home video, news coverage took on a new dimension. When amateur video images of Rodney King being beaten by police were transmitted across the globe, it brought the reality of police brutality to light. And, in 1992, when a jury acquitted the officers involved in the beating, amateur videographers again preserved the horrific images of the riots that broke out on the streets of Los Angeles.
Domestically, probably the most televised news story of the decade was the O. J. Simpson story. From the night Simpson’s Bronco raced down Los Angeles freeways, until his acquittal for the murder of his ex-wife, the story played out on television. Although the entire trial was televised, it was the verdict, read live, that initiated a worldwide debate on the fairness of the American justice system.
Even syndicated talk shows reflected a controversial change in American tastes and values. Shows that premiered in the 1990s include: The Jenny Jones Show, Jerry Springer, The Montel Williams Show and The Rosie O'Donnell Show. As the decade and millennium drew to a close, new challenges were on the horizon for everyone. The 21st Century promised new technologies that would change the way America used television.
- Karen L. Herman
| i don't know |
The taste of which Chinese beer reminds you that its city of origin was a German concession? | Rural Restaurant: No Rice, Still Nice | Village Voice
Rural Restaurant: No Rice, Still Nice
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Rural Restaurant: No Rice, Still Nice
Wednesday, October 3, 2012 at 4 a.m.
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Rural Restaurant is one of four Dongbei restaurants in Flushing. Squeezed between North Korea and Russia in far northeastern China, Dongbei (pronounced "Dong-bay") was once known as Manchuria. The food shows Korean, Mongolian, and Russian influences; incorporates elements of Japanese, Beijing, and Tianjin cuisines; and adds Silk Road and Sichuan cooking to a complex and pleasing mix. At Rural, anyone accustomed to only eating Cantonese food will have a jaw-dropping experience. The premise is small, boxy, and well-lit. Tables of sometimes boisterous diners chattering in the Dalian dialect—which one linguist has likened to speaking Mandarin with rocks in your mouth—knock back beers and nurse bottles of rice-wine liquor as they dig into giant platters of meat, seafood, and vegetables, with no rice.
Somewhat strangely, you can sit at one of the large round tables and have a meal that recalls the American Midwest. "Cron w. peanuts" ($7.99) could be mistaken for succotash—salty, oil-glossed corn kernels interspersed with pine nuts and green peas, cooked in a stock that surely contains pork broth, creating an exceedingly mellow dish that shouts "Iowa." Beef stew with potato ($7.99) could be something made by a mom in Wisconsin, big chunks of spud and soft brisket in a decidedly Teutonic gravy, except for the star anise that gives the dish an aromatic jolt. The recipe reminds you that the city of Qingdao—where Tsingtao beer is still brewed, just across the Bohai Sea from Dongbei—was a German concession, and the city still boasts buildings reminiscent of Hamburg. (Because there are two Qingdao restaurants in Flushing, the dish could have arrived at Rural in a more direct fashion.)
Another thing that seems positively Teutonic—though I suppose it could have surfaced spontaneously anywhere—is the region's obsession with suan cai, a shredded and fermented cabbage that might be mistaken for sauerkraut. If you happen to be wearing lederhosen, that is. Taste it in "preserved cabbage noodle" ($4.99), an elephant-size tureen of pale soup teeming with pork shreds, mung-bean noodles, and masses of suan cai. The bean threads are so slippery, they constitute a test of your chopstick proficiency.
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Another dish on the wild and wacky menu seems like something out of ancient Rome, where salads were often composed of fresh herbs. "Coriander herb" ($5.99) is a salad Julius Caesar would have loved, a glistening, deep-green toss of scallions, mild green chiles, and some of the strongest cilantro you've ever tasted. The dressing is not quite a vinaigrette, though bright tasting and slightly tart. The menu also makes much of bean curd, often in startling ways. "Dry bean curd with spicy pepper" looks like a plate of linguine heaped up in a gravity-defying Matterhorn. Here and there are chile flakes that look like skiers schussing down the slopes, with fronds of coriander standing in for pine trees. These pressed tofu noodles would be a boon to carbophobes in the U.S.—if only they knew about them.
In fact, the bill of fare abounds in unusual pastas. In a recipe borrowed from a region southwest of Shanghai, shredded pork with vermicelli is the dish known at Xi'an Famous Foods as cold skin noodles. Here it's more dramatically presented, with the broad translucent pasta underneath and the toppings laid out like furrows in a farmer's field: bright yellow omelet, brown wood ear 'shrooms, a carrot julienne, and wads of cilantro—surely the cuisine's signature herb. In common with other northern Chinese restaurants in Queens, Asian cumin plays a big part, most pleasingly in sarony cumin lamb ($9.99, with "sarony" a misspelling of "savory") along with chile oil and toasted chiles. There's no better lamb deal in Flushing.
Speaking of deals, pescatarians will go gaga over the flounder version of the recipe—an entire fish thickly crusted with cumin, red-pepper flakes, garlic, and cilantro. With the exception of a few larger internal bones, the spines, tail, and small ribs are cooked to be edible, and the waitress will obligingly cut the critter into swatches for easy sharing. But the best dish my friends and I enjoyed on a recent visit went by the unprepossessing title of pork with brown sauce ($7.99). What appeared were thick slices of braised swine glossed with a thin trickle of flavorful, almost-French sauce. The only warning I must give: Can you stand to eat a single further bite of pork belly?
For more food coverage, check out our food blog, Fork in the Road, at voicefoodblog.com . Follow us on Twitter @ForkintheRoadVV.
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In Urbana Illinois on the 12th January 1992 Mr Langley taught a HAL 9000 computer which song? | Full Beer List
Musician, Writer, Scientist, Paper Folder
Full Beer List
Below is the full list of beer tasting notes and ratings I've made over the fast few years. The beers are arranged by brewery. Where is brewery is a subsiduary they may be listed under the larger brewery. The list is also available as a spreadsheet here which includes information on the style and country of origin of each of the beers.
32 (Italy)
Atra ★★★★
A strong malty alcoholic kick is softened by notes of chocolate dipped cherries. There's a hint of corriander in there too. A well balanced strong dark ale.
1516 (Austria)
Quinoa Weisse ★★★★
Wheat beer made with quinoa. Pale gold in colour and as opaque as a normal wheat beer. A pronounced sweet citrus boiled sweet flavour fades into a bready aftertaste.
Victory Hop Devil IPA ★★★
Cloudy amber pale ale with a big foamy head and a sharp citrus hit in the taste that floats over the hops. Smooth and full mouthfeel. Quite refreshing and akin to an English pale ale but with a citrus hop.
1648 (UK)
Ruby Mild ★★★★
A good balance of roasted malts and caramel makes this mild. Full flavoured but easy drinking.
3 Brasseurs (France)
Ambree ★★★
Figs, raisins and mango waft up in the aroma. The taste adds tangy malts with a gentle roasted bitter kick at the finish. There is a build up of warming alcohol that has a hint of caramel nail varnish.
Blanche ★★★
Has more of a sour, pithy flavour than most witbier. Little spicing and quite flat. A restrained and subtle white beer.
Blonde ★★★
A big citrus hug greets you with this lager. The hops are strong but not overly dry or bitter. Friendly.
Brune ★★★★
Roasted malts, figs, bitter chocolate and red fruit vie for your attention. A dash of syrupy alcohol helps to pin it down. Akin to Robinsons Chocolate Tom.
3 Horne (Holland)
Ramses Bier Poolvos ★★★★
Dark ruby ale with a rich port flavour in amongst the malt. A fine bouquet of roasted malt, but it doesn't dominate the taste. Smooth, creamy, weighty and fine.
Wieglelier ★★★
Smooth, creamy, light malt and frankly a bit bland. Easily drinkable, but also quite forgettable. Scaring it's 8.7% abv.
3 Ravens (Australia)
White ★★★
Belgian style wheat beer that goes heavy on the coriander with a pleasing musty note. There is some orange scampering around in there too. A bit rough and ready but none the worse for it.
4 Pines (Australia)
Extra Special Bitter ★★★★
A full bodied bitter with pine, caramel and dark fruit flavours. The finish is dry with a hint of tart cherry and it even stands up to being served ice cold (as will happen in Australian bars). The aroma is big on baked caramel and orange.
Hefeweizen ★★★
Sharp German style wheat beer with a massive hit of grapefruit that is balanced out by a fairly weighty mouthfeel. A little unbalanced but it could really work for some.
5 Gaarde (Denmark)
Julianne ★★★
Dark amber ale with a dry, woody malty flavour and a gentle fizz in the finish. Quite light but with a lingering taste,
7 Stern (Austria)
Bamberger Rauchbier ★★★★
A beer smoked over large amounts of beechwood that has a massive aroma of bratwurst but a more gentle smoked meaty flavour. Basically it's a sausage beer whose novelty doesn't wear thin.
Marzen ★★★★★
Hoppy amber beer with a brightness in the middle that settles into a lingering chewiness. In the bottle it is smokier and spicier. Full but not domineering and in the style of a traditional Vienna amber beer.
Osterbock ★★★
Almost buttery tasting Easter beer with a big initial gassiness that settles into a smooth creamy finish with a gentle spiciness.
Prague Dunkles ★★★★
Dark, savoury Czech style beer with a big chocolate malt flavour that lingers smoothly in the mouth with a steadily growing bitterness and a slight hint of vanilla in the aftertaste.
A le Coq (Estonia)
Viru ★★★
Estonian premium beer, brewed by a Belgian. Easy drinking but unexciting lager with a vanilla taste (apparently).
A. B. C. (UK)
Looks like a mild but frankly tastes of nothing.
Aass (Norway)
Bayer ★★★
Norwegian dark lager with a gentle malty taste in amongst the gassiness. Overall the mouthfeel is pretty smooth. Decent stuff.
Bock ★★★★
Strong dark amber lager with a deep caramel taste and a hint of sweetness. There is almost a feel of carrot cake in the flavour. Gentle carbonation and a dash of bitterness. An interesting bock.
Abbaye Des Rocs (Belgium)
Blanche ★★★★
Classic German hefeweizen with a fruity banana and estery flavour. Fully flavoured, light and refreshing with a simmering carbonation. There is a sweet toffee note in there too.
Brune ★★★★
Amber beer with a tight white head, strong alcoholic edge and a taste of pineapple. A strong Belgian dark ale with a gentle malty foundation and a lingering warming alcohol finish. Double fermented with 7 types of malts and three kinds of hops (Belgian, German and Czech). At 9% it is potent but satisfying.
Speciale Noel ★★★★
Dark brown triple fermented winter beer. A tingling fizz is balanced by deep fruit flavours (raisins & dates), cardamom, ginger and a sweet hint of tropical fruit. The finish has bitter spices & liquorice mixed with a warming maltiness. Lively & unstable.
Abbeydale (UK)
Dry and bitter light coloured beer with a slight soapy edge.
Last Rites ★
Stonkingly strong 11% beer that has elements of a Belgian triple but tastes more like fortified beer.
Moonshine ★★
Slightly sour and alcoholic beer with no real kick.
Abers (France)
Ouessanne Aux Algues ★★★★
Cloudy gold beer made with seaweed that has a frothy white head and a fresh floral aroma. It is a gentle full bodied beer with a dry, wheaty taste with the salty seaweed edge creeping in at the finish. Akin to a Belgian blonde.
Achel (Belgium)
Blond 8 (Tripel) ★★★★
Bottle conditioned trappist ale with a foamy banana taste, a bit of lemon and a gentle deep spicy taste balanced by a heavy mouthfeel and a light gassiness. Light, easy drinking and very well balanced.
Bruin 8 ★★★
Bready, sweet, yeasty Belgian trappist beer with a creamy mouthfeel. There are hints of fruit and spices. Dark brown in the colour with a large head. Overall the creaminess makes it a touch too bland.
Achouffe (Belgium)
Houblon Doublon IPA ★★★
This has a big citrus aroma with a hint of mouldy hops. The taste is very bright with a dominant warming alcohol hit. There is a dry powdery finish and a hint of white grapefruit. It develops into a very dry hopped IPA.
La Chouffe ★★★★★
Dark blonde Belgian beer with a smooth full bodied taste underpinned by a deep spiciness.
MacChouffe ★★★★
Very strong, malty tasting beer with hints of whisky, sugar and caramel. Double fermented and with a taste to match. Not as notable as La Chouffe but would work well as a winter warmer.
N'ice Chouffe ★★★★★
Dark amber winter beer. It kicks off with a gassy fizz before a deep alcoholic caramel flavour comes in. The taste lingers in the mouth like the finest fudge with hints of sour Flemish red cherry and rich port. It is not a complex taste but it is beautifully executed. 10% abv & bottle conditioned.
Acorn (UK)
Woody, tangy bitter with enough hoppy bite to pull it all together. Good session fare.
Gorlovka Imperial Stout ★★★
Smooth, alcoholic, malty stout that slips down with a velvety mouthfeel.
Sovereign ★★★
Robust dark brown bitter with a dash of dry cocoa and tingly hoppy note in the finish. A well crafted full bodied session.
Strongheart ★★★
Fairly bland blonde beer that slips down inoffensively but unimpressively.
Adnams (UK)
Bitter ★★
Light dry hopped beer that feels a tad watery. Feels thin and somewhat processed. Disappointing. Maybe it doesn't travel well.
Broadside ★★★
Ruby coloured ale with a firmly malty taste. A tasty beer let down by a slightly watery, soapy aftertaste.
Explorer ★★★★
Gently dry and bitter amber coloured beer that gives light refreshment with a full taste.
Fat Sprat ★★★★
A pleasing fruit edged malty bitter. Robust, but with a surprising pale ale delicacy for a bitter.
Fisherman ★★★
Powdered cocoa blends with bitter roasted malts in this no nonsense old ale. Not a great deal of subtlety or complexity but does what you'd expect pretty effectively.
Gunhill ★★★★
Ruby ale that starts off malty with a slight sweet fruitiness before developing a dry bitterness with a hint of chocolate and a dash of porter. Full flavoured but not too strong which makes it easy drinking. Can be a tad bland and creamy on draught.
Lighthouse ★★★
Chewy, biscuit malt ale that is a enjoyable, if somewhat watery, session ale. Has a hint of red fruit in the finish.
M&S Southwold 2.7 ★★★
For a summer beer that is 2.7% abv this is a surprisingly deep amber colour. The aroma has a hint of floor polish but the smoky caramel malts gently reassure the expectations that go with the beer's colour. There's a dash of honied apricot whilst citrus hops feel a slight oddity - an amber IPA? Pleasingly complex for it's strength, it just doesn't quite click enough to make it really stand out.
M&S Southwold Blonde Beer ★★★
Refreshing golden ale with a restrained dry hoppiness with a gentle citrus finish. A safe, filtered beer that very satisfying when served chilled.
M&S Southwold Dark Ale ★★★
At 7.2% abv this "barley wine style" beer appears to be a little light in it's loafers but it certainly has the malty kick you'd expect. There's a warming alcoholic edge but more bitter and dry than you'd expect. Akin to a super charged ESB or a barley wine with stabilisers?
M&S Southwold Summer Beer ★★★★
A golden ale with a generous measure of hoppy goodness. The beer has a balanced bitterness with a little tingle at the end. The malt give dry biscuity flavours and there is a light dash of grapefruit pith. A nice summer sipping session ale.
M&S Southwold Winter Beer ★★★★
This starts off with a big hit of roasted chocolate malts that feel almost powdery and push this bitter towards the edge of porter territory. There are fruity and hoppy notes lingering in the finish along with caramel and biscuit malt, but the roasted flavours dominate. The mouthfeel is fairly gassy without cutting in on the flavours. Has impressive depth for a 4% abv beer and stands up to being served slightly chilled.
M&S Southwold Winter IPA ★★★
Strong filtered IPA with mango and papaya hoppy flavours whose bitter edge is softened by a hint of demerera sugar. Gentle compared to American IPAs but well executed.
Solebay ★★★★
Strong, blonde anniversary ale with a light fluffy gassiness. There is a hint of champagne in the dry tropical fruit flavours (guava?) and a hint of lavender. Lightly hopped with a well judged sweetness from the two types of sugar used.
Spindrift ★★★
The marketing men have been at this. A fancy blue bottle and floral yet vague description. The beer kicks off with tropical fruits, followed by biscuit malt. Pleasant, but ultimately falling between the pleasures of a lager and a golden ale. Serve cold.
Affligem (Belgium)
Blond ★★★
Blond abbey beer with a robust malty flavour and a hint of bitterness in the finish. A lingering trail of hops slowly builds. The mouthfeel is gassy but with a good weight if you pour the sediment. A solid Belgian blond.
Dubbel ★★★★
Chestnut coloured with a beige head, this dubbel kicks off with strong spicy fruit notes underpinned by a deep syrupy malty flavour. Would benefit from some elements lingering in the finish.
Patersvat Blonde ★★★
Dry, peppery hopped ale with a thick mouthfeel. Somewhere between a triple and Duvel.
Airbrau (Germany)
Kumulus ★★
Hefeweizen brewed at Munich airport. Frankly it's a bit muted and disappointing - the gentle caramel malt taste reminds you of an alcohol free beer slightly.
Alhambra (Spain)
A pleasant dark lager that ticks all the boxes without doing anything exceptional.
Premium Lager ★★
Spanish beer that tastes like an own brand supermarket lager.
Reserva 1925 ★★★
Fairly middle of the road lager with a robust malty flavour. Pretty drinkable but all in all a fairly standard Spanish lager.
Alvinne (Belgium)
Dertig Erasmus ★★★
Deleriously potent strong blond beer that hits you like a Huyghe but without with tinkered spices. Very full bodied with a wheaty malty base and a slightly alcoholic edge that is not overpowering. A hint of hops in the finish. Brewed to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus hotel in Bruges where it is served as the house beer.
Ama (Italy)
Biondi ★★★
Brewed with orange honey and pilsner malt this is an interesting bittersweet mix that captures the tangy caramel elements of the honey. The gassiness and the dry, slightly chalky finish give it a pilsner edge. An interesting & tasty beer.
Amarcord (Italy)
Brune ★★★★
Brewed with Brooklyn this is a fruity Belgian style bruin with corriander spicing balancing the raisin flavour maltiness. There's some chocolate and liquorice in there too. It packs quite a punch for it's 6% abv and has real depth flavour too.
Ampleforth (UK)
An English trappist ale. Not too fruity, not too spicy, just a lovely malty flavour.
Anchor (USA)
Bock ★★★
At 5.5% this is quite a mild bock. Dark in colour with a very smoky nose. Roasted malts on the taste with a bitter coffee finish that quickly turns thin. There is a soured, chalky, caramel milk note. Feisty, pleasing and transient enough to be a session beer.
Brekle's Brown ★★★★
A single hop brown ale made to a 19th century recipe. The single hop attempts to beat you over the head but the brown malts keep it in check. A good balancing act.
California Lager ★★★★
Incredibly malty pale golden beer with a fresh start and a dry woody finish. There is a slight chalky sourness that gives it some real bite.
Humming ★★★
Dry pale ale with a bitter oaky fruity flavour and a lively gassiness. Pleasant but not in the same league as the Liberty Ale or Steam Beer.
Liberty Ale ★★★★★
Superb dry hopped pale ale with a gentle carbonation and a smooth light hopped taste that combine to give a full bodied and moreish beer with virtually no bitterness.
Old Foghorn ★★
Sweet, yeasty American barley wine with the aroma of sugared almonds. Very heavily hopped and clearly very strong. Disappointing.
Our Special Ale 2011 ★★★
A sweet shop of a beer with cherry bonbons, liquorice and pear drops. There is a hint of warming sake and sherry in there too. As it warms it gains a spicy bitterness that balances it.
Porter ★★★★
Deep black beer and a heavy syrup and marmite taste. Smooth but with a slight crispness from the carbonation and a gentle hoppiness emerges. The depth of flavour is striking for the 5.6% strength. Bold but could have more complexity.
Red Leaf Amber Ale ★★★
There is smokiness, a robust maltiness and some punchy hops in there. Overall it's a bit muddy and mixed rather than punchily focused.
Steam Beer ★★★★★
Initially sharp but lingeringly dry and bitter amber lager with a full taste.
Summer Beer ★★
The first American wheat beer of modern times' this venerable old beer brewed since 1984 (so not that old then) is straw coloured with a creamy head and rather bland. It is filtered, thin bodied and so lightly flavoured it is hard to discern more than a faint general hoppiness with a light carbonation. Pleasingly refreshing on a warm day - but so is breathing wet air. Not bad, just not anything much at all.
Andechs (Germany)
Doppelbock Dunkel ★★★★
A dark Bavarian lager with a great range of flavours compromised by it's strength. It has a deep mahogany colour with aromas of roasted malts, chocolate cake and fudge. The taste initially has a roasted porter edge leading in to a sweet fruity body before finishing with toasted malts and chocolate. The alcohol is evident and obscures the flavours but there is still enough left to heartily enjoy. A good winter warmer.
Hefeweizen Hefetrub ★★★★
Estery foam bananas from start to finish without a trace of cloves but a dash of caramel. Occasionally a bit on the gassy side but rather tasty and distinct from other German hefeweizen.
Hell ★★★★
Crisp, bright lager with with a slightly sweet yeasty flavour. A hint of dryness creeps in at the finish. Subtle, as you'd expect from a helles, but a very pleasant "bread & honey" beer.
Anker (Belgium)
Boscoulis ★★★
Incredibly sweet red berry flavours that are somewhere between boiled sweets and the fruits of the forest topping on a black forest gateaux. A sweet desert beer, but not badly done.
Gouden Carolus Ambrio ★★★
Dark amber strong ale with a spicy malty warming alcohol taste with hints of sweet red fruit specked in the background. Potent stuff that has a dash of refinement to it but still wearing it's potency on it's sleeve.
Gouden Carolus Christmas ★★★★★
Mahogany coloured beer with flavours of pear drops, liquorice, rye bread and nutmeg. Surprisingly light and drinkable for a 10.5% beer though there is a bit of alcohol in the aftertaste. The flavours blend together beautifully.
Gouden Carolus Classic ★★★
Dark beer with a bitter burnt sugar edge mixed with dark fruit and a malty strong alcoholic edge. There is a hint of dandelion & burdock and a dash of orange. Quite sweet and a bit tangy with a metallic soft drink edge.
Gouden Carolus Cuvee Van Der Keizer Blue ★★★
Brewed on the 24th February each year this is a stronger version of Gouden Carolus weighing in at 11% abv. It's a potent dark sugary ale with a full alcoholic malty flavour. A late night warmer.
Gouden Carolus Cuvee Van Der Keizer Red ★★★★
Blond ale brewed to mark the 10th anniversary of their red label keizer dark beer. Peppery hopped with a clean finish. Worryingly drinkable.
Gouden Carolus Hopsinjoor ★★★
Potent bottle conditioned straw coloured ale that gives you a thick alcoholic thump. The taste has a warming maltiness with a rural hoppiness coming through in the finish. A bruiser of a beer with a light gassy mouthfeel that could have more depth but is pleasing stuff with elements of a turbo charged biere de garde like 3 monts.
Gouden Carolus Triple ★★★
Clear gassy beer with a big frothy head and a bright green apple and lemon taste. A hint of washing up liquid but not too much. There is a base of dry chalky alcoholic malt that reflects it's 9% strength. There is a slight spice too. Interesting enough but with a lot of rough edges and crude flavour clashes.
Maneblusser ★★★★
Dry blonde ale with peppery hoppy flavours of tropical fruit and a hint of soap. Smooth, clean, with a solidity that outstrips it's 6% abv strength. A nice mix of Duvel and an American IPA.
Annoeullin (France)
L'angelus ★★★
Strong blonde French ale made in the style of a Belgian abbey triple. The beer is filtered giving it a light sparkling mouthfeel. There is a prominent warming alcohol element to the taste with hints of biscuit and caramel. Pleasantly bracing but would benefit from the depth and weight of bottle conditioning.
Lepers Doree ★★★★
Filtered golden coloured ale with a rustic hoppy flavour, with a dry citrus pilsner edge. There is a slightly sweet caramel/biscuit malt. Light but very full flavoured.
Ansells (UK)
Best Bitter ★★★
Pale gold butter with a gentle malty flavour and a hint of cream flow smoothness (but not so much as to wreck it).
Mild ★★★★
Smooth chocolate flavoured mild with a measured bitter finish and a dash of caramel malt.
Aqula (Japan)
Belgian Single ★★★★
At 3.8% this seems a little short for a stormtrooper (sorry I mean Belgian ale). It's clean, pale gold in colour with a deep lying hop resin bitterness that sits puckeringly in the bottom of your mouth giving a huge aftertaste. It you want a finely crafted hop fix, this is for you.
Arbejdernes (Denmark)
Mork Kalder ★★★
Dark lager with an incredibly malty taste and a dry finish made for the workers museum in Copenhagen.
Stauning Klassik ★★★
Amber lager with a frothy head, sparkling carbonation and a buttery caramel maltiness with a slight dry bitterness in the finish. Slightly too gassy for my taste. Brewed for the workers museum in Copenhagen,
Arbor (UK)
Greenhorn Rising ★★★
A enthusiastically gassy ale with a hoppy pine resin tingle that is effervescent on the tongue. A spritzy take on a pale ale with a malty edge. Pleasing fare.
Tasmanian Devil ★★
A watery, soapy and sour beer with a grapefruit hop kick and an astringent, almost detergent style edge. Poor.
Archers (UK)
Best ★★★★★
Smooth, light brown ale that slides down in an agreeable quaffable way with a light taste that is neither thin nor processed. A great session beer.
Arcobrau (Germany)
Dunkelweizen ★★★
Dark, but not black, unfiltered wheat beer. It has a fruity aroma with a robust mouthfeel and a well balanced gassiness. A good easy drinking beer.
M&S Bavarian Winterfest Wheat Beer ★★★★
Dark amber dunkelweizen with a floral aroma and a malty taste. The spicing is subtle and there is a sweetness and gentle gassiness in the finish. Light but full flavoured and good any time of year.
Arkells (UK)
Light amber ale, malty flavour with a bland finish. Easy drinking but dull.
Wiltshire Gold ★★★
Gentle, slightly soapy pale ale with a gentle biscuit malt with a hint of honey coming through in the finish.
Asahi (Japan)
Dry Black ★★
You see a deep tan, off-black coloured beer but if tasted blindfold you could think this was a pale or amber lager. Exceptionally dry and quite gassy. There is a gentle layer of roasted malts, perhaps bitter cocoa, but it's pretty well camouflaged. The finish is shorter than oompa-loompa. If you want a dry, gassy lager this will suit you, otherwise buy something more interesting.
Munich-Type Black ★★★
An initial gassiness gives way to a gentle burnt coffee taste which fades to leave no pronounced aftertaste in this smooth dark beer.
Asia Pacific (Singapore)
Tiger ★★★
Crisp hoppy lager with a moist rounded malty finish and a gassy tingle. Refreshing but possibly a little too lightly flavoured. Perfectly pleasant though.
Augustina (Germany)
Dunkel ★★★
A very nice roasted malt edge with coffee flavours lurking about with falling into being too dry or bitter. There are traces of raisins, cocoa and hob nobs on the aroma.
Edelstoff ★★★★
Malty German lager with a hint of biscuit and a crisp finish that has a hint of green hops. Full flavoured and refreshing. A benchmark for all pale lagers.
Helles ★★★
Being kind you'd say this a subtle bready, floral flavour with a sweetness rounds it off nicely. Being cruel you'd said it was bland. Try it on a sunny day and you'll be kind.
Oktoberfest ★★★
Smooth creamy lager with a hint of honey and a caramel maltiness. Sometimes it has a more pronounced hop bitterness in the finish as it warms up. Lends itself to drinking in litre steins to let the flavour slowly build up.
Ayinger (Germany)
Altbayrisch ★★★★
Strong malty flavours of cocoa powder, currants and wood come through in this tasty, mahogany coloured beer.
Celebrator ★★★
Easter doppel bock with an apparent alcoholic edge and a dry, bitter malty finish with a touch of rye bread. Could have more complexity for it's 8% abv.
Hefeweizen ★★★★
This leans towards the banana end of the Weizen spectrum and has a chewy weight to it.
Jahrhundert ★★★★
Assertively malty lager with smooth finish that has a hint of honey and caramel.
Ur-Wei√�e ★★★
Are Ayinger scared of dark wheat beers. This is cloudy amber at most with hardly any roasted malt flavours - just a vague hint of caramel. Pleasant, but tame compared to what it should be. An amberweizen?
Badger (UK)
Blandford Flyer ★★★
Comes with a bite of spicy ginger they say. A full on ginger ale without any of the cloying sweetness I say. Could have more malt & hops going on, but works on it's own terms and pairs well with spicy food.
England's Own ★★★
This tastes like one of the pseudo-sophisticated grape juice drinks people have when they want something wine like but alcohol free. Elderflower and grape are prominent over a tangy malt foundation. Fruity and pleasant this just feels a little adulterated.
First Gold ★★★
Many Badger are overwhelmed but unusual flavours that feel a bit of a novelty. This is more traditional with biscuit malts that have a toffee veneer - a nice, but standard, bitter.
Golden Champion ★★★★
Dry, floral hoppy flavour akin to apricots and talcum powder. A well balanced golden ale that's light but with a complex flavour.
Golden Glory ★★★
Sipping a beer has never felt more like biting into a peach. The fruity mix has a hint of melon. Some will find it beautifully fruity, others will complain it tastes synthetic - spiked with Archers until there are no beer flavours left. I tend more towards the latter, but it might be better when cask conditioned.
Hopping Hare ★★★★
A thrice hopped golden ale that is hoppier than a field full of bunnies on springs. Light and refreshing and clearly a spring ale. A great base for the styrian goldings hops and a light but full flavoured ale with depth.
Poacher's Choice ★★★★
The initial impression is of a beer spiked with creme de cassis. There are damson, liquorice and blackberry but with a bitter woody hop and biscuit malt foundation that stops it being too sweet. Not for everyone, but if fruity beer is your thing poach a bottle of this.
Baird (Japan)
Darksky Imperial Stout ★★★★★
Jet black colour, oily mouthfeel and oaky chocolate covered liquorice flavours. This imperial stout has a good bed of roasted malts with a hint of sweetness to keep things in check, oh and a whacking alcoholic finish.
Balmain (Australia)
Pale lager with a gentle watery smear of maltiness and very little else.
Banks (UK)
Bitter ★★
Bland, smooth, creamy bitter that isn't unpleasant but is severely lacking in flavour - may not have been best served when tasted.
Banks & Taylors (UK)
Dry, light and bland ale with a slight soapiness
Crooked Hooker ★★
Barley (Italy)
Toccadib√≤ ★★★★
Full on abbey tripel with that's thick with a refreshing spritzy fizz. Dry hops bob in the warming alcoholic malty flavour with apricot and coriander notes. The aroma has a hint of Chardonnay. A subtle twist on the classic template.
Barnsley Beer Company (UK)
Shut Thi Gob ★★
Like Dandelion & Burdock spilt onto a wool rug. There are hints of marmite, toffee and nuts but generally it's just very watery.
Baron (France)
Saison Saint Metard Ambree ★★★★
The aroma is dirty rustic hops but the taste is clean smooth with a persistent gassiness in the finish that never dominates. It becomes dry and sour as it builds, but never loses it's subtle gentle touch.
Baron's (Australia)
Lemon Myrtle Witbier ★★★
Belgian style wheat beer that is heavy on the citrus with lemon, orange and curacao to the fore whilst the spices make a guest appearance in the finish. A solid witbier.
Bass (UK)
Our Finest Ale ★★★
Amber ale with a small creamy head. Slightly watery with nutty hoppy taste to it. Similar in a way to Speckled Hen.
Batemans (UK)
Black Pepper Ale ★★★
A typically tangy, malty English with black pepper added, and a sachet of pepper to add to taste. This gives it a dry, bitter edge. A bit of a salt and shake novelty but solid drinkable stuff.
Combined Harvest ★★★
Barley, oats, rye and wheat are used in this beer that is unsurprisingly malty. As it warms the malty flavours vary. An above average session beer. Nice stuff.
Dark Lord ★★★
A "dark ruby ale" that is almost pitch black. The taste is slight treacly with hints of dark fruit. It feels a bit stronger than it's 5% abv strength but could have punchier flavours or more complexity.
Dark Mild ★★★★
A beer that matches it's name. Big flavours of stewed fruit with a gentle sour vinegar finish. Only 3% but with bundles of flavour. Great session beer.
M&S Lincolnshire Best Bitter ★★★
Made with golding hops and maris otter and crystal malts this is a solid traditional bitter with plenty of flavour. Pale amber in colour it has a dry, peppery flavour with sweet caramel malt and nutty hops vying for your attention. There is a faint gassiness that stops the flavours lingering in finish. Good, but would benefit from the depth of flavour bottle conditioning would add.
M&S Lincolnshire Mocha ★★★
There's a sticky, sweet edge to this dark coffee beer that reminds you of Kahlua. It could have done something more complex & intense with bitter roasted malt & chocolate flavours, but it's a tasty beer nonetheless.
Maypole Dancer ★★★
Light amber ale with a gentle bitter malty taste. A decent session beer.
Rosie Nosey ★★★
A dry spiced bitter brewed for the Christmas season. Pale brown in colour and pleasingly woody in flavour with a spiced malt finish. It won't win awards but it will make for pleasing fare when you've just come in from the cold.
Summer Swallow ★★★
Huge aroma of metal and bubblegum with bakewell tart and fresh cut grass. An interesting summer beer but one is enough. 4.2% abv.
Victory Ale ★★★★★
Dark amber beer with a deep caramel taste. Fairly flat and slightly sweet. Probably an acquired taste.
X-Bee ★★★
Cloudy gold beer with a good sized head. A honey edge is in the taste with a bready, soapiness that clouds the flavour. There is a hint of blackberry in there too.
Bath Ales (UK)
Barnstormer ★★★★
Chestnut brown bitter with a quickly fading head. A dash of soy sauce on the aroma. Full bodied, hoppy taste with fruit flavours and a measured bitterness. A slight ground coffee edge, with elements of soy sauce, develops to round things off. There is an almost subliminal suggestion of chocolate - possibly only because the brewers claim there is.
Darkside ★★★
Dry, powdered cocoa dominates this otherwise mild ale. The finish is slightly smoky. Pleasant, but a bit one dimensional.
Gem ★★★
Chestnut brown ale. A light bitter with an earthy soapy taste that has a fruity hoppy base and nothing much except a slight sourness in the finish.
Golden Hare ★★★
Amber coloured bitter with a soapy hoppy flavour and a bit of caramel. Decent session fare with a slight dry bitterness to the finish.
Bavik (Belgium)
Boeteling ★★★
Blonde ale brewed for the town of Veurne. There is a splodge of sweet apricot jam on the taste. Otherwise it's clean and has a restrained malt flavour that slips down nicely but not blandly.
Pilaarbijter ★★
Incredibly gassy beer with a thin bready metallic flavour. Nothing in the finish. A bit Carlsberg Special Brew.
Baxters (UK)
Light beer with a tangy hoppiness.
Bayern Meister (Japan)
Edelweiss ★★★
This is all about the bananas. Not too sweet, with enough malty flavours to balance it out.
Prinz ★★
Dull and eminently forgettable lager with a little flicker of hoppy interest in the finish, but otherwise the bland side of subtle.
Bayreuther (Germany)
Aktien Zwickl Kellerbier ★★★★
Smooth, caramel tinged amber lager with a full bodied Marzen style maltiness. Rich, silky and full of flavour. Beats the heck of out anything served at the Oktoberfest.
Bear Town (UK)
Bearskinful ★★★★
Light ruby brown ale with a mighty malty kick in the taste and aroma. The flavour is dry and woody with biscuit malt dominant. If it was a touch fruitier and less gassy this could be a five star ale.
Kodiack Gold ★★★
Heather honey dominates the flavour and aroma of this bitter golden ale. The taste is sticky and herbal with the sweetness offsetting the dry chalky finish. Interesting stuff.
Polar Eclipse ★★★★
A stout that is light enough to be easy drinking whilst retaining a sticky roasted malt hit that a hint of sour red fruit in the finish. A rabbit punch of a stout?
Beer Geek (UK)
Dark and slightly bitter but eminently forgettable.
Great White ★★
Tangy and slightly sour in the wrong way. Poor.
Belga (Poland)
Wojak ★★
Smooth, ultra pale beer with a smooth floral flavour and a buttery mouthfeel. Pretty bland for it's 6% abv strength. The finish becomes quite dry.
Belhaven (UK)
Black ★★★
Smooth, but not creamy, stout with the coffee and roasted malt flavours all present, correct and well executed without anything unusual, exceptional or eye catching. A decent pint nonetheless.
Bellerose (France)
Biere Blonde Extra ★★★★
A robustly hopped blonde ale with citrus and lychee flavours. There is a honey and caramelised sugar taste with a hint of coriander spice. Feels a touch more potent than it's 6.5% abv strength but still easy to drink.
Beowulf (UK)
Dragon Smoke ★★★
The smoke dominates this stout, with a hint of smoky bacon above the roasted malts. A pleasant but not earth shattering beer.
Bergquell (Germany)
Kirsch Porter ★★
90% dark lager, 10% cherry syrup. Sweet, but not sickly, with an acidic edge and a hint of sourness and bitterness in the finish. Closer to cherry coke than a London porter, but it could be far worse.
Bernard (Czech)
Sveltly Lezak Pilsner ★★★
Champagne yeast beer that feels like an ultra-gassy lager. Bottle conditioned with variable head. Deeper taste than Kasteel Cru.
Bie (Belgium)
Helleketelbier ★★
Spiced, blonde Belgian ale with dishwater, caramelised sugar and grass cuttings all appear in this slightly sweet and musty. A mix of bland and a bit mediocre.
Binding (Germany)
Clausthaler Classic ★★★
Alcohol free lager with a curious hint of green apple that gives it a more interesting flavour that many bland mass produced beers. It's no match for a decent pils, but surprisingly good for what it is.
Schofferhofer Hefeweizen ★★★
Refreshing weizen with the banana and clove flavours you'd expect but nothing to distinguish it from the crowd.
Birds (UK)
Dark roasted malt flavours with a rounded bitter finish.
Bitburger (Germany)
Drive ★
Even by the standards of alcohol free beer this is poor. Thin, metallic and a touch acidic.
Kostritzer Schwarzbier ★★★
Dark pilsner that is more gassy, acidic and lagered than you would think from the black colour. A fruity aroma with a malty flavour. A bit like Asahi dark. Solid but a bit bland.
Pilsner ★★
Exceptionally smooth pilsner that crosses into the territory of the bland. The glass is more interesting than the beer inside.
Black Country (UK)
Pig On The Wall Mild ★★★
Fairly dark, malty mild with a taste that is not overpowering.
Black Hole (UK)
Bitter ★★
Straw coloured ale with no head. Crisp dry citrus hop flavour without much in the finish. Not to my taste.
Star Gazer ★★★
Watery beer with a distinctly dry and bitter taste that is redeemed by a building maltiness. Would go well with food or snacks.
Black Isle (UK)
Blonde ★★★★
Full flavoured lager with a robust mix of bready biscuit malt and a light citrus hop balanced with am assertive big bubble gassiness on the finish. A pleasingly chewy lager with elements of an IPA.
Goldeneye Pale Ale ★★★★
Light golden coloured ale with a large frothy head that steadily fades. Bright floral aroma with fresh hoppy taste wavering somewhere between a Belgian ale, an IPA and a biere de garde. When chilled it has a nice crisp edge. The light gassy mouthfeel is anchored by the hoppy base and a creamy finish.
Hibernator ★★★
An oatmeal stout that, at 7% abv, is verging on the imperial territory. There is a lively gassiness and a warming alcoholic roasted malt taste. There is a burnt edge with a solid oaty note that rounds out what, otherwise feels like a regular imperial stout. Well balanced, but over alcoholic for it's flavour profile.
M&S Heather Honey Ale ★★★
A thick malty ale with no real sweetness from the honey, just a spicy herbal flavour that lingers. A pleasant bitter golden ale, but nothing particularly striking.
Organic Porter ★★★
A rather metallic tasting porter with subdued roasted malt flavours. OK, but not great.
Red Kite ★★★
Filtered bottled light amber bitter with a nutty malty flavour and surprisingly not very bitter at all. There is a fizz in the finish and a moreish biscuit note. Good session fare that would probably get a 4 if cask conditioned.
Scotch Ale ★★★★★
Bottle conditioned red ale made with peat smoked malt and bog myrtle. It has a full malty flavour with a hint of caramel, a dash of gueuze like sourness and biscuity finish with a hint of bitterness. Slightly fruity and sharp with a smooth mouthfeel. A superb, near faultless scotch ale.
Yellowhammer IPA ★★★
Filtered golden IPA with a light hoppy taste & a smooth mouthfeel akin to a creamy wheat beer. A hint of citrus in the finish with a hint of biscuity malt but a dash of soap too. Well rounded, well balanced and refreshing.
Black Sheep (UK)
Regular strength ale with a solid bitter taste.
Best Bitter ★★★
Session bitter with a gentle dry hoppy taste with a hint of nuts. Slightly creamy mouthfeel and fairly light. The finish has a dry malty note that has a hint of fried potato crisps. Decent session fare but nothing special.
Emmerdale ★★★★
Light Ale with a bitter finish. Very pleasant
Golden Sheep ★★★
Buttery, caramel malt flavoured ale with an interesting green fruity finish. Light, but not too gassy with a bitter hoppy finish.
Holy Grail ★★★★
Light golden brown ale with a bitter and hoppy taste. There is a slight fruitiness and a dash of fizz in the finish.
Riggwelter ★★★
Smooth, porterish Wensleydale strong ale with a coffee taste. There's a hint of burnt treacle in there. Very drinkable but lacking the subtlety or spark of something different to make it exceptional. As good as slightly plain beer gets.
Sainsbury's TtD Celebration Ale ★★★
Stout on steroids? The nose has dark fruit mingling with the roasted malts. The body is gassy with hints of sticky pan juices whilst it's abv is 6%. It feels like it's puffing it's chest out somewhat, but still nice.
Yorkshire Square Ale ★★★
A dry malty bitter brewed in slate squares that has a bitter puckering hoppy flavour and a robust caramel edge. A good session bitter with character.
Black Water (UK)
Intensely hoppy pale ale with a taste that goes from peppery to citrus.
Block (Belgium)
Satan Gold ★★★★
Spritzy straw coloured beer with a champagne fruitiness to it. Light and gassy with a biscuity malt flavour and a dry finish. When the sediment is poured it gives it more body and depth. Has similarities with Duvel.
Satan Red ★★★
Amber ale with a very lively gassy mouthfeel. There is a dark malty flavour with a dry alcoholic finish with some hints of spice and ginger. There is a burnt sugar caramel taste amongst the malt. There is also a hint of fruit slowly emerging.
Blue Anchor (UK)
Spingo Special ★★★
Warming alcohol, caramel and fruit cake. Slightly thin but a decent strong ale that slips down easily.
Bluebear (UK)
Creamy, smooth golden ale with the briefest hint of hops but generally bland.
Bockor (Belgium)
Bellegems Bruin ★★★★
A great example of a Flanders brown ale. The oak ageing gives a sour flavour with hints of cherry and a robust weight. Stands comparison with Rodenbach Grand Cru.
Bellegems Wit ★★★
Gassy Witbier that has an expansive spice and orange peel flavour that seems to float away at the finish. Pleasingly lightweight.
Boelens (Belgium)
Santa Bee ★★★
A beer that improves as it warms. Chilled it has astringent pine flavours but as it warms there are bitter roasted malts, dark fruit and cherries.
Bofferding (Luxembourg)
Christmas Beer ★★
Amber coloured lager with a slight smoky edge to it's dry malty flavour. It's feels a tad like varnished wood with a chemical edge to it's dryness. Underwhelming.
Bohemia Regent (Czech)
Dark Lager (Tmav Lezak) ★★★
Smooth dark malty lager with a biscuity flavour. There is a tight hit of roasted bitterness at the start that spreads and fades. There is also a hint of figs in the finish and some gassy mineral water to the mouthfeel.
M&S Czech Lager ★★★★
Bohemian pilsner made with Zatec hops and water from artesian wells. Full flavoured with the hoppy aroma balanced by a fruitiness in the taste. Smooth rather than gassy with the merest hint of bitterness in the finish.
Prezident ★★
Rocket powered 6% abv lager that has a buttery malty flavour and a warming finish. Underwhelming.
Boon (Belgium)
Duivels 8 ★★★
Deep ruby coloured ale with a strong malty flavour and warming alcoholic finish. The dark fruit flavours are restrained and it could do with a bit more complexity.
Faro ★★★
Mahogany coloured sweetened lambic. It has a gentle fizz & a dry caramel flavour without too much sweetness, just a hint of syrup. No real lambic flavour. The finish is watery with a hint of malt. A gentle dark beer suited to hot days.
Geuze ★★★★★
Smooth, assured gueuze with a sweet pear flavour floating over it's sour apple and grapefruit foundation. The late gassy tingle provides a lovely contrast. A fine gueuze that is much livelier if the sediment is not poured from the bottle.
Geuze Mariage Parfait ★★★★★
A special reserve lambic blend that is smoother and subtler than most. There is a musty apple typical of the type balanced with a refreshing fizz. The aroma is like an orchard whilst the finish has a satisfying bright fruity complexity. Quieter than Girardin or Cantillon but still highly accomplished. Lighter in taste than it's 8% abv strength. Easy to drink with subtlety and depth.
Horal's Oude Geuze Mega Blend 2011 ★★★★
A blend made with contributions from 8 lambic brewers made as part of the 2011 Toer de Geuze. Blended at Boon it is a freshness to the classic gueuze sourness. Not the most distinctive gueuze but a very pleasant fruity, spritzy beer.
Kriek ★★★★
Light and floral lambic cherry beer with a tart edge and a light sourness. The cherry taste comes through in the finish with a hint of boiled sweets. Would suit hot weather.
Oude Kriek ★★★★★
Made with 400g of cherries per litre of beer (that's a lot). Almost feels more like cherry juice than beer. There is a lambic sourness in the finish that balances it out. If you want an intense cherry hit without any saccharine sweetness, this is for you.
Vat 44 ★★★★★
A monoblend aged for 2 years in their giant vat 44 before having 3 years of bottle conditioning. This is a dry and refined gueuze with a spritzy mouthfeel and zingy citrus that has a hint of witbier orange peel. The sourness is well judged, becoming more dominant as it warms. Brewed for the opening of their new brewery, this is a suitably special gueuze. It's 8.5% abv, but it is so easy to drink.
Borg (Iceland)
√�l Fur IPA (Nr. 3) ★★★★
Initially seems like an identikit American style IPA. However the hopping is well judged with dry citrus flavours being given time to linger before the peppery finish. A potent IPA with a hint of restraint and refinement.
Bjartur (Nr. 4) ★★★
Pale golden ale with a gentle hoppy tingle and a honey flavour sharpened with a hint of citrus. A sugar puff IPA?
Su Marlidi Hveitbj√≥r (Nr. 11) ★★★★
Thick Hefeweizen with a restrained dusty clove and banana flavour. Like a Hefeweizen with the volume at a pleasant Sunday afternoon volume but with a kickass subwoofer.
Bosteels (Belgium)
Deus ★★★★★
Belgian ale aged and re-fermented in France using method champagnoise. Dry, malty and yeasty with a biscuit flavour that builds up into a beautiful tropical fruit brut flavour. A luxury beer that lives up to the hype. 11.5% abv but it's as easy drinking as champagne.
Pauwel Kwak ★★★
Amber beer with a large head, especially when served in it's fancy mini yard of ale glass. The faint orange aroma is overtaken by a gassy, malty hoppy taste with a hint of sour orange in the finish. The brewers were keen on the sugar but despite being a bit dry it is pleasant enough.
Tripel Karmeleit ★★★★
Smooth tripel enhanced with wheat and oats. Slightly herbal, light in colour and feels a bit bottom heavy. There is a also a champagne fizz with a sweet banana taste. The subtle restrained flavours can be very appealing if you are in the right mood. Lighter mouthfeel when tried on draught which enhances the spritzy gassiness without taking away from the flavour.
Boston's Mill (Australia)
Pale Ale ★★★★
Malty, fruity pale ale that is crisp and refreshing. The fruitiness is quite tropical with a hint of lychee and a dash of biscuits in it's slightly dry bitter finish that has a gassy tingle.
Bowmans (UK)
Dry and bitter light coloured ale
Box Steam (UK)
Chuffin Ale ★★★
Dark, powdered chocolate lingers in this woody hopped session ale with a peppery tingle in the finish.
Brains (UK)
SA Gold ★★★
Smooth creamy ale with enough bite in the biscuit malt and citrus hop to give it character. Clean and refreshing.
Brakspear (UK)
Generic golden ale with a bland creamy flavour. Uninspired.
Triple ★★★★
Lively chestnut coloured ale with a big malty aroma and a hint of liquorice. There is a strong alcoholic edge to the finish with a bit of a bitter dryness. A cruise liner of a beer made with 3 hops and triple fermented.
Brass Monkey (UK)
Golden Monkey ★★★
Light gold ale with a gentle hoppy taste. There is a background citrus note. It becomes a bit thin and bitter towards the end but is a decent session beer.
Brau Union (Austria)
Puntigamer ★★
Bland mass produced unremarkable lager that shares it's lack of flavour with beers that are only 3%. This is 5.1% abv.
Wieselberg Spezial ★★★
Full bodied lager with a bitter hoppy taste that is lifted by a sweet maltiness in the aftertaste. Not overly gassy and pleasing enough.
Braugirgl (Germany)
Dunkel ★★★★
If you forced rye bread through a blender then this is what you might expect to taste. Roasted malt flavours without bitterness or burnt edges.
Braukunst (Germany)
Klosterhof Naturtrub ★★★
Naturally cloudy pale lager with a really acidic edge that feels well judged and intentional rather than corner cutting. Fizz with bite.
Schwarzbier ★★★
All the elements of a Schwarz are here, just in a relaxed and subtle fashion. It builds nicely as you drink your way through it.
Breconshire (UK)
Ysbrid Y Ddraig ★★★★
Strong malty beer aged on oak casks that has a pronounced whisky and vanilla flavour. Akin to Innis & Gunn.
Bretagne (France)
ArMen Blanche ★★★★
Cloudy witbier with a deep orange and coriander taste balanced by a broad gassy bed that lingers on the back of the tongue. There is a slight zestiness at the start but nothing too bright or sharp. A good summer refresher.
ArMen Blonde ★★★★
Belgian style amber ale with a stronger taste that it's alcoholic strength. Deep and smooth in flavour with a subtle caramel edge with a rustic feel. A good subtle beer that occasionally makes you want one of it's stronger and more complex Belgian cousins but is in fact a quiet easy going success. Goes well with food.
ArMen Doree ★★★
Bottle conditioned golden ale with a balance of hops and caramel malts spread over the mouthfeel of a wheat beer and a deep bubbling gassiness. A fuzzy mix of witbier and biere de garde. Slightly dry & watery in the finish.
ArMen Rousse ★★★★
Cloudy brown smoked whisky malt beer with a big creamy head. The smoked taste has the feel of German sausage but overall the beer is quite light with a dash of rustic French charm and a slight artificial feel.
Sant Erwann ★★★★★
Bottle conditioned amber abbey ale with seven types of grain. Rose & lychee on the nose, floral malt on the taste with a gentle wheaty mouthfeel & biscuit notes in the finish. A light triple with a great balance of flavours.
Brew Company (UK)
Winter Warrior ★★★
Dark brown creamy ale with a woody hop taste and a dry bitter finish that is slightly too thin. Good session fare though.
Brewdog (UK)
5am Saint ★★★★
Big, woody hopped, 5% abv 'iconoclastic' dark amber coloured ale with a very tangy finish that's like varnished caramel. Has elements of a classic English bitter but is lighter and gassier. A dry ale for hopheads - it's an amber IPA.
Alice Porter ★★★
A dark, bitter, no-nonsense porter that has the aggressive edge you'd expect from the brewery. Alcoholic, malty finish that punches above it's 6.2% abv strength.
Dead Pony Club ★★★
At 3.8% abv you might think this Californian pale ale is quite gentle for Brewdog. However the strong resinous hoppy taste with a dry, puckering finish is just like them. Not overpowering, but not half baked either.
Dogma ★★★★
Nectar coloured strong ale flavoured with heather honey, guarana, poppy seeds and kola nut. The alcohol and honey tastes dominate with malt and nut tastes giving a good balance. A good offbeat beer but one a night is enough.
Hardcore IPA ★★
Amber beer with a dry woody pine flavour, gassy tingle and gooseberry flavour. There is a winey tropical fruitiness and a hint of caramel. Strong alcoholic kick and overly heavy on the hopping.
Libertine Black Ale ★★★
Black IPA with citrus hops, smoke and rubber inner tube on the aroma lead into Serengeti dry resin and grapefruit on the taste with a dash of roasted malts and dark fruit. Delivers less than it promises, but pleasing enough.
Paradox (Batch 16 - Isle Of Arran) ★★★
Imperial stout aged in oak casks that previously held Isle Of Arran whisky. The flavour is burnt and dry with fruit and a hint of ginger present. There is a spicy note that has spirity whisky edge to it. The gassiness makes it feel lighter than you'd expect for the 10% strength, like a Scandinavian imperial stout. Develops an alcoholic brightness with a very short finish that is unusual for the style. Interesting but doesn't quite achieve special status for my taste. Quite pricey.
Punk IPA ★★★
Dry, incredibly bitter, peppery and hoppy IPA that has all the no nonsense attitude the bottle promises and a hint of acidity. The intensity of the hops gets somewhat distorted and overwhelming, masking the fruity flavours the brewers claim, but that is probably in keeping with the punk ethos. Akin to US IPAs. 6% abv version.
Santa Paws ★★★
A dark brown scotch ale made with heather honey and spices. Dry, malty and slightly syrupy with a bitter caramelised roasted malt finish.
Zeitgeist ★★★★
Jet black lager with a gassy mouthfeel, coffee taste and dry bitter chocolate powder finish. There is a porter like maltiness that underpins it all. A faint taste of raspberries steadily builds in the background. Satisfyingly fully flavoured without being too strong.
Bristol Beer Factory (UK)
Acer ★★★
A mellow 3.8% abv but with a hefty IPA dose of citrus hops with a musty, malty base and a hint of elderflower. A well crafted session beer with a bit of a punch to it.
Blackcurrent & Licquorice Stout ★★
There's a dash of blackcurrent in the background but no licquorice. Basically a sour & astringent stout. It's OK, but not what it says on the tin.
Briseltoe ★★★★
A mahogany coloured festive beer brewed with raisins and oats. It's thick and woody with hints of dark fruit and dry spice. It doesn't have the punchy flavours you might expect from a Christmas beer, but it's very well balanced, full flavoured and a pleasure to drink.
Bristol Stout ★★★
A Scandinavian style stout with biscuit malt to the fore. Not particularly strongly flavoured and quite gassy. An inoffensive session stout.
Chilli Choc Stout ★★★
Where's the chilli? Seriously it's so AWOL you want to call the trade description folk. Perfectly nice chocolate beer though.
Choc Orange Stout ★★
The orange flavour is bitter, acidic and very dominant but there's little chocolate to be found. A little acerbic.
Chocolate Stout ★★★
Full bodied stout with the dark chocolate nibs just adds extra roasty bitterness. Doesn't stand out.
Creme Br√�l√�e ★★★★
No vanilla or creme br√�l√�e flavours, but this 8.5% abv imperial stout has picked up the flavours of the rum casks it's been aged in.
Glenlivet Cask Stout ★★★★
An imperial stout that is light in body but with one hell of a warming, alcoholic punch. Has the lingering spirit of the Glenlivet underpinned by gentle roasted malts. A one note beer but a nice note.
Gold ★★
A big, sweet caramel aroma doesn't prepare you for a tangy, biscuit malt flavour. There is a hint of sourness in there too alongside a soapy citrus hop.
Hazelnut Latte Stout ★★
Absurdly strong coffee aroma greets you but the hazelnut latte element makes it feel like watery coffee and Tia Maria. They should have gone for a full on espresso.
Hefe ★★★
This has more eatery aromas than a banana plantation. Very gassy, light and bright. A hefe with real refreshment.
Imperial Stout ★★★★
Thicker than stupid syrup with the 8.5% abv making it sweet rather than bitter. There is a gassy tingle that lightens this deep black brew.
Imperial Stout: Bourbon Cask ★★★★
White oak cask bourbon bleeds through into 10.5% abv stout. A more distinctive whisky would be better, but as a potent late night fare it hits the spot.
Imperial Stout: Whisky Cask (2012) ★★★★★
Aged in Speyside whisky casks this has the floral spirity flavours of the scotch with the roasted smoky stout. Superb.
Independence ★★★
The hoppy bite of an American IPA mixed with the creaminess of Greene King IPA. The hops win out in the end. USA 1 UK 0?
La Tripalle ★★★★
The warming alcoholic spiced edge of a tripel but with restrained banana flavours. There is the malty edge of a English golden ale. Deceptively drinkable for it's 8.5% abv strength. Co-brewed with Arbor and Harbour breweries.
Laphroaig Cask Stout ★★★★★
Matured in casks of smoky Islay whisky and no mistake. Captures all the smoky charm of Laphroaig but with a silky smooth malty base. Gorgeous - and apparently similar to Tactical Nuclear Penguin but without the alcohol burn.
Milk Stout ★★★★
Gentle stout where the lactose fills it out nicely to give it a soothing creamy feel. Subtle, but you could drink quite a bit of it.
Mocha ★★★★
After the initial roasted coffee bean rush it's softened and sweetened by the chocolate. Does exactly what you'd want.
Nova ★★★★
A clean US style pale ale with a good mix between dry malt and tropical fruity hops. Very drinkable and very refreshing.
Number 7 ★★★★
By the book session bitter with a pleasing malt flavour that lingers long in the finish. There's enough hoppy bite to keep it interesting for a whole evening.
Port Stout ★★★
Smooth, velvety and dry. There's a hint of port in the finish, but it's needs a dash more to be memorable.
Raspberry Stout ★★★
Huge amounts of raspberries create this Gu pudding of a stout. A strange mix of bitter roasted malts and sharp berries that feels a little like a liquor.
Saison ★★★
The rustic yeasty flavours of a traditional Belgian saison are tempered by the clean creaminess of a British golden ale. This could easily feel like neither fish nor fowl, but the end result is a gentle beer with hoppy edge that is restrained, yet rough enough to be very agreeable and very easy to drink.
Smoked Chilli Chipotle ★★★★
Warming and peppery with a hint of smoke. After a while it has quite a dry burn to it. More than a gimmick, but a bit of a niche.
Southville Hop ★★★
Tutti frutti, guava, mango and passion fruit on the aroma. The taste is a sharp fizzy rush like lilt marinated in socks. An intoxicatingly fruity and assertive American IPA with a dry, grapefruit pith finish.
Sunrise ★★★
Sits in a town half way between a bitter and an IPA. Dry and peppery but with a good whack of earthy hops.
Ultimate Raspberry ★★★★
The sweet raspberries blend with warming alcohol of the imperial stout. A nice balance.
Ultimate Stout ★★★★
Earthy, full bodied, stout with the 7.7% abv giving it a warm viscous charm. No fireworks, but a very pleasing strong, velvety stout.
Vanilla Milk Stout ★★★
It may not look like a stout based vanilla ice cream float but it sure tastes like it. Lactose comes through in the finish. Interesting but unbalanced.
Vintage 2012 ★★★★
Made during a 20 hour brewing session with 5 malts and 4 hop varieties. Pale brown in colour it is thickly malty with hints of caramel and chocolate and a spicy tingle to it. A richly complex beer with a nicely judged dry finish.
West Coast Red (Bourbon Aged) ★★★★
The aroma gives you the bright vanilla notes you expect from the bourbon barrel ageing. The body is thick and resinous with bitter smoky caramel dominating before a dry hoppy finish. A beer of three well executed taste flavours.
Brodie's (UK)
Ginger Stout ★★★★
As bracing and invigorating as a charge along a cold English seafront. The ginger and carbonation leap at you like enthusiastic dogs whilst the roasted stout flavours struggle to hang onto the leashes. More balanced than you'd think. Well worth trying.
Smoked Rye Porter ★★★★
This appears to be a smooth porter giving you a streamlined hit of roasted malts and hops. Closer inspection shows this to be a 7.3% abv heavyweight that could easily reconfigure your plans for tomorrow morning. The flavours are a nicely rounded bitter experience that's pleasing, of surprising subtle for it's strength.
Bronckhorster (Holland)
Night Porter ★★★
Baltic porter that has a sulphuric hit of overboiled cabbage mixed with dark roasted malts in the background (akin to burnt meat juice on a pan). In one sense, it's a Sunday roast gone wrong, on the other hand it's a smooth, chunky and interesting beer. There's even a dash of ovenproof cherry brandy in there.
Brooklyn (USA)
E-IPA ★★★
Tastes like a dry hoppy ESB but looks surprisingly pale. The robust woody caramel malts are very pleasant but the hops have a metallic edge that keeps it from being really satisfying.
East India Pale Ale ★★★
Huge hops dominate this light coloured beer. There is a dry, musty taste that has a citrus flavour in the background. Typical of an American IPA.
Lager ★★★★
Brooklyn's pre-prohibition beer. Amber in colour it has a great balance of hoppy and malty flavours with a refreshing floral edge. A gentle bitterness appears in the finish. More full flavoured ale than fizzy American lager. Good stuff. Sometimes tagged as a Vienna lager.
Local 1 ★★★
Strong spirity, beer, spicy, peppery flavour & a powerful malty finish. The mouthfeel is gassy but not overpowering with a hint of creaminess. Good and interesting, but not the stunning beer it hints at. Akin to a simplified 3 Monts.
Local 2 ★★★
Dark malty ale with a robust spice mix underpinned by warming alcohol flavours. Good - but not distinct from similar Belgian ales of the style.
Monster Ale ★★★★
Thick, potent ale with a light mahogany colour. The malty flavour is thick and woody with a real warming kick to it.
Oktoberfest ★★★
Dry, chalky pale golden ale with a heather honey note that's masked by over carbonation and a hint of iron fillings. Mildly more interesting than a generic lager.
Winter Ale ★★★
Malt overload! Tangy, sticky caramel flavours are offset by a bitter woody note.
Broughton (UK)
Double Champion Ale ★★★★
A blend of a Scotch style strong ale and a porter. Tastes like a smoother porter with a slight coffee note.
Merlin Ale ★★
Starts out promising to be a shimmering and ephemeral golden ale with a gently pungent taste but ends up bland and watery. Could work well as an accompaniment to food but an anticlimax on it's own.
Tibbie Shiels ★★★
Dark mahogany premium bitter with a creamy head. The taste is bitter, fruity and malty with a warming alcoholic finish. There is a gassy tingle to liven it up too. A traditional premium bitter that would perhaps benefit from being slightly less dry. Plenty of character though.
Bruery (USA)
Rugbrod ★★★★
Light brown in colour but this tastes like a pitch black porter. Deep, bitter and granular. It has a smooth malty rye bread feel. Nice.
Saison De Lente ★★★★★
Rustic blonde ale that's pitched half way between a gueuze and Orval (and uses the same type of yeast as both). A sour mix of bubblegum fruit and IPA style white pepper hops with a tight spritzy gassiness. Superb stuff.
Bruggsmidjan (Iceland)
Kaldi Dokkur ★★★
Mahogany coloured lager, no head. Gassy and malty with a hint of porterish coffee grounds in the background. Light and easy drinking with a nice aroma and little that lingers in the finish.
Kaldi Lager ★★★
Golden lager with a rich gassy taste that brings maltiness to the fore. The gassiness lingers into the finish. Fairly standard stuff but OK.
Kaldi Lite ★★★
Pale lager that has a pleasing malty bite but which is only 4.4% abv. Does it's job anonymously but well.
Kaldi Stennings ★★★
Tastes like caramel spread on well done toast. Made with the herb angelica - though you wouldn't know it. A nice amber ale that's not too sweet.
Nordan Kaldi ★★★
Restrained dark amber coloured beer with a flat but morish malty flavour.
Brunehaut (Belgium)
Daas Blond ★★★
Restrained, cloudy straw coloured Belgian organic ale. Gassy with a dry bitter spicy base that has the volume turned down low. A beer to go with something rather than one to drink on it's own. Delerium Wallflower?
Brunswick (UK)
Triple Hop ★★
Pale golden ale with dry malty biscuit flavour that feels rather thin. Could be decent session fare for some folk but lacks depth and complexity.
Budejovice (Czech)
Budvar ★★★
Dry, hoppy lager with a gentle malty aftertaste. Perfectly drinkable but a little on the thin side.
Budels (Holland)
Golden lager with a bright, bubbly mouthfeel and a restrained malt flavour. Decent session fare.
Burton Bridge (UK)
Dark, roasted malt flavour stout with a smooth and slightly fruity finish.
Festive Porter ★★
Flat, smooth dark ale with restrained roasted malts that have a hint of flat coke. There is a bubblegum or opal fruit nor in the finish. The finish is short and dry. Underwhelming.
Burts (UK)
Traditional ★★★
A bland and unexceptional light brown beer with a soapy taste. However it is light and refreshing.
Busch (USA)
Budweisser ★★★
The king of beers, due to it's popularity, is often sneered at. It was brewed to be the lowest common denominator of US beer. There is the dominant gassiness you would expect but there is an interesting woody hoppiness that is appealing.
Butcombe (UK)
Blonde ★★
Golden ale with a dry bitter base and a generic citrus hop taste. Workmanlike and rapidly becomes slightly bland.
Butts (UK)
Mudskipper ★★★
Sweet malty beer akin to a scotch ale with hints of toffee and a dash of red fruit.
Traditional ★★★★
Dry, bitter, woody flavours are tempered by a hint of toffee sweetness in the finish that creates a wonderfully balanced beer.
Buxton (UK)
Imperial Black ★★★★
Black IPAs should deliver a balance of roasted malts and assertive hops. This beer gets that balance just right. Smooth and easy to drink despite it's 7.6% abv with flavours that punch their weight.
Byatt's (UK)
Columbo Pale Ale ★★★
Dry, dry, dry grapefruit pith greets you from start to finish. Heavily hopped but not overwhelming bitter. A very craft beer take on a pale ale.
Coventry Bitter ★★★
Light, gassy, amber coloured ale with a dry citrus hop flavour and a peppery finish. A good session bitter with a hint of IPA.
Crystal Cookie ★★★
A dry dark bitter with a bitter crystalline roasted malt edge. There is some burnt dark chocolate in there and a gentle hoppy tingle at the end.
Phoenix Gold ★★★★
A very pleasing mix of tropical fruit and citrus flavour hops with enough tangy bitterness to give it a very full flavour. What golden ales should be.
Regal Blond ★★★★
Dry, peppery ale that is verging on an IPA. Has a wonderfully woody finish.
Urban Red ★★★★
Dark red, bottle conditioned ale with a dry, hoppy flavour that has a gentle peppery bitterness. A red IPA?
Vienna Pale Ale ★★★
A robust pale ale where the tropical fruit flavours you'd expect are weighted down by the robust Vienna malt flavours. Tasty session fare.
XK Dark (Bottled) ★★★★
Coffee and chocolate backed up by a robust hoppy flavour I'm this gassy dark ale. Bitter, but the roasted flavours are well rounded with a warming alcoholic finish. Tastes like an Imperial Porter but it's a a 3.6% abv mild.
XXV Anniversary Ale ★★
Strong, but fundamentally underwhelming amber with a gently dry malty flavour and a whiff of spice & some sour cheese rind.
XXXmas Ale 2012 ★★★★
Bitter coffee and powdered chocolate with a sour edge of gherkins and a mountain range of a head. Triple hopped, potent, with a bit of a burn but not overpowering.
XXXmas Ale 2013 ★★★
Intensely, dark, dry and bitter ale with a hint of dry Christmas spice. The mouthfeel is quite gassy giving a carbonated edge to the dry hops. An incredibly robust beer that doesn't have the flair and delicacy of the previous year's brew.
Cairn's (UK)
Premium Export Lager ★★★★
Full bodied, fresh lager with a robust malty base punctuated by a lemony freshness and a hint of chive flavoured wholemeal crisps. Very satisfying.
Cairngorm (UK)
Black Gold ★★★★
Traditional Scottish stout, that is very similar to a Scandinavian stout. Roasted nutty flavours with a gassy mouthfeel & a burnt edge. At 4.4% it is mild in strength with a dry finish & a hint of sweetness to balance it out.
Blessed Thistle ★★★
Traditional ale brewed with thistles instead of hops for primary bittering. The taste is herbal and malty with a tingle in the finish from the ginger added late on. Interesting without being overpowering or too strange.
M&S Scottish Ale ★★★
A dark amber ale with heaps of heather and ginger on the taste. There are some roasted malts and hops in the finish. A bit gimmicky and over the top but still interesting.
Trade Winds ★★★
Award winning golden ale with a dry bitter malty flavour that has citrus and elderflower notes and a hint of washing up liquid. Decent session fare but not to my taste.
Wildcat ★★★★
Amber coloured bitter with a dry hoppy & fruity flavour and a light but lingering bitterness in the finish. Nothing revolutionary but a very satisfying traditional English ale that feels like it's been made with care and attention.
Caledonian (UK)
80/- ★★
A Greene King IPA style take on a shilling ale. A massively synthetic cream flow style mouthfeel enlivened with some malty highlights. Anonymously drinkable, but no more than that.
Deuchars IPA ★★★
Sharp bitter tasting dry-hopped fizzy IPA with a slight citrus edge. May prove too dry for prolonged drinking. Nice and light tasting at 4.4%
Double Amber ★★★
Tangy, malty ale with a hint of sour cherry that's light enough to drink and drink and drink.
Double Dark ★★★★
Tasty oatmeal stout that's a mixture of chocolate and molasses. There's a warming finish but it's still light and none too bitter.
Flying Scotsman ★★★
Roasted malts, raisins and a gentle hoppy spice note vie for attention. Alas the gassiness is somewhat overpowering and distracting. An ESB for lager drinkers?
Golden XPA ★★★★
Gentle golden ale with biscuit and toffee malt to the fore. The finish is dry and slightly smoky. A pleasant session ale with appreciable depth.
Kiss Me Quick ★★★
Fruity brown bitter with a gentle hoppy note. It basically wants to be bottled Hobgoblin when it should try to be like the draught.
Camden Town (UK)
Gentleman's Wit ★★★★
Thin, dry witbier with lemon and bergamot flavours bubbling up in it's gassiness. A great, light refreshing beer that leaves the perfumed fruit flavours floating round your mouth.
Hell's Lager ★★
Anonymous, bland lager with fizz but little in the way of flavour profile. It doesn't taste bad, but doesn't offer anything more than a mass produced lager.
Wheat ★★★
Deep amber coloured Hefeweizen whose thick, malty caramel flavours are heading towards a dunkelweizen. The gassiness lightens it. An autumnal refresher.
Camerons (UK)
Monkey Stout ★★★
Dark beer with a tar feel. Heavy with a gentle roasted malt in the mix and a mild dry bitter finish. The mouthfeel is akin to stout with a whisper of chocolate. Slightly bland.
Canardou (France)
Biere Aux Noix ★★★★★
Beer with nuts! It's nutty aroma prepares you for it's sweet honey nut flavour with a light caramel malt flavour in the background. Strongly flavoured and cloudy with sediment with the sweetness of a wheat beer, rather than it feeling sugary or syrupy. Very moreish and very well balanced.
La Nonnette ★★★★
Dark Belgian style beer with no head. Has the roasted coffee and liquorice elements of a porter but with a sweetness that lifts it. Full and well rounded. A bitter maltiness lingers in the finish. Punches above it's strength.
Cantillon (Belgium)
Cuv√�e Saint-Gilloise ★★★★★
Another mighty fine Cantillon lambic. The dry, grapefruit pith thumbprint is evident, but this is flatter and drier than the regular lambic. There is more of a bitter hoppy finish as well, thanks to the dry hopping. A lambic with a nod to IPAs? Nice.
Cuvee St Gilloise ★★★★
A flat gueuze made with dry hopping. The taste is smooth and restrained while maintaing the thumbprint of sour, musty white grapefruit. The hops give it a bitterness that rounds it out and give a full aroma.
Faro ★★★★
Mahogany brown sweetened lambic. The sugar gives it a malty caramel edge and balances the sourness without becoming too sweet. Good depth and distinctive from the other Cantillon brews though the sourness comes through in the finish.
Grand Cru Broscella ★★★
Completely flat beer with the distinctive Cantillon musty and citric base. Slightly floral and very sharp. Is likely to be best served with sauerkraut, sausage or spiced meat. A very acquired taste - their gueuze appears much less challenging in comparison.
Gueuze ★★★★★
Dry acidic beer with bundles of citrus (grapefruit?) flavour. Has an odd sweetness on the back of the tongue, but not at the front as there is little sugar. Swiftly develops a deep and balanced taste as you drink it.
Iris ★★★★★
Gueuze made with a high wheat content. It has a brighter citrus note than the standard Cantillon Gueuze with a performed floral note. Light, but exceptionally tasty.
Kriek Lambic ★★★★★
Zing, zing, zing. A fruity and sharp beer with big hits of cherry and grapefruit (or at least the distinctive Cantillon taste) followed by a deeper interesting after taste. One to enjoy slowly but a very impressive cherry beer. Also tried at 3 years old when the deeper taste had faded - still good but better when drunk young.
Lambic ★★★
Very dry with a refreshing citrus edge and a sour base with hints of must. Distinctively the base for their gueuze but with a much, much lighter flavour. Pale amber in colour.
Lou Pepe Kriek ★★★★
A blend of 2 year old lambics made with a high proportion of cherries (300g per litre). Lively and gassy with a bright full cherry taste, a hint of grapefruit and a gentle sourness. A more accessible, less complex beer than their regular kriek, with a purer cherry taste.
Rose de Gambrinus ★★★★
Sour, musty cherry beer with a sharp citrus note to it. Like the gueuze it has a distinctive full taste that is disconcerting at first but grows into a fuller, balanced flavour as you continue.
Vignerone ★★★★
A murky pale amber beer made with mixing 2 year old lambic with white grapes. It has a tarter flavour than the Gueuze whilst retaining a dry sourness in the base. There are hints of white wine in the background with a gentle gassiness. A beer of depth and character but an acquired taste.
Caou (France)
Kaou'et Brune ★★★
Deep, dark pan juices with a heavy, but not overpowering, bitterness. Fairly flat. There is bisto and thyme in the mix as well. Interesting and surprisingly easily drinkable for 7% abv, but could be nicer if it is was a more robust late night sipping ale.
Caracole (Belgium)
Biere Ambree ★★★
Weighing in at 7.5% abv this deep amber coloured beer has a kick to it. Alongside the traditional smoky and sweet caramel notes there is a dry chalky and metallic malty flavour that lingers.
Forestine Ambrosia ★★★★
Spicy amber ale with a robust alcoholic kick that has the merest hint of sweet caramel & red fruit in place of the dark bitterness of a dubbel. Traditional yet distinctive.
Forestine Nordika ★★★
Spiced orange and liquorice hit you from every side in this amber Christmas ale. The spiciness and warming alcohol feels like mulled wine.
Forestine Wysteria ★★★
This kicks off with a wave of tropical opal fruit aromas while the taste has juicier mango and papaya flavours. Has a very warming alcoholic finish with a hint of Tia Maria. A fruity Duvel.
Nostradamus ★★★★
Dark beer with a real mix of flavours. Sweet piney syrupy flavours with a deep bitter base and a warming alcohol feel. Gassy and lively with a little powdery feel. There are hints of rum and port. A pleasing and potent mix (9%).
Troublette ★★★★
This smells of cider vinegar crisps. The taste is a restrained wit beer, but with a dash of sour gooseberries in place of any orange or coriander. A perfect partner for fish and chips.
Carlsberg (Russia)
Baltika 7 ★★★★
Crisp lager with a confusing name, it's actually only 5.5% abv. It has a full malty flavour with a gentle hoppy finish. There is a dry bitter edge akin to a pilsner with a well judged gassiness that gives it a light feel. A cut above most regular lagers.
Carl's Porter ★★★★
A typical porter: oil black with a tan head and coffee grounds in the taste. There is a savoury biscuit flavour in the aroma and finish that adds a nice balance. Clean, easy drinking and enjoyable.
Carnegie Stark Porter ★★★
Tan head, dark body and moderate gassiness. This Swedish porter packs the expected bitter coffee grounds taste with a slight biscuit note round the edges. Similar to Carlsberg Carl's Porter but with more of a dry bitter finish.
Falcon Bayerskt ★★
Fairly nondescript dark lager with a malty taste and gassy mouthfeel but somewhat thin and unrefined overall.
Okocim Mocne ★★★
Bright and bubbly lager that has a gentle taste which belies it's stonking 7% strength. Should have more flavour for it's strength - a quaffing beer.
Okocim Porter ★★★★
Strong Baltic porter with a biscuit flavour amongst the roasted malt which gives it depth. Warmingly alcoholic, with a heavy, almost syrupy, feel. The nose is smoky, like an Islay whisky having a cigar. Sold in 500ml bottles despite being 8% abv.
Special Brew ★★
Strong pale gold beer with a sour alcoholic edge with some vinegary fruit. Very soon it becomes distressingly bland.
Carlton (Australia)
Abbotsford Invalid Stout ★★★★
Thick, rich stout with a tan head and a meaty roasted barley flavour that has a slow building burnt edge. There is enough creaminess to keep it smooth without impinging on the flavour. The finish is dry and malty with a dash of carbonation.
Mid ★★★
Twice hopped mid strength lager that majors on the gassiness.
Cascade (Australia)
Stout ★★
There is little head atop this gassy stout that has a feisty roasted taste to it and a very dry burnt finish that gradually gets a hint of chocolate to it. Feels somewhat thin and overly bitter due to the excessive carbonation.
Castelain (France)
Ch'ti Ambree ★★★
Earthy, rustic biere du garde with a hoppy yeast, a hint of orange peel and a gassy feel. Good, but not up there with the best of the Ch'ti beers.
Ch'ti Blanche ★★★★
Wheat beer that has been cave aged for 6 months. It has a gassy tingle and a cloudy straw colour. There are oranges on the aroma with a faint spicy note joining it in the taste with a robust hoppy finish. A blend of the best of witbiers and biere du garde with a lager fizz that steadily builds to the exclusion of the nuances of the flavours. It has a mix of flavours that are pitched at a level that works just as well on it's own as it does with food. Quite light at 4.5% abv too. Best served cold.
Ch'ti Blonde ★★★★
Rustic dry hoppy biere de garde with a gassy mouthfeel and a hint of apricot. The finish is mellow, slightly sour and bitter. There is a warming alcoholic burn that slowly builds. Pleasant but could have more punch for it's 6.4% strength.
Ch'ti Brune ★★★★
Smooth dark beer with a gentle fruity caramel aftertaste. Very pleasing in a unchallenging way.
Ch'ti Tripel ★★★
Crisp, gassy tripel with a light malty flavour backed up with a hit of alcohol. Sour, grassy aroma. Dry finish that could have more depth, but is very refreshing.
Castello (Italy)
Crisp Italian lager with a dry bitter edge that doesn't kill it's refreshment.
Premium ★★
Cheap Italian lager that tastes like (hey!) cheap lager. Drinkable but not anything special in the slightest.
Rosso ★
In short, unpleasant. Not worth drinking even if bought by accident.
Castle Rock (UK)
Golden ale with gentle bitter taste.
Harvest Pale ★★★★
Pale ale with a clean buttery hop taste with a hint of biscuit malt. A very easy drinking and refreshing. Subtle but builds nicely.
M&S Cascade Pale Ale ★★★★
A pale golden coloured ale with a restrained dry hoppy aroma. The flavour has bitter pine resin to the fore - but without becoming overpowering. Pitched somewhere between a US style IPA and a golden ale, this is an accomplished ale.
Preservation Fine Ale ★★★★
Reddish brown ale with a gentle taste - very drinkable.
Caulier (Belgium)
Bon Secours Blonde ★★★
Cloudy gold beer that smells of honey on crumpets. The taste is initially flat then the finish explodes with sour raspberries, hops and yeast. A bit dry and weird to appeal but it is at least interesting.
Bon Secours Brune ★★★
Dark with a small creamy head. Alcoholic and fruity in flavour with a sherry and meths finish and a dash of sour bitterness. A tad overpowering but drinkable and not lacking in character.
Cazeau (Belgium)
Saison ★★★
Dry blonde ale with a refreshing gassy tingle. It has elderflowers added to it but they are crushed by the peppery hops. There's a lambic sourness but overall it feels quite fresh. One for IPA fans.
Tournay Noire ★★★★
Strong, malty stout with a gentle smoky finish but a more intense aroma. Gassy enough to keep it light.
Champs (France)
La Gatine Ambree ★★★★
Strong cloudy amber beer with a creamy and gassy mouthfeel alongside rustic hints of a biere de garde and a Belgian triple. The taste is dry hopped with toffee apples and a dash of warming alcohol.
Chang (Thailand)
Chevreuse (France)
Volcelest Ambree ★★★★
Amber ale with a caramel nose and taste backed up by a roasted malt base. A good balance of sweet and bitter, almost like a toffee apple abbey dubbel.
Volcelest Printemps ★★★★
Dry spritzy, aromatic, rustically hopped blonde ale. A fizzing springtime pleasure.
Chiltern (UK)
Light brown ale with a slightly sweet taste. Very easy drinking.
Chimay (Belgium)
Chimay Blanche/Triple (Cinq Cents) ★★★
A tripel whose mouthfeel can vary from creamy to abrasively gassy. The coriander spicing and alcoholic pale malt flavours feel a bit fuzzy mixed in with each other, lacking clarity and punch. The finish has some chalky dry hop bitterness with a hint of hairspray. A solid beer whose rough edges have their charm.
Chimay Bleue (Grand Reserve) ★★★★
Dark and heavy malty beer with a strong kick and slight fruity sweetness. A slight gassy edge lightens the beer without disturbing it's rounded flavours. Akin to the heavily caramelised edge of a fruit tart.
Chimay Rouge (Premiere) ★★★
Gassy, lightly spiced, chestnut coloured dubbel with a slightly sour malty finish. The carbonation and warming alcohol are to the fore, meaning that it lacks the creamy complexity of Westmalle Dubbel or Maredsous 8. Pleasing enough, but evidence that not all Trappist beers are world beaters.
Mont Des Cats Biere Trappist ★★★
A salted caramel of a strong ale. Sweet toffee flavours initially dominate before the bitter hops steadily come through in the finish. There is a bit of buttery, malty spicing in there too as well as an alcoholic kick. Brewed by Chimay for the French Mont Des Cats abbey. An assured beer.
Christofele (Belgium)
Dubbel ★★
Overly yeasty, gassy, sour beer that tastes a little like the sick of someone who has been drinking bitter. Tastes better with meat, which brings out a spiciness.
Christopher Noyon (2 Caps) (France)
Blanche de Wissant ★★★
Pale yellow beer with a big frothy head. The taste is very light and gassy with a creamy citrus hop finish. Almost akin to a Helles.
Noire De Slack ★★★★★
Pitch black beer with a frothy tan head. Creamy and gassy in equal measure with a rich porterish coffee ground taste. There is a deep hoppiness and a hint of sweet berry flavours in the background. Not too strong either. Very impressive.
Church End (UK)
Pale yellow beer made with green hops. Drinkable but nothing special.
Cuthberts ★★★
Tangy session ale with a smooth maltiness. Decent session fare with a steadily building hoppy finish but nothing special.
Have Two Brute ★★★
Pitch black with a dark bitter roasted taste with hints of dark chocolate. The finish is lingeringly burnt. A solid porter.
IGA ★★
Anonymous Church End fare with a vaguely sour biscuit malt flavour.
Low Rider ★★
Thin and rather reedy golden ale. Only 2.8% abv - which may explain it being underwhelming - or it's just a bit lame.
Pew's Porter ★★★
Dark porter with little head. Alongside the typical roasted coffee taste is a watery hop flavour. There is something slightly acid on the finish.
Vicars Ruin ★★★
Straightforward golden ale with a gentle hoppy citrus edge to the taste. Fairly non descript and not to my taste.
What The Fox's Hat ★★★
There's a bit of biscuit malt and a hint of citrus in this golden ale - but not much to get excited about.
Ciney (Belgium)
Cuvee Blonde ★★★
Strong blonde ale with an alcoholic, almost chalky edge and a gentle mix of spices including some coriander. The mouthfeel is quite gassy. A dry blonde that is well balanced and distinctive.
Cuvee Brune ★★★★
Almost black abbey beer with a strong fruity taste and an alcoholic malty base. Not overpowering, but potent with an almost port like finish and a dash of sweetness.
Cittavechia (Italy)
Chiara ★★★★
A bottle conditioned lager that feels a bit like a Hefeweizen with the banana and clove flavours taken out. A great example of how to showcase the basic building blocks of beer.
Coach House (UK)
Blueberry Classic Bitter ★★
There is probably a good idea here somewhere. Alas this is like someone firing blueberry air freshener at you whilst you are trying to have a quiet bitter - that's possibly been spiked with fruit squash. A car crash, but it's what it says on the label.
Cobra (India)
Premium ★★★
Clean, dry lager with little gas. Unsurprisingly goes well with curries but a bit bland on it's own.
Coedo (Japan)
Hoppy Wind Session Ale ★★★
The hoppiest pilsner you'll ever taste. Dry as a bone with an astringent citrus hop that has the sting of strong cleaning chemicals. The body is much lighter and thinner than similarly hoppy IPAs. An effective brewing experiment but certainly no session ale.
Kyara ★★★
This lager is sufficiently hopped up to feel like an IPA. A thick layer of caramel malt and pine resin with a floating hint of white grape and a bitter finish.
Ruri ★★★
This isn't your average pilsner. The taste is hoppy enough to feel salty and chalky with the dry grassy bitterness. There's a bit of maltiness in the background. Distinctive.
Shikkoku ★★★★
A dry jet black beer that starts out much like other Japanese black beers, but amongst the roasted malts there is a bit of liquorice, soy sauce and sour cherry that gives it added depth.
Collective Sao Gabriel (Germany)
Berne ★★★
A gentle amber lager with a pleasantly quilty bitter caramel malt flavour with honied notes. Pleasing crisp, but a tad anonymous. Brewed at Arcobrau.
Steph Weiss ★★★★★
Brewed over 8 weeks, this shows the benefit of taking your time with the estery banana and clove flavours landing softly on the tongue. Solid but not heavy - perfect for crisp day. Everything you'd want from a weiss.
Concertina (UK)
Bengal Tiger ★★
Watery light amber beer with a gentle maltiness that is overpowered by an orange flavour that makes it feel like someone has poured orange squash into your beer.
Coniston (UK)
Bluebird ★★★
Bright, citric beer with a light gold colour and a very thin laced head. A classically styled ale made with Challenger hops and Maris Otter malts.
Coopers (Australia)
Best Extra Stout ★★
Dark stout with an incredibly tan head. Fairly bland with a burnt taste and a dry chalky finish. There is a hint of espresso and a surprising gassiness for a stout.
Dark Ale ★★★
Gassy dark beer with a roasted flavour balanced by a gentle hint of fruit. Decent session fare but nothing more.
Extra Strong Vintage Ale ★★★
Amber ale with a strong malty fruity taste & a burnt carbonized edge. Smooth & wheaty mouthfeel. A smoother, less bolshy, version of the ultra strong Belgian ales like Bush. It's strength is 7.5% abv & that's just about right.
Pale Ale ★★★
Smooth beer with a medium mouthfeel and a slightly bright citrus finish. Easy drinking, quite refreshing but nothing memorable. Slightly dry in the finish.
Sparkling Ale ★★★
Gassy bottle conditioned amber ale. The taste is malty and fruity with a dry bitter finish. It has the heft of an ale in the mouth but with the fizz of a lager. Best served in hot weather.
Coppice (UK)
Dry soapy and rather underwhelming. A thin vaguely hoppy taste with little else going on.
Cornelius (Belgium)
Bruges Bier ★★★★
Blonde beer that tastes a lot like a triple. The gentle carbonation fades to reveal a beer with a blend of hop and citrus fruit flavours. Well balanced and refreshing with a gentle bitter finish.
Cotleigh (UK)
Kookaburra ★★★★
Made with Australian hops this is a mix of sweet toffee and dry bitter toffee that balances beautifully.
Monument ★★★
Light coloured ale with a slightly watery sour taste.
Tawny Owl ★★★
A classic English bitter. Pale brown in colour with a balance of woody hops and slightly sweet malts.
Cotswold Brewing Co (UK)
3.8 Lager ★★★★
Straw coloured lager with a fading frothy head. A light and refreshing lager with a citrus edge and a pronounced hoppy aroma. A shining example to Becks, Grolsch et al on how to do a weaker lager.
Premium Lager ★★★★
Brewed to the German purity laws this lager is pale gold in colour with no head and a light carbonation. It is mildly crisp with a full bodied hoppy taste (liberty and hersbrucker) and a hint of onion. Slightly dry and bitter In the aftertaste. A great example of an English lager.
Wheat Beer ★★★
Cloudy bright yellow wheat beer with no head that the brewers claim is made in the style of a Berlin style beer. Quite sweet and lemony in taste without tasting like an alcopop. Could have more depth but very refreshing.
Cottage (UK)
Chestnut coloured ale with a nutty processed taste that is on the dry side.
Goldrush ★★
Sharp, citrus (slightly washing up liquid) gold coloured ale with a hint of apple. Somewhat thin for it's 5% strength.
Western Star ★★★
Porter with a coffee edge that glides down nicely
County Carlow (Ireland)
M&S Irish Stout ★★★★
Bottled stout with little head and a gassy mouthfeel. The taste is bitter coffee with a hint of hops and dark chocolate. The aroma is malt and coffee, the finish is dry. A good stout with a dry tingle.
Crabbie's (UK)
Ginger Beer ★★★★
A landslide of German all spice and ginger. Has a warm tingle to it as the ginger dances on your tongue. You wouldn't want to drink too much of it.
Craig Allan (France)
Cuvee D'Oscar ★★★★★
Dry hopped dark amber wheat beer. The aroma has apricots, elderflower and hops. The taste is more rounded but retains sour apricot to the finish with a bitter peppery hop flavour. A fruity IPA mixed with a weizen - a brown IPA? Brewed at De Proef.
Cristoffel (Holland)
Blonde ★★★
A "double hopped" beer that leaps out at you like an American IPA. Dry and slightly peppery with a tight carbonation and a hint of citrus.
Cropton (UK)
M&S Christmas Ale ★★★
A seasonal brew for Marks & Spencer with extracts of cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise & more. The taste is dominated by chocolate malts but the additions make it distinctively festive. Light for 6.2% abv. Tastes a tad artificial.
Crouch Vale (UK)
Premium' golden ale with synthetic citrus taste that veers too close to fairy liquid.
Crouch Best ★★★
Chestnut brown ale with a light hoppy taste that sours a little but slips down easily. A solid session beer.
M&S Essex Summer Ale ★★★
Golden ale made with lager & maris outer malts. The aroma is very floral with a bright peppery flavour & a hoppy tropical fruit flavour. Quite startling & a bit too lively for a simple refresher, but it's distinctive. It starts out like a golden ale but develops a gassy bitter finish like a lager.
Croucher (New Zealand)
Pils ★★★★
Bright grapefruit and hop tasting pilsner with a real freshness - almost a salty seaweed edge in the finish. An enthusiastic pilsner.
Crown (Australia)
Lager ★★
Dry, smooth lager with a mix of malt and hops that has a hint of liquorice to it. A distinct contrast to the typical bright and bubbly lagers but a bit bland.
Cumberland (UK)
Corby ★★★
Smooth golden ale with gentle biscuit malt taste that slides across the palette with a hint of hoppiness in the finish. Good session fare.
Daleside (UK)
Special Bitter ★★
Thin, sharp and slightly acid beer with a dry citrus hop. The creamy head helps to fill out the flavour but it is not enough. Light amber in colour.
Damp fibre Zweisel (Germany)
Pfeffer Hell ★★★
Clean, buttery straw coloured lager with a gassy mouthfeel and a hint of dry straw. You could easily drink a stein of this.
Dark Star (UK)
Espresso ★★★★
Pure espresso on the aroma. The taste is big on coffee with a hint of bitter chocolate. Despite it's dark taste it is not too heavy at 4.2%. Has coffee beans mixed in.
Hophead Extra ★★★
Smooth straw coloured beer with a citric hoppy taste. Well balanced and a good smooth session beer with a nice lingering bitterness.
Sussex Extra Stout ★★★
Run of the mill stout with a robust mouthfeel that has a creamy edge tempering the roasted malt flavour. Perfectly pleasant.
Dauphine (France)
Mandrin Blanche Chartreuse ★★★★
Made with Chartreuse herbs, this Witbier has a beautiful blend of citrus grapefruit, briny water and vegetal herbs. Only 3.3% abv, but it feels like a potent mix of Hoegaarden beer and Chartreuse liqueur.
Davenport (UK)
Fox's Nob ★★★
Amber coloured bitter with a dash of apricot on the aroma. Dry, bitter hops in the taste with a gentle fruity creaminess that rounds it off nicely. A good English session bitter.
Witches Brew ★★
Watery light coloured bitter with a gentle malty flavour. A bit thin and chemical but not too bad. Forgettable.
De Beiaard (Holland)
Blonde Ros ★★★
Smooth blonde beer with a pronounced malty flavour. Not too gassy, slightly dry. There is a subtle mix of spices in the background that is quite appealing. Pleasant gentle session fare.
Manke Monnik ★★★★
Well rounded tripel with a balanced mix of foamy banana sweets and coriander. The gassiness is just enough to make it lively without overpowering the flavour. The finish becomes buttery.
Witte Ros ★★★
A summer refresher witbier that is at the gassier and citrusy end of the spectrum. Decent stuff, but wait for hot weather to get the best out of it.
De Dochter Van De Korenaar (Belgium)
Bravoure ★★★★★
Smoke gently mingles through robust malty flavours with a hint of caramel and sour fruit in this russet coloured ale. One of the subtlest and most pleasing smoked beers you'll taste.
Embrasse (Oak Aged Blended) ★★★★
This deep brown beer is an assault on the taste buds with warming alcohol, roasted malt and heavy oak all charging through lobbing hand grenades. So thick it has you licking your chops. The makers also suggest trying it hot - when it tastes like bonkers Bovril.
Noblesse ★★★★
Smooth blonde ale with restrained malts and spicing that makes it interesting whilst remaining easy drinking.
de Dolle (Belgium)
Ara Bier ★★★
Light and bright beer with a sharp dry hoppy taste and a citrus and orange edge. A gassy mouthfeel and slowly develops a coriander aftertaste. Best suited to a summers day for when you want something to pep you up, but overall a little confused.
Bos Keun ★★
Bitter, gassy amber ale with a florally sweet edge to it. Very interesting but not to my taste.
Extra Export Stout ★★★★
Intensely black 9% abv stout with powdered chocolate and roasted malt flavours lashing down on you. The bitterness is tempered by the sweetness of the alcohol. The spritzy gassiness stops it becoming too heavy or syrupy. An intense, but not overwhelming, beast.
De Gaillon (France)
La Briarde ★★★
Dry and slightly chalky blonde ale with a citrus flavour that verges on the sour - grapefruit pith perhaps. The tight carbonation keeps it light. A refreshing palate cleanser.
De Koninck (Belgium)
(Red Label 5%) ★★★
A gateway Belgian ale that has the gentle malty flavour with a toffee edge and a faint hoppy bit. Gassier than an English ale and with a slight spicy edge but otherwise safe.
Triple ★★★
Strong amber ale with a warm malty flavour and a creamy mouthfeel. Pleasant to drink, not overpowering and with a moreish biscuit finish.
Winter ★★★
Sweet woody amber ale with dry, crystalline caramel and a spritzy mouthfeel. There is a bit of cherry cola in there and some warming alcohol. The finish is bitter and slightly burnt. A
Winterkoninck ★★★
Light brown beer with hints of pear drops, nail varnish and a metallic tang. Has an alcoholic edge but a thin main taste. 6.5% in strength.
De Leckere (Holland)
Pontificale ★★★★
Dark beer with a bitter fruit and malt flavour that is akin to Maredsous 8 but without the sweetness.
De Leite (Belgium)
Cuv√�e Mam'Zelle ★★★★
The dry hoppy edge of strong Belgian blonde fused with the sour apple edge of a Gueuze. A potent beer that's never overwhelming and whose sour edge cuts through the chalky dryness.
Ma Mere Special ★★★
Dry, chalky Belgian pale ale with a gentle peppery hop finish. A well balanced Belgian take on an IPA, but not as special as it's name implies.
De Proef (Belgium)
Babbelaar Blond ★★★
Blond Belgian ale that is a sweeter version of Duvel with a pronounced malty alcohol finish.
Boerinneken ★★★
Strong bottle conditioned blonde Belgian ale with a full mouthfeel, a gentle fizz and a dry, bready finish. Somewhat akin to Duvel with the heft of a wheat beer. The alcohol is evident without affecting the flavour.
Gageleer ★★★
Roast chicken crisps and sweet malt on the aroma of this strong pale ale made with bog myrtle. The taste is gently spicy with hints of soap, hops and mint along with the roast chicken. Possibly tries to do a bit too much flavour wise, but decent stuff.
Gandavum Dry Hopping ★★★★
Belgian IPA that is one of the housebeers of Het Waterhuis Aun De Bierkant in Ghent. 7.5% abv and with the dry hoppy flavour the name would imply without becoming too extreme. Well balanced and a good example of the style that showcases the hop flavour well.
Greens Premium Golden Ale ★★★
It starts with a tangy malty aroma before a gassy watery body underwhelms slightly. Made with deglutenised wheat.
Jessenhofke ★★★★
Thick triple that goes heavy on the malty flavours with an alcoholic kick in the finish. More akin to a strong Belgian blonde than a spicy triple, but still very nice.
Prearis Blonde ★★★
Pale straw coloured ale. Chalky, dry taste with a peppery hop tingle in the finish. There's also a hint of grapefruit pith from the American hops and a touch of Duvel. Tight carbonation with a narrow taste in the mouth, but certainly not thin. You could easily drink quite a bit of this.
Reinaert Amber ★★★★
Deep honey colour with papaya and candy sugar on the aroma. Tropical fruit in the taste with very little malt. Distinctive flavours but with a clean balanced finish.
Reinaert Grand Cru ★★★★
Bitter malty ale with a brisk gassy mouthfeel and big blobs of strawberry jam. Hints of black forest gateau and cherries in the complex flavour with a bit of burnt roasted malts in the background. More levels than an overly long computer game. Would benefit from being slightly less gassy to help the flavours come through but still very complex.
Reinaert Tripel ★★★★
Intensely buttery, caramel Belgian tripel which develops a fuller spicy flavour. Hints of candy sugar and fruit with black pepper finish. The mouthfeel is heavy with a yeasty feel, akin to a wheat beer. Striking and very tasty.
Slaapmutske Blonde ★★★★
Curious. Mango, banana, candy floss, caramel, soap and a hint of citrus. A very clean finish. Gassy enough to feel light and refreshing (and hide it's 6.4% abv strength).
Slaapmutske Bruin ★★★
A rounded, traditional Belgian brown ale that delivers what you'd expect.
Slaapmutske Triple ★★★
Thick caramel, sweet malt and a slightly dry finish. Possibly a hint of chewy sweets. Feels lighter than it's high abv.
De Ranke (Belgium)
Guldenberg ★★★★
Bottle conditioned strong ale with a fresh, green hopped citrus taste. There is a spicy, bready taste to it with a kick in the finish. The mouthfeel is gassy but this helps to bring out the maltiness whilst the finish is dry.
Noir De Dottinges ★★★★
Dark bitter ale made with 6 types of malt. Coffee grounds, raisins and plums to the fore with hints of hops and biscuits. There is a burnt note that lingers in the finish & a malty marmite note. There is a gassiness akin to a Scandinavian imperial stout.
Pere Noel ★★★★
Cloudy gassy beer with a big creamy head and a bitter fruity taste. A strong Belgian pale ale that feels like a triple. Potent, robust and well balanced. Like Duvel but with stronger hops and yeast.
XX Bitter ★★★
Puckeringly dry and chalky ale with an IPA style intense hoppy flavour that stays the right side of overwhelming.
De Troch (Belgium)
Chapeau Banana ★★
Smells of bananas, tastes of pear drops. Too sweet, too chemical and tastes of penny sweets. Improves the more you drink, but too unbalanced.
de Zenne (Belgium)
Betchard Blonde ★★★★
The draught beer of t'Spinokoepke - a restaurant specialising in beer cuisine. Light, sharp and gassy. Seems to go well with food as a bracing palette cleanser.
De Zette (Belgium)
Rebel Local ★★
Chalky, gassy blonde beer with a hoppy tingle and a hint of washing up liquid citrus. Far too bubbly to taste anything.
Dickensian (UK)
Ale Of Two Cities ★★★
Dry, gassy pale golden colour bitter. The flavours are very subtly with a piney woodiness and a faint waft of hops in the finish. Gentle session fare at 3.8% abv.
Martin Guzzlewit ★★★★
A crisp, dry yellowed gold colour bitter. The taste has a reassuring soapy and yeasty base with a gentle bitter punch of citrus hops that give it an air of distinction. A light and bright session beer.
Diebels (Germany)
Altbier ★★★★
Copper coloured German ale with a bready yeasty smell. Starts out with a taste like and English Christmas ale with strong malt and plum fruity tastes. Further tasting allows the gentle carbonation to provide a building sourness with a hint of tea in the dry aftertaste. Would be improved if were smoother to allow the malt and fruity flavours to shine through but would make a good session beer.
Dilewyns (Belgium)
Vicaris Generaal ★★★★
Dark ale that clocks in at 8.8% abv. Strong and malty with a sweet sherry finish that has a hint of sour cherries. Gassy enough to take edge off without losing it's potency. A whisker away from being superb.
Donnington (UK)
BB ★★★
Dry, woody bitter that tastes like a mix of biscuits and twigs - in other words a characterful session bitter that's only 3.5% abv.
Diamond Queen (bottled) ★★
Incredibly gassy ale where the carbonation overwhelms the slightly sour malty flavours.
Double Down (bottled) ★★
Ruined by over carbonation in the bottle, there are some toffee malt flavours, but they are utterly obscured by the fizz.
SBA ★★★
A bitter ale with a toffee sweetness to the robust malt flavour and a bitter woody finish. Has more of a kick than session bitters but without the overpowering feel of some ESBs.
Dorset BC (UK)
Dry and bitter light pilsner that is similar to Tuborg.
Durdle Door ★★★★★
Strong bitter with a slightly sweet taste that leads into a big hoppy finish. A slight bitterness creeps in at the end. Well balanced, well judged and very enjoyable.
Jurrasic ★★★
Soapy bitter that slides down well on a warm summer day. Nothing particularly distinguished about it though.
Dortmunder Actien (Germany)
Hovels Original ★★★★★
A hoppy, top fermented beer from Northern Rhineland. Amber coloured, hoppy and citrus smelling, strongly malty with some caramel and bready undertones and dark raisiny fruits. Semi-dry, bitter finish.
Downton (UK)
Chimera Dark Delight ★★★★
A seasonal winter ale which has a chunky hoppy taste with a smooth edge. Subtle tastes of chocolate and coffee are evident. Somewhere between a stout and a premium bitter.
Chimera Honey Blonde ★★★
A slightly chalky, pale straw coloured beer with a metallic edge. There is a fresh grapefruit pith hint to the hops and a dash of lemon cough sweets. Made with honey that adds a herbal edge. A dry thin IPA.
Chimera IPA ★★
Cloudy bottle conditioned beer with an aroma that varies between doggy carpet and lemon sweets. The taste is a damp hoppy flavour that feels like a potent hoppy IPA left out in wet drizzle for an afternoon. Not great.
Drie Fountain (Belgium)
Oude Gueuze ★★★★★
Dry, lemony beer with a base and colour that has elements of cider. More highly carbonated than other gueuze I've tried. Akin to Cantillon Gueuze but far cleaner, without the musty haze to the flavour. Bright with great depths of flavour. A superb beer that is highly recommended though maybe not quite the equal of the Girardin or Cantillon.
Oude Gueuze Vintage ★★★★★
Less gassy than their regular gueuze which allows the apple and citrus flavours to come through clearly. Punchy without being sharp and full flavoured whilst remaining light. A gueuze to savour.
Oude Kriek ★★★★
Dry, fruity cherry beer with a sour and bitter edge. Oddly not really sweet at all.
Du Bocq (Belgium)
Corsendonk Agnus (Abbey Pale Ale) ★★★
Light gassy blonde beer with a massive frothy head and a typically Belgian spicy flavour. Very pleasant and easy drinking but nothing stunning.
Corsendonk Christmas ★★★
A pear drop and pineapple aroma greets you. The taste starts out like a bitter but there are champagne bubbles and acidity that come through with a faint spicy fruit flavour.
Corsendonk Dubbel ★★★★
Figs, dates and prunes dominates the aroma and taste. Robust malty flavour with a warming caramel and syrup edge combined with a hint of smoke.
Corsendonk Rousse ★★★
Pale amber Belgian ale with some sweet red fruit and typical Belgian spicing. Feels a touch thin, artificial and underwhelming - though it's not bad.
Deuginet ★★★
Smooth blonde beer with a herbal twist. Not too gassy or dry.
M&S Belgian Bruin ★★★★
Bitter caramel malt is offset by corriander and stewed dark fruit combine in this textbook example of a Belgian Bruin. The finish is dry and warming, but at 6.5% it's actually lighter than most of it's contemporaries. Another strong M&S beer.
Dubisson (Belgium)
Bush Ambree ★★
The strongest beer in Belgium. Potent, almost vinegary brew with a bitter edge and little going on.
Bush Scaldis Noel ★★★
Amber beer with elements of fruit, melting butter, dairy and gentle toffee apple in the background and maybe a hint of brandy with an alcoholic edge. 12% abv in strength but much nicer than Bush Ambree.
Cuv√�e De Troels ★★
Beer or mirage? A gassy pale golden beer that has a buttery maltiness, a hint of straw and a lot of nothing. Forgettable.
Ducato (Italy)
Blonde ★★★★
Golden with a generous measure of floral hops giving a dry perfumed flavour that isn't overly bitter or peppery. Executed with scientific precision.
Chimera ★★★★
Deeply malty ale with coffee, toffee and dark fruit all present. Maybe a hint of liquorice too. At the bitter end of the Dubbel spectrum - and the better end.
New Morning ★★★★
A refreshing and spritzy saison. A thick mouthfeel with gentle, floral spicing, a bit of bitter orange and a dash of dry, peppery hops in the finish. Somewhere between a saison, an IPA & Hoegaarden.
Duchy Originals (UK)
Old Ruby Ale 1905 ★★★
Dry amber coloured ale with a bitter hoppiness balanced by a tangy caramel malt finish. The mouthfeel is light, gassy and perhaps a little thin. Made with a type of barley that dates from 1905.
Dupont (Belgium)
Biolegere ★★★★
Lies pleasantly between a Belgian ale and a Witbier with a hoppy fruit hit of kiwi or lychee with the thick creamy feeling of a wit. Only 3.5% abv but with more flavour of many beers that are twice the strength.
Blanche Du Hainaut ★★★★
Belgian white beer that has a slight fruity sharpness and a hint of wheat in the base that fills out that taste. A strong flavour without being a particularly high percentage (5.5%). Made organically and better than the average witbier.
Bons Voeux ★★★
Strong alcoholic cloudy ale with a slight yeasty edge. Potent, with hints of Scaldis Bush, but with hints of a triple and subtleties that creep through the strength. A seasonal super-charged Saison brewed annually for Christmas. The name means """"best wishes"""".
Moinette Brune ★★★★
From the off, roasted malt and caramel flavours are battling for attention in this ale that has bitterness lifted with a hint of sugary sweetness. The finish has a slight dryness. The head does not linger too long. A beautiful balance.
Monk Stout ★★★
Gassy, malty, dark ale with warming alcohol as evident as roasted malt. There is powdered chocolate in the finish. It tastes like an imperial stout or a baltic porter but it's only 5.2% abv. Interesting, but perhaps a tad too dry.
Saison ★★★★
Bottle fermented Belgian pale ale. Light gold in colour it has a robust mouthfeel with gentle gassiness and spicing. Smooth and subtle with a lingering biscuit malt finish. Better when served without the sediment. A classic of it's style.
Saison DuPont Cuv√�e Dry Hopping 2013 ★★★★
A full bodied textbook example of what Belgian beer tastes like. Spritzy, spiced and malty. This is a rich and easy drinking beer with a gentle lacing of hops to top it off.
Durham (UK)
Bede's Chalice ★★
Overpowered ale that is 9% and not shy about the fact. Amber in colour with a fast fading head. The taste is warming alcohol and tangy malt with zero complexity. Makes you think the English should leave strong beer to Belgians.
Temptation ★★★
Pitch black beer with a very deep tar and coffee flavour and a hint of chocolate in the aroma. The mouthfeel is flat and heavy. There is something metallic and oily in the background.
White Stout ★★★
Dry, pale straw coloured ale with a bitter puckering hoppy finish. It tastes like a effervescent IPA but claims to be a white stout - whatever that is.
Dux (New Zealand)
Black Shag ★★★★
A stout that is heavy on the roasted malts without losing it's smoothness. There are oat and chocolate flavours that come through to give it depth. The finish is dry.
Blue Duck ★★★
Robust amber lager with a tangy biscuit malt flavour. The finish is dry and short. Not bland but not memorable.
Ginger Tom ★★★
A feisty, acerbic hit of ginger greets you with this beer, underpinned by a fresh green note beneath it's fire. Not too sweet and does what it says.
Hereford Bitter ★★★
Dark brown bitter with a roasted bready taste. Confusingly it is sometimes labeled as a Munich style dark lager. Decent session fare.
Lager ★★★
Pale lager with a gentle citrus taste and a faint hoppiness that feels a muted pilsner. The finish is gentle and dry. Somewhat akin to a helles in it's strength of flavour. Very quaffable.
Norwester ★★★
Deep amber strong ale with a gassy mouthfeel and a dry malty taste with a woody hop note that comes through in the finish. It's builds into the flavour profile of a traditional IPA with a hint of breadcrust. Voted Grand Champion at the Australian International Beer Awards and slips down very pleasingly. Would go well with food.
Souwester ★★★★
A stout that at 6.5% abv exists in a great area between regular and imperial stouts. The flavour is roasted, but not at all burnt, with chocolate and caramel in support. Smooth and substantial with a gentle hint of warming alcohol in the finish.
Duyck (France)
Jenlain 6 ★★★★
Straw coloured beer with a lingering smidge of head. It has a full bodied rustic hoppy taste balanced with a sweet hint of caramel and apples. It fizzes on the top of your mouth to give a pleasing mouthfeel. Dangerously easy to drink for it's strength and a restrained experience for all it's depth with a quiet finish.
Jenlain Ambree ★★★★★
Strong (7.5% abv) top fermented beer made with 3 types of hops grown in the Alsace. The taste is reminiscent of a dark, malty, Czech lager and is very, very nice.
Jenlain Noel ★★★★★
A fruitier flavour than the regular Jenlain and very nice.
Ecaussinnes (Belgium)
Cookie Beer ★★★★
Ginger, lavender, pot pourri , honey, caramel and banana are all present in this rather bonkers beer. The finish is quite dry with a bit of resinous hoppy pine. Bizarre, sticky, but actually really nice. A speculous biscuit beer.
Echigo (Japan)
Organic Beer ★★
A thin, Kolsch like golden beer with straw and butter on the aroma and a sour and bitter dry hoppy flavour. All of this is quite restrained leaving the beer being more notable for how it's made rather than what it tastes like.
Red Ale ★★★★
A heavily malted mahogany coloured ale with a smoky hop bitterness in the finish. There is a hint of sweet caramel and tart raspberry floating above it all. A good all rounder with a crisp edge that would make fine session fare.
Stout ★★★
A bone dry stout where the heavy carbonation duels with strong roasted malts. This gives a finish that is dry and bitter. An effective demonstration of the style that lacks a certain spark to make it exceptional.
Eem (Holland)
Bitter ★★★
Blonde ale with a vague malty flavour that has hints of coriander. Weighs in at 6.8% abv but feels very smooth and drinkable. Pleasant but forgetable.
Egger (Austria)
Marzen ★★★
Brewed to the German purity law this Austrian Marzen beer is gold in colour with a restrained maltiness that nonetheless makes itself evident early on. A bitter hoppiness pokes it's head round that door about 75% of the way through a pint to add a little depth. Moderately gassy, slightly above average but nothing special.
Egils (Iceland)
El Grillo ★★★
Icelandic export lager. Gassy with a thick malty base. Well rounded and enjoyable, though nothing special.
Gull ★★
Uncomplicated and fairly generic lager with a gentle taste of Icelandic barley. Not bad, just too bland for it's 5% strength.
Malt Extrakt ★★★
The low alcohol beer that the drinkers of Iceland had to make do with until full strength beer was made legal in March 1989. Dark, malty and sweet - it is basically rye bread in a glass. Fair enough stuff but not exactly subtle.
Maltbjor ★★★
Gassy dark mahogany beer with a malty taste, a fruity note in the background and a hint of warming alcohol. Would benefit from being less gassy to allow the flavour to come through more.
Einstöck (Iceland)
Pale Ale ★★★
Dry, heavily hopped pale ale with a light gold colour and a lively gassiness. The finish is bitter and slightly chalky.
Toasted Porter ★★★★★
Smooth, but potent porter with a steely edge. Gently warming alcohol, softened by a hint of caramel gives a sticky edge to the aromatic roasted malts. A slightly dry, focused beer.
White Ale ★★★
Incredibly citrusy ale with a hint of lemon fresh jif. Possibly a little sharp but very refreshing.
Elgoods (UK)
Black Dog ★★★
Dark mild that initially feels flat and slightly watery but a gentle blackberry flavour starts building with some roasted malts. A gentle pleasure.
Hawkwind ★★
Amber coloured bitter with a biscuit malt flavour and no real head. Somewhat thin and processed.
Elland (UK)
Dobbie's Drop ★★★
Clean and light with a fruity citrus hop that doesn't make you think of cleaning products. That's a bigger compliment than it sounds.
Ellezelloise (Belgium)
Hercule Stout ★★★★★
Dark, deep, heavily roasted, almost marmite tasting beer which is possibly the finest intense imperial stout around. Too potent for regular drinking but it's burnt taste is something stunning.
Quintine Ambree ★★★★★
Dark amber beer with a thick body, deep caramel flavour and a slow building bitterness. It has a roasted caramel aroma and deep spiced coriander finish and a nice sweet edge. An intoxicating (8.5%) spiced toffee apple of a beer.
Quintine Blanche Bio ★★★★
A selection of deserts in a beer. An apple and blackberry pie mixed with pineapple and a hint of custard. The mouthfeel is dry, powdery and tingly with a hint of bitterness in the finish. A witbier with a lot more clout than most.
Quintine Blonde ★★★★★
A beer with a big fruity flavour undercut with a lagerish bitterness and a slight spiciness. Strong but not overpowering. Equally good on it's own or with food. Very impressive.
Saisis ★★★★
Fruity Belgium wheat beer with a hoppy aroma. Fairly weak (5.9%) in comparison to many Belgium beers but certainly not lacking in taste and more easily drinkable than many.
Saison 2000 ★★★★
Cloudy deep amber coloured beer with a rural malty flavour that brings to mind a biere de garde. There is a slight tanginess and a sweet caramel note. The carbonation is tight and restrained. Dash of bitter hops in the finish.
Emelisse (Holland)
Dubbel ★★★★
Robust malty brown ale with a syrupy caramel sweetness and possibly a dash of dark fruit and orange too. The finish is warmingly alcoholic, like a bitter orange cocktail. Well rounded and holds it's own against Belgian dubbels.
Lentebok ★★★
Amber lager with a dry, chalky, bitter flavour with the socky hops and biscuit malt both coming through strongly. Slightly puckering in the manner of an American IPA.
Emerson's (New Zealand)
Bookbinder ★★★★
Light amber ale with an assertive citrus hop flavour backed up by a tangy malty finish. The powerful flavours are not overbearing and the finish has a gentle dry bitterness. Refreshing and distinctive.
Dunkelweiss ★★★
The label proclaims ""caramelised chocolate bananas"" and the beer delivers on the promise. The beer is strong (6.3% abv) and has the depth to match with the roasted notes kept under control and a warming alcoholic dry finish. The mouthfeel is fairly gassy and there is a pale white head. A limited edition but a good beer.
London Porter ★★★
Gassy porter that goes on heavy on the roasted malts, and then goes with them again just to be sure. Dry and hoppy on the finish. Needs more complexity but still solid.
Pilsener ★★★
At the dry end of the pilsner spectrum this has a mineral citrus taste with a light floral aroma. The mouthfeel is lightly gassy.
Weizenbock ★★★★
Strong dark wheat beer that weighs in at 8.5%. The taste is roasted and spicy with a warming alcohol finish that is mingled with gassiness. As it warms up chocolate and caramel flavours come through bringing out subtleties of the beer. Feels a lot like a Belgian Dubbel. Well balanced and not overpowering.
Engel (Germany)
Keller Dunkel ★★★
Malt dark lager with a little on the way of roasted malts. There are hints of chocolate and caramel but like a schwarzbier it's not too sweet. Solid but not special.
Engelszell (Austria)
Gregorius 8 ★★★★
Strong, dark, syrupy, viscous ale with cherry and cocoa powder but with a blistering dark rum and demerera sugar. Feels a bit like a scorched, overpowered Westvleteren - but has real potential.
Ennerdale (UK)
Darkest ★★★
Creamy dark ale with a bitter porterish taste that is quite restrained. The finish has a slow building malty marmite finish.
Epic (New Zealand)
Portamarillo ★★★
A Christmas beer That has tree tomatoes smoked using woodchips from the Pohutakawa tree. The base of the beer is a porter with roasted malts laying the foundations but the tomatoes add sweet and sour notes to give it added complexity. A slightly odd mix but an interesting and distinctive beer.
Erdinger (Germany)
Sweet and tangy beer which compares well with beers that are not alcohol free.
Dunkel (Black) ★★★
Dark wheat beer with a smooth taste whose sweetness makes it feel light. There is fruit and caramel to the taste but they are not dominant. Pleasant but unexciting.
Hefeweizen Oktoberfest ★★★
A smoother, maltier take on the regular Erdinger with a gassier mouthfeel. Clearly trying to appeal to the lager drinking hordes of the Oktoberfest but without losing it's way.
Pikantus (Gold) ★★★★
A smooth 'dark bock wheat beer' which has a full wheaty feel. It has a sweet roasted aroma but is slightly lacking in depth of flavour for it's strength (7.6%) but generally very pleasant and gently warming.
Schneeweisse ★★★
A gassy, winter version of the regular Erdinger hefeweizen that goes heavier on the cloves and lighter on the fruit to make it more suitable for fireside drinking. Nice, but too gassy for it's own good.
Urweisse ★★★
Unfiltered German wheat beer with a smooth weighty body and a strong taste of cloves. There is a sweet estery foam banana aroma although the taste is quite dry. There is a gentle gassiness but the mouthfeel is quite creamy.
Weissbier (White) ★★★★
Smooth German wheat beer with light hint of cloves and a floral, almost honey edge. The fruity esters are very restrained. The carbonation lingers in the dry gently bitter finish.
Estrella (Spain)
Fairly unexciting dry European lager. Not bad.
Everard's (UK)
Beacon ★★★
Hoppy light brown ale with a distinctive taste of chocolate malts and marmalade. Slightly soapy in the finish. A full bodied and interesting beer.
Original ★★★
Oaky, nutty, piney, malty, sherried burnt caramel flavours dominate this pale brown ale. An assertive, but rather top heavy, beer.
Tiger ★★★
Smooth amber bitter with a full creamy mouthfeel but a mild malty flavour that lingers a little with a tiny bitter note. Decent fare that's widely available in chain pub
Föroya Bjor (Faroe Islands)
Black Sheep ★★★
Strong alcoholic and malty with a sweet, honeyed, malty flavour. Nice - but a light brown lager should really be called "black sheep".
Slupp √�l ★★★
Malty amber lager with sweet fruity, caramel edge and a big alcoholic kick. Has a hint of a Belgian Dubbel.
Fantome (Belgium)
Dark White ★★★★★
Intensely yeasty and spicy. This amber coloured punches way above it's 4% abv strength. It has a sour yeasty edge, blending saison and gueuze notes, with a dry smoky finish. There is a dash of sweet caramel and a hint of sharp apple too. Has way more levels of flavour than a 4% beer should have.
Noel ★★★★
Cloudy, pale brown 10% abv seasonal ale. The taste is heavy on spruce wood, coriander spice and warming alcohol. The finish is dry, chalky and flat with a hint of saison and sour yeasty lambic to it.
Pissenlit ★★★★
Cloudy golden beer made with a type of dandelion tea. This is malty beer with a hoppy tingle mixed with interesting spicing. The dandelion flavours are hard to find but this is still a complex beer. Distinctive but very drinkable with it.
Saison ★★★★
A really mixed up that has flavours of iron ore, musty gueuze, sweet caramel malt and smoke. Incredibly cloudy and slightly spritzy. A crazy bottle conditioned mix that could do pretty much anything. Worth taking a chance on.
Fat Yak (Australia)
Pale Ale ★★★★
Golden amber coloured ale with a dry, bitter, hoppy flavour that lingers in the finish. Crisp easy drinking that is not too gassy and with a spicy character that is rewarding.
Felstar (UK)
Indian Pig Ale ★★★★
A cruise liner of a beer. Very strong and robust with big hoppy flavours and maybe a dash of coffee too. A little lacking in subtlety but not really brash either. A solid, very solid, beer that fails to excite.
Peckin' Order ★★★★
Full flavoured bottle conditioned lager that would hold it's own against the likes of Duvel despite only being 5% in strength. Slightly soapy taste at first but develops a very rounded mouthfeel.
Fentimans (UK)
Shandy ★★★
Low alcohol botanically brewed beer mixed with sugar and lemon juice. The taste is malty, tangy and moreish with the lemon coming through in the finish. The sweetness cancels out the bitterness without becoming too much.
Feral (Australia)
White ★★★
An incredibly orangey wheat beer that almost feels like it has orange syrup in it. There is a gentle spiciness in the background. Tasty but lacking in subtlety.
Fischer (France)
Adelscott ★★★★★
A malty beer whose taste is finished off by an edge of smooth blended whisky. Lighter than Innis & Gunn it has a broader range of flavours (though not as much as the rum cask). When tasted from a can it is smokier with a more processed flavour and not as nice.
Desperadoes ★★★
Tequila flavoured beer that has the strong malty flavour you find in Innis & Gunn and Adelscot, but with a lighter edge, particularly when a wedge of line is added. It all feels a tad artificial, but it's certainly not bad beer.
Reserve Ambree ★★★★
Amber-brown coloured beer with a malty brandy style kick. There is an alcoholic edge but this is still easy to drink and well crafted.
Tradition ★★★★
Malty golden lager with little head but a slight creaminess that gives it body. There is a light bitterness in the finish. Well balanced and full flavoured.
Fischer Brau (Austria)
Helles ★★★
Gentle, gassy, unfiltered lager with a cloudy light gold colour. The flavour has a hint of lemon and the faintest waft of hops. A breadiness slowly develops. Refreshing, but like a toned down, gassed up version of their superior Weiss beer.
Osterbock ★★★
Solid, light amber beer with a faint hoppiness, a gentle gassiness and with a trace of bitterness in the end. Pleasant but a bit shy and retiring.
Weiss ★★★★★
Light yellow, cloudy wheat beer with a gentle lemon and banana flavour that is not very sharp and feels quite natural. Fantastically refreshing and with a surprising lightness for something with the mouthfeel of a typical wheat beer, possibly due to having a slight gassiness in place of the usual bready head. Incredibly drinkable.
Flensberger (Germany)
Gold ★★★
Gentle golden beer with a slightly sour, bready, honey taste. not very gassy. OK, but not exceptional.
Winter Bock ★★★
This is 7% abv but it's worrying drinkable. Pale gold in colour, it starts out like a Kolsch but there is a warming rum infused alcohol edge alongside some clean malts.
Flying Dog (USA)
Dog Schwarz ★★★
Pitch black, with a tan head, this is a strong dark lager made with smoked malt. The taste is bitter and burnt with hints of chocolate and peat. It also has a lingering smoked bacon taste. An ambitious attempt to blend styles that is challenging but interesting.
Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale ★★★
Dry hopped pale ale with a gentle bitter aftertaste. Decent body without feeling heavy. Well balanced and typical of the American pale ale style.
Dogtoberfest ★★★
The aroma is alcoholic and malty with the dry caramel tinged flavour. Slightly metallic, gassy and deceptively easy to drink. Could have more depth but very quaffable.
Double Dog ★★★
Rustic hoppy beer with a tangy flavour. At 11.5% abv it's intense and aggressive. Powdery, dry, bitter and akin to drinking perfume it's floral aroma is so potent. Very peppery, but should please hop-heads.
Garde Dog ★★★★
A US take on a biere de garde. Smooth, IPA hoppy with a dark agricultural edge and a dash of porter. Smooth tasty and well balanced.
Gonzo Imperial Porter ★★★
Dark, dry, bitter ale with a mix of liquorice, powdered chocolate and smoke. Quite gassy but the taste feels a little flat.
Horndog ★★★
Strong dark beer with alcohol dominating the flavour initially. It is heavy and syrupy with a burnt caramel flavour. A sipping beer with a dry spirity finish akin to the Brewdog Paradox stout aged in whisky casks. There are hints of banana and cough medicine.
K9 Cruiser ★★★
Light, gassy and dominated by caramel malt. Maybe a hint of orange juice too.
Old Scratch ★★★★
Dark and fruitily bitter malt heavy lager made in the style of steam beers. Like a Belgian Dubbel but without the kick.
Raging Bitch ★★
A vibrant sweet shop of a Belgian style IPA. Banana, strawberry and under-ripe nectarines atop a fizzy thin alcoholic body. Dry chalky finish driven by hefty hopping. There's a hint of sweetened lambic in there along with refresher sweets. A 'strawberry IPA'?
Snake Dog IPA ★★★
Sweet and hoppy IPA that has a smooth foretaste followed by a rougher lagerish aftertaste. An interesting beer but there are finer IPAs available.
Underdog Atlantic Lager ★★★
This has got a bit of low end malty bite but doesn't have enough to make it special.
Wildeman Farmhouse IPA ★★★★
Heavily hopped and slightly oily IPA with the hefty body and rustic edge of saison. Like a Belgian ale with added hoppy punch.
Fordham (UK)
Copperhead ★★★★
Nicely balanced copper coloured ale with a caramel tinged malt flavours backed by a refreshing, slightly citrus flavoured, hoppiness.
Tavern Ale ★★★
Toffee malt and molasses dominate this deep amber coloured beer. Not particularly complex but fairly easy drinking.
Wisteria Wheat ★★★
Hefeweizen where the bottle conditioning gives widely varying results. Could be heavy on bananas or cloves. Could be thick and heavy or thin as kristallweizen.
Forge (UK)
Amber coloured malty ale fortified with gorse and heather. Dry and quite herbal finish. Leafy.
Fosters (Australia)
Pure Blonde Naked ★★
A mid strength, low carb, all malt brew made with the ""unique"" galaxy hop. It claims to be full flavoured but it's a fairly forgettable lager that is smooth and fairly refreshing but with little to make it stick in the memory. Confusingly it is sometimes labeled as a premium ale.
Sheaf Stout ★★★
Thickly black and oily stout with a forthright roasted malt flavour and a gassy mouthfeel. Fairly rough and ready but pleasant enough.
Victoria Bitter ★★★
Forget Fosters, this is Australia's national beer if anything is. Served is squat, stubby bottles it is a smooth full bodied lager with a foamy head and a gentle malty taste. Not too gassy and very pleasing to drink, even if it fails to redefine the world of lager.
Founders (USA)
All Day IPA ★★★★
Dry, resinous hops dominate this amber coloured ale. Orange, grapefruit and mango give it a tropical feel with a dash of roasted malts to avoid too much sweetness. Very nice.
Centennial IPA ★★★
A sticky pale brown ale with dry woody hops and a chalky finish. There is a bit of violets in the aroma. Not exactly complex but a professional executed hop hit.
Dirty Bastard ★★★
Dark brown ale with a huge malty hit. Malt loaf, treacle, figs and powdered chocolate. There's an alcoholic kick with aged rum and smoky whisky notes. A little acidic and metallic in the finish, but otherwise a nice potent beer.
Fox (UK)
Slightly hoppy sweet ale with a dry lingering aftertaste.
Mr Tod ★★★
Dry hoppy beer. Fairly gentle and pleasant enough for session drinking.
Old Hushwing ★★★★
Straw coloured with a fast fading head. The aroma has a light spice note which is joined by citrus to give a Belgian feel to this British ale. Light in strength and subtle but complex in flavour. Very refreshing.
Frankenheim (Germany)
Altbier ★★★
Mahogany coloured ale with a gassy mouthfeel. Like an English mild mixed with a tame Belgian brune. A deep malty flavour with a crusty bready flavour and a hint of fruitiness. Clean robust session fare with a dry finish.
Franklin (UK)
Smooth, gentle pale brown bitter with a tangy malty edge that isn't too strong.
Franziskaner (Germany)
Dunkelweizen ★★★★
Beautifully sweet caramelised bananas are dominant here - a desert-weizen? - but it's not sickly sweet so good for anytime in the afternoon or evening.
Hefe-weizen ★★★
Classic German hefeweizen with a fruity banana taste, smooth full mouthfeel and a building carbonation. Lively and full bodied and feeling like it might kick above it's 5% strength. A well made beer that is slightly too gassy for my taste.
Freedom (UK)
Four ★★★
Clean, light, refreshing lager that has the crispness of a pilsner with a hint of heather honey. Pleasant enough and only 4%.
Organic Dark Lager ★★★★
Deep, deep amber in colour, this lager has a note of apple that gives it a real freshness. There are hints of amber ale smokiness and a rich, full bodied mouthfeel with a bitter malty finish that make it assured yet easy drinking.
Stout ★★★
4% abv stout that has the hit of roasted malt you'd expect, but it's all quite restrained. An easy going session stout.
Frodshom (UK)
800 ★★★
Pleasant session ale with a even balance of malt and hops and a gently hoppy citrus finish.
Aunoch ★★★
An 80 shilling style ale with a full malty flavour that has a toffee sweetness. Overly gassy when tried - probably due to a rogue bottle.
Gold ★★★
A golden ale with the profile of a light bitter - no citrus flavours here but a pleasingly woody and peppery hop taste.
Fruh (Germany)
Kolsch ★★★
Pale gold, light gassy ale that feels close to a lager. Clean and refreshing with just enough hoppiness to save it from blandness. Develops a crisp dry finish.
Frydenlund (Norway)
Bayerol ★★★
This dark lager starts off with an assertive gassy tingle with a bright malty flavour following swiftly behind. The gassiness lingers in the roof of your mouth. Has a slight creaminess.
Fullers (UK)
Bengal Lancer ★★★
Typical mass produced IPA with little in the way of hops but without the forced creaminess of Greene King IPA. The most it musters is a faint but pleasant bitterness in the finish. Underwhelming.
Chiswick Bitter ★★★
Chestnut coloured ale with a tangy sulphurous nutty flavour and a dry finish with a hint of gassiness. Reasonable session fare with a woody hop character.
Discovery ★★
Pale golden ale with a light malty taste and a slightly bitter mineral finish. Overall the beer feels quite watery, which isn't too much of a surprise as it is 3% abv. If you want something light it beats an alcohol free beer.
ESB ★★★★
The original premium bitter. Woody amber in colour with a dry woody flavour to back it up. The finish is malty with a hint of tanginess. Truly a benchmark for strong bitters that showcases it's ingredients wonderfully with a chewy bitterness that is not overwhelming. A robust session ale with bite.
George Gale Seafarers Ale ★★
Amber ale with a very light malty flavour that is hidden behind a bland zesty soapiness. Gentle, dry and underwhelming.
Golden Pride ★★
Strong, tangy, malty beer with a slight orangey edge. Sour and overpowered - nearly undrinkable to my taste though it has been called the "Cognac of beers"
Honeydew ★★★
Light and sweet almost lagerish golden ale with the slightest honey edge. Refreshing but a tad bland.
Jack Frost ★★★★
Ruby red winter ale made with blackberries. A bitter hoppy flavour is dominant with fruit notes. The finish is dry with the blackberry taste being quite faint. Very pleasant and easy to drink.
London Porter ★★★★★
Incredibly full bodied black porter with big hits of peat and coffee. The mouthfeel is gassy with a burnt malty finish. Deep ruby in colour. A superb intense porter with hints of oak aging.
London Pride ★★★
Slightly hoppy, slightly processed amber ale with a faint nuttiness that is a solid benchmark beer but isn't anything special. A solid pub staple.
Fyne Ales (UK)
Avalanche ★★★
Dry hoppy straw coloured ale that fades into a biscuit malt finish. Part IPA, part session bitter, all very drinkable.
Cool As A Cucumber ★★★★★
Brewed with the Wild Beer Co as "Fyne & Wild" this is a summer saison made with cucumber, mint and wild yeast. The foundation is the full bodied rustic feel of a gassy saison. The cucumber and mint make it light, fresh and summery and at 2.9% you can drink a lot of this. The finish is mildly dry with a fresh hoppiness and dash of dry spice that keeps the beer characteristics to the fore. Equally refreshing and complex and would pair beautifully with salmon.
Hurricane Jack ★★★★
A golden ale that has learnt from US IPAs. There is a real bite to the citrus hops and a dry finish whilst still being light and refreshing.
Piper's Gold ★★★
A crisp, dry, hoppy amber coloured ale where malty flavours dominate with a hint of tropical fruit. The finish is slightly tangy.
G√�dinger (Iceland)
Lager ★★★
Incredibly malty lager with a pleasing golden colour. There's a rough hint of thick salted caramel in there but with enough dry bitterness to keep it balanced. Not really clean or crisp - but tasty.
Pale Ale ★★★★
Fruity hopped pale ale with mango and papaya on the taste and a floral aroma. Dry and slightly bitter finish. Has a pleasing hint of Thornbridge's Jaipur to it.
Stout ★★★★
Roasted malts from start to finish giving off intense bitter coffee aromas with a dash of warming alcoholic malt. Has the bold flavours you'd associated with beers that have much higher abv.
Gaffel (Germany)
Kolsch ★★★
A more full bodied take on the traditional Cologne pale ale with a nice nutty hoppiness. Still very light & easy to drink. Has an initial gassiness that fades before creeping into the finish. The tastes fades as you drink more of it.
Gage Roads (Australia)
IPA ★★★
Gassy, amber coloured ale with a dry hoppy taste characteristic of the style with a tangy woody edge. The finish is a gentle mix of the flavours. Pleasant but could have more depth.
Wahoo ★★
Gassy lager that bills itself as a ""premium ale"". Light and refreshing but lacking in any real flavour bar a faint waft of citrus. The finish is dry and bubbly.
Garrigues (France)
Feu Follet Grand Cru 2009 ★★★★★
Dark deep ale with a smooth bitter coffee taste with fruit and dark chocolate on the aroma and a warming alcohol malt in the finish. Akin to an abbey dubbel. Would go beautifully with bread, cheese and celery salt.
La Belle En Goguette Blonde ★★★★
Blonde, pilsnerish beer with a hit of bitter hoppiness leading to a dry finish. Fairly heavy bodied like a wheat beer, with a slightly rough edge. Gold in colour with an enduring head.
La P'tite Biere Brut'ale ★★★
Gassier than a British ESB, this seasonal special from a French brewery still packs a traditional taste. A dry hoppiness with dark fruits and a hint of nuttiness. Good session fare.
Nuit De Goguette ★★★
Dark, porterish beer with a creamy ivory head. Dominated by a roasted coffee flavour, with the merest hints of something fruity buried in the background. It has little complexity to distinguish it, especially for it's 7% strength.
Saison des amours ★★★★
Dark amber seasonal beer with a sharp edge and a coffee taste in the initial hit that fades into an agricultural hoppiness then a lingering smooth fruity aftertaste.
Gayant (France)
Abbaye de St Landelin La Divine ★★★
Akin to a Belgian triple but with a crisp bite. Full bodied, gently gassy yet lingeringly smooth with an understated woody malt taste. Light gold/amber in colour and 8.5% in strength. Lacks the complexity of it's best Belgian counterparts and too strong for session drinking but generally a good beer.
Biere Du Demon ★★
The worlds strongest blonde beer at 12% abv. Smooth but with a warming malty finish. Clear golden ale that smells slightly sweet & malty with elements of an old peoples home. A gassy mouthfeel, elements of a chardonnay with an alcoholic finish. Bonkers but at least it's interesting. OK with cheese but too weird overall.
Goudale ★★★★
Sturdy, rustic blonde biere du garde with a robust malty flavour and slight carbonation. Would make a good slow drinking session beer, even at 7% in strength.
Geants (Belgium)
Gouyasse Tradition ★★★
Pale cloudy straw coloured ale. Slightly dry and chalky with hints of honey, citrus and greengages, there is a clean mineral finish. It has gassy bitter tingle too. Straight ahead session fare.
Gouyasse Tripel ★★★
Dry, chalky Belgian pale ale with yeasty, peppery edge. Clean fizzy mouthfeel with a hint of oranges.
Ginga Kogen (Japan)
Pale Ale ★★★
Biscuit malt with a touch of salted toffee take pride of place in this hazy amber beer. There are gentle bitter woody hops at the end but no trace of the fruit flavours you find in other beers of the style. A pale ale with bass boost? Well made, but being a touch too dry in the finish leaves it just shy of being something special.
Weizen ★★★
This Weizen really majors on the banana flavour. Overall it feels a bit light - partly due to the gassiness but mainly due to a lack of complexity. Enjoyable enough.
Girardin (Belgium)
Very sweet raspberry beer with a the fruit dominating the lambic taste to it's detriment.
Gueuze 1882 (Black Label) ★★★★★
Sharp and sour beer with a full musty fruity note and little if any sweetness. Very impressive and very interesting with a softness in the finish that adds to the subtlety. Truly one to savour.
Gueuze 1882 (White Label) ★★★★
The black label Gueuze was softer than many Oude Gueuze. This filtered version is even softer with the tart sour flavours feeling very mellow without lapsing into bland. A restrained Gueuze.
Kriek ★★★★★
Fruity, sharp cherry beer with a gorgeous lambic base. Not quite as good as Cantillon Kriek, but very, very good.
Kriek Van't Vat ★★★★★
A full-on sour cherry beer with no hint of sweetness to it. The sour musty lambic bleeds through and seamlessly blends with the cherries. Light enough to quaff, but with flavour to spare. Available on draft only.
Lambik ★★★★
A properly musty unblended lambic with sharp zingy lemon offset with watery swede. The dry bitter hops come through in the finish with a tongue tingling kick, almost akin to an IPA. Challenging, puzzling complex and perfectly suited to lambic fans.
Glastonbury (UK)
Hedge Monkey ★★★
Deep amber coloured ale that starts out with an interesting bitter woody taste that becomes yeasty and watery in the finish.
Love Monkey ★★★
Light amber ale with a watery, hoppy bitterness that eventually has a hint of caramel. Unremarkable but perfectly fine.
Mystery Tor ★★★
Light brown fruity and malty ale with a bitter biscuity finish. A faint floral hint of watery soap too. Good light session fare that's not bland.
Glazen Toren (Belgium)
Canaster Winterscotch ★★★
Strawberries and cream with banana pith greet you with a dry, almost chalky mouthfeel. The lack of sweetness means it's a little puckering but it's a nice warming Christmas ale overall.
Saison d'Erpe-Mere ★★★★
Thick, pale blonde ale with a clean hoppy flavour that has a bitter piney resinous finish. As it warms there is a puckering white pepper note that comes through. A very clean saison with none of the rustic filth.
Glebe Farm (UK)
Gladiator Spelt ★★★
The first English beer made of spelt in modern times. A session bitter with a wateriness that makes it light and refreshing without feeling bland.
Glencoe (UK)
Wild Oat Stout ★★★★
A tan head sits atop this oil black stout. The taste is smooth and heavy with a bitter malty taste that feels like it has the strength of a foreign extra stout though it's actually under 5%. The finish is short with a hint of oats and a faint gassiness.
Goddards (UK)
Fuggle Dee Dum ★★★★
A full bodied ESB with a dry woody finish. The bitter fuggle hops are robustly applied but there is a dash of caramel malt flavours to round it out nicely.
Goffs (UK)
Light soapy ale that isn't objectional but is fairly bland.
Launcelot ★★★
Sour beer with a brief cherry note to it. Tasty if slightly challenging.
Merlin ★★
A straw coloured hoppy bitter whose taste didn't sit well with me.
White Knight ★★
Light coloured bitter that is typical of the brewery. Not very nice.
Golden Valley (UK)
Kenyon Oatmeal Stout ★★★★
Rich creamy stout with a nice roasted flavour that lingers underneath it all. Full flavoured, smoky and smooth.
Goller (Germany)
Brotzeit Seidla ★★★
Crisp, but rather forgettable lager with a buttery edge. A cut above the standard multinational lagers.
Goose Eye (UK)
Barmpot Bitter ★★★
Smooth, pale gold ale with dominant bread and yeast flavours and a full, weighty mouthfeel that could teach cream flow beers a thing or two.
Goose Island (USA)
Christmas Ale (2012) ★★★
Dark, spicy and very very dry. The smoky feel is like the embers of a log fire. There are some sour dark fruits hidden in there somewhere.
Honkers Ale ★★★
Gentle malty amber ale with more gassiness than a typical English beer. Bitter for the Budweiser generation?
IPA ★★★
Dry, bitter and hoppy pale ale with a malty tang that emerges in the finish. Light amber in colour with a creamy white head and a dash of citrus in the nose. A typical US IPA.
Oatmeal Stout ★★★★
Dark, oily coloured ale with a head that quickly vanishes. The roasted malts are all over the burnt syrupy coffee taste whilst the oatmeal gives a smoother finish to stop it becoming overpowering. Lacks complexity but an enjoyable one note beer.
Pepe Nero ★★★★
A dark ale whose bitter roasted flavours feed into a granular mouthfeel. As it warms oats and unripe apricots, but it's basically bitter and black - which is how things should be.
Gotlands (Sweden)
Wisby Weiss ★★★★
Swedish wheat beer that wants to be like Hoegaarden and does a good job of it. Good balance of spice and citrus with a heavy but clean mouthfeel. Gassier and more bitter than Hoegaarden which gives it a distinctive charm.
Grafton (UK)
Lady Mary ★★
Watery light amber ale faint bitter fragrant hop taste. Nothing much going on and surprisingly bland for a 5% beer.
Grain d'Orge (France)
Jeanne D'Arc ★★★
Strong, malty copper coloured beer with a syrupy edge that isn't dominant. Quite assertive, with a hint of orange.
Septante 5 Blonde ★★★
This has a lovely clear golden colour. Gassy mouthfeel with a sweet butter and caramel flavour. There is a hoppy bitterness tying it together and a rustic malty finish. A solid biere de garde that could have a bit more punch for it's 7.5% abv strength.
Grainstore (UK)
A soapy hoppy beer that doesn't particularly appeal.
Ten Fifty ★★★
Light brown in colour with a creamy head. The taste is dominated by dry bitter hops but in the finish it is rounded out by a subtly full bodied malty flavour. A decent English session bitter that could have a touch more refinement.
Granascher (Germany)
Weissen ★★★
Fruity, coriander beer with a bit of banana in the taste. Slightly odd and unlikely to go with anything but quite nice for a fairly fruity beer.
Great Divide (USA)
Yeti Imperial Stout ★★★★
Oily black beer with a tan head this feels at first to be more like a barley wine than a stout. The taste is an assault of malt, stewed fruit, raw warming alcohol and a dash of caramel. The smoky edge of an Islay whisky with viscous liquorice and chocolate. Strong & assured.
Green Flash (USA)
Friendship Brew (Black Saison) ★★★
Made collaboratively by two breweries (Green Flash & St Feuillien) and blending disparate beer styles - it's no surprise that this tastes like 3 beers at once. The ruddy agricultural flavours of a spicy saison thrown cheek by jowl with restrained roasted malts are odd enough - but the heavy IPA style citrus hopping and dry grapefruit pith flavours make this a true onslaught for the taste buds. Hints of mint and apple start coming through in the confusion. This should be a mess, but it's executed well enough to put in the intriguing strange category - if not quite bizarrely brilliant.
Green Jack (UK)
Lurcher Stout ★★★
Porterish stout with a bitter coffee grounds taste. Quite assertive but easy drinking. Dry bitter finish but slightly sour.
Green Man (New Zealand)
Best Bitter ★★★
A light brown bitter with a crisp bitter hoppy taste. It starts off with a sweet toffee aroma. There is a hint of caramel malt in the finish. An easy drinking 4.5% abv session ale.
Greene King (UK)
Abbot Ale ★★
Thin beer with just enough hoppiness and character to make it worth drinking, though it has a processed edge to it.
Abbot Reserve ★★★
Amped up version of Abbot Ale with a fuller malty flavour that clocks in at 6.5% abv. Still a bit bland and mass produced though.
IPA ★★
Thin, creamy beer with a processed taste. Poor without being offensive.
London Glory ★★★
A traditional, if not glorious, bitter. Brown in colour with tangy malt flavours pricked by woody and pine resinous hops. Nothing special but a bit above average for Greene King.
Morland Old Crafty Hen ★★★
A blend of Speckled Hen and 5X (akin to the Strong Suffolk). The nuttiness of the Hen is balanced by a raisin and berry flavour with a caramel malt finish. Strong but not particularly distinguished.
Morland Old Speckled Hen ★★★
Traditional amber English ale with little to particular distinguish it. Pleasant enough though.
Old Golden Hen ★★
There is a beer here somewhere I'm sure of it, well pretty sure anyway. Vaguely biscuit malty with a hint of dry bitterness, but basically just bland and slightly creamy.
St Edmund ★★
Golden, dry looking bitter with a thin and processed taste. Offered with a "northern" or "southern" head on draught
Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale ★★★★
Fruity, dry and bitter with coffee elements to it. Dark and very strong but still quite smooth with a steadily building caramel taste. A blend of Old 5X and BPA. Would benefit from a bit more complexity as it pales slightly in the second half of a pint.
Suffolk Springer ★★★★
Dark ale with an aroma of fruit, chocolate, malt and coffee. There is a slight alcoholic edge and a slight gassiness. There is a sweet raisin edge in the finish.
Yardbird ★★★
It's a Greene King IPA that actually tastes of hops what is the world coming to? It's 4% abv and has an element of cream flow blandness - but it's a passable session ale.
Grieskirchner (Austria)
Export Dunkle ★★★★
Unusually for a dunkle this is not black. Instead it is dark amber, almost mahogany coloured beer with a sweet malty flavour that leaves an aftertaste of runny caramel. Light and drinkable without compromising on flavour.
Grupo Modelo (Mexico)
Corona ★★★★
Robust and refreshing Mexican lager where the gimmick of sticking a wedge of lime in the top actually offsets the taste of the beer very well. One of the better bottled beers widely available at British bars.
Modelo Especial ★★★
Smooth lager that has a nice edge when served with a wedge of lime. Crisp and clean but with a full malty flavour.
Negra Modello ★★★★
Originally brewed in Mexico by emigre Austrian brewers Mahogony/amber coloured solid, full but not overly flavoured beer with a gentle fruity / caramel maltiness and a light bitterness but little aftertaste.
Guinness (Ireland)
Draught Stout ★★★★★
More a landmark for the Irish Tourist Board than a beer these days, trying to assess the taste of Guinness is like trying to comment on whether the Taj Mahal is a good place to live. As with most popular global beer brands Guinness is very smooth and has a gentle taste to it, however it's balanced dry taste is subtle and rewarding rather than bland. The mouthfeel is a great balance of weighty stout with just enough gassiness to lighten it without giving a bubbly carbonated edge. The flavour blends roasted malts with a faint hoppiness mixed into a creaminess with a hint of dry salt in the finish, possibly an aspect of the nitrogen injected into the beer. The canned version has a slight sharpness not present in true draught form. The extra cold version basically just suppresses the flavour of the beer. Almost chewy in substance it remains smooth and flavourful without becoming overwhelming. A legend that can live with it's hype (though it suffers from being poorly kept in many pubs).
Foreign Extra Stout (Ireland) ★★★★
Potent version of the black stuff with a pronounced citrus hop taste floating over the classic roasted barley taste. The finish is bitter and slightly dry and burnt. Smoother than imperial stouts there is little alcoholic edge with a biscuit malty flavour that steadily builds and is slightly warming. There is a gassy tingle on the roof of the mouth that leaves am echo in the finish. There is also a hint of soured milk. Complex, potent but satisfying and not fearsome. Guinness with the volume turned up.
Foreign Extra Stout (Nigeria) ★★★
Far more bitter and earthy than the regular foreign extra. It brings out the deeper, darker side of Guinness with molasses and a bitter alcoholic edge. There is a hint of musty carpets and a general robust maltiness. Very potent with an almost granular oily mouthfeel.
Original Stout ★★★★
Bottled stout that feels slightly lighter than the draught with a gentler finish where the hoppiness comes through more. The roasted barley and carbonation duel on the tongue rather than merging with acidity that is more present than on draught where the injected nitrogen makes the beer smoother. Previously called Extra Stout.
Red Stout ★★★
Smoother version of Guinness with the malt being roasted less to give a lighter taste. Easy session fare but basically a neutered version of draught Guinness.
Special Export (Belgium) ★★★
Dark, exceptionally dry beer with liqourice and chocolate. Very bitter with roasted coffee grounds to the fore. Potent but with a restrained alcoholic edge. Moderately gassy, somewhere between original and draught stout. A mix of regular Guinness and a burnt imperial stout which sometimes feels like a majestic blend and at other times like it falls between two stools. Could have more depth and complexity for it's strength. It's like someone took all the creamy smoothness out of the draught version to allow you to wallow in the dark bitter base. At 8% it's roughly the strength Guinness was brewed at in 1840. Brewed for Anthony Martin in Belgium. An acquired taste, but an interesting and distinctive one.
Gulpner (Holland)
Solid German wheat beer that doesn't do anything out of the ordinary.
Rose ★
Somewhat artificial tasting strawberry flavoured wheat beer. Brewed for the alco-pops market and taste of pick and mix. Contains E numbers and is best described as a tacky and slutty beer.
Haacht (Belgium)
Charles Quint Keizer Kavel ★★★
Woody, malty, nutty with a toffee sweetness in the finish. There is some smoky heather and chocolate in there too. Weird, but interesting in a tasty way.
Charles Quint Ruby Red ★★★
A creamy sour aroma is overtaken by a bitter burnt (soy sauce) taste. A slight fruitiness lingers in the background. Somewhat dry in the finish.
Tongerlo Blonde ★★★
Slightly cloudy straw coloured beer with a small creamy head. Quite crisp whilst yeasty, wheaty with a edge. The aroma has cold baked beans. Traditional blonde Belgian fare but a tad forgettable.
Tongerlo Brune ★★★
Dark beer with a light taste that belies it's 6.5% strength. Quite Fizzy, honey and wheat on the nose, a gentle roasted taste. A good session beer, but it's really a bit strong for that.
Haandbryggerit (Norway)
Krekling√∏l ★★★
Lively and expansively gassy beer with dark malty flavours lingering in the background. Made with crowberries, the beer has a sour, fruity edge combined with a very dry finish. A world apart from most fruit beers.
Norwegian Wood ★★★★
Brewed in the style of a traditional Norwegian beer, this is a smoked ale spiced with juniper. The taste is smoky and woody with the spicing lingering in the background but giving a subtle fruity edge. Brown amber colour with a creamy head and bottle conditioned. A herbal note emerges with a piney flavour.
Hacker Pschorr (Germany)
Animator ★★★
8.1% abv doppelbock with such a thick malt loaf and pumpernickel flavour that you feel you could carve slices out of it. Sweet, smoky and malty.
Dunkler Bock ★★★
Light managing coloured beer with a fruity malty taste (a hint of cherry perhaps) with a warming alcohol finish. A bit tame for a Dunkler bock.
Dunkles Weissbier ★★★★
Caramelised roasted malts dominate the flavour without becoming overwhelming. A distinctive and delicious dunkel Weisse.
Helles ★★★
Crisp refreshing lager with a buttery flavour. Still a bit bland - but that is the helles style.
Muncher Kellerbier ★★★★
Woody roses and honey play on the aroma with robust malty flavours as the cavalry. The kind of beer the Oktoberfest Marzens should be.
Munchner Dunkel ★★★
Smooth, malty lager with a sherry like finish. Easy drinking but not bland.
Oktoberfest ★★★
Robustly malty lager where the gassiness rapidly dominates the flavours. Akin to Palm Special being stuck under your nose and whipped away. Does it's job of allowing you drink a stein, belch and buy another stein.
Sternweisse ★★★
A weisse that is deep amber in colour. The banana flavours are tending on the sweet caramelised side but there is no bitterness.
Weisse ★★★
Does everything you'd want from a Weisse, hefty enough to feel substantial with restrained but well judged banana and clove flavours that blend together nicely. Just doesn't stand out from the crowd.
Hahn (Australia)
Premium ★★★★
A 5% abv lager made with pilsner malt and hersbrucker hops. The initial taste is dry and gassy but it quickly opens up to showcase the green, woody hop flavour. The finish is refreshing with a hint of bitterness. A lager with character.
Hakkaisan (Japan)
Alt ★★★
Competent but somewhat underwhelming alt beer that tastes like an overly gassy English bitter. There's a basic malty flavour that makes for pleasant session drinking but little else.
Weizen ★★★
Frankly it's not clear what type of wheat beer this is. It lacks the characteristic flavours of a wit or a Weizen, solely offering a thin fairy liquid edge. Inoffensive session fare with a slightly sour edge.
Halve Maan (Belgium)
Bruges Zot Brune ★★★
Dark coloured Belgian dubbel with a gentle taste of roasted malts dominant on the palate. There is an alcoholic edge to the aroma and flavour but the beer still tastes weaker than it is. A tad too bland for it's strength.
Brugse Zot Blonde ★★★
Spicy blonde beer with a steadily building gassiness. A typical spiced Belgian beer that doesn't quite distinguish itself from the crowd. Also available unfiltered at the brewery which makes it smoother and brings out a orange peel taste in the finish as it warms.
Straffe Hendrik ★★★
Lively gassy and dry triple with potent alcoholic kick. There is a floral hoppiness, a hint of honey, citrus brightness and a herbal finish. Strong but balanced.
Hambleton (UK)
Watery session beer with a bitter malty taste.
Taylor's Tipple ★★★
Crisp citrus hopped ale with a golden colour and a creamy head. A refreshing session beer with a malty finish that becomes dry and hoppy.
Haneda (Japan)
Weizen ★★★
Gassy German style wheat beer that tastes of sweetened banana bread with a slightly clove tasting finish.
Hangzhou Qiandaohu (China)
Lucky Beer ★★
Chinese lager served in bottles shaped like a Buddha. Fairly dry and malty but generally indistinguishable from the own brand continental lager sold in supermarkets.
Hanssens (Belgium)
Oude Gueuze ★★★★
Very spritzy lambic beer with a tart grapefruit edge. There is a slightly dry sourness in the finish that doesn't stop it being very refreshing. Akin to a sweet cider with great depth.
Harbour (UK)
Porter No. 6 ★★★
The gassiness and roasted malts blend together nicely in this spritzy porter. Nothing unexpected but well made.
Hardknott (UK)
Colonial Mayhem ★★★
An 8.1% abv mild? Seriously? This has a huge warming, almost burning, alcohol hit before the roasted malt and chocolate flavours of the mild appears. More barley wine than mild, but well executed.
Harrington's (New Zealand)
Belgium Tempest ★★★★
Cloudy amber strong ale with a mix of malt, herbs and spices in it's intoxicatingly alcoholic taste. The mouthfeel is gassy and tingling. The aroma has caramelised vegetable sugars and the taste is slightly honeyed. The finish is dry with lingering coriander. Similar to beers from the Belgian Ellezoise brewery, which is a good thing.
Beltane Maiden ★★★
A big spicy orange aroma in this Belgian style wheat beer is followed up by waves of ginger cake in the taste. Fairly gassy and light mouthfeel. It feels like someone's gone a bit heavy on the flavourings, obscuring the wheat, malt and hop foundations. Different but not unpleasant.
Kiwi Draught ★★★
Golden lager with a dry biscuit malt flavour and a gently gassy mouthfeel. A light and drinkable lager that's pleasant enough.
Pig And Whistle ★★★
A gassy dark lager that has stewed fruit cake, coffee and a hint of caramel and biscuit malt waiting for you when the bubbles die down. The finish is tingling with residual carbonation behind which a roasted note lingers. The aroma emphasises the coffee flavour which tends to dominate as it warms.
Harveys (UK)
Imperial Extra Double Stout ★★★★
Dark like engine oil with a small tan head. A slightly syrupy taste with a big meaty, Bovril edge to it. Lacks refinement flavour range but a distinctive and unusual beer that is smoother than the 9% strength would have you think. Brewed under license in the UK to a recipe from the Estonian A Le Coq brewery.
Harviestoun (UK)
Bitter and Twisted ★★
Blonde beer that tastes of hops smothered in lemony washing up liquid. A hint of white pepper in the finish.
M&S Scottish Lager ★★★★
This starts out with a lovely floral aroma - a surprise given many lagers have no aroma at all. The taste is a mix of buttery malts with a hoppy grapefruit pith bitterness bleeding through at the end. Crisp refreshing and tasty.
Ola Dubh Highland Park 16 ★★★★★
As thick and viscous as they come with waves of peaty malt sloshing around in the woody finish without becoming too heavy. A nice late evening sipping treat.
Ola Dubh Highland Park 18 ★★★★★
Black oil beer natured in whisky casks. Dark, gloopy and viscous with a heavy peaty whisky flavour married to a treacle mouthfeel. At 8% the beer feels stronger than it is but without the alcoholic kick compromising the flavour. Truly a beer that has the feel of whisky. It's toffee and almond notes are deeply buried but the malty smoky aftertaste is unmistakable.
Ola Dubh Highland Park 40 ★★★★★
Oil black ale with a tan head. The aroma is rye bread & soy sauce with a crisp bitter taste with hints of coffee grounds. There is a spicy warm malty taste picked up from the whisky that steadily builds. A heavy fireside late night brew.
Old Engine Oil ★★★★
Pitch black beer with a tan head. Smooth, viscous, mouthfeel with a bitter roasted malt taste with a hint of dark powdery chocolate taste. A late night sipping beer that is not too heavy or potent.
Schiehallion ★★★★
Scottish pilsner made with hersbrucker hops and voted pilsner of the year in 2008. A good balance of hoppy and grapefruit flavours balance the classic dry finish. Full flavoured but still very welcome on a hot day. The aroma has fermented grassy hops.
Shenanigans ★★★★
Smooth dark lager with a gentle roasted malt and chocolate flavour. Light but not too gassy with a nicely building flavour. Hint of raspberry leaves in the aroma.
Hatherwood (UK)
Premium Bitter ★★
A rather generic smoothflow ale that has a bit of woody hop bitterness in the finish but generally little to distinguish it.
Hawkshead (UK)
A fairy liquid beer with a chemical citrus taste and little if no bitterness.
Brodie's Prime ★★★★★
Profoundly deep and dark tasting with a sharp fruit aftertaste. One to savour on it's own.
Lakeland Gold ★★★★
A hoppy golden ale that gets it's flavour from a mix of English and American hops.
Lakeland Lager ★★
Cask conditioned lager with a rather sharp citrus edge. Dry finish and little gassiness. Might appeal more on a hot day.
Heineken (Holland)
Amstel Pils ★★★
Fairly run of the mill pilsner. Dry and malty with a slight bitter citrus hop kick at the end.
Birra Moretti ★★★
Lager with a slightly dry bitter edge that is similar to Sans Souci.
Brand Urtyp ★★★★
Dry, "all malt" lager with a well judged gassiness and a gentle bitter citrus hop flavour. As good as mass produced pilsner from a multinational is likely to get.
Brand Weizener ★★★
Unusually flavoured witbier that's like Ben Shaw's pink lemonade (a Yorkshire favourite). Bright and light with vanilla and grapefruit. Thin, but refreshing and different.
Furstenberg Gold ★★
A beer that tastes of pot pourri and wet cats. Not enough flavour and virtually no aftertaste. Stronger than you think.
Hapkin ★★★
Perfumed aroma with yeast and citrus flavours and a dry chalky finish. An interesting mix but it rapidly feels flat. Apparently a Duvel copy, but it is fairly distinct.
McEwans Champion ★★★
Scotch ale with a brandy edge and a slightly fruity edge with hints of marmite. Looses it's strong taste to a dry gassy bitterness as you go.
Moretti Sans Souci ★★★
Solid Italian lager with a slight dry bitterness.
Wieckse Rose ★★
Witbier mixed with concentrated apple, raspberry, blueberry, cherry and elderflower juice. The taste is dry, light and fairly refreshing. 4% abv with little evident alcohol. A bit like a cordial with a gassy tingle at the end. Better than Hoegaarden or Gulpner Rose.
Wieckse Witte ★★
Smooth witbier with a fairy liquid hoppiness to it. Refreshing but dreadfully uninspired.
Zlaty Bazant ★★
The 'golden pheasant' bills itself as Slovakia's original beer. It was first brewed by the state in 1968 but has been under the control of Heineken since 1995. It seems popular with the locals but is just a moderately gassy pilsner with a gentle dry hoppy taste that doesn't distinguish itself from the crowd.
Herslav (Denmark)
Four Grain Stout ★★★
Danish imperial stout with an oil black body and a tan head. The beer doesn't mess around with a gassy burnt bitter coffee grounds taste dominant and a little warming alcohol on the finish. Good solid stuff to fight off the cold but the carbonated bitterness catches on the throat slightly. That said a gassy imperial stout is not a bad thing.
Hesket Newmarket (UK)
The bitter and malty aftertaste becomes too much
Hida Korikori (Japan)
Gero Gensen ★★★
Brewed using carbonated water from the TuyaOnsenGero hot spring. A crisp, if slightly bland, amber coloured beer with a hint of biscuit malt but very little bitterness. A refreshing alternative to a generic lager.
Hida White Beer ★★★
Unfiltered pale yellow coloured beer brewed with rice from Shirakawago. It's basically a plain Witbier, with no citrus or spice flavours dominating you just get gentle hops and a crisp refreshing finish.
Mt Hodaka Kolsch ★★★★
Crisp, gassy, unfiltered Kolsch that has a straw-like malty taste and a good hoppy bitterness in the finish. Better than many Kolsch made in Cologne. More striking if you avoid pouring the sediment.
Mt Yake Alto ★★★★
Crisp light amber beer with strong malty flavour and a savoury grassy edge. Has a real feel of substance to it. It lacks the typical dynamics of an alt but is pleasant.
Hida Takayama (Japan)
Pale Ale ★★★
Gassy pale ale in the English style with honey tinged malts and grassy hops. Refreshing, pleasant but not hugely memorable.
Weizen ★★★
Gassy wheat beer which has a nice mix of banana and clove flavours. The carbonation is over-dominant which obscures the complexity, but the overall effect is still harmonious.
Hidden (UK)
Tangy citrus beer with a vinegar finish. Quite possibly off when tasted.
High House Farm (UK)
Black Moss ★★★
This kicks off with an aroma of egg mayonnaise. The taste is a gentle, muted roasted malt with a hint of chocolate in there too. A tad bland but decent session fare.
Highgate (UK)
Old Ale ★★★
Strong (5.6%) dark, smooth English ale with a gentle malty bitter taste that would make for good session drinking. Could have more flavour for it's strength.
Highland (UK)
Orkney Blast ★★
Musty hop aroma with a rather bland oily mouthfeel and a thin malty flavour. Claims it is a barley wine but is only 6% abv.
Hilbre (UK)
Gold ★★★★
Dry, malty blonde ale with a woody, pine resin dry hoppy bitterness in the finish. Somewhere between a golden ale and an IPA.
Himalayan (Nepal)
Kathmandu ★★
Nepalese lager brewed under license in the UK using barley and wheat malt. Light and gassy with a dry grassy finish and hints of hops and malt. Becomes bland quite quickly.
Hirschbrau (Germany)
Doppel Hirsch ★★★★
Dark lager that has a sweet warming alcoholic malty flavour that hovers above bready yeast, roasted malts and chocolate. Akin to a rich dubbel without spice or fruit flavours for late night sipping like a beer cognac.
Hitachino Nest (Japan)
Amber Ale ★★★★
Puckering dry, deep mahogany coloured beer with bitter woody hops to the fore. There's a smoky note and the tangy edge of an English bitter. The carbonation is well-judged and blends with the long bitter finish. An effective combination of amber ale, brown ale and English bitter beer styles.
Espresso Stout ★★★★
Strong stout brewed with espresso coffee beans. The typical stout roasted malt flavours take up arms with the even more potent, almost granular coffee bean flavours. A bitter roasted hit with enough cocoa and carbonation to keep it easy to drink.
Japanese Classic Ale ★★★★
A nice balance of the fruitiness of a pale ale with the restrained dry hoppy finish of an IPA. As it warms boozy caramel flavours come to the fore. Dangerously drinkable for 7% abv.
Pale Ale ★★★★
Japanese Jaipur? This pale ale has much in common with Thornbridge's signature beer - tropical fruit, a dry bitter finish and a velvety malty base. Not as aggressively hopped as many IPAs making this very easy to drink.
Red Rice ★★★★
Dry pinkish ale with a mellow hoppy flavour that has hints of red fruit in there. The beer equivalent of a dry ros√� wine?
Weizen ★★★
A gassy Hefeweizen that isn't too sweet and has a good malty base to the banana and clove flavours. Lacks a little weight and complexity in comparison with the best weizens.
White Ale ★★★
Crisp, gassy and aromatic Witbier with the orange flavours being particularly bitter with ginger and nutmeg. It blends well with the coriander. Not full bodied, yet not quite spritzy.
XH ★★★★
Dark amber, strong (8% abv) Belgian style ale. There are bold malty flavours, stewed raisins and a hint of spice in what feels like a slim-line Abbey Dubbel. Aged in Shochu (sake) barrels this captures the raw, fiery, alcoholic edge of the Japanese spirit without overwhelming the classic Belgian characteristics. Potent stuff.
Hobsons (UK)
Mild ★★★★
Classic mild with chocolate, coffee and toffee on the roasted malt flavour with the bitterness having a gentle finish. Superb session fare.
Old Henry ★★★
Dark brown English strong ale with a clear coffee/porter taste that floats over a hoppy ale base. A good robust beer that doesn't feel heavy.
Postman's Knock ★★★★★
Dark smooth hoppy ruby porter with a chocolate malt flavour in the background. Very drinkable and quite mild in flavour.
Town Crier ★★★★
Straw coloured ale with a light and well rounded taste.
Twisted Spire ★★★
Easy drinking golden ale that has a gentle malty flavour but little else.
Hofbrau (Germany)
M√�ncher Sommer ★★★★
Unfiltered, unpasteurised kellerbier with yeasty fruit flavours - orange, lemon and grapefruit pith - with a dry finish. Interesting flavours whilst remaining very drinkable.
Oktoberfest ★★
Gassy German festival lager with a spicy, funky note to it and a dry bitter finish with a hint of chalkiness. Thin and slightly chemical without enough subtlety or depth of flavour.
Schwarze Weisse ★★★
Gassy, dark wheat beer with restrained, yet pleasing, roasted malt flavours. A session beer rather than a sipping beer.
Urbock ★★★
Tan coloured beer with a piney, malty, woody flavour that has a bitter hoppy bite at the finish.
Hogs Back (UK)
Bitter pale ale that goes very well with a hearty soup.
OTT (Old Tongham Tasty) ★★★★
Smooth as silk. Dark as night. Strong and tasty without being overpowering. A fine example of a dark winter ale.
Summer Ale ★★
Incredibly tangy ale with a caramel sweetness to it. Generic and underwhelming session fare.
Traditional English Ale ★★★
Does what you expect. An amber bitter with a full aroma and a good balance of hops and malt. Not too dry or bitter. A good session ale.
Hokkaido (Japan)
Otaru Bakusyu Pilsner ★★★★
Full bodied pilsner with an expansive malty flavour that has straw and biscuit notes pulled together with a bitter hoppy tingle in the finish. Overall it has a grassy edge to the dry finish. As it warms the flavours vary in intensity very pleasingly.
Holdens (UK)
Black Country Mild ★★★
Mild with a good hoppy bite and a chocolate aftertaste. Gets better as you get through the first half.
Burton Runner ★★
Golden ale with a light dry malty edge but very little else going on.
Golden Glow ★★★
Crisp hoppy golden ale with a light dryness.
Holsten (Germany)
Pils ★★★
Clean, hoppy lager with reasonable body and a slight dry bitterness. It's pilsner taste is quite gentle.
Honner (Austria)
Pfutzl Brau ★★★
A hoppy Austrian Marzen lager with a fairly high carbonation and a light bitterness. Lacks the crisp dry edge of many lagers but is fairly well rounded and does a decent job of framing the hops.
Hook Norton (UK)
Double Stout ★★★
Smooth stout with a deep coffee taste that has had the bite taken off. Good for an easy drinking stout that retains a depth of flavour.
Haymaker ★★★
Smooth IPA with a dry hoppy aftertaste and the slightest hint of citrus. Possibly a little too dry.
Hooky ★★★
Golden ale with a deceptively gentle malty flavours that builds up into a smoky aftertaste wafting over a restrained hoppy bitterness. It won't set the world alight, but you could easily drink it all night.
Hooky Bitter ★★★★
Dark golden bitter with a lingering creamy head. A slight hoppy aroma leads into a moreish dry malty and bitter taste. There is a slight gassiness that gives a good balance. It goes well with salty pub snacks. A great session beer.
Hooky Gold ★★★
Golden ale with little or no head. Bone dry and quite crisp with a hint of citrus hops and a lingering bitterness. Well suited to a warm summers day when you aren't desperate for refreshment. The aroma has a faint spiciness.
Hooky Mild ★★★
Thick chocolate malt on the nose leads into watery cocoa on the palate with enough of a malty punch to sustain the interest. It's not a stunning beer, but at 2.8% abv it's remarkably full and rounded.
Lion ★★
Rather soapy, dry malty beer with little bite for a "lion" beer. Underwhelming.
Old Hooky ★★★
Fruity amber coloured ale that starts off with a big hoppy taste but quickly settles down to a gentle nutty woodiness. An enjoyable light session beer that's pleasant ambience rather than striking centrepiece.
Twelve Days ★★★
Dark bitter ale with a light caramel and fruit aftertaste and a gentle sparkling fizz. A Christmas porter?
Hop Back (UK)
Entire Stout ★★★★
Full on roasted coffee and dark chocolate flavours dominate this English stout. It's gassy enough that you could mistake it for a dark lager, but there is no mistaking how tasty it is.
Pickled Santa ★
Aroma of toilet and leaf mould. The taste has a hint of grapefruit and star anise. Tastes quite watery for it's 6% strength. Vague waft of pickled onions in the background.
Hopshackle (UK)
Historic Porter ★★★★★
Deep coffee tasting porter with a taste of damsons. Strongly flavoured by very good when you are in the mood for something dark.
Hotteterre (France)
Blonde ★★★
Unfiltered blonde ale that's very gassy with a gently floral hoppy flavour. Has hints of a witbier. Way too easy to drink for it's 6.1% abv strength.
Howard Town (UK)
Amber ale with a sharp edge
Humpty Dumpty (UK)
Porter ★★★★
Deep dark porter with a treacly burnt taste lifted by a slightly syrupy finish. A heavily roasted aroma balances a faint dark chocolate note in the taste.
Huyghe (Belgium)
Delirium Christmas (Noel) ★★
Dry, syrupy beer with a distinct alcoholic edge (10%) and a faint spicy edge that is buried in the background. Very disappointing in comparison to their other beers.
Delirium Red ★★★
Dry, earthy cherry beer with surprisingly little sweetness and a medicinal edge. Neither a sour Flemish red ale or a hit of pure cherries.
Delirium Tremens ★★★★
Pure bonkers juice. Strong 9% spicy blonde ale that chases around your brain, but not in a bad way (unless you need to do anything complicated afterwards).
Floris Chocolate ★★★
It has the aroma of Jaffa Cakes but a slightly more subdued taste. Definitely a novelty beer but if treated like a Cointreau and Kahlua cocktail that it's not bad at all.
Floris Honey ★
Awful honey witbier. Fake, beauty product style herbal honey mixed with bad boiled sweets. Tastes nothing like beer and basically unpleasant.
La Guillotine ★★★★
Massively potent beer that hits in you like a fish round the face. Straw coloured beer in the vein of Duvel that messes with your head like Delirium Tremens, with a similar herby edge.
M&S Belgian Blond Beer ★★★★
A textbook Belgian blond ale. Gassy, strong spiced malty flavour with a dry hoppy tingle at the end. Full bodied and easy drinking.
M&S Belgian Cherry Wheat Beer ★★★★
Brewed by the makers of Delerium Tremens for Marks And Spencer's this is a wheat beer mixed with a high proportion of concentrated griotte cherry juice (30%). The cherry taste is very dominant and sweet without being too saccharine or artificial. The wheat beer base gives it a smoothness but it very much in the background with little yeastiness coming through. Much more suited to having with deserts and chocolate than it is to session drinking in a pub - but that is no bad thing. Better than Timmermanns Kriek by quite some distance.
M&S Belgian Wheat Beer ★★★★
A light witbier with a perfumed carbonated aroma. The taste is airy with the orange and coriander floating around the roof of your mouth. The finish is short and crisp with a hint of lemon. Pleasingly gentle.
M&S Belgian Winter Beer ★★★★
Kicks in with a potent alcohol burn that's tempered with roasted and caramel malt flavours. There's a slightly spicy edge, though there's no actual spice in the beer. Gassy enough to keep it light. A gentler Maredsous 8 or Westvleteren 8.
Mongozo Apricot ★★★
Mango on the aroma, mango on the taste. There's a hint of dry Archers and it's more alcopop than beer. That said if you want a refreshing alcoholic fruit drink.
Rince Cochon ★★★★
A Belgian biere-sur-lie that clocks in at 8.5% abv and feels a bit like someone Delerium Tremens and put it in a straight jacket as they were feeling a bit scared. Restrained spices and a pleasingly raw toasty malt finish. Cute glassware with a pig in the stem.
Ten Duinen Rousse ★★★
Clean tasting dark amber ale with warming malty flavours fading into a dash of apricot in the finish. Pleasant but not stunning.
Van Diest Fruli ★
Belgian white beer blended with strawberries that is verging on the alcopop territory.
Hyde's (UK)
Manchester's Finest ★★★
Creamy toffee coloured ale with a light malt taste and a slightly woody finish. Dry finish with a gentle bitterness tempered by the creamy mouthfeel and a slight hint of lime.
Trojan Horse ★★★★
Light, very easy drinking ale with a gentle hoppy aftertaste.
Idle Brewery (UK)
Overly hopped beer that leaves a sour taste. Light colour.
IJ (Holland)
IJ Bok ★★★
Exceptionally smooth and creamy for it's 6% abv strength. Dry and resinous with warming bitter caramel flavours with spices and dark fruits coming through. Potent and pleasing - but it's an ESB not a bock - and it doesn't quite stand up to the finest in it's field.
IJ Wit ★★★★★
A cross between the German and Belgian white beer styles. Deep gold in colour, full bodied malty flavour with ginger and spices coming through in the finish. Distinctive and very well made.
Natte ★★★★
Rich, fruity dark ale with caramel, bitter orange and coriander vying for attention. Rye bread on the aroma. The finish has warming alcohol, but it isn't dominant. Creamy, full bodied and good.
Plzen ★★★★
Unusually for a pilsner this is brewed using ale yeast. This is due to problems with the lager yeast the brewers were using. The result is a smooth golden ale with the dry hoppy flavours you'd expect from a pilsner. Cheating, but really rather nice.
Zatte ★★★★★
A perfectly weighted balance of heavy mouthfeel and light gassiness. The flavour is a wonderful fusion of malt, hops and spice that is smooth without being bland. Almost akin to a blend of Duvel and Tripel Karmaleit with a pleasing bitter kick at the finish. Very, very drinkable.
Ilkley (UK)
Ilkley Black ★★★★
Dark mild with a mix of malt & coffee and a hint of dry fruit. Light and very drinkable. Made with five different malts.
Mary Christmas ★★★
A pale amber bitter flavoured with nutmeg, cinnamon and dark rum. When chilled the flavourings are to the fore giving a rich edge. As it warms the woody biscuit malt become more dominant giving you a dry, tangy session ale with a dash of festive flair.
Ilva (Italy)
Grunge IPA ★★★★
Dark amber IPA that packs the regular hippy punch but with a robust, and slightly rustic malty edge that gives it a beautiful balance.
InBev (Germany)
Becks ★★★
Malty German lager with a slightly dry finish. Crisp without being blandly gassy, though the carbonation tends build up on the tongue. Nothing stunning though.
Becks Blue ★★★
Alcohol free lager with the typical twisted malty flavour with a hint of citrus. Dry and light but quite thin as well. Fair enough for what it is.
Becks Vier ★★
Golden larger with a decent size white head. 4% in strength and targeted at those something for a little weaker than continental European beers. It is basically fizz with a hint of beer. Far too tasteless for it's strength - if it was 2% or less it might have a purpose.
Belle-Vue Gueuze ★★★
An approachable, fruity gueuze that tempers it's sourness with an apple juice sweetness. Also called Becasse Gueuze.
Brahma ★★★★
A good """"day to day"""" lager. The taste is gentle enough to good with just about anything, but there is enough flavour and refreshment to drink on it's own.
Eiken Artois ★★★
The Artois take on an oak aged beer. The gassiness overpowers it's malty oaky taste. Not as complex as it could be but pleasant enough.
Hoegaarden ★★★★★
The classic modern wheat beer. Light in colour and taste whilst being very cloudy. More refreshing than many of the German wheat beers with an almost floral and aromatic taste with hints of lemon.
Hoegaarden Citron ★
A lemon and lime variant of the famous wheat beer that appears to be aimed at Sprite drinkers. Very sweet and gassy with on depth. It's 3% abv but it may as well be a soft drink.
Hoegaarden Rosee ★★
Very gassy fruit beer with a massive aroma of shop bought raspberry Gu puddings. The gassiness stops it becoming too sweet but masks much of the flavour. Somewhat akin to fizzy pop but would be pleasant in warm summer weather.
Hoegaarden Speciale ★★★★
A winter version of the famous witbier with more malted barley to give a drier taste almost akin to a chalky abbey triple. The orange & coriander are still well with the citrus lingering in the finish with a pleasing warmth. The mouthfeel feels gassier than the regular Hoegaarden.
Jelen Pivo ★★★
Perfectly decent crisp lager with a gassy body and a restrained malty flavour that rounds it out nicely. A well brewed beer.
Jupiler ★★
Fairly standard and nondescript lager with a watery hoppy finish. Very light straw coloured with little head.
Leffe 9 ★★★
Strong, soft beer with a foamy banana flavour and a slight alcoholic edge that grows as it warms. Has a touch of the Leffe spiciness in the background.
Leffe Blonde ★★★★
Strong and smooth tasting blonde ale with a deep golden coloured and the slightest edge of fruit and wheat beer to it. Fruit and coriander flavour with a gassy tingle. Slightly creamy and quite smooth without bland. A very good beer that lacks the flash of greatness.
Leffe Brune ★★★★
Fruity and tangy brown Belgian ale that is fully flavoured without being overpowering.
Leffe Christmas ★★★★
An archetypal Belgian Christmas ale? Has the classic Leffe spicy thumbprint but with a drier, spicier finish akin to German leberkuchen.
Leffe Radieuse ★★★★
Thick deeply spicy dark amber ale with a dry finish. The taste majors on cloves, burnt caramel and bitter orange. A real bruiser of a beer at 8.5% abv that would possibly benefit from being a dash more rounded. Potent late night fare. Bottle conditioning could add a chunk more depth that could improve it.
Leffe Ruby ★★★
Filtered Belgian beer with red fruit syrup added. Pale woody colour, smells like redcurrant squash. The taste isn't as sweet as you'd expect with green leafy flavours as dominant as sweet red berries. The finish is very dry and thin. It is the Leffe equivalent of Hoegaarden Rosee but slightly better. File next to the Timmermans fruit beers and think of cordials.
Leffe Tripel ★★★★
Strong Belgian abbey ale with the characteristic Leffe thumbprint in it's spicy taste combined with a foamy banana flavour typical of a triple. The gassiness makes it feel light whilst the bottle conditioning gives it depth. There is an alcoholic kick in the finish. A bold, punchy beer that lacks the spark of greatness but is very pleasing.
Leffe Vielle Cuvee ★★★
Bright and light Belgian strong ale with a gentle caramel flavour that blends into the usual Leffe thumbprint. Not as bold and confident as other types of Leffe but pleasing enough.
Quilmes ★★★
Crisp lager with a discernable hoppiness.
Staropramen Lezak ★★★
Smooth, clean pilsner with a dry, hoppy taste. One of the better mass produced European lagers, but not exceptional.
Stella Artois ★★★
The reassuring expensive beer that is better known to it's brewers chagrin as wife beater. No longer particularly strong or expensive in today's beer market it remains a decent continental lager with a crisp mouthfeel and enough of a hoppy taste to avoid blandness.
Vieux Temps ★★★
A straight down the line, malty, amber coloured that slips down so easily you'll hardly notice before it's gone. There are hints of salted caramel and wood but principally this is clean and inoffensive stuff.
Innis & Gunn (UK)
77 day matured Oak Aged Beer ★★★★★
Deeper and heavier than the regular Innis and Gunn
Blonde Oak Aged Beer ★★★★★
Fruity blonde ale with a hint of vanilla. Very good when chilled.
Highland Cask ★★★★
Robust malty flavoured ale with a thick toffee flavour and a hint of sweet vanilla. The finish is warming with a slight bitterness.
Irish Whisky Cask ★★★★
Thick dark brown - almost black - ale with a warming malty alcohol hit above it's 7.4% abv. The Irish whisky flavours are mouthcoatingly spirity with a smoky finish.
Oak Aged Beer ★★★★★
Full flavoured with a touch of whisky
Rum Cask Oak Aged Beer ★★★★★
Syrup coloured beer with a huge taste of stewed fruits and spices topped with a hit of rum. It has been matured in rum casks and wooden casks for 107 days. It's taste is like a lighter Westvleteren 12 and almost feels like drinking an aged spirit. A superb beer of rare quality - only available in limited runs.
Rum Finish Oak Aged Beer ★★★★
The updated version of Rum Cask that feels like it's had the treble turned up. Sweeter and gassier with a bubbling caramel to the fore. The rum elements are now more evident, but it lacks the syrupy, malty, bitter heft of the Rum Cask.
Scottish Pale Ale ★★★★
The thick oaky thumbprint of Innis & Gunn is clearly evident, but this is a lighter concoction with caramel flavours dominating. The citrus fruitiness is restrained, making this very distinct from modern pale ales. A great addition to the line up.
Triple Matured Oak Aged Beer ★★★★
Strong, smooth and malty beer that doesn't quite have the depth of flavour that the rest of the I&G range has but is still a decent beer in it's own right. Somewhat akin to the strong Belgian beers and barley wine.
Winter Treacle Porter ★★★★
Dark red, oak aged beer bolstered by molasses. This is like Innis & Gunn with the bass & treble turned up. Bolstering the typical oaky, malty flavours are sweet pine resin on the nose. The bitter roasted malts are offset by a caramel sweetness, whilst the syrupy edge is balanced by a lightening gassiness. Well balanced, well made and very interesting but just a dash short of being a genius brew.
Inspire Ale (UK)
Citrus Saison ★★★★
Thick, amber coloured ale that's been generously hopped. Alongside the robust malt and gentle citrus are menthol and blackcurrents. Distinctive but well done.
Inveralmond (UK)
Dry, slightly smoky deep golden beer. Generally crisp without ever feeling thin.
Invercargill (New Zealand)
B.Man ★★★
A confident pilsner, big on the hops with a dry finish. There is a hint of woody citrus in the hoppy taste. Designed to complement spicy food but good on it's own too.
Boysenberry ★★★★★
Boysenberries are part way between raspberries, blueberries and loganberries. This beer is a wheat beer that is flavoured with them and has a wonderful balance between sweet and tart flavours without forgetting that it is a beer. A great after dinner beer made in limited runs.
Dubbel Happy ★★★★★
Deep dark brown colour with a small tan head. The aroma has white chocolate, nuts and allspice. The taste is malty with salty liquorice and a slightly sweet alcoholic finish. A beer with huge depths and layers of flavours that could teach a number of Belgian brewers something. A beer that retains all the best bits of tradition whilst adding an original spin. Cellared for 3 months before release, this is a limited edition that the brewery should make on a regular basis.
Pitch Black ★★★
Suitably dark stout that has a fairly mellow flavour and strength (at 4.5% abv). The mouthfeel is heavy and velvety with the bitter roasted malts proving subdued and easy going. There is a hint of chocolate malt lingering in the finish and sweetly in the aroma that builds as it warms up. A solid, tasty stout that punches a little above it's strength. Accomplished but not by quite enough to stand out from the crowd.
Smokin' Bishop ★★★
A smoked bock with a dash of manuka honey in the aroma. The taste is sweet and malty with a dry, woody, smoky finish. A tasty beer that at 7% abv could have more complexity.
Ise Kadoya (Japan)
American Pale Ale ★★★
Overly soapy pale ale with little in the way of hoppy flavour. Rather forgettable, but in no way unpleasant.
Kumano Kodo ★★★★
Incredibly malty deep amber coloured beer with a really oaky flavour to it. There are hints of red fruit to lift it and a dash of bitterness in the finish. The gassiness helps makes it feel expansive. Quality stuff.
Isle Of Mull (UK)
Galleons Gold ★★
A strange metallic mixture of cocoa powder, honey, sherry and damp socks. There's something interesting going on but it needs refining.
Itchen Valley (UK)
Gentle amber coloured ale with a gentle toffee malt flavour. Pleasant, in a sedate way.
James Boag's (Australia)
Premium Lager ★★★
Crisp, gassy, hoppy lager with a watery finish. Not bad for a mass market lager but nothing memorable. A cold drink for hot days.
St George ★★
Gassy pale lager made with lashing of citrus hops. Light and refreshing but if it was any sweeter it would be a radler or an alcopop.
Jamtlands (Sweden)
Bitter hoppy amber lager with a foamy head and a woody finish. Has character.
Paskol ★★★
Brownish amber Easter beer with an initial fizz followed by a dry, woody hoppy taste. Elements of an assertively hopped English bitter. Strong (6%) and full flavoured but could have more depth.
Jennings (UK)
Cock-A-Hoop ★★★★
Golden Ale with a bitter hoppy taste. From a distance you might think this is a lager but it's full flavour will soon set you right.
Cumberland Ale ★★★★
Gentle, pale gold, English ale with a light but well expressed hoppy flavour. A great session beer or relaxing ale. Quite a high carbonation for an ale.
Fish King ★★★★
Smooth, golden coloured ale with a gentle blend of hops and malts that is balanced well.
Sainsbury's TtD Westmorland Ale ★★★
Deep amber coloured bitter with a nutty malty flavour and a bitter biscuit finish. A tad over-carbonated but it's a pleasant beer.
Sneck Lifter ★★★★★
Beautifully rounded strong ale with deep coffee and chocolate notes and a bitter finish. There is a slight creaminess to the mouthfeel but it doesn't colour the flavour. Not too heavy but with bundles of flavour. Impressive.
World's Biggest Liar ★★★
Dry and smooth amber ale with a bitter finish
John Martin (Belgium)
Bourgogne De Flandres ★★★
Oak aged, lambic based beer that is a tad thin and artificial when bottled. On draught it appears lighter with a woody fruity edge coming through more clearly. Akin to a less potent Rodenbach or Duchesse Du Bourgogne.
Gordon Finest Gold Blond ★★★★
Golden yellow coloured blonde beer with a big sudsy white head and stonking 10% strength. The alcoholic edge is immediate and dominant but is softened with a sweet fruitiness and gentle breadiness (but not yeast). Mellows as it progresses. Better than most beers of it's strength.
Gordons Xmas Beer ★★★★
Chewy, sweet and tasting of vegemite. A dark and heavy beer with a slight burnt edge. Would taste best when you have just come in from the cold.
Martin's IPA ★★★
A rather sedate, and quite gassy, IPA with a gently, buttery hop finish.
Martin's Pale Ale ★★★★
Dark amber ale with a lager style mouth feel but a bitter malty flavour that is slightly dry but well balanced. A favourite of Pierre Celis (creator of Hoegaarden).
Timmermanns Kriek ★★★
Very heady cherry lambic with the cherry flavour being very dominant and quite, but not overpoweringly, sweet. The gassiness balances it but the lambic base is hard to taste. Akin to cherry boiled sweets and lacking refinement.
Timmermans Faro ★★★
Spontaneously fermented beer sweetened with apple juice. It has the taste of a sweet cider with an interesting rounded sourness coming through in the lingering finish. Refreshing and fully flavoured if a tad too sweet.
Timmermans Lambic Blanche ★★★
Cloudy, pale yellow lambic mixed with wheat. It has a bright, almost sharp, citrus taste with a tart edge that reflects the typical tastes of lambic and witbiers. There is very little in the finish. Interesting, but to my taste a little light overall. Others disagree and it would be very good on a hot day.
Timmermans Lambic Doux ★★★★★
Flat, dry initial taste that is followed by a brief flash of peach and a lingering apple aftertaste. A light faro lambic that is very refreshing with a good depth of flavour. Bafflingly brilliant in taste, the experience is enhanced by it being served from an earthenware jug in the A La Becasse bar in Brussels.
Timmermans Oude Gueuze ★★★★
This begins with the characteristically pungent lambic aroma. The taste gives you sharp citrus and a rounded sourness. Maybe apple vinegar too. It doesn't have the complexity or edginess of the great lambics but it's full of flavour. A session gueuze?
Timmermans Peche ★★★
Golden coloured, headless fruit lambic beer with a strong gassiness that fights with a sweet peach taste for supremacy. The lambic taste can be felt at the end but the sweetness and gassiness are slightly too much.
Jopen (Holland)
Witte Rook ★★★
Witbier made with smoked malts. The smoky malt hovers gently in the background of the typical witbier coriander and fruit flavours.
Joseph Holt (UK)
Humdinger ★★★
Amber beer with Mexican honey. Hoppy base with a caramel honey tingle that isn't too sweet in the way most honey beers are. It has a bitter finish. Slightly artificial.
Maple Moon ★★★
This beer with 'a hint of maple' comes with theories about the power of the moon. An amber ale with a sweet malty taste that has a dry bitter woody taste of maple that becomes watery. A novelty twist on a standard ale.
Two Hoots ★★★★
An old school golden bitter with a pleasing skunky roughness to it's caramel and biscuit malt flavours. There's a nice bitter. Hoppy edge to the finish too. Old school beer like it should be.
JW Lees (UK)
Chocoholic ★★
Dark mahogany that's had some chocolate thrown in. Tastes like wobbly cocoa on the finish with any beer characteristics getting submerged.
Harvest Ale ★★★
Weird smoky aroma of rum, molasses and bisto. The taste is dry and woody with a figs, liquorice and lingering boozy fruitcake finish. The mouthfeel is oily and mouthcoating like a whisky. A winter warmer.
Manchester Star ★★★★
A wonderfully rich bitter with thick chocolate flavours mixed in some sweet red fruits. The caramel malt flavours tie the beer together beautifully.
Supernova ★★★★★
Gentle beer with a surprisingly dark colour for it's taste. Very smooth with biscuit and bitter hoppy flavours lingering in a creamy body. With time it becomes slightly chewy with a faint hint of coffee grounds. At 3.5% a great session beer for winter night if you are after something light but with a bit of flavour to it.
Kaimai (New Zealand)
Porter's Rye Ale ★★★★
Strong dark ale made with rye alongside the more traditional malted barley. Dry, sour cherries with a hint of bourbon dominate the malty taste akin to a Manhattan Perfect cocktail. It's almost closer to a dry fruit lambic than the porter the name implies. The finish is warm, dry and slightly tangy. Best served cold.
Kaltenberg (Germany)
Hell ★★
Dry crisp malty lager with a powdery potato flavour that dies away leaving a chalky taste. Mildly gassy. More character than usual for a helles but not great.
Kelman (UK)
Revolution In Your Bed ★★★
Golden ale with a light malty taste and a slight citrus / fruity edge to the finish. Refreshing session fare.
Kent (UK)
Porter ★★★★
Beautifully judged porter that starts off with an aggressive hit of roasted malts before mellowing into a creamy finish. Like an espresso that morphs into a latte or draught Guinness with added bite. A little complexity in flavours would make it near perfect.
Kerkom (Belgium)
Bink Blonde ★★★★
A curious hybrid with bananas, cloves and a hint of honey in the style of a Weiss but with some gentle smoked pancetta laced through it. A dry hoppy flavour starts to emerge as it warms. Experimental but nice.
Bink Brune ★★★★
Malt loaf, rye bread and stewed fruits to the fore with an initial sweetness that fades into a bitter malty finish.
Kernel (UK)
A.N.R. India Pale Ale ★★★★
Another aggressively hopped IPA. The strong citrus flavours and woody finish are firmly expressed over a peppery base.
Biere De Table ★★★
Kernel call this a French Farmhouse Ale. It's a fair guess this is their homage to Thiriez's Blonde Du Esquelbecq. Light and gassy with a tart hoppy citrus orange finish. There's an acidic edge that makes this a witbier with a kick. Too dry and chalky to measure up to the Thiriez beer, but a worthwhile brew.
London Porter ★★★★
A gassy and bright beer that feels like a Scandinavian porter. The base is smoky, roasted and biscuity with a smooth, creamy mouthfeel. A well rounded easy drinking porter with lots of character.
Pale Ale (Ella) ★★★
Kernel delivering what you'd expect - a generous hit of hops in a well crafted beer. As a single-hop showcase this is puckeringly superb with hints of thick sour honey and funky green vegetables, but there isn't a lot else going on.
Keswick (UK)
Light and easy golden bitter that isn't too bland
Thirst Rescue ★★★
A variant of Thirst Ascent with a barely discernable citrus edge to it.
Thirst Run ★★★★
Golden pale ale with strong bitter taste and sharp citrus edge. Strongly flavoured but interesting and refreshing.
Keystone (UK)
Large One ★★★
Deep golden coloured with a wide garden path of a malty taste that leads to overly prevelent corriander spice note in the finish that unbalances it a bit.
Kindl (Germany)
Crisp dry pilsner that does exactly what you'd expect and nothing more.
Berliner Weisse ★★
The only Berliner Weisse still made in Berlin. Has a watery sourness to it with a crisp grassy finish that has a hint of acidic limes. Thin with no lingering taste but could work on a hot day in preference to a bland lager. Usually served with red syrup (turning it into a berry flavour alcopop) or green syrup (making it taste like a woodruff flavour chewit). Both of these make it worse. To complete the impression of a beer for 8 year olds it comes with a straw.
Berliner Weisse Himbeere ★
Berliner Weisse mixed with red fruit syrup turning it into a berry flavour alcopop. To complete the impression of a beer for 8 year olds it comes with a straw.
Berliner Weisse Waldmeister ★
Berliner Weisse mixed with green woodruff syrup. Woodruff can be used in pot pourri or in moth detterent. In this beer it tastes like green chewits.
Kingfisher (India)
Kingfisher Lager ★★
Smooth, slightly pilsnerish lager with a bright taste. Not as good as Cobra as a beer to go with a curry.
Kingstone (UK)
1503 ★★★★
A dark ruby ale made to an old Tudor recipe. Very hoppy and smoky with a bitter aftertaste. The malty overtones it claims are very subdued.
Abbey ★★★
Traditional malty English ale that doesn't stand out.
Bitter ★★★★
Traditional light brown bitter with a good mix of fruity hops and biscuit malt with a dry bitterness in the finish that suits it. A session bitter with character and depth.
Challenger Bitter ★★★★★
A classic English bitter which is watery brown in colour with no head. Light in strength but will a very full taste thanks to the 'generous' amount of Challenger hops used. Very appealing and very refreshing.
Gold ★★★
Very light golden ale with a gentle, almost honey hop taste and a merest hint of bitterness on the finish. Good summer session fare.
Hapax Jingle Porter ★★★
Bitter roasted malts with a warming alcohol burn and a hint of burnt pan juices. This strong viscous porter isn't complex but does what you'd expect.
Humpty Fuddle ★★★★
Bottle conditioned amber ale with a frothy head that quickly fades. A little gassier than you would generally expect for a real ale the bitter hoppy flavour emerges soon after. There is a slight floral sourness that hovers over the beer then fades into a bitter aftertaste with an ephemeral flash of cherries. An interesting beer which doesn't quite have the balance it needs but has more to it than your average beer.
Premium Stout ★★★
Light stout with a clean hoppy taste and only a light bitter coffee ground base.
Tewdric's Tipple ★★
Clear amber ale that is dry and citric.
Kirin (Japan)
Ichiban ★★★
Dry Japanese lager similar to Asahi. Brewed from """"first press"""" only, but under license in this country by Charles Wells.
Kizakura (Japan)
Kyoto Bakushu Alt ★★★
Dry, gassy take on an alt beer with smoke and toffee flavours offset against heavy carbonation. A crisp malty beer would benefit from more complexity.
Kyoto Bakushu Kura No Kaori ★★★
Brewed with sake yeast this lightly flavoured lager has a delicate citrus edge and an air of refinement.
White Nile ★★★
Bright, gassy beer based on ancient Egyptian brews with a dry citrus edge and a hint of chalkiness. The finish is short, but in a pleasing gentle way.
Klein Duimpje (Holland)
Blackbird Schwarz ★★★★
Intensely roasted aroma and initial flavours that mellow out pleasingly. Gassy enough to make it lively but without compromising the coffee and chocolate flavours.
Hillegomse Hangkous ★★★★
Dutch take on a Scottish ale. Potent and malty with a floral aroma. Has the alcoholic edge of a strong abbey dubbel with a slight dark fruitiness and bitter finish. An assertive late night brew that's at it's best when chilled.
Smokey Porter ★★★★
This meets the trade description act. Black in colour with an off white head. The taste is initially smoke and peat with a roasted malted finish. The mouthfeel is gassy with the smoke and coffee grounds flavours intertwine in an interesting way with a spirity kick from it's 7% abv strength. A distinctive brew for dark beer lovers that is a slow sipping pleasure.
Koningshoeven (Holland)
La Trappe Blonde ★★★★★
Full bodied malty ale with a spiciness that blends into the taste beautifully. The carbonation adds to the mouthfeel without compromising the flavour. Very potent but with a subtle blend of flavours.
La Trappe Dubbel ★★★★
Robust chewy, malty dark ale with a bitter fruitiness. Smooth enough to be easily drinkable without being bland. There is an almost tangy edge to malty flavour with dark fruity hints in the background.
La Trappe Isa'Dor ★★★★
Trappist ale brewed to celebrate their 125th anniversary. Cloudy red in colour with a frothy head and creamy taste. For 7.5% abv it feels restrained, almost gentle, with a lingering yeasty flavour. There are caramel and raisin notes in the background and a gently warming malty coriander tingle. Overall the mouthfeel feels like a Belgian Ale but with a dark fruitiness in the flavour.
La Trappe Quadruple ★★★
At 10% this is a strong beer and unfortunately it feels a little overpowered. It has a malty taste but lacks the depth and subtlety that a beer of this strength needs. There are certainly far worse strong beers and it doesn't taste bad but you are better having 2 regular strength beers.
La Trappe Tripel ★★★★★
Banana tasting, slightly wheaty trappist beer that slips down very easily despite it's 8% strength.
La Trappe Wheat ★★★★
Creamy beer which has a wheat beer edge with a slight sweetness to it. Not the breweries best but very drinkable.
Krönleins (Sweden)
Straight ahead lager. Slightly crisp with a watery hoppy taste. OK but not exceptional.
Ikea Dark Lager ★★★
Fruity, malt loaf flavours underpin this dunkel but it's all quite gentle and restrained. A relaxed dark lager.
Krombacher (Germany)
Weisse ★★★
Light, bright and bubbly German wheat beer that is very easy to drink and quite refreshing with hints of tropical fruit occasionally appearing. There is a gentle yeasty note in the finish. Could have more depth but enjoyable enough.
Kronenbourg (France)
1664 Blanc ★★
Lemony yellow, cloudy beer with a small white head that gives a lot of lacing. Very gassy with a sweet lemon flavour that dominates the taste. It is almost as if someone has poured lemonade into the beer. Light and refreshing but a decent lemonade like Fentimans would be better.
1664 Premier Cru ★★★
Supposedly lovingly crafted by master brewers with the finest ingredients. In reality it is like the regular 1664 with less corner cutting and a higher alcohol content. It has a malty toffee taste soured with slightly too much of an alcoholic edge.
Wilfort Brune ★★★
Traditional brown European beer with an average taste.
Krug Breitenlesauer (Germany)
Landbier ★★★★
Dark lager that wallows in malty rye bread flavours with a nicely judged bit of sweetness at the end. Lively gassiness that is invigorating rather than overwhelming.
Krusovice (Czech)
Dark Beer (Cerne) ★★★★
Dark chocolate lager with slight hints of fruit (cherry, raspberry?). Very smooth with a coffee taste when drunk warm. Fairly light and gentle at 3.8%
Imperial ★★★
Slightly floral lager that has a full bodied ale style taste but lacking distinction.
Kulmbacher (Germany)
Eisbock ★★★★
Stunning strong tasting dark beer (9.2%) which is freeze concentrated to increase it's strength. It has a strong figgy, fruity, caramel taste with a lingering malty alcoholic after taste. Akin to a strong Belgian brune such as Maredsous, the alcoholic edge verges on the overpowering but it doesn't quite become too much.
Monchshof Landbier ★★★
Malty lager without that dryness or gassiness that typifies many German beers. This makes it very easy drinking but the only really memorable thing is the stone tankards it's traditionally served from.
Monchshof Schwarzbier ★★★
Traditional schwarz with a mellow roasted flavour and restrained hints of powdery chocolate. The finish is gentle but persistent and builds nicely as you continue to drink.
Kyoto Machiya (Japan)
Hanamachi (Alt Beer) ★★★
Dry, pale brown ale with biscuit malt, woody hops and a dry finish that has a hint of smoky toffee. The gassiness drives a hole right through the flavours, compromising the complexity.
Heian ★★★★
A really dry dark lager with the roasted malts laying a Tarmac road for this smoky beer with bitter chocolate and a hoppy tingle in the finish.
La Binchoise (Belgium)
Belgoo Luppo ★★
Dry and slightly chalky cloudy straw coloured beer. The mouthfeel is slightly gassy. It has an intoxicatingly light feel but there isn't much in the way of malt or hop flavours.
Belgoo Magus ★★★
Light blonde Belgian ale with a buttery taste, gassy mouthfeel and faint spicing. Easy drinking, belies it's 6.6% strength. Made with four types of grain. Bottle conditioned, the brewers recommend leaving the sediment in the bottle but it can give it more body. Solid but unexceptional.
Biere Des Ours ★★
Pale straw coloured cloudy beer with a big hit of citrus & pineapple mixed with TCP. Elements of a wheat beer but with the alcoholic edge of a strong malty blonde. There is an excitable fizz that fails to mask a thin flavour.
La Chapelle (France)
Northmaen Rousse ★★★
A sweet, malty ale with butter caramel to the fore and a pleasing gassy tingle in the finish. Easy drinking fare with a rustic spicy note that at 7% abv is stronger than it seems.
La Chouette (France)
Ambree ★★★
Malty dark amber beer with more bitterness than most French beers. Has a slight taste hovering on top and a gentle background carbonation.
Blanche De Cambrai ★★★★
A subtle and gentle Witbier with refreshing citrus flavours that never feel artificial. A great beer for a hot day.
Blonde ★★
Light amber ale with an aroma of cheap whisky (or Southern Comfort). It has a chemical adulterated malty taste that is sharp and short. Disappointing.
La Rulles (Belgium)
Cuv√�e Meilleurs Voelia ★★★★
Murky brown ale with sweet date flavours balancing the frappicino and warming alcohol malty flavours with a dash of lemon zest. Slips down disturbingly easily for it's 7% abv.
Lancelot (France)
Blonde ★★★★
Spicy golden ale that feels like a session triple. It has an alcoholic malty kick but is very easy to drink for a 6% abv.
Bonnets Rouge ★★★★
Strawberry red bottle conditioned ale with a creamy head. A rustic French hoppy taste is brightened through the addition of tart elderberries with a woody bitter caramel coming through at the end. Well balanced & refreshing.
Cervoise ★★★★
Traditional Gaulish ale with a blend of piney malt, herbal honey & lavender in the flavour. Amber colour, unfiltered, small head and a slight dryness in the finish. The beer is bright, confident and well balanced with a good aroma.
Duchesse Anne ★★★★★
Straw coloured, bottle fermented ale with a big creamy head. It has a malty herbal sweetness like a Belgian triple, a slight foamy coriander note, wheaty mouthfeel & banana aroma. Well balanced & light for a 6% abv beer.
Telenn Du ★★★★★
Dark beer with a burnt aroma. Combines the bitter coffee ground taste of a porter with a wheat beer smoothness at a very drinkable 4.5%.
Landtsheer (Belgium)
Malheur 10 ★★
Strong blond with a frothy head. The taste is a dry floral alcoholic malt typical of ultra strong pale beers. There is also a slight creaminess but the mouthfeel is light with little gassiness, like a filtered wheat beer. Too strong though.
Malheur 12 ★★★
Extra strong dark barley wine with a frothy head. The taste is bitter with the alcohol subtle on the taste but heavy on the head. There are elements of coffee, dark fruit & chocolate lingering in the background. Deep, dark and potent.
Malheur 6 ★★
Hints of orange and corriander but more than anything it's just carbonation. Hoegaarden that's gone through a soda-stream.
Le Moulin De Saint Martin (France)
Blanche ★★★★★
Very light coloured wheat beer with a slightly cloudiness that begins with a gentle taste and has flavours of caramel and malty as you get towards the end. A pleasingly restrained beer that sits well alongside food rather than overpowering it but is in now way thin or dull.
Leatherbritches (UK)
Owd Codger ★★
Light brown ale with a thin dry malty flavour with a hint of biscuit malt. Tangy session fare that could do with more complexity and refinement.
Leeds (UK)
Best ★★★
Golden ale that has a creamy mouthfeel combined with a crisp malty flavour. There is a slight hoppy tingle to add interest to this solid session beer.
Midnight Bell ★★★★
Smooth, silky dark mild with roasted malts mixing with ruby port on the palate. Full bodied, full flavoured and really rather nice.
New Moon ★★★
A black IPA that seems to fall between a bitter and Guinness. Smooth and creamy with biscuit malt and some dry peppery hops coming through in the finish. A pleasant mix but not up to the standard of other black IPAs.
Pale Ale ★★★★
Golden ale with a straw tinged malty flavour combined with a dry hoppy flavour. Has a spritzy, peppery edge which gives it depth.
Lefebvre (Belgium)
Barbar Winter Bock ★★★
Dark, slightly sweet beer with a hint of Bovril which is 2.5% honey. Initially smooth but with a fuller sweet aftertaste.
Blanche De Brussels ★★★
Tourist postcard label, Brussels in the title low(ish) abv, gentle use of cura√�ao & spices and a low price. This is a training wheels Witbier for those who might be intimidated by Hoegaarden, but on a hot day it's most agreeable.
Floreffe Tripel ★★★
Spicy, caramel, nutty banana bread flavoured abbey beer that has a mass of flavours going on and a dry aftertaste. Develops an alcoholic, coriander edge. Verging on overpowering and confusing.
Moeder Overste ★★
Very strange on the first taste. Very sweet but with a dry woody fruit flavour, like a purple air freshener. There is a caramel note in the finish mixed with carbonation and alcohol. Thin initially but with a chaotic aftertaste. Some batches of this could snap right into focus but this example didn't. A tripel, but it doesn't taste like one.
Saison 1900 ★★★
This saison feels like a lemony take on a Witbier. Spritzy and sharp but with enough weight to it's mouthfeel to balance things out. Not as agriculturally flavoured as you might expect.
Left Hand (USA)
Juju Ginger Ale ★★★
Amber beer with a creamy head that has Jamaican root ginger in place of some hops. The ginger soars in and dominates early on before it settles down in the finish. More flavour in the wheat beer base would help it.
Milk Stout ★★★★
Thick, black stout with a creamy lactose flavour. It retains enough lightness to be easy drinking. Nice looking bottle.
Liberation (UK)
IPA ★★★
Crisp IPA that has a surprising amount of biscuit malt in the flavour. A nice bitter/IPA hybrid.
Liefmans (Belgium)
Cuvee Brut ★★★★
Oak aged beer flavoured with cherries. A solid kriek with a good mix of fruity sweetness and a sour base.
Fruit Beer (Fruitesse) ★★
Ridiculously sweet mixed fruit beer. Cherry is dominant in the aroma but the taste is a confusion of red berries with a bizarre hint of sherbet. Would be a great ice cream sauce but it's not as good as a beer.
Gluhkreik ★★★★
Served warm as a festive beer it is sugary and fruity with the feel of a mulled wine. Though it is a cherry beer the spicing gives it the flavour of plums. Very different from a regular beer but a good winter warmer or an accompaniment to decorating a tree.
Goudenband ★★★★
Sour dark beer with a cherry finish. There is a bitter edge and a rounded fruitiness. Very good, but not quite up there Rodenbach Grand Cru.
Kriek Ongezoet op Vat ★★★★★
Available on tap in a few Belgian bars this unsweetened version of Cuvee Brut is damn near perfect. Very tart and very sour with a wonderful dry cherry taste. One to sip and savour. The finish is a lingering wisp of it's beautiful cherry flavour.
Oud Bruin ★★★
A gassy Flemish brown ale that is somewhere between chestnut and cherry coloured. There is the sour cherry tangy you expect with bitter oaky malts, but it's all quite pleasant and restrained. A mellow, easy drinking Flemish red ale that teases but doesn't quite deliver a killer blow.
Lindeboom (Holland)
Pilsner ★★
Flat tasting but gassy sour, bland beer with little to recommend it. There is a big gap where the taste should be. Completely lacks any zing.
Lindemans (Belgium)
3.5% abv lambic that tastes of apple flavour boiled sweets. Doesn't really taste of beer.
Cuvee Rene ★★★★★
A typical gueuze - it's got an aroma of musty urinals you can smell a mile off. Sour, dry and earthy while being citric and fresh at the same time. The mouthfeel is gassy giving a champagne fizz. Has the challenging complexity of the great gueuzes. Rough, filthy and, if sour beers are you thing, really rather wonderful.
Faro ★★★★
This packs a solid and satisfying sherry and sour lambic hit with cherry and apple in the mix whilst the Faro sugars add a caramel coating to it all. Sweetly tangy without becoming saccharine. There isn't much in the finish which makes it easy drinking indeed.
Framboise ★★★★
Sweet, gassy raspberry beer that feels a little like cordial but has enough of a weighty beer foundation to support it. Intensely fruity without feeling synthetic and at 2.5% abv you could drink it all night. Like drinking nice raspberry jam.
Gueuze ★★★
A suitably funky gueuze that has a real cherry sweetness and more than a hint of Flemish red ale. It feels a bit thin, tangy and commercial.
Kriek ★★★
At 3.5% abv this cherry beer is quite light and gassy with no trace of malt or hops on the flavour. There is a cherry pip flavour to it that is not overly saccharine but has an edge of boiled sweets to it. Similar to Timmermans Kriek, but slightly more natural in flavour.
Pecheresse ★★
Sweet and syrupy peach lambic with little beer about it. Not bad but lacks depth, subtlety and refinement.
Little Brewing Co (Australia)
Wicked Elf Pale Ale ★★★
An American style pale ale with a bitter woody American Cascade citrus hop to the fore. Crisp and slightly sharp with a dry finish that allows a bit of biscuit malt to come through.
Little Creatures (Australia)
Bright Ale ★★★
Bitter citrus hoppy ale with a gassy mouthfeel. Crisp fare that's like biting into an apple soaked in grapefruit juice.
Pale Ale ★★★★★
Fresh, full and fruity pale ale where the traditional dry hoppy taste is lifted by a slight sweetness. Exceptionally good.
Pilsner ★★★
Crisp pilsner with a chewy, fruity, citrus hop and biscuit malt notes that also come through in their pale ale. The finish is dry with a gentle bitterness and a light gassiness. A pilsner with decent depth and character.
Loddon (UK)
Ferryman's Gold ★★
Straw coloured ale with citrus hop taste. Quite thin and light but easy enough to drink but not to my taste.
Hocus Pocus ★★
A rather coarse tasting beer. Not bad, just not anything particularly good either. Described as "A ruby-red, traditional old ale-style beer with a wonderfully hoppy aroma from its blend of hops, complementing the deep malt-and-hop balance in its flavour."
Hoppit ★★★
Watery, light brown session bitter with a woody, hoppy flavour that steadily builds to give you a rather pleasing pint. There's a touch of chewy toffee malt in there too.
Lord Admiral Nelson (Australia)
3 Sheets ★★★
Pale ale that is big on the musty hops and farmyard feel. Bags of character but a bit strange.
Nelson's Blood ★★★★
Smooth roasted porter with a chocolate malt high in the mix. As it builds and warms it has more of a coffee feel. A Guinness style porter? A pleasing principle.
One Eyed Rye ★★★
Assertive dry rye malt character with a gentle gassy mouthfeel. Dry and characterful.
Quayle Ale ★★★
Light, piquant and citrusy golden ale that is really quite sharp without over egging the pudding.
Lorraine (France)
Abbaye Des Premontres ★★★
A French take on a Belgian abbey tripel. Dark gold with a big creamy head. It has a very bready flavour with a sweet spicy finish. Good without being distinctive.
Loup Blonde ★★★★
Fruity and floral blonde beer with a lambic style bitterness to it.
Lovibonds (UK)
Henley Gold ★★★★
A traditional weiss beer with sweet bananas and cloves to the fore. If poured carefully from the bottle without the sediment it is a touch more striking (which is unusual for a hefeweizen).
Lowenbrau (Germany)
Dunkel ★★★
Gently roasty and malty, this seems underwhelming at first sip but the taste steadily builds in the finish.
LowenWeiss ★★★★
Unfiltered golden coloured top fermented wheat beer with a big white head. A marvelous aroma of banana and citrus mixed in with cloves and spices greets you as you raise the beer to your lips. The taste steadily builds to a bready taste with orange and bananas on top and a light gassiness. A four star beer with a five star aroma.
Oktoberfest ★★★
Pale golden lager with a restrained hoppy taste and a smooth grassy bitter finish. The mouthfeel is gassy but not overpowering. Well balanced, easy drinking session fare.
Triumphator ★★★★
Deep mahogany in colour, this 7.4% abv bock tastes of stewed tea, maple syrup and waves of thick malt and a smouldering alcoholic finish.
Lupiline (Belgium)
Koriala ★★★
Incredibly dry blond beer with a big foamy head. The taste is almost powdery but it doesn't catch in the throat at all and has a delicacy to it.
Lupus (Belgium)
Wolf 8 ★★★
Dry, bitter, almost powdery dark ale with burnt roasted malt flavours boosted by a tingly hoppy bite. Gassy edge of a dunkel with a hint of chocolate and warming alcohol. Some interesting flavours but no killer punch. Some bottles are much smoother than others.
Lymestone (UK)
Stone Faced ★★★
Pleasant session ale clocking in at 4% abv. Bitter nutty flavours hit hard and linger but are never overwhelming.
Stone The Crows ★★★★
Smooth, malty ale with a hint of port combining with caramel and demerera sugar. Almost akin to an easy drinking Irish whisky. As it warms up the chocolate malt comes through.
M&B (UK)
Slight chemical taste. Not great but beats a pint of John Smiths/Worthington's/etc on draft.
Mild ★★★
Straightforward ruby coloured ale that slips down inoffensively.
Mac's (New Zealand)
Gold ★★★
Pale 'all malt' lager with a crisp light flavour and a well rounded malty finish. The mouthfeel is mildly dry and gassy but quite full. A pleasing lager with more character than the wet air mainstream counterparts.
Light ★★★
Mac's talk a good game with this 1% abv low alcohol beer - basically trash talking all the competition and claiming their beer actually has hoppiness, esters and all the rest. In reality it can't live up to the hype but it does have a pleasingly regular maltiness that just about struggles through and there is no sweetness to distract. Below average compared to regular lagers but impressive for a low alcohol beer.
Mack (Denmark)
Juleol ★★★
Typical Christmas beer. Mahogany brown in colour with a woody malt and lashings of stewed fruits. Gentle fizz up front that fades with an almost caramel flavour emerging in the finish. A good, but not exceptional, example of the style.
Mackeston (UK)
Stout ★★★★
Dark stout with a tan head with a taste that punches above it's 3% strength. There are hints of rice pudding and condensed milk but with a deep bitter base to balance it out. At first it feels a little thin but it soon fills out pleasingly.
Mad O'Reillys (UK)
Gentle, slightly bready and yeasty light coloured ale. Nothing special.
Lump Hammer ★★★
Slightly watery hoppy beer. Very bland but not offensive.
Magic Rock (UK)
High Wire ★★★★
Mango, papaya and lychee on the nose with a peppery hoppiness coming through in the taste akin to many US IPAs. Like a high quality American blockbuster remake of Thornbridge Jaipur.
Magic 8 Ball ★★★★
Another black IPA. There are peppery tropical fruit flavours underpinned by a subtle but persistent roasted malt flavour. One for those who like their beers to do two things at once.
Rapture ★★★
Like chewing on bark? Then this bone dry, woody, hoppy amber ale is for you. It has a funky flavour of forest floor to it. One for those who like challenging hoppy flavours.
Magpie (UK)
Strong (5%) golden ale with a gently building pure hoppy taste. Develops a sharp edge.
Mahou (Spain)
Cinco Estrellas ★★★
Strong caramel tinged lager with an interesting taste but probably not so good for heavy drinking or going with a meal.
Maisels (Germany)
Weisse ★★★
Clean and crisp German wheat beer with a gentle coriander base. Light and pleasant with a lagerish gassiness.
Malt Shovel (Australia)
Abbey Ale ★★★
Filtered Belgian style abbey ale linked with a Benedictine order in Western Australian. The beer is malty and tasty with a spicy thumbprint typical of abbey ale but the lack of bottle conditioning means it lacks depth compared with it's European counterparts.
James Squire Amber Ale ★★★★
James Squire was a convict who stole supplies to start brewing on arrival - receiving only 150 lashes as punishment due to the quality of the beer. Deep amber coloured pale ale with a dry malty flavour. Crisp with the feel of a cherry and caramel cake - maybe even a hint of carrots and tart fruit. There is also a dash of roasted malts. Full flavoured and easy drinking.
James Squire Golden Ale ★★★
Gassy golden ale made with a blend of lightly roasted malt and wheat. Caramel and tropical fruit are on the taste but have to battle with the gassiness. Interestingly but teasingly promises something even better.
James Squire IPA ★★★
Crisp, dry and slightly creamy IPA in the style of Greene King IPA. Decent and drinkable but nowt special.
James Squire Porter ★★★
A rich tasting porter with a port like taste underpinned by a smooth roasted malt taste typical of a porter. The finish is slightly watery and smoky with hints of powdery chocolate, almost akin to a mocha. Smooth and enjoyable but could have more punch. A gentle, comforting, late night brew.
James Squire Sundown Lager ★★★
Dry malty lager with a biscuit flavour and a gassy mouthfeel that isn't overpowering. There is also a hint of honey akin to Fullers Honeydew. A cut above the generic European lagers.
Manchester Marble (UK)
Chocolate Marble ★★★★
Malty, dark beer with nutty, gamey gravy flavour. Heavy powdered chocolate flavours that give it a dry finish. A bitter velvet pleasure.
Dobber ★★★★
Mangoes and grapefruit bombard you from the off before a dry peppery finish typical of an IPA. Distinctive but a novelty. Probably wouldn't want to drink too many at one go.
Dunkel ★★★★
Dark ale with a strong malty flavour with a sour edge that fades into a faint powdered chocolate finish with an orange blossom twist. Tastes like an English bitter but is actually 8.2% abv.
Lagonda IPA ★★★
Unmistakably an IPA. Heavily hopped, peppery taste with a dry puckering finish that has hints of herbs, tropical fruit and soap. Good for hopheads.
Saison Special 2013 ★★★★
This kicks like a mule and you are in no mistake that it's 9% abc. Rich, buttery malty flavours with a rough rustic edge, hoppy tingle and gassy edge. Good, potent stuff.
Stouter Port Stout ★★★★
Only 5.1% abv but this stout is thicker than a stupid imperial stout. The intense, granular, roasted coffee flavours lead into a malty finish with a sweet hint of port. A stout that punches above it's weight.
Tawny No 5 ★★★
Amber coloured ale with a woody, pine resin flavour with orange blossom water and rosewood essential oil. The dry, peppery, bitterness comes through in the finish but isn't overwhelming.
Weizen ★★★
Smells like a smoothie - foam banana, mango and apricot. The taste is surprisingly beery with gentle hops, despite the fruit flavours lingering. Quite fizzy. Very light for hefe-weizen.
Mariestads (Sweden)
Paskbrygd ★★★
Amber Easter beer with a gassy mouthfeel, malty taste and a slightly fruity bitter finish, Quite light for an Easter beer at 3.5% but maybe lacking a little punch. Decent lagerish session fare.
Marstons (UK)
Double Drop ★★★★
A light amber coloured ale with a gloopy biscuit and caramel malt flavour. The finish is crisp and gassy with a faint bitter hoppiness. Traditional English fare, but well done.
End Of The Road Festival Ale ★★★
A no frills, no-nonsense pale ale. Dry, slight soapy with a hint of straw within it's restrained hoppy edge. Restrained session fare.
EPA ★★★
A gentle golden ale with a hint of refreshing orange zest hops and a soapy malty base. Pleasing but unexciting.
Oyster Stout ★★★
Fairly standard stout with a well defined hop character but still fairly smooth. Designed to go with oysters rather than to taste like them. Enjoyable enough.
Pedigree ★★★
Smooth, creamy English pale ale with a mix of hops and sulphur in the flavour. There is a dry bite at the end which gives it some character.
Sainsbury's TtD IPA ★★★
Burton has been brewing hop heavy pale ale before Brewdog were a glint in their grandmother's eye. This has the characteristic dry peppery hop punch with the Burton sulphur snatch filling the flavour out. Despite being 5.9% abv it feels watery in comparison to US IPAs, almost akin to the deadweight on a staid old Rolls Royce.
Wicked Witch ★★★
Mahogany brown ale with a dry hoppy taste with a bitter woody edge. The hoppiness is strong enough to give it a spicy edge. The dryness can be a bit much but it certainly has character.
Math (Italy)
16 ★★★
Amber coloured ale with a full malty flavour that has restrained hints of caramel and smoke to it. Pleasant without doing anything special. 7% abv.
Matilda Bay (Australia)
Alpha Pale Ale ★★★★
A hoppier take on the regular Ozzie pale ale with woody citrus flavours coming through with a bitter tang at the end courtesy of the ""early and late kettle hopping"". The mouthfeel is gassy with a rustic edge to the flavour.
Beez Neez ★★★
This filtered beer bills itself as a honey wheat beer but feels more like a malty lager with a hint of dark honey on the aroma. Perfectly drinkable but nothing special.
Dogbolter ★★★★
Pitch black lager with a creamy mouthfeel. The taste has bitter coffee grounds with caramel, dark chocolate and a gentle bubbling gassiness in the finish. Intense and full-bodied without compromising it's drinkability.
Redback Wheat ★★★
Sweet wheat beer with a gentle spicy note. The mouthfeel is light and gassy with a dry finish that has a slow building citrus Saaz hop taste.
McGee & Watts (UK)
Adestes Fideles ★★★
Dark winter ale with a big hit of roasted malts that leads to a bitter granular finish, akin to fine ground coffee. The finish is fairly short which stops it overwhelming you, but might leave you wanting something more lingering for it's 7.2% abv strength. There is a warming alcohol caramel maltiness and a faint in of dark fruit in there as well.
Black Sea ★★★
Oil black mild with no head made with 3 types of hops. Dry, bitter & earthy with hints of old ales but a finish that mixes a gentle hoppiness with an oily imperial stout burnt edge but no alcohol hit. A mild fed into a distortion pedal.
Moeder Brune ★★★
A very dry mix of malt and hops with the faintest hint of fruit and spice. The kind of beer that glides across the base of your mouth like dry ice with a warming, slightly sweet finish.
Nonesuch ★★★★
Ultra dark mild with a profound bitter earthy hop flavour that is lifted by a slight sweet maltiness in the finish. Less intense than the black sea it allows the flavours to come through without shouting over each other so much. There is a lingering oily, smoky, roasted barley, coffee grounds flavour akin to imperial stouts that are twice the strength with a gentle deep rumbling gassiness. A beer with a taste arc.
Reinaert (Xmas 2011) ★★★
A traditional English ale with huge waves of biscuit malt crashing down onto spiky rocks of spicy hops to create an ale that slips down very easily. Seductive session fare that could move up to the next level by adding some more bite.
Yippee Kai Yay IPA ★★★
A textbook IPA. A lagerish gassy mouthfeel lightens a dry hoppy ale with a chewy flavour. There is a fresh finish, with hints of citrus and a deep rounded bitterness that is never overpowering. A great accompaniment to a spicy curry that could be a good alternative to Kingfisher or Cobra.
Mclaren Vale (Australia)
Vale Ale ★★★
Crisp malty pale ale with a biscuit edge and a hint of honey. Light, with moderate gassiness. The finish has a gentle bitter hoppy tang and a lagerish tint. A good thirst quencher on a hot day.
Meantime (UK)
Chocolate ★★★★
Dark ale with a bitter chocolate taste combined with the coffee grounds edge of a porter. Has the thick malty taste of a strong ale. Has a hint of powdered cocoa. Well balanced and a nice chilled beer for a winters evening. Though it lacks the complexity of Robinsons chocolate tom.
Franconian ★★★
Very dark lager with a punchy taste. Good in small measures.
IPA ★★
Light golden beer with a rush of flavours. Coriander, orange, hops, cloves and pomegranate are there at the start but the finish is dry and chalky. Apparently an IPA. Trying too hard to be authentic to the original dry hopped IPA style.
London Lager ★★★
Made with ingredients from Kent and East Anglia, this London lager is malty with a gentle dry finish in a pleasing but unremarkable way.
London Pale Ale ★★★★
Tropical fruits waft around before a peppery hop attack leads you into a dry finish. 4.3% abv and gassy enough to be light and easy drinking. A tasty and refreshing beer pitched midway between a pale ale and an IPA.
London Porter ★★★
A traditional dark, dry, bitter roasted malt tasting porter made with 7 malts. No head, a ruby tinge to the colour and a gentle big bubbled mouthfeel. Smoky and warming alcohol notes bleed through. A solid, enjoyable porter.
M&S Greenwich Ale (Barbados Rum Barrel) ★★★★
The 3rd in Meantime's barrel-aged series for M&S. this is more a dark ruby ale in the style of the Innis & Gunn beers rather than the previous porters. The beer is thick with a mix of brown and roasted malts with a smoky finish. The rum ageing adds a restrained hint of vanilla and some thick oak notes. Gassy enough to stop it being too heavy.
M&S Greenwich Hospital Porter (Bourbon Barrel) ★★★★★
Beautifully deep flavoured roasted porter with rich oaky flavours. As good as the Islay version.
M&S Greenwich Hospital Porter (Islay Barrel) ★★★★★
Aged in Islay whisky casks for 4 months this has all the woody, salty, smoky flavours you'd expect with warming alcohol, roasted malt and liquorice sitting discreetly in the background. It's surprisingly light and spritzy with a dash of perfume on the aroma. A gentle giant.
M&S Greenwich Red Ale ★★★
A thick caramel nose moves into a peppery hopped taste with a smoky finish. Very fully flavoured for it's 4% abv strength.
Pilsner ★★★★★
Smooth almost creamy tasting lager that holds it's head and has a very full dry hoppy taste with a peppery edge and a slight gassy crispness. Slips down wonderfully well.
Smoked Bock ★★★
A gassy dark lager with a robust malty base, a delicate smoky bacon flavour and a nutty finish. A smooth smoked ale, with hints of brown ale. Not a world beater, but a brewed beer nonetheless.
Wheat Beer ★★★
Traditional tasting cloudy wheat beer with no frills or twists. Slightly smoother than many German wheat beers with restrained flavours of lemon and cloves. Made from a strain of Bavarian yeast and apparently 'celebrating the complexity of the local German wheat beers' - it appears something got lost on the trip over. Sturdy not stunning.
WinterTime ★★★
Warming dark lager with a confusion of tastes culminating in a coffee note. Not one to drink too heavily.
Melbourne Bros (UK)
Apricot ★★★★★
Well balanced spontaneously fermented beer with whole apricots added that balances it's fruit and beer flavours beautifully.
Menabrea (Italy)
Clean, malty lager that is a bit on the bland side.
Mersea Island (UK)
Oyster Stout ★★★
Brewed on the most easterly inhabited island in the UK. Very dark without any real head. Has a pronounced dark bitter coffee taste balanced by the lightness of an oyster flavour that complements rather than dominating the beer. Basically does what is says on the tin without any particular finesse or excellence.
Meteor (France)
Reflets De France ★★★
Amber coloured large with a full bodied malty taste that lets you know that at 7% this is stronger, and better, than the regular stubby bottled French lager you find in hypermarkets. Similar to Innis & Gunn in some respects.
Mikeller (Denmark)
Black ★★★
At 16% abv this is not too be messed with. Thick and syrupy with a burnt marmite taste with apple and raspberry flavours in there somewhere. There is a smoky whisky flavour too.
It's Alight ★★★★★
Pale straw coloured ale with a sour musty citrus hop flavour that's like a blend of a gueuze & a dry witbier. There is also a hint of camembert but hardly any malt. A sour ale, light as a helles with big yeasty flavours. Some will think it's superb, others will think it's got a bacterial infection. I go with superb. Brewed at De Proef in Belgium for Mikeller.
Nelson Sauvin Single Hop ★★★★
A gooseberry bush of a beer whose aroma and taste fade into the dry, tropical fruit flavours typical of an IPA. Bold tasting, but not overpowering.
Weizenbock ★★★
Thick, caramel and papaya flavoured amber wheat beer with a strong alcoholic kick. Should have more depth and subtlety for it's 8.5% abv strength.
Mildura (Australia)
Storm Cloudy Ale ★★★
Somewhat watery Belgian style wheat beer with a strong, but not very refined, spicy flavour. There is a sharp citrus note as well. The finish is watery. Almost like a fuzzy photocopy of Hoegaarden.
Milestone (UK)
Dark Knight ★★★
Dark mahogany coloured ale with bitter powdery cocoa dominating but with a surprisingly thin and watery finish. There also a disturbingly faecal note to the aroma. There's a nice beer in there somewhere.
Raspberry Wheat ★★★
Evenly balanced wheat ale that has a gentle waft of raspberry in the finish. Unremarkable but in no way unpleasant.
Rich Ruby ★★★
Bitter mahogany ale with a tangy fruity flavour. There is an oaky element that adds to the taste but it is lacks a distinguishing element or focus.
Milk Street (UK)
Funky Monkey ★★★
A traditional take on an amber ale with a smoky flavour blowing through the bitter hoppy bite. Dry, with a little sweetness but a tangy edge.
Mermaid ★★★★
Chestnut coloured ale with a dry hoppy taste that is almost chewy and has a pleasant slowly fading finish. A slight citrus sharpness develops to add some complexity.
The Usual ★★★
There's a faint taste of glac√� cherry that lifts this bitter hoppy session ale. Satisfyingly chewy.
Zig Zag ★★★★
Roasted malts and bitter chocolate duel in this dark coloured ale. There is a hint of toffee and smoke to flesh it out nicely.
Millevertus (Belgium)
Le Mac Vertus TMBBSS ★★★
Creamy stout that fits into the modern template, but with a strange aroma of tinned peaches.
Minamishinsyu (Japan)
Amber Ale ★★★★
A well balanced amber ale with smoke and caramel in it's full malty taste with a bitter hoppy finish. A great example of the style.
Komagatake ★★★
Robust honeyed malty flavours with a warming alcoholic finish that has a hint of hoppy bitterness. Pleasant, if a tad underpowered for it's 7% abv strength.
Porter ★★★★
This is a complex beastie. There are chocolate and syrup flavours amongst the roasted malt and punchy bitter hops. The dry finish has an alcoholic burn beyond it's 6% abv strength. There's even a spicy hint of an abbey dubbel. A porter to take note of.
Minoh (Japan)
Pale Ale ★★★
Smooth pale ale with tropical fruit flavours from the hops balanced by robust malty flavours and a gently bitter finish.
Stout ★★★
Dry, roasted stout with a surprisingly short finish. The initial roasted hit is well balanced and has a rounded edge without losing it's bitter punch. A stout in soft focus?
Mjodur (Iceland)
Jokull ★★★★
Smooth lager with a gentle bitter floral taste. The makers claim it is fresh as a glacier. It is certainly refreshing. The hop and barley tastes are incredibly restrained. There is a subtle spicy note in the finish that builds pleasingly.
MOA (Italy)
14 Plato ★★★★
Full bodied Irish style stout with smooth roasted malt flavours completed by a powdered chocolate flavour that is none too dry or bitter. Nothing original, but pretty flawless.
Noir ★★★
A crisp, gassy dark ale with dry roasted malts softened by a sweet edge akin to an oatmeal stout. Clean and enjoyable session fare.
St Josephs ★★★
Strong traditional Belgian style tripel with banana and spice high in the mix and a warming alcoholic finish. The frothy head brings out the lightness of the mouthfeel. There is a dry and slightly chalky finish whilst the aroma has a hint of bandages about it.
Moctezuma (Mexico)
Bohemia Clasica ★★
Tinny, citrus flavoured light coloured pilsner style beer. Flat and fairly bland. Very thin for something that is 5%. Would be a passable session beer if nothing decent was available.
Dos Equis XX ★★
Overly gassy Vienna style lager beer brewed in Mexico. Goes very well with salami but poor on it's own.
Molen (Holland)
Bat Out Of Hell (Oak Aged Version) ★★★★
A fusion of Molen Hell & Damnation and Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Stout aged in oak casks. Dry, woody and hoppy with a lively gassiness and a powdery chocolate and coffee note. Surprisingly light, but not lightweight.
Bed & Breakfast ★★★
A beer made with coffee beans. Deep amber in colour there is a brief flash of a mildly hoppy pale ale before the coffee flavours kick in. There are no burnt bitter flavours nor the heavy syrupy feel of many dark ales with coffee notes making this a curiosity.
Bloed Zweet & Tranen ★★★
Sticky BBQ ribs (slightly burnt) and charcoal with a dash of swimming pool chlorine dominate this smoked imperial porter. An assertive dark beer with distinctive hoppy flavours.
Bommen & Granalen ★★★
Bombs & Grenades is a barley wine desert beer that clocks in at 15.2% abv. The taste is malty, syrupy and alcoholic with Pedro Ximenez sherry and dry bitter oranges. The alcoholic burn in the finish is akin to a spicy woody whisky. Interesting, but incredibly potent.
Brood & Spelen ★★★
A rye IPA that is pale straw colour. The dry, hoppy tingle is evident but restrained with the rye malt softening the flavour. The 7.1% abv is warming but not overwhelming. There's also a hint of salted caramel to sweeten and soften it further. Another well crafted beer from Molen.
Citra Pale Ale ★★★★
A well executed showcase for the citra hop. Dry, but not overly peppery or resinous, with a musty citrus flavour that has a real hop flower edge to it. A good summer beer that's refreshing and refreshingly earthy.
Donder & Bliksem ★★★★
The Dutch brewers Pilsner has the dry citrus hop edge of their IPAs, but the gassiness makes it feel lighter. A lager with bite.
Engels ★★★★
The hardcore Dutch brewers try an English style beer. Well it's less than 5% abv, but apart from that it's a typical Molen IPA with potent bitter citrus hops from start to finish. Hard hitting but not OTT.
Geboren & Getogen ★★★★
Birch smoked ale that keeps it's smokiness delicate and restrained rather than lapsing into smoky bacon. There is a restrained hoppy bite. At 4% abv it's a light Molen beer that doesn't feel like it compromises on taste.
Hemel & Aarde ★★★★★
Imperial stout aged in barrels from the Bruichladdich distillery, makers of one of the most heavily peated malts in the world. Oil black in colour it is silky smooth and flat. There is a gentle Amarillo hop taste laying beneath a deep bitter smoky flavour. The peaty whisky comes through in the finish. Lighter than most imperial stouts, but with depth and refinement.
List & Bedrog ★★★★
A stout, expresso coffee and a islay single malt whisky rolled into one. Massively bitter and smoky and a little like sandpaper on the throat, but in small measures it's a potent pleasure
Man & Muis ★★★
An inviting blackberry and apricot aroma is initially joined by some bitter hops but it quickly feels tired and flat. A beer that peters out after showing great promise, but it's still an easy drinking pleasure.
Molenbier ★★
If you ate pineapples all day this is what it would smell like when you went to the loo. Fruity, funky, hoppy with an acid hint of TCP and resin. Much improved if you don't pour the sediment. Quite startling.
Op & Top ★★★★
Pale amber in colour this is a dry beer with a well balanced bitter citrus hop (cascade & amarillo) that is not overpowering. There is some caramel malt in the finish. Full bodied and satisfying.
Sladek Hopburst ★★★★
Assertive IPA with a flash of tropical fruit followed by a charge of dry, peppery, powdery hops. The fruit bleeds back in the finish. 6.2% abv with a robust, potent feel.
Spanning & Sensatie ★★★★
Flat, pitch black, imperial stout made with chilli, chocolate and sea salt. These additions provide subtle notes to enliven the thick roasted malts. The finish is dry, bitter and smoky. An accomplished strong beer.
Vuur & Vlam ★★★★
If this was any chalkier you could write on blackboards with it. Dry, hoppy, grapefruit pith flavours with a puckering resin finish. A serious IPA that doesn't mess around but isn't piss takingly peppery.
Montagnarde (Belgium)
Amber Triple ★★★★
Robust amber triple with an alcoholic toffee malt flavour with a bitter hoppiness in the finish. There is a chewiness to it and the faint hint of foamy banana sweets. Feels slightly artificial but very tasty.
Monteiths (New Zealand)
Celtic Red Beer ★★★★
Irish style ale with a woody kiln roast flavour that is akin to a sherry cask whisky. The finish has a dash of chocolate malt and a light gassiness. Overall it is quite light to drink but still fully flavoured.
Original Ale ★★★
Well balanced pale ale with a gentle hint of caramel in it's maltiness. The brewers claim a hint of blackberry which peeks it's head out at the end. Not a fiesta of flavours but a well executed pale ale.
Summer Ale ★★★
Made with rata honey this beer tastes overwhelming of ginger. Crisp and fairly dry in the finish, due to the ginger, with a gassiness that complements the flavour. Little malt or hops evident. Distinctive and refreshing, but not what you'd initially expect.
Moor (UK)
Raw ★★★
Raw by name, and raw by nature. This pale amber coloured ale has a tangy malt flavour with a dry, chalky astringency and a lingering hoppy bitterness. Somewhere between a golden ale and an IPA.
Moorhouse (UK)
Blond Witch ★★★★
Easy drinking blond ale that doesn't feel too strong or bland. Creamy, with a hint of straw and a gentle biscuit malt.
Moortgat (Belgium)
Duvel Green ★★★
Strong, gassy, lively straw coloured ale. The taste is warming alcoholic and malty with a white peppery flavour. There is a metallic edge to it as well with a sugary dry finish. There is a hint of honey and lemon in the taste as well.
Duvel Rood ★★★★★
Straw coloured strong ale (8.5%) that floats like a butterfly on the palate whilst still packing a hefty taste.
Duvel Tripel Hop ★★★★
Intensely hoppy beer that dances all around the taste buds. A beer to be intrigued by. Limited run.
Duvel Tripel Hop 2012 ★★★★★
Duvel, pulled into IPA territory with a thick citrus hop flavour. A great special edition with lively gassiness that's never overpowering but not to be trifled with. It also retains the crisp flavours of the traditional Duvel but oily, piney edge.
Maredsous 10 Tripel ★★★
Full bodied tripel with a strong alcoholic edge that blends reasonably with a creamy coriander base. Pleasingly warming and well suited to drinking after dinner in place of a whisky but it could be more balanced and have a greater flavour.
Maredsous 6 Blonde ★★★★
Golden amber ale with a big white foamy head. Creamy, bready tasting with the slight spiciness in the aftertaste. Generally quite restrained for a Belgian pale ale. Very drinkable and with subtle pleasures that slip into view when you sit back and enjoy.
Maredsous 8 Bruin ★★★★★
Creamy dark dubbel with a slightly dry, bitter hoppy taste that drifts into a hint of fruit in the aftertaste. A strong viscous beer with full flavours that are never overpowering and retain their subtlety whilst still having a real kick in the finish.
Ommegang Rare Vos ★★★
Amber ale meets Duvel? This has the spirit bright warming alcoholic notes of Duvel with a sweet caramel malt edge, bittersweet orange peel and a hint of smoke. Clean, punchy and with a gentle hoppy tang. Could have more of a punch, but has enough complexity to keep it interesting.
Vedett Blonde ★★★
Very, very gassy lager with a crisp, full taste. Possibly a bit too likely to cause burping to be drunk too readily, but still pleasing.
Vedett White ★★★★
Smooth, wheat beer that is similar to Hoegaarden, Slight coriander flavour, very drinkable, very good and not wrecked by the brewer throwing half the contents of a spice rack into the beer to liven it up.
Mor Braz (France)
Ambree (La Bi√�re du Grand Large) ★★★★★
Tripel fermented beer made with sea water. Light amber colour with a slightly salty bright malt taste that is refreshing and moreish.
Mordue (UK)
All Wheat Pet ★★
Exceptionally bland straw coloured ale. Light in colour and taste. Very drinkable in the same way that water is. A faint bitter citrus malt emerges at the end.
Geordie Pride ★★★
Dry beer with a gentle bitter citrus taste mixed with a speckled hen like nuttiness. Little lingering flavour.
Morita Kinshachi (Japan)
Golden Ale ★★★★
A bright fruity golden ale with white grape, peach and grapefruit pith pinging out of the hops and a gassiness that accentuates the tart flavours. A spritzy, champagne like pleasure from sale brewer Morita.
Morpheus (Belgium)
Wild ★★
A dark, musty sour ale that's a mix of Flemish red ale blended with brown ale. A strange mix of Belgian beer styles or weirdly polluted chocolate dipped cherries. Unpleasantly unbalanced.
Mort Subite (Belgium)
Faro ★★★★★
Sweet beer that has elements of cider and sherry in the taste. Similar to the Mort Subite bottled Gueuze but with a subtler aftertaste.
Gueuze ★★★★
Sweet and fruity beer that is verging on cider territory but the unmistakable musty sour taste of a lambic comes through. There is an aroma and taste of pickled gherkin and dill pickles. Interesting and distinctive whilst remaining well balanced and easy to drink.
Kriek ★★★
Very, very sweet kriek. A very slight sourness at the end balances it slightly but it's a bit like a squash. Still easy to drink though.
Lambic ★★★★
Amber spontaneously fermented beer with a light creamy head. It has an acidic fruity spritzy, almost cider like taste balanced with a sour gassiness. Good depth and well rounded.
White Lambic ★★★★★
Dry beer with a strong taste of apricots. No thin chemical fruitiness that you often get in beers. Very refreshing and a good choice if you are in the mood for something fruity.
Mostodolce (Italy)
Black Doll ★★★
They claim it's a stout but the robust hops and lack of creaminess mark this roasted malt fest out as a porter. Thick and satisfying. It's not distinctive, but it's enjoyable fare.
Volpe ★★
Gassy but ultimately bland and underwhelming bock that only has the thinnest of roasted malt flavours sneaking through.
Mouden (UK)
Blonde beer with a sharp citrus hoppy taste. Easy drinking but lacking in depth.
Mountain Goat (Australia)
Hightail Ale ★★★★
Smooth malty mahogany coloured ale with a caramel and biscuit flavour. There is also a light fruitiness akin to Australian pale ales. There is a hint of spice in the finish that feels a touch peaty. Well balanced, very tasty and tastes good cold.
Steam Ale ★★★★
A bitter, earthy beer with a hoppy flavour that has a bright citrus note at the finish. Full bodied but with a light mouthfeel thanks to the gentle gassiness. Dry, but not puckering. A rewarding beer.
Mousel (Luxembourg)
Gezwickelte Beier ★★★★
Unfiltered lager served from earthenware mugs in Mousels cantina in Luxembourg City. It has a coarse mouthfeel but still feels light. The taste is clean and malty with the merest hint of hoppy bitterness. A quaffing beer.
Murphys (Ireland)
Irish Red Ale ★★
Processed creamy mouthfeel akin to Greene King IPA. The taste is watery with a smoky malty flavour and a hint of caramel. Bland with a dash of ash-tray.
Stout ★★★
Only has a light bitterness with a bright citrus hop being more prevalent. Light but fairly creamy.
Musketeers (Belgium)
Troubadour Magma ★★
Sweet, warming alcoholic malt flavours dominate with a hint of hard boiled egg of the aroma. Too potent for it's own good. The mouthfeel is syrupy and sugary.
Naylor's (UK)
Golden ale with a light spicing but generally a watery hoppy taste. Forgettable but drinkable.
Santa's Darkside ★★★★
As smoky as a field in bonfire night, with a malted chocolate sweetness in the finish. The bitterness is clean and never overpowering. A rye bread mocha with a warming whisky edge? Rounded and friendly.
Nelson (UK)
Very hoppy golden ale that didn't impress
Spinnaker ★★★★
Has the feel of a woodland carpet on a warm summers day. The dry woody hops linger long into the finish with a hint of cherry. It's all light enough to work as a session ale.
Nethergate (UK)
Essex Border ★★★
Golden brown ale that is light in colour but has a deep, bitter and massively hoppy taste. Only a creeping dryness stops this fine ale from getting a strong recommendation.
Greedy Pike ★★★
Dark amber ale with no head. Very malty in taste but still a bit watery. Overall very drinkable but lacking depth.
Red Poll ★★★
Mahogany coloured ale with an almost porterish bitter taste married with a fruity maltiness.
Umble ★★★
A marmalade beer? There is orange blossom water on the aroma and a slightly sour malty flavour with a hint of coriander in the finish. Nice but a tad watery and in distinct in the finish.
Neuzelle (Germany)
Schwarzer Abt ★★★★
The aroma is coffee but the taste is chocolate and caramel. At 3.9% abv it's lighter than traditional schwarzbiers. Smooth and very easy drinking like Mackeston Milk Stout. Sweet like Kahlua - a desert beer.
New-K-Ham (UK)
Puffin ★★★
Ruby ale that slipped down nicely as the fifth pint of the evening. Similar to John Smiths, but much nicer.
Newcastle (UK)
Brown Ale ★★
Brown and rather lifeless colour. Fairly thin taste with a gentle hoppiness and a hint of coke in the gassy finish.
Nocturnal Ale ★★
A brash acidic dark tawny ale with a bit of alcoholic burn roughness to it. These are some interesting fruity notes, with a hint of rum cask ageing, but it needs way more finessing. The aroma promises more than the taste delivers.
Niigata (Japan)
Espresso Beer ★★★★
A mocha espresso beer? There are rich chocolate flavour alongside the rich roasted grains that blend well with the warming alcoholic kick at the end. Not the most diverse beer but a potent late night pleasure.
Shinshu Soba Kikou ★★★
A beer made with buckwheat (soba). It starts off somewhere between a wit and a Weizen, but then the buckwheat takes the corriander flavours with an edge of floury grains. With the sediment mixed in you get good floral aromas. A distinctly different wheat ale.
Nogne O (Norway)
Bitter ★★★
Golden coloured bitter with a mixture of hops giving it a wide blend of flavours (wood, citrus, fruit) and a refreshing lightness. There is a gentle fizz in the end which gives it body. The finish is bitter but it's more of a golden ale.
God Jul ★★★★
8.5% abv dark ale with liquorice and roasted malts folded into a bitter caramel base with some dark fruits. For a Christmas beer it's subtle, smooth and restrained but with a warming heft.
Havrestout ★★★
A light oat stout brewed at 4.5% abv because the brewers claim that Norwegians are scared of dark beer and wanted to brew them something gentle and drinkable. The taste is has a dense coffee bitterness that is smoothed off considerably by the oats with a gentle fizz and dryness at the end which masks the flavours somewhat. A pleasant beer that lends itself to session drinking.
Imperial Brown Ale ★★★★
An interesting blend of styles. The warm bitterness of an imperial stout but with the intense coffee hit. The richness of a Belgian bruin without the sweetness. The chewy maltiness of a bitter but with great potency.
Pale Ale ★★★
Rural, rustic, hoppy ale with the feel of the farmyard. Akin to a pale bitter but with a robust peppery hoppy flavour akin to an IPA.
Tiger Tripel ★★★★
A full bodied tripel with smoke, oak moss and banana bubblegum amongst it's potent alcoholic kick.
Two Captains ★★★
Robust American style IPA with peppery hops that have a sour tropical edge. It has the aggressive dryness of your average desert.
Wit ★★★
Fizzingly effervescent with a light frothy head and a bright grapefruit pith and spice flavour. Very pleasant, but won't trouble the Belgians.
Norrebro (Denmark)
Graupner Schwarz ★★★★
Dark, German style lager with smoke, malt and chocolate in the taste and aroma. Thick and heavy above it's 4.9% strength but the fizz lightens it up. A good beer for a cold dark night with a smoky finish.
Paske Bock ★★★★
Mahogany coloured Easter dark lager with a potent mix of malt and raisins on the taste. Stewed rich dark fruit, almost like a Christmas ale, and caramel linger in there too. There is a gentle fizz that complements the flavours.
Ravnsborg Rod ★★★
From a Copenhagen microbrewery this amber red ale has a dry, bitter and malty taste with quite a bit of fizz. There is a hint of sour apple whilst the finish is basically lingering carbonation. A combination of a Danish pilsner and an English bitter.
Stuykman Wit ★★★
Unfiltered, but extremely clear, wheat beer with a clean refreshing taste and a gentle wheat malt taste and a light fizz. Not packed with flavour but a good beer for sipping in the sun. Contains coriander and orange peel but much light than a traditional Belgian witbier.
North Cotswold (UK)
Shagweaver ★★
A rather funky pale bitter where the New Zealand hops feel like they've gone a bit stale and vegetal. Underwhelming to say the least.
North Yorkshire (UK)
Light processed tasting ale with a slight tang.
O'Hanlons (UK)
Goodwill Bitter ★★★
Fruity dark ale with a sharp tang to it. Has enough flavour about it to make it interesting but lacking refinement.
Port Stout ★★★
Smooth tasting stout with the small amount of port tempering the standard burnt coffee taste. Has a gentle oatmeal edge. Overall it is well balanced but not as fascinating as it seems.
Oakham Ales (UK)
Asylum ★★
Citrus (fairy liquid) tasting light coloured beer with a lingering dryness. Tastes quite thin, though it has a zing.
Atilla ★★
Overpowered light coloured beer whose 8% strength gives it a tangy edge. Not great.
Bishops Farewell ★★★
Somewhat watery ale that builds up a pleasing dry, hoppiness by the end of a pint. Likely to be good for prolonged drinking.
Citra ★★★
Dry, citrus tasting light straw coloured ale with a persistent hoppy tingle. There is a hint of biscuit with a kick of kiwi fruit without quite lapsing into washing up liquid territory. When chilled the hoppiness becomes more intense.
Haka ★★
Dry and bitter light coloured ale that doesn't do anything to distinguish itself.
Hawse Buckler ★★★
Puckeringly bitter and dry dark ale that doesn't really deliver n the promised chocolate and raisin flavours it promised. Nice for a roasted hit but doesn't deliver much more than that.
Inferno ★★★
Light blonde beer with a mild balanced taste.
JHB ★★★★★
Light golden ale with gently bitter floral taste that lingers in the finish with a faint hint of citrus. Very easy drinking with a set of flavours that steadily build as you keep drinking. An excellent session bitter that balances a light touch with a beautiful expressed flavour profile.
M&S Cambridgeshire Golden Ale ★★★★
Triple hopped ale with a satisfying mix of biscuit, bitterness and citrus that has quite a bite to it. A great standard session ale that would be even better with bottle conditioning to give it heft rather than a faintly thin carbonised finish.
Mompesons Gold ★★★★
Seasonal beer from the Peterborough brewer.
Scarlet Macaw ★★★
Intensely hoppy resinous ale that is dry and puckering with tinny grapefruit flavours. A tad harsh and overpowered, but should appeal to hop heads.
Tranquility IPA ★★★
Peppery IPA with a hint of tropical fruit in the finish - but not much. One for those who like a bit of a burn with their beer.
Warspite SDA ★★★
Pale Amber coloured ale with a big tangy biscuit malt flavour. Slightly dry finish with hints of toffee, nuts and bitterness.
White Dwarf ★★
Sour tasting wheat beer that suffers in comparison with German wheat beers.
Obolon (Ukraine)
Oksamitove (Velvet) ★★★★★
Mahogany hued dunkel with a light mouthfeel underpinned with a gentle gassiness. Bread and raisins dominate the taste with a posterish bitterness. Light but full of flavour.
Oc'Ale (France)
Biere Au The ★★★★
Unfiltered blonde beer made with Wulong tea from Maison Chu Yuan in Toulouse. Sour citrus fruit flavours with a firm malty base akin to a triple or Hefeweizen and an expansive gassiness. The bitterness of the tea seeps through in the finish. A restless beer that keeps shifting. 6% abv but it still feels light.
Odells (USA)
5 Barrels Pale Ale ★★★★
Tropical fruit flavours surf down your tongue on a wave of peppery, woody hops. Quite restrained for an American craft brew and all the better for it.
90/- ★★★
Marmite and caramel in a beer, but not in a bad way. Malty, warming and slightly bitter with orange marmalade an bitter powdered chocolate in the finish.
Pond Hopper ★★★★
Potent golden ale with a floral hoppy flavour with apricot and peach amongst the peppery bitterness. An assertive beer that's been crated with care and delicacy. That said there's a hint of archers and sweet white wine that might become cloying, but the bitterness keeps it in check. Brewed with Thornbridge.
Oerbier (Belgium)
Dulle Teve ★★
Dry, potent, gassy beer with a dry powdery finish and a creamy mouthfeel. Cloudy amber in colour. Hints of vinegar and celery in it's acidic taste. Too strong. The name means mad bitch.
Officiana (Italy)
Weizen ★★★
Lies somewhere between the heft of a Hefeweizen and the bitter orange spice of a Witbier. Quite gassy and fairly refreshing for it's weight. A pleasant, decent beer.
Okells (UK)
Slightly bland, smooth beer with a bitter soapy edge. Not great, but not terrible.
Bitter ★★
Watery, tangy bitter that has little to distinguish it. Brewed to the (rather loose) Isle Of Man purity laws.
Olafbrikken (Denmark)
Pale Ale ★★★
Golden coloured ale with a creamy texture, malty taste and gassy finish with a hint of hoppy bitterness. Fairly generic stuff but certainly does it's job.
Old Dominion (USA)
Farmhouse Saison ★★★
Resinous orange and murky malts dominate this potent metallic tasting beer. Almost akin to a musty champagne cocktail.
Gigi's Farmhouse Ale ★★★
Dry, hoppy ale with the tobacco smoke edge you expect from amber ale. There's a bit of wild yeast funkiness and some thick malt in there too. A robust ale.
Hop Mountain ★★★
Thick pine resin hops, citrus and peppery bitterness mashed together into thick mush. Lacks delicacy and subtlety but if you want muddied hops this is your beer.
Oak Barrel Stout ★★★★
Tan head & thoroughly opaque. Very smooth with the oaky flavours giving the feel of a thick viscous Islay malt whisky bolstered by the firm but fair roasted malts. Feels stronger than it's 5.8% abv strength.
Old Mill (UK)
Fire And Brimstone ★★
Mahogany coloured ale with a watery flavour with a powdery chocolate flavour mixed in with a gentle maltiness. More damp embers than a roaring fire. Generally bland and inoffensive.
Willows Wood ★★
Slightly soapy golden ale. There is a brief hint of citrus hops, but it's very brief.
Old Pie Factory (UK)
Bitter ★★★
Gently malty session bitter with a pleasing toffee finish that's balanced with a bitter hop. Pleasant.
Pale Ale ★★★
Rather bland but utterly inoffensive pale ale with a tangy malt flavour and a sweet yeastiness.
Oldershaw (UK)
Newton's Drop ★★
Mild brown ale with a taste on the sour side, possibly the dregs of a barrel when tasted but not very nice
Olvisholt (Iceland)
Freyja ★★★
Filtered wheat ale with a light, refreshing taste and a gentle gassiness. The orange peel flavours are a bit crude, but it's still easy to drink.
Lava Stout ★★★
Dark, bitter imperial stout with a thick mouthfeel and a syrupy sweetness mixed with a warming alcoholic edge. Lighter than most beers of the type and lacking some of the depth and complexity. Dangerously easy to drink though.
Mori ★★★
Amber coloured with no head, this has a rich bitter malty taste. Though it has elements of an English bitter it's gassiness gives it more of a Belgian feel. Light and very easy drinking.
Skjalfti ★★★★
Full flavoured lager with a pronounced rustic, dry hoppy edge to it. Well rounded with a gentle bitterness in the finish. Has elements of a biere de garde.
Oppigards (Sweden)
Golden Ale ★★★
Golden amber beer with a gassy mouthfeel and a refreshing citrus hop taste. Akin to a fizzed up English golden ale with a rounded full flavour. Good for warm days.
Single Hop ★★★
Pale golden ale with a crisp refreshing taste that has a dry citrus hop to the fore. Akin to an English golden ale but with a gentle fizz in the finish. Well made but not stunning. Good for hot weather.
Oratche Wind Valley (Japan)
Pilsner ★★★★
A buttery lager with the weight of the Witbier and a gassy freshness. It not overloaded with flavour but there's enough of a hoppy bite and bitter finish to merit being called a pilsner.
Red Ale ★★★
Smoky and malty with a caramel sweetness poking it's nose in at the end. Does what a red ale should with balance and restraint, if little more.
Orgemont (France)
Biere des Moissons ★★★
A gassy opaque straw coloured beer made with spelt and buckwheat. The beer is gassy, bright & refreshing with the rounded flavours of a typical wheat beer lingering nicely in the background. A hint of coriander in the end.
Orkney (UK)
Atlas Nimbus ★★★
A grassy straw aroma leads into what feels like a potent alcoholic mouthfeel akin to a European strong lager, but it's under 5% abv. An punchy beer with a dry edge that has hints of a turbo charged Kolsch.
Atlas Three Sisters ★★★
A clear golden colour ale with a bit of liquorice, sweet malts and warming alcohol to give it an edge. Generally rather bland though.
Dark Isle ★★★
Intensely malty aroma with bitter powdered chocolate on the taste. Pleasant but a tad safe.
Red MacGregor ★★★★
Ruby coloured bitter with a floral hoppy aroma that follows up with a caramel malt flavour. There are hints of cherries and biscuit with a spicy hoppy finish that fades into a moreish gentle bitterness. Packed with flavour for it's 4% abv strength but would benefit from being a bit more balanced. Still a cracking beer.
Orval (Belgium)
Orval ★★★★
Copper coloured ale with elements of bitter hops, funky soured yeast, opal fruits, apple vinegar and bananas. When clear (without sediment) it has elements of bubblegum. Slightly spicy and creamy as well but gassy enough to be light and easy drinking. The balance and complexity may improve further if it's left to mature in the bottle.
Oslo (Norway)
Chief Imperial Stout ★★★★
Black as night with a creamy tan head this stout has a bitter coffee ground taste balanced by a creaminess that makes it quite smooth. There is a biscuity malt in the finish.
IPA ★★★
Fruity hopped IPA in the American style. Not too dry or bitter but with a definite hoppy punch and the characteristic US IPA taste profile.
Porter ★★★★
Classic English style porter with roasted malts but no coffee grounds taste. Smooth and not gassy like so many dark Scandinavian beers. Fairly fresh tasting with a hint of dark chocolate.
Steamer ★★★
Amber ale with a rounded fruity malty taste and a dash of bitter hops in the background. There is a gassiness to the body and a generally refreshing feel to it.
Ossett (UK)
Watery citrus hopped beer that easy drinking but underwhelming.
Silver King ★★★
Clean, slightly bitter, but eminently forgettable session ale.
Treacle Stout ★★★★
Dark, syrupy stout with a full roasted malt flavour complemented with a hint of blackberries.
Ottakringer (Austria)
Goldfassl Spezial ★★★
Golden coloured hoppy lager with a dry gassy edge. Like a pilsner with the hops on overdrive.
Helles ★★★
Crisp, light, dry, mildly gassy lager with a slowly developing hoppy taste. Very refreshing when served cold on a hot day (when it feels great) but otherwise a little bland.
Wiener Wirsterhaff Hausbrau ★★★★
Dark amber cloudy beer with a full bodied malt and yeasty taste and the mouthfeel of a wheat beer. A hoppiness emerges through the mist with a slight caramel sweetness. Smells of horlicks and tastes of hob-nobs. The house beer of the Wiener Wirsterhaff restaurant in Vienna.
Otter (UK)
Amber Ale ★★★
Pleasing amber session ale with a smooth malty taste and a little bitter tingle in the finish. The hops come through in the aroma.
Avalon Ale ★★★★
Chestnut coloured ale with a biscuit malt flavour and a restrained bitter hoppiness. Pleasing session fare with a moreish finish with faint hints of an abbey dubbel.
Avalon Bitter ★★★
Classic English bitter with a dry biscuit malt flavour mixed with a woody hop finish. Good session fare that's been put together with care.
Bright Ale ★★★
A promising fruit and citrus aroma leads to a traditional malty taste. Decent, but not stellar.
Seville Bitter ★★★
The orange edge is surprisingly, and possibly thankfully, restrained in this bitter. Generally it's your standard malty English fare and none the worse for it.
Oud Beersel (Belgium)
Bersalis ★★
Golden bottle fermented triple brewed at Huyghe. Dominated by a warming alcohol malty flavour. The finish is long with the malt acquiring a rounded edge. A plain version of the delirium beers? Best suited to late night sipping.
Kriek ★★★
Dry and sour tasting cherry beer that has a spritzy body that leaves it feeling light whilst retaining flavour. The sweetness of the cherries starts to bleed through as you keep drinking. Slightly thin but an enjoyable aperitif.
Oude Geuze ★★★★
This kicks off with a massive aroma. You can smell it's a gueuze from across the room. There is a frothy head and gassy mouthfeel. This gives the beer a light feel with the typical sour citrus ambling through with a tangy sour bitterness in the finish. There's a sharpness and mustiness in there too and pouring the sediment gives a creamy edge to the mouthfeel, akin to many blonde Belgian ales. Easier drinking than most lambics without lacking character. A hot weather gueuze.
Palm (Belgium)
Brugge Trippel ★★★★
Initially all over the place, this expands into a big taste of toffee apples with a transient gassiness. An experience of a beer, very strong at 8.7% and a bit too unbalanced for regular drinking.
Dobbel ★★★
Dark amber ale that is halfway between a dubbel and a marzen. The taste it dominated by a fruity maltiness with a dry bitter finish. Quite gassy. A stronger darker winter version of Palm Speciale, but not as good.
Green ★★
Alcohol free lager with a strong malty taste & an odd finish to it, almost as if the taste warps. The taste seems to drop away from the top of your mouth but the mouthfeel is pleasing. Not bad for what it is - a fizzy drink that isn't sweet.
Hop Select ★★★
A surprisingly tangy and malty golden ale. There is a hoppy punch and a floral note at the end, but the beer is predominantly gassy and light. For 6% abv you'd like something a bit more memorable, but you'll quaff it enjoyably enough.
Rodenbach ★★★★
Strange. An oak aged beer with a sweet edge that has a massive cherry aroma that overpowers the initial taste before chiming with the sour cherry taste in finish. Unexpected at first but tasty after you have adjusted.
Rodenbach Grand Cru ★★★★★
A superb example of a strident beer. A syrupy sweetness competes with a taste of sour cherries whilst a gentle gassiness lifts the taste and a deep oaky base grounds it. Aged for 24 months in oak barrels and well worth the wait.
Speciale ★★★★
Sweetly wheaty 5% beer. Very smooth with a gentle froth. Gentle malty flavour with a light bitter hoppy finish. The amount of gassiness is well judged. It's colour is a pleasing shade of amber. Nice easy drinking.
Steenbrugge Dubbel ★★★
Malty amber beer without the deep fruity flavours of a traditional Dubbel. Pleasant but not what you would expect.
Steenbrugge Wit Blanche ★★★
A typical Belgian witbier with cloves and citrus notes dominating. Light, gassy and pleasingly refreshing but lacking a little depth. Cloudy but with the mouthfeel of a filtered beer.
Partizan (UK)
Big Red Saison ★★★★
There is waft of tart red fruit in the aroma which leads into a robust, smoky amber ale. The saison notes are restrained but there is a funky farmyard edge in there somewhere. An satisfying variant on an amber ale.
Dr Rudi Pale Ale ★★★
A crisp and powdery dry ale with a very bitter take tropical pale ale flavours. There is a strange musty cheese aroma. Could be more exciting.
Grisette Saison ★★★
A strangely flat and dry ale with a hoppy taste that's very restrained. A gentle table beer for warm weather, but it's a bit too subtle for it's own good. Make sure you don't serve it too cold.
Grisette Saison: Lemongrass ★★★
For a saison this has a very light and clean mouthfeel. There is a bit of funky edge to the hops but the lemongrass means there is a clean edge to the taste to match the mouthfeel. A pleasant session beer with a bit of a modern craft beer edge.
Mild ★★★★
Intensely oily, burnt roasted malts are shot through this unusually strong mild (6.3% abv) with a long bitter finish. There are nutty, smoky flavours to - almost like a lighter strong dark Belgian - a half quadruple. Puckeringly dry, but not too heavy or viscous.
Pascoes (UK)
A creamy head atops this bready, citrus hopped ale with a light taste.
Paulaner (Germany)
Munchner ★★★
Pale lager with a citrus hoppy edge. Decent with a bit of characters but nothing special.
Oktoberfest ★★★
Gassy, mineral tasting lager with a dry, nutty, biscuit malt flavour and a floury finish. Could have a fuller flavour but had enough of a session beer feel to make it interesting.
Salvator Doppelbock ★★★
Sweetly alcoholic beer with molasses and plums. There's a sugary, sticky edge akin to barley wine. Weighs in at 7.9% but should have more kick for it's strength.
Weiss ★★★★★
Beautifully amber tinged wheat beer with a creamy mouthfeel that makes the traditional spicy flavour seem pleasingly subtle. The aroma is full and inviting. A delicate Weisse that is a real pleasure.
Pays Flamand (France)
La Bracine Ambree ★★★★
Rustically hoppy dark amber ale with a sweet malty flavour of caramelised meat juices. There's a little alcoholic kick in the finish too with a gentle gassy tingle.
Peak Ales (UK)
Light hoppy and yeasty session beer that slips down agreeably.
Swift Nick ★★
Light, almost inconsequential ale with a yeasty taste. Would be more appealing if it felt refreshing.
Pelforth (France)
Ambree ★★★★
English style amber ale with a pronounced hoppy taste tempered by a gentle creamy smoothness. Carries the thumbprint of Pelforth's other beers, though it is not quite as distinguished. Would go well with red meat or sausages.
Blonde ★★★★★
Smooth, creamy and full bodied beer with a gentle but persuasive bitter hoppy aftertaste. Very moreish and quite potent.
Brune ★★★★★
Dark, malty beer with a smooth edge, slightly offset but a gentle gas to give it an edge. Akin to a Belgian scotch ale.
Penlon (UK)
Ewes Frolic ★★★
Bottle conditioned lager from a Welsh cottage brewery. Cloudy gold in colour this has a bitter hoppy taste that is softened by the teaspoon of cane sugar added to aid the bottle conditioning. Fairly flat for a lager. Pleasant and enjoyable.
Penzance (UK)
Dry, roasted malt flavour malt with a fairly chewy mouthfeel. A solid drinkable stout.
Peters (Germany)
Kolsch ★★★
Light floral golden ale with a frothy head and a light malt in the finish that quickly fades leaving it very clean.
Petrognola (Italy)
Nera Al Farro ★★★
Pitch black stout with a tongue fizzing gassiness followed by bitter roasted flavours that are tempered by a warming alcohol malt. Surprisingly easy to drink for it's 6.5% abv, but could have more complexity.
Petrus (Belgium)
Oud Bruin ★★★★
Top fermented beer aged in oak barrels for 2 years. Dark stewed fruits (raisins and cherries) and quite sour. Fairly fizzy but overall it is well balanced with a roasted malt finish. Very easy drinking for a dark beer.
Pfaffen (Germany)
Kolsch ★★★
Pale gold ale with an astringent bitter taste and a slightly musty maltiness. Not overpowering but certainly more fully flavoured than other Kolsch.
Phoenix (UK)
Wobbly Bob ★★★
Deep, amber ale with a gentle hoppiness overpowered by sharp edge that feels a little disconcerting but isn't too bad.
Pietra (France)
Colomba ★★★★
Unpasteurized white lager with maquis herbs from the only Corsican brewery. Very pale cloudy yellow colour. Gently flavoured with a subtle smooth balance of lemon vanilla, pepper, strawberry and juniper. Serve cold on a hot day.
Pietra ★★★★
Amber coloured lager made with chestnut flour. Malty and slightly sweet with a smoky aroma and a gentle dry nutty flavour. Subtle, but very pleasant.
Pigeonelle (France)
La Salamandre ★★★
Amber ale with a tight, enthusiastic carbonation. The flavour is a restrained mix of biscuit malt, spice and a hint of citrus.
Ploegsteert (Belgium)
Queue De Charrue ★★
Amber coloured Flemish old brown with a sweet tangy orange flavour. Slightly syrupy with a hint of bananas. Very gassy which means the finish is very short. Oak aged and blended akin to a gueuze but without the sourness.
Plutzer Brau (Austria)
Germischtes ★★★
Dark brown beer with a sweet malty taste and no head. It reminds me of an English ale. There is a hoppy bitterness in the background to round out the taste. Overall it's smooth and satisfyingly easy to drink.
Zwickl ★★★
Unfiltered lager with a light bread and malt taste filled out with the mouthfeel of a wheat beer. A solid quaffing beer.
Postel (Belgium)
Blond ★★★★
Bright, spritzy beer with soft tropical fruit flavours and a yeasty finish. A slight buttery dry taste too. Easy drinking and quite interesting.
Dobbel ★★★
Burnt sugary caramel with a hint of dry perfumed oranges. The finish is quite tangy.
Prael (Holland)
Andre ★★★★
An Easter beer (Lentebok). Dark amber lager with restrained caramel, malt and fruit flavours that tastes like a good marzen.
Heintje ★★★★
Classic hefeweizen with an enticing banana and clove aroma that leads into an expansive gassy mouthfeel. Light and refreshing.
Praght (Holland)
Extra Stout ★★★
Strong dark stout with roasted malt to the fore with a syrupy tar not far behind. The gassiness lightens the beer and gives it a bubbling carbonated bitterness in the finish. Accomplished but not exceptional.
Pressure Drop (UK)
Freimann's Dunkelweiss ★★★
An incredibly gassy dark wheat beer with gentle caramel and roasted malt flavours with a waft of smoke submerged beneath the carbonation.
Stokey's Brown ★★★★
A really granular dark ale with dry coffee ground flavours delivered by the roasted malts. The level of carbonation is well pitched and it's not too dry either. A potent but balanced beer.
Preston Ale (Japan)
Imperial Oatmeal Stout ★★★
Strong, dark, viscous and warming. The oatmeal element provides a creamy, mealy edge but this is still potent stuff with a long bitter finish that has a hint of oak. An interesting hybrid of styles but lacking a killer punch.
Prickly Moses (Australia)
Otway Ale ★★★
Crisp ale with a rounded malty taste that has more of a hoppy bite than most Australian pale ales. There are hints of tropical fruit balanced with biscuit that mean it would feel just as good sipped on a hot beach or pulled from a hand pump in an English pub. Made by the Otway Estate near the great ocean road who also make wine and cordial.
Red Ale ★★★★
Dry, almost sour Celtic red ale with a leathery malty taste with a hint of cherry and the musty edge of a lambic. The aroma is spritzy and slightly floral. There is a hint of smokiness in there too.
Summer Ale ★★★
Gassy, pale golden ale with a tropical fruit flavour that sits fairly well with the gassiness. Does the job it sets out to do.
Purdebrug (Belgium)
Blonde ★★★
Abbey style blonde beer that has a sweet, almost honey taste with a slight gassiness. Much lighter tasting that it's 6% strength.
Purity (UK)
Farmers Harvest ★★★
Dry lagerish beer with a delicate citrus taste on a pale ale base. Very smooth with a wheat beer foundation. Solid easy drinking but a touch bland.
Mad Goose ★★★
Dark golden pale ale with a zingy citrus flavour that fades into a butter woody finish. It feels a little like it lacks a solid foundation, but it certainly has some bite.
Pure Gold ★★★
Light ale with a bitter smoothness that makes it more interesting than your average citrus hopped golden ale.
Ubu ★★
Smooth and creamy beer with a tangy citrus hop taste and a gentle bitter finish that doesn't linger. Good for warm weather.
Purple Moose (UK)
Glaslyn Ale ★★★
Golden coloured bitter with a fruity citrus flavour balanced with a light hoppiness and a dry bitter finish. A decent session beer.
Quercus (UK)
Smoked Oaked Porter ★★★★
Thick smoke and roasted malts swirl beautifully together, but there is enough hoppy bite to stop this beer becoming too thick or intense. There is a dash of stewed raisins there too with hints of a Belgian Dubbel. Impressive.
Raventown (UK)
Smog Rocket ★★★★★
A smoked porter with a sharp edge and a hoppy edge to it. There are powdered chocolate flavours giving a bright edge offset by a smokiness that gives a moreish complexity. Expertly combining elements of porter, rauchbier, dunkel and Belgian bruin, this is quite some beer.
RCH (UK)
Old Slug Porter ★★★★
Smooth and gentle porter. Dark in colour with a vanishing head. The coffee grounds flavour is light and complimented with berry flavours. There is a tart bitter finish. Well balanced and very drinkable.
Pitchfork ★★★
Dark gold ale with a floral aroma that leads into a bittersweet flavour with a dry woody hoppiness and a slight soapiness. There is a tanginess in the finish. Assertive but not quite to my taste.
Wheat ★★★
An orange flavoured wheat beer that has the dry biscuit malt foundation of an English ale, even if it wants to be a Witbier. The bitter orange zest element makes for pleasant session fare.
Red Brick (UK)
Somewhat bland amber ale that is inoffensively pleasant for light drinking
Red Duck (Australia)
Pale Ale ★★★
Crisp refreshing pale ale with a well balanced mix of gassiness and tropical fruit. Possibly a tad too gassy to stand out from the crowd.
Red Hill (Australia)
Scotch Ale ★★★★
Burnished copper in colour this has a warming alcoholic malty kick with a caramel edge balanced by a bitter hoppiness in the finish. There is also a bit of chocolate in the roasted malts. Well balanced, well made and one to savour. The brewery grows their own hops.
Red Oak (Australia)
Bitter ★★★
An Aussie bitter that beat off English competition to win best in class at the world beer awards. Served cold it is smooth and silky with gentle woody blackcurrant flavours to it.
Blackberry Wheat Beer ★★★★
Sour, lambic style fruit beer with a rounded blackberry flavour is quite tart. The mouthfeel is light with a gentle gassiness. An acquired taste but a striking and well made beer.
Christmas Cheer ★★★
Strong festive ale with a roasted malt flavour married to stewed dark fruits and hints of raspberries and cherries. The mouthfeel is gassy which makes it feel light but it somewhat undermines the Xmas pudding in glass aim of the beer.
Country Lager ★★★
Amber coloured Oktoberfest style lager with a very deep malty flavour made using wild yeasts. The taste is interesting and the beer refreshing but it doesn't quite have the body to surpass a microbrewed Austrian Marzen.
Irish Red Ale ★★★
Chewy caramel malt flavoured dark amber ale. The mouthfeel is gently gassy enough to make it feel lively without obscuring the flavour. There is a hint of toffee apple that emerges in the finish.
Opera Bar Organic Pale Ale ★★★
Dry amber ale with a bitter, woody hoppy flavour with a biscuit malt coming through in the finish. Light gassiness. Similar to Little Creatures but not as refined.
Summer Weiss ★★★★
A filtered wheat beer made in the style of a Berlinerweiss. There is a huge a white grapefruit pith flavour with an acidic backup. Crisp, light and very refreshing with a sour, almost lambic style finish.
Red Rat (UK)
Rock Ape ★★
Very sour and soapy beer that really grabs your attention. Slightly opaque in colour. Overall it is too dry and a bit off to my taste.
Red Stripe (Jamaica)
Dragon Stout ★★★★
Made by the same brewers as Red Stripe this Jamaican brew is similar to Scandinavian imperial stouts. There is a gassy mouthfeel followed by a chunky roasted coffee grounds flavour and a smooth malty finish. Well mannered for a beer that's 7.5% abv but it doesn't feel neutered or lacking in flavour. A warming alcohol edge slowly builds but does no more than linger in the background and to the beers depth, giving an almost tangy biscuity flavour.
Red Stripe Lager (UK brewed) ★★
Starts with a decent hoppiness but quickly becomes flat, bland and dry with a slight bitterness in the finish. There are definitely worse lagers out there but this is still below average. Brewed under license in the UK by Charles Wells.
Red Willow (UK)
Cheerless ★★★
A somewhat syrupy porter made with raisins, figs and oranges. The Christmas pudding flavours could be more pronounced rather than just softening the roasted malts. A nice smooth, flat, relaxed porter that is somewhat over billed.
Fathomless ★★★★
Incredibly smooth oyster stout with strong roasted malt flavours that aren't aggressive or overpowering.
Wreckless ★★★
A heavily hopped, peppery pale ale that comes in at a refreshingly light 4.8% abv. A mixture of wood and biscuit malt bleed through to add depth.
Redchurch (UK)
Bethnal Pale Ale ★★★
Is Bethnal in Jaipur then? This pale ale has all the dry hoppy tingle of an IPA. The finish exceptionally dry and a touch chalky but the hops aren't overdone.
Reijin-Shuzo (Japan)
Zenkoji-Roman Kurojuri (Black) ★★★
It's black, it's dry, it's got roasted malts. As a dark beer in Japan this will happily find a market and it's enjoyable to drink, just nothing special.
Renaissance (New Zealand)
Stonecutter ★★★
A deep amber coloured scotch ale with a small creamy head. The taste is thickly roasty malty with dark raisin fruit flavours and heavy with a dry, woody, tangy finish. The brewer claims the 9 malts used give layers of caramel, toffee, liquorice and chocolate but these are lost in the dense weight of flavours. At 7.5% abv it is strong and has a warming alcoholic finish. Serve cool, not cold.
Resch (Australia)
Draught ★★
Gassy, dry lager with a watery maltiness that struggles through in the finish. Nothing of note.
Ridgeway (UK)
Bad King John ★★★
A balanced dark ale with roasted malt, chocolate and red fruit in there, somewhere, but the overall impact is a tad bland - still pleasant though.
Foreign Export Stout ★★★★★
Dark with a faint head. Burnt soy sauce, coffee and liquorice lightened by a hint of apple and a crisp fizziness. More like a porter than a stout. Strong but easy drinking at 8% and well balanced. Smooth and superb with raisins coming through when warmer.
IPA ★★★
An "authentic" IPA with pale malts and no sugar or syrups, brewed with top fermenting yeast. Looks very much like a cloudy wheat beer but has a crisp fizzy edge to the aftertaste. Interesting but too gassy to whole hearted recommend.
Ivanhoe ★★★★★
A 'very English pale ale'. Light ruby ale that is dry, crisp and bitter with a lingering woody, hoppy taste that has a hint of tropical fruit. Describes itself as perfectly balanced - and that isn't far off.
Santa's Butt ★★★★
Strong porter with a bitter malty flavour that is surprisingly smooth. Hints of subtle red fruit add complexity to this well balanced brew. An accomplished dark ale that would work all year round.
Ridley's (UK)
Old Bob ★★★★
Dark brown ale with a tangy biscuit malt and a spicy citrus hop duelling on the tongue. The finish is dry and slightly leathery. Good solid fare.
Riedenberger (Germany)
Weisse Premium ★★★★
Gentle fizzy dark amber wheat beer with a well balanced yeasty malty taste. There is a fruitiness in the finish (unripe blackcurrant?) that adds a beautiful subtle depth to the flavour.
Ringwood (UK)
49er ★★★
Deep ruby red ale with a restrained dry hoppy taste and no head. A good session beer. Nice bitter floral aroma.
Best Bitter ★★★★
A typical English bitter. Light brown on colour it had a woody, bitter hoppy taste with a dry finish with a hint of biscuit malt. A pleasant beer made with care and attention.
Boondoggle ★★★
A golden ale where tangy malty flavours of gooseberry and grapefruit pith dominate over citrus hops. Slightly dry, but generally robust, lip-smacking and satisfying.
Old Thumper ★★★
Amber strong ale with a tangy potent taste. Not actually that strong at 5.6 abv and lacking the depth it could have. Nowt objectional about it though.
Robinsons (UK)
Build A Rocket Boys! (elbow beer) ★★★★
Woody, smoky, laced with caramel and smelling of thick cut crisps. This claims to be a golden ale but it's an amber all the way. A ruddy malty pleasure with a bitter bite that feels like campfires and shadowy wood panelled pubs.
Chocolate Tom ★★★★
Dry, strong dark amber ale mixed with cocoa that has a well balanced bitter chocolate and a vanilla aroma. It has a fizz & powdery drinking chocolate edge that is quite appealing. A nice after dinner or end of the night tipple.
Double Maxim ★★★★
Dark amber coloured ale with a deep hoppy taste and heavy feel that has a dry finish. There is a sweet nuttiness in the background. A classic English bitter.
Ginger Tom ★★★★★
A blend of the brewer's Old Tom Strong Ale with Fentiman's Ginger Beer that is surprisingly well balanced. The ginger initially dominates the taste, but it is balanced by the deep taste of the ale. Probably a 'novelty beer', but a very good one.
Hoptimus Prime ★★★
Hop heavy golden coloured bitter with a creamy mouthfeel and a soapy finish. The bitter woody hops are backed by a dark fruit and toffee note that has a hint of sweetness to balance things. Potent but good session fare.
Old Tom ★★★★
Strong dark beer that tastes like alcoholic malt loaf. Syrupy fruit and malt flavours dominate but it is not overpowering. Hints of blackcurrant and grape in the finish. Good range of flavours.
Unicorn M&S Cheshire Brown Ale ★★★
Dry malty beer with a nutty sherry flavour and a tangy finish. Possibly a hint of syrup too.
Rochefort (Belgium)
6 ★★★★
Robust dark brown beer that, depending on the bottle conditioning can be smooth and creamy or have a gassy tingle or a mix of both. The taste is a bitter fruity malt with a dash of coriander in the finish. Chewy late night fare that won't knock your head off. Try to leave the sediment in the bottle to best appreciate the flavour.
8 ★★★★
Dark, chewy beer with a sweet fruity taste and a slight hint of liquorice. Light enough to be easily drinkable but with a strong flavour.
10 ★★★
Dark trappist ale that despite the name weighs in a dash over 11%. Warming alcohol & malty taste with a porterish bitterness & a light hoppy spiciness. Smooth & slightly creamy. One to sip gently at night when you want quiet depth.
Rogue (USA)
Brutal Bitter ★★★★
Strong, hoppy ale that is dark brown in colour with a big foamy head. The taste is very similar to a US IPA with the heavy rounded bop taste but there is a dark bitterness in the background that gives it something extra.
John John Ale ★★★
Bitter, earthy malty beer with a fruity edge. Aged in whisky barrels it has an oaky taste with berries, apricots and all kinds of over-ripe fruit. Feels stronger than it's 6.5% abv strength.
Juniper Pale Ale ★★★
Dry, hoppy pale ale with a bitter peppery finish. The juniper is well hidden.
Mocha Porter ★★★
Very gassy dark ale with dry roasted malts lingering long in the finish. There's a hint of caramel and bitter dry chocolate. More an intense dunkel than a chocolate & hops mocha porter.
Morimoto Soba Ale ★★★★
Smooth and restrained ale made with roasted soba (buckwheat) grains. The taste has the robust hoppy flavour of an IPA with a honeyed finish, but all done with subtlety.
St Rogue Red Ale ★★★
A curiously dry beer with bitter powdery caramel, pine wood and some sour dark fruit. It would benefit from something to offset it. A side beer? Interesting.
Yellow Snow ★★★
Pure hop resin? Thick, bitter hoppy flavours with pine wood and tint hints of tropical fruit. Too aggressive for it's own good.
Roman (Belgium)
Adriaen Brouwer ★★★★
Strong, sweet, malty ale with hints of dark fruit in the boozy finish. The makers call it dark gold but it's more tea brown. A substantial "monks bread" beer part way between a double and a quadruple.
Black Hole ★★★
Crisp, clean and gassy. There is a malty sweetness and an earthy toffee note. There is a slight metallic edge and a very dry finish. Evidence that Belgians and lager brewing don't really mix.
Ename Tripel ★★
Golden ale with a strong alcoholic edge married to a mix of dry chalk & honey. It develops in the character of a malty tripel with a hint of caramel in the finish. Doesn't really do enough for it's strength. Bottled with candy sugar.
Sloeber ★★★
A confusion of flavours with malt, hops and an alcoholic edge all blurring into each other. Not bad, but would benefit from the flavours being clearer.
Roosters (UK)
Patriot ★★
Golden ale with a malty edge that tastes of crisps and biscuits. Quite dry and bitter on the finish with a hint of gassiness. Non descript chain pub fodder that lacks refinement and feels a bit watery.
YPA ★★★
Bone dry light ale with a hoppy citrus taste. Refreshing on a summers day.
Rudgate (UK)
Pursuit Of Hoppiness ★★★
Clean, smoky pale ale with a touch of the Irish red ales. The Marynka hop flavours have none of the overpowering pepperiness of an IPA with bitter woody notes.
York Chocolate Stout ★★★★
Somewhere between a stout and a mild. This has dominant bitter roasted malts that don't punch as hard as you think with powdered dark chocolate and chocolate malt flavours smoothing it out. The finish is a touch watery, but that makes it easy drinking. Feels weaker than it's 5% abv strength but is a well balanced beer.
Rugby (UK)
Play On ★★
Fairly generic session ale. Golden in colour with a dry biscuit malt flavour with a light bitter hoppy finish with a hint of citrus. The brewers call it a bitter but if feels like an anonymous golden ale. Creamy mouthfeel and slightly soapy.
Victorius ★★
Thin, sour and dry ale with a light colour that leaves a bitter taste
S.A. Brain (UK)
Rev James ★★★
Light ruby coloured ale with a gentle hoppy taste and a slight hint of soapy caramel. Pleasing but a bit chemical and bland.
SAB Miller (USA)
Blue Moon Belgian White ★★★★
Belgian style unfiltered spiced wheat beer that is made with oats. Feels very creamy and looks very cloudy with a gentle orange flavour in the background. Very pleasant, very smooth but perhaps a little timid and worried about offending anyone.
Gambrinus Premium ★★★
A pilsner with a fuller maltier taste than usual. It is a good beer but it is not exceptional.
Grolsch Blond ★
A 4% strength beer from Grolsch to cash in on the low alcohol lager bandwagon. Has the taste of cheap bread and seems to be imitating Carling. Very poor.
Grolsch Lager ★★★★
One of the better mass produced continental lager that retains a slight hoppy taste with it's crisp clean edge.
Grolsch Weizen ★★★
(Swing top bottle) Bitter tasting wheat beer. Different taste depending on whether the beer is rolled around in the bottle before pouring. Unimpressive. (Metal cap bottle) Slightly sweet wheat beer that is fairly well balanced and has decent body while remaining easily drinkable.
Lech Premium ★
Polish lager that smacks of being cheap and mass produced. Reminiscent of the Castello Italian lagers.
Lone Star ★★★
Straight forward lager that holds on surprises and does what you would expect. Crisp light and not exactly packed with flavour though there is enough hoppiness to stop it being bland.
Peroni Gran Riserva ★★★
Light amber ale with an alcoholic edge and a slight maltiness. The aftertaste becomes quite dry and bitter. Not bad but somewhat uninspiring.
Peroni Nastro Azzurro ★★
Like trying on a designer Italian suit to discover it's been made on the cheap in a sweatshop. Nice glassware, but ultimately a light and gassy lager that does little that is interesting.
Pilsner Urquell ★★
Smooth Amber/orange coloured pilsner with a steadily building hoppy aftertaste. It is not as rounded as it should be leaving it feeling somewhat thin and timid.
Sadlers Ales (UK)
Gassy, fruity lagerish ale that slips down agreeably but not excitingly.
IPA ★★★
Deep ruby IPA with a strong malty taste. Lacks subtlety.
Jack's Ale ★★★
Fairly bland light ale that slips down easily but leaves no trace.
Mild ★★★
Deep, almost stout like, mild with a strong coffee taste. Solid but not exceptional.
Mud City Stout ★★★★
Velvety coffee and chocolate stout with a gentle bitterness and a floral hop aroma. Smooth and satisfying.
Mud Crutch Stout ★★★★
Deep coffee tasting stout with a hint of porter. Strong, forceful but not overbearing.
Mud Rat ★★★
Single hopped dark ale that the brewers claim is a "chocolate IPA". Has the feel of a porter with a light bitter coffee grounds taste and a growing blackberry edge in the finish and a hint of chocolate. The fruity note makes it somewhat unbalanced but it's still quite interesting.
Pumpkin Eater ★★★
Halloween ale that the brewers have added pumpkins to. What should be a horrible novelty is quite a pleasing ruby red ale with enough bitterness to anchor the sweet pumpkin flavours. Unusual but not weird.
Thin Ice ★★★
Sharp and slightly thin tasting ale that mixes a gentle bitterness with a light citrus pang.
Worcestor Sourcerer ★★★
Smooth slightly soapy gold coloured beer.
Sagres (Portugal)
Branca ★★★
Tastes like a hundred other European lagers, but it's pleasant enough when served cold on a hot day.
Saint Colombe (France)
Pie Noire Bretonne ★★★★
Dark ale with a big roasted malt flavour balanced by the kind of caramelised sweetness you find in some breakfast cereals. The flavour is underpinned with rye and is as robust as an imperial stout (though it's only 6% abv). A great sipping beer.
Saint Monon (Belgium)
Honey ★★★
Cloudy lemon coloured beer with a bright citrus taste and a slight honey sweetness. Dry and spritzy mouthfeel. Cloves and warming alcohol in the finish with a hint of fizzy sweets. A steady grower and brewed in the style of a triple.
Saku (Estonia)
Kuld ★★★
Quaffing lager that slides down very easy with a gentle straw taste that builds but ultimately remains slightly watery.
Salm Brau (Austria)
Maibock ★★★★
Light gold seasonal lager with a bright hoppy taste and a mild gassiness. There is a slight floral taste to it that makes it very refreshing when cold.
Marzen ★★★★
Traditional Vienna style amber marzen with a smooth caramel taste balanced by a lingering gassiness with a slight bitter woodiness. Well balanced and very easy drinking.
Salopian (UK)
Boomerang ★★★★
Some modern brewers unbalance their beers by using an overpowering amount of hops. Here the citrus tinged Nelson Saivin hops come through clearly but they are bolstered by a thick biscuit malt foundation. A well judged hop hit.
Lemon Dream ★★★
Dry and slightly acidic citrus beer with a slightly soapy finish. Better than many lemony golden ales.
Oracle ★★★
Clean, light golden ale with a heather, citrus hop taste. Some people love it - I'm not so fussed.
Saltaire (UK)
Blonde ★★★★
Wonderfully reassuring hoppy blonde ale with a lovely balance of peppery citrus hop and chewy biscuit malt. A session ale with an IPA style bite that is a pleasantly light 4% abv.
Hazelnut Coffee Porter ★★★
A bitter, roasted porter offset with the addition of sweet hazelnut syrup. A pleasing, and slightly chocolatey, combination that feels a little forced.
Pride ★★★
A typical Irish style red ale. It's got a musty smoky edge backed with robust malty flavours with a hint of caramel. There's a hoppy tingle in the dry finish. A good traditional beer.
Saltram (Australia)
Pepperjack ★★★
Made by a wine estate, this rouge coloured ale has been blended with a Shiraz wine. The beer is aggressively hoppy with a chunk of bread dough in there as well. The fruitiness of the wine is buried from site and only seems to contribute to the colour. There is a citrus element to the hoppiness that peeks through in finish. A decent hoppy ale that feels underwhelming because you are expecting something more unusual and distinctive.
Salzburger (Austria)
Thin gassy lager, crisp and inoffensive. Aftertaste slowly develops.
Sambrooks (UK)
Junction ★★★
A standard dark bitter with a decent balance of malt and hops. Easy drinking, slightly watery but pleasant session fare.
Pale Ale ★★★
A dry, watery, slightly soapy pale ale with a gentle hoppy tingle. At the British pale ale golden ale end of the pale ale spectrum but a nice relaxed session beer.
Samuel Smith (UK)
Cherry Beer ★★
Strident cherry flavour beer with the feel of boiled sweets. There are hints of grass and almonds with a faint bitter base. Gassy mouthfeel. Fake but tasty. A combination of beers from Melbourne Bros and Sam Smith's.
Extra Stout ★★★★
Traditional Irish style stout that's smooth and creamy with enough roasted malt and coffee flavours to give it bite, but not enough to spook the horses.
Imperial Stout ★★★★
Tangy dark stout with a big hit of tar and a gentle fizz. Quite potent at 7%. Brewed in open stone squares.
India Ale ★★★
Heavily hopped IPA with a chunky malted amber taste tempered with a smooth texture.
Mild ★★
Smooth beer with a light hoppy taste dominated by the typical Samuel Smith nuttiness which doesn't quite appeal.
Nut Brown Ale ★★★
A creamy lingering head atops this suitably named beer. Smooth nutty flavours dominate with a dash of yeasty bitterness. Well balanced and interesting without quite being compelling. Good winter and autumn session fare.
Oatmeal Stout ★★★
Smooth oaty stout with a gentle peaty coffee ground bitterness. The flavour builds into the typical Samuel Smith's nuttiness over the course of a pint which doesn't quite sit with the smoothness. Brewed in slate squares using well water and fairly full bodied without feeling heavy. A fizzy tar note appears at the end.
Old Brewery Best Bitter ★★★
Pleasantly drinkable ale "pulled from an oak cask". Stands up well to repeated drinking over an evening.
Organic Best Ale ★★★★★
Light brown ale with a large head that fairly quickly fades. The taste kicks off with coffee and nuts before the bitter hoppy base comes through. There is a hint of chocolate in the finish. It has the telltale tang of a Sam Smith beer but is possibly their finest beer. Quite filling though with a dry finish and a light gassiness
Organic Chocolate Stout ★★★★★
A sublime after dinner treat. This marriage of roasted malt and creamy chocolate is a truly harmonious balance of bitterness and sweetness that delivers exactly what you'd expect from a chocolate stout.
Organic Lager ★★★★
Full bodied hoppy lager that is refreshing and has great character. There is a woody aroma, a hint of sand and a gentle malt bitterness mixed with a light fizz in the finish. Made with kilned malt. Full of old character and well balanced. Tastes best when it is cool rather than ice cold.
Pale Ale ★★★★
Robust chestnut coloured ale with a hoppy flavour, balanced with a fruity, malty aftertaste and a gentle bitterness.
Raspberry ★★★
Bad fruit beers taste like sugary fizzy pop. This tastes like a wonderfully rich cordial. Doesn't really taste like beer but a nice carbonated fruit drink.
Strawberry Fruit Beer ★★
Possibly the most potent smelling beer I've tried. Incredibly sweet and slightly artificial fruit beer with a syrupy flavour. A bit like overpowered strawberry flavoured soft drink that rapidly becomes too much - makes Timmermans fruit beers seemed restrained. Would be good for making desert with.
Strong Golden ★★★
British barley wine, strong and malty with the characteristic Sam Smith bitter note. The strong alcohol brings a dash of caramel, there is a light hoppiness, hints of oaked sherry and a gassy tingle at the end. Served in small bottles for sipping.
Taddy Porter ★★★★★
Sam Smith's beers always have a strong malty flavour which appears to be accentuated by the slate squares they use for fermentation of the beer. This suits their porter perfectly. Pitch black in colour with a big creamy head it has a rich, deep burnt malty flavour which is fully rounded and has a moreish cereal finish. There is a tasty hoppy bitterness mixing with a hint of tanginess, the mouthfeel is akin to draught Guinness. This beer could be viewed as a benchmark for porters in the way Guinness is for stout. Full flavoured, smooth and well balanced.
Winter Welcome Ale ★★★★
Burnt sugar, yeast, caramel and lemons are all in here somewhere. Initial gassiness fades to let the flavour through. Warming alcoholic brandy finish.
Yorkshire Stingo ★★★★
Strong (9%) English ale dominated by a warming treacle flavoured alcoholic maltiness. There are hints of Christmas pudding sweetness in there whilst it has a gentle gassiness and a dry woody finish with a hint of biscuit. It feels similar to strong dark Belgian ales. Given it's strength it might be wise to sell it in 330ml bottles rather than 550ml.
San Miguel (Philippines)
Fairly typical commercial lager with a slightly deeper and more rounded taste than most.
SanktGallen (Japan)
Pineapple Ale ★★★
This sure ain't pineapple juice. A classic pale ale set-up but with a bitter pineapple edge to the hops. Refreshing, if not quite what it promises.
Shonan Gold ★★★
Clean, smooth and slightly soapy pale golden beer with a hint of honey balanced by some gentle hoppy bitterness. Falls into the Kolsch like space between subtle and bland, but pleasant session fare.
Sapporo (Japan)
Yebisu Premium ★★★
Japanese lager with a dry malty taste that is best when cold. Fairly full bodied for a lager.
Yebisu Premium Black ★★★
Gassy and dark with bitter roasted malts that have a distinct coffee edge. Just what you'd expect from a mass produced Japanese black beer. There's a hint of chocolate, but not much.
Sarah Hughes (UK)
Overly tangy, malty beer that is interesting at first but quickly becomes overwhelming
Saverne (France)
Kasteel Cru ★★★
Light tasting blonde lager made with champagne yeast that gives it the fizz of a sparklingly white wine. Works well as an aperitif and can be mixed with sweet spirits such as Disarranno with interesting results.
Kasteel Cru Rose ★★★
Elderflower mixed with standard Kasteel Cru. Slightly synthetic but generally good. Given how well standard Kasteel Cru mixes with sweet spirits this is a wasted oppourtunity. Mixing Kasteel Cru with St Germain probably works better.
Schelde (Belgium)
Dulle Griet ★★★★
Fortified red wine, liquorice and stewed fruits with an alcoholic kick but no syrupy heaviness. Interesting subtleties, but generally a restrained spiced brown ale.
Oesterstout ★★★★
This Oyster Stout a Black Forest Gateaux beer with chocolate and dark cherries balanced by bitter roasted malts and warming alcohol, akin to a fortified wine. The gassiness tends to overwhelming.
Stand Graper ★★★
A BMW driving Belgian ale? Champagne style gassiness with some sweet malt, a dash of spice and nothing to spook the horses. Pleasing enough, but probably thinks it's more potent than it is.
Witbeer ★★★
Smooth wheat beer with a very light refreshing flavour. There is a gentle ephemeral bitterness in the finish that fills out the beer very nicely. Made with spelt rather than regular wheat.
Zeezuiper ★★★
Thin, alcoholic blonde ale with a floral, bready finish that has a hint of hairspray.
Schenkerla (Germany)
Rauchbier Helles ★★★★
Schenkerla beers are big bruisers that divide opinion with their smoky, bacon tinged flavours. This helles has a clean delicacy with whiffs of smoke and a dash of honey. A training wheels raunchbier and characterful helles all in one.
Rauchbier Marzen ★★★★★
Dark ruby coloured, almost black, beer with a smoky, burnt malty taste that is balanced by a slight caramel sweetness. Goes very well with smoked or spiced sausage. Initially similar to a porter, further tasting shows it to be distinctly different with a good depth of flavour and no coffee edge.
Rauchbier Weizen ★★★
A wheat version of the breweries famous smoke beer. Their distinct malty flavour leaps out, part way between a peaty single malt whisky and liquid bacon. The wheat gives it a bit more heft and smoothness making this a very heavy beer that will really divide people. Their lager is lighter and gassier which gives a better balance.
Schladinger (Austria)
Marzen ★★★
Once you get over the aroma of trainers you find a moderately gassy golden lager with a slightly sour taste. A tad surprising at first ("is it fully brewed yet?" you might ask) you soon adjust and drink happily.
Schloss Eggenburg (Austria)
Crisp golden lager with a typical pilsner hoppiness and a mild dryness.
Macqueens Nessie (5%) ★★★★
Light red coloured smoked whisky malt lager with a dry gassy taste. The whisky comes through gently in the aroma with a light tangy, smoky finish and a carbonated tingle on the tongue. Much lighter than Adelscot and Innis & Gunn.
Samiclaus ★★★
At 14% this is the strongest regularly brewed beer in the world. Brown in colour it has a warming caramel flavour with hints of raisin. It tastes strong but is not dominated by the alcohol. Could have more depth for it's strength. Bottled on the 6th December each year the name means "Santa Claus".
Urbock 23 ★★★
Strong (9%) amber beer with a pronounced malt and alcohol edge and a banana sweetness that fades into a sour dry bitterness. More drinkable than many lagered beers of it's strength but not exceptional.
Schlosser (Germany)
Alt ★★★
Classic altbier. Gassy with dark stewed fruits (sour cherry) and a gentle bitterness. A well balanced dark session beer.
Schneider (Germany)
Tap 1 Meine Blonde Weisse ★★★
The Weisse from Schneider that is closest to the Weisse you find from other German brewers. Banana is dominant but more perfumed than most.
Tap 11 Unsere Leichte Weisse ★★
Light filtered Weiss that clocks in at 3.3% abv. More akin to a helles than a hefeweizen. Presumed made because the brewers don't do lagers.
Tap 3 Alkoholfreies ★★★
Looks like Tap 7 original, taste like a (decent) alcohol free beer. Slightly sweet caramel malt, a hint of citrus and decent body. Erdinger's alcohol free is similar but ever so slightly better.
Tap 4 Grunes ★★★
Fairly plain weiss with little cloves and a slightly caramel banana malty flavour. Organic and wholesome but a bit underwhelming.
Tap 5 Hopfenweisse ★★★★
The hoppiest Weizen I've ever had. The dry bitter citrus flavours of an American IPA are carpet bombed on a Weiss base without becoming overpowering. A successful hybrid of styles.
Tap 6 Aventinus ★★★★★
Strong dark wheat beer with a potent alcoholic malty flavour with a deep spicy note. A robust winter warmer that's strong and satisfying, though not that complex.
Tap 7 Original ★★★★
Cloudy amber ale with a sweet foamy banana sweet taste, hints of tropical fruit and a solid mouthfeel. Feels like an easy drinking triple with a clean, but not bland, finish
Tap X Mein Nelson Sauvin ★★★★
Intense banana and cloves give way to tropical fruit flavours as it warms. A supercharged weisse brewed for the anniversary of ABT cafes in the Netherlands.
Tap X Meine Sommer Weisse ★★★★
A bright Weiss with dominant lemon flavours that are hazy rather than sharp or acidic. Tending towards a Witbier this is a fine, light, gassy Weiss designed for hot sunny days.
Weizen Eisbock ★★★★★
The Aventinus beer ice frozen to 12% abv. The caramelised banana flavours have been forced through to cocoa with a strong warming alcohol finish. A joy to end the evening with.
Schultheiss (Germany)
Pilsener ★★
Spectacularly bland lager. Cool and crisp but it would take a crack team of scientists to determine flavours in it.
Schumucker (Germany)
Smells of blackcurrant lemsip. Taste is more subtle with a sharp sweetness.
Seance (UK)
Dry, bitter citrus hopped ale with a soapy tangy finish. Passable session fare.
Senne (Belgium)
Brussels Calling ★★★★
Gently spiced blonde ale that slips down pleasingly with a dry bitter hoppy finish akin to an IPA - but without bashing you over the head.
Jambe De Bois ★★★
Rich, slightly creamy triple with a full flavour but no overt spicing.
Schiven IPA ★★★
Puckeringly dry grapefruit flavours with pepper and metal - it's an over hopped IPA folks, made by American & Belgian brewers. If you like your beers with a pine or hop resin flavour then this should float your boat.
Stouterik ★★★★
A dry, dark stout with malty characteristic still bleeding through the roasted notes. Fairly one note - but it's a very nice note.
Taras Boulba ★★★
Crisp "extra hoppy ale" that is less aggressive than many American IPAs. Smooth, with a pleasantly peppery flavour and a dry bitter finish. At 4.5% it's well suited to session drinking.
Zinne Bir ★★★
Dry, spicy beer with the peppery hoppy taste that defines all of their beers. At 5% abv it's very drinkable.
Zinne Bir X-mas 2013 ★★★★
A strong festive version of Zinne Bir that weighs in at 7.5% abv. When chilled the dark brown colour and dry spicing are reminiscent of Maredsous 8 but as it warms caramel and smoke start to dominate. Warming, but still easy to drink.
Shardlon (UK)
Bitter and sour golden ale that has a taste of bleach. Very poor.
Sharps (UK)
Atlantic IPA ★★★
Creamy, refreshing IPA with a smooth citrus hop flavour. A small step up from most mass produced fare.
Doombar ★★★
Smooth, comforting, slightly creamy bitter with a gentle soapy taste. Drinkable but unexceptional.
Honey Spice Wheat Beer ★★★
Does what it says on the label really. A dry, almost lagerish wheat beer with a faint taste of honey and an even fainter taste of spices.
Shepherd Neame (UK)
1648 ★★★
Gassy, lively strong ale with a malty, liquorice taste and an alcoholic kick at the end. Similar to Brakspear Triple but with slightly less body.
Asda Gentleman Jack ★★
Unfortunately someone went gas happy with the CO2 handle here. There are some nutty malt flavours in the mixed with a dark fruity sweetness, but it's all rather masked by the bubbles.
Asda Whitechapel Porter ★★★★
A strong aroma of roasted malts leads into a full and creamy mouthfeel with the bitterness balanced by a citrus hop flavour. Full flavoured, well balanced and very drinkable.
Christmas Ale ★★
Hoppy and soapy beer with a slight spiced fruit taste that feels like a wiped out Christmas afternoon when the taste buds are struggling.
Early Bird ★★★
Spring ale made with Kentish early bird hops that have a citrus and grapefruit tang that is balanced by an earthy bitterness. Floral malty notes hover above to give a pleasant mix of flavours, but it all feels a little safe.
End Of The Road Ale ★★★★
Strong, sweet toffee flavours dominate before the bitterness of the hops kicks in. A nice flavour progression.
Late Red ★★★★
Amber coloured beer with a creamy head. Predominantly a bitter hoppy ale but the flavour is balanced but malt and fruit notes. A good autumn ale.
Oranjeboom Pilsener (UK) ★★★
Amber lager with a very crisp dry flavour. There is a distinct malty taste at first but the finish is just gently bitter with a subliminal hint of orange. Dangerously drinkable on a hot day. Brewed under licence in the UK to a different strength to the continental Oranjeboom.
Sainsbury's TtD London Porter ★★★★
Potent, bitter malty ale that doesn't overdo the burnt notes. Hints of chocolate, liquorice and red fruit. Good traditional fare.
Sainsbury's TtD Summer Ale ★★★
Tangy, gassy amber coloured ale with a dash of toffee amongst the biscuit malt. Fair enough stuff.
Sapper Ale ★★★
A pleasant variant on Spitfire. Darker in colour with robust malty flavours layered with figs and cherries. A tad too gassy for my taste.
Spitfire ★★★
Kentish ale with a hint of toffee in the nose & a clean bitter fruity malt taste. There is a dry bitter hoppiness lingering in the finish with a light spicy note. Decent mass produced fare that is comforting rather than complex.
Whitstable Bay ★★★★
Woody hopped session ale with a dry bitter finish that has hints of pepper, biscuit, sour toffee and yeast. At 3.8% abv you could easily drink a lot of this.
Ship In A Bottle (UK)
Mersey Ale ★★★
Chestnut coloured ale with brown ale nutty, malty flavours. The finish is dry and carbonated. There's a hint of wood too. Serviceable session fare.
Shugborough (UK)
Deep smooth ruby coloured ale akin to Wychwood Osprey.
Sibera (UK)
Rhubarb Saison ★★★★
Smooth malty beer where the sweet, tangy edge of the rhubarb in the finish. A great, full flavoured quaffing beer.
Sierra Nevada (USA)
Bigfoot Ale ★★
Barley wine style ale with a big hoppy ale that is akin to an English bitter. Very strong but with little depth to show for it. There are beers at 5% or under that do the same job.
Kellerweis ★★★
Dry, slightly powdery, beer with hints of citrus and pineapple - possibly a dash of bubblegum. A very tight flavour with an assertive, dominant gassiness. Feels a bit top heavy and lacking on depth. A straight forward, somewhat plain wheat beer.
Porter ★★★
Potent, malty, roasted dark ale with a lively gassy start and with a rounded ashy bitterness to the finish. A Guinness spritzer?
Torpedo IPA ★★★
Incredibly hoppy IPA in the traditional American micro brewed style. Crisp with a dry bitter finish and a dash of citrus.
Tumbler ★★★
Dark amber ale with smoky, roasted flavours and an interesting dry hoppy edge that cuts it down to a thin finish. There is carbonated edge to the finish that undercuts the flavours. A nice amber ale that feels rather neutered.
Silly (Belgium)
Enghien Noel ★★★
Creamy, gassy tripel that's had a spice rack thrown at it to make it more festive. The end result is a satisfying blend of sweet spices, powdery dryness and warming sherry that just about hangs together and lingers in the finish. A boisterous blond beer.
La Divine ★★★
Amber ale with no head. A sour bundle of spicy citrus with a dry tingle in the finish. Stronger than it tastes at 9.5%.
Saison ★★★
Light brown coloured beer with a malt flavour that is so assertive it starts to become tangy. Elements of a brown ale with a slight nuttiness that starts to emerge.
Scotch ★★★
Thick toffee malts and an evident 8% abv alcoholic kick. Thick, syrupy and with more than a hint of ovaltine. One to stave off the winter cold with.
Titje ★★★★
Lively Belgian wheat beer with a flavour of lemon tart without any cloying sweetness and restrained spicing. A interesting variant on the witbier style.
Singha (Thailand)
Lager ★★★
Hoppy Thai lager that feels refreshing with a slight fruity edge. Should go well with aromatic hot eastern food that marries with something aromatic.
Sion (Germany)
Kolsch ★★
Light, almost airy, ale that is close to a helles. There is a slight watery bitterness on the tongue and then it just wafts away. A bit like light fluffy bread. Would be more acceptable if it was a low alcohol beer.
Siren Craft (UK)
Limoncello IPA ★★★★
Torrents of citrus hops, lemon zest and lemon juice. What should be a strained concept is a nicely balanced beer that achieves exact what the name promises - zinging limoncello citrus, enough hops to tether it down and a warming alcoholic finish.
Liquid Mistress ★★★★
An amber IPA that packs a big, peppery hop punch balanced by smoky dark fruit flavours and a floral waft of peach. The finish is long, dry and bitter. Complex but not confused.
Rising Tide ★★★
Creamy, deep amber beer with tropical fruit resinous hops and a warming alcohol finish. Made with rye malt and simcoe hops this is fuller than many IPAs but retains a dry chalky finish.
Six Bells (UK)
Spellbound ★★
Very watery light amber ale with a woody hop flavour and a sour tangy edge. Poor.
Ska (USA)
Modus Hoperandi ★★★
Incredibly dry blond ale with bitter peppery hops to the fore. There is a dry grapefruit pith and bread taste. It also has a bit of a burn at the end. A regulation potent IPA.
Skands (Denmark)
Blu Chimpanzee ★★★★
Mahogany brown ale with a robust fruity and malty flavour. There is a slight sweetness in the finish akin to a Belgian ale. Quite strong at 6.5% abv. A bitterness steadily emerges.
Esrum Kloster ★★★
Strong dark ale with a massive mix of spices (lavender, rosemary and star anise) and roasted orange peel giving it a bitter herbal flavour. There is a maltiness in the base you can just discern. Distinctive but somewhat unbalanced. Quite something though.
Taeppefeld ★★★
Brewed for a theatre this strong dark lager is a beer that does the typical Scandinavian trick of blending the gassy malty taste of a dunkel with the roasted bitterness of a porter. Tasty interval fare that won't keep you from act 2
Skebo (Sweden)
UPA ★★★
Smooth English style ale with a wet soapy hop taste and a pleasant bitterness. Laid back session fare. A hint of dry dark chocolate on the finish.
Skinners (UK)
Betty Stogs ★★★
Dark amber session bitter with a lively gassiness that pounces upon you. A solid biscuit malt with citrus hop highlights tries to fight it's through the fizz, losing out to lingering CO2 in the finish. Woodshavings in the aroma.
Splendid Tackle ★★★
Lively golden ale with a citrus edge that doesn't taste like fairy liquid. Smooth with a decent body
Slaghmuylder (Belgium)
Witkap Livinus Blonde ★★★
This kicks off with a hit of candy sugar followed by an alcohol burn. There is a strong caramel maltiness with hints of a spiced rum. There is a gassy mouthfeel that gives a good tingle without compromising the taste. It becomes increasingly dry, powdery, hoppy and slightly metallic.
Witkap Pater Stimulo ★★★★★
Grassy, slightly citric, cloudy blond beer that feels very refreshing despite it's dry gassy taste. A good clean beer that would go down very well on a summers day.
Witkap Pater Tripel ★★★★
A beer that offers a Hoegarden smell and wheaty body that has a soft dry taste with a blue cheese edge. There is the taste of barley water - orange, lemon, gooseberry and grapefruit pith. Creamy and fully flavoured without delivering an exceptional hit.
Slater's (UK)
A smoky take on a English bitter. Pleasant but unexceptional.
Slaughterhouse (UK)
Saddleback ★★★
Normally an easy drinking light tasting session ale that's forgettable but very drinkable. Sometimes it's very sour like a gueuze and a bitter in the same glass - unintentionally.
Wild Boar ★★★
Pale brown ale that feels like it's faded through too many cycles in the wash. There is a watery, nutty flavour with a sweet red wine finish. Very easy to drink but quite forgettable.
Slotsbryggeriet (Sweden)
Imperial Stout ★★★★
Dark 9% abv stout with a faint tan head. Chocolate on the nose with a fruity bitter taste with a hint of sweetness in the finish and a gentle gassiness underpinning it all. Has elements of an abbey quadrupel whilst retaining the classic, almost soy sauce, elements of an imperial stout.
Mowhawk Rye IPA ★★★
A Swedish take on an American IPA. It has the dry hoppy flavour nailed without becoming too overpowering. Quite potent at 7.5% with a gassy bitter tingle at the finish. Could have more complexity.
Sma Vesen (Norway)
Kvernknurr ★★★★★
Toffee coloured ESB with a taste to match. Sweetened hops but with a balanced bitterness to keep things in check and alight fizz. Smooth mouthfeel, almost akin to a wheat beer. Very good stuff that almost feels like a light abbey dubbel.
SNAB (Holland)
1410 ★★★★
Dry malty blonde ale with a dusty hop leaf finish that has a herbal edge (sage?). A great mix of flavours.
Snaterende Arend (Holland)
Zwaluw ★★★
Smooth, strong, amber ale with a full yet restrained malty flavour. A dry bitter hoppiness comes through in the finish but doesn't dominate. There's also caramel and coriander in there.
Snowy Mountains (Australia)
Razorback Red Ale ★★★
This beer attempts to keep a number of plates spinning at the same time. The four malts give it a nutty, caramel taste whilst the American Simncoe hops gives it a citrus edge. The finish is dry and slightly woody. A beer with depth and complexity, but it can be difficult to fully appreciate it's subtleties as the diverse tastes can cancel each other out into a warming, comforting, brown ale stalemate.
Sornin (France)
Trouille ★★★★
A French brune with a rustic taste that is dark mahogany in colour. It has dark, fruity taste with hints of raspberries and lemon - maybe a little sour cream - finishing off with a touch of coffee. The range of flavours add up to a slightly hazy taste, but very interesting and pleasant.
Southern Tier (USA)
Mokha ★★★★
Smells and tastes like rich chocolate ice cream. The only trace of the 11% abv strength is the sweetness but there is no kick to it. A superb desert beer, but one you'll want to have in relatively small measures.
Spaten (Germany)
Oktoberfest ★★
Hoppy and slightly musty German lager with a light gassy bitter finish. Has a watery thin feel to the foundations. Tastes a tad like Carling which is disappointing, although the hoppy aroma is more interesting.
Speights (New Zealand)
Distinction Ale ★★★
Gassy amber beer with gentle caramel malt. Easy drinking fare with enough flavour to stop it being bland without really having enough to merit distinction.
Gold Medal Ale ★★★
Amber ale with a gassy mouthfeel and a bitter malty flavour that almost feels leathery. Light and slightly watery which makes it quaffable session fare. Not particularly complex. The bottle cap has a trivia question inside.
Old Dark ★★★
Dark brown ale that has a taste that makes it no surprise that it is made with 5 different malts. Crisp, light and gassy with chocolate, caramel and roasted malts vying for attention but with a very gentle finish. An easy drinking dark lager that ain't bland.
Pilsener ★★★
Clean, crisp lager with a restrained hop taste and a gently bitter and gassy finish. There are certainly pilseners with more flavour but it's decent enough.
Porter ★★★
Deep dark roasted porter that weighs in heavy with gently burnt flavour without obscuring the malt flavour. There is a hint of chocolate in there too. The finish is light and the mouthfeel is quite gassy. A decent porter that doesn't mess with the formula.
Summit ★★
Light lager that tends to verge on wet air. A dash of citrus but generally it's hard to discern any malt or hops. A recent addition to the breweries range to appeal to those who think their Gold Medal lager has too much flavour.
Spendrups (Sweden)
Julbrygd ★★★★
Swedish Christmas beer. A dark lager with a large but short-lived head. Gentle flavours of malt, fruit and liquorice fade into a gentle flat watery aftertaste. Very light and easy to drink despite it being over 5%. Goes well with a smorgasbord (or even better a festive julbord).
Norrlands Guld ★★
Golden lager with a full biscuit and corn malt flavour and a pleasing gassy tingle. A fairly standard mass produced lager but fair enough. May cause belching.
Old Gold ★★★
Crisp Swedish lager with a bitter finish and a strong dry hopped taste. Well balanced but unexceptional. Goes well with cold meat and cheese.
Springhead (UK)
Roaring Meg ★★★★
The "big blonde" ale with a strong hoppy taste cut with a slight honey edge and a delicate dryness in the finish. There is the citrus edge typical of many golden ales with a slight tanginess. A beer that is strong and confident without losing any delicacy. Could be easily sipped or drunk as a session beer.
Ruperts Ruin ★★★
Gentle malty beer with a ruby colour and a dry aftertaste. Tasty but not exceptional
The Leveller ★★★
Incredibly malty dark brown bitter with a roasted, almost burnt, finish.
St Austell (UK)
Admiral Ale ★★★★
Chestnut coloured 5% ale with a balance between hops and malt and a gentle fizz to liven things up. There is a fruity note between citrus, apricot and elderflower. Light enough to be easy drinking but with a good depth of taste.
Big Job ★★★
Oil, citrus zest, elderflower and resin float around in this light, but deceptively strong beer. There is a bit hoppiness lingering in the finish. Floats like a butterfly, but has a real punch.
Bock ★★★
Amber lager with huge caramel flavours and a bitter, tangy finish that can feel a little metallic dependant on the temperature it's served at. Disturbingly drinkable for it's 6.5% abv strength.
Clouded Yellow ★★★★
Bavarian style unfiltered wheat beer named after a migrating butterfly. Quite dry and somewhat gassy with subtle hints of coriander and vanilla that lead to gentle bitter cloves in the finish. Very good, but could be bolder.
Free Beer ★★★★★
Ruby coloured strong 'open source' ale (5.5%) with a taste like a rougher version of Tribute. The Guarana makes it refreshing and energising (and me light headed).
HSD ★★★★
Chestnut brown bitter with a rounded, nutty, caramel malt flavour. A pleasantly robust session beer.
Korev ★★★★
Crisp lager with a widescreen malty flavour that appears to expand in your mouth. A step up from bland lagers without throwing in anything weird.
Nicholson Pale Ale ★★★
Brewed for the glass, wood and mirrors pub chain, this is a smooth creamy golden ale with a butter and straw finish that has a dash of bitterness. A well crafted session ale designed to offend no-one.
Proper Black ★★★
Pitch black flat beer with a burnt bitter bitumen flavour. The brewers call it a black IPA and as it warms up the dry peppery hops come through in the finish. Could have a more dynamic flavour.
Proper Job ★★★
Dry bitter and woody ale with a hoppy fruitiness in the mix. A robust full flavoured session ale.
Royal Diamond IPA ★★★★
Gassy IPA made with champagne yeast that has a fruity apple taste amongst the peppery hops.
Smugglers Grand Cru ★★★★★
Strong pale brown beer with a monstrous alcoholic kick (11.5% abv). A superb mix of warming malt, gentle spice and stewed fruit.
Trelawny ★★★★★
Fruity amber ale with hints of apricot and peach that doesn't feel too sweet or floral. The malty foundation underpins it very nicely and at 3.5% abv you could drink a lot of this.
Tribute ★★★★★
This is an everyday beer in the finest sense - a beer you could happily drink everyday. It has a light brown colour and a gentle malty taste that is never bland but is not overpowering either. It is almost elusive with each mouthful calling for another to try and tease out another subtlety in the taste. They say it's "moreishly drinkable" and they are right.
St Bernardus (Belgium)
Abt 12 ★★★★★
Smooth, dark beer that used to be the "official imitation" of Westvleteren 12. Sweetly malty, slightly fruity and elements of caramel. Dark, complex and well balanced. Brighter, gassier and greener than the 12 from Sint Sixtus but not quite its equal.
Blanche Witbier ★★★★
As a Pierre Celis signature beer this comes with approval from the father of modern wheat beer. It is an assured and traditional brew with a gentle mix of citrus, gas and coriander. It is fairly light but without compromising taste.
Christmas Ale ★★★
Beer or mulled wine? Cherries and sweet red fruit with a hint of red wine. The gassiness is a bit overpowering and obscures the flavours somewhat. The finish has a hint of herbal medicine.
Grottenbier ★★★★
Light, spicy beer with a definite coriander edge. Smooth, dark and full bodied like a wheat beer. There is a distinct taste of spiced orange zest.
Pater 6 ★★★
Cloudy amber abbey ale with a restrained malty flavour that has some bitter hoppy flecks in the finish. There is a tingling creamy fizz on the tongue. There's a light spicy note in there too. Easy drinking without being bland.
Prior 8 ★★★★
A partially successful attempt to facsimile the Westvleteren 8. The bitter rounded liquorice and coffee flavours are there but it feels slightly washed out in comparison to the original. Avoid over-chilling it.
Triple ★★★★
Smooth, cloudy amber beer that has a subtle but complex taste when chilled that makes you lean in to taste it better. The gentle floral taste with elements of banana becomes a wheaty, hopped taste as it warms. Easy to drink for it's strength and a very good beer all round.
Watou Tripel ★★★
Cloudy, full bodied ale with a pleasing spritzy gassiness that doesn't obscure the flavour. There are bananas on the aroma with a dry chalky flavour that has an orangey flavour.
St Feullian (Belgium)
Best Coast IPA ★★★★
This has the balance you want between a gently spiced, malty Belgian ale and the hoppy kick of an American IPA. The finish is dry, but not too dry.
Blonde ★★★
Gassy blonde abbey beer with a bitter edge that is reminiscent of a wheat beer but with a spicier citric flavour. The finish has a carbonated perfumed hoppiness.
Cuvee Noel ★★★
Tart tasting beer with a fruity edge and a deep malty aftertaste. It claims to have a "remarkable unctuousness".
Grand Cru ★★★★
An elegant beer that would wear a top hat and monocle if it could. Clean, dry and strong with a bright citrus flavour and a hint of hoppy pepper. Pleasant and deceptively easy to drink for 9% abv.
Saison ★★★★
A classic saison with full malty flavours, a hint of caramel and a dash of spice. Smooth but not dull.
Tripel ★★★★
Golden tripel with a smooth creamy, orangey taste and a slightly coriander banana aftertaste and a hint of sourness. Well rounded and very drinkable.
St Georgen (Germany)
Doppelbock Dunkel ★★★
Dark, malty strong lager with a gentle roasted malt flavour with a sweet, alcoholic edge. The finish is dry and burnt. Quite gassy which makes it feel light. (Lemon ermine).
Helles ★★★
Dry, crisp, hoppy lager with a bitter aftertaste. Has nothing to particularly distinguish itself from the crowd but is agreeable enough.
Keller Beer ★★★★
Earthy, light brown unfiltered pilsner with a bitter hoppy edge, a hint of nuttiness that develops a biscuit maltiness. Full bodied and refreshing with a light carbonation. The bottle conditioning & cave aging can give variable results. You might get leaves, urine, gooseberries, kiwi fruit, caramel malt, bitter hops or a slight sourness.
St Peter (UK)
Amarillo ★★★
Looks like a cross between a wheat beer and cider. Has a measured citrus taste that is a balanced by a gentle hoppiness.
Cream Stout ★★★★
Pitch black stout with a small tan head. The taste is an intensely bitter mix of chocolate and coffee driven by four different types of malt used in the brewing. The gentle carbonation and slight sweetness (a hint of powdered dark chocolate) stop it feeling too heavy and it feels smooth but doesn't have the velvety creaminess of something like Guinness. The finish is bittersweet and isn't overpowering. At 6.5% abv it is strong and has a hint of a potent imperial stout as it warms up. Restrained and underplayed but with depth and subtlety.
Honey Porter ★★
Rich honey dominates the taste at first before the hoppiness of the porter tries to stage a fight back. They quickly cancel each other out to leave a soapy flavour. An interesting failure. Dark in colour with no head.
Mild ★★★★
A mild? This tastes like a porter all the way with a big roasted coffee flavour that complements it's dark colour. Straightforward but satisfying and at 3.7% very drinkable and with an impressively full flavour.
Organic Bitter ★★★
Dry and aggressively woody pale golden bitter with a caustic and chalky finish. A touch too astringent to be as good as their best.
Ruby Red Ale ★★★
Dry, almost smoky ale with a gorgeous port red colour. Woody hops dominate but are not too intense. Gentle enough for session drinking.
Sainsbury's TtD Suffolk Blonde ★★
A bit of a mess. A wheat beer that is neither Hefeweizen nor wit. Watery and slightly sour with hints of malt and raisin. Has the disappointing hint of generic lager.
Strong Ale ★★★
Raisins on the aroma are joining by thick malts, figs and burnt caramel. Gassy enough to be light but without compromising the flavour. The finish is dry and slight caustic nuttiness from the hoppy burn.
Summer Ale ★★★
At 6.5% abv this could be a winter warmer. Straight ahead alcoholic malty flavours with a dash of molasses.
Wheat Beer ★★★
Filtered wheat beer made with Belgian yeast and German hops. The taste is crisp, bitter and malty. It has the light gassiness of a lager with a dry, lip smacking finish that has a hint of hops. Solid easy drinking fare.
St Rieul (France)
CaB 5 ★★★★★
St Rieul Xmas beer aged for 5 months in oak barrels, dry hopped with Saaz and then bottled to celebrate the 5th anniversary of French beer shop Cave a Bulles. Dark powdered chocolate and bitter orange combine with the woody notes. A superb beer and a fitting tribute.
Grand Cru ★★★★
Amber triple fermented biere du garde with a big white foamy head. A strong beer at 9% it has elements of the agricultural flavours of French biere du garde and the smooth strength of a Belgian tripel. It is full bodied with an alcoholic malty edge that fades into a slight spiciness. Smooth, well balanced and very drinkable with a slightly fruity aroma.
St Sylvestre (France)
3 Monts ★★★★
Straw coloured strong ale with a frothy head. Smooth with a restrained alcoholic hoppy flavour and a bready mouthfeel. A potent beer that feels like a warm summer evening in the French countryside. A sipping beer.
Gavroche ★★★
Dark amber ale which despite being 8.5% has a very light, slightly caramel, sweet malty flavour to it. Feels a bit bland on this tasting but may improve if properly chilled and served.
Staffordshire (UK)
Rudyard Ruby Ale ★★★
A classically flat English bitter with a gentle bed of roasted malts studded with chocolate raisins. The nose it a little too tangy, but it's a pleasing session beer.
Stanway (UK)
Morris A Leaping ★★★
A light brown bitter with no head and a light aroma. The taste is initially watery and refreshing with a dry bitter malty finish that has a hint of biscuits. A weak and gentle session beer.
Stary Melnik (Russia)
Iz Bochonka Myagkoe ★★
Thin light lager with the briefest hint of malted barley in the taste balanced with a gentle gassiness. There is nothing wrong with it but it is way too bland on it's own. Goes fairly well with food that could otherwise be overpowered.
Stevens Point (USA)
Belgian White ★★★
A tinned Hefeweizen? There are sweet bananas with a metallic edge and a hint of caramel and warming alcohol. Dissapointing.
Stoke (New Zealand)
Amber ★★★★
Big hopped amber ale with a caramel note in the finish and a bitter roasted undertow. The mouthfeel is very gassy. The roasted malts linger a long time in the finish. A beer with a lot of punch for it's 4.5% strength.
Gold ★★★
Dry, citrus hopped beer that gets tank conditioned for 3 weeks. The hops are bitter, woody and assertive but the calming maltiness in the finish keeps them in check.
Stone & Wood (Australia)
Pacific Ale ★★
Very pale beer with an aroma and taste of elderflowers, skunk and a fairy liquid citrus hit. Quite poor.
Struise (Belgium)
Ignis & Flamma ★★★★
A homage to Molen Vuur & Vlam, this Flemish IPA isn't over hopped but has quite a bite to it. The softly spoken little brother of the Molen beer?
Rosse ★★★
Sweet strawberry aromas are held in check by a robust malty flavour with hints of caramel and smoke. Feels a touch forced, but very tasty.
Tsjesses Reserva ★★★
Strong, sugary Christmas beer with a hint of roasted malt, sticky honey and a ludicrous alcohol burn.
Witte ★★★
Inherently bland pale blonde beer with hints of travel sweets, honey and grass. A flavourless Witbier.
Struube (Belgium)
Keyte Oostend Dobbel Tripel ★★
Very strong red beer that starts off with thick aromas of red fruit but the taste is a disappointment. A mix of thin, tannic red wine and metallic fruit vodka.
Keyte Oostend Tripel ★★★
Stir fried greens and sour bread dough float around in this strong blonde ale.
Summer Wine (UK)
Smoky amber ale with a peppery hop taste and a dry finish.
Diablo ★★★
Enough already with the hops. A nice tropical fruit aroma with mango and lychee leads into a bitter, chalky, grapefruit pithy finish with pine resin that's just overwhelming.
Elbow Grease ★★★
Golden ale with a watery, soapy, hoppy flavour. Passable but forgettable fare.
Reaper ★★★
Ruddy amber coloured IPA that has the normally peppery taste with only a hint of brown malts coming through.
Red Hop Ale ★★★
Heavily hopped amber ale with a peppery hopped flavour.
Sunlik (China)
Lager ★★★
Dry and sweet beer with a crisp edge. Apparently the UK's most popular draft Chinese beer. Brewed by Sheppard Neame in this country.
Sunner (Germany)
Kolsch ★★★
Pale golden ale with a gentle malty taste and a light carbonation that dances ephemerally on the tongue. Leaves a watery, mildly bitter, finish.
Surrey Hills (UK)
Reassuring brown English bitter with a dominant dry malty flavour. Decent session fare.
Swanlake (Japan)
Porter ★★★★
The burnt edges of roasted malt mix with bitter cocoa flavours in this assertive porter. There's a warming alcoholic edge in the finish that mixes in nicely.
Tap Room (USA)
Sainsbury's TtD IPA ★★★★
Thick, resinous IPA with a pine hop flavour and a little bitter spicy tingle at the end. Controlled, but not dull. A responsible American IPA.
Sainsbury's TtD Pale Ale ★★★★
A mix of the tropical fruit flavours of a pale ale with the hoppy citrus bite of an IPA. Deep amber in colour this is underpinned by a chewy malty flavour, whilst the gassiness makes it feel light. Has admirable depth and complexity.
Teme Valley (UK)
That ★★★
Chestnut coloured bitter made with Challenger and Fuggles hops. The taste has a dry citrus hop but it is balanced by a rounded maltiness that develops into a gentle nutty finish. Smooth, enjoyable session fare with character.
This ★★★
Light English bitter with a gentle watery hoppy taste mixed with a nutty fruitiness and a light bitterness on the tongue at the finish. Pleasing session fare.
Wotever Next ★★★
Dark premium bitter with a dry burnt coffee grounds taste. Akin to a porter but with a hoppiness overseeing and balancing the flavour. Assertive but not overwhelming. Very good stuff.
Texels (Holland)
Skuumkoppe ★★★★
More an amber-weizen than a dunkel-weizen, this has a smoother, more rounded flavour than many others with less bitter roasted flavours. There are honey, raisin and capsicum notes in there.
Winterbier ★★★
Dark, strong ale that feels like Innis & Gunn with the sides sliced off. Wood, malty and sweetly warming but with the complexity it could have.
The Hop Factory (UK)
Noel In Christmas ★★★★
A robust chestnut coloured biter that is verging on ESB territory. The wood hops and roasted malts provide a great base for the delicate Christmas spices. A restrained and well executed seasonal beer that you could drink a lot of.
Theakston (UK)
Creamy and fairly bland ale that fishes in the same waters as IPA.
Old Peculiar ★★★
Dark ruby ale with a malty alcoholic taste akin to an old ale. There is a hint of stewed fruit in the background. Overall it is slightly too thin.
XB ★★★★
Thick malt, toffee, liquorice and fig dominate this full flavoured bitter. Could have more subtlety and refinement but it's good hearty session fare.
Thiriez (France)
Ambree du Esquelbeck ★★★★★
Dark amber beer with a full hoppy taste that is wonderfully balanced with a gentle bitterness and a hint of orange. Slightly gassy, but only enough to keep it light.
Biere De Noel ★★★
Full flavoured chestnut coloured beer with a dry malty finish. There is a wash of bitter hops, wood notes and roasted nuts. There are some smoky caramel amber ale notes in there too. A gassy take on a brown ale without any novelty Christmas spices to ruin the fun. A tad muddy and indistinct.
Biobiere ★★★★
Organic blonde biere du garde. Clean and restrained with some funky farmyard hops and a watery biscuit malt base. Easy drinking, but always interesting.
Blonde du Esquelbeck ★★★★★
Cloudy golden beer with a creamy head and a smell of fields of hops and oranges. The taste is initially crisp and gassy leading into a fresh citrus orange flavour that is bright but well balanced. There is a hint of cider that would make it ideally suited to summer but it's good enough to be enjoyable in a snowstorm. The taste is balanced by a wheat beer breadiness that gives it depth.
Dalva ★★★★
Heavily hoppy, but not overpowered. There is the rustic smell of pet bedding, and a really full mouthfeel. Not Thiriez best, but a well crafted beer.
Esquelbecoise ★★★★
Gassy blonde beer with a big frothy head. Once the fizz dies down on your tongue the rural hoppy flavours of a biere de garde come through. Light, lively, and perfect for a hot day in the French countryside.
Etoile Du Nord ★★★★
Cloudy blonde beer with a big citrus hop taste. Refreshing with a satisfying lingering tingling zesty finish. Creamy mouthfeel.
La Maline ★★★★★
Dark hoppy beer with a syrupy sweetness. Does not have a coffee or burnt edge that similarly dark beers have. Very smooth and drinkable but with a depth of flavour.
La Nocturne ★★★★
Deep brown stout, topped with a deep red head, made with coffee beans. The rich roasted flavours are dominant, with bitter chocolate, warming whisky alcohol and a floral hoppiness. A great blend.
La Petit Princesse ★★★
A 2.9% abv table beer that is a gassy, light and refreshing saison. There are sour dry citrus hops and a faint dash of the funky rustic farmhouse. Some will find it watery, others will find it fully flavoured for it's strength. It depends on your frame of reference. Brewed with Jester King.
La Qu√�b√�coises ★★★★
A finely crafted blonde ale. There is a motion blurred hoppy bite with a rustic edge and a buttery finish. Gassy enough to be light and refreshing with no compromise on flavour.
La Rouge Flamande ★★★★
Dark, bitter, hoppy ale with a very thick caramel malt taste. Elements of a dark English ale but with the rustic earthiness of a biere du garde. The finish is slightly smoky and slightly sour aftertaste.
Vieille Brune ★★★★
Oak aged dark ale. The aroma and initial taste has the sour cherry flavours of Flemish red ale but the oaky finish then hits you like a falling tree trunk. As it warms you get a better balance of smoke, fruit and timber.
Thornbridge (UK)
Ashford ★★★★
Smooth brown ale which is surprisingly refreshing with a good range of roasted flavours in the aftertaste.
Bracia ★★★
Tenuously linked to an iron age recipe, this is 10% abv and made with Italian chestnut honey. It has dry roasted malts, burnt soy sauce, dusty lavender and pot pourri flavours. The finish is an earthy mix of brambles, syrup, stale perfume and warming alcoholic malts. A supercharged, and probably overcooked, take on Williams Bros Fraoch.
Brother Rabbit ★★★
Perfumed floral hoppy ale with a gently bitter finish. A well crafted beer that just fails to hit the spot for me.
Halcyon ★★★
Like chewing on hops but are worried that it isn't socially acceptable? This imperial IPA is a 7.4% abv mainline hit of grapefruit and citrus hops should sort you out. Goes very well with stilton.
Jaipur ★★★★★
India Pale Ale with big fruit flavours that combine beautifully with the traditional hoppy taste of IPA. The overall taste is fairly heavy but it still provides refreshment and can balance well with food.
Juvenia ★★★★
A hop heavy porter with a real kick flavourwise but a smooth edge to it. The roasted malts are offset by a citrus edge to the hops that gives a real complexity to it.
Kill Your Darlings ★★★★★
Way beyond amber, this beer has a reddish tea brown colour. Sweet chestnuts, roses and red fruit on the aroma. These embellish the confident malt and hops taste. Fully flavoured but still crisp and refreshing.
Kipling ★★★
Dry, bitter pale ale with a fruity edge. I couldn't clearly make out the passion fruit and kiwi fruit flavours the brewers claim but it certainly doesn't lack flavour.
Thorny Goat ★★★★★
A Mocha Porter with coffee beans and burnt pan juices combine in this dry, bitter dark ale. The finish has a hint of dark chocolate whilst the broad bubbling carbonation ties in nicely with the roasted malts. Brewed with Mountain Goat.
Tzara ★★★
Dry golden ale that starts out chalky but has grapefruit jam flavours coming through in the finish - though peppery notes dominate. Bland but intriguing - the beer equivalent of a TV on mute. More interesting than many genuine Kolsch.
Versa ★★★
Gassy amber hefeweizen that taste of banana flavoured bubblegum. There is enough of a clove flavour to stop it being too sweet.
Wild Swan ★★★
Sharp beer with an acerbic hoppy flavour. The finish is dry and peppery. Only 3.5% abv. A chilled out IPA for a summer day?
Three Boys (New Zealand)
Wheat ★★★
Belgian style wheat beer with a bright citrus flavour that initially seems like lemon, but if the sediment is poured from the bottle becomes grapefruit. The sharpness verges on the kind of sourness found in lambics. Little trace of spices. Well made but a bit too much the citrus smells you'd get from bathroom cleaners and lemon tart for comfort.
Three Hearts (Sweden)
Stockholm Fine Festival Beer (5.6%) ★★
It claims to be a fine festival beer from Stockholm that has won the gold medal at the world's toughest quality test. It tastes like a bland fizzy lager that could have come from anywhere in the world.
Thurn & Taris (Germany)
Gassy bland lager with a odd chemical malty edge but little else. Poor.
Thwaite's (UK)
(Very) Nutty Black ★★★
Export strength version of Thwaite's mild ale that weighs in at 3.9% abv. Very dark in colour with a woody, tangy flavour that has a liquorice bittersweet edge. Dry finish and tight carbonation. Smooth and understated, but something you could drink a lot of.
Bitter ★★★
Easy drinking traditional tasting bitter
Double Century ★★★
Pleasant, drinkable but unexceptional
Highwayman ★★★★
Dark ruby ale with a small transient head. The taste is dominated by the roasted chocolate malts with a bitter burnt after taste with a hint of soy sauce. Quite smooth and with bags of flavour for it's 4% strength, this could make for a good dark session beer.
M&S Lancashire Mild ★★★★
Properly chewy mild with roasted malt flavours tempered by a hint of sweet caramel and dark fruit. Only 3.7% abv but has the confident flavours you'd expect from a quality mild.
Wainwright ★★★
Golden ale with no head. It has a light taste with a hoppy, slightly gassy initial taste that is softened by some gentle sweet fruit flavours.
Tilquin (Belgium)
Gueuze ★★★★★
Agricultural gueuze that has the rough and ready charm of the Lindemann's Cuv√�e Rene. Tart cider flavours upfront with a morish sour finish. Blended using lambic from Boon, Lindemans, Cantillon and Girardin. It stands comparison with all of these.
Timothy Taylor (UK)
Golden Best ★★★
Smooth hoppy ale that is nice and light. A traditional British ale that is very easy to drink.
Landlord ★★★★
Four times supreme champion beer of Britain this classic bitter can be a tad variable. On draft it sometimes has a sharp bitter taste that jars with the citrus hop edge. At it's best the rich toffee malt flavours balance out the hops expertly.
Tirril (UK)
Tasty and moreish ale. 4% in strength and a light but not bland taste
Red Barn Ale ★★★★
The taste of freshly dissolved crystalline salted caramel dominates this beer. The bitterness of the hops keeps the sweetness balanced very nicely. A clean beer with no shortage of flavour.
Slee's Academy Ale ★★★★
Dark, full bodied malty ale with a strong and distinctive taste that balanced out well over the course of a pint.
Titanic (USA)
Chocolate & Vanilla Stout ★★★
Massive vanilla and chocolate aromas really get you salivating. The taste is a moderate balance of lactose and roasted malts that fades quite quickly. A tiramisu beer that feels a touch too manufactured.
Engine Room ★★★
Light, slightly citric ale whose sharpness counters a slight blandness.
Tochigi (Japan)
Nikko Premium (Yuzu) ★★★★
A pilsner flavoured with yuzu (citrus) peel. The end result is like a witbier; light, crisp and with tart citrus flavours. There are grapefruit and mandarin orange flavours - unless you are au fait with yuzu it's pretty distinctive. Would be beautiful to have in the sun.
Tom Woods (UK)
Light watery golden bitter that has little depth or finish to it.
Old Timber ★★★
Slightly bitter and malty beer with a fruitiness in the finish. A tad watery overall.
Tooheys (Australia)
Extra Dry ★★★
Australian premium lager with an assertive malty flavour, dry finish and an agreeable level of carbonation. A good crisp bottled lager.
Old ★★★
Straightforward stout with a gentle, slightly burnt, roasted malt flavour that fades to nothing in the finish. Slightly creamy mouthfeel but still fairly gassy. Usually served ice cold, it doesn't gain any depth if drunk warmer.
Traquir (UK)
House Ale ★★★★
Strong dark ale that has a heavy, malty, alcoholic base. Similar to some of the Innis & Gunn beers with a hint of stewed fruit.
Jacobite Ale ★★★★
Strong dark ale with a malty porter taste balanced with a spiced aftertaste. There is a gassiness to the mouthfeel that gives it body but it still has an underlying smoothness. Brewed to a historic Scottish recipe.
Triple F (UK)
Alton's Pride ★★★
A somewhat watery ale with enough of a peppery hop bite to save it from blandness. An gentle session ale.
Moondance ★★★
Amber coloured best bitter made with Maris Otter hops. Sharp citrus tang means only a pint at a sitting but has a good full taste
Pressed Rat & Warthog ★★★
Sharp, malty dark brown beer with a small laced head and a hint of raspberries and vinegar. Robust yet very drinkable beer that ends on a slightly dry coffee note.
Witches Promise ★★★
Hallow's eve seasonal bitter that's golden in colour but has bitter dried cocoa in the taste with a hint of woody hops. Some seasonal shenanigans that aren't objectionable.
Tsingtao (China)
Slightly dry and slightly hoppy lager that goes fairly well with food.
Tuatara (New Zealand)
Bavarian Hefe ★★★
Microbrewed German style wheat beer made with yeast from Weihenstephan. The taste is a fresh and lively mix of banana, vanilla and cloves. The finish is dry and mellow. The mouthfeel is not as heavy as most authentic German wheat beers, but it's certainly just as tasty.
Tuborg (Denmark)
Paskebryg ★★★
Pale amber lager brewed for Easter with an almost toffeeish maltiness to balance the gassiness. Fine but nothing special
Pilsner ★★
Bone dry Danish pilsner. A fair taste but dehydrating though it does seem to go down well after a curry. Not one for drinking on it's own though.
Tucher (Germany)
Helles Hefe-weizen ★★★
Light German wheat beer with a bright bubbly fruity taste that is exactly what you would expect from a German wheat beer. Perfectly decent bright light playful stuff.
Tunnel (UK)
800 Holy Trinity Church ★★★
Dark malty ale with a burnt woody taste with a feel of watery hops. There are hints of chocolate, honey and whisky in the background but it feels like an English ale. Made with yeast from Chimay and feels a bit like a flat version of one of their beers.
Battlefield - Henry Tudor ★★★
Yeast ale, that isn't as dark or ruby coloured as it claims. Strong flavours of sour apricot and citrus aren't quite to my taste but it certainly isn't bland for a sub 5% ale.
Battlefield - Let Battle Commence ★★★
Easy drinking amber session bitter that is not too bland but makes for a great way to kick off an evenings drinking. Not that special either, just pleasant.
Battlefield - Richard III ★★★
Citrus, slightly washing up liquid beer with a slight spicy coriander taste. Improves with drinking and goes well with food. Very bright but still good.
Berlin Weisse ★★★
Amber headless beer that taste like a mix of gueuze, cider and weizen. Very sour citric and malty. Assertive and rough around the edges but an interesting idea. Could go well with cheese.
Boston Beer Party ★★★★
American pale ale with a fruity nose, a slightly dry elderflower taste and a gentle fizz.
Clockwork Orange ★★★★
Light amber coloured bitter with a big foamy head. An orange hoppiness dominates the taste with a gentle bitterness in the finish. Only 4% abv and quite refreshing which makes it a good unchallenging session bitter.
Czech Style Dark Lager ★★★
Malty rye bread aroma, with a nutty, sherry edge and a hint of white chocolate amongst the tangy roasted malts. Quite thin with a quiet flavour. OK session fare.
Fields Of Gold ★★★★★
Golden ale with a full, almost wheat beer, taste with a hint of fruit. Refreshing and a great choice for a hot summers day.
Grubber ★★
Somewhat watery and soapy golden ale with a gentle hoppy finish. So .
Jean Cloudy Van Damme ★★★★★
Wheat beer with floral apricot notes and a distinct gueuze edge. Slightly sour and musty but with bundles of flavour. A craft beer brewed near Nuneaton.
Late OTT ★★★★
Fragrant, floral and slightly fruity (apricots, berries or grapefruit?) bitter with a hint of cocoa powder. Slightly acidic and slightly challenging but with a good solid base and a taste that lingers.
Legacy ★★
This has a huge aroma of burnt toast and roasted malt barley. There is a dry watery hoppiness that is reminiscent of shop bought homebrew. There is a gentle gassiness that doesn't really sit well with the flavour. There is a caramel note and a dry tanginess - a bit like a mild though red in colour instead of the dark brown you'd expect. Not outright bad, just very underwhelming.
Legend ★★
Dark marmalade coloured ale with a hint of powdery drinking chocolate but not much else. Like a heavily diluted chocolate ale.
Linda Lear Ale ★★★★
Refreshing dark amber ale with a rough porterish aftertaste.
Meadowland ★★★★
Gentle golden honey coloured pale ale that is reminiscent of the beers of the Huyghe brewery, but with a quitter and gentler taste. A slight spiciness and citrus orange sit in the taste.
Munich Style Lager ★★★★
Aroma of grass and gooseberries with an astringent citrus hoppy flavour. The body has a rough agricultural hoppiness and the distinctive sour tunnel edge. A lager with local British character. Big and bold, good session fare, lacking a little refinement but does a very pleasing job.
Nelson Strong Ale ★★★
Soapy beer with a bit of glade air freshener. Builds steadily but the brewery does much better. Improves when served warmer with no sediment.
Northern Lights ★★★
A British take on a Belgian golden ale. Bottle conditioned this has the mouthfeel of a witbier, alcoholic malt of a Belgian mixed & the taste of a musty British ale. Hints of vanilla and citrus too. An interesting hybrid.
Quill ★★★
So dark you'd think it's a stout. The flavour is bitter and roasted with only some hints of red fruit to sweeten it. In the end it's rather flat and feels like a dark mild with an overcooked abv.
Shadow-weaver ★★★★★
Chocolate stout with a roasted malt hit balanced with a hint of a sweet taste. Bundles of flavour with liqourice elements to it and much lighter than many other English stouts without sacrificing any depth or complexity. The mouthfeel is smooth and not too heavy but never feels anything less than full and satisfying.
Stranger In The Mist ★★★
Light straw coloured hefeweizen that has no head. Light, citrus and slightly sour and soapy. Overall it is fresh and bright and designed for drinking on a warm summers day. Very different to an authentic hefeweizen.
Sweet Parish Ale ★★
Sour, yeasty, apricot tasting beer. Fairly flat and quite sour. Slightly akin to a kriek but with a blander flavour. Some said it was reminiscent of a freshly cleaned static caravan in France. A bit boring and very disappointing considering the calibre of the brewery.
Trade Winds ★★★
Slightly thin, gassy and gently bitter ale with a citrus (grapefruit/lychee) edge and a dryness. Has a hint of pot pourri in it's floral hoppiness.
Vienna Style Lager ★★★
There's a traditional malty Vienna lager in here beneath the sour yeasty thumbprint of the Tunnel beers. Nice - but it ain't what it's trying to be.
Twickenham Fine Ales (UK)
Hornet ★★★
A "very hoppy" golden ale according to the brewers. This feels more like a dependable session ale with tangy malt lifted with a hint of toffee and citrus.
Twisted Barrel Ale (UK)
Prototype New Zealand Pale Ale ★★★★
This starts off with big tropical fruit flavour akin to Jaipur before moving through a drinking Little Creatures middle and then into a dry, bitter, chalky hoppy IPA style finish. A well crafted beer.
Twisted Hop (New Zealand)
Beach Bum ★★★
Light ale with a dry hoppy grapefruit flavour. Slightly musty and fails to develop an interesting finish. Reasonable session fare.
Challenger ★★★
This hoppy pale amber bitter has chocolate biscuits and orange in the taste. Dry and slightly woody in the finish. The aroma is akin to distant pudding.
Golding Bitter ★★★
Dry and very malty bitter that feel somewhat leathery. There is a pine wood hoppiness in the finish. Will appeal to those who like their bitter dry as a desert.
Honeydew ★★★
Bright and hoppy with the feel of a Fullers golden ale, but nowhere near as sweet or honeyed as Fullers Honeydew. The beech and manuka honey comes through gently and pleasingly in the finish with a slow build. Well balanced.
IPA ★★★★
A warm embrace of rounded citrus hops greets you with spiced orange coming to the fore in the finish. There is also a bit of powdered chocolate and caramel malt lingering in the finish. A bold IPA with a rewarding flavour and full bodied lingering finish. One of their brewers reckons the draught version is noticeably better than the bottle conditioned version.
Sauvin Pilsner ★★★
Aggressively use of the citrus tasting Nelson Sauvin hops dominate this pilsner. The finish is dry and slightly woody whilst the mouthfeel is not too gassy. The aroma has overripe bananas and there is a hint of shortbread in the taste. A pilsner brewed for ale drinkers.
Twisted Ankle ★★★
Deep, dark with a whack of syrup, rubber and crude oil. There is a robust warm roasted malty flavour holding it together and never becoming burnt with dashes of chocolate and hop bitterness. It builds into a coffee crescendo. Smooth and heavy mouthfeel. The finish is slightly watery when it could possibly do with being a dash more potent.
Uley (UK)
Full bodied, dark coloured old ale that tastes like bad stout.
Ulverston (UK)
Laughing Gravy ★★★★★
Bright and tasty copper coloured ale with a faint coffee after-taste. Made with a wide range of hops (Crystal, Amber, Chocolate, Torrified wheat, Amarillo and Golding hops) used to great effect.
Unazuki (Japan)
Kamoshika Bock (Purple Label) ★★★
Gassy dark lager with an initial hit of bitter roasted malt being smoothed out by the alcoholic edge. There are hints of caramel, cherry and rosehip. Very drinkable, though the finish is quite short.
Kolsch (Blue Label) ★★★
Amber coloured lager with a full malty flavour that has a hint of sugary sweetness amongst the bitter hops in the finish. There is also a bit of tanginess to it. A solid all-rounder.
Pilsener ★★★
A super-dry pilsener? This is as dry as a desert with pockets of woody hop bitterness along the way. Has enough character.
Unibroue (Canada)
Le Fin De Monde ★★★
Canadian take on a Belgian tripel. Typical of the style in look and taste with a pleasing balance of gassiness, coriander and warming alcohol. Strong but not overwhelming. Lacks the depth & complexity of the very best tripels but still a good beer.
Unicer (Portugal)
Superbock ★★
Clean, pale gold lager with a faint malty flavour combined with an expansive carbonation that leaves your mouth tingling.
Union (Belgium)
Grimbergen Blonde ★★★★
Crisp and light drinking Belgian abbey beer with a pleasing musky bitter sweet flavour. Has a bit of a kick to it.
Grimbergen Cuvee De Ermitage ★★★
Fizzy amber beer with toffee and fruit flavours. A bit dry and with a hint of paracetamol and a sour finish but a tad thin for it's 7% strength with the flavours competing against each other.
Grimbergen Dubbel ★★★
Spicy orange beer with a deep syrup sweetness. Hints of caramel and full of flavour but it didn't quite grab me.
Grimbergen Goud (Doree) 8 ★★★
Solid wheat beer that slips down easily despite it's 8% strength.
Grimbergen Optimo Brune ★★★
Very strong, very sweet beer with caramel, malt and sweet fruit flavours. The alcoholic edge is only passing in the flavour but is clearly potent. Goes well with game and desert apparently. The alcoholic edge dominates as the beer warms up. Basically it needs to be cold to mask the rough edges.
Grimbergen Tripel ★★★★
Spicy, banana, caramel beer with an alcoholic edge. Interesting but not exceptional. Tastes a bit like a Delerium beer in it's potency.
Watneys Scotch ★★★★
Dark, almost syrupy ale with a smooth sweet edge to it. Probably stronger that it feels, but very pleasing and interesting to drink.
Upham (UK)
Ale ★★★
A comfortingly smooth and soapy golden ale with a gently bitter citrus hop finish. Good, light session fare. Smells of slightly musty, but clean, socks.
Upside Down (Switzerland)
La Cuivree ★★★
Blonde bottle conditioned ale with a heavy mouthfeel and a gentle yeasty flavour with a hint of spice. Enjoyable but a touch neutral.
Urthel (Holland)
Hopit ★★
Belgian IPA. Gassy, spritzy golden ale with a sweet hoppy flavour with big hits of honey and green woody herbs. Dry and slightly spicy but the gassiness starts to dominate the flavour. As it warms up it gets a warm alcoholic edge. Brewed at the Koningshoeven (La Trappe) brewery.
Saissoniere ★★★
Pale yellow Dutch ale with a big white craggy foamy head. Light gassy flavour with am airy hop bitterness & some gentle cardamom spice in the background that lingers faintly in the finish. One to sup in the sun when you want to relax
Val Dieu (Belgium)
Biere De Noel ★★★★
A spicy aroma promises a typically overblown Belgian Xmas ale but the flavour is a restrained but warming cardamon flavour. Gentle, but pleasing.
Blonde ★★★
Creamy, banana, tasting Belgian blonde abbey beer. Small head and gold in colour with a moderate carbonation. Slightly sweet and butterscotch on the finish. Tastes a lot like a Belgian tripel but at 6% it is a touch lighter.
Brune ★★★
Dark red beer with a large white head that gently fades. It has a burnt, malty flavour with a champagne carbonation. It has a breadiness reminiscent of almost burnt toast. Hints of sugar brandy. Very drying with a slight hint of alcohol.
Grand Cru ★★★
A super-charged soft drink with sherbert, dandelion & burdock and masses of sugar and molasses. There is a dry, chalky, hoppy flavour that emerges at the end.
Tripel ★★★
Blonde beer with a gentle head and lacing. There is a big taste of black pepper with an alcoholic edge and a fair carbonation. Tastes less like a Belgian tripel than their blonde! Overall the Val Dieu beers are solid but lack a distinctive edge.
Vale (UK)
Black Swan Dark Mild ★★★★
Dark, "hand made", coffee-tasting porter with a slight flash of raspberry. Strong taste for it's low alcohol content (3.9%).
Grumpling Premium Old Ale ★★★★
Flat, dry and bitter ruby ale with a wonderful taste. Should go very well with beer snacks
Van Den Bossche (Belgium)
Buffalo Bitter ★★★★
Dry pale golden ale with enough peppery hops to leave a tingle on your tongue. Close to an IPA but with a hint of tripel style spicing. As it warms woody citrus hop notes bleed through.
Pater Lieven ★★★
Sweet, bright caramelised bananas cut with a dash of lime dominates. Very gassy and slightly bready with an alcoholic kick.
Van Eecke (Belgium)
Kapittel Blond ★★★★
Bottle conditioned ale with a rounded caramel malty taste and a rustic hoppy finish. There's a hint of foamy banana and orange. Easy drinking but without lacking flavour. The tight rolling carbonation makes it feel light but without being insubstantial.
Kapittel Prior ★★
Dark brown ale with a metallic flavour and virtually nothing in the finish except an alcohol burn. There are hints of sweet, honeyed fruit almost like tea bread and a slow building dryness.
Kapittel Tripel Apt ★★
Golden tripel with a big creamy head. The taste has an initial hint of pears that is then dominated by the taste of dry paracetamol. Very strong at 10% but with no depth of flavour. It tends to torch the taste buds.
Popperings Hommel Bier ★★★
Yeasty, citric beer with a bright gassiness. There is a caramelised strong alcoholic taste with slow building dry hops. The creamy head helps to balance it.
Watou Witbier ★★★
Unfiltered wheat beer with little head. Fairly nondescript taste but pleasant and refreshing.
Van Honsebrouck (Belgium)
Bacchus Kriek ★★★★
Moderately sweet kriek with a rounded cherry taste. Light and refreshing and much like Liefmans. Could have more depth and bite. Sampled on draught.
Bacchus Oud Bruin ★★★★
Flanders red ale matured in oak casks that is the sour cousin of the breweries Bacchus Kriek. The mouthfeel is gassy which initially obscures the taste but then a deep sour cherry flavour comes through with a dry finish. Too gassy to be in the same league as a world beating lambic kriek or Liefmanns unsweetened draught kriek but a fine beer nonetheless.
Kasteel Cuv√�e Du Chateau 2012 ★★★
Thick, alcoholic dark ale that feels like syrupy figs, sour cherries and old jammy dodgers. Not sour enough for a Flemish Red and with no roasted malt flavours. Needs more to justify it's strength.
Kasteel Cuv√�e Du Chateau 2013 ★★★★
Strong, dark, syrupy, viscous ale with thick malty flavours, oaky brandy notes and a hint of sour red fruit. There is a gassy tingle to stop it being too heavy but the 11% abv strength is evident in the warming caramel flavours.
Kasteel Donker ★★★★
Heavy, syrupy dark beer with caramel and molasses. Long sweet finish (flat coke) with a barley wine alcohol kick. A late night sweet treat to drink carefully.
Kasteel Rouge ★★★★
Thick, juicy, velvety cherries crash down upon you with a pleasing warm finish that gently reminds you that this stuff is 8% abv. Superb.
St Louis Gueuze ★★★
Light orange and coriander beer with a gentle fizz and a hint of apple. Doesn't have the sour musty edge of most lambics as it sweetened.
St Louis Kriek ★★★★
The sweet smell of cherry bakewell and meringue greets you. The finish is dry with almonds. A restrained fruit beer that is very easy drinking.
Van Steenberge (Belgium)
Augustijn Blond ★★★
Soft blonde Belgian beer with a huge creamy head. Easy drinking with a gassy tingle and a gentle bitterness in the finish. Fails to stand out from the crowd.
Augustijn Grand Cru ★★★
Potent thick blonde triple with a creamy mouthfeel and a gentle coriander spice in the finish. A gentle gassiness lightens the overall feel.
Bios Piraat ★★
A 10.5% abv mix of Duvel and Bush. Amber coloured this has a malty taste with a warming alcohol finish with a gassy tingle. There is a rustic biere de garde hoppy note in the background. Good but unnecessarily strong.
Gentse Tripel ★★★
A fairly typical tripel delivering what you'd expect of the style. Not bad and can prove to be perfectly pleasant on it's own, but it's not that exciting.
Gentse Triple ★★
Light amber coloured ale with a bready malted milk flavour that has a slightly sour tangy fizz. Big on carbonation but not much happening flavour wise.
Gulden Draak ★★
Very strong, almost treacly beer that tastes of barley wine. At 10.5% it is too strong to be enjoyed. The makers claim it is a dark tripel but it has more in common with quadrupels.
Leute Bokbier ★★★★
At 7.5% this dark mahogany coloured lager is pulling no punches. It has an earthiness to the roasted malts with a notable hoppy punch. Gassy enough to be drinkably light and lager-like with the alcohol edge feeling surprisingly restrained. You could easily drink this way too quickly.
Triple Van De Garre ★★★★
Incredibly buttery blonde beer with a huge creamy head. The finish has a lingering spice akin to Delerium Tremens and there are elements of Duvel and wheat beers too. Impressive. House beer at De Garre in Bruges.
Trollebier ★★
Rather pedestrian house beer of the Trollekelder bar in Ghent. Gassy mouthfeel with a bit of weight and a simple malty flavour with a watery finish. Fair enough session fare it you don't want anything with a strong flavour.
Van Celis De Witte ★★★
Light yellow, unfiltered wheat beer with a refreshing hoppy lemon. It feels very natural, is well balanced and goes down superbly on a hot day. What Kronenbourg Blanc should be. Taste does not linger. Apparently brewed to Pierre Celis original Hoegaarden wheat beer recipe.
Veltins (Germany)
Crisp, slightly fruity lager with a kick to it. Develops a dry bitterness.
Ventnor (UK)
Admiral Ale ★★★★
Delicate golden ale with a hoppy, slightly citrus flavour with a bitter edge. Would go very well in warm summer weather.
Bestivale ★★★★
Light and easy drinking beer that isn't too bland
Golden Ale ★★★★★
Gentle golden ale with a taste that has elements of honey and grilled cheese.
Oyster Stout ★★★★
Light stout with no coffee/porter harsh edge. Very smooth and refreshing and made with real oysters.
Sand Roch ★★★★★
Dark coloured smoked beer with a very salty flavour that is balanced by a steadily building, slightly sweet, malty aftertaste. The 3 main flavours combine together beautifully, though the beer feels a bit dehydrating. Like drinking a beer over the embers of a bonfire on a beach at night in a gentle breeze.
Verhaeghe (Belgium)
Duchesse de Bourgogne ★★★★★
Onion marmalade and cherries in a beer that has a slight gueuze edge to it. Very fruity and a bit of a winter beer. Has a bit of balsamic vinegar to it. A classic Flanders ale which has barley malt and is matured in oak casks for 18 months.
Noel ★★★
A blonde Christmas ale that clocks in at 7.2% abv. Very gassy, but through the bubbles there comes a sweet caramel flavour with a hint of spice and malt. Pleasant, but not the taste of Christmas.
Vichtenaar ★★★★
Oak aged beer with an amber colour and a quickly fading head. Very tart flavour with a sweet cherry edge and a woody base. Not as regal as the duchesse but still fairly noble.
Verzet (Belgium)
Moose Blues ★★★
This has a lot going on. Toffee, chocolate, tawny port, vinegar, raisins, cherry coke, marmite and bisto. Interesting, but massively unbalanced.
Victory (UK)
Bananadrama ★★★
A dark, 7% abv ale made with banana. The roasted and caramel malts mix slightly strangely with the bananas. Not terrible but a bit weird.
Golden Monkey ★★★★
A US take on a Belgian triple. It's 9.5% strength is immediately apparent in it's warming flavour. There are gentle clove and spice elements in the background that are dominated by a dry spirit burn at the end. A sipping tripel.
Viking (Iceland)
Black Death ★★★★
Oil black dark lager with a ludicrously roasty flavour with a thick oily flavour. The label looks a bit too hip for it's own good - but it delivers on taste.
Classic ★★
Dry, slightly ash smoky, amber lager with a very gassy finish. Not entirely successful, but way more distinctive than most pale lagers.
Gylltur ★★
Crisp gassy lager with a dry, malt sweetness that gives it a refreshing edge. Fairly generic stuff.
Litt√∂l ★★★
Thoroughly anonymous lager with a vague hint of malt. It tastes like many generic lagers, but at 2.5% abv it's has the decency to be half the strength.
Malt ★★★
Icelandic alcohol free beer. Like the Egils Malt Extrakt this is a sweet, fruity, malty drink that tastes like liquid rye bread but it is slightly more gassy.
Pils ★★
Thin, slightly dry and puckering pils with a tangy honeyed finish. Disappointing.
Stout ★★★★
Almost porterish stout with a bitter, coffee grounds taste but with a smooth creaminess to balance things out nicely. Very easy to drink.
Sumar√∂l ★★★
Clean refreshing Witbier with a hint of citrus but little else. Refreshing, unchallenging fare.
Thule ★★
Gassy lager with a crisp malty edge that tastes like Stella diluted with hard water (though it is just as strong). Perfectly serviceable but not great.
Viven ()
Porter ★★★★
This delivers a huge hit of roasted malts and doesn't let up. You'd almost think you were chewing coffee grounds. If you like your porters bitter this for you.
Vosges (France)
La B√™te Des Vosges ★★★
Strong, smoky malty ale that feels a bit like a turbo-charged Caffreys aged in whisky barrels. Can't quite deliver the complexity it hints at, but a pleasingly potent brew nonetheless.
Wadworth (UK)
Smooth malty amber bitter with a slightly fruity edge.
Bishops Tipple ★★★★
Fully flavoured strong ale with a floral and soapy edge to the taste. Has a bitter maltiness that builds as you work through a pint. Akin to Wychwood Osprey. Potent and easily drinkable.
Lily The Pink ★★★
Light gold beer with a creamy head and a shot of angostura bitters. Hoppy with a fresh citrus edge given a pleasingly complex floral twist and tingle by the bitters. Slightly spicy, dry and bitter in the finish.
M&S Wiltshire Rum Beer ★★★★
Modern day grog made by blending Wadworth 6X and Caribbean rum. The rum adds an alcoholic fruitiness to the malty ale. A touch thin, but very tasty.
Malt And Hops ★★★
Golden ale with a dry bitter taste and a hint of beer snacks in the finish. Fairly thin but with a tanginess that saves it from a dull bland death.
Swordfish ★★★★
Wadworth 6X and Prosser's rum blended together. Malty and full flavoured with the rum adding a balanced fruit finish.
Waen (UK)
Blackberry Stout ★★★★
Bitter stout with a hint of soy sauce balanced by the fruity note of blackberries. Slightly dry, bitter and chewy in the finish. Distinctive without being too challenging. Good stuff.
Wanaka Beerworks (New Zealand)
Tall Black ★★★
This has an aroma of dark chocolate that strikes you before your lips reach the glass. The taste is powdered chocolate mixed with roasted malts - like a mocha. The finish is somewhat dry with a touch of watery coffee.
Warsteiner (Germany)
Premium Verum ★★★★
A "princess among beers" according to it's brewers. This golden coloured pilsner has a crisp dry edge that fades into a bready taste with a faint hoppiness. Softly flavoured there is something in the lingering aftertaste that makes it very moreish. Uses hop extract rather than hops but still meets the German purity laws.
Warwickshire (UK)
Pale amber ale with a dry malty flavour. Slightly biscuity but fairly watery overall.
Lady Godiva ★★
Pale amber coloured ale with a slightly sour tangy watery taste, a hint of biscuit and some bitterness in the finish. There is a light processed creaminess to the mouthfeel.
Weatheroak (UK)
Keystone Hops ★★
Bread, hops and grapefruit in a glass. This golden coloured beer with a creamy head is drinkable and well balanced but not to my taste.
Weihenstephan (Germany)
Hefe Weissbeer ★★★★
A Belgian triple meets a German wheat beer. Gold and cloudy in colour with a strong banana taste filled out by a gassiness in the palate and a wheat beer mouthfeel. Full, drinkable and very tasty.
Heffweisser Dunkel ★★★
Heady carbonated potent German Weiss beer. Banana and caramel flavours with a strong kick. Lighter than you'd think at 5%, enjoyable but too gassy for my taste.
Infinium ★★★★
A champagne triple that has a bit of salt and vinegar crisps. Bubbly and intoxicating but not overpowering. An assured boutique beer that does a good job of living up to it's hype.
Korbinian ★★★
A doppelbock that kicks in with a huge coffee and rye bread flavour from the roasted malts that is balanced by a dash of caramel in the finish. The mouthfeel is gassy and fairly light. The filtered bottled export version could do with a bit more body.
Kristall Weizenbeer ★★★
Banana and toffee flavoured filtered wheat beer with a gassy edge. Distinctive but not unpleasant.
Vitus ★★★
Strong gassy wheat beer (weizenbock) with notes of toffee and honey with a hint of sweet banana in the finish. There are cloves in the background. Potent winter fare but could have more depth for being 7.7% abv. Enjoyable.
Welbeck Abbey (UK)
Henrietta ★★★
Combines the morish biscuit malt flavours of a session bitter with a refreshing citrus hop finish.
Red Feather ★★★★
At the smoky end of the amber ale scale. This chestnut coloured beer has burnt pan juices and marmite wrapped around it's core malty flavour. There are woody hops giving a feeling of kindling. A good robust sipping beer that you could end up quaffing.
Wells (UK)
Banana Bread Beer ★★★
Pale amber bitter that has fair-trade bananas in it. The beer is light and gassy with a gentle taste of banoffe pie. There is a faint hoppy bitterness in the finish that balances it. Odd but really rather pleasant.
Bombardier ★★★
Basic light hoppy beer with a slightly tangy bitterness. Decent pub fodder but nothing special. The mouthfeel is creamy but not artificial whilst there is little distinctive in the finish.
Bombardier Burning Gold ★★★
Gentle blonde ale with a slowly rising hoppy wheaty taste with a slightly musty biscuit malt finish. Refreshing, pleasingly understated but a bit underwhelming.
Bombardier Satanic Mills ★★★★★
Dark beer with Bovril, soy sauce and burnt sugar on the aroma but a smoother oatmeal, malty, slightly treacle taste. As it warms it becomes less intense with blackcurrant and chocolate notes starting to come through.
Courage Best ★★
Generic pub bitter fodder with a restrained dry hoppy flavour and a watery taste but enough of a solid mouthfeel to save it from being too bad. Drinkable but a tad bland.
Courage Directors ★★★
Creamy amber ale very much in the vein of John Smiths. However the taste is a more balanced hoppy taste without a chemical edge.
Courage Light Ale ★★★
Incredibly delicate beer with a gentle waft of toffee malt and straw. The English equivalent of helles. Some might find it bland or like a near beer. But it does what it says on the label.
Weltenburger (Germany)
Dark Bavarian beer that tastes like burnt soy sauce - nasty.
Wentworth (UK)
BeeSmoked ★★★
Dark blonde smoked beer with a sweet honeyed aftertaste that struggles to make itself felt. Odd but intriguing.
Heartbeat ★★★★
Gassy ruby red ale with a bitter roasted coffee finish that contrasts with the sweet aroma. As it warms up it develops a fuller porterish taste with hints of chocolate but it remains an easy drinking session beer.
Oatmeal Stout ★★★★
Chocolate and coffee tastes vie for attention in this smooth, malty, full bodied stout that is very drinkable.
Oyster Stout ★★★
A ripple of carbonation greets you like applause upon entering a room. A smooth, wickery, creamy taste then shakes your hand. Easy to drink.
Rampant Gryphon ★★★★
Light coloured ale which is deceptively strong with a sharp bitter end. Interesting when consumed as a single pint.
West (UK)
St Mungo ★★★★
Scottish lager that has won a gold medal in a German beer competition. Nicely balanced with an interesting biscuit malt and subtle citrus hop flavour.
West Berkshire (UK)
Full Circle ★★★★
Amber ale with a potent hoppy taste. A dryer edge than more deeply coloured ales and a very interesting pint. Definitely a solid and rewarding brewery.
Good Old Boy ★★★★★
Light hoppy ale that is deep brown in colour. Strongly flavoured for a 4% ale and a very good session beer that won't become overpowering but is not bland. It's bitter initial taste is quickly overtaken by a fruity, hoppy flavour that fades in the aftertaste.
Old Brown Ale ★★★★★
Deep, dark and thick ale that is more black than brown. Has hints of stout to the taste but is dominated by big wodges of hoppy flavour which are the beer frames well. A great example of a traditional English Ale.
West Coast (New Zealand)
Green Fern ★★★
Organic brewed lager that has a pleasingly assertive malty flavour, but otherwise is a genetic crisp lager that it would be difficult to pick out from the crowd.
Westmalle (Belgium)
Dubbel ★★★★
Smooth dark beer with a surprisingly gentle taste for it's strength when served chilled. Warmer, it has a gentle fizz and a subtle flavour like a typical dubbel tasted from a distance. There is a spiciness that comes through on draft that makes it a truly heavenly 5 star brew.
Tripel ★★★
Heavy blonde ale with a deep, yeasty, nutty, spicy bitterness. Slightly creamy and very robust. A good beer for fortifying you against the elements. The original tripel.
Westvleteren (Belgium)
8 ★★★★★
Earthy dark beer with a velvety Americano coffee, date, syrup and liquorice taste. It tastes best when not over chilled. Deeper and more bitter than the sweeter, complex 12. It sits somewhere between a dubbel and a stout, but with a gassy lightness that offsets the warming alcohol and makes it very drinkable.
12 ★★★★★
Dark bitter trappist ale that is stunningly smooth. Almost closer to a liquor than an ale. A base that is a coffee tasting porter, with a spiced fruit top and a smooth middle. A beer so well balanced that it trips all the tastes receptors on the tongue equally and is absurdly packed with flavour. As it ages it becomes thicker, syrupier with sticky dark fruit coming to the fore as it drifts towards Rochefort territory. Deceptively drinkable and very fine indeed. The best beer in the world? There certainly aren't any finer.
Blonde ★★★★
Cloudy blond beer whose aroma is the gentle waft of a classic Belgian blonde ale. The hoppy flavours hit early with a bit of green citrus fruit and a hint of Orval yeastiness to them. There is a restrained dry bitterness in the finish. The carbonation and the restrained malt and spice flavours make this a very relaxed, very easy beer to drink whilst the full mouthfeel mean that it never feels insubstantial.
Whim (UK)
Hartingdon Bitter ★★
Light coloured bitter with a dry and slightly citric taste. The sister brewery of Broughton Ales.
White Horse (UK)
Village Idiot ★★★
Clean, easy drinking blonde ale with a gentle malty taste that has a moreish dryness in the finish.
White Rabbit (Australia)
Dark Ale ★★★
Bitter, tangy, fruity dark amber coloured ale. A chunk of character but there are better bitters out there.
White Ale ★★★
This witbier is heavy on the spices with the citrus fruit taking a back seat. Slightly bitter in the finish. Solid stuff.
Whittlebury (UK)
Green Dragon ★★★
Dry, pine wood flavoured ale with a bitter hoppiness that feels like it slithers lingeringly down your throat (no bad thing). Becomes tangy and malty.
Hillfort ★★★
Amber ale with a slightly smoky top note that shrouds a toffee malt foundation.
Old Ton ★★★
Smooth, creamy chestnut coloured bitter that starts out a bit yeasty and soapy but malty pan juice flavours give a pleasingly bitter finish.
Special ★★★★
Bread and honey on the aroma of this golden ale with faints hints of grapefruit. A subtle summer refresher.
Whittle Wood ★★★★
Light brown ale that is crisp and refreshing like a fresh apple. The woody hoppiness fills it out nicely with a bit of biscuit malt. A summer bitter.
Wickwar (UK)
Bob ★★★
Bone dry amber coloured bitter with sweet toffee malts hovering in the background. There is smoky, musty feel to the finish in the style of an Irish red ale.
Rite Flanker ★★★
Solid flavoured tangy dark brown ale with a bright hoppy aftertaste.
Wieden Brau (Austria)
Altbier ★★★
Cloudy amber beer with a big citrus hit that leads into a bright dry hoppiness with a touch of bitterness and a perfumed floral aftertaste. The dry bitterness is more pronounced when warm. Very light to drink for it's 5% strength.
Germischtes ★★★
Amber coloured mixture of light and dark beers with a mouth tingling gassiness akin to their Marzen but with a coffee hoppiness that is brightened with a floral edge. There is also a smokiness lurking in the background. A mixed bag of flavours - as you would expect. It is slightly too gassy for my taste which detracts from the flavour but generally it is good.
Marzen ★★★
Golden beer with a gassiness that plays on the roof of your mouth that fades into a faint rich layered hoppiness. Despite the slightly thin taste it's mouthfeel is quite expansive.
Prager Dunkles ★★★★
Dark hoppy lager with a bitter coffee taste with notes of marmite on burnt toast. Very smooth in flavour and mouthfeel, quite dry and moreish. Slightly plainer than the 7 Stern dunkle.
Wigram (New Zealand)
Hefe-weizen ★★★
A traditional take on a German wheat beer. The taste has a full wheat flavour with hints of bananas and cloves. The finish is crisp and slightly aromatically bitter. Holds it's own against similar beers from Germany.
Munchner Dunkel ★★★
Gassy dark brown lager with a taste that is big on roasted malts and has a tangy finish.
Vienna Lager ★★★★
A really throaty lager with waves of yeasty floral hops with a dash of tonic like quinine crashing into you and kept in balance by a biscuit malt finish. The mouthfeel is dry and moderately gassy. Impressive stuff brewed the other side of the world from Vienna.
Wild Beer Co (UK)
Bliss ★★★★★
The foundations of this beer are similar to Orval, sharing it's distinct yeasty flavours. Add to this are apricots that exentuate the sourness whilst cloves and dry spices bring out the peppery hoppy flavours. A great combination of flavours and a great beer.
Epic Saison ★★★★
The aroma of American citrus hops is so strong it's surprising that it doesn't sing you the star spangled banner. The mouthfeel is full and the spicy notes flesh this out nicely with a funky edge that doesn't cut into it's sharp edge. Top hole.
Ninkasi ★★★★
It says "bubbles" on the label and this is an absurdly gassy beer with apple juice giving it a great spritzy taste. As light and expansive as beer can get.
Scarlet Fever ★★★★
This red ale is so dark is basically brown. There's a strong hoppy aroma with citrus notes. The taste is dry and bitter with toffee malts, oak and a hint of dark fruit. An unusual but rather fine red ale.
Schnoodlepip ★★★★
A fruit salad of a beer - mango, papaya, orange and with a robust malty edge and a real effervescence. There's a yeasty feeling to it all that pitches it part way between a saison and gueuze that helps to keep it subtle and refined.
Spellbound ★★★
A spicy amber coloured ale with a hoppy tingle in the finish. A good mix of bitterness and flavour. It has the bite of an IPA but with enough rounded malts to keep it balanced. Perhaps a touch too tangy.
Williams Bros (UK)
7 Giraffes ★★★★
Golden ale made with 7 types of malted barley but it's the fresh cone hops that dominate. The flavour is floral with hints of elderberry and a bitter finish. There is a biscuity malt taste in background as well. Cracking stuff
80/- ★★★
Dark coloured Scottish ale. Dry, malty taste with a biscuit base. Quite gentle at 4.2%. A decent dark session ale.
Birds And Bees ★★★
Dry, almost chalky golden ale with a strong citrus hop and a faint soapiness. Made with a Belgian pale malt and small amounts of elderflowers and lemon zest. Can have a chemical edge and feel quite strong.
Caesar Augustus ★★★★
Crisp lager that's had a generous measure of IPA style hops added to give it a dry peppery finish. A lager with a good deal more bite than most.
Ceildh ★★★★
Full bodied lager with a robust maltiness that does not over power it's light fizz. A very solid and assured lager. Made with Czech and US hops, Belgian pilsner malt and German yeast.
Cock Of The Walk ★★★
A dash of peppery hops mixed with burnt caramel malt and a bit of smoke. Generally it's just a bit bland and watery.
Heather Ales - Alba (Scots Pine Ale) ★★★★
Malty historic Scottish beer that feels like a Belgian brune ale. Contains sprigs of spruce and pine which give a slight edge to the taste, but this is a fairly traditional beer with a good depth of flavour.
Heather Ales - Ebulum ★★★
A black elderberry ale with a slightly burnt and earthy coffee taste. It also has a hints of fruit and soy sauce but very little aftertaste.
Heather Ales - Grozet ★★★
A 'gooseberry and wheat beer' brewed from a historic recipe which doesn't taste like a fruit beer or a wheat beer. Gently malty and slightly sweet with a small sour hint of gooseberries. A bit odd but not unpleasant.
Heather Ales Fraoch ★★★
Brewed to a 4000 year old recipe this traditional ale uses barley and Scottish heather. It is light amber in colour with a light malty flavour that is dominated by the dry floral taste of heather. A bit like pot pourri, but it's hard to criticise it for doing what it says on the label. An acquired taste.
Hipsway ★★★★
This lager is like blazing sunshine coming through the bedroom curtains. Bright, light and invigorating with a dash of sweetness from the addition of strawberries. A dash too sweet for some, but an interesting take on a lager.
Hop Quiz ★★★
A beer tasting game with four beers that are identical apart from the hops used (Saaz, Cascade, Styrian Goldings & Bramling Cross). All the beers are heavily hopped which leads to them being quite dry but with very strong flavours. Surprisingly good beer given the gimmick.
IPA ★★★
Hoppy, slightly caramel IPA with a hint of dryness in the back end. Has a bit of kick and an alcoholic aftertaste but it doesn't wreck the flavour.
Kelpie ★★★★
Dark, roasted malt ale made with seaweed. Smooth, robust and fully flavoured - though the seaweed isn't particularly evident.
March Of The Penguins ★★★★
A syrupy hit of burnt pan juices gives this stout a real wallop. The gassiness gives it a dry bitterness and lightens it. A very well made stout.
Midnight Sun ★★★★
Well balanced porter with a firm but balanced coffee grounds flavour and a spicy note. Made with a small amount of root ginger. 5.6 abv but it has a faint whisky note to give it depth.
Profanity Stout ★★★★
Inky black colour with a heavy, oily consistency this fuses the coffee and roasted malt hit of an imperial stout with some of the fruity hops of a premium bitter. F**king good.
Windsor & Eton (UK)
Canberra ★★★
Dry, smoky amber coloured ale with biscuit malt and a hint of fag-ash hops in the finish. A spiky session ale.
Conqueror ★★★★
A black IPA that has some smoked malts in the mix. It clocks in at 5% abv but has a real kick with a syrupy pine finish.
Knights Of The Garter ★★★
Chewy malt flavours cut with Amarillo hops that give a grapefruit pith flavour with a hint of soap. Dry but with a refreshing edge.
Kohinoor ★★★
Amber ale mixed with ??? sugar and corriander seed. The full flavoured malty backbone of the beer means that the spices ate more subtle than many Belgian ales that throw a spice rack is.
Republika ★★★★
Has the heavy malty kick you'd want from proper Czech style pilsener that has been lagered for a good period of time.
Windsor Boatman ★★★★
Golden ale with a mix of Citra & ??? Hops that delivers an apricot flavour with hints of citrus. Has the feel of a full bodied fruity wine.
Windsor Guardsman ★★★
Full bodied session ale with dry malty flavours and a bolshy biscuit finish with a tiny hint of sweetness. Punchy, but could be fuller and more rounded in flavour.
Windsor Knot ★★★
Dry, peppery ale with the a steadily building hop flavour that's never overwhelming with a dry finish.
Wiper & True (UK)
In The Forest ★★★
An incredibly granular, burnt, roasted malts porter. The hoppy characteristics are pretty much in the background and the blackcurrant flavours the brewers promise are even fainter. A good assertive porter but without much subtlety or complexity.
WJ King (UK)
Dry, slightly watery session ale with a gentle biscuit malt flavour. Session fare.
Wold Top (UK)
Tangy and rather thin amber beer with a sour and watery finish.
Falling Stone ★★★
Fairly standard easy drinking ale with a slightly caustic edge.
Wood Farm (UK)
1823 ★★★
Creamy dark mild with a restrained roasted malt flavour that has a tangy finish. A traditional mild that is good session fare.
Best Bitter ★★
Pale gold ale that tastes of apricots and washing up liquid. Part refreshing session beer, part air freshener.
Wooden Hand (UK)
Cornish Buccanner ★★★★
Well balanced golden ale with a dry hoppy taste and a slight bitterness. There is a moreish biscuity flavour in the background with a hint of citrus.
Cornish Gribbon ★★
A bit creamy, a bit malty and a touch dry. Anonymous chain pub fodder.
Pirates Gold ★★★
Smooth, light brown ale with a gentle fruity hoppy taste. A tad bland but fair enough compared to the standard of bitter you get in most UK chain pubs.
Woodforde (UK)
Nelson's Revenge ★★★
Solid session beer with a gentle malted taste. The floral aroma and citrus edge it claims to have eluded me completely.
Norfolk Hawker ★★★
Somewhat sour golden ale with a dry biscuit malt flavour with hints of bitter hops. There's a hint of fruit - apricot perhaps? Reasonable session fare but not their finest.
Wherry ★★★★
Dark brown beer that has a deep bitterness in the aftertaste while remaining refreshing. Voted champion beer of Britain in 1996.
Woodlands (UK)
General's Tipple ★★★★
Amber coloured ale with a woody caramel flavour and a dry bitter hoppiness in the finish. A good blend of bitter and IPA that should please military top brass.
Wychwood (UK)
Bright and fruity taste with a sharp edge. Light in colour.
Hobgoblin (bottle) ★★★★★
Dark, malty and slightly syrupy with a hint of caramel and prunes in the aftertaste. Smooth but full bodied and better in the bottle than on draught.
Hobgoblin (cask) ★★★
Dark brown ale that appears to have had anything approaching a rough edge filed off with abandon. Not lacking flavour, just any kind of depth or complexity.
King Goblin ★★★
A 6.6% abv version of Hobgoblin that is dominated by a warming alcoholic malty flavour with the nutty, dark fruit flavours in the background. A version of Hobgoblin for sipping by a crackling log fire on a cold evening.
Osprey ★★★★
Strong ruby coloured ale with a flavour that doesn't vary from nose to aftertaste. It is a bold combination of fruit and hop flavours that is very satisfying but lacks a little complexity.
Plumduff ★★★★
A Christmas beer that is chestnut in colour with flavours of plum, raisins and cinnamon. Finishes with a bitter acidity. Best enjoyed cold when it has more subtlety.
Snake's Bite ★★★
A "traditional beer infused with cider apples"? Sounds, and is, neither fish nor fowl. Juicy, syrupy apples bob on crisp golden ale. Feels like a crude blend rather than craft ale, but will appeal to some.
Wychcraft ★★★★
Dry, crisp and gassy golden ale with a fruity malty finish that hints of tangy red fruit to liven it up. There is also some biscuit malt and some light floral hops in there too. A beer that combines depth of flavour with a refreshing lightness.
Wye Valley (UK)
Ark Ale ★★
Aroma of dusty concrete. The taste is light and gassy with a dry chalky finish. Possibly a hint of acidic citrus fruit as well. Underwhelming.
Bitter ★★★
A nice blend of biscuit malt with a gentle wash of bitter, woody hops in the finish. A reassuringly unremarkable session ale you could keep on drinking.
Butty Bach ★★★★
Amber coloured ale with a rich, deep, full malty biscuit flavour with a slightly dry & bitter finish. The mouthfeel is clean & slightly gassy. There is a gentle tangy hoppiness in the background. Best beer of the Cardiff beer festival three years in a row.
Dorothy Goodbody Christmas Cracker ★★★
Dry cinnamon & nutmeg spice with a woody malt and a hint of hygienic dentist rubber gloves. Complex but rather confused - like a bitter with some random spices thrown at it.
Dorothy Goodbody Country Ale ★★★
Ruby brown ale with on head and a fresh aroma. The taste is dry and bitter - almost granular - with a deep hoppiness that has elements of a porter underneath. Could have more complexity for it's 6% strength.
Dorothy Goodbody Golden Ale ★★★
Zesty blond beer that goes quite nicely with food.
Dorothy Goodbody Wholesome Stout ★★★★
Pitch black in colour with a small creamy tan head and a gentle hop aroma. The flavour is all roasted coffee and burnt juices from a grill pan. There is a dry, bitter hoppiness hiding in the finish. Full bodied for it's 4.6% strength it is very pleasing and on draught it is exceptional.
Editors ★★★
Robust bitter hoppy English ale that is light brown in colour with a biscuity edge.
Hazy Daisy ★★★
Despite claiming to be naturally cloudy this wheat beer is a fairly clear gold and has a very small head. It has a very buttery shortbread with a brief toasty biscuit taste. Rich without being heavy.
HPA ★★★
Smooth, inoffensive light coloured ale that slips down quietly leaving a feeling of gentle refreshment.
Santa's Delight ★★★
Rather watery ruby session ale with a faint mix stewed tea and raisins. There it a slight creaminess to the mouthfeel and a maltiness on the finish. Surprisingly gentle for a winter beer in taste and strength (4.5 abv).
Wyre Piddle (UK)
Piddle Potters Chamber Of Secrets ★
Light coloured ale that tastes close to being off. Sour and metallic with hints of detergent. Bad name, bad beer. Thankfully it rapidly becomes bland very quickly.
Yates (UK)
Forgettable, but not unpleasant ale that Yates are no longer brewing.
Yeastie Boys (New Zealand)
Pot Kettle Black ★★★★
The aroma of citrus hops hits you as you raise a glass of this 'black IPA'. This follows through into the dry hoppy taste with a gently gassy dry mouthfeel and roasted malts in the background. A interesting and distinctive blend of porter and IPA styles.
Yeovil (UK)
Glory ★★
Dry, bitter brown amber ale with a woody hoppy taste that overtakes a initial soapiness. Still not that special.
Yetman's (UK)
Stout ★★★★
Rich bitter stout with a hint of Guinness style creaminess. Tight carbonation and a dry, roasted malt finish that keeps the character of the malt without obscuring it with burnt coffee grounds. A classically styled stout that is very enjoyable.
Yo-Ho (Japan)
Shinsyu Amber Ale ★★★★
A citrus hop floats bitterly above a firm malty base in this amber ale that tends towards IPA territory. It's quite gassy, potentially for mass market appeal, but is a very satisfying ale.
Shinsyu Porter ★★★★
The roasted malt flavours in this beer almost feel gritty. There is a maltiness in the finish that softens it slightly, as does the gassiness, but this is for people who like their dark beers raw.
Suiyoubi No Neko ★★★
Crisp filtered wheat beer whose flavour profile is somewhere between subtle and forgettable. There are pleasing faint hints of orange and spice with a dash of bitter hops in the finish. A kristall-wit?
Tokyo Black ★★★★
Part porter, part dunkel. This gassy black beer has a huge hit of roasted malts and enough of a hoppy edge to satisfy a London porter drinker. The carbonation keeps it light without wrecking the flavours.
Yona Yona Ale ★★★★
Deep amber coloured ale that has all the malt flavours you'd expect of a traditional English ale but is much gassier. There are gentle toffee and syrup notes in amongst the malt and woody hops. It makes for decidedly enjoyable easy drinking.
York (UK)
Blonde ★★
Smooth bready blonde ale with a creamy mouthfeel and a dry sourness in the finish. Little if any hop or malt taste. Nothing wrong with it but very bland.
Centurian Ghost ★★★
Quite an oddity. Dark beer with a faint porter taste but dominated by a citrus edge.
Constantine ★★★
Smooth, gently flavoured light brown ale with a assertive bitter hoppy flavour that fades quickly to leave a dry bitter finish. The light finish makes for pleasant session drinking.
Crystal ★★★
Smooth creamy pale ale with a citrus hop flavour that feels like an American pale ale. Solid refreshing session fare.
Guzzler ★★★
Bright hoppy golden ale with a initial citrus edge that fades into a bready malt finish. There is a dry bitterness that builds. A solid example of a British golden ale.
Yorkshire Terrier ★★★
Smooth, light coloured bitter. Slightly creamy with a gentle bitter hoppiness. A tad bland but pleasant enough.
Youngs (UK)
Bitter ★★★
Lip smackingly tangy ale with a dry hoppy finish that has a mango and citrus twist.
Christmas Pudding ★★★★★
Dark beer with a lot of flavour and a strong spiced fruit aftertaste.
Double Chocolate Stout ★★★
Overly gassy dark stout with a velvety chocolate base that feels great but is over powdered by the fizz. A great beer that feels like it's had the treble turned up and the bass turned down.
Light Ale ★★★★
You could quaff this by the bucketload. It starts off with crisp biscuit notes and a hint of caramel before a bitter hoppy tang finishes it off. It's all quite mellow, by combining that with a 3.2% abv strength gives you a session ale for long sessions.
London Gold ★★
Slightly funky aroma with a dry, almost stale, lagerish flavour.
Special London Ale ★★★★
An English strong ale that learnt a bit from the Belgians. An alcoholic malty base with green peppercorns and corriander bobbing above. Best served chilled.
Zweisel (Germany)
Malty, buttery and basically generic Germanic pale lager.
Zwyiec (Poland)
Tatra Jasne Pelne ★★★
Dry, chalky golden ale with a gassy mouthfeel. The finish is alcoholic and malty. Could have more flavour for it's 6% abv strength.
Tatra Mocne ★★
No aroma and only a gentle malty taste on the flavour with a hint of sweet flavour. The finish is dry, gassy and quite savoury. Quaffable but a bit bland and really should do more for it's 7% abv strength.
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Which liqueur keeps Aunt Mary awake? | Tia Maria: Coffee Liqueur | Tia Maria
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Played by Patrick Newell, who was John Steed and Tara King's boss in The Avengers? | Looking Back at The Avengers (the TV Series) | Den of Geek
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Looking Back at The Avengers (the TV Series)
Alex pays a fond return revisit to 1960s classic TV series, The Avengers, which starred Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg...
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Stylish crime fighting, despicable evil masterminds, a bowler-hatted old Etonian gentleman spy, and a series of beautiful leather cat-suited, kinky-booted, no-nonsense heroines. The Avengers had all this and more. What began as a monochrome tape series in January 1961 ran the whole of the 1960s, becoming a colourful slice of period hokum, full of flair, wit and sophistication, yet with its tongue firmly in its cheek.
Always the perfect gentleman, John Steed was played by Patrick Macnee. Originally billed second to the late Ian Hendry, Macnee was still playing Steed over 15 years later when he was teamed with the youthful duo of Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt for The New Avengers in 1976. In the 1998 film, the role of Steed was given to Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman played Emma Peel. I will say no more about the film. We will be looking back at the original landmark '60s drama. From a geek point of view, the last four seasons are, arguably, the most interesting. But let's start at the beginning and put pay to one of the series' biggest myths.
Creation and Early Years
Contrary to popular folklore, The Avengers, which began on January 7 1961, has no real link to Police Surgeon, which was a short-lived series broadcast on ITV in the autumn of 1960. Police Surgeon, which starred Ian Hendry as Dr. Geoffrey Brent, was cancelled after a poor public reception, although viewers had expressed an appreciation for Hendry himself. The creator of The Avengers was Sydney Newman (who would later initiate Doctor Who for the BBC - indeed, Who shared many of The Avengers' writers: Terry Nation, John Lucarotti, Dennis Spooner, Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks - to name but five). Having also created Police Surgeon, Newman wanted to give Hendry a better star vehicle. In the new show, Ian Hendry played Dr David Keel, avenging the murder of his fiancee Peggy (Catherine Woodville) in the first episode, "Hot Snow," with the help of a slightly enigmatic character in a raincoat called John Steed. The two men were later assisted by a nurse - Carol Wilson - played by Ingrid Hafner, who had also appeared in Police Surgeon.
Five months into the first season, the episode "The Frighteners" saw John Steed develop a taste for Savile Row tailoring and Macnee cultivated a more gentlemanly approach to match. The raincoat was replaced by a well cut, three-piece suit. Sydney Newman felt the character needed better definition to counterbalance Ian Hendry's more downbeat approach and thought Patrick needed to smarten up his image. Macnee remembered the attire of his father, a well dressed racehorse trainer in the 1930s and also took inspiration from the dandified (yet still shadowy) figure of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He reworked the character's whole appearance, with extremely satisfying results. Steed's new ensemble undoubtedly influenced Adam Adamant , played by Gerald Harper (in the Verity Lambert produced BBC homage to the series) and in part set a template for Jon Pertwee's dandy characterisation and vintage vehicle loving third Doctor Who.
Such was Patrick Macnee's popularity, when Hendry unexpectedly quit the show, Steed became the main focus, joined on occasion by Julie Stevens (whom older readers may recall was later a Play School presenter) playing nightclub singer Venus Smith. Yet, the second series had begun with the introduction of a new kind of heroine: Cathy Gale. As played by the dignified Honor Blackman, Cathy, an anthropologist, was able to match Steed for witty verbal interplay and enjoyed a passion for judo and leather clothes. Cathy Gale was a real breath of fresh air, shaking up the established storytelling techniques. Blackman actually played lines originally written for Ian Hendry and gave as good as she got, often knocking out henchmen - in one case literally - when Blackman accidentally felled a stuntman with a spade.
Avenging Music
The original Avengers theme, which was used to accompany the first three series, was a jazz standard by Johnny Dankworth, a popular musician in the early '60s, often in partnership with his wife Cleo Laine. Dankworth was much in demand and later devised the original theme to Tomorrow's World. The most distinctive Avengers theme was composed by Laurie Johnson, however, his familiar jaunty tune didn't arrive on screen until 1965. Johnson also composed a wonderful incidental theme, Chase That Car, often heard when Steed used his vintage Rolls Royce in pursuit of an evil mastermind. Johnson was later invited to compose the theme to The New Avengers. He updated the theme with a definite '70s funky groove. Such was the early success of The Avengers that Patrick MacNee and Honor Blackman released a novelty single "Kinky Boots" for the Christmas market of 1964. The song had originally been commissioned by Ned Sherrin for That Was The Week that Was and extra lyrics were added. Ironically, the single wasn't a success until re-released many years later - reaching the fifth spot in the charts of December 1990 after the then Radio 1 Breakfast Show host, Simon Mayo championed it.
"Mrs. Peel We're Needed!"
Honor Blackman, to the great disappointment of Macnee, left to become a film star in the Bond movie Goldfinger. Diana Rigg was eventually cast as Steed's new leading lady, Mrs. Emma Peel. The name was suggested by the phrase "M appeal" short for "Man appeal." Rigg wasn't the original choice for the role, however. Elizabeth Shepherd (who had a resemblance to Blackman) was contracted and shot several scenes as Emma Peel for the episode "The Town of No Return" before it became obvious she had little chemistry with Macnee, and Diana Rigg was drafted in as a replacement, Shepherd's scenes were later reshot.
Rigg was an instant hit with the viewers, yet, as she revealed in a later interview, some critics felt she had "let the side down" by doing television. She had a promising theatre career before The Avengers, but she acknowledged she could bring in a much bigger audience to the classics because of her fame as Emma Peel, than if she'd remained purely a stage actress.
So, the most familiar double act had arrived and to "seal the deal" from 1966, the show was made in color and introduced by a memorable, and much imitated title sequence.
Perhaps the most notable parody was by comedian Bob Mills, who appeared as both Steed and Mrs Peel(!) Mills had already given similar treatment to The Prisoner title sequence, for his late night comedy show In Bed With Medinner.
Of course, filming the show in color was a masterstroke. At the time it was to encourage more sales in America, where color television was well established by the 1960s. British television was still monochrome and as ITV wouldn't be a colour service until November 1969, the initial run of the show would have been seen in black and white, however all subsequent repeats over the next 40 years would be in color. Various ITV regions would use the show as a "repeat filler" after News At Ten throughout the '70s, then Channel Four occasionally repeated the series in the '80s, finally treating it with some respect and giving it a full rerun in the mid-90s. More recently the show has enjoyed a revival on BBC Four.
The Cybernauts
The Cybernauts, The Avengers' chief villains, were created in 1964, a couple of years before Doctor Who's Cybermen. Not unlike a cross between Cybermen and crash test dummies, The Cybernauts were the creation of Dr. Armstrong, a creepy performance by Michael Gough. A year later "The Return Of The Cybernauts" saw them reappear in color, this time with Peter Cushing as guest star. Other classic episodes of this era include the sight of Mrs. Peel in a kinky choker with knee-high leather boots and a whip in "A Touch Of Brimstone," which featured Peter Wyngarde as the leader of the notorious Hellfire Club. Wyngarde would later turn up in the movie-obsessed episode "Epic." "The Maneater Of Surrey Green" is also a terrific tale in which Steed and Mrs. Peel are menaced by man-eating plants, it may well have inspired the Doctor Who story "The Seeds of Doom."
Perhaps the most superlative episode was "The Hidden Tiger," which featured an entertaining cameo from Ronnie Barker as a feline obsessive called Cheshire, who is even seen to lap up milk. Barker said later he allowed himself "to go slightly over the top," believing such an arch performance suited the show. "Escape In Time" saw Emma face to face with Peter Bowles as Thyssen, a man with a fondness for historical ways of death. "From Venus With Love" is of note to Doctor Who fans, as it features Jon Pertwee as a Brigadier. "The Brig" himself, Nicholas Courtney turned up in a suitably military-based episode, "Mission Highly Improbable," wherein a shrunken Steed and Mrs Peel investigate the sudden disappearance of top secret military hardware. For comic book aficionados, there was the wildly inventive and well-realised "The Winged Avenger," which featured Colin Jeavons. A clever pastiche of the hokum of Batman (which was just beginning stateside) mixed with a generous helping of gaudy Pop Art.
Some great guest stars cropped up as the series progressed: Edwin Richfield and Neil McCarthy starred alongside Arthur Lowe (as a sports car racing eccentric) in "Dead Man's Treasure," an excellent episode full of tension as Steed and Mrs. Peel (in a very effective racing simulator) complete a high speed treasure hunt. There were cameos by Paul Eddington, Clive Dunn and a young Penelope Keith in "Something Nasty in The Nursery," whilst "A Funny Thing That Happened On The Way To The Station," actually a rewrite of an early Roger Marshall script, is set on a train and featured another Dad's Army star to be - John Laurie. The sixth season was the last to feature Diana Rigg and marked a turning point for the series. The episodes seemed a touch more serious, although ostensibly they continued the conceits established over the previous two seasons.
Tara For Now…
The departure of the popular Diana Rigg in 1967 also saw long-term producers Albert Fennel and Brian Clemens replaced by John Bryce. It was Bryce who signed up his then girlfriend, the twenty-year-old Canadian actress Linda Thorson as Emma Peel's replacement, Tara King. The first few episodes with Thorson were in the can before financial and internal problems beset the series. Bryce was fired and replaced with his predecessors, Fennel and Clemens. The seventh series opened with "The Forget Me Knot," a story which some sources suggest had been originally shot several months beforehand but abandoned.
Fennel and Clemens persuaded Diana Rigg to return in order to give Emma Peel a proper send-off. Emma memorably tells Tara King, whom she meets on the stairs to Steed's apartment: "…he likes his tea stirred anti-clockwise." Steed observed Mrs. Peel driving off with her husband, who had re-emerged after being presumed dead. He seemed remarkably like Steed in the brief look the viewer is given of him. In truth Patrick Macnee played him in close-ups and Macnee's stunt double, Peter Weston played Peel in longshots as an in-joke, all the more reason for "Mr. Peel" to meet with Steed's approval!
The end of the 1960s saw some of the most colorful and psychedelic episodes. Macnee is seen sporting sideburns in a rare nod to fashion. The final episodes saw the introduction of Mother, a wheelchair-bound boss figure, played by Patrick Newell, who had previously appeared as a different character in "Something Nasty In The Nursery." Despite all the problems that surrounded the series at this point there were still some very fine episodes in the final run: "Look - (Stop Me If You've Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers" - which must surely hold the record for the longest episode title in the history of TV drama - was a particular highlight. It depicted clowns as killers. The subject is always a fascination for those who find clowns creepy at the best of times. The very well-mounted and effective "Fog" followed with its Jack the Ripper-style tale, wherein Steed and Tara hunt the seemingly reanimated Victorian killer. The aptly titled "The Rotters" concerned the deaths of members of the Institute for Timber Technology, their assassins being able to destroy wood by very quickly reducing it to dust, was another clever story.
They'll be back, you can depend on it...
The Avengers ran for 161 episodes, ending in May 1969. "Bizarre" brought the series to a close as Steed and Tara were accidentally launched into space, a whole two months before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Mother broke the forth wall and told the viewers "don't worry… they'll be back, you can depend on it..." Prophetic words as just six years later, Macnee and Thorson reprised their roles for a drinks commercial, such was its success, plans were made for a new series: The New Avengers, which arrived the following year. But that's another story!
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Buddy Holly died in which month of 1959? | The Avengers [Reino Unido] [VHS]: Amazon.es: Avengers: Cine y Series TV
The Avengers [Reino Unido] [VHS]
Clasificado: Desconocido Formato: Cinta VHS
Audio: Inglés
Número de discos: 1
Calificación FSK: Desconocido. No se nos ha facilitado la calificación española por edades (ICAA), pero puedes consultarla en la página oficial del ICAA. Las calificaciones por edad y/o versiones de otros paÃses no siempre coinciden con la española. Más información sobre las diferentes calificaciones por edad .
Estudio: Contender
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Por Jose en 31 de julio de 2016
Formato: DVD Compra verificada
Película interesante. Sin ser gran cosa entretiene bastante. Actuaciones mediocres a pesar del peso de algunos actores. Se pude ver.
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Amazon.com: 2.8 de un máximo de 5 estrellas 330 opiniones
3 de 3 personas piensan que la opinión es útil
4.0 de un máximo de 5 estrellas The 60's go 90's in a good way (and Bond is a bad guy!)... 1 de marzo de 2015
Por Average Joe 51373.1 - Publicado en Amazon.com
Formato: DVD Compra verificada
An awesome action adventure. Creative and involving. Sean Connery delivers a great performance as Sir August DeWynter, an maniacal genius and former British Intelligence agent (?) with an axe to grind with the Royal Empire. He has stolen control of a satellite that allows him to control the weather everywhere on the planet. He is holding the world hostage and has a hefty ransom. So British super agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) is called into action to stop him, and he is first advised to bring in Dr. Emma Peel (Uma Thurman), a noble prize winning physicist and the number one suspected ally of DeWynter after video footage of her surfaces implicating her in the murder of a high ranking member of the British business community. After he brings her in to meet Mother and Father, they determine she is innocent. But if so, then who is the woman on the video? They decide to team up to get some answers, and start at the home of Sir August DeWynter, where they quickly discover who their enemy is. But he is ready for their every move, and has them both at his mercy in a hurry. But they also soon discover he has a friend on the inside who gave him vital information to help him steal the weather satellite. A mole in British Intelligence. But who? This a exciting and involving action film that has every bit of the charm and charisma of the popular 60's TV series, and all the gadgets as well. It gets a 90's update, of course, but still keeps true to the show at the same time. Thurman and Fiennes have great onscreen chemistry, and as I mentioned, Connery was awesome. The idea of him being a former British agent was a bit cheesy, but still worked well. Brief nudity and mild language are all parents will have to worry about. There's a ton of action and snappy banter, as well as tea. Their was no sequel, which I felt was unfortunate. It didn't exactly kill at the box office, which might be its only downfall. I found it enjoyable and fun.
12 de 13 personas piensan que la opinión es útil
5.0 de un máximo de 5 estrellas Time Is The Great Avenger 31 de agosto de 2012
Por David E. Baldwin - Publicado en Amazon.com
Formato: DVD Compra verificada
In the Nineties it was fashionable for Hollywood to adapt popular television series for the big screen the best being "The Fugitive" and the very worst, in my mind, "Lost In Space". There were high hopes riding on "The Avengers" in the Summer of 1998 with a dream cast of Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and the iconic Sean Connery. Things didn't bode well for the film when the film's release date kept getting pushed back. Things looked even worse when the film wasn't even previewed for the critics and naturally the daggers were drawn when it was seen and the public followed suit. I saw it in the theatre and was disappointed because it didn't meet my expectations. But what were my expectations? Is this a bad film because it isn't the film I thought it should be? I don't know why I revisited "The Avengers" but I'm glad I did. Common criticisms of the film at the time are these. Fiennes as John Steed and Thurman as Emma Peel had no chemistry. Connery as Sir August De Wynter was lackluster as the villain. London, a bustling city, is oddly bereft of people. Eddie Izzard as one of Connery's henchmen has no dialogue which is strange for a man who makes his living as a stand-up comic. For the first two criticisms I'll say the critics are dead wrong. For the second two I'll say that the makers of the film were making an ironic stab at comedy that may have gone over some people's heads. Viewing this film unbiased by the criticisms at the time of it's release I'll say it's chief virtues are not only Fiennes, Thurman, and Connery but also terrific supporting work by Jim Broadbent, Fiona Shaw, and Eileen Atkins. Patrick MacNee also has a decent cameo. The film has decent production values and special effects but they're secondary to some cheeky dialogue notably between Fiennes and Thurman. It's rare that I do a 180 on a film but that's the case here. This film may have its detractors but if you go into it with an open mind you may find delight in "The Avengers".
1 de 1 personas piensan que la opinión es útil
2.0 de un máximo de 5 estrellas Good acting, bad direction, poor script, misconceived 23 de diciembre de 2013
Por faithful urban reader - Publicado en Amazon.com
Compra verificada
This movie had some plusses going for it, primarily the cast. A lot of money was spent on the production design and special effects, but the film suffers from a misconceived premise. First of all, it's dealing with a witty, effervescent spy romp -- an iconographical series of the 60's -- but it tries to turn it into a darker, insupportable James Bondian (same production designer). "Dark" and the Avengers don't really mix. The whole production is dark, lots of crashing special effects, derring do, conflict between "Father" and "Mother" which is never explained. The dialogue is hard to understand and captioning is not provided on the streaming version. A problem. Other elements in the script are also confusing--the Emma Peel imposter, rationale, etc. The direction is just leaden and that's fatal to this type of film.
8 de 8 personas piensan que la opinión es útil
5.0 de un máximo de 5 estrellas More of beautiful Linda Thorson! Details... 23 de septiembre de 2008
Por Patrick W. Crabtree - Publicado en Amazon.com
Formato: DVD Compra verificada
Prior to 1967, "The Avengers" was yielded in black-and-white. Going to color was a definite improvement; however in 1968 there were three additional significant changes:
1. Mrs. Peel (Diana Rigg) was traded out for Steed's new partner, Tara King (Linda Thorson).
2. The producers asserted that the 1968 episodes were more [paraphrasing] "believable" -- in fact, just the opposite is true. The '68 episodes are more bizarre than ever, but still very good.
3. There is more involvement by Steed's boss, "Mother" (a wheelchair-bound chubby guy who shows up in very strange places to discuss Steed's progress on respective cases).
This DVD package, (2 DVDs, individually cased and further packaged in an attractive cardboard box, this "Set No. 4" color-coded RED), is the fourth of FIVE sets for the 1968 episodes. The marketing of "The Avengers" can be quite confusing so I wanted to get that information out up front. This is also the BEST way to buy the DVDs (by the "set" rather than by the "volume") for any season, from 1963 through 1968.
Patrick Macnee shrewdly plays John Steed, England's gentleman undercover agent. Linda Thorson is one of several of a line of Steed's voluptuous sidekicks. In the U.S., most of us didn't even know about Honor Blackman and Macnee's other (earlier) partners until years later when these episodes finally emerged on VHS tape. Diana Rigg can probably claim about 60% of the credit for the vast number of U.S. audience members who were glued to their TVs when "The Avengers" finally hit here. The other 40% (not forgetting Macnee's fine performances) had to do with the presentation of this excellent series.
Starting in 1965, with Rigg, the filmscore was notably updated and played more prominently throughout the story, enhancing the action and suspense. Also, the action itself was boosted. There was never a dull moment with Steed and Mrs. Peel. And these episodes were all FUN -- one embraced a sense that Macnee and Rigg were having a great time in making these films. Now that I've seen episodes from "The Avengers'" earlier years, ('63 and '64), I can see that they dragged quite a bit during that earlier era and were much more soap opera-ish. The fun continued throughout the final year, 1968, even though Linda Thorson was simply never quite as dynamic or as sexy as Diana Rigg. The '68 filmscore and title scenes at the beginning and the conclusion of each episode were spiffed up a bit too.
Each of these 52-minute episodes is futuristic (at least for the period) and on the cutting edge of excellent television productions. I know of no series, "The Original Star Trek Series" excepted, which has remained as timeless as "The Avengers". You'll encounter, in the 1968 episodes, every nemesis ranging from Eastern spies posing as murderous British Army officers to equally murderous hotel desk clerks.
In the 1968 Set No. 4 (which includes Vols. 7 and 8), we're talking about seven very enjoyable, action-packed, color episodes:
Volume 7:
"Wish You Were Here" - In a parody of "The Prisoner" Tara attempts to free her uncle from a hotel which has a firm "no check-out early" policy. This is a superb episode.
"Stay Tuned" - Investigating Steed's amnesia (a returning theme from previous years), Steed and Tara uncover a plot to kill their boss, "Mother".
"Take Me To Your Leader" - A briefcase stuffed with money and a bomb seems to have a mind of its own - and it's giving strange orders.
Volume 8:
"Fog" - When foreign committee members arrive in London for a meeting, they find themselves stalked by the "Gaslight Ghoul," a Victorian killer with a modern motive.
"Homicide and Old Lace" - On his birthday, Mother tells tales of an older adventure. The flashback scenes were originally filmed for the never-aired episode, "The Great Britain Crime".
"Love All" - The missile department is leaking secrets but Steed and Tara sniff out the source of the indiscretion. A terrific episode.
"Get-A-Way" - A prison is having trouble holding enemy agents. The first two escapees knock off Steed's pals... is he the next on the list?
The storylines of the various "The Avengers" episodes seem absurd to varying degrees as we view them today - but 1968 continued to escalate the absurdity beyond the previous years' entries. This did not diminish my enthusiasm for the "The Avengers" because the overall series always manifested a "Batman" (TV series) tongue-and-cheekness about it. I mention this only to prepare viewers for this actuality.
The casting in all episodes is spot-on, punctuated with the very best sets and scenic locations. And Linda Thorson's astounding beauty (tenoned with her great figure!) really accentuates the `60s look in her mod attire.
I'll be reviewing all of the 1968 sets, (as I mentioned earlier, there are five in all, with 2 "volumes" per set), so be on the watch for my comments regarding the other sets at their appropriate sites on Amazon. In the meantime, while not exactly as marvelous as the 1967 episodes, this particular set still garners my highest recommendation!
3.0 de un máximo de 5 estrellas Not up to the the TV series 14 de julio de 2016
Por SSG Cedar - Publicado en Amazon.com
Compra verificada
Definitely not up to the standards of the TV series. Ralph Fiennes is a second rate John Steed. Uma Thurman is a little better as Emma Peele but making her an expert in every science is a little much. Having two people running the agency is too much. Having the man code named Mother and the woman code named Father is too cute by far.
| i don't know |
Who published a regular newspaper column from 1936 onwards? | Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones: New York Newspapers: New York State Library
New York State Library
NYSED / OCE / NYSL / Research Library / Newspapers / Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones
Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones
Researched and Compiled by Bill Lucey, March 14, 2005
In 1981, a Joint Congressional Resolution declared the week of March 8 as National Women's History Week. Congress expanded it to a month long celebration in 1987.
Here is a brief timeline of some early female pioneers in American journalism.
January 4, 1739: Elizabeth Timothy becomes the first female in the American colonies to assume the role of publisher of a newspaper: the South Carolina Gazette, after her husband, Lewis Timothy, dies. She turned the role over to her son, Peter, in May 1746, and died in April 1757.
Anne Newport Royall, considered "The first American newspaper woman" was travel correspondent and Washington editor, didn't begin her newspaper career until she was 51, and at 62, she becomes publisher of the Paul Pry, later renamed The Huntress.
In her career as a reporter and editor, she had a pit bull style, campaigning against graft and corruption within the federal government; and in one story, she exposed a clerk of the House of Representatives, who was payroll padding and practicing nepotism. Royall became the first female reporter to interview a U.S. president: John Quincy Adams.
One unique feature she adopted as publisher of the Paul Pry was to publish a "Black List" of delinquent subscribers. Here's one such example: "If any one can inform us where a Mr. T Bell, late of Sparta Ga., at president resides, he will confer a favor on the editress of this paper. Mr. Bell went off in our debt and is said to be somewhere in the Creek (now Alabama) Nation."
Sarah Joseph Hale, who began her journalism career at age 40, impoverished and mothering five children, became the first female magazine editor of a nationally recognized publication, when she moved to Philadelphia in 1837, to became literary editor of Godey's Lady Book, a monthly magazine devoted to morality issues, literature, and fashions. It was at this magazine where Hale began to push for having Thanksgiving declared a national holiday, a cause that was realized in 1864 during Abraham Lincoln's administration. In a July 1872 editorial column, she admonished a majority of universities (with Oxford and Cambridge being the exceptions) for not offering advanced degrees to women.
Margaret Fuller became literary critic for a major daily newspaper at the New York Herald Tribune, when Horace Greeley hired her as the paper's first female staff member. In 1846, she became a foreign correspondent for the Tribune, when she traveled to Europe and reported on the Italian revolution of 1847. Fuller died tragically; on July 19, 1850, while setting sail for America with her husband and three children, their ship foundered off Fire Island and all were drowned. Fuller was traveling with her manuscript for a soon to be published book on the history of the Roman Republic.
Cornelia Walter was editor of the Boston Transcript and the considered to be the first woman to edit a major newspaper in the United States. One of her reporting highlights came on August 3, 1842, during a race riot in Philadelphia, in which she chronicled the plight of the black citizens who had been victimized and left homeless.
Jane Gray Swisshelm, one of the first female journalists on New York Herald Tribune, where she was remembered for being the first woman to sit in the press gallery in Washington D.C. on April 22, 1850, to cover a vote on slavery for the Mexican territory. Swisshelm launched her journalism career in 1842, at age 27, with the Dollar Newspaper and Neal Saturday Gazette, using the pen name Jennie Deans; and later wrote for an abolitionist newspaper in Pittsburgh, the Spirit of Liberty.
Jane Cunningham Croly, better known as "Jenny June," became the first woman to occupy a desk in a city room of a major newspaper, the New York Tribune. She founded the New York Women's Press Club in 1868 on West 14th Street and served as its first president.
During her reporting career, she advocated closer health inspections in stores and restaurants and improved city services of New York residential streets, which were becoming cluttered with garbage. Croly was hailed as one of the first women to teach college level journalism classes during a time when journalism schools were non-existent.
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer is noted for being the first woman personal advice columnist as "Dorothy Dix Talks," from 1896 to 1951, beginning with the New York Evening Journal, offering advice and personal opinions tinged with humor and sarcasm on a broad range of topics. "Men are a selfish lot" was one of her more popular responses.
Her mailbag, according to her obituary, averaged about 2,000 letters a week. By the time of her death in 1951 at age 90, the Bell Syndicate was publishing her column.
Dorothy Thompson, foreign affairs writer for the New York Herald Tribune beginning in 1936 is credited with being the first woman to establish a regular presence on the editorial page when her column "On the Record" made its debut on March 17, 1936. She reportedly was making over $100,000 in 1938. Prior to World War II, she wrote against the tide of American opinion, when she pushed for the U.S to snap out if its isolationist slumber and intervene in Europe. She wrote that the "National Socialist Revolution in Germany would prove to be the most world disturbing event of the century and perhaps of many centuries." Time Magazine ran a cover story on her on June 12, 1939, and described her and Eleanor Roosevelt as being two of the most influential women in the country.
February 1, 1937: The first woman in New York Times history to sit on the editorial board is Anne O'Hare McCormick. She begins a column: "Affairs in Europe," later re-named "Abroad." When she died on May 29, 1954, the New York Times blackened the border of the "Abroad Column." McCormick won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for foreign correspondence, becoming the first woman in journalism to claim the coveted prize.
Judith Crist is named drama critic of the New York Herald Tribune in 1958, the first woman to hold such a title for a major daily, and in 1960 becomes editor of the Arts. In 1963, her lifelong dream is fulfilled, when she's named editor film critic.
No woman covered World War I, but by World War II, 21 women were assigned to various fronts of the war.
Murguerit Higgins in 1951 became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for war correspondence for the New York Herald Tribune, when she fought her way to the front lines in Korea despite the objections of General Walton H. Walker, who told her "[t]his is not the type of war where women ought to be running around the front lines." After protesting, Gen. Douglas MacArthur rescinded the order the next day.
Higgins was hired in 1942 at the Herald while still a student at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, after landing an interview with Chiang Kai-shek, who was refusing interviews to all other reporters.
Miriam Ottenberg, became one of the first female police reporters when she joins the Washington Star in 1937; and in 1960, as an investigative reporter, she won a Pulitzer for her series "Buyer Beware" about unscrupulous used-car dealers and finance companies. Her series led to the introduction of federal legislation and the enactment of remedial laws.
February 2, 1976: The New York Times publishes a book review of their new style manual: "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage," which hadn't been updated since 1962. The book reveals for the first time the paper's policies on datelines and the importance of protecting the anonymity of news sources. Reflecting the rise of feminism, the manual notes changes in how women should be addressed but refuses to accept the words "chairwoman," "chairperson," "spokeswoman," and "Ms" as acceptable usage.
Mary McGrory first joined the staff of the Washington Star in 1947 as a book reviewer; and in 1975 became the first woman to win a Pulitzer for commentary for her series of columns about the Watergate scandal. McGrory suffered a stroke in March, 2003, and died on April 21, 2004.
June 20, 1986: In an Editor's Note, The New York Times acknowledge the term "Ms." had become common usage and accordingly will be adopted as an honorific in news columns and when an identity of a woman is unknown. Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal ordered the change.
NOTE: Joseph C. Goulden, in his book Fit To Print: A.M. Rosenthal And His Times wrote that when Gloria Steinem was alerted to The Times' policy change, she immediately sent Rosenthal flowers along with a thank-you note compliments of the Ms Magazine staff.
According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, in 2004, women made up 37.23 percent of daily newspapers employees: 20, 177 out of a total workforce of 54, 164. ASNE estimates 4,471 women are in supervisory or upper management positions.
The Census Bureau reports there are 147.8 million females in the United States as of July 1, 2003, outnumbering the male population, which stands at 143 million.
Sources:
Brilliant Bylines by Barbara Belford
Great Women of the Press by Madelon Golden Schilpp and Sharon M. Murphy
Biographical Dictionary of American Journalism edited by Joseph P. McKerns
| Eleanor Roosevelt |
Which industrialist born in Wirksworth in 1803 opened Matlock Hydro in 1853? | Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones: New York Newspapers: New York State Library
New York State Library
NYSED / OCE / NYSL / Research Library / Newspapers / Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones
Women in Journalism: Newspaper Milestones
Researched and Compiled by Bill Lucey, March 14, 2005
In 1981, a Joint Congressional Resolution declared the week of March 8 as National Women's History Week. Congress expanded it to a month long celebration in 1987.
Here is a brief timeline of some early female pioneers in American journalism.
January 4, 1739: Elizabeth Timothy becomes the first female in the American colonies to assume the role of publisher of a newspaper: the South Carolina Gazette, after her husband, Lewis Timothy, dies. She turned the role over to her son, Peter, in May 1746, and died in April 1757.
Anne Newport Royall, considered "The first American newspaper woman" was travel correspondent and Washington editor, didn't begin her newspaper career until she was 51, and at 62, she becomes publisher of the Paul Pry, later renamed The Huntress.
In her career as a reporter and editor, she had a pit bull style, campaigning against graft and corruption within the federal government; and in one story, she exposed a clerk of the House of Representatives, who was payroll padding and practicing nepotism. Royall became the first female reporter to interview a U.S. president: John Quincy Adams.
One unique feature she adopted as publisher of the Paul Pry was to publish a "Black List" of delinquent subscribers. Here's one such example: "If any one can inform us where a Mr. T Bell, late of Sparta Ga., at president resides, he will confer a favor on the editress of this paper. Mr. Bell went off in our debt and is said to be somewhere in the Creek (now Alabama) Nation."
Sarah Joseph Hale, who began her journalism career at age 40, impoverished and mothering five children, became the first female magazine editor of a nationally recognized publication, when she moved to Philadelphia in 1837, to became literary editor of Godey's Lady Book, a monthly magazine devoted to morality issues, literature, and fashions. It was at this magazine where Hale began to push for having Thanksgiving declared a national holiday, a cause that was realized in 1864 during Abraham Lincoln's administration. In a July 1872 editorial column, she admonished a majority of universities (with Oxford and Cambridge being the exceptions) for not offering advanced degrees to women.
Margaret Fuller became literary critic for a major daily newspaper at the New York Herald Tribune, when Horace Greeley hired her as the paper's first female staff member. In 1846, she became a foreign correspondent for the Tribune, when she traveled to Europe and reported on the Italian revolution of 1847. Fuller died tragically; on July 19, 1850, while setting sail for America with her husband and three children, their ship foundered off Fire Island and all were drowned. Fuller was traveling with her manuscript for a soon to be published book on the history of the Roman Republic.
Cornelia Walter was editor of the Boston Transcript and the considered to be the first woman to edit a major newspaper in the United States. One of her reporting highlights came on August 3, 1842, during a race riot in Philadelphia, in which she chronicled the plight of the black citizens who had been victimized and left homeless.
Jane Gray Swisshelm, one of the first female journalists on New York Herald Tribune, where she was remembered for being the first woman to sit in the press gallery in Washington D.C. on April 22, 1850, to cover a vote on slavery for the Mexican territory. Swisshelm launched her journalism career in 1842, at age 27, with the Dollar Newspaper and Neal Saturday Gazette, using the pen name Jennie Deans; and later wrote for an abolitionist newspaper in Pittsburgh, the Spirit of Liberty.
Jane Cunningham Croly, better known as "Jenny June," became the first woman to occupy a desk in a city room of a major newspaper, the New York Tribune. She founded the New York Women's Press Club in 1868 on West 14th Street and served as its first president.
During her reporting career, she advocated closer health inspections in stores and restaurants and improved city services of New York residential streets, which were becoming cluttered with garbage. Croly was hailed as one of the first women to teach college level journalism classes during a time when journalism schools were non-existent.
Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer is noted for being the first woman personal advice columnist as "Dorothy Dix Talks," from 1896 to 1951, beginning with the New York Evening Journal, offering advice and personal opinions tinged with humor and sarcasm on a broad range of topics. "Men are a selfish lot" was one of her more popular responses.
Her mailbag, according to her obituary, averaged about 2,000 letters a week. By the time of her death in 1951 at age 90, the Bell Syndicate was publishing her column.
Dorothy Thompson, foreign affairs writer for the New York Herald Tribune beginning in 1936 is credited with being the first woman to establish a regular presence on the editorial page when her column "On the Record" made its debut on March 17, 1936. She reportedly was making over $100,000 in 1938. Prior to World War II, she wrote against the tide of American opinion, when she pushed for the U.S to snap out if its isolationist slumber and intervene in Europe. She wrote that the "National Socialist Revolution in Germany would prove to be the most world disturbing event of the century and perhaps of many centuries." Time Magazine ran a cover story on her on June 12, 1939, and described her and Eleanor Roosevelt as being two of the most influential women in the country.
February 1, 1937: The first woman in New York Times history to sit on the editorial board is Anne O'Hare McCormick. She begins a column: "Affairs in Europe," later re-named "Abroad." When she died on May 29, 1954, the New York Times blackened the border of the "Abroad Column." McCormick won a Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for foreign correspondence, becoming the first woman in journalism to claim the coveted prize.
Judith Crist is named drama critic of the New York Herald Tribune in 1958, the first woman to hold such a title for a major daily, and in 1960 becomes editor of the Arts. In 1963, her lifelong dream is fulfilled, when she's named editor film critic.
No woman covered World War I, but by World War II, 21 women were assigned to various fronts of the war.
Murguerit Higgins in 1951 became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for war correspondence for the New York Herald Tribune, when she fought her way to the front lines in Korea despite the objections of General Walton H. Walker, who told her "[t]his is not the type of war where women ought to be running around the front lines." After protesting, Gen. Douglas MacArthur rescinded the order the next day.
Higgins was hired in 1942 at the Herald while still a student at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, after landing an interview with Chiang Kai-shek, who was refusing interviews to all other reporters.
Miriam Ottenberg, became one of the first female police reporters when she joins the Washington Star in 1937; and in 1960, as an investigative reporter, she won a Pulitzer for her series "Buyer Beware" about unscrupulous used-car dealers and finance companies. Her series led to the introduction of federal legislation and the enactment of remedial laws.
February 2, 1976: The New York Times publishes a book review of their new style manual: "The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage," which hadn't been updated since 1962. The book reveals for the first time the paper's policies on datelines and the importance of protecting the anonymity of news sources. Reflecting the rise of feminism, the manual notes changes in how women should be addressed but refuses to accept the words "chairwoman," "chairperson," "spokeswoman," and "Ms" as acceptable usage.
Mary McGrory first joined the staff of the Washington Star in 1947 as a book reviewer; and in 1975 became the first woman to win a Pulitzer for commentary for her series of columns about the Watergate scandal. McGrory suffered a stroke in March, 2003, and died on April 21, 2004.
June 20, 1986: In an Editor's Note, The New York Times acknowledge the term "Ms." had become common usage and accordingly will be adopted as an honorific in news columns and when an identity of a woman is unknown. Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal ordered the change.
NOTE: Joseph C. Goulden, in his book Fit To Print: A.M. Rosenthal And His Times wrote that when Gloria Steinem was alerted to The Times' policy change, she immediately sent Rosenthal flowers along with a thank-you note compliments of the Ms Magazine staff.
According to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, in 2004, women made up 37.23 percent of daily newspapers employees: 20, 177 out of a total workforce of 54, 164. ASNE estimates 4,471 women are in supervisory or upper management positions.
The Census Bureau reports there are 147.8 million females in the United States as of July 1, 2003, outnumbering the male population, which stands at 143 million.
Sources:
Brilliant Bylines by Barbara Belford
Great Women of the Press by Madelon Golden Schilpp and Sharon M. Murphy
Biographical Dictionary of American Journalism edited by Joseph P. McKerns
| i don't know |
Born in Denby in 1646, who was the first Astronomer Royal? | John Flamsteed | British astronomer | Britannica.com
British astronomer
Sir Harold Spencer Jones
John Flamsteed, (born Aug. 19, 1646, Denby, near Derby , Derbyshire , Eng.—died Dec. 31, 1719, Greenwich , London), founder of the Greenwich Observatory, and the first astronomer royal of England .
Poor health forced Flamsteed to leave school in 1662. He studied astronomy on his own and later (1670–74) continued his education at the University of Cambridge . In 1677 he became a member of the Royal Society . Ordained a clergyman in 1675, Flamsteed in 1684 received the income of the living of Burstow, Surrey . His report to the Royal Society on the need for a new observatory resulted in the founding (1675) of the Royal Greenwich Observatory , of which he was the first director (and hence astronomer royal). He found that he himself had to supply all the instruments at Greenwich, apart from a few gifts; he was forced to take private pupils to augment his income. A small inheritance from his father, who died in 1688, provided the means to construct a mural arc, a wall-mounted instrument for measuring the altitudes of stars as they passed the meridian.
The latter part of Flamsteed’s life passed in controversy over the publication of his excellent stellar observations. He struggled to withhold them until completed, but they were urgently needed by Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley , among others. Newton, through the Royal Society, led the movement for their immediate publication. In 1704 Prince George of Denmark undertook the cost of publication, and, despite the prince’s death in 1708 and Flamsteed’s objections, the incomplete observations were edited by Halley, and 400 copies were printed in 1712. Flamsteed later managed to burn 300 of them. His own star catalog , Historia Coelestis Britannica (1725), listed more stars (3,000) and gave their positions much more accurately than did any other previous work. Some stars, such as 61 Cygni , are still known by their numbers in his system.
Learn More in these related articles:
| John Flamsteed |
Christians pilgrims to which Spanish city returned wearing a scallop shell in their hat bands? | John Flamsteed | Article about John Flamsteed by The Free Dictionary
John Flamsteed | Article about John Flamsteed by The Free Dictionary
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/John+Flamsteed
Also found in: Dictionary , Wikipedia .
Flamsteed, John
(flăm`stēd), 1646–1719, English astronomer. He was appointed (1675) astronomer royal by King Charles II and carried on his researches at Greenwich Observatory. Over his protests—he did not consider it ready for publication—the Historia Coelestis, which included the first of the Greenwich star catalogs, was published in 1712. His complete work, Historia Coelestis Britannica, finished after his death by his assistants, did not appear until 1725.
Bibliography
See E. F. McPike, Hevelius, Flamsteed and Halley (1937).
Flamsteed, John
Born Aug. 19, 1646, in Denby; died Dec. 31, 1719, in Greenwich. English astronomer.
Flamsteed was the founder and first director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. His observations resulted in a catalog of highly accurate positions for approximately 3,000 stars (Historia coelestis Britannica, vols. 1–3, 1712–25) and a star atlas (Atlas coelestis, 1729). Flamsteed made a large number of lunar observations, which were used by I. Newton in validating the law of universal gravitation.
REFERENCE
Berry, A. Kratkaia istoriia astronomii, 2nd ed. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946. (Translated from English.)
| i don't know |
Until recent times Muslim men returned from the Haj wearing turbans of which colour? | Clothing facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Clothing
Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc.
CLOTHING
CLOTHING. Clothing and fashion underwent several transformations in the early modern world, reflecting the changing social, political, religious, and economic forces of which they were a part and an expression. Though major shifts in patterns of production and consumption and the emergence of more varied fabrics and textiles had already taken place in the late Middle Ages , the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries represented a culmination of these trends as well as a distinct and dynamic period in which clothing became an innovative and rapidly changing style form in its own right. Reflecting a heightened clothes-consciousness, men and women constructed their identity by wearing garments that reshaped their bodies and created around them a fluid circulation of meanings. In this sense, clothing, as one writer put it, constituted a "worn world: a world of social relations put upon the wearer's body." At the same time, just as clothing served as a form of personal (if heavily restricted) self-inscription, larger historical developments of the time—changing warfare, the Protestant Reformation, even the emergence of national identity—influenced the choice of a slashed sleeve or a ballooning doublet.
THE EARLY MODERN CULTURE INDUSTRY: PRODUCTION, CONSUMPTION, AND SUMPTUARY LAWS
Though textile centers had existed throughout Europe since the Middle Ages, the birth of the fashion industry originated in the city-states of Italy, where international trade, commercial innovation, and economic growth had coalesced since the twelfth century. The Crusades had opened the way for contact with Asia and, with it, the importation of more varied and luxurious fabrics. In northern Italian states such as Venice and Florence, import-export businesses coexisted with centers of fabric production that created huge fortunes and an accompanying consumer class eager for personal, status-enhancing display. Beginning in the fifteenth century especially, the hedonistic desire to spend on the part of those with more disposable wealth combined with a business strategy of "planned obsolescence" to produce clothes of a distinct cut, piecing, and fit that could be adopted and discarded as "fashion" by wealthy elites who suddenly did not wish to be seen in garments that could be considered out-of-date and behind the style curve of their rivals.
Constraints were placed on the circulation of clothing, however. Though they extended back to the Bible , early modern sumptuary laws had been formulated in the late Middle Ages to regulate consumption of luxury items and to reinforce existing social, economic, and occupational divisions by narrowly delineating items such as clothing or jewelry that an individual could wear. Intended to counter extravagance—which could be loosely defined, though silk, velvet, and brocades were strictly offlimits to the lower classes—laws also served the purpose of encouraging domestic production and protecting the manufacturing sector of a given country while upholding self-proclaimed standards of morality and decency. As a method of social control, sumptuary legislation also upheld hierarchies in a world where class distinctions, at least at the higher levels, could become blurred at times. Wealthy mercantilists, for example, gained economic strength during the early modern period, and proceeded to express themselves in the outer trappings of wealth. The result was a kind of egalitarianism of extravagance, as expressed by the wife of Phillipe Le Bel, who is said to have exclaimed, "I thought I was the Queen, but I see there are hundreds." In Tudor England, on the other hand, finer social distinctions were reinforced by injunctions, for example, that "None shall wear cloth of gold or silver, or silk of purpose color except Earls, all above that rank, and Knights of the King (and then only in their mantles)." Those on the margins—especially those on the margins—were also targeted for sartorial restriction: thus were Jews compelled to don either a star-shaped yellow badge or a yellow hat known as a bareta, while in Venice common prostitutes were required to proclaim their station through patches as well as bells, hats, or striped hoods. Sumptuary laws could be subverted or evaded, however, among those of the lower orders. To bypass the law that limited commoners to one color, some individuals as well as noblemen began to slash their garments—doublets, sleeves, hose—to expose the contrasting colors of the interior linings. Courtesans also could sometimes overcome such restrictions and, in fact, mimic the altogether more cloistered noblewomen with their own lavish stylings, down to the extreme shoes known as chopines, whose platforms could extend the length of three feet, elevating the woman to towering proportions and requiring her to support her stride with two sturdy male handlers.
FASHION HIGH AND LOW
Sumptuary laws ensured that clothes reflected the age's social stratifications, with more variation occurring in the top ranks of society. Men as well as women were especially aware of the manipulative potentialities in dress and public image, and adorned themselves accordingly, but few did so with such notoriety and effect as Elizabeth I of England . Her astonishing wardrobe was a political expression in its own right, and a useful expedient: because much of her power came from projection—which was especially necessary when she witnessed no small number of threats to her throne, as well as limited funds in her treasury—her gowns were designed to impress with jewels and luxurious fabric, and could even be adapted to international fashion styles, depending on whose court—the French, an Italian city-state—she considered diplomatically useful at any one time. Elizabeth's dress in turn trickled down, at least to ladies of the more elevated class, with its status-enhancing ruffles, complicated bell-shaped sleeves, daunting underpinnings, heavily embroidered gowns, V-shaped waistlines, cinched, tight-fitting bodices, and choices of colors that ranged, in contemporary language, from Bristol Red to Puke and Popinjay Green. Men were equally influenced by Elizabeth's sartorial statements, adopting more elaborate embroidery motifs (including the Tudor rose) as well as rich fabrics and, of course, the ruff, which could extend to a foot outward. But male ornamentation—fanciful boots, rich materials, plentiful decoration—had preceded Elizabeth and been expressed most fully with her father, Henry VIII , whose own puffed styles borrowed from the Continent, most notably from the courts of Burgundy and France .
Among elites, shifts in styles occurred frequently over the course of the sixteenth century, moving from the relatively soft linearity of late Gothic and early Italian Renaissance clothing, when dress tended toward greater simplicity and consisted of a relatively restrained albeit beautifully tailored gown topped by huge sleeves, trailing skirts, and a square or rounded neckline. Headdresses completed the picture, and consisted of a sort of net or caul that seems to have contained the hair. Later on, the farthingale, a bell-shaped hoop skirt, dominated women's fashion, contributing to an increasingly stiff female posture. As Aphra Behn wrote in The Lady's Looking Glass, "I have seen a Woman . . . [who] has screw'd her Body in so fine a Form, that she dares no more stir a Hand, lift up an Arm, or turn her Head aside, than if, for the Sin of such a Disorder, she were to be turn'd into a Pillar of Salt; the less stiff and fix'd Statue of the two." With the introduction in the century of the aforementioned ruff, which enshrouded the neck in starch and lace, the effect was to render women as well as men all the more remote and unapproachable in appearance.
From the mid-sixteenth century on, such aesthetic cues were increasingly appropriated from Spain , where clothes forsook the body's natural contours and instead subjected it to even more geometric silhouettes. Dark silks and velvets were especially valued among those who preferred the classical baroque style, for it allowed them to showcase more effectively the precious stones and jewelry with which they adorned themselves, and which were frequently sewn into the fabric itself. The Spanish style was especially evident among men, who could, nevertheless, vary their adornment in the quest to project masculinity, wealth, status, and sexual allure. The shirt undergarment worn by an early modern man tended to be fitted closer to the body than that worn by a peasant, in order to accommodate the nearly always white linen doublet; nether hose, or pants, were a significant shift from the more gowned medieval world, with men opting for knee-length Venetian breeches or what were known as slops, or paned breeches, which puffed at the thigh and were sometimes adorned with a codpiece. Doublets were jacketlike ensembles that were fastened down the front, tended to come with a high neckline, and were topped by a straight-collared, richly ornamented cloak, almost always worn by noblemen. Despite the encroachments of new fabrics, cuts, and silhouettes for the male body, however, gowns were not entirely obsolete, especially in the early period of the age, when they continued to distinguish their wearers as clergy, scholars, or old and respected gentlemen.
Among the lower orders, the standard apparel for women began with a linen undergarment known as a chemise, or shift, a rectangular smock with long sleeves, a low square neck, and a hem that extended to the calf. Over this women wore one or two linen or wool skirts—cotton would not be mass-produced Europe until the eighteenth century—and supported the body and the garment with a snugly fitting (but not oppressively tight) vestlike bodice. Variations existed: for the Flemish market woman, for example, a linen undergarment was overlaid with a sleeveless kirtle—an open-fronted gown laced in the front—and a partlet, an item of clothing worn over the upper torso.
Surprisingly, more affordable dyestuffs ensured that colors could vary among the lower classes, ranging from pink, fawn, russet, peach, blue, green, and occasionally even bright red, though the latter was frequently associated solely with the upper classes. For a peasant man, on the other hand, the undergarment comprised a linen shirt similarly rectangular in cut—to prevent the linen from unraveling—with long cuffed sleeves and an optional collar. These were usually matched by knee-length breeches often finished with a loose, unstructured, and hip-length vest known as a jerkin, covered in the winter by a wool or linen cloak.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS AND FASHION
Fashion among the elite tended to be international in scope, to the point where Thomas Dekker compared the "English-mans suit" to a traitor's body: "the collar of his doublet and the belly in France; the wing and narrow sleeue in Italy; the shorte waist hangs over a Dutch botchers stall in Utrich; his huge sloppes speakes Spanish; Polonia [ Poland ] gives him his bootes; the blocke for his head alters faster than the feltmaker can fit him." The emergence of firmer national boundaries and identities in the early modern period, however, also reflected itself in clothing and in shifting cultural centers, from the Italian city-states to Spain and on to France. During the reign of Louis XIV, and especially from 1660 on, France played an increasingly important role in setting fashion, with gaudiness prevailing in men's dress and exemplified by tiny, open doublets and extremely baggy, knee-length trousers known as rhinegraves. Eventually rhinegraves fell out of fashion, though clothing continued to be decorated with such flourishes as ribbon bows.
Female fashion under Louis XIV was perhaps even more in flux, especially from the 1630s through the 1660s, evolving from high-waisted to long-waisted gowns, low, wide, and horizontal or oval-shaped necklines trimmed in lace, and sleeves set low on the shoulder, opening into a full ruff that ended below the elbow. For all its flourishes, however, women's dress in Louis's France tended to be more subdued and elegant than that of the beribboned male, accentuating in its silhouette the beauty of the female form.
With the emergence of more permanent armies among states, standardized military uniforms began to resurface for the first time since the Roman era. Whereas previously soldiers had either served different armies or were expected to provide their own fighting gear, uniforms now were fashioned to adorn the fighter in times of peace as well as war. Large textile factories in France became increasingly capable of churning out mass quantities of uniformly colored fabric that was cut and decorated by buttons, braiding, and cords in an unvarying manner. Military uniforms also influenced male civilian dress, making the coat or jacket more tight-fitting, with tailored contours, and taming the sleeves into the tubular and simple proportions known today. The soldier's broad-brimmed hat, or tricorn, became fashionable after the Thirty Years' War ended in 1648, as did rows of buttons and broad collars. Because men after the 1650s began to wear their hair much longer, large lace collars were made smaller and then replaced by strips of fabric that were transformed into knotted cravats or silk ribbon bows in the 1670s and 1680s. Jackets were then finished off with a waistcoat called la veste, as well as a knee-length suit jacket called a justaucorps and breeches less voluminous than had existed before. Despite the substitution of uniformed infantry fighting for armored cavalry attacks, metal sheathings continued to flourish at court, taking on more elaborate engravings. During the mid-sixteenth century especially, armor design was increasingly based on the forms and ornament found in classical art. This renaissance of pseudo-antique armor is most invariably associated with the celebrated name of Filippo Negroli, who was to become the most innovative and celebrated of the renowned armorers of Milan. Though Leonardo da Vinci had earlier sketched his fantastic armor and Verrocchio represented armor in sculpture, Negroli and his Milanese family produced unsurpassed embossed and damascened parade armors that entered into the collections (or perhaps even sheathed the bodies) of the dukes of Urbino as well as the Medici , who proclaimed a Negroli helmet "the greatest marvel."
The Protestant Reformation also played an enormous role in shifting fashion, and while it was not uniquely Protestant to condemn the excesses of dress—sumptuary laws were reinforced earlier on the grounds of morality—groups such as Calvinists or Puritans were especially vehement on the subject. According to James Durham, "men's minds are often infected with lascivious thoughts, and lustful inclinations, even by the use and sight of gaudy clothing; and light, loose, conceited minds discover themselves in nothing sooner than in their apparel, and fashions, and conceitedness in them." Because God "commendeth modesty," sobriety must prevail over clothes that "emasculateth or unmanneth" men and the "dressing of hair, powderings, washings, rings [and] jewels reproved in the daughters of Zion ."
The "hethen garments, & Romish rags" of Catholic clergy were also viewed as betraying the precepts—if not the fashion sense—of Jesus and the early apostles. Renaissance popes and cardinals such as Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga (1444–1483) had in fact been profligate, if not unsavory, in their spending habits and choice of dress, with their green or crimson damask gowns and silk slippers earning the ire of Girolamo Savonarola's outraged sensibilities. In comparison to the popes, reformers such as Martin Luther or Thomas Cranmer appeared almost homely in their dark cassocks and simple girdles, while Calvinists or English Puritans took the "plain style" to its extremes, adopting a basic and austere black more appropriate to their religion. The issue of a priest's vestments had in fact been a pressing question in the sixteenth-century clothing controversy in England, when clergy opposed wearing the cap and gown in daily life and the surplice in church; the issue was not a shallow one, as garments were thought to both influence identity and to even align the outer self with one's inner faith.
Theatrical productions, albeit in more altered forms, continued to be accepted (and created) by Protestants, though the more radical among them could inveigh against frivolous masques and entertainments. Clothing certainly contributed to the shaping of theater, and particularly English theater, which spent the greatest amount of its budget on costume. Sumptuous display ensured good box office; at the same time, the presence and circulation of clothes played a central role not only as dramatic devices within plays such as Thomas Middleton's Your Five Gallants, but also situated the identity of central and supportive characters alike. Shakespeare 's Twelfth Night, with its sartorial transformations of Viola into Cesario, is perhaps the best-known example that utilizes the gender- and identity-shaping potentialities of clothing. Shakespeare, however, was borrowing from a rich theatrical tradition of transvestism, in which the so-called "woman beneath" or "man beneath" (or "boy beneath") was hidden by the cover of clothes, voice, and gesture. Masques were also forums for such transgressions, and in the sequins and gilded costumes and elaborately patterned and stitched velvet masks, participants found a liberating refuge of subversion, akin to the costumed inversions that existed among the lower orders at Carnival time.
Contemporary clothing practices, of course, mutually influenced early modern attitudes toward the body, including ideals—sometimes blurred ideals—of beauty, ugliness, femininity, and masculinity. Emphasis on women's full figures had prevailed in the earlier era, though the introduction of increasingly restrictive and breast-compressing whalebone bodices reflected or inspired a slimmer ideal, at least in the waist. Men were equally constrained by their own fashions, including the legemphasizing hose, the form-fitting doublet, or even the frequently exaggerated codpiece. In another sense, clothing also served the early modern religious consciousness as a reminder, in Martin Luther's phrase, of the "wretched Fall"; though the nakedness of Adam and Eve was replaced by fig clothing and God-provided animal skins—the "robe[s] of righteousness," according to John Milton—clothes nevertheless served for theologians as a constant evocation, a memory, of one's sin, shame, and death.
See also Bible: Interpretation ; Calvinism ; Class, Status, and Order ; Elizabeth I (England) ; Gender ; Louis XIV (France) ; Puritanism ; Sexuality and Sexual Behavior ; Sumptuary Laws ; Textile Industry ; Women .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc.
CLOTHING
overview of traditional and modern clothes in the middle east .
Most contemporary Muslim societies reflect both old and the new realities. Resurgence of religion and nationalist attitudes of the postcolonial (twentieth-century) era are reflected in the modes of clothing. The traditional modes remain strongly defended and sometimes enforced by the governments of some Islamic nations. The great shift in political, social, and religious participation of women in many Muslim nations has affected clothing styles as well. In the twentieth century, there were two opposing models for Muslim women: the Westernized
lifestyle prominent among minor upperclass and elites, and the more restrictive, traditional "Islamic" way of life for the majority of women. A third, alternative lifestyle that has attracted a large number of Muslim women is both Islamic and modern, the result of more education and an understanding of the difference between the patriarchal interpretation of Islam and the text of the Qurʾan by the religious ulama.
Historical Background
Very little has been written regarding the dress of Arabs in classical historical literature. In terms of the Near Eastern people, more visual evidence survived
in forms of stone carvings. The earliest evidence of Arab clothing from the first and second millennia b.c.e. shows that scant clothing was worn with a variety of headdresses. Men and women wore almost identical clothing in the early Islamic era of the seventh century and the time of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic era), as is still the case today among non-urban inhabitants of the Middle Eastern regions.
Arab material culture was influenced by contact with other great empires. Arab Muslim rulers influenced the clothing styles of the countries they ruled, while the fashion styles of the countries ruled influenced the rulers. Many customs regarding clothes have roots in ancient Near Eastern (Iranian plateau, Iraq ) superstition found also in the Talmud , and still are practiced as they were during the jahiliyya. From the time of the Prophet (seventh century forward), early Islamic clothes fashions were an extension of the preceding period, with some modifications for new Islamic moral codes after the prophet Muhammad. The clothes of the villagers and bedouins of the Middle East are simpler, more functional, and more suitable to the climate and geography of the regions than those of urban dwellers, who are far more conscious of conservative modes of behavior.
In the urban Middle Eastern regions, Western styles of dress for the most part have replaced traditional clothing. Westernization of the Middle Eastern clothes styles is in itself unique and innovative at times and, importantly, accepted by the indigenous population. Traditional items of clothing mix with Western styles. For example, it is common to see Arab men of the Gulf region wearing the traditional long, ankle-length jillaba, or dishdasha, kaffiya, and agal along with a Western-style man's suit jacket and dress shoes.
Headgear
Among the most important items of clothing for men is the headgear, and the most common form of head dress for men is the imama, or turban. Historically, turbans were used for purposes other than merely covering the head—for example, for hiding objects, tying down a person, or using as a prayer rug. Turbans were wrapped in a variety of styles, as well. It was customary to leave a corner of the imama free to serve as a veil to protect the wearer against heat, dust, and the evil eye, and to conceal the wearer's identity. The locus of a man's honor and reputation was his head; therefore, to cover the head was proper and dignified and to leave it uncovered was considered shameful. In the book Palestinian Costumes Shelagh Weir notes: "Men swore oaths on their turbans, and the removal of a man's turban in anger was a slur and provocation and could necessitate material compensation."
The turban has long been worn by both Muslims and non-Muslims. The English word turban derives from the Persian dulband via the Turkish turban or tulbent. In Persian, the most common word for turban is amama, from the Arabic form of the word imama. Other less commonly known Persian terms for imama are mandil and dastar-e-sar.
The imama is usually wrapped around a small cap, which is placed at the crown of the head. This small cap is called aragh chin (Persian sweat collector), tubior araqiyya in Arabic. The early turban did not have the symbolic significance that it gained later, when it became associated with Islam and came to be referred to as "the badge of Islam" (sima al-Islam), "divider between unbelievers and believers" (hadiza bayn al-kufr wa al-iman), and "crowns of the Arabs" (tidjan al-arab).
According to an old Arab tradition, removal of a man's imama signified losing his manhood and abandoning his morals. Exceptions to this rule included removing the turban for prayer, to show before God , and for punishment, to show the public that the punished man is not respected. There are contradictory hadiths (Islamic traditions) regarding wearing or not wearing imama. In early Islamic times, the turban was forbidden to a person in a state of ihram (during the Hajj rituals).Turbans had to be removed before entering Mecca as a sign of humility and respect before God. The prophet Muhammad's turban was named al-sihab, "the cloud," and the prophet Muhammad was known as sahib al-imama, meaning "Master of the state turban," which is significant in terms of religious and community leadership. Numerous terms found in Arabic literature refer to different manners of wearing the turban: al-saʿb, al-masaba, al-mikbar, al-mashwad, and al-khamar.
In some Middle Eastern cultures, turbans were associated with sexual and social maturity. For example, in Palestinian culture, different types of headgear marked stages of maturity, and usually young boys were not allowed to wear a turban. The turban remained important even after the death of its wearer, and a traditional Muslim stone grave may have a mark with a turban. Non-Muslims who were ruled by Muslim Arab rulers were required to follow certain sumptuary laws regarding their garments. Among such obligations were the caliphs' orders to wear "the interchange," which referred to headgear, outerwear, shoes, and belts that would differentiate believers from nonbelievers in public. Non-Muslims were required to use special marks on their turbans to segregate them visually from Muslims.
In addition to marked turbans, the size and color of the turban was a badge of identification for certain classes and ages of people. The color associations have changed over time and place with various Muslim Arab rulers. For example, black turbans were associated with officials during the Abbasid period (ca. 750–950), and red was a sign of high rank. The Safavid court of Iran during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries adopted a particular form of turban that contained a tall, red stick at its center. This red stick became a religious and political divider between the official Shiʿite court of
Iran and its rival, the Ottoman Turks. Safavid soldiers wearing red-stick turbans were known as qizel baş ("red heads"), by the Turks . Religious and learned scholars wore smoothly wrapped flat, white turbans. Yellow was reserved for Jews , blue for Christians . Apparently, at various times the colors red and purple were also reserved mostly for Jews and Christians.
Men in the prime of life wore turbans in bright, warm colors; men of fifty exchanged their colored turbans for plain white ones. Until the early part of the twentieth century green turbans were worn by hajjis (men who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca) and by sada (men who claim descent from the house of the prophet Muhammad) to indicate a religious status with high social value. The extensive use of green turbans by illegitimate users led to the replacement
of the green turban with the black turban, to distinguish the legitimate sada. In Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1978, where separation of mosque and state is nonexistent, identification as a cleric denotes access to power, so it is significant that white turbans are associated with theologians and scholars, and black turbans indicate an association of the wearer to the house of the prophet Muhammad. There is no way to guarantee the legitimacy of the turban color vis à vis its intended meaning by its wearer. In general, the public trusts the wearer on this issue.
Because the turban originally was considered a part of a man's attire, traditionally, Arab men objected to women wearing this symbol of manhood. However, some literary references indicate that women at times in various parts of the Arab world wore turbans for certain occasions, perhaps in the privacy of the home. Young women sometimes wore turbans to appear more attractive, and when a woman gave birth to her first baby, she wore a turban comprised of six yards of material. After the second baby, she wore a turban with six additional yards. Northern Iraqi women wore turbans made of printed material and decorated with Ottoman Turkish gold coins. The practice of women wearing turbans is not unusual. and it is present even in the modern history of fashion, where there is an affinity for "exotic" headgear.
Another popular form of Arab headgear is the agal, which is a ringed cord or rope that goes over the headscarf worn by men in the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Syria , and Palestine . The head rope was originally a camel hobble (the word agal means "to hobble") that was carried on the head when not in use. Later, this rope came to distinguish the bedouins of north and central Arabia (and the ruling families descended from them) from other bedouins. The earliest reliable report on the agal dates back to the early eighteenth century, from a picture depicting the imam Abdullah Ibn Saʿud wearing an elaborate and highly decorative type of agal that is sometimes called mugassab.
Along with the agal, men wear the Arabic kaffiya (or pocu, pronounced poshu in Turkish and the dialect of the Turkish Kurds). The kaffiya (also sham-agh or hatta ) is a head cloth folded diagonally and secured on the head by the agal. Men from the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine wear the kaffiya. It comes in a variety of designs and colors that denote tribal affiliation. In modern history it has acquired another layer of meaning as a symbol of solidarity among Palestinians and their supporters in their quest for political and geographical autonomy. It is sometimes worn in defiance, as if a substitute for the long outlawed Palestinian flag. Like the black-and-white kaffiya of Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which is worn by both Palestinian men and women as a sign of unity, the pocu has the same symbolic meaning for independence of the Kurds under the autonomy of the Turkish government. The pocu is also black and white, which are the colors associated with urban Kurdish intellectual men and women. It signifies political leftism, cultural freedom, and rights to an independent state. Both the pocu and kaffiya are draped over the shoulders by men and women, worn like a scarf on the head by women, or worn in the traditional manner with the agal by men only.
Another popular headdress for men is the fez , a word derived from Fez , a city in Morocco where it traditionally is manufactured. It is a brimless, cone-shaped, flat-crowned hat that usually has a tassel made of silk. The fez is made of red felt and is worn in Syria, Egypt , North Africa, and Palestine. Another name for the fez is tarbush or tarboosh. It was banned during the Tanzimat period in Turkey (beginning in 1839), when dress regulation took place. However, the tarbush also played a significant political role after the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908.
Also common among men in the Middle East region is the sidara, an Iraqi cap commonly made of black velvet, black lamb's wool, or black felt. The sidara is brimless, has a crown at the center, and folds like a pocket around the crown of the cap. It resembles the hat worn by the cadets in the U.S. military. This cap at one time was very popular with middle-class, upper-middle-class, and elite members of Iraqi society. The sidara lost its popularity after the 1958 deposition of the last king and the establishment of the Republic of Iraq. Muslim men of the subcontinent of India wear a similar hat in black as a sign of Muslim identity.
The kippah, commonly worn by Jewish men in the Middle East, is a skullcap that is also known in Yiddish as the yarmulke. Ashkenazic Jews wear the yarmulke at all times, and Sephardic Jewish men generally do not. In Israel, wearing a yarmulke also has social significance: Not wearing a yarmulke is like stating, "I'm not religious." The style of yarmulke in Israel can also indicate political and religious affiliation.
The most common headdress for Muslim women is some form of a veil. The generic term for veil, known by Muslims regardless of their cultural and linguistic heritage, is hijab. The hijab refers to a physical veil, a tangible item covering the hair and face of a woman. The word is of Arabic origin, from the verb hajaba, "to hide from the view, to conceal." Hijab also refers to the Muslim woman's dress code in accordance with interpretation of Islamic law. Muslim women around the world wear various forms of veils, each community according to its own cultural and religious interpretations, so there is no universal form of veiling among Muslim women. Other common interchangeable words for veil are yashmek, purda, chador, paranja, burqa, bushia, niqab, pece (pronounced peeche in Turkish), and khimar. Each represents some specific form of head or face veil commonly used by Muslims of various nationalities. The chador, which in Persian literally means "tent," is a form of hijab (head veil), consisting of a full-length semicircular piece of material. It is placed on top of the head and covers the entire body. It is held in place with one hand at all times. Sometimes a corner of it is pulled over the face to cover part of the mouth.
Other Clothing
Other important clothing for men and women are forms of long dress, wrap, outerwear gown, or caftan. The most common outerwear garment is the aba or abaʿa, also known as rida, which is an ankle-length loose mantle or coat worn by Arab men over the shoulders. The aba opens at the front with no fastening device and has two openings for the arms to be pulled through. Piping sewn on the aba goes around the entire edge of the garment and around the sleeves. Customarily the aba is draped over the shoulders rather than worn as a coat. The fabric used for making the aba or rida identifies its region of origin, and a clear distinction is not made between fabric and garment. Traditional wraps or mantles are worn in most traditional Islamic societies, yet there is a considerable variety of draping styles from one region to another. Wearing an aba has religious associations in some regions of the Islamic world such as Iran or Egypt. In Iran, a man wearing an aba and turban is identified as a non-secular person associated with the mosque and theological schools.
Another form of wrap or cloak is the burnoose, which is a large, one-piece, hooded cloak worn by men throughout the Maghrib (Northern Africa). The burnoose is also used in religious ceremony as the chasuble of the Coptic priests in Egypt. Yet another common form of cloak or wrap is the haik, which is a large, voluminous outer wrap, usually white, worn by both sexes throughout the Maghrib. The dishdasha is a long, A-line, ankle-length, long-sleeved, light-colored shirt worn by Arab men in the Gulf region. A similar style of man's garment commonly worn by men in Egypt is the jillaba.
Bibliography
Esposito, John L., ed. The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. 1999.
Lindisfarne-Tapper, Nancy, and Ingham, Bruce, ed. Languages of Dress in the Middle East. Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1997.
Shirazi, Faegheh. The Veil Unveiled: Hijab in Modern Culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.
Shirazi-Mahajan, Faegheh. "The Semiotics of the Turban: The Safavid era in Iran." Journal of the International Association of Costume 9 (1992): 67–87.
Weir, Shelagh. Palestinian Costumes. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1989.
Faegheh Shirazi
The Oxford Companion to the Body
© The Oxford Companion to the Body 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001.
clothes Every human society completes the individual body with a form of dress, which may include painting, tattooing , permanent ornaments, and scarification along with the draping, wrapping, and tailoring of fabric into garments. Humans have always believed that the bare adult body is intolerably unfinished; it needs visible modification for acceptance into human society, and thus for self-acceptance. When normal modification consists of clothes that are habitually put on and taken off, absolute nakedness must remain a regular transient state, a nice or dread reminder of bare facts. Clothes themselves may then at times seem to absorb all human wickedness and to be themselves bad, by contrast with the notional purity of the raw organism. On the other hand, clothes may stand for all human effort to transcend brute nature and thus seem inherently good, by contrast with the notional beastliness of the raw organism.
But the true conceptual unity of the body-plus-dress combination is apparent in art that represents human beings, where the dressed form is usually shown as natural and the naked form as a special case, a dressed body with the clothes absent. Artists tend to fashion a nude costume for the naked body, to offer a comforting normative version (complete with orderly variations) of fearfully multiform naked humanity. They will give this nude image the shape and proportions required of normally-clothed bodies, which dress has rendered intelligible.
Animal skins were doubtless the first human clothes in the Northern hemisphere, worn just as they came off the beast, or variously joined together. The skins of trees, in the form of a flexible cloth made by treating strips of the inner bark, were among the earliest sources for human clothes in tropical countries. The earliest woven stuffs were made for use or ornament, before refinements in spinning and weaving permitted textiles malleable enough to clothe the body. Since then, in much of the world, clothing has taken the form of one or more garments made of fabrics that are woven, knitted, or felted in a range of spun fibres (both natural and synthetic), or of treated leather, metal, or synthetic materials. Such garments fall roughly into two categories; cut-and-sewn, or wrapped-and-draped. Schemes of clothing combine these two or use only one of them, employing different methods of stabilizing garments around the body according to whether they are meant to fit closely, to fit more loosely, or to hang free.
Tailored garments made into close-fitting, three-dimensional forms, such as the Renaissance doublet or the modern suit-coat and trousers, must be fitted onto the body with applied attachments such as lacings, hooks or buttons with holes or loops, two-part clasps, or zippers and velcro. Untailored, loose garments sewn into flat forms out of rectilinear pieces, such as the Japanese kimono and the earliest forms of sleeved tunic and trouser, can be held around the trunk and limbs with attached ties or with separate wrapped sashes and belts, or they can hang open and float like the North African djellabah. They, too, may have buttons, hooks or clasps at neck, shoulders or wrists. Untailored garments may also be controlled by drawstrings threaded through flat channels sewn into the cloth, which can gather them close and secure them to the body at wrist or ankle, neck or waist, elbow or knee. Ancient knit garments fitted fairly close without tailoring but usually had fastenings. Synthetic elastic fibres and modern machine knitting have latterly permitted stretchable skin-tight garments that mould to the body without tailoring, fastening, or belting.
Garments made of single woven-to-size and uncut rectangles of cloth were the first fabric clothes, and are still in use. They may be wrapped tightly, and tucked in or tied together around the chest, waist, or hips (e.g. the Tahitian pareo or Javanese sarong); loosely draped around the whole body but anchored with a hidden waistband (e.g. the Hindu sari); or pinned on the shoulders and visibly belted (e.g. the classical Greek peplos). Rectangular, single-piece outer garments may hang down front and back straight from the shoulders, with the arms free and the head through a slit (e.g. the South American poncho); stoles and shawls may be wrapped around the shoulders and held on by the arms. A veil, scarf, or kerchief may be suspended from the head and attached there with a headband or hairpins, or it may variably wrap the head, neck, and shoulders.
Casually fixed on at each wearing, such single-piece garments dress the body in mobile cloth without defining it, so that the body's action creates random play in the cloth, which underscores the body's moving shape and produces the individual aesthetic vitality of the clothes. Taken off, the garment becomes a flat object of which the colour, the woven pattern, and the applied ornament can have separate interest. In wear, if the draped garment randomly exposes the body, as in classical Greece , the acceptable nude costume dresses the unclad and partially clad person, as Greek art amply demonstrates, so that clothes and body remain in aesthetic balance and not opposed.
Ancient Egyptians used modes of regular pleating to control a rectangular garment's behaviour on the body, instead of permitting the random drapery and slippage created by motion. Such pleats, made in stiffly starched white linen that bent and swept around the body, or lay close to it, proposed an aesthetic value for wrapped garments only while they were formally dressing the figure and giving it the required static and abstract look. An idealized nakedness was again necessary to complete the desired effect, as expounded in Egyptian art, since much of the body was deliberately exposed, some of it through transparent fabric. A very different effect was created in China and Japan , with large, untailored silk garments that were so stiffly woven, lined, interlined and disposed around the body as to hide and replace it completely. In such a scheme neither the distinctive shapes nor the articulated movements of the body had any visual authority in the desired clad results, again as expounded in art. Human nakedness was given no added nobility, but unworn noble garments did command separate admiration.
Cutting cloth on a curve was discovered to permit high, round armhole seams and high crotch seams, and to allow for close-fitting, round necklines and for the curved hems that make hanging garments fall evenly around the body with no dropping corners. It was sparingly used to begin with, since precious woven stuff is wasted by this technique, and curved cut edges demand added binding or facing to stop the raw thread-ends from fraying. Leather, on the other hand, has always lent itself well to tailoring — as for shoes , for example — being non-woven and irregularly shaped in its natural state. Garments of felt may also be edged on a curve without hemming, as for hats and capes.
Modernity, getting under way in late medieval Europe , saw the development of fully-tailored garments that closely covered and modified the body's articulated shape with articulated shapes of their own. These were modelled with subtly curved cutting and seaming helped by stiffening, padding, constriction, and extensions for the clothes of both sexes, including hats, hoods, and shoes. Randomly draped, regularly pleated, or wrapped fabric became only partial elements in the aesthetic scheme for Western clothes, not its main character. European clothes became three-dimensional forms that seemed to compete with the body they covered, even while creating its ideal look; off the body, the three-dimensional garment would look like a ghost inseparable from an individual human soul. Nudity became part of the scheme, too, in despite of climate, with selective exposure requiring the selective idealization of bodily parts such as the female bosom and the male leg. European nude art shows the amount of variation in the common vision of ideal nakedness that was created by the way clothes shaped the body.
With the complex clothes of the late Middle Ages in Europe came the rise of fashion . Sophisticated form in dress required a constant shifting of its visual emphasis and stylistic flavour, including erotic, societal, and self-referential flavours. The two sexes were conventionally distinguished by dividing male legs with some form of hose and breeches, and veiling women's legs in flowing or stiff ground-length or shoe-length skirts. Variation was more flexible for the upper body, however, including suggestive similarities as well as vivid differences between the male and female effects that were modish at different periods. For example, fashion might flatten women's breasts and widen men's hips at one time, or enlarge both women's breasts and men's shoulders at another time. Shifts in fashion were first led by powerful and leisured groups at courts and in towns, and realized by their tailors, but fashionable change was eventually promoted among middle and lower class people and their tailors by the increasing dispersal of imagery made possible by the printing-press. Fashion in Western dress more and more became an imaginative sexual, social, and political medium, with the steady help of other media.
Visual art has always been the agent of elegance in dress. For millennia before fashion, sculptors and painters offered stylized versions of clothed persons to public view, so that people could admire, imitate, and feel rightly portrayed by superior visions of accepted clothed appearance. The reproducible graphic arts, however, later helped to hasten the adoption of changes in fashions by emphasizing their immediate extremes and priming the public eye for alternatives. By the late eighteenth century, reproduced pictures were affecting general and personal taste through popular journals and magazines, some devoted entirely to fashion in dress. Photojournalism, movies, and television continue to offer stylizations of clothed bodies that guide taste and propel its fluctuations, often in the form of promotion for things other than clothes. Exposure of the body's surface has lately increased among fashions for both sexes, creating a revived need for the stylization of body parts to go with changing modes in semi-nude costume.
Until the nineteenth century, for all classes of society, clothes were made either at home or by artisans who constructed hand-made garments to individual order. For a very long time, fine spinning and weaving, complex dyeing, and embroidery were the finest arts of clothing, and construction was simple where it existed. This situation still obtains in Japan with respect to the traditional feminine kimono, even though Western clothing has been otherwise universally adopted there. In Europe, during the Renaissance and thereafter, fashionable dress gradually came to demand a similar degree of skill from urban and court tailors and from artisans specializing in headgear, footwear, and gloves, or in lace, braid, and buttons as well as embroidery. Regional clothes were made by local artisans or at home — though not without constant fashionable influence on regional traditions. The very poor in towns and cities could buy second-hand clothes and alter them. Crude work clothes were hand-produced in bulk for labourers, common sailors, slaves, and convicts.
Early in the nineteenth century, the English invention of the tape measure and a new understanding of men's average bodily proportions made it possible for American merchant-tailors to produce many well-tailored coats and trousers at one time, in a range of sizes guaranteed to fit a large number of men. With the development of the sewing machine and later the cutting machine, the ready-to-wear men's clothing enterprise in America expanded to furnish not only the military, but also rural workers, miners, and railroad men with well-made fitted garments — the blue jeans, workshirts and overalls that are still being made and worn. In the twentieth century, although traditional made-to-measure tailoring persisted everywhere at higher social levels, the ready-made suit became the standard public costume of the modern ordinary man. His body was generalized by the suit's smooth, flexible envelope into a useful image of modern male equality. Women's visual equality, among each other and with men, came somewhat later.
Dressmaking had become a women's craft separate from men's tailoring late in the seventeenth century, and thereafter women's clothes more and more outdid men's in visual complexity. Stay-making also became a separate craft, and separate corsets became a common part of female fashion, variably modelling the torso under the clothing. At the very end of the nineteenth century, however, fashion began to reduce the expressive shapes and surface embellishments of women's clothes, and they gradually came to match men's in the clarity of line and easy style of bodily fit that had become common for male dress during the previous century. After 1900, everyday skirts were increasingly shortened to allow the shape and action of women's legs to form part of their complete clothed image. By the second decade of the twentieth century, as fashion continued to simplify women's modes of dress, the rules of proportionate sizing could be applied to them as well. A large ready-to-wear industry for ordinary women's fashionable garments became possible, spurred by the new needs of working women, whose fashions eventually came to include trousers as well as skirts. Factory-made clothes for both sexes became the staple of mainstream fashion in the industrialized world, and for ordinary clothes everywhere as local artisanal traditions declined.
Just after the middle of the nineteenth century, however, offsetting this incipient trend, the Haute Couture came into existence for women's fashion. This French enterprise specialized in the superior artisanal creation of fashionable feminine clothing, conceived by artist-like designers whose high prices flaunted their distance from both home sewing and mass production, and whose personal fame came to increase the worldwide prestige of their works. Ordinary dressmakers in Europe and America, and eventually clothing factories, therefore copied and modified Haute Couture designs for the general female public.
In the last third of the twentieth century, original creative designers were engaged directly by both the male and female fashionable clothing industries, while the Haute Couture, later including Italian, English, and American designers, came to have a more limited influence on ordinary female dress. The multiple-production aesthetics of industrial design, however, came generally to affect all fashion design for both sexes, as well as for children. With the global clothing markets of the late twentieth century, a certain neutralization has thus occurred in the contemporary look of the clothed human body, which in a great part of the world is commonly clad in the shirts, sweaters, pants, and jackets originally designed as Western masculine gear for work and sport.
Ordinary work and leisure clothes for men, women, and children now look very much alike, and the more traditional fashionable dress that sharply distinguishes sex, age, and social stratum is thought to be special costume for public life, office work, or festal moments. In undeveloped countries, pre-modern woven rectangular shapes still persist, often in combination with tailored factory-made garments; at the same time versions of simple, ancient gear are steadily recurring in tailored, mass-produced Western fashion. It is worth noting that the world's clothing, despite some irreversible changes, has somewhat come full circle, as if returning to the days of wrapped and draped rectangles or T-shaped tunics for every human body.
Anne Hollander
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc.
Clothing, 1980–2003
The years between 1980 and 2003 present all the complexities of modern costume. These decades saw a rise and fall in the status of high-profile clothing designers and their extravagant clothes; the sudden popularity of certain clothing items, often associated with youth-driven music trends; the impact of new technologies; the influence of celebrities on fashion; all set against a general trend to favor comfortable, casual clothes. These trends were a continuation of the trends that had characterized the second half of the twentieth century. But what made the period from the 1980s onward different was the speed with which styles changed and the amount of money directed toward clothing.
Working days, glamorous nights
After the 1970s, a decade in which the world of high fashion had fallen into disarray and people picked and chose amongst several acceptable styles, designer fashions came roaring back in the 1980s. High-profile European designers like Giorgio Armani (c. 1934–), Christian Lacroix (1951–), Karl Lagerfeld (1938–), Jean-Paul Gaultier (1952–), Azzedine Alaïa (c. 1940–), and others introduced daring, expensive lines of clothes to the praise of the fashion press. Wealthy people across Europe and in the United States flocked to Paris fashion shows and New York boutiques to purchase expensive originals, and lower-level designers and mass-market retail stores modeled their clothing lines on the more conservative efforts of the top names. This was the traditional way that fashions had been set, with designers leading the way in the creation of clothing styles.
New fashion designers were able to be bought, promoted, recreated because of one thing: money. During the early and mid-1980s business exploded in the West and in the increasingly westernized Japan . Stock market traders, corporate executives, and even second-tier executives grew extremely wealthy in a climate where success in business was celebrated as the ultimate mark of achievement. These new cultural celebrities used clothes as one of the ways to demonstrate their wealth and power. American president Ronald Reagan (1911–) and his wife, Nancy (1923–), wore designer suits and gowns, and corporate leaders proudly extolled the merits of their favorite designers. For men the "power suit," a tailored suit, preferably by Giorgio Armani, was the symbol of success. Women dressed for power by day, with designer suits and business dresses, and for glamour by night, with extravagant gowns in the richest fabrics. These wealthy people were held up as cultural models and their clothing styles imitated on popular television shows like Dynasty (1981–89) and Dallas (1978–91). The choices of the rich and their favored designers thus had a great impact on clothing.
The fashion boom of the 1980s was more international than ever before. Though Paris, New York, and London remained the true centers of world fashion, designers from Italy, especially the city of Milan, and from Japan also exerted a real influence on fashion. The Italians became associated with rich fabrics and classic cuts, while the Japanese are credited with boosting the popularity of the color black.
Not everyone could afford the clothing made by the big name European or Japanese designers, but in the 1980s there were real alternatives for those who still wanted to follow fashions. Top designers, such as Calvin Klein (1942–) and Ralph Lauren (1939–), offered high-end custom clothes, but they also offered a ready-to-wear line that had the high status of a designer name but at a more reasonable price. Many designers built international design empires, selling their brand-name clothes, perfumes, and accessories throughout the world.
Sex sells
One of the most important trends of the 1980s and 1990s was the emergence of open sexuality as an important element in clothing design. A variety of causes lead to the growing openness with which sexuality was displayed in this period. Perhaps the most important was the ongoing fitness boom that encouraged people of all ages, but especially young people, to pay a great deal of attention to getting their bodies in good shape. People wanted to show off their newly sculpted bodies and there were a variety of clothing options for those who wanted to flaunt it. Calvin Klein celebrated the human form with his underwear designs, which were made famous with an advertising campaign centered on towering billboards on the side of skyscrapers in New York City. Spandex, a high-tech, stretchy fabric, was used to create formfitting biking shorts and tights, and the Wonderbra, introduced in the mid-1990s, pushed women's breasts up and in to show off their cleavage. Designers created extremely clingy dresses, and supermodels, or high-profile models, and music celebrities such as Madonna (1958–), in the 1980s, and Ricky Martin (1974–), Britney Spears (1981–), and Christina Aguilera (1980–), in the 1990s, made a great public display of their sexuality. A youth trend in the 1990s for hip-hugging, low-riding pants and bare midriffs brought sexual display as far as the pre-teen market. By 2003 little was forbidden in the display of flesh.
The 1990s flight from fashion
The designer-worshipping fashion excesses of the 1980s crashed along with stock markets in 1987. Although designers still produced annual collections and fashion magazines highly praised them, the world retreated from its celebration of wealth and haute couture, or high fashion, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. With designers out of favor, the other dominant mode of determining clothing trends reemerged. As in the 1970s people took their clothing cues from popular music, from youth subcultures, from the more successful mass-market retailers, and from their own desire for comfort and personal expression. Once again designers began to take their cue from the streets.
Young people and their music were especially influential in the early 1990s. The grunge, or alternative rock, music scene that emerged out of Seattle , Washington, created a fashion trend favoring flannel shirts and ripped jeans, and it wasn't long before designers offered their own grunge collections. Hip-hop or rap music, which had once been the music of African Americans living in the inner city, went mainstream and brought with it a craze for extremely baggy jeans.
For the great majority of people, however, choices about clothing were dictated by the wearer's desire for casual comfort and by the minor variations in styles offered by major retailers. The trend toward casual business dress began in the 1980s with casual Fridays, when business dress codes were relaxed for the day, and became widespread among workers in the booming high-tech industries of the late 1990s. At work, men could wear chinos (a type of khaki pants) and a shirt without a tie, and women could wear more casual dresses and pants. For leisure time both men and women chose cotton pants and knit shirts, tennis shoes, sweatshirts, and other athletic clothes. The most popular outer wear was made of a fuzzy, high-tech fabric called polar fleece, which came in bright colors.
People had a huge range of choices about where to buy their clothes, from designer stores and department-store boutiques such as Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein; to mid-range specialty retailers such as Gap and Old Navy; to mail order catalogs such as J. Crew, Lands' End, and L. L. Bean; to discount retailers like K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and Target. These stores offered clothes of reasonable quality with trendy styling. Colors and details changed from season to season, but the basic garments remained the same.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Carnegy, Vicky. Fashions of a Decade: The 1980s. New York: Facts on File, 1990.
Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Twentieth Century Fashion. Revised by Alice Mackrell. Lanham, MD: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992.
Feldman, Elane. Fashions of a Decade: The 1990s. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
Gaines, Steven S., and Sharon Churcher. Obsession: The Lives and Times of Calvin Klein. New York: Avon Books, 1995.
Gross, Michael. Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren. New York: Harper, 2003.
Lomas, Clare. The 80s and 90s: Power Dressing to Sportswear. Milwaukee , WI: Gareth Stevens, 2000.
Steele, Valerie. Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
Lauren, Ralph and Klein, Calvin
Rise of the Japanese Designer
Armani Suits
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc.
Clothing, 1900–18
The period from the turn of the twentieth century to the end of World War I (1914–18) was one of great transition in the world of fashion. Not only did styles for women undergo a dramatic shift in their basic silhouette, or shape, but the very system through which new styles were introduced and popularized also changed. Paris , France , was the center of the world of fashion, but more and more people got their fashion ideas from magazines and their fashionable clothes, ready-to-wear, from department stores close to home. Social changes, especially the increasing liberation of women and the coming of war, also had a dramatic impact on fashion. These and other changes made this the period in which the fashion system, or the way that new styles were created and adopted by people, truly began to resemble what we know today.
The changing fashion system
Ever since the end of the Middle Ages (c. 500–c. 1500), when rich kings and queens secured power and were surrounded by wealthy nobles, European clothing traditions had been sharply split between the wealthy and the poor and middle classes. The wealthy were concerned with fashion: following the latest clothing styles, usually those set by monarchs (royals) or their families, and wearing the richest and most luxurious garments available. Everyone else simply wore costume, everyday apparel that was chosen for its durability and its utility. Over time, as incomes increased, more and more people became concerned with fashion, but true fashion, with frequent changes and expensive and luxurious fabrics, remained only for the very wealthy. In the first years of the twentieth century, however, the system began to change.
At the dawn of the twentieth century, Paris was the center of the fashion world. Clothing designers from Paris introduced clothing at seasonal shows and sold clothes to the wealthiest people in Europe and the United States . Increasingly, however, these fashions began to reach more and more people. Dressmakers outside of Paris might buy an expensive gown, take it apart, and make a pattern, or design to make a dress, which they sold, allowing the dress to be reproduced. Publishers began to sell pattern books of fashionable clothes that allowed people to make the clothes at home if they were good sewers. Soon, department stores, which were becoming popular throughout the West, also began to sew and sell dresses modeled on the latest Paris fashions.
Ready-to-wear
These changes were small compared to the introduction of ready-to-wear clothing. In the past all clothing had been made by hand in the home. But the introduction of the sewing machine combined with the factory system allowed for the mass production of clothing in the nineteenth century. Men's clothing was the first to be mass-produced in a variety of different sizes. This form of clothing was called ready-to-wear. By the end of the nineteenth century men could go into a store and buy ready-to-wear trousers, shirts, or jackets, but women still had to buy cloth and sew the clothes themselves. By the first years of the twentieth century, ready-to-wear clothing was available to women, too.
The first widely available ready-to-wear garment for women was the shirtwaist, a blouse that was worn with a long, flowing skirt. Designers in Paris might offer a beautiful shirtwaist, and before too long a factory in Massachusetts would be making a close copy that could be purchased at the local department store for a much lower price. Though most clothing, and certainly the more luxurious gowns of the day, was still made at home or by a skilled tailor, ready-to-wear clothing became an important industry in the 1900s and 1910s.
Social change and fashion
The clothing styles that dominated the first years of the twentieth century were carried over from the late nineteenth century. Long flowing dresses with highly decorated sleeves were common for women and were worn with elaborate hats. While the details of these dresses changed from season to season, the essential outline of the woman's figure, or her silhouette, remained in the S-shape that was so fashionable at the turn of the century. Rigid corsets, or stiffened undergarments, gave the woman a prominent chest, a very narrow waist, and extended buttocks, bolstered with padding. This silhouette was uncomfortable and made movement difficult.
This restrictive women's clothing was increasingly at odds with the way women viewed their lives. Across Europe and in the United States, women began to resist the confining social systems that gave men more power and kept women in the home. They began to push for more rights, such as the right to vote and the right to work outside the home. Restrictive, uncomfortable clothes were soon identified with restrictive social systems, and they too were rejected. After about 1908 women quit wearing confining corsets and impractical long gowns. They sought out garments that had a more natural shape, such as a tube-shaped dress or a simple skirt and shirtwaist combination. Clothing designers followed suit and soon began to produce a range of clothing that was more natural and comfortable.
The feeling of liberation that came to women's clothing, especially in the 1910s, came from other directions as well. The widespread popularity of motoring, or riding in automobiles, created a need for practical clothing that wouldn't get ruined by dust and wind. Also, as sports such as tennis and golf opened up to women, clothes changed to allow women to move more freely. The rising length of women's skirts was a big symbol that women's clothes were becoming more practical.
World War I
One of the biggest social factors that influenced fashion was World War I. World War I drained the resources of every country involved, including the major European powers and the United States. Fabrics and materials used for clothing were rationed, and clothing became simpler and less ornamented as a result. Perhaps the biggest impact was on women's dresses, which were made with far less material than ever before. The slim profile demanded by the war became the dominant fashion of the 1920s. The war also brought more women into the workplace than ever before, and women wore new clothing, including the once-forbidden trousers, in the workplace that they later adopted for regular use.
Men's clothing
Men's clothing in general changed much less frequently and less dramatically than women's clothing. Standard wear for men in nonmanual work was the sack suit, or three-piece suit, usually worn with a shirt with a detachable collar, while working-class men generally wore trousers and a button-down shirt. These outfits didn't change on a seasonal basis like women's, though men's suits did see a slimming in profile that came in about 1908, around the same time as changes in the women's silhouette. Men took advantage of the greater availability of ready-to-wear clothing, especially the newer, less restrictive forms of underwear that replaced the union suit, an undergarment that was shirt and drawers in one. They also enjoyed the looser, more casual clothes created for use while playing sports or motoring. While Paris was the center of women's fashion, London, England , was the center for men.
The years from 1900 to 1918 were filled with many more important influences on clothing customs, including the growing popularity of fashion magazines, the importance of advertising in shaping people's ideas about clothing, the rise in the status of the fashion designer as a trendsetter, and the influence of trends in art and dance.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Twentieth Century Fashion. Revised by Alice Mackrell. Lanham, MD: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992.
Laver, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. 4th ed. London, England: Thames and Hudson, 2002.
Payne, Blanche, Geitel Winakor, and Jane Farrell-Beck. The History of Costume. 2nd ed. New York : HarperCollins, 1992.
Poiret, Paul
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc.
Clothing, 1961–79
In fashion, the 1960s and the 1970s were decades of repeated revolutionary change. The youth explosion and mod craze of the early 1960s were followed quickly by the hippie look of the late 1960s, the antifashion trends of the early 1970s, and the punk and disco styles of the mid- to late 1970s. By the late 1970s, people throughout the West seemed content to wear "regular" clothes once more. Taken together, these high profile fashion fads forever changed the way the fashion industry worked.
Before the 1960s high-profile designers in Paris , France , and London, England , in cooperation with celebrity fashion trendsetters, had dictated the styles that were worn by people of all ages. Under this fashion system, news about what was stylish to wear came from the top down. Designers created a line of clothing, rich people bought the originals, and clothing retailers sold copies to the common man and woman. During and after the 1960s, common people, especially young people, began to exercise far more control in determining what was in style, and designers increasingly tried to keep up with the newest trends. Under the new fashion system, new styles were invented by people in hot cultural scenes or by rock bands; followers adopted and modified the new styles; and designers then copied the new styles and marketed them to the masses through a growing assortment of retail outlets.
Rebellious young people known as mods and rockers began to invent their own clothing in trendy parts of London. Women wore very short skirts, tall, brightly colored boots, and clinging, sleeveless tunics. Young men wore suits in bright paisley patterns, boxy jackets, and high-topped, black leather boots, or they wore leather jackets and shirts made of British flags, like rock star Pete Townshend (1945–) of the rock band the Who. The boldly colored new styles worn by men took a name of their own, the Peacock Revolution, and were striking because men's styles before this time were so conservative.
Vogue magazine, the world's premier source for fashion information, called this fashion upsurge "Youthquake." The fashion movement was led by young people, such as British designer Mary Quant (1934–), who shares credit with French designer André Courreges (1923–) for the introduction of the one garment most associated with the youth explosion: the miniskirt. Quant famously denied that she had created the miniskirt, claiming that it was the "girls in the street who did it." Her point was that the new styles were created by young people who rejected the old-fashioned system and created clothes that expressed their own values. These young people often followed the lead of rock stars like the members of the bands the Beatles, the Who, and the Rolling Stones who were notorious for rejecting existing styles and creating new ones.
Hippies
The various London-based youth fashion fads dominated clothing trends through the mid-1960s, but soon a new trend took its place. Emerging first on the West Coast of the United States , the hippies were one of the most colorful and high-profile social movements of an interesting decade. Hippies rejected their parents' values about sex, work, and patriotism. They protested against the U.S. war in Vietnam (1954–75), switched sexual partners freely, experimented with drugs, and "dropped out" of regular society. They wanted clothes that reflected their values and adopted a huge range of diverse styles, from fringe looks that paid respect to Native Americans , to various exotic fashions borrowed from Indian, Asian, and other cultures, to hand-me-down and thrift store clothes that showed their rejection of materialism. Though hippie styles are usually associated with long hair, tie-dyed shirts, long skirts for women, jeans for men, and paisley and flowered patterns, in truth hippie styles were extremely varied.
The choices hippies made about clothing were a direct criticism of fashion, the system by which certain elite designers and trendsetters determine what everyone wears. Hippies wanted everyone to choose for themselves. Even though they tried to be antifashion, the fashion industry celebrated and borrowed from hippie clothing, making such things as the long wrap dress, the fringed shirt, blue jeans, and other items available to the masses. But in doing so the fashion industry recognized that its control was over.
Diverse styles
By the early 1970s clothing styles had gone off in so many different directions that it was difficult for anyone to say what was in fashion and what was not. Men and women had a great variety of choices in what they wore. Men could still wear the standard business suit that looked much like it had in the 1950s, but they could also enliven their business look with brightly colored shirts, very wide neckties, or bell-bottom trousers. They could reject business attire altogether, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt or even a jogging suit. Some women still discriminated between day wear and evening wear, but most women now chose from a range of dress styles depending on their personal preferences. Skirt lengths had changed so much, from the high-on-the-thigh mini to the knee-length midi to the ankle-length maxi, that anything was now permissible. And by the 1970s pants were so common among women that they no longer attracted any comment.
One of the ways that people could stand out in such a tolerant clothing climate was to be deliberately bold or shocking. Hot pants (extremely short shorts), huge bell-bottoms, vividly colored leisure suits, polyester shirts, and tight catsuits are all examples of clothing styles that flirted with being over-the-top, but were fashionable for a time.
The two most distinct fashion fads of the 1970s grew out of very different music scenes. In the mid-1970s a subgenre of rock 'n' roll called punk rock—loud, fast, and angry—helped give birth to an entire punk scene, first in London and then in other major cities in the West. Punks wore ripped clothes, wildly spiked hairstyles, and huge Doc Marten boots, among other things. A very different style emerged from the disco scene, a dance-based music and culture trend that flourished in New York City in the mid-1970s. Disco dancers wore formal-looking clothes in flamboyant cuts and colors, including leisure suits and extremely skimpy dresses.
After nearly two decades of absolute excess, clothing styles became somewhat more conservative in the late 1970s. Aided by the rise of Italian fashion designers whose clothes were elegant and restrained, people in general turned to comfortable clothes that fit the body's natural contours. The end result of these tumultuous decades, however, was that most people felt completely free to assemble their wardrobe from a variety of clothes that best expressed their personal sense of style, rather than from a limited set of clothes determined by a selective fashion industry.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Chenoune, Farid. A History of Men's Fashion. Paris, France: Flammarion, 1993.
Connikie, Yvonne. Fashions of a Decade: The 1960s. New York : Facts on File, 1990.
Contini, Mila. Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day. Edited by James Laver. New York: Odyssey Press, 1965.
Cosgrave, Bronwyn. The Complete History of Costume and Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day. New York: Checkmark Books, 2000.
Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Twentieth Century Fashion. Revised by Alice Mackrell. Lanham, MD: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992.
Herald, Jacqueline. Fashions of a Decade: The 1970s. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
Payne, Blanche, Geitel Winakor, and Jane Farrell-Beck. The History of Costume. 2nd ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Steele, Valerie. Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
Mod Styles and the London Scene
A-line Skirt
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc.
Clothing, 1946–60
During World War II (1939–45) fashion had taken a backseat to the war effort, and dress designers had been severely limited in what they could make as governments placed severe restrictions on the kinds and amounts of cloth designers could use. In the fifteen years that followed the end of the war, fashions in the West went through a series of sweeping changes. Women's fashions reached levels of richness and luxury that had not been seen since the turn of the previous century. In addition, fashions across Europe and the United States highlighted women's femininity and Paris , France , reclaimed its spot as the fashion capital of the world.
In 1947 French designer Christian Dior (1905–1957) introduced a collection of women's clothes that shattered all the wartime rules. Called the New Look, this collection was most notable for its long, billowing skirts with many pleats. One of his dresses used fifteen yards of fabric. Many people were offended by the excess of Dior's collection. They felt his dresses were an insult to a world economy that was still deeply troubled after the war. But Dior's New Look soon became extremely popular. Wealthy women clamored to wear his dresses, and manufacturers soon copied his styles, introducing a range of clothing modeled on the New Look. For the next seven years, Dior's look, which included soft, rounded shoulders, a narrow waist, and accessories like gloves and umbrellas, was the single biggest influence on fashion.
Dior's New Look was part of a larger return to femininity across the Western world. The war years had forced women into unusual roles. Many worked outside the home for the first time, and the clothes they wore did not accentuate their female forms. As men returned from the war to claim jobs and start families, women also returned to more traditional roles. During the Great Depression (1929–41) and World War II women's magazines had emphasized career advice for women, but following the war they focused much more on beauty and fashion. Advertising increased greatly and showed women how they could use makeup, accessories, and clothing to make themselves more appealing. All of these influences helped encourage women to choose more feminine clothing.
The rise of ready-to-wear
Ever since the nineteenth century Paris had dominated the world of fashion. The best designers lived in Paris. They introduced their styles, and those styles were loved and copied around the world. But when German conquerors took control of France during World War II, the dominance of Paris was interrupted. Some French designers left their country, and designers in the United States and England looked to develop fashion houses of their own. (A fashion house is the term for a small company that designs, makes, and sells high-quality clothing and accessories. It is usually associated with a single designer.) After the war the daring designs of Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895–1972), Hubert de Givenchy (1927–), and others helped refocus attention on Paris, and Paris did remain an important center for fashion. However, the emergence in the 1950s of Italian designers such as Roberto Capucci (1930–) and Simonetta Visconti, and of American designers such as Claire McCardell (1905–1958), seriously challenged French dominance of women's clothing design.
Another major challenge to the dominance of the Paris fashion houses was the rise of the ready-to-wear clothing industry controlled by large international corporations. Before the war if a person wanted well-made clothing they had to have it custom made by a tailor, and they paid a premium price. During the war manufacturers developed skills in making clothing, especially military uniforms, that allowed them to make quality clothing to fit different sizes of people. As a result regular people could now afford well-made, quality clothing called ready-to-wear, because it was purchased ready to wear without need for alterations from a tailor. Ready-to-wear clothing companies sent representatives to the major fashion shows, purchased top-quality clothing, and then made and marketed clothing lines based on high-fashion designs. This allowed common people to wear fashionable-looking clothes, but it certainly changed the fashion industry. The Paris fashion houses clothed the very wealthy, and the ready-to-wear industry provided inexpensive imitations for the masses. Before too long the designers figured out that there was more money to be made selling to the masses, and they began to develop ready-to-wear lines of their own. This was a major change in the fashion industry from the first half of the century, and it continues to this day.
Conformity and the youth explosion
One of the drawbacks of the rise of the ready-to-wear industry was that it allowed everybody to look the same. Major retail chains such as Sears and J.C. Penney sold clothes nationwide in the United States, and they didn't make major changes in their clothing lines from year to year. Also, the trend in the United States after the war was to fit in with the crowd and not cause a disturbance. These trends led to real conformity in the way that Americans dressed. People didn't want to stick out and look different, so they chose safe, conservative clothes. For businessmen this meant the gray flannel suit, the uniform of the white-collar, or business professional, worker. For women this meant a simple tight-waisted dirndl skirt and a sweater, or a range of mix-and-match sportswear. This mix-and-match look for mature women was known as the American Look. And for college students the favored look was called the Preppy Look.
While American adults valued conformity in their clothing styles, in the mid-1950s young people began to develop distinctive styles of their own. In France in the late 1940s young people calling themselves "Existentialists" dressed in shabby clothing to show their disdain for fashion. As their name implied, they existed just to exist, so clothes didn't matter so much. A similar group of Americans called themselves beats, or beatniks. Both groups favored jeans for men and women, leather jackets, and the color black. In England stylish youths pursued the teddy-boy look, wearing long jackets with velvet collars and other extravagant outfits. By the mid-1950s, however, youth styles had gone more mainstream. The rise of rock 'n' roll music encouraged youths around the world to rebel against their parents' values, and one of the main ways they did so was through clothes. The uniform of the rebellious rocker consisted of blue jeans, a T-shirt, a leather jacket, and black boots.
The 1940s and 1950s were a fascinating time for fashion. On the one hand there were daring innovations in style, offered by big-name designers; on the other hand many people tried to look like everyone else by buying ready-to-wear clothes from major chains. It was a time when even the rebels tried to look just like other rebels, and little girls around the world took their fashion cues from a teenage fashion doll named Barbie.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Batterberry, Michael, and Ariane Batterberry. Fashion: The Mirror of History. New York : Greenwich House, 1977.
Blass, Bill, and Cathy Horyn. Bare Blass. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.
Laver, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. 4th ed. London, England: Thames and Hudson, 2002.
Miller, Brandon Marie. Dressed for the Occasion: What Americans Wore 1620–1970. Minneapolis , MN: Lerner Publications, 1999.
Mulvagh, Jane. Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. New York: Viking, 1988.
Rowold, Kathleen, Helen O'Hagan, and Michael Vollbracht, eds. Bill Blass: An American Designer. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002.
Steele, Valerie. Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
Blass, Bill
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc.
Clothing, 1930–45
When it comes to fashion, the 1930s were a complex age. On the one hand fashions were deeply influenced by the economic depression that gripped the Western world throughout the 1930s; on the other hand fashions in the 1930s were very elegant, with clothing trends largely determined by the tastes of the very wealthy, especially movie stars and other celebrities. Strangely, these two influences came together to create clothing styles that were simple yet elegant. The coming of World War II in 1939 brought a completely new set of pressures to the way people dressed, with rationing, or limiting, of clothing, government dress codes, and the German occupation of Paris , France , the world's fashion capital, altering clothing styles dramatically.
Baker, Patricia. Fashions of a Decade: The 1940s. New York : Facts on File, 1992.
Costantino, Maria. Fashions of a Decade: The 1930s. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
Dorner, Jane. Fashion in the Forties and Fifties. London, England : Ian Allan Ltd., 1973.
Dorner, Jane. Fashion in the Twenties and Thirties. London, England: Ian Allan Ltd., 1973.
Ewing, Elizabeth. History of Twentieth Century Fashion. Revised by Alice Mackrell. Lanham, MD: Barnes and Noble Books, 1992.
Laver, James. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. 4th ed. London, England: Thames and Hudson, 2002.
Mulvagh, Jane. Vogue History of 20th Century Fashion. New York: Viking, 1988.
Payne, Blanche, Geitel Winakor, and Jane Farrell-Beck. The History of Costume. 2nd ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Schoeffler, O. E., and William Gale. Esquire's Encyclopedia of 20th Century Men's Fashions. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.
Nazi Style
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clothing
New styles of dress evolved in the Renaissance , when men and women became acutely aware of clothing fashion. Throughout Europe , the cut, color, and material of clothes became important indicators of status, profession, and wealth. The clothing industry flourished, including a busy international trade in textiles and the creation of weaving and clothmaking workshops. New technologies allowed manufacturers to weave and dye clothing in larger quantities and at a faster pace. A general improvement in economic conditions allowed members of the middle class more disposable income to spend on clothing and ornaments. The changing style of clothing proved troublesome to the authorities, however, and new sumptuary laws limited the display of certain fabrics and colors, in order to more clearly differentiate the classes and keep society orderly.
Clothing and luxury industries thrived in Italy, where Florence and Lucca became prosperous silk-weaving centers that imported their raw material through the port of Venice . The Lucchese clothing industries also imported eastern fashion with their raw silk, adopting patterns and motifs of Chinese and Mongol clothing. Florence was known for its floral patterns. Italian damask, velvet, lace, satin, and taffeta were sold throughout the continent, and for those who could afford it, these luxury materials replaced heavy wool and simple linens as clothing material. The war in northern Italy, in which French and German armies played an important role, also served to spread Italian fashion and material to northern Europe.
Throughout Europe, taste in clothing ran to heavy fabrics, elaborate drapery, close-fitting garments that emphasized the shape of the body, and head coverings. The fanciest clothes were lined with fur, ermine, or mink, and decorated with silver buttons, jewelry, fine lace, and gold thread. Men wore elaborate costumes that represented their authority and masculinity. The long robes and surcoats (overcoats) of the medieval era went out of style and was replaced by the doublet that was fitted and belted at the waist, and which accentuated the shoulders. Lower legs were covered with hose. The ruff was a lace ornament worn around the neck; the codpiece drew attention to the genitals. Men commonly wore swords at their side or carried small pistols or daggers for self-defense.
Women's fashions changed even more drastically than that of men. Hemlines dropped to the ground, and the full figure was magnified by several layers of clothing. Accessories grew in importance; women wore a variety of adornments, jewelry, and headgear. Men and women sported earrings, gloves, and rings. Women wore veils and wigs, which also became more popular for men at the close of the Renaissance.
Northern Europeans had a taste for padded sleeves and doublets, which made the figure more plump and rounded, which was the ideal of Renaissance beauty. German clothing was known for its puffs at the shoulders and knees, feathered hats, and slashing: two layers of cloth were placed one over the other, with the outer layer slashed to reveal the contrasting colors and material of the inner one. According to one tradition, the victory of the Swiss over the armies of Charles the Bold in 1476 brought about the rage for slashed clothing. The Swiss soldiers had taken clothing from the defeated on the battlefield, slashing the garments with their swords in order to improve the fit. For many, slashing was a way to defy sumptuary laws decreeing that commoners should wear clothing of only one color.
For artisans and the lower classes, clothing was simpler, and more utilitarian. Men wore linen breeches and woolen jackets; women wore skirts that reached to the ground and bodices overlaid with cloaks in cold or rainy weather. There were no ornaments and most clothing was black, gray, or brown in color.
Toward the end of the Renaissance Spanish clothing fashion took hold throughout Europe. Dark colors and especially black were favored, and the cut of clothes grew more straight and linear (the modern suit jacket evolved from late Renaissance clothing in the Spanish style). Women's upper bodies became more tightly constricted, while the Spanish also gave the world the farthingale, a hoopskirt that completely concealed the shape of the legs. The farthingale was combined with puffy sleeves and lace ruffs that completely covered the neck, giving women the appearance of a richly clothed fortress.
In England , tight sleeves and narrow bodices were fashionable. In the late sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I became the leading fashion arbiter among the English. The queen was ever conscious of the effect of appearance and ornament on those she dealt with, and set the standard of English Renaissance costume for women, with simple bodices, narrow waists, full-length skirts, and elaborate lace embroidery.
The Protestant movement greatly simplified the color and cut of clothing as well, and in some regions banished color altogether in favor of simple, unornamented black or white. To modestly cover the hair, women wore a variety of headdresses that harkened back to medieval times, including the bonnet and the wimple.
In southern Europe and Italy, the classes remained more sharply differentiated by their dress. At the height of fashion were the nobility, who held luxurious clothing as one of the bastions and symbols of superiority over the lower classes. But matching the nobility, especially in the city of Venice, were the courtesans whose business it was to cater to wealthy aristocrats and powerful men. Courtesans set the fashion tone with lavish gowns, elaborate headgear, glittering jewelry, alluring makeup, and high-heeled shoes—making them indistinguishable from the women of the nobility. Eventually the Venetian authorities took action and prohibited courtesans from wearing precious gems, gold, silver, silk, or necklaces and rings of any kind.
Cite this article
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group, Inc.
Clothing, 1919–29
As the Western world celebrated the end of World War I (1914–18) clothing styles changed to reflect the enthusiasm of the time. The most striking differences came in the silhouettes, or shapes, of men's and women's outfits. In general, women's clothes went from flaring skirts to a tubular line, featuring flat chests and low waists, and men's clothes became much fuller, even baggy.
The changes in women's clothes came from new attitudes about life and work. During this decade women won the right to vote and many earned their own money. Women needed stylish clothes that they could wear to work or out during the day. For everyday wear women wore a tailored suit. For more festive occasions women wore clothes that were more comfortable and luxurious than before the war. The tight corsets that squeezed women into unnatural shapes were replaced with loose-fitting outfits and, eventually, by figure skimming gowns with revealing necklines and open backs.
With the end of rationing, or the sparing use of materials, clothes became elaborate. The most expensive were made of satin, silk, and brocade, a fabric with raised designs and adorned with ruffles, fringe, gathers, bows, jewels, and even fur. Women added fringed or transparent shawls to these outfits for even more decoration. Inspiration for women's clothing came from designers' ideas about the future. Designers created clothes that were very different from older styles. The most drastic change was the knee-length hemline. For the first time, women showed their legs in public, swinging them wildly to the new exuberant dances like the Charleston. Clothes also reflected the new art styles of the period. Bold geometric patterns and new designs were beaded, embroidered, and even painted on garments. The Orient and other cultures also inspired clothing styles, as seen with pajamas, the kimono sleeves of some dresses, and the turbans, or headwraps, complementing some outfits. The trendsetters for women were mostly fashion designers centered in Paris , France , including Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883–1971), Madeline Vionnet (c. 1876–c. 1973), Paul Poiret (1879–1944), and Jean Patou (1880–1936). Although only the wealthiest women could wear original designer fashions, middle-class women could buy copies of French designs in retail stores, and other women could buy patterns and yards of fabric to make their own.
For men, the decade offered similar style changes. Clothing became much looser. Men continued to wear the sack suit that became the most common style at the turn of the century, but the lines of the suit became more smooth, with wider trousers belted high on the waist and broad-shouldered jackets. The widest men's pants were called Oxford Bags. The shirts men wore with their suits had attached collars by mid-decade and came in white and pastel shades of blue, tan, and yellow. Men's ties were no longer plain; they now featured stripes, polka dots, and plaids. Men no longer had to wear heavy fabrics in the heat of the summer. Gabardines (a twill fabric), flannels, and tweeds were replaced with light seersucker, a striped, lightly puckered linen or cotton. Seersucker was sewn into sack suits or made into a suit with a belted jacket to wear in hot weather. Men's fashions followed such trendsetters as Edward VIII (1894–1972), the Prince of Wales ; pilot Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974); tennis players Jean René Lacoste (1904–1996) and Bill Tilden (1893–1953); swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (1904–1984); college football star Red Grange (1903–1991); movie star Rudolph Valentino (1895–1926); and countless college students on campuses throughout the United States and Europe .
In addition to the changes in the styles of everyday and formal wear, new styles emerged. Sportswear for men and women provided outfits for tennis, golf, swimming, boating, and other sports. Sports became so popular that styles for watching sports also became fashionable. Heavy raccoon coats were seen in the stands at college football games; derby hats topped men's heads at horse races and around town; and spectator shoes, a style of multicolored shoe, adorned the feet of people watching sporting events. The navy blue blazer also became associated with yachting clubs, among other things.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Bigelow, Marybelle S. Fashion in History: Apparel in the Western World. Minneapolis , MN: Burgess Publishing, 1970.
Blum, Stella. Everyday Fashions of the Twenties. New York : Dover Publications, 1981.
Fass, Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Influence of Youth on Fashion
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How can the pilgrim compensate?
The fidyah for:
(1-2-3-4-5): To fast 3 days or to feed 6 poor people, or to slaughter a sheep. (See Qur’an: 2:197)
(6): An animal similar or equivalent in size to it after consulting some scholars (Qur’an 5:95). For the trees, we mean the ones, which were not planted by people, the pilgrim should ask Allah for forgiveness and consult a local scholar to talk about it.
(7): To slaughter a sheep.
(8): To ask Allah for forgiveness by making a lot of Istighfaar and to turn to him with sincere repentance. (We can add to this backbiting, slandering, wrangling…etc.,)
(9): It makes Hajj or ‘Umrah void, but the pilgrim should continue everything to the end and slaughter a big animal such as a camel or if it’s impossible fast 10 days. The pilgrim should make up Hajj the next year with a Had’y or whenever it’s possible.
D-Permissible acts:
These are acts that the pilgrim can do while in the state of Ihraam.
1- Taking a bath or a shower as well as combing the hair and touching it with the hands.
2- Covering one’s face when it’s windy by the garb itself or wearing glasses.
3- Wearing socks for women.
4- Bloodletting, or cupping – without cutting some of the hair – or receiving any medical treatment of a wound, or one’s skin, or aching teeth…etc.,
5- Looking in a mirror.
6- Wearing a belt purse around the waist.
7- Wearing a watch or a ring.
8- Using an umbrella.
9- Killing harmful insects such as lice, fleas, beetles and also ants if they stick to the body. It is better to throw them away, but if they represent a harm and disturbance they can be killed.
10- Killing harmful and dangerous animals such as snakes, scorpions, rats, desert crows and any dangerous wild animals or birds, which become definitely a threat to one’s life.
2-Tawaaf or Circumambulating:
Tawaaf is the action of circuiting and circumambulating seven times around the Ka’bah in an anti-clockwise direction. Allah Almighty says, “Then let them complete the rites prescribed for them, perform their vows, and (again) circumambulate the Ancient House.” (22:29)
A-Conditions:
1- Intention to make Tawaaf as an act of obedience dedicated to Allah alone.
2- Cleanliness with Wudu as for prayer.
3- Covering ‘Awrah – private parts – for both men and women. Anything, which is considered a ‘Awrah cannot be displayed otherwise the Tawaaf becomes null.
4- Tawaaf should be inside al-Masjid al-Haraam.
5- The number of Ashwaat – pl. of Shawtt i.e., round – should be exactly seven beginning from the Black Stone and ending at it. These rounds should be continued without interruption except in the case of an extreme necessity.
B-Sunnahs of Tawaaf:
1- Ramal, or fast walking – close to jogging – in the first three Ashwaatt only for men who can do it and only during a Tawaaf, which is followed by Sa’ay.
2- Idttibaa’, which is the uncovering of the right shoulder for men and during the Arrival – Qudum – Tawaaf throughout the seven Ashwaatt.
3- Kissing the Black Stone in the beginning of Tawaaf if possible. Otherwise, if it’s impossible to touch it or because the pilgrim fears harming others by pushing them, it is better to raise the hands to make Istilaam – salutation – to the Black Stone starting Tawaaf by saying,
“Bismillahi w-Allahu Akbar! Allahumma Imaanan bika wa-tasdeeqan bikitaabika wa-Wafaa’an bi’ahdika wat-Tibaa’an lisunnati Nabiyyika Muhammadin Salla Allahu ‘alayhe was-Sallam”
“In the Name of Allah, Allah is The Greatest! O Allah I have faith in You, I believe in Your Book, I am fulfilling the promise made to You, and following the Sunnah of Your Prophet (Peace be upon him)”
4- Once in Tawaaf, the pilgrim can make a lot of dhikr such as:
“Subhaana Allah wal-Hamdu-lillah wa-Laa ilaaha ill-Allah w-Allahu Akbar walaa Hawla walaa Quwwata illaa billaahi!”
“Glory be to Allah! All Praise is due to Allah! There is no god except Allah! Allah is the Greatest! There is no Power or strength except with Allah!”
There are not specific du’aas for circumambulating. However, the best thing to say is the word of Allah; the pilgrim can recite without disturbing the others some chapters of the Qur’an he, or she, memorizes. It is also good to repeat the du’aas of Ibraaheem (A) and all the Qur’anic du’aas and to make Istighfaar.
5- When the pilgrim passes by the Rokn al-Yamaani – the fourth corner of the Ka’abah – it is good that he, or she, touches it with the hand if possible in every Shawtt.
6- Finishing every Tawaaf by saying this du’aa,
“Rabbanaa Aatinaa fid-Duniaah Hasanatan wafil-Aakhirati Hasanatan waqinaa ‘adhaaban-Naar”
“Our Lord! Give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter, and protect us from the torment of the Fire!” (2:201)
7- Being in a state of Khushu’a – serenity-, concentration, and humbleness. The pilgrim should avoid harming others and should also refrain from talking to others unless it is necessary.
8- Making du’aa after finishing Tawaaf at the Multazam – the spot between the Black Stone and the Ka’bah’s door.
9- Praying 2 Rak’aas behind the Maqaam -station- of Ibraaheem (A) as mentioned in (Qur’an 2:125). It is good to say,
“Wat-takhidhoo min maqaami Ibraaheema Mossallaa”
“And take the Station of Abraham as a place of prayer”
10- Drinking from Zamzam water in three sequences while having the intention to be cured with the blessing of Allah from any disease and facing Qiblah. The pilgrim can make the following du’aa,
Allahumma inni as’aluka ‘ilman naafi’an wa-rizqan waasi’an was-shifaa’a min kulli dhaa’in wa saqam!”
“O Allah! I beseech You to bless me with a useful knowledge, a generous subsistence, and a cure from any ailment and disease!”
11- Going back to the Black Stone and salute it before leaving to Safa and Marwaa for Sa’y.
N.B:
The pilgrim does three different Tawaafs:
Tawaaf al-Qudum: Arrival Tawaaf. For the pilgrim who is performing Hajj Tamattu’, the Tawaaf of his, or her, ‘Umrah is also the Qudum tawaaf.
Ifaadah Tawaaf: It is on the 10th of dhil Hijjah and it is the main Tawaaf.
It is also called Tawaaf az-Ziyaara and Tawaaf al-Hajj because it is the main Tawaaf, which is, considered also a pillar of Hajj.
Ibn `Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (S) performed the Ifaadah Circumambulating on the Day of Sacrifice, then returned and performed the Noon Prayer at Mina” [Related by Muslim, Abu Dawud and Ahmad]
‘A’ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said, “We performed Hajj with the Prophet (S) and we performed the Ifaadah Tawaaf on the Day of Sacrifice.” [Al-Bukhari]
Tawaaf al-Wadaa’a or Farewell Tawaaf is the one performed by the pilgrim when he intends to leave Makkah immediately after finishing it.
The Prophet (S) said, “Circumambulating the House should be the last ritual a pilgrim performs before his departure.” [Malek, Abu Dawud, ibn Maajah and ad-Darimi]
What to say after the Farewell Tawaaf:
Abdullah ibn Umar (r) said that the Messenger of Allah (S) at the conclusion of his Hajj or ‘Umrah, he used to say after starting by Takbeer – Allahu Akbar – three times, ” Laa ilaaha illa Allah wahdahu laa shareeka lah, Lahul-Mulku walahul- Hamdu wa- huwa ‘alaa kulli shay’in Qadeer. Aayiboona taa’iboona ‘aabidoona saajidoona li-Rabbinaa ‘haamidoona. Sadaqa Allahu Wa’adahu wa nasara ‘abadahu wa hazamal-Ahzaaba wahdah!” [Related by Imam Ahmad]
“There is no god but Allah. He is One and has no partner, to Him is the dominion and all praise is due to Him. We are returning, repenting, worshipping, prostrating, and to Allah we are very grateful. Allah is true to His promise, He gave victory to His servant and defeated the confederates all by Himself.”
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3-Sa’y between as-Safaa and al-Marwa:
Sa’y is to walk between as-Safaa and al-Marwa hills back and forth with the intention of dedicating this act of obedience to Allah. Allah (swt) says,
“Behold! As-Safaa and al-Marwa are among the Symbols of Allah. So if those who visit the House in the Season or at other times, should compass them round, it is no sin in them. And if any one obeys his own impulse to Good, be sure that Allah is He Who recognizes and knows.” (2:158)
Describing the Hajj performed by the Prophet (S), Jabir (r) narrated, “Then, he – the Prophet (S) – got out from the door heading for As-Safaa, then, recited the above Qur’anic aayah:
“Innas-Safaa wal-Marwata min Sha’aa’iril-Laah. Faman hajjal-Bayta awi’atamara falaa junaaha ‘alayhi an yattawwafa bihimaa. Waman tattawwa’a khayran fa’inna Allaha Shaakirun ‘Aleem.”(2:158)
Then, he (S) said, “We begin with what Allah began.” Then, he mounted as–Safaa until he faced the House and there he glorified Allah (i.e. raised his voice) saying “Allahu Akbar!” three times then” Laa ilaaha illa Allah wahdahu laa shareeka lah. Lahul-Mulku walahul- Hamdu wa huwa ‘alaa kulli shay’in Qadeer. Laa ilaaha illa Allahu wahdahu, Sadaqa Wa’adahu, wa nasara ‘abadahu wa hazamal-Ahzaaba wahdah!.”
“There is no god but Allah. He is One and has no partner, to Him is the dominion and all praise is due to Him. We are returning, repenting, worshipping, prostrating, and to Allah we are very grateful. Allah is true to His promise, He gave victory to His servant and defeated the confederates all by Himself.”
Habibah bint Abi Taghrah (r) heard the Prophet (S) saying to his companions,
“Perform Sa`ay for Allah Almighty has ordained it upon you.” [Ahmad]
A-Conditions:
1- Intention
2- Being after Tawaaf not before. Usually after the Arrival Tawaaf or the Ifaadah Tawaaf or the ‘Umrah Tawaaf.
3- Continuation without interruption except when it is extremely necessary.
4- Standing on as-Safaa and al-Marwa by going back and forth seven times- 4 stops at each hill – and make the above-mentioned du’aa facing Qiblah.
B-Sunnahs of Sa’y:
1- Khabab, which is fast walking that is closer to running, between the two green signs on the sides of the way as Haajar (A) did and as it is recorded about the Prophet (S).
2- Making dhikr and du’aa or reading Qur’an.
3- To be clean (Wudu is recommended but not compulsory as in Tawaaf. A person can make Sa’y even if he, or she, does not have wudu unlike Tawaaf it is one of its requirements).
4- To walk unless the pilgrim is weak.
5- To lower the gaze and abstain from talking to others.
6- To avoid harming others with the hands or the tongue.
7- To be humble and serene and to remember the Day of Judgement.
4- Arafah:
Allah (swt) says,
“It is no crime in you if you seek of the bounty of your Lord (during pilgrimage). Then when you pour down from (Mount) Arafaat, celebrate the praises of Allah at the Sacred Monument, and celebrate His praises as He has directed you, even though, before this, you went astray. Then pass on at a quick pace from the place whence it is usual for the multitude so to do, and ask for Allah’s forgiveness. For Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. So when you have accomplished your holy rites, celebrate the praises of Allah, as you used to celebrate the praises of your fathers, yea, with far more heart and soul. There are men who say: “Our Lord! Give us (Thy bounties) in this world!” But they will have no portion in the Hereafter. And there are men who say: “Our Lord! Give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter, and defend us from the torment of the Fire!” To these will be allotted what they have earned; and Allah is quick in account. Celebrate the praises of Allah during the Appointed Days. But if anyone hastens to leave in two days, there is no blame on him, and if anyone stays on, there is no blame on him, if his aim is to do right. Then fear Allah, and know that you will surely be gathered unto Him.” (2:198-203)
The Prophet (S) said,
“Hajj is ‘Arafah.” [Ahmad and at-Tirmidhi].
The pilgrim must be at ‘Arafaat on the ninth of dhil Hijjah after Dhuhr time. Anyone, who misses Arafaat day, his, or her, Hajj is void. All the scholars said in consensus that this pillar is the most important one.
The Prophet said, “Hajj is only valid by attending `Arafah.” [At-Tirmidhi, an-Nassaa’i, Abu Dawud, Malek and ad-Daarimi]
There are many authentic hadiths, which talk about the virtues of observing the day of ‘Arafah as well as the days before it (1st to 9th of dhil-Hijjah). Aishah (r) reported that the Messenger (S) said:
“There is no day on which Allah (swt) frees people from the Fire as He does on the Day of ‘Arafah. He comes close and then He boasts to His angels: ‘What are these people seeking?'” [Muslim, an-Nasaa’i, Ibn Maajah]
Going to Mina before Arafaat: In his report describing the Hajj of the Prophet (S), Jabir said: “Then, the Prophet (S) rode for Mina where he performed the Noon, Afternoon, Sunset, Night and Dawn prayers. ” [Muslim]
On the 8th of dhil-Hijjah – Yawm at-Tarwiyah – the pilgrim heads for Mina where he can pray Dhuhr, ‘Asr, Maghrib, ‘Isha, and Fajr of the 9th. It is very well recommended that the pilgrim makes Talbiyah and du’aa on the way to Mina.
The pilgrim should not waste his, or her, time during these great days of Dhul Hijjah. Ibn Abbas (r) reported that the Messenger (S) said:
“There are no other days on which good deeds are more beloved to Allah than on these (Ten) Days.” Somebody asked: “O Messenger of Allah! Not even Jihaad in Allah’s way?” He replied: “Not even Jihaad in Allah’s way; except for a person who went out (for Jihaad) with his self and wealth and came back with none.” [Al-Bukhaari, Abu Dawud, at-Tirmidhi, ibn Maajah, Ahmad and ad-Daarimi]
The Messenger (S) also said:
“There are no other days that are greater before Allah (swt), or that good deeds are more beloved to Him in them, than these Ten Days, so say in plenty Tahleel (laa ilaaha ill-Allah), Takbeer (Allahu Akbar), and Tahmeed (al-Hamdu lillaah).” [Ahmad & at-Tabarani; authentic]
The Big Day:
On the 9th of dhil-Hijjah, the pilgrim goes to ‘Arafaat and prays Dhuhr and ‘Asr with the Imam.
A- Obligatory actions:
1- Going to Arafaat on the 9th of dhul-Hijjah:
After Sunrise on the 9th, the pilgrim can head for ‘Arafaat through the road of Dabb making Talbiyah and dhikr. Once the pilgrim prays at Masjid Namirah Dhuhr and ‘Asr combined and shortened with the Imam – if possible – he, or she, goes to the Mawqif where the standing is valid because Namirah mosque is not fully a part of ‘Arafaat. Standing means to be present there and it does not mean that the pilgrim is not allowed to sit down and rest.
2- The presence in Arafaat on the 9th of dhul-Hijjah between Dhuhr and Maghrib is essential.
3- Sleeping in Muzdalifah after spending the day in ‘Arafaat.
4- Throwing pebbles at Jamrat al-‘Aqabah on the 10th day of dhil-Hijjah.
5- Shaving off the hair of the head or cutting some of it after the stoning at Jamrat al-‘Aqabah. After this, the pilgrim ends his state of Ihraam and can wear regular clothes and put perfume and clip the nails…etc, but intimate intercourse is not allowed until the Ifaadah Tawaaf is performed.
6- Sleeping on the eve of the 11th, the eve of the 12th, and the eve of the 13th. If the pilgrim has to leave, the eves of the 11th and the 12th would be enough.
7- Throwing pebbles at the three Jamaraats after Dhuhr of every day of Tashreeq: 11-12-13.
B- Some Sunnahs:
1- Making ghusl before standing in ‘Arafaat even for the person who has menses or post- childbirth bleeding.
2- Standing up if possible where the Prophet (S) stood at the big rock adjacent to the Mount of Mercy – Jabal ar-Rahmah.
3- Making a lot of dhikr and du’aa while facing Qiblah until sunset. The best thing to say is: “Laa Ilaaha ill-Allah wahdahu laa Shareeka lah!” The Prophet (S) said,
“The best du’aa is the du’aa in the day of ‘Arafah and the best thing I and the Prophets before me have ever said is: Laa Ilaaha ill-Allah wahdahu laa Shareeka lah!” [Malek and at-Tirmidhi].
4- Avoiding useless talk, wrangling, pushing or harming others.
5- Leaving ‘Arafaat to Muzdalifah from a different road other than Dabb road after sunset.
6- Walking with tranquility, patience and avoiding rush.
Making a lot of Talbiyah from Mina to ‘Arafaat and From ‘Arafaat to Muzdalifah and from Muzdalifah to Mina.
7- Picking up 7 pebbles from Muzdalifah
8- Delaying Maghrib prayer until reaching Muzdalifah and praying it with ‘Isha (Jam’ ta’akheer) without naafilah in between.
9- Leaving Muzdalifah after Fajr and before sunrise on the 10th.
10- Making du’aa while standing and facing Qiblah at the Mash’ar al-Haraam – Mount of Quzah.
11- Moving fast at Battn Muhassir and avoiding standing there as much as possible.
12- Throwing pebbles at Jamrat al-‘Aqabah after sunrise.
13- Saying “Allahu Akbar” while throwing the pebbles.
14- On the 10th – Yawm an- Nahr – it is better to do the following rituals respectively in this order: 1- Going to Jamrat al-‘Aqaba. 2- Sacrificing an animal. 3- Shaving or cutting hair. 4- Making Tawaaf al-Ifaadah. However, it is permissible to do one of them before the other.
15- Killing the animal with one’s hands if possible or at least witnessing it. Otherwise, if it’s arranged by a trustworthy person it is enough. Eating from it is a Sunnah.
16- Making Tawaaf al-Ifaadah on the 10th before sunset.
17- Throwing pebbles at the 3 Jamaraat during the days of Tashreek: 11th -12th -13th. However, the pilgrim is allowed to leave in the 12th if it’s necessary, but before Maghrib time.
18- Making du’aa while facing Qiblah after throwing pebbles at the 1st and the 2nd Jamaraat, but not after the 3rd one.
19- Facing Jamrat al-‘Aqabah while having Mina on the right hand-side direction and Ka’bah on the left direction.
N.B: Some people fast during the day of ‘Arafaat while being in Hajj, but this is against the Sunnah. In fact, the Prophet (S) forbade people from fasting for the day of ‘Arafah in ‘Arafaat as reported in the hadith related by Imam Ahmad. The pilgrim should be well prepared and physically fit in order to make a lot of du’aa and dhikr. Observing fast in this day is very well recommended for those who are not in Hajj. The Prophet (S) said,
“Fasting the Day of ‘Arafah expiates the sins of the past year and the subsequent one. And fasting the Day of ‘Aashooraa’ expiates the sins of the past year.” [Muslim and others]
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In 1999 FIFA declared which Dutchman to have been Coach Of The Century? | Top 10 Football Coaches Of All Time | Bleacher Report
Top 10 Football Coaches Of All Time
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Choosing the 10 best footballers of all time? That is easy. You simply take your pick of Diego Maradona or Pele and work your way down the list. But the 10 greatest post-war managers from around the world? That has been a fearsomely difficult challenge. No doubt some of the selections that follow will be regarded as highly provocative.
Attempts to establish strict criteria proved almost as difficult as choosing between Clough, Ferguson, and Zagallo. After all, you are not just comparing different eras but pitting club managers against some who have only worked in the international sphere.
Do you push for the great one-club men, like Busby or Paisley, or those who proved that they could succeed all around Europe, like Capello and Trapattoni? Do you give extra marks for the game's great stylists and how much should this list reflect the game's tactical innovators?
Here is my list:
10. Arsene Wenger
Ranked above managers who have won more and with very good reason. A champion of style and sporting beauty and, most remarkably, a football man you can take at his word. There is not a single club that has not coveted him in the last ten years.
9. Miguel Munoz
He inherited the great Real Madrid side and probably did not have to do much from the sidelines as Puskas, Di Stefano, and the rest stuffed Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 to win the European Cup in his first season. But he also went on to win nine titles and build the European club champions of 1966.
8. Bela Guttman
Jose Mourinho calls himself a special one but this brilliant and brash Hungarian is credited with establishing the cult of the manager. One of the pioneers of the attacking 4-2-4 formation, he enjoyed his greatest success at Benfica where, having recruited Eusebio, he secured successive European Cup victories in the early Sixties.
"The third season is fatal," he said, although he rarely stayed long enough to find out.
7. Brian Clough
No doubt he would put himself top of the pile and his feats were truly extraordinary. He turned Derby County into league champions and Nottingham Forest into the best team in Europe.
What a shame he was never given the opportunity to prove his talents with England but then he might have rubbed everyone up the wrong way like he did at Leeds.
6. Bob Paisley
Still the only coach to have three European Cup medals—although, unfairly, no knighthood—the unassuming son of a County Durham miner would have been too modest to trot out his great signings like Dalglish, Hansen, Souness, and Rush.
"Mind you, I wasn't only here for the good years," he once said. "One year, we came second."
5. Bill Shankly
The builder of another of football's great institutions, Shankly would surely have shared in Liverpool's later success in Europe had he not retired far too prematurely. It is hard to believe that Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan would have gone on to those later triumphs without his colossal influence.
4. Sir Alex Ferguson
After knocking over the Old Firm in Scotland, he has built a modern-day monster out of Manchester United and has done so with teams of flair and adventure. A giant of football and yet his CV will always have an unmissable hole without that second European Cup. Clinch that and perhaps we can elevate him into the top three.
3. Ernst Happel
A man of few words but many trophies, the Austrian was league champion in four different countries (Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Austria). He also led Holland to the 1978 World Cup final.
But what most impresses is that unfashionable Feyenoord and Hamburg have won the European Cup once each; Happel was the common denominator. Even Clough might be impressed at that CV.
2. Sir Matt Busby
If club-building scores high, then it is hard to look past the man who took over the reins at Manchester United in 1946 when Old Trafford was literally a bomb site. He then faced the most difficult of all rebuilding jobs when he lost a brilliant team, and almost his own life, in the great tragedy of Munich.
Fergie has won more trophies but was there ever a more deserved triumph than United's 1968 European Cup victory?
1. Rinus Michels
The Dutchman, who died in 2005, was named coach of the century by FIFA in 1999. For once, that organisation knew what it was doing.
The originator of Total Football, Michels won the European Cup with Ajax, the Spanish league with Barcelona and Euro 88 with Holland. He should also have won the 1974 World Cup. What's more, you would have paid Wembley prices to watch his teams.
I have chosen these 10 managers, managers with whom I was unfamiliar with look more deserving.
So, kindly comment on my selection.
| Rinus Michels |
His 1965 recording of 'A Hard Day's Night' was a parody of which actor? | Dutch soccer great Johan Cruyff dies at age 68 - Chicago Tribune
Dutch soccer great Johan Cruyff dies at age 68
Johan Cruyff
STF/AFP/Getty Images
Dutch midfielder Johan Cruyff dribbles past Argentinian goalkeeper Daniel Carnevali on his way to scoring a goal during the World Cup quarterfinal soccer match between the Netherlands and Argentina in June 1974.
Dutch midfielder Johan Cruyff dribbles past Argentinian goalkeeper Daniel Carnevali on his way to scoring a goal during the World Cup quarterfinal soccer match between the Netherlands and Argentina in June 1974.
(STF/AFP/Getty Images)
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Dutch soccer great Johan Cruyff, who revolutionized the game as the personification of "Total Football," has died. He was 68.
Family spokeswoman Carole Thate confirmed to The Associated Press that Cruyff had died in the Spanish city of Barcelona after a five-month battle with lung cancer .
Obsessed by football to the end and ever the positive thinker, Cruyff only last month said his recovery was going well. He said "I have the feeling that I am 2-0 up in the first half. The game is not over yet. Still I know that in the end, I will win." On Thursday, he died.
In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that "through him, the world knew the Netherlands."
And through Cruyff, football was given a new level of magical skill.
"He was a genius and now we are missing this genius," former FIFA president Sepp Blatter said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.
Former France international Michel Platini said football had lost one of its best ever players. "Johan was my childhood hero, my idol and my friend," said Platini, the former head of European soccer.
Cruyff won European Cups three times with Ajax as a player and once with Barcelona as a coach. He was European player of the year three times and, in 1999, was named Europe's best player of the 20th century.
Though a World Cup title eluded him, he was the pivotal figure on the Netherlands' 1974 national team that electrified the sport with its "Total Football" tactics, with players constantly interchanging roles. The tactics influenced the game worldwide, bringing fresh life to a sport that had become stuck in a defensive mindset.
"Football has lost a man who did more to make the beautiful game beautiful than anyone in history," said former England striker Gary Lineker , who played under Cruyff at Barcelona.
Cruyff smoked cigarettes most of his life and finally quit after undergoing an emergency heart bypass operation in 1991. After more heart trouble in 1997, he vowed never to coach again, though he remained a vocal football critic and analyst.
Cruyff's wiry frame housed surprising athletic talent, unpredictable bursts of speed and agility and precise ball-control that allowed him to trick opponents, ghosting around them with ease. His genius lay in his eyes and mind, in his instinctive feel for how a move would develop.
His could pass the ball with uncanny accuracy and wind up time and again at the right spot at the climax of an attack.
Johan Cruyff dies of cancer at the age of 68
KOEN VAN WEEL / EPA
Dutch soccer legend Johan Cruyff during the presentation of the book 'Cruijffie, boyhood', a novel about Cruyff's childhood, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Dutch soccer legend Johan Cruyff during the presentation of the book 'Cruijffie, boyhood', a novel about Cruyff's childhood, in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
(KOEN VAN WEEL / EPA)
"Speed and insight are often confused," he said. "When I start running before everybody else, I appear faster." That speed and anticipation also gave him an unmatched grace under duress.
"A symbol of elegant play. An inspiration," said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
He scored 392 times in 520 games over a 19-year playing career, playing 48 times for his country and scoring 33 goals.
But his influence reached far beyond creating goals, thanks to his qualities as a leader, thinker and speaker. With a brash Amsterdam accent, he put across his views about soccer and everything surrounding the game with irresistible force.
His commentary became oft-quoted classics: "Every disadvantage has its advantage."
As a coach he had 242 victories in 387 matches, with 75 draws and 70 losses.
Cruyff was heavily involved in tactics from the start of his career. Along with Rinus Michels, his coach at Ajax and Barcelona, he helped develop Total Football.
Under the strategy, players pass the ball frequently to seek advantage, and switch positions seamlessly to adjust to the flow of play. Latin American admirers referred to the orange-clad Dutch national team as "The Clockwork Orange."
Cruyff was the personification of a total footballer, playing deep or shallow as the moment required, as deadly from the wings as from his assigned position in the center. He was among the first to see defenders as part of the attack.
With Cruyff on the field, Ajax won the European Cup for three consecutive years from 1971-1973 before he moved to FC Barcelona midseason in 1973 and led the middle-of-the-table team to its first national title in a decade.
That season was crowned with a 5-0 away win at Barcelona's arch-rival Real Madrid so sweet the Catalans still sometimes refer to Cruyff as "El Salvador," the savior.
The transfer fee paid by Barcelona was a world record and is seen as a milestone in the commercialization of sport. He was also one of the first soccer players to take on corporate sponsorships.
Even if it is common now for major players to enjoy a golden twilight in the United States, Cruyff did so almost 40 years ago, when at 32, he joined the the Los Angeles Aztecs.
British sports writer Dave Miller, who once called Cruyff "Pythagorus in boots" for his ability to calculate the geometry of players in motion, wrote that "few have been able to exact, both physically and mentally, such mesmeric control on a match from one penalty area to another."
Many fans who watched Cruyff play as children can still replicate some of his moves, including the "Cruyff turn" — a technique he used for passing defenders by faking toward them, then flicking the ball behind his own other leg in the opposite direction and darting after it.
Cruyff's pronouncements on the game skirted the line between profundity and nonsense.
Criticizing overly defensive play, he once said: "Italians can't beat you, though you can lose to them."
Other much quoted lines were: "You can't score if you don't shoot," and "Before I make a mistake, I don't make it."
Cruyff launched a tradition of great forwards coming out of the Netherlands that included Marco Van Basten, Patrick Kluivert, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Dennis Bergkamp. Yet defenders like Ajax, Barcelona and Dutch national team player Ronald Koeman were just as much inspired by him.
"He meant almost everything to me," Koeman said.
He had a wife Danny, daughters Chantal and Susila, and a son Jordi, who also played soccer professionally.
"He was our most famous Dutchman around the globe," said Prime Minister Rutte.
Associated Press
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Sellers described which London suburb as 'the gateway to the south'? | Yuppie village Balham 'really is gateway to the south' as buyers eclipse sellers | London Evening Standard
Yuppie village Balham 'really is gateway to the south' as buyers eclipse sellers
Friday 12 July 2013 09:03 BST
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The Evening Standard
Eight bedrooms: this home in Bedford Hill, Balham, is on sale for £2.48m
The suburb once dubbed “the ugliest and most abominable” in London has blossomed into its most sought-after yuppie village, it was claimed today.
More buyers are looking to find homes in Balham — famously lampooned by Peter Sellers as “Gateway to the South” — than any other part of London, according to research by estate agents.
They found there were 46 registered buyers to every property in the SW12 postcode, compared with a London-wide average of 19 to 1 and a national figure of eight to one. Agents said Balham’s reputation as a “poor man’s Clapham” meant prices can be up to a third lower than its neighbour — although the gap is closing — making it attractive to young househunters.
A flurry of bar and restaurant openings — including, this summer, the latest outpost of “cult status” pizzeria Franco Manca — has allowed it to throw off its “dull suburbia” image. It hosts a thriving annual comedy festival, taking place this week at The Bedford.
Paul Smith, chief executive of estate agency haart, which carried out the research, said: “Balham may have been derided by Peter Sellers but is now being mooted as a kind of new Notting Hill — the hip south-of-the-river enclave. Residents were inclined to call it South Clapham, but now Balham speaks up for itself.”
In 1958 it was the butt of spoof travel documentary “Balham: Gateway To The South”, with Sellers making ludicrously exaggerated claims about its attractions.
In 1904 Swallows and Amazons author Arthur Ransome, who grew up there, described it as “the ugliest and most abominable of London’s unpleasing suburbs”.
It is still to draw a celebrity crowd — the best known resident is comedian and presenter Arthur Smith. But Sam Harrison, co-owner with Rick Stein of Harrison’s restaurants in Bedford Hill, said he had seen huge changes since opening in 2007.
Most symbolic has been the arrival of Waitrose and the increased availability of black cabs: “When I was first looking at the area I got a taxi back to Chiswick and the cabbie said he never used to bother working Balham before. Now I like to think it’s becoming a bit of a destination in its own right.”
Prices of flats have roughly doubled over the past decade, with the cost of a one-bedroom property now £250,000- £300,000. Toby Turnage, of the local branch of estate agency Douglas & Gordon, said: “I remember coming here for the first time 10 years ago and while it didn’t exactly feel unsafe it really didn’t feel particularly nice either.
“It doesn’t have that stigma it used to. Five-bedroom family houses in the Nightingale Triangle go for £1.2 or £1.3 million and the market is up six or seven per cent since the start of the year. There are lots of young professionals looking to upsize from flat to house, or with about to start a bigger family.”
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What type of port can be found at Pegwell Bay in Kent and at Ryde on the Isle of Wight? | Yuppie village Balham 'really is gateway to the south' as buyers eclipse sellers | London Evening Standard
Yuppie village Balham 'really is gateway to the south' as buyers eclipse sellers
Friday 12 July 2013 09:03 BST
Click to follow
The Evening Standard
Eight bedrooms: this home in Bedford Hill, Balham, is on sale for £2.48m
The suburb once dubbed “the ugliest and most abominable” in London has blossomed into its most sought-after yuppie village, it was claimed today.
More buyers are looking to find homes in Balham — famously lampooned by Peter Sellers as “Gateway to the South” — than any other part of London, according to research by estate agents.
They found there were 46 registered buyers to every property in the SW12 postcode, compared with a London-wide average of 19 to 1 and a national figure of eight to one. Agents said Balham’s reputation as a “poor man’s Clapham” meant prices can be up to a third lower than its neighbour — although the gap is closing — making it attractive to young househunters.
A flurry of bar and restaurant openings — including, this summer, the latest outpost of “cult status” pizzeria Franco Manca — has allowed it to throw off its “dull suburbia” image. It hosts a thriving annual comedy festival, taking place this week at The Bedford.
Paul Smith, chief executive of estate agency haart, which carried out the research, said: “Balham may have been derided by Peter Sellers but is now being mooted as a kind of new Notting Hill — the hip south-of-the-river enclave. Residents were inclined to call it South Clapham, but now Balham speaks up for itself.”
In 1958 it was the butt of spoof travel documentary “Balham: Gateway To The South”, with Sellers making ludicrously exaggerated claims about its attractions.
In 1904 Swallows and Amazons author Arthur Ransome, who grew up there, described it as “the ugliest and most abominable of London’s unpleasing suburbs”.
It is still to draw a celebrity crowd — the best known resident is comedian and presenter Arthur Smith. But Sam Harrison, co-owner with Rick Stein of Harrison’s restaurants in Bedford Hill, said he had seen huge changes since opening in 2007.
Most symbolic has been the arrival of Waitrose and the increased availability of black cabs: “When I was first looking at the area I got a taxi back to Chiswick and the cabbie said he never used to bother working Balham before. Now I like to think it’s becoming a bit of a destination in its own right.”
Prices of flats have roughly doubled over the past decade, with the cost of a one-bedroom property now £250,000- £300,000. Toby Turnage, of the local branch of estate agency Douglas & Gordon, said: “I remember coming here for the first time 10 years ago and while it didn’t exactly feel unsafe it really didn’t feel particularly nice either.
“It doesn’t have that stigma it used to. Five-bedroom family houses in the Nightingale Triangle go for £1.2 or £1.3 million and the market is up six or seven per cent since the start of the year. There are lots of young professionals looking to upsize from flat to house, or with about to start a bigger family.”
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What is the nickname of Football Premiership club Bournemouth? | Bournemouth's rise to Premier League football - CNN.com
— AFC Bournemouth (@afcbournemouth) May 3, 2015
5. The club were on the verge of oblivion — twice
While the club is finding its way onto the back pages for footballing reasons, it was financial troubles that nearly put Bournemouth out of existence twice in the last 20 years. It became Europe's first community-owned club when a supporter's trust was set up in 1997. Players had to host a bucket collection in the town to help raise the funds. In the 2007-08 season, Bournemouth went into administration once more and were seconds away from liquidation until chairman Jeff Mostyn wrote a check for £100,000 ($153,000) to stave off the debt collectors. After starting the 2008-09 campaign with a 17-point deduction, they were saved from relegation in the final home game of the season when club legend Steve Fletcher scored the winning goal to stop the team falling out of the bottom division of the Football League.
6. They are coached by the 'Manager of the Decade'
Former player Eddie Howe was tasked with rescuing the team from what looked like certain relegation, following a 17-point deduction, from League Two on New Year's Eve 2008. At the time, he was England's youngest ever league manager at the age of 31. In six years, and over two spells, he's taken the club he supported as child from the bottom of the ladder to within one game of playing in front of an estimated worldwide audience of four billion people. He is only one of a handful of managers ever to lead their team through all three divisions to Premier League promotion. This has all been enough to earn him the first Football League Manager of the Decade award at a ceremony held in April.
The achievements of Eddie Howe at Bournemouth make me wonder whether we've possibly found the English 'special one'.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) April 27, 2015
7. It'll be worth at least £120 million ($183,500,000 dollars) to a team that has never spent big
The club is owned by enigmatic Russian Maxim Demin. Not much is known about the media-shy petro-chemical magnate who's based in Switzerland. His interest in the club came after having a house built by former chairman and owner Eddie Mitchell in the upmarket Sandbanks -- once the fourth most expensive place to buy property in the world. After buying out the property developer of his home, he has bankrolled the club of late, investing around $15 million by most reports. But the team's promotion will earn them unprecedented sums in Europe's most profitable league. The figure is a minimum -- if Bournemouth stay up, they will benefit from the new TV rights deal worth $7.8 billion to the Premier League, banking them a further $153 million. The team's biggest transfer has been the purchase of top scorer Callum Wilson for $4.6 million.
8. Bournemouth won't be the only team you've never heard of in a top European league.
Carpi, a team who play in front of crowds of around 4,000 people, earned their place in Italy's Serie A on Wednesday. They have made the rise from the fifth tier of Italian football, one better than Bournemouth. CNN also wrote about the ascent of tiny Eibar who represented themselves well in a first season in Spain's La Liga. Eibar only has a population of 22,000 people compared to Bournemouth being home to nearly 200,000 people.
9. The club changed their name to top the league
The team changed its name from Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic Football Club to AFC Bournemouth so they could top the league alphabetically while at the same time sounding similar to the names of great teams in Europe. The Cherries nickname comes from playing on the site of the Cooper-Dean estate which was home to a number of cherry orchards. The team also play in red and black stripes.
A photo posted by AFC Bournemouth (@officialafcb) on
Mar 3, 2015 at 1:45pm PST
10. The town has the best beaches in the Premier League
The town grew in popularity back in the 18th century as a pleasant place to escape London's smog and relax on the golden sands of its 11 kilometer coastline. Manager Eddie Howe believes the club's promotion will boost the town's image. "This is one of the nicest parts in England and now more people are going to get to see it," he said at a press conference on Thursday. "It's not every day that you'll get the numbers that will come here and it can only be a good thing for local businesses." He added: "To see the Bournemouth name being talked about around the world has been so good to see."
| A.F.C. Bournemouth |
Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell in Yorkshire are the three corners of which triangle? | Premier League: Bournemouth v Southampton - Live - BBC Sport
Bournemouth v Southampton
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Bournemouth XI: Boruc, Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels, Ritchie, Surman, Arter, Gradel, Afobe, King
Southampton XI: Forster, Van Dijk, Fonte, Yoshida, Soares, Ward-Prowse, Romeu, Bertrand, Mane, Long, Austin
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Posted at 21:41 1 Mar
Right that's it as the final whistle goes.
Bournemouth deserved winners as Southampton lose a second in a row with a disappointing performance.
You can follow reaction to tonight's games here.
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Bournemouth 2-0 Southampton
Posted at 90 mins
There will be four minutes of added time. Based on the previous 90, I can't see any sort of remarkable comeback.
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Bournemouth 2-0 Southampton
Posted at 86 mins
Cherries keeper Artur Boruc hasn't had much to do tonight but he comes out quickly to block at the feet of Southampton forward Sadio Mane as the visitors create a rare chance.
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Bournemouth 2-0 Southampton
Posted at 86 mins
BBC Sport's Mark Mitchener at Vitality Stadium: "Southampton right-back Cedric Soares won't be putting assistant referee John Brooks on his Christmas card list, as for the second time this half Brooks flags for a foul on Max Gradel and Soares gives him an earful.
"It's Gradel's last act as he leaves to a standing ovation, having covered every blade of grass down the Cherries' left side in only his second game back from a serious knee ligament injury."
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Winston Smith spends most of 1984 trying to learn the lines to which song? | SparkNotes: 1984: Book One: Chapters VII–VIII
Book One: Chapters VII–VIII
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Book One: Chapters IV–VI
Book One: Chapters VII–VIII, page 2
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Summary: Chapter VII
Winston writes in his diary that any hope for revolution against the Party must come from the proles. He believes that the Party cannot be destroyed from within, and that even the Brotherhood, a legendary revolutionary group, lacks the wherewithal to defeat the mighty Thought Police. The proles, on the other hand make up eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, and could easily muster the strength and manpower to overcome the Police. However, the proles lead brutish, ignorant, animalistic lives, and lack both the energy and interest to revolt; most of them do not even understand that the Party is oppressing them.
Winston looks through a children’s history book to get a feeling for what has really happened in the world. The Party claims to have built ideal cities, but London, where Winston lives, is a wreck: the electricity seldom works, buildings decay, and people live in poverty and fear. Lacking a reliable official record, Winston does not know what to think about the past. The Party’s claims that it has increased the literacy rate, reduced the infant mortality rate, and given everyone better food and shelter could all be fantasy. Winston suspects that these claims are untrue, but he has no way to know for sure, since history has been written entirely by the Party.
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.
(See Important Quotations Explained )
Winston remembers an occasion when he caught the Party in a lie. In the mid-1960s, a cultural backlash caused the original leaders of the Revolution to be arrested. One day, Winston saw a few of these deposed leaders sitting at the Chestnut Tree Café, a gathering place for out-of-favor Party members. A song played—“Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me”—and one of the Party members, Rutherford, began to weep. Winston never forgot the incident, and one day came upon a photograph that proved that the Party members had been in New York at the time that they were allegedly committing treason in Eurasia. Terrified, Winston destroyed the photograph, but it remains embedded in his memory as a concrete example of Party dishonesty.
Winston thinks of his writing in his diary as a kind of letter to O’Brien. Though Winston knows almost nothing about O’Brien beyond his name, he is sure that he detects a strain of independence and rebellion in him, a consciousness of oppression similar to Winston’s own. Thinking about the Party’s control of every record of the truth, Winston realizes that the Party requires its members to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears. He believes that true freedom lies in the ability to interpret reality as one perceives it, to be able to say “2 + 2 = 4.”
Summary: Chapter VIII
(See Important Quotations Explained )
Winston goes for a walk through the prole district, and envies the simple lives of the common people. He enters a pub where he sees an old man—a possible link to the past. He talks to the old man and tries to ascertain whether, in the days before the Party, people were really exploited by bloated capitalists, as the Party records claim. The old man’s memory is too vague to provide an answer. Winston laments that the past has been left to the proles, who will inevitably forget it.
Winston walks to the secondhand store in which he bought the diary and buys a clear glass paperweight with a pink coral center from Mr. Charrington, the proprietor. Mr. Charrington takes him upstairs to a private room with no telescreen, where a print of St. Clement’s Church looks down from the wall, evoking the old rhyme: “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s / You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St. Martin’s.”
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| Oranges and Lemons |
What is the Kiwi Fruit commonly called in New Zealand? | SparkNotes: 1984: Book One: Chapters VII–VIII
Book One: Chapters VII–VIII
→
Book One: Chapters IV–VI
Book One: Chapters VII–VIII, page 2
page 1 of 2
Summary: Chapter VII
Winston writes in his diary that any hope for revolution against the Party must come from the proles. He believes that the Party cannot be destroyed from within, and that even the Brotherhood, a legendary revolutionary group, lacks the wherewithal to defeat the mighty Thought Police. The proles, on the other hand make up eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, and could easily muster the strength and manpower to overcome the Police. However, the proles lead brutish, ignorant, animalistic lives, and lack both the energy and interest to revolt; most of them do not even understand that the Party is oppressing them.
Winston looks through a children’s history book to get a feeling for what has really happened in the world. The Party claims to have built ideal cities, but London, where Winston lives, is a wreck: the electricity seldom works, buildings decay, and people live in poverty and fear. Lacking a reliable official record, Winston does not know what to think about the past. The Party’s claims that it has increased the literacy rate, reduced the infant mortality rate, and given everyone better food and shelter could all be fantasy. Winston suspects that these claims are untrue, but he has no way to know for sure, since history has been written entirely by the Party.
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it.
(See Important Quotations Explained )
Winston remembers an occasion when he caught the Party in a lie. In the mid-1960s, a cultural backlash caused the original leaders of the Revolution to be arrested. One day, Winston saw a few of these deposed leaders sitting at the Chestnut Tree Café, a gathering place for out-of-favor Party members. A song played—“Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me”—and one of the Party members, Rutherford, began to weep. Winston never forgot the incident, and one day came upon a photograph that proved that the Party members had been in New York at the time that they were allegedly committing treason in Eurasia. Terrified, Winston destroyed the photograph, but it remains embedded in his memory as a concrete example of Party dishonesty.
Winston thinks of his writing in his diary as a kind of letter to O’Brien. Though Winston knows almost nothing about O’Brien beyond his name, he is sure that he detects a strain of independence and rebellion in him, a consciousness of oppression similar to Winston’s own. Thinking about the Party’s control of every record of the truth, Winston realizes that the Party requires its members to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears. He believes that true freedom lies in the ability to interpret reality as one perceives it, to be able to say “2 + 2 = 4.”
Summary: Chapter VIII
(See Important Quotations Explained )
Winston goes for a walk through the prole district, and envies the simple lives of the common people. He enters a pub where he sees an old man—a possible link to the past. He talks to the old man and tries to ascertain whether, in the days before the Party, people were really exploited by bloated capitalists, as the Party records claim. The old man’s memory is too vague to provide an answer. Winston laments that the past has been left to the proles, who will inevitably forget it.
Winston walks to the secondhand store in which he bought the diary and buys a clear glass paperweight with a pink coral center from Mr. Charrington, the proprietor. Mr. Charrington takes him upstairs to a private room with no telescreen, where a print of St. Clement’s Church looks down from the wall, evoking the old rhyme: “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s / You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St. Martin’s.”
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| i don't know |
What is the name of actress Gwyneth Paltrow's oldest child? | Gwyneth Paltrow - Biography - IMDb
Gwyneth Paltrow
Biography
Showing all 128 items
Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (4) | Trivia (83) | Personal Quotes (31) | Salary (4)
Overview (4)
5' 9" (1.75 m)
Mini Bio (1)
A tall, wafer thin, delicate beauty, Gwyneth Kate Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of noted producer and director Bruce Paltrow and Tony award-winning actress Blythe Danner . Her father was from a Jewish family, while her mother has German, and some English and Irish, ancestry. When Gwyneth was eleven, the family moved to Massachusetts, where her father began working in summer stock productions in the Berkshires. It was here that she received her early acting training under the tutelage of her parents. She graduated from the all-girls Spence School in New York City and moved to California where she attended the UC Santa Barbara, majoring in Art History. She soon quit, realizing it was not her passion. She made her film debut with a small part in Shout (1991) and for the next five years had featured roles in a mixed bag of film fare that included Flesh and Bone (1993); Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994); Se7en (1995); Jefferson in Paris (1995); Moonlight and Valentino (1995); and The Pallbearer (1996). It was her performance in the title role of Emma Woodhouse in Emma (1996) that led to her being offered the role of Viola in Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which she was awarded the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She broke her much publicized engagement to actor Brad Pitt in 1997 citing as the reason the fact that neither she nor Pitt felt that they could pursue their respective careers and at the same time maintain a happy marriage. They remain good friends. Since then, her roles have included The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Shallow Hal (2001), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), Iron Man (2008), Two Lovers (2008), and Country Strong (2010).
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom McDonough
Spouse (1)
Attended and graduated from the Spence School in New York City (1990).
Voted "Most Stuck-up" in Movieline magazine's 100 Most. [October 1998]
(August 15, 1998) Gave $21,000 watch to boyfriend Ben Affleck as a birthday present.
Named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in the World (1998).
Engaged to actor Brad Pitt on December 20, 1996.
Confirmed as the next Calvin Klein model (1996).
Attended the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) for one year as an Art History major.
After spending a time in her early teens in Talavera De la Reina, Toledo, Spain, she can speak fairly good Spanish.
Turned down the role of Emma Peel in the movie The Avengers (1998).
Met with James Cameron for the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic (1997), which went to Kate Winslet .
A couple sued Gwyneth for an undisclosed amount claiming that the actress injured them during an April 1999 car accident.
Spends Thanksgiving every year with Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw at their home in the Hamptons.
As part of research for her role as an obese woman in Shallow Hal (2001), wore the 200-pound latex "fat" suit she used for the film to a bar where people refused to make eye contact with her and treated her rudely. She said that this experience made her saddened by the injustice faced by overweight people in society.
Has been friends with Maya Rudolph (of Saturday Night Live (1975) fame) since she was seven.
Sticks to a macrobiotic diet.
Owned a flat in London, England.
Older sister of Jake Paltrow ; first cousin of actress Katherine Moennig , whose roles include Jacqueline 'Jake' Pratt on Young Americans (2000) and Shane McCutcheon on The L Word (2004), and Hillary Danner ; niece of Harry Danner .
TV commercials and print ads for Spain's department store chain El Corte Inglés' spring line (2002).
Did her own singing in the comedy-drama movie Duets (2000).
Attended Crossroads High School in Santa Monica, California for one year.
(April 13, 2003) Attended the ceremony in Talavera De la Reina, Toledo, Spain, in which she was named "adopted daughter". She first visited the town as a young schoolgirl and has since frequently returned there, enamored - she says - of the people, the food and the countryside.
Has played Thomas Jefferson's daughter in Jefferson in Paris (1995). Her mother, Blythe Danner , played Jefferson's wife, Martha, in 1776 (1972), just before Gwyneth was conceived. In the Ken Burns miniseries, Thomas Jefferson (1997), she played his granddaughter.
Nominated for a London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Proof", performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London, England (2002).
She and her husband Chris Martin purchased Kate Winslet 's North London home in Belsize Park.
Is the daughter of Bruce Paltrow and Blythe Danner . Gwyneth's paternal grandparents, Arnold P. Paltrow and Dorothy Weigert, were both from Jewish families from Eastern and Central Europe (Poland, Russia, Belarus and Lithuania), and Gwyneth's father had many generations of rabbis in the family tree. Gwyneth's maternal grandparents were Harry Earl Danner and Katherine M. Kile, and Gwyneth's mother is of German, with smaller amounts of English and Irish, descent. Some of her mother's ancestors lived in Barbados.
Her mother, Blythe Danner , was about five months pregnant with the future actress when she appeared in Columbo: Étude in Black (1972). The episode also starred John Cassavetes , and aired during the series' first season.
Her name can be heard over the P.A. system in many episodes of the medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982). Gwyneth's father, Bruce Paltrow , was the producer of the series.
Turned down the role of Rachel Keller in The Ring (2002), which went to Naomi Watts .
Is best friends with Madonna .
Attended St. Augustine by the Sea (where she met Maya Rudolph ) in Los Angeles and the Spence School in New York City.
Met husband Chris Martin when she attended his band's ( Coldplay 's) concert. [October 2002]
She does not employ a nanny to take care of her daughter, a rarity among actors in the film business.
Signed a contact with Estée Lauder for $10 million to promote its new line of fragrance, "Pleasures".
Her son, Moses Martin , is named after a song Chris Martin wrote for her and appears on Coldplay 's album "Live 2003". Moses is also her father's Hebrew name.
She speaks French quite well, having spent a summer in Paris when in her early twenties.
Is good friends with Helena Christensen , who was one of the first people to visit Gwyneth in the hospital, after she gave birth to her son, Moses Martin (Moses Bruce Anthony Martin).
Longtime close friends with actress Mary Wigmore , who also appeared (albeit briefly) in Paltrow's films The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and Shallow Hal (2001).
Was the Maid of Honor at Madonna 's wedding to Guy Ritchie .
Was originally signed on for the role of Ava Gardner in The Aviator (2004), but dropped out. The role went to Kate Beckinsale .
Auditioned for the role of Vickie Miner in Reality Bites (1994), which went to Janeane Garofalo .
She earns $3 million per year endorsing Estée Lauder on television and in print advertisements.
Was hospitalized and then released on January 14, 2008.
Attended Brown Ledge Summer Camp in Vermont.
Practices yoga.
When she played Sharon Stone on Saturday Night Live (1975), Stone felt offended and criticized her performance (1999).
Had suffered post-partum depression following the birth of her son, Moses Martin on April 15, 2008.
Attended the Spence School in Manhattan, an elite private girls' school that was also attended by Emmy Rossum and Kerry Washington .
Attended the 55th Tony Awards. She can be seen dancing with the revival cast of "The Rocky Horror Show" during "The Time Warp".
Ambassador for the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF)'s Women's Cancer Research Fund (2008).
Gwyneth's brother, Jake Paltrow 's birthday is a day before hers (9/26 and 9/27, respectively).
Born at 5:25 PM (PDT).
Returned to work ten months after giving birth to her daughter, Apple Martin , in order to begin filming Running with Scissors (2006).
Her friendship with Winona Ryder ended in the late 1990s.
Was six months pregnant with her son Moses Martin when she completed filming The Good Night (2007) and returned to work eleven months after giving birth, in order to begin filming Iron Man (2008).
Two of her ex-boyfriends have been named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine: Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck .
Replaced Charlize Theron in the role of Gerda Wegener in The Danish Girl (2015), but after dropping out of the project herself she was replaced by Alicia Vikander .
She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6931 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December 13, 2010. She was accompanied by Tim McGraw , her Country Strong (2010) co-star Faith Hill , and Glee (2009) co-star Matthew Morrison .
Second cousin of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords , who was injured in the 2011 Tucson, Arizona shooting. Their fathers are first cousins.
(March 26, 2011) Was in attendance at the wedding of Reese Witherspoon to Jim Toth .
Auditioned for the role of Kelly Taylor on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990), which went to Jennie Garth .
Auditioned for the role of Susannah Fincannon in Legends of the Fall (1994). She lost the role to Julia Ormond , but Brad Pitt was so impressed with Gwyneth that he later hand-picked her to play his wife in Se7en (1995).
Is lifelong friends with Norman Lloyd , who knew her mother, Blythe Danner , for exactly 40 years, right around the same time she was born.
Good friends with Mario Batali .
Resides in the same apartment building, in TriBeCa, as Meryl Streep (2012).
Gave birth to her first child at age 31, a daughter Apple Blythe Alison Martin (aka Apple Martin ) on May 14, 2004 and her second child at age 33, a son Moses Bruce Anthony Martin (aka Moses Martin ) on April 8, 2006. Their father is her now ex-husband, Chris Martin .
Revealed that she named her daughter Apple, because apples are whole, sweet and crisp. The baby's middle name honors her grandmothers, Blythe Danner and Alison Martin.
(March 17, 2013) Admitted that she had miscarried her future third child with her now estranged husband Chris Martin and almost died.
(March 25, 2014) Separated from her husband of 10 years Chris Martin .
Was the 115th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love (1998) at The 71st Annual Academy Awards (1999) on March 21, 1999.
Delivered her daughter Apple naturally after a 70-hour long labor but delivered her son Moses via Caesarean section out of fear of having another long labor.
Is one of 15 Oscar-winning actresses to have been born in the state of California. The others are Fay Bainter , Gloria Grahame , Jo Van Fleet , Liza Minnelli , Tatum O'Neal , Diane Keaton , Sally Field , Anjelica Huston , Cher , Jodie Foster , Helen Hunt , Angelina Jolie , Marcia Gay Harden and Brie Larson .
Was offered a chance to be a roaster for "The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe", but declined.
Is one of 11 actresses who won the Best Actress Oscar for a move that also won the Best Picture Oscar (she won for Shakespeare in Love (1998)). The others are Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night (1934), Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind (1939), Greer Garson for Mrs. Miniver (1942), Louise Fletcher for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977), Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment (1983), Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby (2004).
Was supposed to star in She's Out of My League (2010) but due to production delays, she backed out and Alice Eve replaced her.
Greatly admires Johnny Depp . She worked with him on Mortdecai (2015).
As a teenage model she appeared in a 1991 ad urging high school kids to use condoms.
Is one of 14 actresses to have won both the Best Actress Academy Award and the Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical Golden Globe for the same performance; hers being for Shakespeare in Love (1998). The others, in chronological order, are: Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950), Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins (1964), Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl (1968), Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972), Glenda Jackson for A Touch of Class (1973), Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977), Sissy Spacek for Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Cher for Moonstruck (1987), Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Helen Hunt for As Good as It Gets (1997), Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (2005), Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose (2007), and Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
She was offered the role of Emma Peel in The Avengers (1998), which she turned down. Coincidentally, she later played Pepper Potts in an unrelated film of the same The Avengers (2012).
Mother Blythe Danner mentioned in her Emmy Award acceptance speech in 2015, that Kiefer Sutherland babysat her daughter as a child.
Personal Quotes (31)
Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.
[on her father's ( Bruce Paltrow 's) struggle with throat cancer] It changed me more than anything else. You don't want to get to that place where you're the adult and you're palpably in the next generation. And, this shoved me into that.
[on her 1997 separation with Brad Pitt ] It really changed my life. When we split up, something changed, permanently, in me. My heart sort of broke that day, and it will never be the same.
I try to remember, as I hear about friends getting engaged, that it's not about the ring and it's not about the wedding. It's a grave thing, getting married. And it's easy to get swept up in the wrong things.
I find Sex and the City (1998) irreverent and shocking. It's one step beyond how girls really talk. I would do a cameo on that show in a flash.
I realised life is so short and precious, you should do things that make you feel inspired, that push you and teach you something. I'd rather not have a big house, a huge closet of clothes, diamonds and a private plane, and instead a body of work that I'm proud of.
I'm glad that some day my children will be able to see my father and hear his voice, get a sense of who he was. One of the things that disturbs me the most about the fact that he's dead, is that I feel like a statistic. I sort of feel like one of those people who was unfortunate and lost their father when they were 30, and life goes on. But he was so unique and so incredible, I don't like to think about it in those terms.
I worked so much in my 20s and I really burnt the candle at both ends. I wasn't too picky about what I did and I was lucky that I did some really good films, but I also did some really rubbish films, I think part of the downside about being so successful and winning the Oscar at the age of 26 is that I sort of became insouciant about the things that I chose. I thought, "Oh, I'll just try this, it'll be fun or I'll do that for the money." Things like that now I would absolutely never do.
The simpler things are, the happier they are.
The work gets more difficult as you get older. You learn more and you gather more experiences, there is deeper pain and higher highs.
There are certain women in this business who have children and I just think, "You must never, never see them!". You can't do movies back to back and see your child if they go to school.
Our marriage is between us. If we decide to continue being together or not, it's our business.
[on being pregnant while filming Proof (2005)] It was very, very difficult. I was trying not to barf. I felt terrible.
Even actresses that you really admire, like Reese Witherspoon , you think, another romantic comedy? You know. You see her in something like Walk the Line (2005) and think, "God, you're so great!" And then you think, "Why is she doing these stupid romantic comedies?". But of course, it's for money and status. I just think, "Wouldn't it be great if all of those movies people went to see were about real women?".
I love the English way, which is not as capitalistic as it is in America. People don't talk about work and money. They talk about interesting things at dinner parties. I like living here because I don't tap into the bad side of American psychology, which is "I'm not achieving enough, I'm not making enough, I'm not at the top of the pile!".
I'm very happy here [in London] and I really like the way the film industry works, everybody cares. I like that it doesn't have this big capitalistic feeling. When you do something in L.A., you really feel the crew are punching the clock.
I sort of look at some peers of mine and I think, "No, you've got it all wrong!". I just want to tell them all to have babies and be happy and not get sucked into that Hollywood thing.
I find the English amazing how they got over 7/7. There were no multiple memorials with people sobbing as they would have been in America. There, they are constantly scaring people but at the same time, people think nothing of going to see a therapist.
Brits are far more intelligent and civilised than Americans. I love the fact that you can hail a taxi and just pick up your pram and put in the back of the cab without having to collapse it. I love the parks and places I go for dinner and my friends. It's a pretty city, you know.
British people don't seem to ask each other out on dates. If someone asked you out they're really going out on a limb, whereas in America it happens all the time. Someone will come up to you and ask you for dinner and you'll say, "Sure!" It's no big deal and no weight should be attached to it. It's only dinner, for God's sake. Yet in Britain, mostly what happens seems to be that people meet at work. If there's a little something there, then they hang out together and, all of a sudden, they're boyfriend and girlfriend.
It would be a lot easier on Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston now had they not talked to the press about each other and everything to begin with. I learned my lesson at 24.
[on daughter Apple's accent] She says "Mummy" instead of "Mommy", I don't mind that. I will if she starts saying "basil" and "pasta" the English way, as that really drives me nuts.
[on the paparazzi] If I have my daughter in the car and they are making me nervous, I'll do whatever I have to do. I keep a whole log. I take pictures of their cars, write down license plate numbers, everything. If they do it again, I can go to the police. I know my rights and, believe me, I will have them arrested. I will stop at nothing.
[on Madonna ] She has evolved with so much wisdom and grace that I would say my favorite Madonna is today's Madonna. She's a beautiful product of all her explorations and incarnations. (Style magazine, September 2006)
I'd rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin.
My father found joy in feeding the people he loved - genuine, bursting happiness. He instilled in me the idea that a meal made for your family is an expression of love.
[on the "scenery" in View from the Top (2003)] It's like, all of a sudden, I'm in underwear for half the movie.
When you're having dinner with your kids and your husband and someone says something funny or your dying laughing because your three-year-old made a joke, it doesn't matter what else is going on. That's real happiness.
Women really need to examine why they're so vitriolic to other women.
[on Johnny Depp ] Whether it's Morgan Freeman [ Se7en (1995)] at the beginning of my career or Johnny Depp in my last movie [ Mortdecai (2015)], I feel on-my-knees gratitude for being considered a good enough actor to work with actors of that caliber. Johnny is a true genius and when he works he envisages everything. You know I read the script and I thought it was really funny. I have always wanted to work with Johnny and I'm so lucky they asked me as he is amazing. We had so much fun on set that it was hard not to laugh.
I am who I am. I can't pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year.
Salary (4)
| Apple |
What is the oldest railway station in Liverpool? | Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin - Photo 16 : Alum photo - sofeminine
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin
Use the left and right keys of your keyboard to navigate the album
Wenn
Seeing double: Stars of biopics and their real-life counterparts
Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin bizarrely chose the baby names Apple Blythe Alison Martin and Moses Bruce Anthony for their offspring.
The actress said of her first baby name: "Apples are so sweet and they're wholesome and it's biblical."
©Wenn
| i don't know |
If you walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht, what colour was your scarf? | CARLY SIMON LYRICS - You're So Vain
CARLY SIMON LYRICS
[Whisper:] Son of a gun.
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and...
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't You?
You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and...
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't You?
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and...
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't You?
Well I hear you went up to Saratoga and your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not you're with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and...
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't You? Don't You?
You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't You?
Visit www.azlyrics.com for these lyrics.
Thanks to daniella, Megan Thielking, Starla Quail for correcting these lyrics.
Writer(s): Carly Simon
| Apricot |
If satsumas were Japanese and mandarins were Chinese, which oranges were North African? | Carly Simon - You're So Vain Lyrics | MetroLyrics
You're So Vain Lyrics
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You walked into the party
Like you were walking on a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf, it was apricot
You had one eye on the mirror
And watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain,
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?
meaning
byjp bart
reading the lyrics, iu believe that verse 1 is about david geffen, verse 2, warren beatty & verse 3, mick jagger.
Oh, you had me several years ago
When I was still naive
Well, you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, you're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?
Well I hear you went to Saratoga
And your horse, naturally, won
Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well, you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not, you're with some underworld spy
Or the wife of a close friend,
Wife of a close friend, and
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain, you're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?
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Bowie's video for 'Let's Dance' was recorded in which country? | Bowie Downunder: Let's Dance Video
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Let's Dance Video
Prior to the aboriginal rights theme championed by Midnight Oil and years before the outback Australian theme of Crocodile Dundee was the video to David Bowie's 'Let's Dance'.
With an un mistakenly Australian cast, the video featured a series of themes from both rural and urban Australia - aborigines, Sydney Harbour and outback scenes.
By taking a lateral spin on the song's lyrics to bring forward the cause of Aboriginal rights, it offered the first evidence of a hands-on sociopolitical role from Bowie. The principal locations were Sydney and the sheep farming outpost of Carinda.
In the following article courtesy of Rolling Stone magazine, we look back to the time that was 1983.
In Australia, David Bowie was a man without masks. Open, jokey, very . . . warm is the only word. Back home - which for Bowie these days is Switzerland, March is an unmistakably wintry month; but halfway round the world in Sydney, even as autumn arrived, a brilliant sun still bathed the beaches at Bondi and Manly, and in the clear, caressing night air, the stars seemed like so many crushed diamonds strewn across the antipodean sky. It was a paradise perfectly suited to Bowie's new menschlich mood, his gathering thaw.
Photograph by "Stranded" from the Aus Rock forums
....Escaping from LA. probably saved his life, he says. Another turning point came in December 1980, three months after he released his last album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He was in New York at the time, on Broadway, winding up his well-received tour with the Elephant Man. He still remembers the night-it was very late-that he got the awful news from May Pang, John Lennon's former secretary. Lennon had been murdered.
...."The handful of performances after that," Bowie says, "were absolutely awful. Just awful. A whole piece of my life seemed to have been taken away; a whole reason for being a singer and songwriter seemed to be removed from me. It was almost like a warning. It was saying: we've got to do something about our situation on earth."
....Bowie put his musical persona on low-profile and set about making a real home for himself and Joey in the pristine countryside near Geneva, He grew reflective. "Having a child to care for points up one's purpose, it really does. To see him grow, and be excited about the future-and then you think: 'Oh, shit, the future, yes. I'd forgotten about that, old son. Um ... I'll see what I can do.......
Photograph by "Stranded" from the Aus Rock forums
Bowie and Australia
IT IS THIS SEA CHANGE, OF SORTS, THAT HAS brought Bowie back to Australia.
He first came here in 1978, on his last concert tour, and at each city where he did a show he would rent a Land Rover or some similarly rugged vehicle and clatter off into the outback, the parched and haunting bush.
He was hypnotized: here was a country the size of the United States with a population of some 15 million people. Culturally, it had the upbeat, can-do character of America in the Fifties, before so Much went so wrong there; but physically-with its idyllic coasts and endless arid plains, and its singular wildlife - it was unlike any place else on earth.
....But, like America, Australia had an ugly racial secret: the policies adopted toward the native Aborigines by the European settlers who began arriving on the continent in the late eighteenth century-many of them convicts and their keepers-could most gently be described as genocidal. On what is now the island state of Tasmania, Bowie learned, the indigenous Aboriginal population had been utterly extinguished.
Photograph by "Stranded" from the Aus Rock forums
...."As much as I love this country," he says, "it's probably one of the most racially intolerant in the world, well in line with South Africa. I mean, in the north, there's unbelievable intolerance. The Aborigines can't even buy their drinks in the same bars-they have to go round the back and get them through what's called a 'dog hatch.' And then they're forbidden from drinking them on the same side of the street as the bar; they have to go to the other side of the road."
....So Australia was ideal for what Bowie now had in mind. "It occurred to me that one doesn't have much time on the planet, you know? And that I could do something more useful in terms of ... I know this is very cliche, but I feel that now that I'm thirty-six years old, and I've got a certain position, I want to start utilizing that position to the benefit of my . . . brotherhood and sisterhood." He winces, but continues. "I've found it's very easy to be successful in other terms, but I think you can't keep on being an artist without actually saying anything more than, 'Well, this is an interesting way of looking at things.'
...."There is also a right way of looking at things: there's a lot of injustice. So let's, you know, say something about it. However naff it comes off."
Photograph by "Stranded" from the Aus Rock forums .
Hatching Out The Video
....In February, Bowie brought David Mallet, the London-based director with whom he collaborates, to Switzerland to help work up the story boards for the two videos he wanted to do: "Let's Dance," the title track from his new album, and another song on the LP called "China Girl" (which Bowie had written with his friend Iggy Pop in 1977, and which had previously appeared on Pops album The Idiot).
In less than a week, they were in Sydney with an English producer and cameraman, and an Australian crew numbering about a dozen people. Bowie had also secured the services of two students from Sydney's Aboriginal-Islanders Dance Theatre and a young Chinese woman from New Zealand named Geeling, and soon had them racing all over town.
One morning, he'd have the Aboriginal pair-a boy named Terry Roberts and a girl named Joelene King - clambering up a hand-built "hilltop" on a promontory overlooking Shark Island in Sydney's spectacular harbour; in the afternoon, the whole company would tear across town to a machine shop in the sweltering suburb of Guildford, where Terry would be filmed toiling at a big steel milling machine amid stifling clouds of artificial smoke. (A few days earlier, Bowie'd had Terry actually pulling the machine down a major Sydney thoroughfare while Joelene, on her hands and knees, scrubbed down the intersection with soap brush and water - much to the audible dismay of an army of Saturday drivers.)
Image from the David Bowie: Serious Moonlight Tour 83 tour booklet.
....Geeling was also exotically occupied, one day "Making love" with Bowie on the beach, another romping through Chinatown in a gray silk Mao uniform and red-star cap. Aside from Bowie and Mallet, no one could figure out what the hell was going on.
....Both videos, of course, were about racism and oppression. "Very simple, very direct," Bowie explained one afternoon. "They're almost like Russian social realism, very naive. And the message that they have is very simple - it's wrong to be racist!"
He can't help laughing at the sentiment so baldly stated.
"But I see no reason to fuck about with that message, you see? I thought, 'Let's try to use the video format as a platform for some kind of social observation, and not just waste it on trotting out and trying to enhance the public image of the singer involved. I mean, these are little movies, and some movies can have a point, so why not try to make some point. This stuff goes out all over the world; it's played on all kinds of programs. I mean-you get free point time!"
Photograph by "Stranded" from the Aus Rock forums .
Carinda, New South Wales
IT IS, AS BOWIE SAYS, A PLACE OF "FRANKLY brute character."
Town of Carinda, a close-to-the-ground sheep-country settlement some 400 miles out over the Blue Mountains and down into the sunbaked bush west of Sydney.
There's been no useful rainfall in these parts for four years, and the sun beats down with an incendiary power. At 10:30 in the morning, crew members are already estimating the temperature at around 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
....As a hard-scrub fantasy of a frontier outpost, Carinda might seem overdrawn even to Sergio Leone. There's no one on the main street except a fly-bitten dog and a town drunk ' and at any moment, one expects to see Clint Eastwood stepping out into the glare with a bulge in his poncho, gunning for Lee Van Cleef.
Inside the one-room pub in the Carinda Hotel, several large-bellied locals are already lined up at the bar, swatting down schooners of Tooths beer,- leathery men in the bush shorts, T-shirts and sweat-stained slouch hats that are a kind of uniform among the good old boys of the outback. There isn't much to do out here beyond drinking and fighting, and these geezers, apparently, are getting an early start.
Photograph by "Stranded" from the Aus Rock forums
....No one pays too much attention when Bowie walks in. He's wearing his usual gray shorts, bush boots, short-sleeve shirt and a kind of semi soft fedora known locally as a Snowy River. Even though he lacks the pendulous gut that makes for authenticity in these matters, he's not conspicuous. He looks around at the linoleum floor, the dart board and pool table, the overhead fan, the dust-caked cricket trophies above the bar, the wallboard menu offering chicko rolls and meat pies, and he smothers a chuckle. "I love this place," he says in a discreet whisper.
....The locals soon realize that something's up: a lot of impossibly pale-looking people are starting to haul in Arriflex cameras and klieg lights and stun-size audio speakers. They're tacking glare netting over the open doorway, and one of them's starting to squirt smoke around, which is really stinking the place up. They've also brought a pair of Abos with them, which must be some kind of unwished-for first. "Where'd you get the dark couple?" asks one tippler in a flat, chilly tone.
Photograph by "Stranded" from the Aus Rock forums
....By this point, the entire adult population of Carinda seems to have squeezed into the pub, along with several wild boys who are in town for the feral-pig hunts. (Wall posters offer fifty cents a kilo for boar meat, but according to one well-oiled sport, it's "pretty rank" stuff, given what the beasts are forced to feed on these days; what the hell, though-it's mostly shipped to Germany anyway.)
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Image from the David Bowie: Serious Moonlight Tour 83 tour booklet.
....As the smoke thickens and the temperature inside the pub hits ninety-four degrees, a walloping funk beat comes leaping out of the speakers. It's "Let's Dance," the first single off Bowie's new album. Co-produced by Nile Rodgers of Chic, and featuring various Chic members in the band, the song and the rest of the album are not exactly what fans might have expected from the man who helped inaugurate the Current wave of synthesizer based dance pop- At least Bowie hopes not.
...."I think that's what this record came out of. I was sort of disappointed with the way synthesizers have bullied music into a kind of cold place. So much of the music that's being made at the moment is very earnest. It doesn't have that quality of necessity that music used to have; it's become style over content. So in a natural progression, I just went back to the kinds of music that really excited me when I started. I was listening to people like Buddy Guy, Red Prysock, Alan Freed big bands. Stuff like that has such a dynamic, enthusiastic quality; it's the enthusiasm that I actually was looking for."
....The album was recorded in three weeks ("I must try to better that next time," Bowie cackles), and simplicity was the keynote all the way. "John Lennon once said to me, I Look, it's very simple - say what you mean, make it rhyme and put a back beat to it.' And he was right: 'Instant karma's gonna get you,' boom. I keep comin' back to that these days. He was right, man. There is no more than that. There is no more.
....Simplicity and directness of expression have become a passion for him now, he says. "I've never admitted this before - because it's never been true before - but this album is kind of tentative. I mean, I only kind of touched the edge of what I really want to do. I want to go further, much further, with the next one.
....And what will that be, then?
...."A protest album, I Suppose."
AS THE CAMERA PANS PAST TERRY AND Joelene, who are dancing on the smoke-filled floor, and then sweeps down the bar for a panorama of sweat-plastered faces, Bowie, wearing freshly pressed cream slacks, a lightly striped shirt and green tie, a pair of delicate white gloves rolled at the wrists, and carrying a cherry-red Stratocaster, takes his place against the front wall, next to an extra who's thumping away on a stand-up bass.
By now, some of the locals, seized by the beat, are rolling around on their bar stools, and the owner of the place has waded in to actually take a stab at dancing with the two Aboriginal kids. Smoke is swirling all around, beers are scudding across the bar at a record rate, and not five feet from where Bowie stands mouthing something about "this serious moonlight," the wild-pig boys are wondering what to make of it all. Is it a toothpaste commercial? An advert for little white gloves? Or could it be ... some kind of celebrity?
...."'Ere," says one of the boar stalkers, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at Bowie and the prop bassist, an idea dawning in his sun-soaked brain. "'Ere, who's the group?"
Images from the David Bowie: Serious Moonlight Tour 83 tour booklet.
ON THE FINAL DAY OF SHOOTING, THE crew sets out from its motel base in Coonabarabran, on the banks of the Castlereagh River, for the Warrumbungle range, a national preserve located thirty-odd kilometres away. It is a place of surrealistically spectacular sights: rock-topped hills rising in eccentric formations against the enormous blue sky, heat-shattered glim trees clawing the air or keeled over in droves on the arid plains, puff Mushrooms bigger than baseballs, meat ants the size of termites and march flies that can chew right through your clothes to the flesh and blood below. There is Much rendering of the 'Australian salute" in an effort to fend off flying pests, and the heat is an autonomous and oppressive presence.
...."What a ridiculous bird!" Bowie shouts delightedly, as an emu - a kind of bizarre, humpbacked turkey - goes trotting off through some nearby scrub.
....There've been stranger sights out here in the bush, though: Aborigines carried off in helicopters; Geeling in her little Mao Suit running back and forth across the dusty plain with a big red banner; Bowie standing tall in i black top hat and tails, muttering in the heat, "I feel like a well-dressed Arab." It's almost a wrap now.
THE BRIGHT RED FEVER BALL OF THE SUN has finally set behind the craggy hills, leaving galahs and ground parrots to flap about the gum trees, and the night-loving kangaroos to hop forth in search of food.
Seen up close - and in the gathering dark you can get within three or four feet of them in a car - the kangaroo would seem to be among the world's gentlest creatures. To the totemistic Aborigines, it was always a kindred spirit, but to the sheep men who now occupy the ancient tribal lands, the 'roos are just another unwelcome mouth to feed in a time of brush fires and browning grass.
At night, the wild boys sometimes come in their clapped-out bush buggies, roaring up alongside the startled creatures and lopping off their heads with axes, all for the simple sport of watching the great bloody beasts stagger off, Spurting, into the scrub.
..
..Filming has wrapped. It'll be good to get back to Sydney, now, back by the sea. Bowie calls it "the great sparkling city of the New World.
Museum / Gallery Exhibition: 2006
In 2006, the video for 'Let's Dance' gained official recognition Australian art history when it appeared at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
The video was a special video installation at the 23rd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Art Award.
The exhibit ran from 11 August 2006 to the 22nd of October 2006.
Back to Carinda (by Freestate, 2007)
In 2007, Australian Bowie fan, Freestate, visited the Carinda and it's pub. Find his reflections and photographs on this page .
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It was 1983 and I was at university when I first saw the film clip. Here was a music superstar featuring my own people, putting Indigenous faces on a world stage.
The song was Let’s Dance, the singer David Bowie .
David Bowie: five legendary US TV appearances
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While the clip, shot for the most part in the small western New South Wales town of Carinda, was described by its co-director David Mallett as “intentionally anti-racist”, the song itself wasn’t overtly political. But it contained a message that resonated with us: when all is against you, what else can you do? “Put on your red shoes and dance the blues!”
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Bowie loved Australia – he had enormous success here – but he wasn’t blind to this country’s dark history.
As he said at the time, “As much as I love this country, it is probably one of the most racially intolerant in the world, well in line with South Africa.”
David Bowie in Australia: an alien from another planet, singing for this one
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Bowie plucked two Aboriginal performers from obscurity – Terry Roberts and Jolene King – to feature them in his clip. As King told Fairfax in 2013, “[The clip] showed the rest of the world that there are Indigenous people here in Australia, and that we’re not this textbook carbon copy of someone standing there with a spear; that there are modern Aboriginals, and this is one version [of them].”
There are confronting scenes: King scrubbing floors with her hands, and Roberts barefoot, dragging heavy machinery up a busy city street.
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Jolene King scrubs a Carinda road in the clip for Let’s Dance, filmed in the small NSW town in 1983. Photograph: EMI
The symbolism was unmissable: Indigenous struggle and suffering against the prosperity of white Australia. Bowie himself summed it up to ABC’s Countdown as “a direct statement about integration of one culture with another”.
A world of ideas was opening up to me; university had awakened my political consciousness, I was questioning my country and my place in it, and David Bowie was as powerful a teacher as any of my lecturers.
Remember, this was 1983. We were virtually invisible, black faces were rare on our screens. I can’t overstate how stunning it was to see Aboriginal people in a film clip, with David Bowie no less.
Bowie had always been important to me. I can’t remember the first time I heard him, but I also can’t remember a time when I didn’t listen to him. The first song of his I recall was the strange little ditty The Laughing Gnome: “Ha ha ha he he he, I’m a laughing gnome and you can’t catch me”. Not his greatest moment, but I loved it as a boy.
David Bowie: the man who thrilled the world
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Later I wore out my cassettes of Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and fell in love with songs like Changes, Life on Mars and Starman. In my teens I briefly formed a band with fellow Bowie devotees, inspired by the punk and new wave music scene.
Bowie spoke to the outsider in all of us – and I certainly felt like an outsider.
Yet a decade after seeing black faces in the Let’s Dance film clip, I was hosting my own national television current affairs program. In some way, Bowie made that possible.
For my birthday last year my wife bought me the complete Bowie vinyl collection. Today, like so many, I am profoundly sad.
As he wrote in his first hit song, Space Oddity: the stars look very different today.
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Bowie's mother appeared with him in the innovative video for which song? | David Bowie | New Music And Songs |
David Bowie
About David Bowie
The cliché about David Bowie is that he was a musical chameleon, adapting himself according to fashion and trends. While such a criticism is too glib, there's no denying that Bowie demonstrated a remarkable skill for perceiving musical trends at his peak in the '70s. After spending several years in the late '60s as a mod and as an all-around music hall entertainer, Bowie reinvented himself as a hippie singer/songwriter. Prior to his breakthrough in 1972, he recorded a proto-metal record and a pop/rock album, eventually redefining glam rock with his ambiguously sexy Ziggy Stardust persona. Ziggy made Bowie an international star, yet he wasn't content to continue to churn out glitter rock. By the mid-'70s, he'd developed an effete, sophisticated version of Philly soul that he dubbed "plastic soul," which eventually morphed into the eerie avant pop of 1976's Station to Station. Shortly afterward, he relocated to Berlin, where he recorded three experimental electronic albums with Brian Eno. At the dawn of the '80s, Bowie was still at the height of his powers, yet following his blockbuster dance-pop album Let's Dance in 1983, he slowly sank into mediocrity before salvaging his career in the early '90s. Even when he was out of fashion in the '80s and '90s, it was clear that Bowie was one of the most influential musicians in rock, for better and for worse. Each one of his phases in the '70s sparked a number of subgenres, including punk, new wave, goth rock, the new romantics, and electronica. Few rockers have ever had such lasting impact.
David Jones began performing music when he was 13 years old, learning the saxophone while he was at Bromley Technical High School; another pivotal event happened at the school, when his left pupil became permanently dilated in a schoolyard fight. Following his graduation at 16, he worked as a commercial artist while playing saxophone in a number of mod bands, including the King Bees, the Manish Boys (which also featured Jimmy Page as a session man), and Davey Jones & the Lower Third. All three of those bands released singles, which were generally ignored, yet he continued performing, changing his name to David Bowie in 1966 after the Monkees' Davy Jones became an international star. Over the course of 1966, he released three mod singles on Pye Records, which were all ignored. The following year, he signed with Deram, releasing the music hall, Anthony Newley-styled David Bowie that year. Upon completing the record, he spent several weeks in a Scottish Buddhist monastery. Once he left the monastery, he studied with Lindsay Kemp's mime troupe, forming his own mime company, the Feathers, in 1969. The Feathers were short-lived, and he formed the experimental art group Beckenham Arts Lab in 1969.
Bowie needed to finance the Arts Lab, so he signed with Mercury Records that year and released Man of Words, Man of Music, a trippy singer/songwriter album featuring "Space Oddity." The song was released as a single and became a major hit in the U.K., convincing Bowie to concentrate on music. Hooking up with his old friend Marc Bolan, he began miming at some of Bolan's T. Rex concerts, eventually touring with Bolan, bassist/producer Tony Visconti, guitarist Mick Ronson, and drummer Cambridge as Hype. The band quickly fell apart, yet Bowie and Ronson remained close, working on the material that formed Bowie's next album, The Man Who Sold the World, as well as recruiting Michael "Woody" Woodmansey as their drummer. Produced by Tony Visconti, who also played bass, The Man Who Sold the World was a heavy guitar rock album that failed to gain much attention. Bowie followed the album in late 1971 with the pop/rock Hunky Dory, an album that featured Ronson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman.
Following its release, Bowie began to develop his most famous incarnation, Ziggy Stardust: an androgynous, bisexual rock star from another planet. Before he unveiled Ziggy, Bowie claimed in a January 1972 interview with Melody Maker that he was gay, helping to stir interest in his forthcoming album. Taking cues from Bolan's stylish glam rock, Bowie dyed his hair orange and began wearing women's clothing. He called himself Ziggy Stardust, and his backing band -- Ronson, Woodmansey, and bassist Trevor Bolder -- were the Spiders from Mars. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was released with much fanfare in England in late 1972. The album and its lavish, theatrical concerts became a sensation throughout England, and helped him become the only glam rocker to carve out a niche in America. Ziggy Stardust became a word-of-mouth hit in the U.S., and the re-released "Space Oddity" -- which was now also the title of the re-released Man of Words, Man of Music -- reached the American Top 20. Bowie quickly followed Ziggy with Aladdin Sane later in 1973. Not only did he record a new album that year, but he also produced Lou Reed's Transformer, the Stooges' Raw Power, and Mott the Hoople's comeback All the Young Dudes, for which he also wrote the title track.
Given the amount of work Bowie packed into 1972 and 1973, it wasn't surprising that his relentless schedule began to catch up with him. After recording the all-covers Pin-Ups with the Spiders from Mars, he unexpectedly announced the band's breakup, as well as his retirement from live performances, during the group's final show that year. He retreated from the spotlight to work on a musical adaptation of George Orwell's 1984, but once he was denied the rights to the novel, he transformed the work into Diamond Dogs. The album was released to generally poor reviews in 1974, yet it generated the hit single "Rebel Rebel," and he supported the album with an elaborate and expensive American tour. As the tour progressed, Bowie became fascinated with soul music, eventually redesigning the entire show to reflect his new "plastic soul." Hiring guitarist Carlos Alomar as the band's leader, Bowie refashioned his group into a Philly soul band and recostumed himself in sophisticated, stylish fashions. The change took fans by surprise, as did the double-album David Live, which featured material recorded on the 1974 tour.
Young Americans, released in 1975, was the culmination of Bowie's soul obsession, and it became his first major crossover hit, peaking in the American Top Ten and generating his first U.S. number one hit in "Fame," a song he co-wrote with John Lennon and Alomar. Bowie relocated to Los Angeles, where he earned his first movie role in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). While in L.A., he recorded Station to Station, which took the plastic soul of Young Americans into darker, avant-garde-tinged directions, but it was also a huge hit, generating the Top Ten single "Golden Years." The album inaugurated Bowie's persona of the elegant "Thin White Duke," and it reflected Bowie's growing cocaine-fueled paranoia. Soon, he decided Los Angeles was too boring and returned to England; shortly after arriving back in London, he gave the awaiting crowd a Nazi salute, a signal of his growing, drug-addled detachment from reality. The incident caused enormous controversy, and Bowie left the country to settle in Berlin, where he lived and worked with Brian Eno.
Once in Berlin, Bowie sobered up and began painting, as well as studying art. He also developed a fascination with German electronic music, which Eno helped him fulfill on their first album together, Low. Released early in 1977, Low was a startling mixture of electronics, pop, and avant-garde technique. While it was greeted with mixed reviews at the time, it proved to be one of the most influential albums of the late '70s, as did its follow-up, Heroes, which followed that year. Not only did Bowie record two solo albums in 1977, but he also helmed Iggy Pop's comeback records The Idiot and Lust for Life, and toured anonymously as Pop's keyboardist. He resumed his acting career in 1977, appearing in Just a Gigolo with Marlene Dietrich and Kim Novak, as well as narrating Eugene Ormandy's version of Peter and the Wolf. Bowie returned to the stage in 1978, launching an international tour that was captured on the double-album Stage. In 1979, Bowie and Eno recorded Lodger in New York, Switzerland, and Berlin, releasing the album at the end of the year. Lodger was supported with several innovative videos, as was 1980's Scary Monsters, and these videos -- "DJ," "Fashion," "Ashes to Ashes" -- became staples on early MTV.
Scary Monsters was Bowie's last album for RCA, and it wrapped up his most innovative, productive period. Later in 1980, he performed the title role in the stage production of The Elephant Man, including several shows on Broadway. Over the next two years, he took an extended break from recording, appearing in Christiane F (1981) and the vampire movie The Hunger (1982), returning to the studio only for his 1981 collaboration with Queen, "Under Pressure," and the theme for Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People. In 1983, he signed an expensive contract with EMI Records and released Let's Dance. Bowie had recruited Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers to produce the album, giving the record a sleek, funky foundation, and hired the unknown Stevie Ray Vaughan as lead guitarist. Let's Dance became his most successful record, thanks to its stylish, innovative videos for "Let's Dance" and "China Girl," which turned both songs into Top Ten hits. Bowie supported the record with the sold-out arena tour Serious Moonlight.
Greeted with massive success for the first time, Bowie wasn't quite sure how to react, and he eventually decided to replicate Let's Dance with 1984's Tonight. While the album sold well, producing the Top Ten hit "Blue Jean," it received poor reviews and was ultimately a commercial disappointment. He stalled in 1985, recording a duet of Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" with Mick Jagger for Live Aid. He also spent more time jet-setting, appearing at celebrity events across the globe, and appeared in several movies -- Into the Night (1985), Absolute Beginners (1986), Labyrinth (1986) -- that turned out to be bombs. Bowie returned to recording in 1987 with the widely panned Never Let Me Down, supporting the album with the Glass Spider tour, which also received poor reviews. In 1989, he remastered his RCA catalog with Rykodisc for CD release, kicking off the series with the three-disc box Sound + Vision. Bowie supported the discs with an accompanying tour of the same name, claiming that he was retiring all of his older characters from performance following the tour. Sound + Vision was successful, and Ziggy Stardust re-charted amidst the hoopla.
Sound + Vision may have been a success, but Bowie's next project was perhaps his most unsuccessful. Picking up on the abrasive, dissonant rock of Sonic Youth and the Pixies, Bowie formed his own guitar rock combo, Tin Machine, with guitarist Reeves Gabrels, bassist Hunt Sales, and Hunt's brother, drummer Tony, who had previously worked on Iggy Pop's Lust for Life with Bowie. Tin Machine released an eponymous album to poor reviews that summer and supported it with a club tour, which was only moderately successful. Despite the poor reviews, Tin Machine released a second album, the appropriately titled Tin Machine II, in 1991, and it was completely ignored.
Bowie returned to a solo career in 1993 with the sophisticated, soulful Black Tie White Noise, recording the album with Nile Rodgers and his by-then-permanent collaborator, Reeves Gabrels. The album was released on Savage, a subsidiary of RCA, and received positive reviews, but his new label went bankrupt shortly after its release, and the album disappeared. Black Tie White Noise was the first indication that Bowie was trying hard to resuscitate his career, as was the largely instrumental 1994 soundtrack The Buddha of Suburbia. In 1995, he reunited with Brian Eno for the wildly hyped, industrial rock-tinged Outside. Several critics hailed the album as a comeback, and Bowie supported it with a co-headlining tour with Nine Inch Nails in order to snag a younger, alternative audience, but his gambit failed; audiences left before Bowie's performance and Outside disappeared. He quickly returned to the studio in 1996, recording Earthling, an album heavily influenced by techno and drum'n'bass. Upon its early 1997 release, Earthling received generally positive reviews, yet the album failed to gain an audience, and many techno purists criticized Bowie for allegedly exploiting their subculture. hours... followed in 1999. In 2002, Bowie reunited with producer Toni Visconti and released Heathen to very positive reviews. He continued on with Visconti for Reality in 2003, which was once again warmly received.
Bowie supported Reality with a lengthy tour but it came to a halt in the summer of 2004 when he received an emergency angioplasty while in Hamburg, Germany. Following this health scare, Bowie quietly retreated from the public eye. Over the next few years, he popped up at the occasional charity concert or gala event and he sometimes sang in the studio for other artists (notably he appeared on Scarlett Johansson's Tom Waits tribute Anywhere I Lay My Head in 2008). Archival releases appeared but no new recordings did until he suddenly ended his unofficial retirement on his 66th birthday on January 8, 2013, releasing a new single called "Where Are We Now?" and announcing the arrival of a new album. Entitled The Next Day and once again produced by Visconti, the album was released in March of 2013. Greeted with generally positive reviews, The Next Day debuted at either number one or two throughout the world, earning gold certifications in many countries.
The following year, Bowie released a new compilation called Nothing Has Changed, which featured the new song "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)." This song turned out to be the cornerstone of Bowie's next project, Blackstar. Arriving on January 8, 2016, the album found Bowie re-teaming with Tony Visconti and exploring adventurous territory, as signaled by its lead single, "Blackstar." Just two days after its release, it was announced that David Bowie had died from liver cancer. In a Facebook post, Tony Visconti revealed that Bowie knew of his illness for at least 18 months and created Blackstar as "his parting gift." It topped several national charts -- including the Billboard 200, which made it his first number one album in the U.S. By the autumn of 2016, posthumous projects began to surface, including Who Can I Be Now? -- a collection of his mid-'70s albums that functioned as a sequel to the previous year's box set Five Years -- and the release of the cast recording to Lazarus, the Broadway musical he completed in his final years. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
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Any direct route from New York state to Wisconsin transects which Canadian province? | David Bowie | Rolling Stone
artists > D > David Bowie > Bio
David Bowie Bio
A consummate musical chameleon, David Bowie has been a folksinger, androgyne, alien, decadent, blue-eyed soul man, art-rocker and a modern pop star, with each persona spawning a new league of imitators. His late-Seventies collaborations with Brian Eno made Bowie one of the few older stars to be taken seriously by the new wave. In the Eighties Bowie followed the mainstream pop smash Let's Dance (Number One, 1983) with numerous attempts to keep up with current trends. In the Nineties, that meant embracing grunge, industrial rock, rap and dance music, to varying degrees of success. But by then Bowie's place in history was secure: This is a man who did for pretensions what Jimi Hendrix did for electric guitar.
Bowie — born David Jones on January 8th, 1947 in London — took up the saxophone at age 13, and when he left Bromley Technical High School (where a friend permanently paralyzed his left pupil in a fight) to work as a commercial artist three years later, he had started playing in bands (the Konrads, the King Bees, David Jones and the Buzz). Three of Jones' early bands — the King Bees, the Manish Boys (featuring session guitarist Jimmy Page), and Davey Jones and the Lower Third — each recorded a single. He changed his name to David Bowie (after the knife) to avoid confusion with the Monkees' Davy Jones, and in 1966 recorded three singles for Pye Records; the following year he signed with Deram, issuing several singles and The World of David Bowie (most of the songs from that album, and others from that time, were collected on Images 1966-67).
On those early records, Bowie appears in the singer-songwriter mold. In 1967 he spent a few weeks at a Buddhist monastery in Scotland, then apprenticed in Lindsay Kemp's avant-garde theater and mime troupe and in 1968 started his own troupe, Feathers. American-born Angela Barnett met Bowie in London's Speakeasy and married him on March 20, 1970. (Son Zowie, now Joey, was born in June 1971; the couple divorced acrimoniously in 1980.) After Feathers broke up, Bowie helped start the experimental Beckenham Arts Lab in 1969. To finance the project, he signed with Mercury. Man of Words, Man of Music included "Space Oddity," which the album would later be re-titled after the single's release was timed to coincide with the U.S. moon landing. It became a European hit that year but did not make the U.S. charts until its rerelease in 1973, when it reached Number 15.
Marc Bolan, an old friend, was beginning his rise as a glitter-rock star in T. Rex and introduced Bowie to his producer, Tony Visconti. Bowie mimed at some T. Rex concerts, and Bolan played guitar on Bowie's "Karma Man" and "The Prettiest Star." Bowie, Visconti, guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer John Cambridge toured briefly as Hype. Ronson eventually recruited drummer Michael "Woody" Woodmansey, and with Visconti on bass they recorded The Man Who Sold the World, which included "All the Madmen," inspired by Bowie's institutionalized brother, Terry. Hunky Dory (Number 93, 1972), Bowie's tribute to the New York City pop-art scene of Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan, included the song that would become Bowie's theme, "Changes" (Number 66, 1972, rereleased 1974, Number 41).
Bowie started changing his image in late 1971. He told Melody Maker he was gay in January 1972 and started work on a new theatrical production. Enter Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's projection of a doomed messianic rock star. Bowie became Ziggy; Ronson, Woodmansey and bassist Trevor Bolder became Ziggy's band, the Spiders From Mars. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (Number 75, 1972) and the rerelease of Man of Words as Space Oddity (Number 16, 1972) made Bowie the star he was portraying. The live show, with Bowie wearing futuristic costumes, makeup and bright orange hair (at a time when the rock-star uniform was jeans), was a sensation in London and New York. It took Aladdin Sane (Number 17, 1973) to break Bowie in the U.S. Bolan and other British glitter-rock performers barely made the Atlantic crossing, but Bowie emerged a star. He produced albums for Lou Reed (Transformer and its hit "Walk on the Wild Side") and Iggy and the Stooges (Raw Power) and wrote and produced Mott the Hoople's glitter anthem "All the Young Dudes."
In 1973 Bowie announced his retirement from live performing, disbanded the Spiders and sailed to Paris to record Pin Ups (Number 23, 1973), a mix of covers of mid-Sixties pop and deep-cut rock songs including the Easybeats "Friday on My Mind" and Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play." That same year, the 1980 Floor Show, an invitation-only concert with Bowie and guests Marianne Faithfull and the Troggs, was taped for broadcast on the TV program The Midnight Special. Meanwhile, Bowie worked on a musical adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 but was denied the rights by Orwell's widow. He rewrote the material as Diamond Dogs (Number Five, 1974) and returned to the stage with an extravagant American tour.
Midway though the tour, Bowie entered Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios (then the capital of black music) and recorded the tracks that would become Young Americans (Number Nine, 1975). The session had a major effect on Bowie, as his sound and show were revised. Bowie scrapped the dancers, sets and costumes for a spare stage and baggy Oxford trousers; he cut his hair and colored it a more natural blond. His new band, led by former James Brown sideman Carlos Alomar, added soul standards (like Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood") to his repertoire, and included a young Luther Vandross (who cowrote "Fascination" with Bowie) on back-up vocals. David Live (Number Eight, 1974), also recorded in Philadelphia, chronicles this incarnation.
"Fame," cowritten by Bowie, Almoar and John Lennon, was Bowie's first American Number One single (1975). Bowie moved to L.A. and became a fixture of American pop culture. He played the title role in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth in 1976; the same year, he released Station to Station (Number Three, 1976), another album of "plastic soul" recorded with the Young Americans band, portrayed Bowie as the Thin White Duke (also the title of his unpublished autobiography). His highest charting album, Station to Station contained his second Top 10 single, "Golden Years" (Number 10, 1975). Bowie complained life had become predictable and left L.A. He returned to the U.K. for the first time in three years before settling in Berlin, where he lived in semiseclusion, painting, studying art and recording with Brian Eno.
Bowie's work with Eno — Low (Number 11, 1977), "Heroes" (Number 35, 1977) and Lodger (Number 20, 1979) — was distinguished by its appropriation of avant-garde electronic music and the "cut-up" technique, a concept made famous by author William Burroughs. (Composer Philip Glass wrote a symphony incorporating music from Low in 1993.) Bowie revitalized Iggy Pop's career by producing The Idiot and Lust for Life (both 1977) and toured Europe and America with Pop unannounced as the singer's pianist. Bowie narrated Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra's recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and spent the rest of 1977 acting with Marlene Dietrich and Kim Novak in Just a Gigolo. The next year, he embarked on a massive world tour. A second live album, Stage (Number 44, 1978), was recorded on the U.S. leg of the tour. Work on Lodger was begun in New York, continued in Switzerland and completed in Berlin.
Bowie settled in New York to record the paranoiac Scary Monsters (Number 12, 1980), updating "Space Oddity" in "Ashes to Ashes." One of the first stars to understand the potential of video, he produced some innovative clips for songs from Lodger and Scary Monsters. After that album, Bowie turned his attention away from his recording career. In 1980 he played the title role in The Elephant Man, appearing in Denver, in Chicago and on Broadway. He collaborated with Queen on 1981's "Under Pressure" and provided lyrics and vocals for "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" (Number 67, 1982), Giorgio Moroder's title tune for the soundtrack of Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People. His music was used on the soundtrack of Christiane F (1982), and he also appeared in the film. That year, Bowie also starred in the BBC-TV production of Brecht's Baal, and as a 150-year-old vampire in the movie The Hunger.
In 1983 Bowie signed one of the most lucrative contracts in history and moved from RCA to EMI. Let's Dance (Number Four, 1983), his first album in three years, returned him to the top of the charts. Produced by Nile Rodgers with Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar, the album was a slick revision of Bowie's soul-man posture. It contained three Top 20 singles — "Let's Dance" (Number One, 1983), "China Girl" (Number 10, 1983) and "Modern Love" (Number 14, 1983) — which were supported with another set of innovative videos, all staples of early MTV; the sold-out Serious Moonlight Tour followed. Bowie's music career was revitalized.
But what first seemed like a return to form actually ushered in a period of mediocrity. Without Rodgers' production savvy, Bowie's material sounded increasingly forced and hollow; his attention alternated between albums and film roles. Tonight (Number 11, 1984) had only one hit, "Blue Jean" (Number Eight, 1984). Bowie and Mick Jagger dueted on a lame cover of Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street" (Number Seven, 1985) for Live Aid. Although Never Let Me Down (Number 34, 1987), with Peter Frampton on guitar, was roundly criticized, it made the charts with "Day In, Day Out" (Number 21, 1987) and the title song (Number 27, 1987). Bowie hit the road with another stadium extravaganza, the Glass Spiders Tour; it was recorded for an ABC-TV special. He had scarcely better luck in his acting career: Into the Night (1985), Absolute Beginners (1986) — a Julien Temple musical featuring some Bowie songs — Labyrinth (1986), The Linguini Incident (1992) and Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me (1992) were neither critical nor commercial successes.
Bowie set about reissuing his earlier albums on CD. Sound + Vision (Number 97, 1989), a box-set overview, and ChangesBowie (Number 39, 1990), a revamped version of an earlier greatest hits album on a single disc, revived interest in Bowie's career. The set list for the accompanying tour was partially based on fan response to special phone lines requesting favorite Bowie songs. Bowie claimed it would be the last time he performed those songs live. Later reissues, with previously unreleased bonus tracks, brought the Ziggy-era Bowie back into popularity.
Bowie formed Tin Machine in 1989. The band included Bowie discovery Reeves Gabrels on guitar and Hunt and Tony Sales (sons of comedian Soupy Sales), who had worked with Bowie on Iggy Pop's Lust for Life album and tour in the Seventies. Although Bowie claimed the band was a democracy, Tin Machine was perceived as Bowie's next project. The group debuted with a series of club dates in New York and L.A., followed by an album, Tin Machine (Number 28, 1989), which was a rougher, more guitar-oriented collection than any of Bowie's previous albums. Tin Machine II (Number 126, 1991), lacked the novelty of the debut and was quickly forgotten.
In 1992 Bowie married Somalian supermodel Iman. Black Tie White Noise (Number 39, 1993), which Bowie called his wedding present to his wife, received decent reviews but failed to excite the public. For a follow-up, Bowie reunited with Brian Eno to create Outside - The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper Cycle, a concept album of sorts that did not create much in the way of sales, although Bowie did tour the States with Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails opening. The Buddha in Suburbia is the music from the British television show of the same name; Lenny Kravitz appears on guitar.
Bowie celebrated his 50th birthday in January 1997 with a sold-out gig at Madison Square Garden, where he was joined onstage by Lou Reed, the Cure's Robert Smith, Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Frank Black, the Foo Fighters and Sonic Youth.
In early 1997 Bowie was again on the cutting edge — this time in the financial world. In a complicated transaction that was a first, something called Bowie Bonds were offered for sale. These asset-backed bonds (in this case the assets are the royalties on Bowie's songs recorded prior to 1990) allowed Bowie to collect $55 million. The sale of the bonds came on the eve of the release of Earthling, which incorporated the electronic-dance style drum-and-bass into a basically rock sound and received mixed reviews. By the end of the year a Reznor remix of the track "I'm Afraid of Americans" was receiving video and Modern Rock radio airplay. Reznor had inserted some keyboard and guitar textures into the edgy song (cowritten with Eno), and a rap by Ice Cube. Hours . . . (1999) was not a particularly well-received album but was notable for expanding Bowie's early and enthusiastic advocacy of the Internet; the entire album was available for download weeks before its official release and contained a song available only online. That year Bowie also appeared in, and contributed a soundtrack to, the videogame Omikron: The Nomad Soul.
In 2002, Bowie reunited with Tony Visconti to record Heathen, featuring a cover of the Pixies' "Cactus." He also put together an annual edition of London's Meltdown Festival, at which Bowie performed 1977's Low in its entirety. A year later, he released Reality, and while touring behind it had a minor heart attack onstage in Germany, brought on by heavy smoking; Bowie fully recuperated. Some of his more famous songs appeared on the soundtrack for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in 2004, both in Bowie's original versions and in updated renditions by Brazilian singer Seu Jorge, who translated the lyrics to Portuguese.
Bowie curried favor with the new generation of indie rockers by appearing onstage with the Arcade Fire and singing on TV on the Radio's 2006 album Return to Cookie Mountain; that year he also received a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 2008 he contributed vocals to actor Scarlett Johansson's Anywhere I Lay My Head, her album of Tom Waits covers. The following year he released iSELECT, a random collection of his favorite songs from his own albums that included only one well-known hit, "Life on Mars."
In 2013, Bowie put out his first album in a decade, The Next Day , which went to Number One on the U.K. chart and Number Two in the States. He had recorded the LP in secret and announced its existence on his birthday that year. The artist's last theatrical foray was the 2015 off-Broadway play Lazarus , which starred Michael C. Hall and continued the story of Newton from The Man Who Fell to Earth. Along with songs from throughout Bowie's career, it also featured new tunes.
David Bowie died after a long battle with cancer at the age 69. Two days before his death, the singer put out ★ ( pronounced "Blackstar" ), this time on his birthday. The record reflected the ever-evolving artist's interest in jazz and hip-hop. "We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar," producer Tony Visconti told Rolling Stone of the recording sessions. "We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn't do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that's exactly what we wanted to do. The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock & roll."
After his unexpected death, there was a huge outpouring of grief and disbelief from his fans and musicians around the globe, since few had been aware of his health issues up until that point. Many tribute and concerts ensued, and Bowie's final recordings were planned for the Lazarus cast album .The three tracks – "No Plan," "Killing a Little Time" and "When I Met You" – originally appeared in the musical, where the production's cast performed them. Lazarus Cast Album's second disc features Bowie's own versions of these three tracks, recorded along with the same jazz troupe, led by saxophonist Donny McCaslin, that featured on Blackstar. Bowie's album version of "Lazarus" is also included. A London production of Lazarus was set to open in October 2016 .
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Mark Kemp and Kory Grow contributed to this article.
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In 1886 Franz von Soxhlet suggested that which wine process could be applied to milk? | All About Raw Milk | Paleo Leap
All About Raw Milk
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After the recent trial of Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger, raw milk is in the political spotlight again: is it healthy? Is it safe? Raw milk advocates insist that pasteurization destroys the nutritional value of milk, while critics fire back with dire statistics about E. Coli and Campylobacter infections.
From an evolutionary perspective, a more fundamental question is whether any kind of dairy, pasteurized or not, is healthy. It definitely wasn’t around in the Paleolithic. Aurochs, the first animals that resembled modern cows, were domesticated in Mesopotamia around the time of the agricultural revolution. But the fact that something didn’t exist in the caveman days doesn’t necessarily prove that it’s unhealthy ; it’s just a sign to proceed with caution.
Dairy in general is covered in another article ; essentially, it’s a gray area food that has to be an individual decision. Some people can’t digest it at all, or notice that it triggers acne flares. Not everyone has a problem with it, though, and if you tolerate it well, it can add variety and nutrients (especially calcium and high-quality fats) to your diet. And in that case, the raw milk debate is highly relevant.
In This Article:
Conclusion and Further Reading
A Brief History of Milk Processing
The first records of milk consumption range from 8,000-10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent to 6500 BC in Turkey to approximately 5,000 BC in Africa . Some of these cultures ate only fermented dairy products (kefir, yogurt, and cheese); others drank milk directly. In the Americas, dairy arrived much later, with the first waves of European explorers in the 1500s. All these groups were drinking raw, unpasteurized milk. But what they (and the many superbly healthy raw-milk-drinking cultures documented by Dr. Weston A. Price ) all had in common was a very short path from the cow to the table.
In the late 1700s, the social and economic changes of the Industrial Revolution stretched that short supply line into a long, tangled, and astonishingly unsanitary trail. As cities grew, milk had to be carted in from the country. Starting off dubiously clean cans, it was brought in on unrefrigerated wagons or train cars (sometimes piled in dirty ice, sometimes with no effort at all to keep it cold), processed in a dairy plant, poured into bottles that may or may not have been cleaned properly, and dropped off on people’s doorsteps in the early morning to sit there until they woke up and went outside to get it. One researcher estimated that milk could sometimes spend up to 48 hours, unrefrigerated, before it reached the consumer.
It would be hard to design a more dangerous distribution system short of pouring E. Coli directly into the milk bottles as they left the plant. Unsurprisingly, milk-borne diseases, including tuberculosis, typhoid, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, were endemic in major industrial areas.
This was the state of the milk industry in 1856, when a French scientist named Louis Pasteur made a scientific breakthrough that would eventually change the entire milk production system. Pasteur discovered that by cooking any food to a certain temperature for a certain time, a process he called pasteurization, he could kill the bacteria in it. Pasteur’s original experiments were done on wine, but in 1886, a German chemist named Franz von Soxhlet recommended purifying milk for baby food by the same method.
Wherever pasteurization was introduced, it showed immediate benefit, especially among infants. Just to give one example, a French researcher named Pierre Budin studied diarrheal illnesses among Parisian babies in the 1890s, and found that breast-fed babies died at a much lower rate than bottle-fed babies, especially during the summer, when it was hardest to keep milk cool. But among babies who received pasteurized cows’ milk at Budin’s clinic, summer mortality was extremely low (in some years, zero). This indicated that the raw milk-fed babies weren’t dying from lack of essential nutrients in breast milk, but from pathogens in the contaminated cows’ milk they were drinking.
Despite this evidence, pasteurization didn’t become widespread for decades. Many people distrusted it . In fact, the arguments raised at the time sound a lot like those of the raw milk movement today. Some doctors worried that heating the milk would destroy its nutritional value (especially its ability to fight scurvy, which we now know is due to Vitamin C). Other arguments were more economic, claiming that pasteurization would reduce incentives for farmers to produce clean milk or treat their herds well. Some people simply claimed that pasteurized milk was “not natural,” or “dead,” without specifying precisely what they meant.
The critics were vocal, but the infant mortality statistics were louder: in the United States, first Chicago (1909) and then New York City (1914) made pasteurization mandatory. The results were dramatic: New York City’s infant mortality rate dropped from 24% to just over 7% in 7 years. In 1912 book The Milk Question , one doctor summarized the debate: “Theoretically pasteurization should not be necessary. Practically we find it forced upon us” (229).
Pasteurization became a national norm in the United States in the 1920s and 30s. Today, there are several different types:
Low Temperature, Long Time (LTLT) pasteurization (also called vat or batch pasteurization) is Pasteur’s original method. It requires heating milk to at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit (63 C) for at least 30 minutes.
High Temperature Short Time (HTST) pasteurization involves a more complicated mechanical process that heats the milk to at least 162 degrees Fahrenheit (72 C) for at least 15 seconds. This is the most commonly used method today.
Ultra-High Temperature (UHT) pasteurization heats the milk to 280 degrees Fahrenheight (138 C) for at least 2 seconds.
After brushing up on the history and the terminology of the raw milk debate, it’s time to get into the arguments on both sides – were the skeptics justified all along? Or is this one of those rare but important instances where biotechnology is actually in the right?
The Safety Debate: Hygiene
Within the category of food safety, it’s very clear to both sides that raw milk produced under anything but the most sanitary conditions is out. Factory-farmed raw milk would be completely unacceptable to even the most vocal opponents of pasteurization.
Moving on to a product that’s actually debatable (raw milk from pastured, well-treated cows milked in a hygienic environment), the topic gets a little more heated. The dangers of tuberculosis are largely a problem of the past, since herds are now rigorously inspected and vaccinated. Today, the most serious concerns revolve around other pathogens, most importantly E. Coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Listeria.
Reasonably enough, raw milk advocates argue that the food safety problems of the industrial revolution don’t have any bearing on life in the modern world, where milk is kept cold and stored in clean, sterilized containers. Theoretically, milk from healthy cows is almost entirely sterile when it comes out the udder, so as long as it’s handled and stored safely at every point, it shouldn’t be more dangerous than any other food. Proponents of raw milk also claim that the milk has powerful anti-microbial properties that slow or prevent the multiplication of pathogens.
The counterargument from opponents is simple and just as reasonable: cows are not sterile. Perfectly antiseptic conditions are impossible to achieve with any degree of consistency. And even if the entire operation is completely antiseptic, pathogens can still enter the milk from the cow herself, if she has an infection. Since sick cows don’t always look the part, it’s not always possible for the farmer to tell when this is occurring.
The Safety Debate: Statistics
Next up is the numbers debate: what do health and safety statistics actually tell us about raw dairy products? For the most part, they reveal that raw milk is an extremely contentious political issue: there isn’t even agreement on exactly what the numbers are, much less what they mean. To simplify the question a little, it’s possible to divide the “statistics wars” into three major questions:
How many people get sick from drinking raw milk?
About 3% of the US population (approximately 316,000,000) drinks raw milk, so raw milk drinkers number approximately 9,480,000. According to the CDC’s numbers , between 1998 and 2011, 79% of dairy-related illnesses were caused by raw dairy (148 outbreaks total, which caused 2,384 illnesses, 284 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths).
These numbers are disputed by raw milk advocates, who argue that in many cases, illnesses are wrongfully attributed to raw milk. They also criticize the CDC for inflating the statistics with data from a type of homemade cheese called queso fresco that’s often produced under extremely unsanitary conditions, which are more likely responsible for the disease than the milk itself.
How does raw milk compare to pasteurized milk?
To really get a handle on the relative safety of raw milk, it’s important to look at the data from pasteurized milk as well. Using data gathered between from 2000 and 2007, the CDC claims that the risk of raw milk is 150 times higher than the risk of pasteurized milk. But after crunching the numbers for himself , and including a few outbreak reports that the CDC inexplicably left out, Chris Kresser concluded that the real risk is just over 9 times higher for raw milk, not nearly as big of a gap.
What do these statistics mean for me personally?
Above and beyond the question of what the numbers exactly are is the problem of what they actually mean. Raw milk advocates point to the extremely low rates of food contamination from any kind of dairy products (about 1% of all foodborne illness), pointing out that you’re more likely to get sick from spinach, deli meat, or all kinds of other food not regulated as “dangerous.” Since the total risk is so tiny, the slight increase in risk from raw dairy doesn’t mean much. The CDC sees the danger of raw milk, however small, as completely avoidable and therefore an unreasonable risk to run: why would you take the chance?
There are so many aspects of the statistical arguments that it’s impossible to go over them all here. But if you decide to read up on your own, remember to pay close attention to how many years the numbers are from (data sets from 20 or 30 years have more impressive-looking total numbers), who was gathering the information, and what kind of data set they used. Also bear in mind that the vast majority of foodborne illness goes unreported, so even the best statistics we have are really just educated guesses.
The Nutrition Debate: Before you Read the Studies
Before getting into nutritional arguments over raw vs. pasteurized milk, it’s important to be on the lookout for potential confounding factors. There are two big ones:
All raw milk today is grass-fed, and grass-fed milk is more nutritious than factory-farmed milk, regardless of whether or not it’s been pasteurized. It’s nutritionally, economically, environmentally, and socially better to buy food directly from a farmer instead of supporting industrial agriculture, but these benefits apply to pasteurized grass-fed milk as well; they aren’t exclusive to raw dairy.
Almost all raw milk is full-fat. This increases absorption of fat-soluble vitamins in the milk, but again, the benefit would also apply to full-fat pasteurized milk.
With that in mind, it’s time to dig into the evidence on both sides.
The Nutrition Debate: Vitamins and Minerals
One argument from the raw-milk side is that pasteurization destroys essential vitamins and minerals naturally found in raw milk. Here’s a list of the nutrients involved, and what each side says about them (Unless otherwise specified, data for the anti-raw-milk side is taken from this meta-analysis of related studies):
Vitamin C – Different studies have found that between 10 and 50% of the Vitamin C in raw milk is destroyed during pasteurization. This sounds alarming, but it’s a lot less significant if you look at the absolute amount: it’s tiny. Even raw milk doesn’t significantly contribute to dietary Vitamin C, so the decrease is unlikely to affect your total vitamin status for the day.
B Vitamins – Like Vitamin C, B Vitamins are water-soluble. Conventional nutrition authorities and raw milk activists agree that these vitamins are decreased slightly (approximately 10%, depending on temperature and time) by pasteurization. However, advocates of pasteurization argue that in most cases this is not significant because milk contains such small amounts of B vitamins, with the exception of B12 (also found in many other foods) and B2. Vitamin B2 was the only nutrient that gave the authors of the meta-analysis cause for concern, because milk significantly contributes to many people’s intake.
Fat-soluble vitamins (A, E, and K) – Some advocates for raw dairy claim that these nutrients are decreased by up to two-thirds by pasteurization. In the meta-analysis, the authors concluded that results were conflicting for Vitamin A (some studies reported an increase and others reported a decrease). Vitamin E was decreased, but since the amount of Vitamin E in milk is nearly insignificant, they argued that it didn’t matter. Whole milk of any kind will increase absorption of these nutrients, but that’s because of the fat content, not the pasteurization.
Copper – A 1994 study found that copper is very slightly decreased during the pasteurization process. But again, supporters of pasteurization point out that milk hardly contains much copper to begin with.
Iron – Iron, like copper, is also slightly decreased by pasteurization. But like copper, it’s also not a major factor in milk’s nutritional value.
Calcium – raw dairy advocates claim that calcium is made insoluble by the heat of the pasteurization process, so it’s less absorbable. The FDA responds that published studies demonstrate no change in the bioavailability of calcium from pasteurized (or homogenized) milk.
The Nutrition Debate: Amino Acids
Another point of contention concerning raw milk is its proteins , or amino acids. Opponents of pasteurization argue that the heat denatures the amino acids in milk, making it much more difficult to digest and destroying some of its health-promoting properties.
Some of these proteins aid in the digestion and absorption of nutrients; for example, lactoferrin helps absorb iron. Others are credited with benefits for the immune system. Supporting this claim, a few epidemiological studies have suggested that raw milk might have be better than pasteurized milk in preventing asthma and allergies, a benefit that the researchers speculated could be due to the whey protein .
Supporters of pasteurization respond that according to all the studies we have, only ultra-high pasteurization temperatures denature these proteins: at best, these arguments are evidence that the most extreme forms of pasteurization slightly diminish the nutritional content of milk (see this chart for specifics).
Enzymes are another class of proteins relevant to the milk debate. Essentially enzymes are necessary for any kind of chemical reaction, including digestion. When milk is heated during pasteurization, the enzymes in the milk are degraded: nobody argues about that. Raw milk drinkers contend that this makes the milk much harder to digest, because your body has to supply all the enzymes for digesting it, rather than getting a hand from the milk itself. On the other hand, the CDC position is that it doesn’t any health difference, because the enzymes in raw cow’s milk aren’t relevant to human digestion anyway.
Another enzyme argument centers on lactose (milk sugar) and lactase (the enzyme needed to digest it). Proponents of raw milk often argue that even lactose-intolerant people can digest it, because bacteria in the raw milk produce lactase. There are plenty of anecdotal reports of lactose-intolerant people who can enjoy raw milk just fine, and a 2010 study from Stanford University was even funded by the Weston A. Price foundation to research the issue. Disappointingly for their sponsors, the researchers found that people with diagnosed lactose intolerance saw no difference at all between the raw and pasteurized versions.
In response, the study’s funders pointed to the small sample size (just 16 people), and noted the study’s efforts to find subjects who were “truly” lactose intolerant might have excluded the very group that sees benefits from raw milk: people who get sick when they consume lactose, but have an issue different from the clinical definition of “lactose intolerance.”
The Nutrition Debate: Probiotics
Getting past the unscientific and unquantifiable claims about “live foods” and “dead foods,” many people feel that raw milk has unique health benefits because of its probiotic content, which allows it to resist (but not entirely prevent) microbial infections. This has already been touched on a little above, in the discussion of bacteria that produce lactose. But the health benefits claimed for raw milk also include the benefits of any other probiotic food: better gut health , a stronger immune system , and easier digestion, among others.
Critics answer that the probiotic benefits of raw milk have never been proven in clinical trials, and that safely collected milk should have very few bacteria at all, since it’s sterile when it leaves the udder. If it’s picked up any bacteria along the way, they would be dangerous pathogens, not beneficial probiotics.
Food Politics
Quite aside from the issue of whether raw milk is good for you or not is the political aspect . Many people feel that everyone has the right to drink whatever they like, free from governmental interference. Even if raw milk is dangerous, why is risking your health with one toxin (trans fats) perfectly legal, while risking your health with a different toxin (E. Coli) is not?
Opponents argue that if raw milk were available everywhere in grocery stores, people might just pick it up off the shelf without a clear understanding of the risks and benefits. As it is, the complicated patchwork of raw milk laws across the United States requires quite a bit of research in most places, so anyone who manages to find a raw dairy producer has at least some understanding of what they’re buying.
Choosing Milk: A Spectrum of Options
If the arguments for raw milk sound convincing to you, your only major decision left is where to get it. But if you’re not quite certain that it’s actually healthy, or if you just want to hedge your bets, there is a middle ground between drinking straight from the cow and lugging home a gallon of whatever’s on sale at Walgreens. Arranged roughly from “most raw” to “least raw,” your compromise options are:
Buy raw milk and freeze it. Raw dairy farmers seem to be somewhat split on whether freezing raw milk affects its nutritional value, but freezing the milk for 2 weeks before consuming it is one way to reduce the risk of bacterial contamination without heat treatment.
Buy raw milk and pasteurize it yourself . This allows you to use the most gentle process, low-temperature, long-time (LTLT) pasteurization. Ultra high-temperature pasteurization is popular because it saves money for dairy producers by giving the milk a longer shelf life, not because it fights any common pathogens that can’t be killed by Pasteur’s original method. The lower temperature is gentler and preserves more of the nutrients in the milk.
Buy LTLT pasteurized, non-homogenized milk. If you aren’t interested in making it yourself, you can get LTLT pasteurized (also called vat-pasteurized or batch-pasteurized) milk from a local farmer, and sometimes even at Whole Foods, depending on where you live. Homogenization is a topic for another article, but it’s another step in milk processing that raw milk advocates criticize as dangerous. Basically, it’s the process of mechanically splitting the milk fat into smaller particles, so the cream doesn’t separate to the top, done mostly for aesthetic reasons and not safety or health. Often, the same small farms that produce LTLT milk don’t homogenize it.
Buy pasteurized and/or homogenized milk, but always ferment it. One of the arguments for raw milk as opposed to pasteurized is that the raw version contains valuable probiotic bacteria – but you can grow those bacteria just as well in pasteurized milk and be more secure in the knowledge that there isn’t anything dangerous growing along with them.
Of course, in all of these cases, grass-fed milk is superior to grain-fed, and full-fat dairy is more nutritious than skimmed.
Conclusion and Further Reading
The point of this article isn’t to persuade you either to start or to stop drinking any kind of milk. Whether or not you find the potential benefits worth the potential risks is a completely individual choice. The only take-home message here is this: do your research. And do it very carefully. Don’t just look up the evidence you already agree with, even though it’s very tempting (it always feels good to see someone else justifying your opinions). Go find the arguments for the other side, and read them with an open mind, and then decide what position seems most convincing to you. Ultimately, you’ll be much healthier for it, and you might just learn something along the way.
If you want to read more, the most outspoken advocates of raw milk are from the Weston A. Price Foundation. The Campaign for Real Milk , largely supported by WAPF research, makes a passionate case for the safety and nutritional benefits of raw milk.
For the arguments against raw milk, Real Raw Milk Facts is a great site with lots of useful information and several personal stories of parents whose children got very sick from eating raw milk – definitely worth a look even if you love raw milk and never plan to change.
P.S. Have a look at Paleo Restart , our 30-day program. It lets you jump into Paleo, lose weight and start feeling great.
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| Pasteurization |
'Paro' was the largest moai erected on which island? | pasteurization - 必应
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Pasteurization
Pasteurization (American English) which is also spelt pasteurisation (British English) is a process that kills bacteria in liquid food. It was invented by French scientist Louis Pasteur during the nineteenth century. In 1864, Pasteur discovered that heating beer and wine was enough to kill most of the bacteria that caused spoilage, preventing these beverages from turning sour. The process achieves this by eliminating pathogenic microbes and lowering microbial numbers to prolong the quality of the beverage. Today, pasteurisation is used widel ... (展开) y in the dairy and food industries for microbial control and preservation of food. Unlike sterilization, pasteurization is not intended to kill all micro-organisms in the food. Instead, it aims to reduce the number of viable pathogens so they are unlikely to cause disease (assuming the pasteurized product is stored as indicated and is consumed before its expiration date). Commercial-scale sterilization of food is not common because it adversely affects the taste and quality of the product. Certain foods, such as dairy products, may be superheated to ensure pathogenic microbes are destroyed.
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pasteurization history
本结果选自1075项相关网络资源
Before the widespread urban growth caused by industrialization, people kept dairy cows even in urban areas and the short time period between production and consumption minimized the disease risk of drinking raw milk. As urban densities increased and supply chains lengthened to the distance from coun...
来自 百度百科
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pasteurization of milk prevents illness from bacteria such as salmonella, listeria, e. coli鈥攁nd viruses such as hepatitis a. most milk sold in grocery stores is pasteurized.
本结果选自1075项相关网络资源
Milk is an excellent medium for microbial growth, and when stored at ambient temperature bacteria and other pathogens soon proliferate.
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says improperly handled raw milk is responsible for nearly three times more hospitalizations than any other food-borne disea...
In addition to inventing the process of pasteurization, what vaccine did Louis Pasteur create?
本结果选自321项相关网络资源
Older pasteurization methods used temperatures below boiling, since at very high temperatures, micelles of the milk protein casein irreversibly aggregate, or curdle. Newer methods use higher temperature, but shorten the time. Among the pasteurization methods listed below, the two main types of paste...
pasteurization is the process could kill most of pathogens and spoilage bacteria but retain probioti
本结果选自321项相关网络资源
Older pasteurization methods used temperatures below boiling, since at very high temperatures, micelles of the milk protein casein irreversibly aggregate, or curdle. Newer methods use higher temperature, but shorten the time. Among the pasteurization methods listed below, the two main types of paste...
The History of Pasteurization and Homogenization
本结果选自321项相关网络资源
Before the widespread urban growth caused by industrialization, people kept dairy cows even in urban areas and the short time period between production and consumption minimized the disease risk of drinking raw milk. As urban densities increased and supply chains lengthened to the distance from coun...
Pasteurization Alcoholic beverages
The process of heating wine for preservation purposes has been known in China since 1117, and was documented in Japan in the diary Tamonin-nikki, written by a series of monks between 1478 and 1618.
Much later, in 1768, an Italian priest and scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani proved experimentally that heat killed bacteria, and that they do not re-appear if the product is hermetically sealed. In 1795, a Parisian chef and confectioner named Nicolas Appert began experimenting with ways to preserve foodstuffs, succeeding with soups, vegetables, juices, dairy products, jellies, jams, and syrups. He placed the food in glass jars, sealed them with cork and sealing wax and placed them in boiling water. In that same year, the French military offered a cash prize of 12,000 francs for a new method to preserve food. After some 14 or 15 years of experimenting, Appert submitted his invention and won the prize in January 1810. Later that year, Appert published L'Art de conserver les substances animales et végétales (or The Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances). This was the first cookbook of its kind on modern food preservation methods.
La Maison Appert (English: The House of Appert), in the town of Massy, near Paris, became the first food-bottling factory in the world, preserving a variety of food in sealed bottles. Appert's method was to fill thick, large-mouthed glass bottles with produce of every description, ranging from beef and fowl to eggs, milk and prepared dishes. His greatest success for publicity was an entire sheep. He left air space at the top of the bottle, and the cork would then be sealed firmly in the jar by using a vise. The bottle was then wrapped in canvas to protect it, while it was dunked into boiling water and then boiled for as much time as Appert deemed appropriate for cooking the contents thoroughly. Appert patented his method, sometimes called in his honor appertisation.
Appert's method was so simple and workable that it quickly became widespread. In 1810, British inventor and merchant Peter Durand, also of French origin,[citation needed] patented his own method, but this time in a tin can, so creating the modern-day process of canning foods. In 1812, Englishmen Bryan Donkin and John Hall purchased both patents and began producing preserves. Just a decade later, Appert's method of canning had made its way to America. Tin can production was not common until the beginning of the 20th century, partly because a hammer and chisel were needed to open cans until the invention of a can opener by an inventor named Yates in 1855.
Appert's preservation by boiling involved heating the food to an unnecessarily high temperature, and for an unnecessarily long time, which could destroy some of the flavor of the preserved food.[citation needed]
A less aggressive method was developed by the French chemist Louis Pasteur during an 1864 summer holiday in Arbois. To remedy the frequent acidity of the local wines, he found out experimentally that it is sufficient to heat a young wine to only about 50–60 °C (122–140 °F) for a brief time to kill the microbes, and that the wine could subsequently be aged without sacrificing the final quality. In honour of Pasteur, the process became known as "pasteurization" Pasteurization was originally used as a way of preventing wine and beer from souring, and it would be many years before milk was pasteurized. In the United States in the 1870s, it was common for milk to contain contaminants to mask spoilage before milk was regulated.
Pasteurization Milk
Milk is an excellent medium for microbial growth, and when stored at ambient temperature bacteria and other pathogens soon proliferate.
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says improperly handled raw milk is responsible for nearly three times more hospitalizations than any other food-borne disease outbreak, making it one of the world's most dangerous food products. Diseases prevented by pasteurization can include tuberculosis, brucellosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and Q-fever; it also kills the harmful bacteria Salmonella, Listeria, Yersinia, Campylobacter, Staphylococcus aureus, and Escherichia coli O157:H7, among others.
Pasteurization is the reason for milk's extended shelf life. High-temperature, short-time (HTST) pasteurized milk typically has a refrigerated shelf life of two to three weeks, whereas ultra-pasteurized milk can last much longer, sometimes two to three months. When ultra-heat treatment (UHT) is combined with sterile handling and container technology (such as aseptic packaging), it can even be stored unrefrigerated for up to 9 months.
History
Before the widespread urban growth caused by industrialization, people kept dairy cows even in urban areas and the short time period between production and consumption minimized the disease risk of drinking raw milk. As urban densities increased and supply chains lengthened to the distance from country to city, raw milk (often days old) became recognised as a source of disease. For example, between 1912 and 1937 some 65,000 people died of tuberculosis contracted from consuming milk in England and Wales alone.
Developed countries adopted milk pasteurization to prevent such disease and loss of life, and as a result milk is now widely considered one of the safest foods. A traditional form of pasteurization by scalding and straining of cream to increase the keeping qualities of butter was practiced in England before 1773 and was introduced to Boston in the US by 1773, although it was not widely practiced in the United States for the next 20 years. It was still being referred to as a "new" process in American newspapers as late as 1802. Pasteurization of milk was suggested by Franz von Soxhlet in 1886. In the early 20th century, Milton Joseph Rosenau, established the standards (i.e. low temperature, slow heating at 60 °C (140 °F) for 20 minutes) for the pasteurization of milk, while at the United States Marine Hospital Service, notably in his publication of The Milk Question (1912).
Process
Older pasteurization methods used temperatures below boiling, since at very high temperatures, micelles of the milk protein casein irreversibly aggregate, or curdle. Newer methods use higher temperature, but shorten the time. Among the pasteurization methods listed below, the two main types of pasteurization used today are high-temperature, short-time (HTST, also known as "flash") and extended shelf life (ESL):
HTST milk is forced between metal plates or through pipes heated on the outside by hot water, and the milk is heated to 72 °C (161 °F) for 15 seconds.:8 Milk simply labeled "pasteurized" is usually treated with the HTST method.
UHT, also known as ultra-heat-treating, processing holds the milk at a temperature of 140 °C (284 °F) for four seconds. During UHT processing milk is sterilized and not pasteurized. This process lets consumers store milk or juice for several months without refrigeration. The process is achieved by spraying the milk or juice through a nozzle into a chamber filled with high-temperature steam under pressure. After the temperature reaches 140 °C the fluid is cooled instantly in a vacuum chamber, and packed in a pre-sterilized airtight container. Milk labeled "ultra-pasteurized" or simply "UHT" has been treated with the UHT method.
ESL milk has a microbial filtration step and lower temperatures than UHT milk. Since 2007, it is no longer a legal requirement in European countries (for example in Germany) to declare ESL milk as ultra-heated; consequently, it is now often labeled as "fresh milk" and just advertised as having an "extended shelf life," making it increasingly difficult to distinguish ESL milk from traditionally pasteurized fresh milk.
A less conventional, but US FDA-legal, alternative (typically for home pasteurization) is to heat milk at 63 °C (145 °F) for 30 minutes.
Pasteurization methods are usually standardized and controlled by national food safety agencies (such as the USDA in the United States and the Food Standards Agency in the United Kingdom). These agencies require that milk be HTST pasteurized to qualify for the pasteurized label. Dairy product standards differ, depending on fat content and intended usage. For example, pasteurization standards for cream differ from standards for fluid milk, and standards for pasteurizing cheese are designed to preserve the enzyme phosphatase, which aids cutting. In Canada, all milk produced at a processor and intended for consumption must be pasteurized, which legally requires that it be heated to at least 72 °C for at least 16 seconds, then cooling it to 4 °C to ensure any harmful bacteria are destroyed. The UK Dairy Products Hygiene Regulations 1995 requires that milk be heat treated for 15 seconds at 71.7 °C or other effective time/temperature combination.
A process similar to pasteurization is thermization, which uses lower temperatures to kill bacteria in milk. It allows a milk product, such as cheese, to retain more of the original taste, but thermized foods are not considered pasteurized by food regulators.
^ The Oxford English Dictionary; Oxford University Press 1981
^ "What is pasteurisation?".
^ Montville, T. J., and K. R. Matthews: "food microbiology an introduction", page 30. American Society for Microbiology Press, 2005.
^ Hornsey, Ian Spencer and George Bacon (2003). A History of Beer and Brewing. Royal Society of Chemistry. p.30. ISBN0-85404-630-5. […] sake is pasteurized and it is interesting to note that a pasteurization technique was first mentioned in 1568 in the _Tamonin-nikki_, the diary of a Buddhist monk, indicating that it was practiced in Japan some 300 years before Pasteur. In China, the first country in East Asia to develop a form of pasteurization, the earliest record of the process is said to date from 1117.
^ a b c Vallery-Radot, René (2003-03-01). Life of Pasteur 1928. pp.113–114. ISBN978-0-7661-4352-4.
^ a b c Lance Day, Ian McNeil, ed. (1996). Biographical Dictionary of the History of Technology. Routledge. ISBN0-415-19399-0.
^ Gordon L. Robertson (1998). Food Packaging: Principles End Practice. Marcel Dekker. p.187. ISBN978-0-8247-0175-8.
^ "''The First Book on Modern Food Preservation Methods (1810)''". Historyofscience.com. 2009-09-29. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
^ Wiley, R. C (1994). Minimally processed refrigerated fruits and vegetables. p.66. ISBN978-0-412-05571-3. Nicolas Appert in 1810 was probably the first person […]
^ Alvin Toffler, "Future Shock".
^ "BBC - History - Louis Pasteur".
^ Carlisle, Rodney (2004). Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries, p.357. John Wiley & Songs, Inc., new Jersey. ISBN 0-471-24410-4.
^ Hwang, Andy; Huang, Lihan (31 January 2009). Ready-to-Eat Foods: Microbial Concerns and Control Measures. CRC Press. p.88. ISBN978-1-4200-6862-7. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
^ "Harold Eddleman, ''Making Milk Media'', Indiana Biolab". Disknet.com. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
^ "Frank O'Mahony, ''Rural dairy technology: Experiences in Ethiopia'', International Livestock Centre for Africa". Ilri.org. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
^ "Food safety of raw milk". Foodsmart.govt.nz. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
^ Langer, Adam J.; Ayers, Tracy; Grass, Julian; Lynch, Michael; Angulo, Frederick; Mahon, Barbara. "Nonpasteurized Dairy Products, Disease Outbreaks, and State Laws—United States, 1993–2006" (PDF). http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-questions-and-answers.html. Retrieved 11 February 2015. External link in |website= (help)
^ "Milk Pasteurization: Guarding against disease", Michigan State University Extension
^ Smith, P. W., (August 1981), "Milk Pasteurization" Fact Sheet Number 57, U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Service, Washington, D.C.
^ a b Hotchkiss, Joseph H. (2001), "Lambasting Louis: Lessons from Pasteurization" (PDF), National Agricultural Biotechnology Council Report 13: 61
^ a b Wilson, G. S. (1943), "The Pasteurization of Milk", British Medical Journal 1 (4286): 261, doi:10.1136/bmj.1.4286.261, PMC2282302, PMID20784713
^ News article, [Boston] Independent Ledger, 16 June 1783
^ News article, Western Constellation, 19 July 1802
^ Franz Soxhlet (1886) "Über Kindermilch und Säuglings-Ernährung" (On milk for babies and infant nutrition), Münchener medizinische Wochenschrift (Munich Medical Weekly), vol. 33, pages 253, 276.
^ url = http://jewishcurrents.org/january-1-pasteurization-34519
^ url= http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/27504#/summary
^ "Grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance 2009 Revision". US Department of Health and Human Services.
^ a b Tortora, Gerard (2010). Microbiology: An Introduction, p.191. Pearson Benjamin Cummings, San Francisco. ISBN 0-321-55007-2.
^ Koel, Jaan (2001). "Paving the Way for ESL". Dairy Foods.
^ a b Rich, Robert (5 September 2003). "Keeping it raw". The Mountain View Voice (Embarcadero Publishing Company). Retrieved 23 October 2010.
^ Canadian Food Inspection System – Dairy Production and Processing Regulations (Fourth Edition) – 2005[dead link]
^ a b c Langridge, E W. The Determination of Phosphatase Activity. Quality Management Ltd. Retrieved 2013-12-20.
^ "Gentle pasteurization of milk – with microwaves". ScienceDaily.
^ a b Stabel, J. R.; Lambertz, A. (2004), "Efficacy of Pasteurization Conditions for the Inactivation of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis in Milk", Journal of Food Protection 67 (12): 2719
^ "Penn State Study Finds Calf Milk Pasteurization Effective, but Variable — Dairy — Penn State Extension". Extension.psu.edu. 2010-12-14. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
^ Krauss, W. E., Erb, J. H. and Washburn, R.G., "Studies on the nutritive value of milk, II. The effect of pasteurization on some of the nutritive properties of milk," Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 518, page 30, January, 1933.
^ Claeys, Wendy L.; Sabine Cardoen, Georges Daube, Jan De Block, Koen Dewettinck, Katelijne Dierick, Lieven De Zutter, André Huyghebaert, Hein Imberechts, Pierre Thiange, Yvan Vandenplas, Lieve Herman (May 2013). "Raw or heated cow milk consumption: Review of risks and benefits". Food Control 31 (1): 251–262. doi:10.1016/j.foodcont.2012.09.035. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
^ Kay, H. (1935). "Some Results of the Application of a Simple Test for Efficiency of Pasteurisation". The Lancet 225 (5835): 1516–1518. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(01)12532-8.
^ Hoy, W. A.; Neave, F. K. (1937). "The Phosphatase Test for Efficient Pasteurisation". The Lancet 230 (5949): 595. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(00)83378-4.
^ a b "CDC - Raw Milk Questions and Answers - Food Safety". Cdc.gov. 2014-03-07. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
^ "Documents". Hightecheurope.eu. Retrieved 2014-03-19.
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Deborah, Diana, Jessica and Pamela were some of the members of which family? | Meet history’s most dysfunctional family
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BEFORE women’s rights fuelled a global debate, there were the Mitford girls.
This extraordinary family mixed intelligence and determination, sex, politics, and tragedy. The last member of the clan, Deborah the Duchess of Devonshire , died this week aged 94.
She is being mourned by many younger Britons including Mary McCartney who today tweeted, “RIP the Dowager Duchess”.
Debt, as her sisters called her, was grandmother of supermodel Stella Tennant and a fixture of the aristocracy.
With her goes the last contact with the remarkable Mitford women who lived extraordinary lives they shaped for themselves.
One was in love with Hitler, another was a socialist who organised workers in California. Yet another was an author and mistress to some of the most powerful figures of Europe
These were Debo’s sisters.
JESSICA (1917-1996)
Jessica "Decca" Mitford, with her husband Esmond Romilly at Roma Bar in Miami. Jessica was a socialist author, and an outcast from her family. Picture: Mitford/family Historical Romilly/familySource:News Corp Australia
The woman known as Decca moved to Spain aged 19 during its civil war in the late 1930s. She married a cousin after opposition from her family, and had a daughter, Julia whom she later ignored, not even mentioning her in an autobiography.
Jessica had another daughter, Constance in Washington in 1941. Her husband joined the Canadian air force and went missing in action.
She became a US citizen in 1944 and married a civil rights activist. This led her to a life of protests, renouncing her privileged upbringing by supporting Communist campaigns. She was also an investigative journalist and wrote a hugely influential book, “The American Way of Death” exposing the mortuary industry. “You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty,” she said at one point.
She died having never reconciled with sisters who took a different path.
DIANA (1910-2003)
Diana Mosley (nee Mitford) (right), and her sister Unity pictured in Germany. Picture from book: Diana Mosley by Anne de Coucy.Source:News Limited
Diana was a great beauty whose second husband was Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists which supported Hitler’s Nazis while rejecting a German invasion. The 1936 wedding was held at the home of Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda), with Hitler himself a guest of honour.
Writer and admirer Evelyn Waugh said her beauty “ran through the room like a peal of bells”, but many Britons found her politics unattractive and there were demands she and her husband be detained for the duration of WWII.
In an autobiography she said of her political life, “I can’t regret it, it was so interesting.”
Another sister went even further in right wing politics.
UNITY VALKYRIE (1914-1948)
Adolf Hitler and Unity Mitford were understood to have been very close.Source:News Corp Australia
Following Diana’s lead, Unity travelled to German, fell in love with Hitler and became part of his close group of friends and advisers. She was torn when war was declared between Britain and Germany. In Munich she tried with kill herself with a small pistol Hitler had given her for protection. The suicide bid failed, and she was sent back to Britain for health care. She never recovered the botched attempt on her own life.
Watching these personal and family dramas was the most sophisticated of the Mitfords.
NANCY (1904-1973)
Author Nancy Mitford was renown for her fiction work Love in a Cold Climate.Source:News Corp Australia
The eldest sister was an author and journalist who examined her own aristocratic class in books such as “Noblesse Oblige”. Her fiction includes the big selling “Love in a Cold Climate”. After WWII she ended a sham marriage in which both partners had a variety of affairs, and moved to Paris. She had fallen in love with a French military officer whom she never married. When Nancy was dying Jessica and Diana came to Paris to be with her. But they still could not speak to each other, their political positions kept them forever apart.
Nancy was the worldly Mitford, chain smoking, a competitive drinker, acclaimed writer and adventure lover.
She was a stark contrast to her sibling closest in age.
PAM (1907-1994)
The Mitfords. One of modern history’s most remarkable families. Back row (L-R) Lady Redesdale, Nancy, Diana, Tom, Pamela and Lord Redesdale. Front (L-R) Unity, Jessica and Deborah, 1934. Picture: Mitford family / suppliedSource:News Corp Australia
Pam was teased by her sisters who usually referred to her simply as Woman.
She made no great impact on world affairs and kept to her farm life. But her ability to live as she wanted rather than be drawn into Mitford fights showed a strong determination.
After a divorce she set up a home with an Italian horse woman, her companion for the rest of her life. “She’s a you-know-what-bias,” Jessica explained in a family letter.
| Mitford |
The sisters of Dixon of Dock Green's Jack Warner performed as which characters? | The Last of the Titanically Eccentric Mitford Sisters Has Died
The Last of the Titanically Eccentric Mitford Sisters Has Died
The last member of the twentieth century's most scandalously wacky family has passed beyond the veil: Deborah Cavendish, nee Mitford, has died at 94. It would be fair to say she lived a full life.
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If you're not familiar with the astounding reality that was the Mitford sisters, fixtures of British society, the New York Times' obituary for Deborah provides a great summary:
Being a Mitford, Deborah could hardly have been conventional. Diana married a fascist in the presence of Goebbels and Hitler. Jessica was a Communist and wrote witty books. Unity Valkyrie, in love with Hitler, shot herself when Britain declared war. Pamela as a child wanted to be a horse and married a fabled jockey. Nancy's books satirized the upper classes. Deborah, tentatively, became a connoisseur of fine poultry.
So: a fascist, a novelist, a Nazi, a Red, a quiet one and a Duchess. (The Toast ranks them here.) They fought a lot.
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Their parents didn't think that girls needed much in the way of formal schooling, which is likely a major reason their childhood eccentricities ran completely amuck in adulthood. Really there's no point in any hipster attempting to cultivate any affectations ever, given that the Mitfords once existed on this planet:
In their drafty old Oxfordshire manse, she and her sisters hid in a linen cupboard heated by water pipes and made up secret languages. Her father, an irascible baron, hunted his children on horseback, with hounds. Visiting Munich with Unity in 1937, Deborah, 17, wrote home: "We have had quite a nice time here & we've had tea with Hitler & seen all the other sights."
Presumably that would have been arranged by her sister, Unity, who was fucking obsessed with Hitler. Like a Belieber, but for Hitler. Deborah, for her part, was not impressed. (Jessica Mitford, on the other hand, was a dedicated Red who ran off to America and wrote books such as Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking.) (It's pretty easy to guess my favorite Mitford.)
Deborah, who described herself as housewife and collected Elvis memorabilia, was really an accidental duchess. She married the Duke of Devonshire's younger brother, but the heir (who, fun fact, was married to JFK's younger sister, who also died tragically) was killed during World War II. So they inherited the massive Chatsworth estate, which was actually a pretty shitty deal—they had to auction off a bunch of heirlooms to pay their enormous inheritance tax bill.
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She then went to work straightening the place out, a downright Herculean undertaking:
She put in central heating, phones, new wiring and plumbing for 17 new bathrooms; opened gift shops and a market that employed 100 people and sold meat and produce, including the Duchess's Marmalade and the Duke's Favorite Sausages, and began farming lectures that drew 200,000 people a year. Later came restaurants, catering services, boutiques and other moneymakers, including two hotels near Chatsworth.
600,000 people now visit the property every year. Not bad, Debo. Not bad at all.
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What colour is the directory to the National Gardens Scheme? | National Gardens Scheme (NGS) - Gardens open in Shropshire - Shropshire Community Directory - Shropshire Council
National Gardens Scheme (NGS) - Gardens open in Shropshire
Description:
Every year, public and private gardens throughout Shropshire open for the National Gardens Scheme which raises money for cancer and caring charities. The famous "Yellow Book" includes many of Shropshire's best gardens, some magnificent country estates and some hidden jewels owned by ordinary garden-lovers. All offer a cost-effective day out, with beautiful gardens and home-made refreshments, all raising money for good causes.
A leaflet which includes all the gardens open for charity in Shropshire is widely-available at libraries, tourist centres, garden centres and many other sources. A copy can also be obtained by sending a stamped address envelope to the address below.
To visit the National Gardens Scheme website, find information about Shropshire Gardens and search using postcode, distance and date range, follow the link.
| Yellow |
Which TV series was set in a telephone exchange in Derby? | Exterior Inspiration | Farrow & Ball
Bench in Chappell Green No.83 and Green Smoke No.47 & pots in various colours | Exterior Eggshell
BEGINNING TO BUILD AN EXTERIOR SCHEME
You can create fabulous schemes outside your home and in the garden with Farrow & Ball colours. When it comes to choosing colour, there are no rights or wrongs, but do think about some of these factors:
• The aspect of your property and surrounding area.
• Consider the period of your property and the style and colour of neighbouring buildings; in particular, whether you wish to create a complementary or contrasting scheme.
• Look for dominant features like brickwork, natural wood and expanses of other colours such as paved or gravelled areas, lawns, fencing, shrubs and even flowers – all of which can affect colour choice.
House in Off-Black No.57 and door in Blue Ground No.210 | Exterior Eggshell
DECORATING IDEAS
• When decorating outside, you can usually go a shade or two darker than you would inside because you mostly see exterior colours in daylight. If you are considering using Slipper Satin try Off-White , or Pigeon instead of French Gray .
• To create a flow between the interior of your home and the exterior, use the same colour outside on a garden wall or a piece of furniture to help connect the two spaces together.
• To make a feature of your entrance, paint your front door and frame in one colour to help make it look bigger and more imposing.
• Layer colours outside just as you would inside to create added interest. Try using a mixture of colours on garden furniture such as Mizzle on chairs, with a table top painted in Old White and table legs in Mouse’s Back .
Door and window in Railings No.31 | Exterior Eggshell
Window frames in Stone Blue No.86 , chairs, from left: Churlish Green No.251 , Parma Gray No.27 and Calluna No.270 , birdcage: Charlotte’s Locks No.268 | Exterior Eggshell
FRONT DOORS, WINDOWS AND WINDOW BOXES
Window boxes painted in colours like Card Room Green or Oval Room Blue will enhance any exterior, but be careful not to use more than three colours on the front of your house or it can begin to look confused. Paint your front door and window boxes the same colour, but try using two finishes for added interest – Full Gloss on the door and Exterior Eggshell on the boxes.
Classic colours such as black and red are very smart for front doors - try Pitch Black and Incarnadine for a classic, stylish look.
Other popular front door colours include Plummett , Studio Green , Black Blue and Hague Blue , which in Full Gloss could not be more elegant. On the other hand Blue Gray or Lichen in Exterior Eggshell will give a more relaxed and contemporary feel.
Exterior wall in All White No.2005 , pots (clockwise from top left): St Giles Blue No.280 , Drawing Room Blue No.253 , Green Blue No.84 , Lulworth Blue No.89 , Cook’s Blue No.237 & Stone Blue No. 86 all Exterior Eggshell. | Exterior Masonry and Exterior Eggshell
EXTERIOR MASONRY
In keeping with its name, why not try Oxford Stone in Exterior Masonry Paint for exterior walls. For the urban exterior, try Manor House Gray on window frames with Railings on the front door, all in Exterior Eggshell.
Exterior in Light Gray No.17 | Exterior Masonry, Door in London Clay No.244 | Exterior Eggshell, Exterior trim in Lime White No.1 | Exterior Masonry
GARDEN TABLE AND CHAIRS
Don’t be afraid to use a mixture of colours – try Mizzle on chairs with a table top painted in Old White and table legs in Mouse's Back , all in Exterior Eggshell, to create a very relaxed atmosphere
BENCHES, PLANTERS AND POTS
Benches, planters and pots are a great place to embrace strong colour, and ensure your garden is bright and cheerful all year long. Try colours like St Giles Blue , Charlotte’s Locks or Yellowcake for a really bold look. Or choose heathery tones like Brassica , Calluna and Mizzle for a more natural feel.
Bench seat in Brassica No.271 | Exterior Eggshell
Bench in Charlotte's Locks No.268 | Exterior Eggshell
GARDEN BUILDINGS
Summer houses and garden sheds look charming in Blue Gray or the slightly greener French Gray , both in Exterior Eggshell. Add character by using Castle Gray on window frames and doors.
Sheperd's Hut in Mizzle No.266 with hinges in Pitch Black No.256 | Exterior Eggshell and Full Gloss
Summer house in Wimborne White No.239 | Exterior Eggshell
For more great ideas on your next decoration project, why not head over to our Inspiration Site which has over 1000 images to browse?
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Hadfield near Glossop became the fictional town of Royston Vasey in which TV series? | BBC - Derby - Around Derby - Derbyshire in TV and Film
Tour of Royston Vasey The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.
FACTS
The League of Gentlemen is written by Jeremy Dyson, co-written and performed by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.
The leader of High Peak Borough Council, Councillor John Hallsworth, lives in Hadfield and represents Hadfield St Andrews ward.
John Garlick ran the Anchor inn and Jonathan Shaw ran the Spinners' Arms in Hadfield in 1835.
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This multi-award winning programme delves into the disturbingly dark and distinctly bizarre behaviour of the most peculiar ‘locals’ on this planet.
The League of Gentlemen is written by Jeremy Dyson and CO-written and performed by Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.
The comedy is set in the village of Royston Vasey - but, in Derbyshire, we know it better as the otherwise sleepy village of Hadfield.
The one main street in Hadfield had looked unchanged since the 1950s and with one of the shopfronts proclaiming Brigadoon, the casual visitor could have been forgiven for wondering when the next wake-up call was due.
You'll never leave!
All was to change when a roving BBC location researcher wandered into town, running out of time to find a small, quiet northern town that could pass as a quirky, isolated, fictional town where visitors were frowned upon and murky secrets dwelt behind every door.
One look at the unsuspecting streets of Hadfield and Royston Vasey was born - the TV filming circus duly rolled into town.
Shopfronts were transformed - the old fishmonger's became a veterinary surgery and the empty estate agent found new life as a dating agency.
The little handicraft emporium was transformed into a joke shop one day and a video rental shop a week later.
For the resident enduring the mundane daily drive home, multiple double takes were in order and wry smiles the reaction to the temporary excitement.
Eventually a circus big-top and small funfair were set up nearby and locals were invited along to populate the attraction.
| The League of Gentlemen (disambiguation) |
Which TV series about a women's football team was filmed in Ilkeston? | The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse Reviews & Ratings - IMDb
IMDb
17 January 2017 8:34 AM, PST
NEWS
27 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
one of the best TV series-movies
3 June 2005
There are two ways to turn a TV series into a film.
The first, most common, and least successful, is to basically make a feature-length TV episode- see the disasters of the Steptoe & Son movie. The second is to do something else- something quite different, à la Monty Python.
Thankfully, the creators of the cult TV series have gone for the second option, and they've come up with something unique, clever and funny- it couldn't feel less like a TV episode.
Try to get your head around this- the writers, playing themselves, are confronted by their Royston Vasey alter-egos, played, of course, by them, and told to continue writing the series, otherwise apocalypse will befall the village.
High-concept, contrived and easy to screw up? Yes, but somehow they managed to pull it off. Not for every taste, perhaps, and the ending does drag, but fans will be delighted, and it might even win over the uninitiated.
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19 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
There's a lot to like about the Apocalypse
from United Kingdom
8 June 2005
For many the hit series was ten years of pitch black humour loaded with affectionate parodies of classic films and a hilarious assortment of over a hundred characters with instantly recognisable catchphrases. Few shows have survived transition from radio to TV to stage show to film but The League of Gentlemen have achieved it with suitable aplomb.
The talented writer/performers had initially envisioned a Monty Python style medieval adventure, but as soon as writing began they soon realised that the characters they have lived with had become very real and deserved better. With that, the Royston Vasey folk realise their very existence is under threat as the writers decide to disregard the fictitious town and work on a 17th Century romp instead.
With the exception of Michael Sheen playing much unseen League member Jeremy Dyson, The League play pretty unlikeable caricatures of their real life personae as well as the familiar faces of Tubbs ("I made a little brown fishy"), nightmare inducing sexual predator Herr Lipp, butcher Hilary Briss and an unlikely hero - irate businessman Geoff Tibbs. New faces appear when the third reality appears, it's here we are treated to charming and funny cameos from veteran actors and popular TV stars. For many this will be a really enjoyable 90 minutes.
'Apocalpse is not going to please everyone though. Working on this level of post modernism has been done a few times before now and may seem all too familiar to audiences raised on irony drenched teen successes kick-started by the likes of Wes Craven having a New Nightmare. It also takes a lot of confidence in an audience to keep up with a high concept story so there are moments of exposition and dialogue that serve only to confirm what most in the audience already know. Comedy as a genre is formulaic but it's now unheard of for a British film not to fall back on the huge back catalogue of TV stars to fill short amounts of screen time. It's also hard to believe the creators ever wanted their offspring killed off, which is perhaps why some of the role reversal doesn't always quite hit the mark. Would Hilary Briss have wanted to try save Royston Vasey in the series?
However, while the show's deliciously dark vein has almost all but disappeared but is arguably more accessible for it. Much will be said about the character development and efforts to humanise the likes of previously one joke incarnations like Herr Lipp. It is here an impossible level of depth can be found along with a harsh streak of biting satire and throwaway put downs. Sentiment is there with a lump in the throat but not sugar coated thickly enough to intrude on the action. The music is good, performances exemplary and the animation is wonderfully seamless; a nice throwback to Terry Gilliam and Ray Harryhausen's work. In short, there's a lot to like about the Apocalypse. Like so many TV to film transfers it was never going to be easy finding the line between preaching to the converted and introducing the uninitiated to the League's slick and distinct voice. But no matter what your preference is, this last trip to the town which 'You'll Never Leave' is oddly lined with hope and ultimately very, very touching.
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24 out of 32 people found the following review useful:
Odd - but what did you expect?
from United Kingdom
4 June 2005
The film was apparently spawned from an idea one of the writers had when he 'saw' one of his creations in a supermarket. The inhabitants of Royston Vasey head into 'our' world to persuade the writers not to stop writing about them and thus destroy their world.
If that sounds a bit too serious, don't be put off. Within the first few minutes we get: Bernice (the vile female vicar) letting rip at an unfortunate penitent during confession; Chinnery (the vet who inadvertently destroys every animal he touches) attempting to collect semen from a giraffe; Mickey (thick beyond belief) being, ah, thick; and Tubbs (inbred sister-wife and local shopkeeper) being sweet as ever - but still disgusting.
Some of the regular characters are missing, but a new idea by the Gents introduces some 16th-Century characters - and we have the Gents themselves in the action too. If you're new to The League of Gentlemen, this is an easy introduction and a lot of fun. If you're a long-standing fan, this has everything you've come to expect - including the joys of Jeremy Dyson spotting.
All told, it's got the same faintly surreal humour that's the hallmark of the series, plus some moments of quite touching 'introspection'. Herr Lipp, for example, maintains a gentle dignity on learning that he's regarded by his creators as a 'one-joke character'. While most of the characters stay as they are, some develop in unexpected ways that are perfectly natural when they happen.
This film is a 'swan song' for Royston Vasey, but it's also a showcase for the Gents who prove that (gasp!) they can write other stuff - and it can be very funny. (But you knew that anyway.)
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30 out of 46 people found the following review useful:
Apocalypse definitely not the end of the world
from Manchester, UK
26 May 2005
Just saw 'The League of Gentlemen: Apocalypse' at a special screening in Manchester, with Mark Gatiss and Reece Shearsmith of the League in attendance.
At the back was Peter Kay (who has a brief cameo in the film) affectionately heckling at the back during the Q & A session after the film.
The film was complicated (in a good way) and very very funny. It follows Geoff Tipps, Hilary Briss and Herr Lipp as they try and save fictional Rosyton Vasey from the disinterest of their creators.
The League play a wide range of their characters and themselves (or character based on themselves) and are ably supported by the cream of British character and comedy actors such as Bernard Hill, Victoria Wood and David Warner.
Warner is a particular stand out reminding me of his smooth and cutting turn in 'Time Bandits'.
The film swims in and out of various realities and allows some of the denizen's of Rosyton Vasey some space to grow beyond their usual limits of their comedy shtick.
Steve Pemberton's Herr Lipp has a great Bretchian moment near the end of the movie and has to make a decision about his purpose and meaning in life which brings a lump to the throat at an unexpected moment and surprises you with its tender affection for the characters.
This echoes something Mark and Reece said in the Q & A afterwards, that the plot of the league being tired of their famous characters is spurious and that the whole film is really a love letter to them.
For a format that started as a radio character-based sketch show, these guys have really evolved the idea so far as to sustain a movie which takes you on a journey through fiction, 'reality', comedy, tragedy and a pleasing journey for two of the less obvious characters to carry a long form story from their 70 odd existing creations.
The fans of the show will love it. It pays off dedication and attention to detail in spades, the uninitiated may be a little lost, but the joy of the LoG was always the ability to almost instantly tune into their acutely observed characters and take the stylistic leap into farce and expressionistic movie homage.
There are homages a plenty in this one including 'The Shining' and 'La Belle et la Bete', to name but two I spotted and they ably demonstrate their love for cinema and history with a segment in 1690's England that makes perfect sense when you're engaged with the movie.
What can I say, I marvelled, boggled, emoted and snickered throughout and they have definitely pulled off what many have failed at. A successful British TV comedy to cinema translation.
If you've watched and enjoyed 'The League of Gentlemen' in the past, go see it; you will enjoy.
If you haven't, rent/buy a DVD and then go see it.
Well done guys and thanks for the charming and humorous Q & A.
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15 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Hello Dave
from Amsterdam
7 June 2005
After three outstanding BBC television series' and a Christmas special, the bizarre and grotesque (yet perversely lovable) characters of bleak fictional town Royston Vasey make the jump to celluloid, along with their creators - The League of Gentlemen.
Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are the more familiar three-quarters of the foursome, with the central roles shared between the trio. In an added twist, the final member of the team - Jeremy Dyson - is portrayed by actor Michael Sheen.
Where to start? Dyson (Sheen) is in conversation with his writing cohorts, when - horror of horrors - he is paid a visit by two of his grisliest characters. Both Tubbs (Pemberton) and Edward Tattsyrup (Shearsmith) are unhappy at The League's decision to kill off the Vasey inhabitants. "You're not real!" screams Dyson in vain, as the local shopkeepers from hell exact their revenge. Mayhem ensues, as reality and Vasey converge with the vast array of characters entering our world to save theirs.
Confused? You will be, as the camp, innuendo-ridden Teutonic, Herr Lipp (Pemberton) is forced to take on the daily guise of Pemberton (Pemberton), while Pemberton (Pemberton) is kidnapped by cannibalistic butcher Hillary Briss (Gatiss) and Geoff Tipps (Shearsmith).
With shades of an even more demented Misery, Briss attempts to force Pemberton to rewrite the film - thus continuing his life - but leaving Geoff in charge is never a good idea. The erstwhile comedian becomes embroiled in The League's latest, post-Vasey adventure - The King's Evil - entering a typically twisted 17th century England, complete with cameos from Victoria Wood, Peter Kay and David Warner. Known as George of Asda (due to his select line of clothing), Geoff saves the day and is treated as a hero, but for the denouement of the film, he joins characters old and new at the Church of Royston Vasey to meet with their makers.
For fans of the series, the film is a must-see. And yes, it does feature Papa Lazarou (albeit a little too fleetingly). Pen-loving Pauline, Mickey, Barbara and cursed vet Matthew Chinnery are some of the other favourites on show, and The League's portrayal of themselves (plus Sheen's as Dyson) is also a fascinating insight.
The League of Gentlemen are the Radiohead of British comedy - they are ambitious, groundbreaking (witness the excellent Series Three) and not happy to rest on their laurels. They also divide opinion accordingly.
Certainly, their macabre sense of humour is not for every palate, and while not written exclusively for 'fans', a grasp of the storyline would benefit those who have previously viewed the series. Nevertheless, Apocalypse is a film in its own right and The League will no doubt manage to attract a new breed of fan, as well as appeasing and pleasing existing ones.
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16 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
In a League of it's own!
from United Kingdom
30 May 2005
I have to admit that when I first heard about the Apocalypse film it was a worry.
I mean, they have a lot to live up to, don't they? When they first did a stage show they won the Perrier award and when they did radio they won a Sony award. When they ventured onto our telly's they won a Bafta award, a Royal Television Society Award and the Golden Rose of Montreux.
When the first series aired in January 1999 it was mind-blowing! A real breath of fresh air in British Comedy, and when the second series aired a year later it built on that foundation and sealed the shows cult status around the world, our web stats show that we have received visitors from every single country on the planet! The 'Local show for Local People' showcased the Gents talent for live performance and opened doors for the gents to do more live performing such as 'Art' in the west end.
The fans favourite has always been the Christmas Special, less of a sketch show and more a tribute to classic horror films yet still wrapped up in the delicious League style.
And then of course there was the 'difficult' third series, still a hit with the loyal hardcore fans of course, but maybe a little bit ahead of its time for a mainstream TV audience.
As I say, a lot to live up to.
So now we have the film and...Well a film is different isn't it? It will be seen by much larger numbers than the radio or TV shows and with the third series in mind I was worried.
Well as you know I was lucky enough to get to see the film yesterday at a press screening in London and all my doubts were blown away (literally) in the first few minutes! I am not going to give plot lines away as some reviewers have done, nor am I going to tell you the catch phrases (although there is really only one) but I will try to tell you what they have managed to achieve with this film! Leaving the cinema on Monday night I could only imagine writing 'Oh my god, it's brilliant, its amazing, its the best thing they have ever done, better than the first, second and specials all rolled into one!' Of course I owe my visitors a much better explanation than that! So, why is it brilliant? This is a film for everyone, the casual fan, the obsessive fan the occasional fan and even for someone who is sat in the wrong cinema! You don't have to have watched the series to enjoy this film; it works on so many levels.
This film reminded me why I am a League of Gentlemen Fan! You can tell that filming was a true labour of love too; the attention to detail is incredible. The sets for the TV show were always detailed but I am going to have to watch the film again just to look at the background! The story moves at a swift pace, the action carrying us from Royston Vasey to the real world where we meet the 'Creators' who are of course the League themselves! Along the way we manage to bump into favourite characters from the show but always within the central story unlike the TV sketch show.
I was glad that the film was dark in places, a little scary and a little strange...only fitting for The League of Gentlemen. The Gents also managed to get their revenge on the BBC censors, not as much slipping in the word 'Mongoloid' as screaming it from the roof tops! Some may think the Gents portrayal of themselves a little indulgent but that's the joke and with that comes my only worry, the in jokes I mention below may puzzle some viewers and they might come over a little too clever...but I shouldn't worry, there is always a poo joke waiting just around the corner and speaking of jokes, they come thick and fast, and in a mixture of clever references, wig jokes, bum jokes, visual jokes and cock gags! I haven't laughed out loud in a cinema since...well, I can't remember! The fans that have been 'with' the League since the beginning are rewarded with loads of 'in' jokes, some that work on two levels, a mainstream audience may laugh at a reference to a compact disc for one reason whilst fans of the Local show will laugh for another reason altogether! The cameos are genius! Peter Kay and Simon Pegg form the strangest double act you have ever seen, Simon getting one of the films biggest laughs just by making a noise! I was a little worried about the 1690's aspect of the film when I first heard about it but as a story within a story I was just getting into it when...but that would be telling! All I need to say is that it fits wonderfully and adds to the overall feel of the film! I am not a professional reviewer of films, so I am finding it difficult to put into words how much I enjoyed this film but for now I will just say that if the supposed benchmark for British Comedy films in recent years was the excellent 'Shaun of the Dead' then I am sorry but a new benchmark has just been set by the inventive, hilarious and sometimes a little scary...The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse.
Jason Kenny 2005
from Ireland
7 June 2005
This movie was the result of the fantastically darkly comic BBC TV series! It's a huge pity that this movie spin-off is let down by a poor script and by production values which are below what the TV series offered. It might have been better to take this idea and implement the best parts of it as the end of another TV series but this may not have been an option for the writers. The plot is basically two stories badly tacked together. There are some comic moments but not enough to make it necessary viewing. The audience I saw it with certainly didn't crack up laughing. As it stands it's a pretty disappointing big screen farewell to the excellent characters that have provided so many laughs on the small screen! Such a pity, I really wanted to be able to say something more positive!
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13 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Special Stuff
from United Kingdom
4 June 2005
The best British Comedy Film ever! For years English comedy television programs have turned into films and have flopped, 'Are You Being Served?' 'Dads Army', the list goes on. However the popular dark humoured BBC television show; 'The League of Gentlemen' has managed to not only create a film which has managed to not be a flop but has also managed to be the best British Comedy Film ever! With its dark and horrific twists and turns The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse is British Talent at its best! Its intriguing demonic storyline written by the League of Gentlemen (Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson) matches with the Gents (and guest cameos) superb acting! This I hope is not the end of Royston Vasey, not after this great success anyway! Don't think that if you have not seen The League of Gentlemen on the telly that you will not understand whats going on. Its all well explained and by the end of the film you will be happy with the result but you are still left hungry for more... Mmmm, Special Stuff.
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7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
THE WORST film I have seen in years
8 June 2005
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Don't get me wrong, I love the TV series of League Of Gentlemen. It was funny, twisted and completely inspired. I was looking forward to the movie, the premise was interesting and I looked forward to see what they had done with the characters and where the bizarre storyline would take them.
It was a total disappointment, for starters the three weakest characters in the series were the leads and it only contained bit parts for the other characters (why not pick mickey & Pauline, papa Lazaro or tubs and Edward for the main parts!?). It was unfunny throughout, half baked gags and poor slapstick humour.
The real clincher was the plain ridiculous period drama / comedy (and i will use the word comedy loosely). It distracted from the main storyline and felt awkward, not to mention painfully unfunny. The direction of the movie is appalling, and often feels that the lines were delivered by the characters within one take. Very rushed.
Then - the three headed Plasticine-esquire monster. What the hell was all that about? plain ridiculous, it felt like the League of gentlemen tagged it on at the end.
All in all I found myself looking at my watch and sighing with disappointment throughout my experience of the film. What was once an amazing Television series has been tainted by a terribly unfunny film.
If i could give it 0 out of 10 i would. Do not waste your money seeing this.
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10 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
Thank God for Herr Lipp....
from United Kingdom, Brighton
3 June 2005
Being a massive fan of the TV series (even to the extent of visiting Hadfield where its filmed!) I was waiting for this to come out from the second I heard about it. Perhaps my expectations were to high, but literally 30 mins into the film and I was thinking 'what have they done?'. Some of the best characters such as Tubbs n' Edward, Pauline n' Mickey n' the bizarre Papa Lazarou had about 10 minutes screen time between them, instead a lot of the film is taken up with the real life creators (aka the league of gentlemen) and some rather poor characters from their new 17th century story. I think what made the TV series so great was all the characters of Royston Vasey, this however did not feature that many in any great detail, and wasn't even really filmed in Royston Vasey for the most part. The whole cinema sat in mostly silence throughout the film, the only highlights in my opinion were the usual sexual innuendos from Herr Lipp (the best being his one involving two scouts at the start and their 'purple skins'!).
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Which actor, born in Hayfield in 1915, supplied the voices of the Mr Men on TV? | Arthur Lowe - IMDb
IMDb
Actor | Soundtrack
Lowe, rotund and professionally indefatigable, rightly gained acclaim as an accomplished comedy character actor; fondly remembered as the irascible "Captain Mainwaring" in the Home Guard comedy series Dad's Army (1968-1977), and as Coronation Street (1960)'s "Leonard Swindley". The only child of a Derbyshire railworker, Lowe gained valuable ... See full bio »
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Won 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 6 nominations. See more awards »
Known For
Dad's Army Capt. George Mainwaring / Barry Mainwaring
(1968-1977)
1980 Comedy Tonight (TV Movie)
1979-1980 Potter (TV Series)
1977 Cottage to Let (TV Series)
Bernard Clayman
1976 Bill Brand (TV Mini-Series)
Watson
1976 Shades of Greene (TV Series)
Javitt
1975 Churchill's People (TV Series)
Epillicus, the Barber
1974 Mr. Men (TV Series short)
Narrator
1973 Armchair 30 (TV Series)
Alfred Potter
1969 Plays of Today (TV Series)
The Headmaster
1969 Rogues' Gallery (TV Series)
Mr. Cakebread
1969 ITV Playhouse (TV Series)
Eric
1968 The Wednesday Play (TV Series)
Colonel Harrup
1960-1968 Armchair Theatre (TV Series)
Mr. Godsall / Det. Sgt. Wimpole / Tailor / ...
1967 The Golden Age (TV Series)
Sir Robert
1967 The Avengers (TV Series)
Benstead
1962 BBC Sunday-Night Play (TV Mini-Series)
Slippy Wokingham
1962 Leading the Blind (TV Movie)
Fred Oldershaw
1962 Z Cars (TV Series)
Jakey Ramsden
1960-1961 No Hiding Place (TV Series)
Simpson / Raymond Watkins
1961 The Pursuers (TV Series)
Pearson
1960 Sheep's Clothing (TV Series)
Mudor
1960 Robert Tavener, Deceased (TV Movie)
Leonard Gribble
1960 Boyd Q.C. (TV Series)
Mr. Biron
1960 Inside Story (TV Series)
Fred
1959 Theatre Night (TV Series)
Mr. Filby
1959 All Aboard (TV Series)
Sydney Barker, steward
- Episode dated 14 February 1959 (1959) ... Sydney Barker, steward
1959 Glencannon (TV Series)
1953-1957 BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (TV Series)
Albert Davies
1957 Six Red Hairs (TV Short)
Uncle
1956 Theft Royal (TV Movie)
Talbot Edwards
1956 Adventure Theater (TV Series)
3rd Drama critic
1956 The Gordon Honour (TV Series)
Tim Raffety
1955 Passage of Arms (TV Movie)
Servant
1955 The Wise Cat (TV Movie)
The Fishmonger / The Cup-bearer
1955 The Olive Jar (TV Movie)
Zi' Dima
1954 My Uncle Rollo (TV Movie)
Heppon
1954 The Old Grad (TV Movie)
Vince Brady
1953 An American Gentleman (TV Movie)
Scots business man
1979 Bless Me Father (TV Series) (performer - 1 episode)
- The Season of Goodwill (1979) ... (performer: ""See, Amid The Winter's Snow"" aka Hymn For Christmas Day)
1969 The Coward Revue (TV Movie) (performer: "Could You Please Oblige Us With A Bren Gun")
Hide
1982 Looks Familiar (TV Series)
Himself - Panellist
1982 Pebble Mill (TV Series)
Himself
1978 Prismo Club (Documentary short)
Himself - Commentator
1977 Our Show (TV Series)
Himself - Guest
1977 Going for a Song (TV Series documentary)
Himself - On-screen Participant
1971-1976 This Is Your Life (TV Series documentary)
Himself / Himself - Guest
1970 Holiday Startime Special (TV Movie)
Himself
1970 The Golden Shot (TV Series)
Himself
2016/I 2016: We Remember Part One (TV Movie documentary)
Acting Roles (uncredited)
2007 The Story of Jackanory (TV Movie documentary)
Himself - 'Jackanory' Storyteller
2007 Timeshift (TV Series documentary)
Himself - Storyteller, Jackanory
Personal Details
Other Works:
He acted in Irving Berlin 's musical, "Call Me Madam", at the Coliseum in London, England with Anton Walbrook , Billie Worth , Jeff Warren and Frank Wilson in the cast. See more »
Publicity Listings:
2 Print Biographies | 1 Portrayal | 1 Interview | 3 Articles | 2 Magazine Cover Photos | See more »
Height:
Did You Know?
Personal Quote:
An actor is an actor is an actor. The less personality an actor has off stage the better. A blank canvas on which to draw the characters he plays. See more »
Trivia:
When touring at coastal theatres with his wife, Lowe used his distinctive 1885 former steam yacht Amazon as a floating base. He bought Amazon as a houseboat in 1968 but realised her potential and took her back to sea in 1971; this unique vessel is still operating in the Mediterranean. The ship had a bar with a semicircular notch cut halfway along, to enable both the portly figure of Lowe and his ... See more »
Star Sign:
| Arthur Lowe |
What is the third word of the motto adopted by France in 1946? | Arthur Lowe : definition of Arthur Lowe and synonyms of Arthur Lowe (English)
13 External links
Early life
Arthur Lowe was born in Hayfield , Derbyshire , the only child of Arthur (1888–1971) and his wife Mary Annie (Nan) née Ford (1885–1981). His father worked for a railway company, in charge of moving theatrical touring companies around Northern England and the Midlands in special trains. [4] Young Arthur went to Chapel Street Junior School in Chapel Street, Levenshulme , Manchester . Lowe’s original intention was to join the Merchant Navy but this idea was thwarted because of his poor eyesight. Working at an aircraft factory he joined the British Army on the eve of the Second World War , but not before experiencing his first brush with the acting world by working as a stagehand at the Manchester Palace of Varieties . Lowe served in the Middle East with the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry , and began to take part in shows put on for the troops, which appears to have sparked his desire to act. He left the Army, in which he served as a radar technician, [5] at the end of the war with the rank of Sergeant Major .
Early career
Lowe made his debut at the Manchester Repertory Theatre in 1945, [4] where he was paid £5 per week for twice-nightly performances. [6] He worked with various repertory companies around the country and became known for his character roles, which included parts in the West End musicals Call Me Madam , Pal Joey and The Pajama Game . An early brief role is as a reporter for the Tit-Bits magazine near the end of Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).
Lowe married Joan Cooper (1922–1989) on 10 January 1948. They had met in 1945 when she was his leading lady at the Manchester Repertory Theatre, [4] [6] and they remained together until his death. Their son, Stephen Lowe, was born in January 1953.
By the 1960s, Lowe had successfully made the transition to television and landed a regular role as draper/lay preacher Leonard Swindley in the northern drama series Coronation Street (1960–65). His character became sufficiently popular with viewers for him to appear in spin-off series, Pardon the Expression (1966), and its sequel Turn out the Lights (1967).
Leonard Swindley was not a role Lowe relished though, and he longed to move on. During the months he was not playing Swindley he was busy on stage or making one-off guest appearances in other TV series such as Z-Cars (1962) and The Avengers (1967).
Stardom
In 1968 Lowe was cast in his best remembered role, as Captain George Mainwaring in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army (1968–77). His colleagues on the show later remarked that the role resembled Lowe himself, pompous and bumbling; Lowe had a clause written into his contract specifying that he would never have to lose his trousers. [7] He also successfully played Mainwaring's drunken brother Barry Mainwaring in the 1975 Christmas episode "My Brother and I". Lowe and his character also surfaced in a radio version of Dad's Army, a stage play and a feature length film released in 1971.
While Dad's Army was not in production, Lowe appeared in plays at the National Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre . In 1968 Lowe was invited by Laurence Olivier to act at the National Theatre at the Old Vic and appeared in Somerset Maugham 's Home and Beauty in 1968 and later The Tempest in 1974 with John Gielgud . [8]
He also had prominent parts in several films directed by Lindsay Anderson films including if.... (1968) and multiple roles in O Lucky Man! (1973). His other film roles during this period included Spike Milligan 's surreal The Bed Sitting Room (1969), in which he mutates into a parrot, a drunken butler in The Ruling Class (1972) with Peter O'Toole , and Theatre of Blood (1973), a horror movie starring Vincent Price , with Lowe as one of the critics murdered by the deranged actor played by Price.
On television he appeared as a guest performer on The Morecambe and Wise Show (1977), alongside Richard Briers in a series of Ben Travers farces for the BBC , as the pompous Dr Maxwell in the ITV comedy Doctor at Large (1971), and as Redvers Bodkin, a snooty, old-fashioned butler in the short-lived sitcom The Last of the Baskets (1971–72).
Between 1971 and 1973 Lowe joined Dad's Army colleague Ian Lavender on the BBC radio comedy Parsley Sidings , and played Mr Micawber in a BBC television serial of David Copperfield (1974). He employed a multitude of voices on the BBC animated television series Mr. Men (1974), in which he was the narrator in addition to voicing all the characters.
Later career
When Dad's Army run ended in 1977, Lowe remained much in demand taking starring roles in television comedies such as Bless Me Father with Daniel Abineri (1978–81) as the mischievous Irish priest Father Charles Clement Duddleswell – quite a departure from the pompous characters that Lowe usually portrayed – and Potter (1979–80), as busybody Redvers Potter.
By now he was making many television commercials , but his later stage career mainly involved touring the provinces, appearing in plays and pantomimes with his wife, Joan. In 1981 he reprised his role as Captain Mainwaring for the pilot episode of It Sticks Out Half a Mile , a radio sequel to Dad's Army. His last film role was in Lindsay Anderson's Britannia Hospital .
Amazon
When touring at coastal theatres with his wife, Lowe used his distinctive 1885 former steam yacht Amazon as a floating base. He bought Amazon as a houseboat in 1968, but realised her potential and took her back to sea in 1971; this unique vessel is still operating in the Mediterranean today. [9] The ship had a bar with a semicircular notch cut halfway along, to enable both the portly figure of Lowe and his wife to serve behind the bar at the same time, acting as hosts during the parties they threw on board. [10]
In an interview for a Dad's Army retrospective on BBC television in 2010, Lowe's co-star, Clive Dunn , described him sitting at the bar in the evenings when they were filming on location, consuming a drink which Lowe named 'Amazon' after his yacht. Dunn described the drink as comprising "gin and ginger ale, with a single slice of cucumber". [11]
Death
In his final years Lowe's alcoholism spiralled out of control and he was reduced to acting in pantomimes and touring theatre productions. Graham Lord's biography recalls that by 1979 Lowe was suffering from major health problems, but continued to drink ever increasing amounts of alcohol, sometimes passing out on stage or at dinner. He was also a heavy smoker and his weight ballooned.
Lowe had long suffered from narcolepsy , [5] collapsing from the onset of a stroke in his dressing room at the Alexandra Theatre , Birmingham before a performance of Home at Seven (in which he appeared with wife Joan. (on 15 April 1982). He died in hospital early the following morning, aged 66. His last interview was on the live BBC 1 afternoon show Pebble Mill at One only a few hours earlier.
His ashes were scattered at Sutton Coldfield Crematorium following a sparsely attended funeral. Joan herself did not attend as she refused to miss a performance of Home at Seven and, as a result, was appearing in Belfast at the time. A memorial service was held in May 1982 at St Martin-in-the-Fields , attended by his family, former colleagues, and many friends. His last sitcom, A J Wentworth, BA , with Lowe as a boys' preparatory school master, was shown during July and August 1982.
Memorials
In December 2007 plans were unveiled for a statue of Lowe to be erected in Thetford , where the outside scenes for Dad's Army were filmed. [12]
Statue of Captain Mainwaring, Arthur Lowe's Dad’s Army character in Thetford.
The statue was unveiled on 19 June 2010 by the writers of the series, Jimmy Perry and David Croft. [13]
The star has also had two blue plaques unveiled one at Maida Vale and one at his birthplace in Hayfield , Derbyshire. [14] [15] [16]
Television roles
| i don't know |
In 2006 TV host Victoria Coren won half a million pounds playing which card game? | Victoria Coren Mitchell wins £400,000 in poker tournament | Daily Mail Online
The moment TV presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell won £400,000 in poker tournament - bringing her total winnings to £1.43 MILLION
Coren Mitchell has become first two-time winner of European Poker Tour
The 41-year-old, from London, made history at the event in Sanremo, Italy
She fought back from eighth place to win £391,932 cash and £4,000 watch
Victory means she is fast becoming one of the world's best female players
She is now ranked ninth internationally - with total winnings of £1.43million
Coren Mitchell married British comedian David Mitchell in November 2012
| Poker |
On 1st January 2014, which country became the 18th member of the Eurozone? | Poker Needs More Women | PokerWorks
Poker News | Casino Poker | News
Poker Needs More Women
Twitter
Poker has traditionally been seen as a male dominated environment, but there have always been women who have competed and beaten men across the tables. From early trail blazers taking on all comers in the Wild West to the current poker genius of Vanessa Selbst, women have shown they can be more than a match for anyone at poker. While the number of women playing the game at every level shows signs of a steady yet slow growth the most recent estimates are that women make up just 4% of all live tournament entrants and around 9-11% of online players.
Trail Blazers
One of the earliest recorded examples of a legendary poker playing woman is Poker Alice who was winning huge sums at poker in the late eighteen hundreds, reportedly winning $6,000 in one night on several occasions. Born Alice Ivers in England she moved to Colorado and, following the death of her first husband in a mining accident, turned to cards as a way of supporting herself. She travelled and gambled all over the west living an extraordinary and hair-raising life, this tough smart woman was a true trail blazer.
Over a hundred years later Barbra Enright, still playing today, was the first woman to reach the final table of a World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, finishing fifth in 1995 and going on to be the first woman to win a bracelet in an open event the year after when she took down a pot-limit Hold’Em event. Enright was the first woman to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2007.
Jennifer Harman is one of only two women to hold two WSOP bracelets (Vanessa Selbst is the other) and Harman joined Enright in the Poker Hall of Fame when she was inducted in 2015. Harman’s status in the poker world is founded on the fact that she is the only woman who is a regular player in the "Big Game", a high-stakes cash game at the Bellagio. Doyle Brunson and his peers held her in such high regard that she wrote the limit Hold’Em chapter for Super System II and was a key member of the “Corporation” in their epic battles against billionaire businessman Andy Beal.
Women Lead the Way
In more recent times Annette Obrestad, a Norwegian online phenomenon who had won over a million dollars at the virtual felt, became the first woman, and youngest ever player at just eighteen years old, to win a bracelet at the WSOPE Main Event in 2007.
Victoria Coren-Mitchell, an English journalist, TV host, and author of “For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player” became the first person to become a two-time European Poker Tour (EPT) champion when she won the Main Event in Sanremo in 2014 to go with her victory on home soil when she won EPT London in 2006, an accomplishment that, while certainly celebrated, has probably not had the recognition that it deserved nor the desired impact on player numbers from within the poker industry.
In 2015 Vanessa Selbst became the first woman to earn over $10 million in prize money. Selbst has been tearing it up at the tables for several years now and it is obvious that she isn’t just the best woman playing poker at the moment, she is unquestionably one of the best and most feared poker players in the world today.
The New Generation
Attitudes to women in poker are changing and much is being done to encourage more of them to play the game we all love. Some men may lament the passing of the smoke filled back rooms where their locker rooms jokes and unreconstructed views on women’s place in the word passed unremarked, but their days are surely numbered thankfully with the worst excesses of sexist behaviour on their way out in more enlightened countries.
There are a number of reasons why more women are not currently playing poker. It’s not a simple problem to untangle, mixed up as it is with marketing decisions, product development and a certain inertia from within the industry. What is encouraging though is that there are signs things are moving in the right direction.
There are a new generation of poker playing female stars who are media savvy, independent, articulate and fearless at the poker table. The use of social media is changing the image of poker and challenging outdated preconceptions. Women are also, rightly, at the forefront of the attempts to make progress, from Liv Boerre featuring prominently in the charity Raising for Effective Giving (REG) to the recent offer from Xuan Liu to give half priced coaching to people identifying as women.
Poker Needs More Women
The question is not whether women can be as good at poker as men, obviously they have proved they are, but why are there not more women playing poker?
The environment is getting better for women looking to enter poker. Grassroots poker is bringing in more women, online poker has lowered the barriers and there are more positive role models than ever. Gradually things are moving in the right direction but more needs to be done.
Kara Scott is one who regularly speaks out on the issue and her wise and balanced approach to the game is fast winning new fans of both genders, and her high profile role as a presenter for ESPN at the World Series of Poker is important for the marketability of poker.
Scott is one of the most respected industry professionals and is certainly a role model for women who want to be involved in poker. Her willingness to engage with the issue on social media is admirable and should be commended as it is a largely thankless and dispiriting task. More men and women need to speak out to combat ignorance in this field.
Poker is surely not in terminal decline but it has suffered setbacks in recent years and the industry is at the stage where something needs to change now to get it back on track. Putting aside any legislative obstacles, surely attracting more women to the game is vital. Part of the nature of poker is the need to constantly replenish the player pool; it is part of the fabric of poker. For that reason alone, if you love the game, it would be crazy not to attract as many people to the tables as possible.
Men need more women in poker. Women need more women in poker. Poker needs more women.
| i don't know |
Which sporting knight made an appearance on The Archers as part of Sport Relief 2014? | News Archive 13th March 2014 | Contactmusic.com
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13th March 2014 10:59
Cameron Diaz think women are not given ''permission'' to age.The 41-year-old actress thinks society has a ''crazy'' obsession with trying to stay...
13th March 2014 10:59
Rick Ross owns the Billboard 200 chart this week. Despite Pharrell Williams’ high-profile gig at the Oscars recently, on Wednesday, Ross’ latest...
13th March 2014 11:14
Pharrell Williams has teamed up with luxury fashion brand Comme Des Garçons to create a brand new fragrance called 'GIRL,' designed to be worn by...
13th March 2014 11:14
Olympic gold medallist Bradley Wiggins is set to star in the popular Radio 4 soap, The Archers, as part of The BBC’s Sport Relief campaign. The...
13th March 2014 11:20
Lil Wayne has confirmed that his 11th studio album 'Tha Carter V' - which drops in May - will be his final solo effort. The 31-year-old rapper is...
13th March 2014 11:38
Louis Vuitton are taking a ''more casual'' approach to style.The fashion house debuted new creative director Nicolas Ghesquière's first collection...
13th March 2014 11:51
Hayden Panettiere had to wear fake eye lashes because her own would ''snap off.''The 24-year-old actress always wears mascara to lengthen her pale...
13th March 2014 11:59
Katie Holmes ended her fashion line to ''concentrate on motherhood''.The actress recently called time on Holmes & Yang, the line she started with...
13th March 2014 11:59
Two revellers have been killed and 23 injured after a car ploughed into a crowd outside a venue at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas...
13th March 2014 12:08
Rapper Lil Wayne has confirmed his upcoming 11th solo album with be his last.The Lollipop hitmaker has previously hinted he is ready to retire, but...
13th March 2014 12:08
Bbc bosses have been bombarded with complaints after a top medical drama featured a scene in which a devoted One Direction fan threatened to...
13th March 2014 12:08
British punk stars The Stranglers feared they were targeted by a sinister secret organisation as they worked on an alien-themed album while...
13th March 2014 12:08
Australian pop star Kylie Minogue signed up for double duty on singing show The Voice to keep herself busy after the breakdown of her long-term...
13th March 2014 12:08
An exhibition dedicated to British rockers Oasis is to open in London next month (Apr14).Chasing The Sun: Oasis 1993 - 1997 will showcase rare images...
13th March 2014 12:08
Actor Richard Coogan has died, aged 99.The star, best known for playing the title role in sci-fi Tv show Captain Video and His Video Rangers, passed...
13th March 2014 12:08
Director Terry Gilliam has revealed the nightmarish conditions he was forced to work under while making his latest film The Zero Theorem.The movie...
13th March 2014 12:08
American politician Reubin Askew, who inspired Larry Hagman's character in Primary Colors, has died. He was 85.The former Florida Governor passed...
13th March 2014 12:08
Kelly Brook's on/off boyfriend has been fined following a bizarre court case involving a crashed van full of dead badgers.David MCIntosh, a former...
13th March 2014 12:08
Model Lydia Hearst has revealed she met her actor beau Kevin Connolly through Facebook.com.The socialite-turned-actress has been dating the Entourage...
13th March 2014 12:08
Sir Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons and Dominic West were among the British stars who helped recreate ELLEN DEGENERES' Oscars 'selfie' photograph at an...
13th March 2014 12:08
River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke's debut movie is set for a remake.Cult 1985 film Explorers will be remade for Paramount by Josh Appelbaum and Andre...
13th March 2014 12:08
Harry Styles was left stranded at the roadside in Los Angeles on Wednesday (12Mar14) after his motorbike broke down. The One Direction star was...
13th March 2014 12:08
Blondie star Debbie Harry made a surprise appearance with female rock group the Dum Dum Girls at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas on...
13th March 2014 12:08
British Olympian Sir Bradley Wiggins is set to show off his acting chops with a cameo role in long-running Bbc radio drama The Archers. The episode...
13th March 2014 12:08
"I feel like I'm born to be a mom. My husband wants them, too. We're trying to take a little time to be married, since we got married really fast!"...
13th March 2014 12:08
Sources close to the Star Wars Episode 7 casting have confirmed that Disney and Lucasfilm has rounded the role of lead Jedi down to five young actors...
13th March 2014 12:28
Amongst the post-Oscars films is The Zero Theorem, which stars the double Oscar-winning Christoph Waltz as Qohen Leth, a computer genius living as a...
13th March 2014 12:31
Tina Fey has addressed the talk of an upcoming Mean Girls sequel in response to the rumors which have reached a maximum as the 2004 comedy movie's 10...
13th March 2014 12:32
‘The Last of Us’ is widely considered to be the best single player game ever made. It reached the summit of many ‘game of the year’ and...
13th March 2014 12:56
There are probably many benefits to being the POTUS, but for a day at least, the biggest one has to be advance access to Season 4 of Game of Thrones....
13th March 2014 13:01
Rooney Mara has landed a role in Joe Wright's upcoming Peter Pan origins movie, Pan - she will playTiger Lily. Mara, who is best known for playing...
13th March 2014 13:15
Gillian Anderson and Fifty Shades' very own Christian Grey, Jamie Dornan, are returning for the second season of BBC2 thriller 'The Fall'. Anderson...
13th March 2014 14:08
The line “Wanna take a ride in my tank?” wouldn’t go over well coming from a regular human, but if there’s anyone who can make it work,...
13th March 2014 14:21
Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Under The Skin’ is released tomorrow in the U.K; the oft-talked about thriller sees Scarlett Johansson play an alien in...
13th March 2014 14:38
The sunglasses worn by Paul Walker on the day he died are up for sale.The 'Fast and the Furious' actor perished alongside his friend Roger Rodas on...
13th March 2014 14:59
Lily Allen would kiss Miley Cyrus.The 'Air Balloon' singer is seen smooching her own doppelganger in her new video 'Our Time' and admits she would...
13th March 2014 14:59
Peter Andre is going to have two weddings.The 41-year-old star, who is engaged to medical student Emily MacDonagh, is planning a massive celebration...
13th March 2014 14:59
Zac Efron is committed to staying sober. The 'High School Musical Star' - who completed a stint in rehab just under a year ago for alleged cocaine...
13th March 2014 14:59
A driver hurtled through barricades and ploughed through dozens of revellers at the SXSW festival early on Thursday morning (March 13, 2014), killing...
13th March 2014 15:10
Helena Bonham Carter is returning for the 'Alice in Wonderland' sequel.The British actress has been confirmed to reprise her role as the evil Red...
13th March 2014 16:06
Scarlett Johansson's pregnancy hasn't affected 'The Avengers: Age of Ultron' script. The 29-year-old actress is due to welcome her first child into...
13th March 2014 16:06
Lily Allen claims MTV want to ban her music video during the daytime because it promotes anti-social behaviour. The 'Hard Out Here' singer is seen in...
13th March 2014 16:06
Cheryl Cole is working on a new track with Eminem songwriter Jon Bellion.The 'Call My Name' hitmaker, who has revealed her new album is ''almost...
13th March 2014 16:06
The 1975 will headline Bushmills Live 2014 in Ireland. The Manchester band, who have supported the likes of The Rolling Stones and Muse, will perform...
13th March 2014 16:06
Mel C thinks Little Mix are the new Spice Girls. The 40-year-old singer recently teamed up with the 'Move' hitmakers for a Sport Relief video for...
13th March 2014 16:06
Rapper Petey Pablo has been released from prison.The star, real name Moses Mortimer Barrett Iii, was sentenced to three years in jail for trying to...
13th March 2014 16:08
Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff has backed calls for European nations to pay reparations to Caribbean countries targeted by the slave trade.The issue hit...
13th March 2014 16:08
Lily Allen's new video is facing a ban from Mtv after her team refused to allow the controversial promo to be edited for the music channel.On Monday...
13th March 2014 16:08
British singer Paloma Faith has blamed social media for ruining the mystique of music superstars.The Picking Up The Pieces hitmaker admits she tried...
13th March 2014 16:08
Kelly Osbourne has urged fans to think carefully before they opt for a tattoo as she undergoes the painful process of having her unwanted inkings...
13th March 2014 16:08
Rock icon Jimi Hendrix has been celebrated with a commemorative stamp in the U.S.Officials at the U.S. Postal Service have commissioned the Jimi...
13th March 2014 16:08
British singer Pixie Lott is adamant she did not strip naked for a new pop promo, insisting she wears a barely-there bodysuit in the clip.The Mama Do...
13th March 2014 16:08
Rocker Gruff Rhys is launching an interactive project with a cell phone app in honour of Welsh explorer John Evans.The Super Furry Animals frontman...
13th March 2014 16:08
Boyzone star Keith Duffy is to make his theatre debut playing an Irish boxer in an upcoming London production.The Irish singer has previously shown...
13th March 2014 16:08
British actress Katherine Kelly has given birth to a baby girl.The 34 year old, who stars opposite Jeremy Piven in popular period drama Mr Selfridge,...
13th March 2014 16:08
Stars including Sir Michael Caine, Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth and Damian Lewis helped raise more than $2.2 million (£1.4 million) for U.K....
13th March 2014 16:08
Voiceover artist Hal Douglas has died, aged 89.He passed away on Friday (07Mar14) at his home in Lovettsville, Virginia after suffering complications...
13th March 2014 16:08
Star Trek legend William Shatner has baffled fans by quitting Twitter.com and rejoining just hours later.The veteran actor bid farewell to his...
13th March 2014 16:08
A pair of sunglasses Paul Walker was allegedly wearing when he died have been put up for auction by a seller claiming to have found them at the crash...
13th March 2014 16:08
Germany soccer boss Uli Hoeness was sentenced to three and a half years behind bars for tax evasion on Thursday (13Mar14).The former World...
13th March 2014 16:08
Veteran actress Joanna Lumley and British royal Charles, Prince Of Wales were among the leading figures who attended a memorial service for late...
13th March 2014 16:08
Soccer legend Eric Cantona has been arrested for attacking a man in London.The French former international striker, 47, was held by police officers...
13th March 2014 16:08
Actress Kristen Bell suffered a major wardrobe malfunction at the Los Angeles premiere of her latest film when a gust of wind blew open her gown and...
13th March 2014 16:08
Actor Rob Lowe once went out on a date with pop superstar Madonna.The West Wing star makes the revelation in his new book Love Life, the follow-up to...
13th March 2014 16:08
Aaron Paul feared for his director's safety on the set of Need For Speed after the moviemaker placed his life in the actor's hands during a scary...
13th March 2014 16:08
Celebrity publicist Max Clifford bragged of bedding movie beauty Julie Christie, London's Old Bailey court has been told.The public relations guru,...
13th March 2014 16:08
"Weirdly enough, I saw a mugshot of him on the front of a tabloid recently and my first thought was, 'She's quite hot'. I've always been a fan of a...
13th March 2014 16:08
Kate Moss' younger sister Lottie has made her modelling debut in a spread for Teen Vogue. The 16 year old is signed to Storm Model Management, the...
13th March 2014 16:08
Lupita Nyong'o's stylist claims the red gown the actress wore to the Golden Globes ''solidified'' her celebrity status.The '12 Years A Slave' star -...
13th March 2014 16:14
Naomi Campbell is plotting a reunion of the original supermodels.The 43-year-old catwalk queen is enlisting her 1990s pals like Kate Moss, Christy...
13th March 2014 16:14
Just a quick disclaimer here: Contact Music don’t condone violence of any kind, but this article will be littered with admiration for Eric Cantona,...
13th March 2014 17:23
Jay-Z and Kanye West gave SXSW goers a rip-roaringly good time as they collaborated in a 'Watch The Throne' style comeback show last night in Austin,...
13th March 2014 17:25
Lea Michele will present at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. The 'Glee' star will reportedly take the stage at the 27th annual ceremony - which is...
13th March 2014 17:51
Justin Bieber's defense attorney Roy Black insists the singer has not been offered a plea deal in his driving under the influence (DUI) case.The...
13th March 2014 17:51
Aaron Paul ''can't wait'' to have childrenThe 'Need for Speed' actor is excited at the thought of having ''miniature'' versions of wife Lauren...
13th March 2014 17:51
Russell Brand is buying a house in India.The British comic - who got engaged and married Katy Perry in Jaipur - reportedly wants to spend six months...
13th March 2014 17:51
The Big Bang Theory, which debuted back in 2007 and has been an exponentially rising in popularity ever since, will be on TV screens for another 3...
13th March 2014 17:58
The trailer has been released for new British music movie Svengali, a 21st century look at the British music industry and how minnows can become big...
13th March 2014 18:37
Chris Brown's lawyer has petitioned a judge to block a settlement payment to a woman who alleged the singer assaulted her during a night out in...
13th March 2014 19:06
U.S. punk icon Exene Cervenka has offered her sympathies to the families of the music fans killed outside her band X's gig in Austin, Texas on...
13th March 2014 19:06
Legendary film composer Ennio Morricone has postponed two upcoming concerts in the U.S. after undergoing back surgery.The revered Italian musician,...
13th March 2014 19:06
Pregnant country music star Jessie James is set to relocate to New York this summer (14) after her American footballer husband Eric Decker signed a...
13th March 2014 19:06
British singer Beverley Knight is set to continue her stint in London's West End after landing a leading role in hit Broadway musical Memphis.The...
13th March 2014 19:06
Breaking Bad star Jesse Plemons and Downton Abbey's Ed Speleers are among the actors who have been shortlisted to play the lead role in Star Wars:...
13th March 2014 19:06
Embattled American football star Darren Sharper's release request from a Los Angeles jail has been denied as authorities continue to investigate...
13th March 2014 19:06
Former child star Kyla Pratt has become a mother for a second time after secretly giving birth to a baby girl last summer (13).The Dr. Dolittle...
13th March 2014 19:06
Former Playboy playmate Swetlana Maslowskaya has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after she was convicted for tax fraud in her native Germany.The...
13th March 2014 19:06
Filmmaker Abby Singer has died at the age of 96.Singer lost his battle with cancer and passed away on Thursday (13Mar14) at the Motion Picture &...
13th March 2014 19:06
Actor Lillo Brancato, Jr. has reportedly dropped out of a starring role in singer Natali Yura's new music video to take on a part in a "major...
13th March 2014 19:06
Jeremy Irons has been studying Sir Michael Caine's performances as he prepares to take over the role as Batman's butler Alfred.The Alfie star played...
13th March 2014 19:06
"I heard you just told Piers Morgan to f**k off, which is awesome. I'm super impressed by you lately. You've been, like, punk rock. She's been, like,...
13th March 2014 19:06
"I was born eight blocks from the theatre." Actor Sylvester Stallone is excited his ROCKY Broadway musical is playing close to his childhood...
13th March 2014 19:06
Comedian David Spade has pocketed $750,000 (£468,750) after selling off a piece of art by Peter Beard. The star, who has become an avid collector...
13th March 2014 19:06
Tina Fey may have disappointed the legion of Mean Girls fans when she shot down the recent rumours of a sequel to the classic 2004 teen comedy as its...
13th March 2014 19:58
Enrique Iglesias doesn't want to marry Anna Kournikova. The 38-year-old singer doesn't see the point in tying the knot with the former professional...
13th March 2014 19:59
Zoe Saldana has stopped dieting and working out. The 35-year-old actress has always been an active person, but she admits she's been ''lazy'' over...
13th March 2014 19:59
Kelly Osbourne has sold her Hollywood Hills home for $1.3 million.The 'Fashion Police' star, who split from her fiancé Matthew Mosshart earlier this...
13th March 2014 19:59
Emma Watson is ''so jealous'' of actresses who didn't grow up in the spotlight. The 23-year-old star shot to fame at the age of nine when she was...
13th March 2014 19:59
Darren Aronofsky's new movie, Noah, has been banned in Middle Eastern countries because of a fear of religious provocation. The Black Swan director...
13th March 2014 20:26
Since Prince Harry has been seen out and about with Cressida Bonas a lot more lately, everybody is wondering when exactly he’s going to make her a...
13th March 2014 21:47
A series of South By Southwest festival concerts planned for venues on Red River Street in Austin, Texas on Thursday (13Mar14) have been scrapped...
13th March 2014 21:59
The Rolling Stones were forced to drop the hits Brown Sugar and Honky Tonk Woman from their set list during a show in China on Wednesday night...
13th March 2014 21:59
Rocker Jimmy Page is set to receive an honorary degree from the Berklee College of Music.The Led Zeppelin star will be feted at a ceremony on 10 May...
13th March 2014 21:59
Justin Bieber has severed links with Los Angeles after selling off two plots of adjacent land in Calabasas.The pop star recently sold his mansion to...
13th March 2014 21:59
Reunited new romantic band Spandau Ballet played its first concert in America in almost three decades on Wednesday (12Mar14) when singer Tony Hadley...
13th March 2014 21:59
Game Of Thrones producers have confirmed they are almost halfway through the cult fantasy series, insisting they will end the show after a seventh...
13th March 2014 21:59
Funnyman Kenan Thompson has confirmed reports he's set to become a father.The former child star-turned-Saturday Night Live regular's wife Christina...
13th March 2014 21:59
Drew Barrymore is getting very serious about her cooking skills - she is planning a trip to Italy this summer (14) to perfect her pasta dishes.The...
13th March 2014 21:59
Models Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne have teamed up for a joint campaign to promote Burberry's latest fragrance.The 21 year old fashion icon has...
13th March 2014 21:59
Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul is considering a house move because fans keep showing up at his Hollywood home hoping for a glass of champagne and a...
13th March 2014 21:59
Newly-engaged actor Jack Reynor has another reason to celebrate after learning he'll be the recipient of this year's (14) Rising Star honour at the...
13th March 2014 21:59
Director Richard Linklater is set to be honoured with the 2014 Founder's Directing Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival this spring...
13th March 2014 21:59
Blur star Damon Albarn's new song Mr. Tembo was inspired by a baby elephant the singer/songwriter met in Tanzania.
13th March 2014 21:59
"I'm not against marriage, not at all... But when you've been with someone for such a long time, I don't think it's going to bring us closer...
13th March 2014 21:59
"It was my first screen kiss, I was really embarrassed... I remember he kept cracking up because I didn't have the balls to go for him, so he was...
13th March 2014 21:59
"In the script there was a gimp character, where Danny MCBride had a sex slave, and originally it wasn't going to be someone famous. And then we...
13th March 2014 21:59
Tv star Sarah Michelle Gellar celebrated her 200,000th Twitter.com follower on Wednesday (12Mar14) by posting a sweet photo of herself and actor...
13th March 2014 21:59
Liam Neeson will reunite with his onscreen wife, Famke Janssen, and daughter, Maggie Grace, in the third instalment of his hit Taken franchise after...
13th March 2014 21:59
"I've been an active person my whole life. The past year has been the only time in my life that I haven't been to the gym. I've been lazy instead of...
13th March 2014 21:59
"I love Melissa MCBride. Bridesmaids is the coolest movie I've ever seen." Drew Barrymore is a big fan of the 2011 comedy.
13th March 2014 21:59
Divergent star Shailene Woodley has slammed the Twilight franchise, particularly the “toxic” relationship between the lead characters. Woodley...
13th March 2014 22:04
Khloe Kardashian doesn't believe in dieting. The 29-year-old reality TV star, who has recently sported a trimmer figure, claims she doesn't agree...
13th March 2014 23:00
Scarlett Johansson isn't going to plan her wedding.The 29-year-old actress has been engaged to Romain Duariac for six months and is expecting her...
13th March 2014 23:00
Jessica Simpson has changed the location of her wedding. The singer and her fiancé Eric Johnson were planning to get married on the Italian island...
13th March 2014 23:00
Jason Bateman uses swear words around his two-year-old daughter. The 45-year-old actor allows himself to curse when he's looking after Maple because...
13th March 2014 23:00
The younger (and much taller) Olsen sister, Elizabeth Olsen, has become engaged to boyfriend Boyd Holbook. The pair have been dating for over two...
13th March 2014 23:42
| Bradley Wiggins |
Disney’s recent animated film Frozen is based on which tale by Hans Christian Andersen? | News Archive 13th March 2014 | Contactmusic.com
Lindsay Lohan has allegedly penned a lengthy list of all the people she has had sex with, and there is a few familiar faces among it.The 27 year-old...
13th March 2014 0:07
'The Big Bang Theory' isn't going anywhere soon, not until 2017 at least. CBS announced on Wednesday (March 12th) that it has ordered three more...
13th March 2014 0:39
Paul Walker's last ever film will definitely be completed.'Fast & Furious 7' has finally been given the green light to resume production on March...
13th March 2014 1:18
A lawyer representing the photographer Justin Bieber is accused of assaulting in Miami, Florida has filed a court motion demanding the singer return...
13th March 2014 1:28
The full extent of former New Found Glory guitarist Steve Klein's legal woes have been revealed in the release of his December (13) arraignment...
13th March 2014 1:28
Pop star Robin Thicke was forced to pull out of a concert in Ontario, Canada on Tuesday night (11Mar14) after experiencing a recurring vocal...
13th March 2014 1:28
Singer/songwriter Sia has blasted Alaska's former governor Sarah Palin for using the song Titanium during a political event over the weekend...
13th March 2014 1:28
Former child star Charlotte Church is planning to head back to school to obtain a degree in physics.The Welsh opera singer-turned-pop star has become...
13th March 2014 1:28
Katie Holmes ended her fashion partnership with stylist Jeanne Yang after realising the label would not survive as she prepared to relaunch her...
13th March 2014 1:28
Filming on the Allman Brothers biopic Midnight Rider is still on hold two weeks after a camera assistant was killed in a freak train accident on the...
13th March 2014 1:28
Reality Tv star Judge Judy has filed her very first lawsuit against an attorney in Connecticut who used her image to promote his personal injury...
13th March 2014 1:28
Supermodel Kate Upton has been named the new face of American fashion retailer Express.The Sports Illustrated beauty has been hired to model the...
13th March 2014 1:28
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch was reportedly involved in a fight during Oscars weekend earlier this month (Mar14).The Star Trek Into Darkness star was...
13th March 2014 1:28
Lindsay Lohan's father has been slapped with a $1 million (£625,000) lawsuit over a failed Girls Gone Wild project.Richard Reitano claims...
13th March 2014 1:28
Actor Bryan Cranston initially rejected a starring role in the new Godzilla movie reboot over fears the script wouldn't live up to his quality...
13th March 2014 1:28
"For me it was just such a normal thing. It became (a thing) because I brought light to it. I have nobody to blame but myself. I brought attention to...
13th March 2014 1:28
"It took me forever to write the email to ask her, like I was writing to someone I had a crush on and you don't want to mess it up... It took a week...
13th March 2014 1:28
"I say 'shut up'! I'm an English Rose thank you very much. I'm not going to dye my skin orange - I'm working too hard taking America by storm to fake...
13th March 2014 1:28
"I'm gonna claim responsibility for everything he ever does from now on, and take half his earnings. He was nothing, just a fat, bald, ginger slob...
13th March 2014 1:28
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea will be making her debut at New York City's acclaimed Tribeca Film Festival in April (14)....
13th March 2014 1:28
"I signed on to the film three-and-a-half months out and I was just on the race track as often as possible. From morning to night, really learning...
13th March 2014 1:28
Shooting for the pilot for CW’s latest superhero outing, 'The Flash' has gotten well and truly underway and there’s plenty of details coming out...
13th March 2014 1:52
Elizabeth Olsen is engaged.The 25-year-old actress and her boyfriend Boyd Holbrook are set to tie the knot after the 32-year-old star popped the...
13th March 2014 1:59
Aaron Paul admits being married to his wife is ''incredible''.The 'Breaking Bad' star and his beau Lauren Parsekian tied the knot in a...
13th March 2014 1:59
Angie Everhart underwent surgery on her neck yesterday (11.03.14).The former Sports Illustrated model - who has dated Sylvester Stallone in the past...
13th March 2014 1:59
Lauren Conrad has regular date nights with her fiancé. The former 'The Hills' star has been dating her beau William Tell for just over two years and...
13th March 2014 1:59
Rihanna and Drake were spotted kissing at a London nightclub on Monday (10.03.14).The pair, who are rumoured to have got back together, were seen at...
13th March 2014 2:02
‘Freaks and Geeks’ may have only lasted for one season, but the show has had an enduring legacy, not least of all for producer Judd Apatow who...
13th March 2014 2:04
Shailene Woodley doesn't seem to share the same view as the majority of young females her age, she isn't a 'Twilight' fan.The 22 year-old actress is...
13th March 2014 2:05
In the past few months our ears and eyes haven’t been able to escape 17 year old New Zealand singer Lorde, the ‘Royals’ songstress is...
13th March 2014 2:15
Frank Ocean’s career has certainly been on the rise in the past few years since releasing his debut album ‘Channel Orange’ in 2012, to much...
13th March 2014 2:24
Robin Thicke spent his 37th birthday partying with Leonardo DiCaprio.The 'Blurred Lines' singer - who split from wife Paula Patton after eight years...
13th March 2014 2:59
Pharrell Williams is known as one of the most diverse musical talents in the industry today.The 40 year-old is a well-established producer, rapper,...
13th March 2014 3:00
We honestly don’t know how many times we have watched the teaser trailer for Disney’s Maleficent now. It's defintely into double figures, that's...
13th March 2014 3:52
'The Bachelor' star Juan Pablo Galavis is quickly becoming remembered for all the wrong reasons!The 32 year-old has said that he is not a "bad guy,"...
13th March 2014 4:06
“Who are you wearing?”, “Are you excited to be here?”, “Do you want to win?” are just a few of the inane questions that get yelled at the...
13th March 2014 4:10
Stacy Kielber's week is just full of big announcements.The former WWE diva married tech entrepreneur Jared Pobre in a secret ceremony this past...
13th March 2014 5:10
Dominic Cooper hates fancy dress parties.The 'Need for Speed' actor favours casual clothes when he isn't working and hates socialising at parties...
13th March 2014 5:59
Neil Patrick Harris ''loves being scared''. The 'How I Met Your Mother' actor enjoys being frightened and taking part in daring stunts and thinks...
13th March 2014 5:59
Rick Ross is not only the leader in the hip-hop world, but in all of music.The 38 year-old surpassed Pharrell's 'G I R L' to take the top spot on the...
13th March 2014 6:03
Karen Gillan found it ''scary'' when she first saw herself as Guardians of the Galaxy's Nebula.The 26-year-old actress - who shaved her head for the...
13th March 2014 6:21
Skrillex wanted his debut album to be ''crazy''. The dubstep producer, real name Sonny Moore, kept details of his record 'Recess' a secret before...
13th March 2014 6:21
Last night’s American Idol did not start on a promising note. The theme was Movie Night – something that the judges hoped would bring out the...
13th March 2014 6:40
Shailene Woodley has admitted that she may have had a relationship with a co-star...but only after filming had finished! The Divergent star spoke to...
13th March 2014 6:45
It was only earlier this week that Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowell's professional relationship was fixed as the 'Girls Aloud' singer was confirmed to be...
13th March 2014 7:01
There’s a certain stage you reach in your fashion career when you are no longer simply just ‘well-dressed’. This lot have all transitioned from...
13th March 2014 7:02
Kiss star Gene Simmons has revealed that he and Paul Stanley turned their backs on the chance to perform at the upcoming Rock & Roll Hall of Fame...
13th March 2014 8:03
Country singer Trace Adkins made his first public appearance since his recent rehab stint with a surprise performance at the Grand Ole Opry in...
13th March 2014 8:03
Singer Pixie Lott stunned students at a school in Kent, England on Wednesday (12Mar14) when she showed up for an unannounced concert to honour a...
13th March 2014 8:03
Country music sensation Hunter Hayes is aiming for a Guinness World Record for playing the most concerts in 24 hours.As part of the Hunter Hayes 24...
13th March 2014 8:03
Jennifer Lopez still feels awful about beating up a school pal when she was nine, and wishes she hadn't bowed under peer pressure.The singer/actress...
13th March 2014 8:03
Top Dj/producer Avicii is set to launch a one-week only concept store in Miami, Florida surrounding his headlining spot at the city's Ultra Music...
13th March 2014 8:03
Openly-gay actor Neil Patrick Harris is struggling to deal with his insecurities as he prepares to star as a transgender glam rock singer in Broadway...
13th March 2014 8:03
Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'hara lace hat and chiffon scarf from Gone With The Wind and the safari outfit Grace Kelly wore in Mogambo are set to hit...
13th March 2014 8:03
Actress Tippi Hedren will be taking part in a Global March for Lions on Saturday (12Mar14) as animal rights activists in Los Angeles links up with...
13th March 2014 8:03
Victoria Beckham headed back to school on Wednesday (12Mar14) to share her style expertise with students at the Conde Nast College of Fashion &...
13th March 2014 8:03
Actress Shailene Woodley's survivalist interests have her primed for a disaster.The hippie chick has collected a series of top tips to help her ride...
13th March 2014 8:03
Actor Adrian Pasdar has signed on to play The Incredible Hulk's nemesis Glenn Talbot in superhero Tv series Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.The former...
13th March 2014 8:03
Comedian Aziz Ansari has turned to fans online for relationship tips as he compiles research for his new book, Modern Romantics.Last year (13), the...
13th March 2014 8:03
Comedienne Joan Rivers is clearing out the Connecticut mansion she sold last year (13) by auctioning off everything from furniture to fine art.The...
13th March 2014 8:03
Actress Gabrielle Union is adding celebrity vintner to her resume with the launch of her first wine.Vanilla Puddin' Chardonnay features...
13th March 2014 8:03
Sarah Jessica Parker has opened the door of her New York City home to Vogue cameras for a quirky interview, during which she reels off quick-fire...
13th March 2014 8:03
Singers Jennifer Hudson, A Great Big World, Charice and American Idol alum Jessica Sanchez took part in the Pinoy Relief Benefit Concert at Madison...
13th March 2014 8:03
A man hired to help construct the huge tongue Miley Cyrus slides down during her Bangerz shows is suing the equipment company behind the prop for...
13th March 2014 8:03
Chloe Sevigny's new Tv drama Those Who Kill has been cancelled after just two episodes. The remaining eight episodes of the A&E series will air later...
13th March 2014 8:03
Studio executives at Columbia Pictures have teamed up with bosses at China's New Classics Media to develop a Chinese language remake of Julia...
13th March 2014 8:03
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's The Row collection has earned them a nomination for the Accessories Designer of the Year prize at the Council of Fashion...
13th March 2014 8:03
Supermodel Gisele Bundchen is set to open her first lingerie store in her native Brazil. The beauty, who has her own line with underwear firm Hope,...
13th March 2014 8:03
"I'd like to play a villain in a superhero film. An evil guy... I'd be annoying. I could do that... Batman would go, 'Oh f**k this!'" Funnyman Ricky...
13th March 2014 8:03
Ashley Roberts says The Pussycat Dolls will be getting back together. The 32-year-old star and her former group mates have all gone their separate...
13th March 2014 8:21
On first glance, Dreamworks’ upcoming big-screen adaptation of the Need for Speed video game seems like quite a big leap of faith. Movies, based on...
13th March 2014 9:04
Kelly Brook's on/off boyfriend crashed a van full of dead badgers.David McIntosh, was taking the carcasses to a furnace as part of the governments...
13th March 2014 9:06
Miley Cyrus' giant tongue ''badly injured'' a crew worker, a lawsuit claims.Charles Nicholas Sarris has filed a claim against ShowFx Inc., the Los...
13th March 2014 9:06
Oprah Winfrey is releasing a new book.The media mogul will publish a collection of essays, entitled 'What I Know For Sure', which will be compiled...
13th March 2014 9:06
Scarlett Johansson has had marriage proposals because of her muffins.The 29-year-old actress - who is engaged to French journalist Romain Duariac and...
13th March 2014 9:06
Rihanna and Drake were spotted holding hands after his concert in Manchester on Tuesday night (11.03.14).The 'What Now' singer, 26, and the...
13th March 2014 9:06
Joan Collins has recreated Ellen DeGeneres' Oscars 'selfie'. The 80-year-old actress gathered a group of British celebrities, including Sir Ben...
13th March 2014 9:06
Earlier this week, Lindsay Lohan’s supposed “ex list” was posted recently in In Touch Weekly, prompting a storm of media coverage. It wasn’t...
13th March 2014 9:21
Tina Fey has denied reports that there will be a 'Mean Girls' reunion movie.The 43-year-old comedienne - who wrote the original film - has shot down...
13th March 2014 9:36
Like a number of her fellow next gen Hollywood actresses, The Descendants star Shailene Woodley is conscious of the messages she sends to young...
13th March 2014 9:51
Lil Wayne is recording his 'final solo album'.The 31-year-old rapper is reportedly planning to retire and only focus on collaborations after his...
13th March 2014 9:59
Paloma Faith thinks David Bowie is the last great pop star. The 'Can't Rely On You' singer reckons pop is dead because of social media and fans know...
13th March 2014 9:59
Five young actors have auditioned for the lead in 'Star Wars: Episode VII'.'Downton Abbey' actor Ed Speleers, 'Attack the Block' star John Boyega,...
13th March 2014 10:00
Maggie Grace has secured a deal to star in 'Taken 3'.The 30-year-old star is set to reprise her role as Bryan Mills' (Liam Neeson) daughter in a...
13th March 2014 10:00
Rooney Mara is in talks to play Tiger Lily in 'Pan'.The 'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' star is negotiating the role of the Native American princess in...
13th March 2014 10:00
Arthur Chu, the 30-year-old trivia guru who won 11 straight games on Alex Trebek's Jeopardy! and accumulated nearly $300,000 in prize money, was...
13th March 2014 10:30
Pastor Kevin Swanson of the Reformation Church claims Disney's smash hit family movie Frozen encourages homosexuality and bestiality. Just give...
13th March 2014 10:56
Emma Bunton would be open to the Spice Girls having a Las Vegas concert residency.The singer-turned-radio presenter says it would take more than...
13th March 2014 10:59
Kelly Osbourne has undergone a third session of ''horrendously painful'' tattoo removal.The 'Fashion Police' host has had several of her 15 inkings...
13th March 2014 10:59
Aaron Paul is having to move house because of his kindness to fans.The 'Need For Speed' actor has previously revealed he welcomed tourists visiting...
13th March 2014 10:59
Cameron Diaz think women are not given ''permission'' to age.The 41-year-old actress thinks society has a ''crazy'' obsession with trying to stay...
13th March 2014 10:59
Rick Ross owns the Billboard 200 chart this week. Despite Pharrell Williams’ high-profile gig at the Oscars recently, on Wednesday, Ross’ latest...
13th March 2014 11:14
Pharrell Williams has teamed up with luxury fashion brand Comme Des Garçons to create a brand new fragrance called 'GIRL,' designed to be worn by...
13th March 2014 11:14
Olympic gold medallist Bradley Wiggins is set to star in the popular Radio 4 soap, The Archers, as part of The BBC’s Sport Relief campaign. The...
13th March 2014 11:20
Lil Wayne has confirmed that his 11th studio album 'Tha Carter V' - which drops in May - will be his final solo effort. The 31-year-old rapper is...
13th March 2014 11:38
Louis Vuitton are taking a ''more casual'' approach to style.The fashion house debuted new creative director Nicolas Ghesquière's first collection...
13th March 2014 11:51
Hayden Panettiere had to wear fake eye lashes because her own would ''snap off.''The 24-year-old actress always wears mascara to lengthen her pale...
13th March 2014 11:59
Katie Holmes ended her fashion line to ''concentrate on motherhood''.The actress recently called time on Holmes & Yang, the line she started with...
13th March 2014 11:59
Two revellers have been killed and 23 injured after a car ploughed into a crowd outside a venue at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas...
13th March 2014 12:08
Rapper Lil Wayne has confirmed his upcoming 11th solo album with be his last.The Lollipop hitmaker has previously hinted he is ready to retire, but...
13th March 2014 12:08
Bbc bosses have been bombarded with complaints after a top medical drama featured a scene in which a devoted One Direction fan threatened to...
13th March 2014 12:08
British punk stars The Stranglers feared they were targeted by a sinister secret organisation as they worked on an alien-themed album while...
13th March 2014 12:08
Australian pop star Kylie Minogue signed up for double duty on singing show The Voice to keep herself busy after the breakdown of her long-term...
13th March 2014 12:08
An exhibition dedicated to British rockers Oasis is to open in London next month (Apr14).Chasing The Sun: Oasis 1993 - 1997 will showcase rare images...
13th March 2014 12:08
Actor Richard Coogan has died, aged 99.The star, best known for playing the title role in sci-fi Tv show Captain Video and His Video Rangers, passed...
13th March 2014 12:08
Director Terry Gilliam has revealed the nightmarish conditions he was forced to work under while making his latest film The Zero Theorem.The movie...
13th March 2014 12:08
American politician Reubin Askew, who inspired Larry Hagman's character in Primary Colors, has died. He was 85.The former Florida Governor passed...
13th March 2014 12:08
Kelly Brook's on/off boyfriend has been fined following a bizarre court case involving a crashed van full of dead badgers.David MCIntosh, a former...
13th March 2014 12:08
Model Lydia Hearst has revealed she met her actor beau Kevin Connolly through Facebook.com.The socialite-turned-actress has been dating the Entourage...
13th March 2014 12:08
Sir Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons and Dominic West were among the British stars who helped recreate ELLEN DEGENERES' Oscars 'selfie' photograph at an...
13th March 2014 12:08
River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke's debut movie is set for a remake.Cult 1985 film Explorers will be remade for Paramount by Josh Appelbaum and Andre...
13th March 2014 12:08
Harry Styles was left stranded at the roadside in Los Angeles on Wednesday (12Mar14) after his motorbike broke down. The One Direction star was...
13th March 2014 12:08
Blondie star Debbie Harry made a surprise appearance with female rock group the Dum Dum Girls at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas on...
13th March 2014 12:08
British Olympian Sir Bradley Wiggins is set to show off his acting chops with a cameo role in long-running Bbc radio drama The Archers. The episode...
13th March 2014 12:08
"I feel like I'm born to be a mom. My husband wants them, too. We're trying to take a little time to be married, since we got married really fast!"...
13th March 2014 12:08
Sources close to the Star Wars Episode 7 casting have confirmed that Disney and Lucasfilm has rounded the role of lead Jedi down to five young actors...
13th March 2014 12:28
Amongst the post-Oscars films is The Zero Theorem, which stars the double Oscar-winning Christoph Waltz as Qohen Leth, a computer genius living as a...
13th March 2014 12:31
Tina Fey has addressed the talk of an upcoming Mean Girls sequel in response to the rumors which have reached a maximum as the 2004 comedy movie's 10...
13th March 2014 12:32
‘The Last of Us’ is widely considered to be the best single player game ever made. It reached the summit of many ‘game of the year’ and...
13th March 2014 12:56
There are probably many benefits to being the POTUS, but for a day at least, the biggest one has to be advance access to Season 4 of Game of Thrones....
13th March 2014 13:01
Rooney Mara has landed a role in Joe Wright's upcoming Peter Pan origins movie, Pan - she will playTiger Lily. Mara, who is best known for playing...
13th March 2014 13:15
Gillian Anderson and Fifty Shades' very own Christian Grey, Jamie Dornan, are returning for the second season of BBC2 thriller 'The Fall'. Anderson...
13th March 2014 14:08
The line “Wanna take a ride in my tank?” wouldn’t go over well coming from a regular human, but if there’s anyone who can make it work,...
13th March 2014 14:21
Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Under The Skin’ is released tomorrow in the U.K; the oft-talked about thriller sees Scarlett Johansson play an alien in...
13th March 2014 14:38
The sunglasses worn by Paul Walker on the day he died are up for sale.The 'Fast and the Furious' actor perished alongside his friend Roger Rodas on...
13th March 2014 14:59
Lily Allen would kiss Miley Cyrus.The 'Air Balloon' singer is seen smooching her own doppelganger in her new video 'Our Time' and admits she would...
13th March 2014 14:59
Peter Andre is going to have two weddings.The 41-year-old star, who is engaged to medical student Emily MacDonagh, is planning a massive celebration...
13th March 2014 14:59
Zac Efron is committed to staying sober. The 'High School Musical Star' - who completed a stint in rehab just under a year ago for alleged cocaine...
13th March 2014 14:59
A driver hurtled through barricades and ploughed through dozens of revellers at the SXSW festival early on Thursday morning (March 13, 2014), killing...
13th March 2014 15:10
Helena Bonham Carter is returning for the 'Alice in Wonderland' sequel.The British actress has been confirmed to reprise her role as the evil Red...
13th March 2014 16:06
Scarlett Johansson's pregnancy hasn't affected 'The Avengers: Age of Ultron' script. The 29-year-old actress is due to welcome her first child into...
13th March 2014 16:06
Lily Allen claims MTV want to ban her music video during the daytime because it promotes anti-social behaviour. The 'Hard Out Here' singer is seen in...
13th March 2014 16:06
Cheryl Cole is working on a new track with Eminem songwriter Jon Bellion.The 'Call My Name' hitmaker, who has revealed her new album is ''almost...
13th March 2014 16:06
The 1975 will headline Bushmills Live 2014 in Ireland. The Manchester band, who have supported the likes of The Rolling Stones and Muse, will perform...
13th March 2014 16:06
Mel C thinks Little Mix are the new Spice Girls. The 40-year-old singer recently teamed up with the 'Move' hitmakers for a Sport Relief video for...
13th March 2014 16:06
Rapper Petey Pablo has been released from prison.The star, real name Moses Mortimer Barrett Iii, was sentenced to three years in jail for trying to...
13th March 2014 16:08
Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff has backed calls for European nations to pay reparations to Caribbean countries targeted by the slave trade.The issue hit...
13th March 2014 16:08
Lily Allen's new video is facing a ban from Mtv after her team refused to allow the controversial promo to be edited for the music channel.On Monday...
13th March 2014 16:08
British singer Paloma Faith has blamed social media for ruining the mystique of music superstars.The Picking Up The Pieces hitmaker admits she tried...
13th March 2014 16:08
Kelly Osbourne has urged fans to think carefully before they opt for a tattoo as she undergoes the painful process of having her unwanted inkings...
13th March 2014 16:08
Rock icon Jimi Hendrix has been celebrated with a commemorative stamp in the U.S.Officials at the U.S. Postal Service have commissioned the Jimi...
13th March 2014 16:08
British singer Pixie Lott is adamant she did not strip naked for a new pop promo, insisting she wears a barely-there bodysuit in the clip.The Mama Do...
13th March 2014 16:08
Rocker Gruff Rhys is launching an interactive project with a cell phone app in honour of Welsh explorer John Evans.The Super Furry Animals frontman...
13th March 2014 16:08
Boyzone star Keith Duffy is to make his theatre debut playing an Irish boxer in an upcoming London production.The Irish singer has previously shown...
13th March 2014 16:08
British actress Katherine Kelly has given birth to a baby girl.The 34 year old, who stars opposite Jeremy Piven in popular period drama Mr Selfridge,...
13th March 2014 16:08
Stars including Sir Michael Caine, Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth and Damian Lewis helped raise more than $2.2 million (£1.4 million) for U.K....
13th March 2014 16:08
Voiceover artist Hal Douglas has died, aged 89.He passed away on Friday (07Mar14) at his home in Lovettsville, Virginia after suffering complications...
13th March 2014 16:08
Star Trek legend William Shatner has baffled fans by quitting Twitter.com and rejoining just hours later.The veteran actor bid farewell to his...
13th March 2014 16:08
A pair of sunglasses Paul Walker was allegedly wearing when he died have been put up for auction by a seller claiming to have found them at the crash...
13th March 2014 16:08
Germany soccer boss Uli Hoeness was sentenced to three and a half years behind bars for tax evasion on Thursday (13Mar14).The former World...
13th March 2014 16:08
Veteran actress Joanna Lumley and British royal Charles, Prince Of Wales were among the leading figures who attended a memorial service for late...
13th March 2014 16:08
Soccer legend Eric Cantona has been arrested for attacking a man in London.The French former international striker, 47, was held by police officers...
13th March 2014 16:08
Actress Kristen Bell suffered a major wardrobe malfunction at the Los Angeles premiere of her latest film when a gust of wind blew open her gown and...
13th March 2014 16:08
Actor Rob Lowe once went out on a date with pop superstar Madonna.The West Wing star makes the revelation in his new book Love Life, the follow-up to...
13th March 2014 16:08
Aaron Paul feared for his director's safety on the set of Need For Speed after the moviemaker placed his life in the actor's hands during a scary...
13th March 2014 16:08
Celebrity publicist Max Clifford bragged of bedding movie beauty Julie Christie, London's Old Bailey court has been told.The public relations guru,...
13th March 2014 16:08
"Weirdly enough, I saw a mugshot of him on the front of a tabloid recently and my first thought was, 'She's quite hot'. I've always been a fan of a...
13th March 2014 16:08
Kate Moss' younger sister Lottie has made her modelling debut in a spread for Teen Vogue. The 16 year old is signed to Storm Model Management, the...
13th March 2014 16:08
Lupita Nyong'o's stylist claims the red gown the actress wore to the Golden Globes ''solidified'' her celebrity status.The '12 Years A Slave' star -...
13th March 2014 16:14
Naomi Campbell is plotting a reunion of the original supermodels.The 43-year-old catwalk queen is enlisting her 1990s pals like Kate Moss, Christy...
13th March 2014 16:14
Just a quick disclaimer here: Contact Music don’t condone violence of any kind, but this article will be littered with admiration for Eric Cantona,...
13th March 2014 17:23
Jay-Z and Kanye West gave SXSW goers a rip-roaringly good time as they collaborated in a 'Watch The Throne' style comeback show last night in Austin,...
13th March 2014 17:25
Lea Michele will present at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. The 'Glee' star will reportedly take the stage at the 27th annual ceremony - which is...
13th March 2014 17:51
Justin Bieber's defense attorney Roy Black insists the singer has not been offered a plea deal in his driving under the influence (DUI) case.The...
13th March 2014 17:51
Aaron Paul ''can't wait'' to have childrenThe 'Need for Speed' actor is excited at the thought of having ''miniature'' versions of wife Lauren...
13th March 2014 17:51
Russell Brand is buying a house in India.The British comic - who got engaged and married Katy Perry in Jaipur - reportedly wants to spend six months...
13th March 2014 17:51
The Big Bang Theory, which debuted back in 2007 and has been an exponentially rising in popularity ever since, will be on TV screens for another 3...
13th March 2014 17:58
The trailer has been released for new British music movie Svengali, a 21st century look at the British music industry and how minnows can become big...
13th March 2014 18:37
Chris Brown's lawyer has petitioned a judge to block a settlement payment to a woman who alleged the singer assaulted her during a night out in...
13th March 2014 19:06
U.S. punk icon Exene Cervenka has offered her sympathies to the families of the music fans killed outside her band X's gig in Austin, Texas on...
13th March 2014 19:06
Legendary film composer Ennio Morricone has postponed two upcoming concerts in the U.S. after undergoing back surgery.The revered Italian musician,...
13th March 2014 19:06
Pregnant country music star Jessie James is set to relocate to New York this summer (14) after her American footballer husband Eric Decker signed a...
13th March 2014 19:06
British singer Beverley Knight is set to continue her stint in London's West End after landing a leading role in hit Broadway musical Memphis.The...
13th March 2014 19:06
Breaking Bad star Jesse Plemons and Downton Abbey's Ed Speleers are among the actors who have been shortlisted to play the lead role in Star Wars:...
13th March 2014 19:06
Embattled American football star Darren Sharper's release request from a Los Angeles jail has been denied as authorities continue to investigate...
13th March 2014 19:06
Former child star Kyla Pratt has become a mother for a second time after secretly giving birth to a baby girl last summer (13).The Dr. Dolittle...
13th March 2014 19:06
Former Playboy playmate Swetlana Maslowskaya has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after she was convicted for tax fraud in her native Germany.The...
13th March 2014 19:06
Filmmaker Abby Singer has died at the age of 96.Singer lost his battle with cancer and passed away on Thursday (13Mar14) at the Motion Picture &...
13th March 2014 19:06
Actor Lillo Brancato, Jr. has reportedly dropped out of a starring role in singer Natali Yura's new music video to take on a part in a "major...
13th March 2014 19:06
Jeremy Irons has been studying Sir Michael Caine's performances as he prepares to take over the role as Batman's butler Alfred.The Alfie star played...
13th March 2014 19:06
"I heard you just told Piers Morgan to f**k off, which is awesome. I'm super impressed by you lately. You've been, like, punk rock. She's been, like,...
13th March 2014 19:06
"I was born eight blocks from the theatre." Actor Sylvester Stallone is excited his ROCKY Broadway musical is playing close to his childhood...
13th March 2014 19:06
Comedian David Spade has pocketed $750,000 (£468,750) after selling off a piece of art by Peter Beard. The star, who has become an avid collector...
13th March 2014 19:06
Tina Fey may have disappointed the legion of Mean Girls fans when she shot down the recent rumours of a sequel to the classic 2004 teen comedy as its...
13th March 2014 19:58
Enrique Iglesias doesn't want to marry Anna Kournikova. The 38-year-old singer doesn't see the point in tying the knot with the former professional...
13th March 2014 19:59
Zoe Saldana has stopped dieting and working out. The 35-year-old actress has always been an active person, but she admits she's been ''lazy'' over...
13th March 2014 19:59
Kelly Osbourne has sold her Hollywood Hills home for $1.3 million.The 'Fashion Police' star, who split from her fiancé Matthew Mosshart earlier this...
13th March 2014 19:59
Emma Watson is ''so jealous'' of actresses who didn't grow up in the spotlight. The 23-year-old star shot to fame at the age of nine when she was...
13th March 2014 19:59
Darren Aronofsky's new movie, Noah, has been banned in Middle Eastern countries because of a fear of religious provocation. The Black Swan director...
13th March 2014 20:26
Since Prince Harry has been seen out and about with Cressida Bonas a lot more lately, everybody is wondering when exactly he’s going to make her a...
13th March 2014 21:47
A series of South By Southwest festival concerts planned for venues on Red River Street in Austin, Texas on Thursday (13Mar14) have been scrapped...
13th March 2014 21:59
The Rolling Stones were forced to drop the hits Brown Sugar and Honky Tonk Woman from their set list during a show in China on Wednesday night...
13th March 2014 21:59
Rocker Jimmy Page is set to receive an honorary degree from the Berklee College of Music.The Led Zeppelin star will be feted at a ceremony on 10 May...
13th March 2014 21:59
Justin Bieber has severed links with Los Angeles after selling off two plots of adjacent land in Calabasas.The pop star recently sold his mansion to...
13th March 2014 21:59
Reunited new romantic band Spandau Ballet played its first concert in America in almost three decades on Wednesday (12Mar14) when singer Tony Hadley...
13th March 2014 21:59
Game Of Thrones producers have confirmed they are almost halfway through the cult fantasy series, insisting they will end the show after a seventh...
13th March 2014 21:59
Funnyman Kenan Thompson has confirmed reports he's set to become a father.The former child star-turned-Saturday Night Live regular's wife Christina...
13th March 2014 21:59
Drew Barrymore is getting very serious about her cooking skills - she is planning a trip to Italy this summer (14) to perfect her pasta dishes.The...
13th March 2014 21:59
Models Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne have teamed up for a joint campaign to promote Burberry's latest fragrance.The 21 year old fashion icon has...
13th March 2014 21:59
Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul is considering a house move because fans keep showing up at his Hollywood home hoping for a glass of champagne and a...
13th March 2014 21:59
Newly-engaged actor Jack Reynor has another reason to celebrate after learning he'll be the recipient of this year's (14) Rising Star honour at the...
13th March 2014 21:59
Director Richard Linklater is set to be honoured with the 2014 Founder's Directing Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival this spring...
13th March 2014 21:59
Blur star Damon Albarn's new song Mr. Tembo was inspired by a baby elephant the singer/songwriter met in Tanzania.
13th March 2014 21:59
"I'm not against marriage, not at all... But when you've been with someone for such a long time, I don't think it's going to bring us closer...
13th March 2014 21:59
"It was my first screen kiss, I was really embarrassed... I remember he kept cracking up because I didn't have the balls to go for him, so he was...
13th March 2014 21:59
"In the script there was a gimp character, where Danny MCBride had a sex slave, and originally it wasn't going to be someone famous. And then we...
13th March 2014 21:59
Tv star Sarah Michelle Gellar celebrated her 200,000th Twitter.com follower on Wednesday (12Mar14) by posting a sweet photo of herself and actor...
13th March 2014 21:59
Liam Neeson will reunite with his onscreen wife, Famke Janssen, and daughter, Maggie Grace, in the third instalment of his hit Taken franchise after...
13th March 2014 21:59
"I've been an active person my whole life. The past year has been the only time in my life that I haven't been to the gym. I've been lazy instead of...
13th March 2014 21:59
"I love Melissa MCBride. Bridesmaids is the coolest movie I've ever seen." Drew Barrymore is a big fan of the 2011 comedy.
13th March 2014 21:59
Divergent star Shailene Woodley has slammed the Twilight franchise, particularly the “toxic” relationship between the lead characters. Woodley...
13th March 2014 22:04
Khloe Kardashian doesn't believe in dieting. The 29-year-old reality TV star, who has recently sported a trimmer figure, claims she doesn't agree...
13th March 2014 23:00
Scarlett Johansson isn't going to plan her wedding.The 29-year-old actress has been engaged to Romain Duariac for six months and is expecting her...
13th March 2014 23:00
Jessica Simpson has changed the location of her wedding. The singer and her fiancé Eric Johnson were planning to get married on the Italian island...
13th March 2014 23:00
Jason Bateman uses swear words around his two-year-old daughter. The 45-year-old actor allows himself to curse when he's looking after Maple because...
13th March 2014 23:00
The younger (and much taller) Olsen sister, Elizabeth Olsen, has become engaged to boyfriend Boyd Holbook. The pair have been dating for over two...
13th March 2014 23:42
| i don't know |
What nationality was author Gabriel García Márquez, who died on 17th April? | Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize-winning author, dies at 87 - CNN.com
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize-winning author, dies at 87
By Todd Leopold, CNN
Updated 9:55 AM ET, Mon April 21, 2014
Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.
Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – Gabriel García Márquez, the influential, Nobel Prize-winning author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude," died on Thursday, April 17. He was 87.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – García Márquez, a native of Colombia, talks on the phone at his home in 1982. He is widely credited with helping to popularize the "magical realism" genre.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – King Carl Gustaf of Sweden, right, presents García Márquez with the Nobel Prize in Literature on December 10, 1982.
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Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – American actor and director Robert Redford sits with García Márquez in Havana, Cuba, in 1988.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – García Márquez poses for a portrait in Paris in 1990.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – Cuban leader Fidel Castro speaks with García Márquez at the annual cigar festival in Havana in 2000. The author was a vocal leftist and defender of Castro's Cuba.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – García Márquez gestures during a 2005 meeting in Barcelona, Spain.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks with García Márquez at the IV International Congress of the Spanish Language in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2007. García Márquez was regularly denied visas by the United States until President Clinton, a fan of "Solitude," revoked the ban.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – García Márquez waves out the window of a train in 2007 upon arriving in his hometown of Aracataca, Colombia.
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Photos: Photos: Gabriel García Márquez
Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez – García Márquez greets the media on his 87th birthday in Mexico city on March 6.
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Colombia's President declares three days of national mourning
The 87-year-old is widely credited with helping to popularize "magical realism"
García Márquez stands as one of the most honored authors on Earth
The Colombian author died in Mexico City, where he lived
Gabriel García Márquez, the influential, Nobel Prize-winning author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera," has died, his family and officials said.
He was 87.
The literary giant was treated in April for infections and dehydration at a Mexican hospital.
García Márquez, a native of Colombia, is widely credited with helping to popularize "magical realism," a genre "in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination," as the Nobel committee described it upon awarding him the prize for literature in 1982.
He was sometimes called the most significant Spanish-language author since Miguel de Cervantes, the 16th-century author of "Don Quixote" and one of the great writers in Western literature. Indeed, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda told Time that "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was "the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since the Don Quixote of Cervantes."
The author's cousin, Margarita Marquez, and Colombia's ambassador to Mexico, José Gabriel Ortiz, confirmed the author's death to CNN on Thursday.
"We're left with the memories and the admiration to all Colombians and also Mexicans because I think Gabo was half Mexican and half Colombian. He's just as admired in Mexico as he is in (his native) Colombia, all of Latin America and throughout the world," Ortiz told CNN en Español.
Photos: Gabriel García Márquez quotes
Photos: Gabriel García Márquez quotes
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Photos: Gabriel García Márquez quotes
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Photos: Gabriel García Márquez quotes
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Photos: Gabriel García Márquez quotes
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Photos: Gabriel García Márquez quotes
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Photos: Gabriel García Márquez quotes
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The legacy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez 02:55
Photos: Photos: People we lost in 2014
Photos: Photos: People we lost in 2014
People we lost in 2014 – Click through to see people who died in 2014.
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People we lost in 2014 – Edward Herrmann , the versatile, honey-voiced actor whose roles included patricians and politicians such as "Gilmore Girls" father Richard Gilmore, "The Practice" law professor Anderson Pearson and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, died on Wednesday, December 31. He was 71.
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People we lost in 2014 – Luise Rainer , who won back-to-back Oscars in the 1930s for "The Great Ziegfeld" and "The Good Earth," has died at the age of 104, her daughter reported on Tuesday, December 30.
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People we lost in 2014 – Christine Cavanaugh , who lent her distinctive voice to the title pig in "Babe," Chuckie Finster on "Rugrats" and Dexter of "Dexter's Laboratory," died December 22. She was 51.
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People we lost in 2014 – British rocker Joe Cocker died December 22 after a battle with lung cancer, Sony Music said in a statement. He was 70.
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People we lost in 2014 – Norman Bridwell , the creator of "Clifford the Big Red Dog," died December 12 in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, according to his publisher, Scholastic. Bridwell was 86.
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People we lost in 2014 – Legendary photographer Michel du Cille , a 26-year veteran of The Washington Post, died December 11 while on assignment in Liberia. The Post said du Cille, 58, collapsed "during a strenuous hike on the way back from a village" affected by the African country's Ebola outbreak.
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People we lost in 2014 – Mary Ann Mobley , the first Miss America from Mississippi who turned that achievement into a movie career, died December 10 after battling breast cancer. She was 77.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ken Weatherwax, who played Pugsley on the 1960s TV show "The Addams Family," died December 7, according to the Ventura County Coroner's Office. He was 59.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ian McLagan , a fun-loving keyboardist who played on records by such artists as the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams, Bruce Springsteen and his own bands -- the Small Faces and its successor, the Faces -- died December 3, according to a statement from his record label, Yep Roc Records. He was 69.
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People we lost in 2014 – American saxophonist Bobby Keys , who for years toured and recorded with the Rolling Stones, died on December 2. "The Rolling Stones are devastated by the loss of their very dear friend and legendary saxophone player, Bobby Keys," the band said on Twitter .
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People we lost in 2014 – To the world, he was known as "Chespirito." Roberto Gomez Bolanos gained fame as a comedian, but he was also a writer, actor, screenwriter, songwriter, film director and TV producer. The legendary entertainer died November 28 at the age of 85.
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People we lost in 2014 – British crime novelist P.D. James died November 27 at her home in Oxford, England. She was 94.
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People we lost in 2014 – Lebanese singer and actress Sabah , one of the Arab world's most prolific entertainers with a career spanning more than six decades, died November 26, in Beirut, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported. She was 87.
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People we lost in 2014 – Former Washington Mayor Marion Barry is dead at the age of 78, a hospital spokeswoman said on November 23. Barry was elected four times as the city's chief executive. He was once revered nationally as a symbol of African-American political leadership. But his professional accomplishments were often overshadowed by drug and personal scandals.
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People we lost in 2014 – Acclaimed film director Mike Nichols died on November 19. Nichols, pictured here with his wife, journalist Diane Sawyer, was best known for his films "The Graduate," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "The Birdcage." He was 83.
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People we lost in 2014 – Jimmy Ruffin , silky-voiced singer of the Motown classic "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted," died November 19 in Las Vegas. He was 78.
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People we lost in 2014 – 'Knight Rider" and "Battlestar Galactica" producer Glen A. Larson passed away November 14 after a battle with cancer. He was 77.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actress Carol Ann Susi , best known for voicing the unseen Mrs. Wolowitz on "The Big Bang Theory," died November 11. She was 62.
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People we lost in 2014 – Henry "Big Bank Hank" Jackson , a member of the hip-hop group the Sugarhill Gang, died November 11 of complications from cancer. He was 55.
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People we lost in 2014 – Tom Magliozzi , left, half of the "Click and Clack" team of brothers who hosted NPR's "Car Talk" radio show, died November 3. He was 77.
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People we lost in 2014 – "House of Cards" actress Elizabeth Norment passed away at the age of 61, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed October 28 via Norment's sister Kate. According to the star's obituary in The Washington Post, Norment died of cancer on October 13 at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York.
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People we lost in 2014 – Jack Bruce , bassist for the legendary 1960s rock band Cream, died October 25 at age 71.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ben Bradlee , the zestful, charismatic Washington Post editor who guided the paper through the era of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate and was immortalized on screen in "All the President's Men," died on October 21. He was 93.
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People we lost in 2014 – Fashion designer Oscar de la Renta died on October 20, close friends of the family and industry colleagues told CNN. He was 82.
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People we lost in 2014 – "August: Osage County" actress Misty Upham was declared dead by a Washington coroner after her body was found along a river in suburban Seattle on October 16.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actress Elizabeth Pena died October 14, according to her manager. She was 55.
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People we lost in 2014 – Isaiah "Ikey" Owens , the keyboardist in Jack White's backing band, died October 14. The musician also played with bands such as Mars Volta and Free Moral Agents. He was 38.
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People we lost in 2014 – Mark Bell , who founded the highly influential techno-music duo LFO and later collaborated with Bjork on several iconic albums, died of complications from a surgery, his record label said October 13.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actress and comedian Jan Hooks died in New York on October 9. Her representative, Lisa Lieberman, confirmed the death to CNN but provided no additional information. According to IMDb.com, Hooks was 57.
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People we lost in 2014 – Geoffrey Holder , a versatile artist known for his ability as a dancer, actor and a pitchman for 7Up, died from complications due to pneumonia, his family's attorney said on October 6. Holder was 84.
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People we lost in 2014 – Paul Revere , leader of the 1960s rock band Paul Revere and the Raiders, died October 4 at his home in Idaho, according to the band's website. He was 76.
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People we lost in 2014 – Emmy-winning actress Polly Bergen , whose TV and movie career spanned more than six decades, died on September 20, according to her publicist. She was 84, according to IMDb.com.
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People we lost in 2014 – Singer George Hamilton IV , known as the "International Ambassador of Country Music," died at a Nashville hospital on September 17 following a heart attack, the Grand Ole Opry said in a press release. He was 77.
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People we lost in 2014 – Northern Ireland's former first minister and former Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley has died, his wife, Eileen, said in a statement on September 12. He was 88.
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People we lost in 2014 – Richard Kiel , the actor best known for playing the James Bond villain "Jaws," died September 10 at a California hospital, St. Agnes Medical Center spokeswoman Kelley Sanchez said. He was 74.
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People we lost in 2014 – Joan Rivers , the sassy comedian whose gossipy "can we talk" persona catapulted her into a career as a headlining talk-show host, best-selling author and red-carpet maven, died September 4. She was 81.
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People we lost in 2014 – Jimi Jamison , lead singer of the 1980s rock band Survivor, died at the age of 63, it was announced September 2.
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People we lost in 2014 – Acclaimed actor-director Richard Attenborough died on August 24, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported, citing his son. Attenborough was 90.
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People we lost in 2014 – Don Pardo , the man whose voice introduced the cast of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" for decades, died at the age of 96, the network announced August 19.
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People we lost in 2014 – Skateboarding legend Jay Adams died of a heart attack August 14 while vacationing in Mexico with his wife. He was 53.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ed Nelson , best known for playing a doctor in the 1960s nighttime soap opera "Peyton Place," died on August 13, his family said. He was 85.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actress Arlene Martel , whom "Star Trek" fans knew as Spock's bride-to-be, died in a Los Angeles hospital August 12 after complications from a heart attack, her son said. Martel was 78.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actress Lauren Bacall , the husky-voiced Hollywood icon known for her sultry sensuality, died on August 12. She was 89.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actor and comedian Robin Williams died at his Northern California home on August 11. Williams apparently took his own life, law enforcement officials said. He was 63.
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People we lost in 2014 – JJ Murphy , an actor who was set to join the "Game of Thrones" cast, died August 8, his agent said. He was 86.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actor Charles Keating , who had been fighting lung cancer for several years, died on August 8, his son Sean Keating said. Charles Keating was known for his role of villain Carl Hutchins on the daytime drama "Another World." He was 72.
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People we lost in 2014 – James Brady , the former White House press secretary who was severely wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, has died, the White House said on August 4. He was 73. Later in the week, authorities told CNN they are investigating it as a homicide.
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People we lost in 2014 – Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk , the last crewman of the U.S. plane that dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, died of natural causes on July 28, according to his daughter Vicki Triplett. He was 93.
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People we lost in 2014 – James Shigeta , a prolific and pioneering Asian-American actor whose 50-year career included the movies "Die Hard" and "Flower Drum Song," died in his sleep in Los Angeles on July 28, his agent said. He was 81.
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People we lost in 2014 – Skye McCole Bartusiak , who played Mel Gibson's youngest daughter in "The Patriot," died July 19, at her home in Houston, her mother said Sunday. She was 21. While investigators didn't immediately determine a cause of death, Bartusiak had been suffering from epileptic seizures, according to her mother.
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People we lost in 2014 – James Garner , the understated, wisecracking everyman actor who enjoyed multigenerational success on both the small and big screens, died of natural causes on July 19. He was 86.
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People we lost in 2014 – Broadway legend Elaine Stritch died July 17. According to her longtime friend Julie Keyes, Stritch died at her home in Birmingham, Michigan, surrounded by her family. She was 89 years old.
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People we lost in 2014 – Blues guitarist and singer Johnny Winter died July 16 in a Swiss hotel room, his representative said. He was 70.
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People we lost in 2014 – Nadine Gordimer, a South African author who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, died on July 13 , according to her family. She was 90.
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People we lost in 2014 – Renowned conductor Lorin Maazel died from complications of pneumonia on July 13, according to his family. He was 84.
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People we lost in 2014 – Grammy-winning jazz bassist Charlie Haden , whose music career spanned seven decades and several genres, died July 11, according to his publicist. He was 76.
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People we lost in 2014 – Drummer Tommy Ramone , the last living original member of the pioneering punk band The Ramones, died on July 11, according to the band's Facebook page . He was 65.
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People we lost in 2014 – Eileen Ford , who founded the Ford Model Agency 70 years ago, died July 9 at the age of 92, the company said.
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People we lost in 2014 – Richard Percy Jones , the actor who gave Pinocchio his voice in the 1940 Disney movie, died at his California home on July 8. He was 87.
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People we lost in 2014 – David Legeno , known for playing Fenrir Greyback in the "Harry Potter" movies, was found dead July 6, by hikers in a remote desert location in Death Valley, California. He was 50. "It appears that Legeno died of heat-related issues, but the Inyo County Coroner will determine the final cause of death," read a press release from the Inyo County Sheriff's Department. "There are no signs of foul play."
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People we lost in 2014 – Rosemary Murphy , an Emmy Award-winning actress known for her roles in the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird" as well as TV soap operas "All My Children" and "Another World," died July 5 at the age of 89. The New York Times cited cancer as the cause of death.
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People we lost in 2014 – Olympian and World War II hero Louis Zamperini , the subject of the book and upcoming film "Unbroken," died July 2 after a recent battle with pneumonia. The 97-year-old peacefully passed away in the presence of his entire family, according to a statement.
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People we lost in 2014 – Walter Dean Myers , a beloved author of children's books, died on July 1 following a brief illness, according to the Children's Book Council.
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People we lost in 2014 – Paul Mazursky , a five-time Oscar nominee who directed and wrote such films as "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," "An Unmarried Woman" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," died at the age of 84, his agent said July 1.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actor Meshach Taylor died June 28 at his Los Angeles-area home, his agent, Dede Binder, said. He was 67. Taylor had fought a terminal illness and faded markedly in recent days, Binder said. His wife, children, grandchildren and mother surrounded him as he passed away.
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People we lost in 2014 – Legendary soul singer Bobby Womack died June 27, according to Womack's publicist. He was 70.
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People we lost in 2014 – Character actor Eli Wallach , seen here in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," died on June 24, according to a family member who did not want to be named. Wallach was 98.
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People we lost in 2014 – Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn died June 16 at the age of 54, according to a release from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Gwynn, who had 3,141 hits in 20 seasons with the San Diego Padres, had cancer.
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People we lost in 2014 – Radio personality Casey Kasem died June 15. He was 82 and had been hospitalized in Washington state for two weeks.
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People we lost in 2014 – Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Chuck Noll died June 13. He had suffered from Alzheimer's and heart disease. He was 82.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ruby Dee , an award-winning actress whose seven-decade career included triumphs on stage and screen, died June 12. She was 91.
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People we lost in 2014 – Former baseball star Bob Welch passed away on June 9 after suffering a heart attack, according to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was 57.
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People we lost in 2014 – British actor and comedian Rik Mayall , who appeared in the TV series "Blackadder," died June 9 at the age of 56, his agent said. The cause of death was not immediately reported.
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People we lost in 2014 – Chester Nez , the last of the original Navajo code talkers credited with creating an unbreakable code used during World War II, died June 5 at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Navajo Nation President said. Nez was 93.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ann B. Davis , who played Alice the maid on "The Brady Bunch," died from a subdural hematoma on June 1. She was 88.
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People we lost in 2014 – Maya Angelou , a renowned poet, novelist and actress, died at the age of 86, her literary agent said on May 28. Angelou was also a professor, singer and dancer whose work spanned several generations.
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People we lost in 2014 – Australian racing legend Jack Brabham died on May 19, according to Brabham's son David. Brabham, 88, was a three-time Formula One world champion.
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People we lost in 2014 – Malik Bendjelloul , the Oscar-winning director of "Searching for Sugar Man," died suddenly on May 13, police said. He was 36.
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People we lost in 2014 – H.R. Giger , the Swiss surrealist artist whose works of sexual-industrial imagery and design of the eponymous creature in the "Alien" movies were known around the world, died on May 12. He was 74.
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People we lost in 2014 – Former professional tennis player Elena Baltacha died at the age of 30 after losing her battle with liver cancer on May 4. Before retiring in November, she had reached a career high of 49th in the world rankings.
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People we lost in 2014 – Al Feldstein , who guided Mad magazine for almost three decades as its editor, died on April 29, according to a Montana funeral home. He was 88.
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People we lost in 2014 – Oscar-nominated British actor Bob Hoskins , known for roles in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Mona Lisa," died April 29 at age 71, his publicist said.
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People we lost in 2014 – Hall of Fame basketball coach John "Dr. Jack" Ramsay , who became a television analyst years after winning a league championship with the Portland Trail Blazers, died on April 28, according to his longtime employer ESPN. Ramsay was 89.
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People we lost in 2014 – Former Barcelona soccer coach Tito Vilanova , who had been battling cancer, died at the age of 45, the club announced April 25.
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People we lost in 2014 – Country singer Kevin Sharp died from "complications due to cancer" on April 19, his mother told CNN. He was 43.
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People we lost in 2014 – Rubin "Hurricane" Carter , the middleweight boxing contender who was wrongly convicted of a triple murder in New Jersey in the 1960s, died April 20 at the age of 76, according to Win Wahrer, the director of client services for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
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People we lost in 2014 – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the influential, Nobel Prize-winning author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera," passed away on April 17, his family and officials said. He was 87.
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People we lost in 2014 – Jose Luis "Cheo" Feliciano , a giant of salsa music and a Puerto Rican legend, died in a car crash April 18 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to police. He was 78.
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People we lost in 2014 – Days after being inducted into World Wrestling Entertainment's Hall of Fame, WWE superstar Ultimate Warrior died April 8. Born James Hellwig, he legally changed his name to Warrior in 1993. He was 54.
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People we lost in 2014 – Comedian John Pinette , 50, was found dead in a Pittsburgh hotel room on April 5. Pinette died of natural causes stemming from "a medical history he was being treated for," the medical examiner's spokesman said. An autopsy will not be done because his personal doctor signed the death certificate.
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People we lost in 2014 – Mickey Rooney , who started as a child star in vaudeville and went on to star in hundreds of movies and TV shows, died April 6 at the age of 93.
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People we lost in 2014 – DJ Frankie Knuckles , a legendary producer, remixer and house music pioneer, died March 31 at the age of 59.
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People we lost in 2014 – Kate O'Mara , the British actress best known for playing Joan Collins' sister on the 1980s show "Dynasty," died March 30. She was 74.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ralph C. Wilson Jr. , the founder and longtime owner of the NFL's Buffalo Bills, died at age 95, the team announced March 25.
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People we lost in 2014 – Gwar lead singer Dave Brockie died March 23 at the age of 50, his manager said. The heavy-metal group formed in 1984, billing itself as "Earth's only openly extraterrestrial rock band." Brockie performed in the persona of Oderus Urungus.
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People we lost in 2014 – James Rebhorn , whose acting resume includes a long list of character roles in major films and TV shows, died March 21, his representative said. Rebhorn was 65.
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People we lost in 2014 – L'Wren Scott , a noted fashion designer and girlfriend of musician Mick Jagger, was found dead of an apparent suicide March 17, according to a law enforcement official. She was 49.
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People we lost in 2014 – Drummer Scott Asheton, who co-founded and played drums for the influential proto-punk band The Stooges, died March 15. He was 64.
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People we lost in 2014 – Comedian David Brenner , a regular on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show," died after a battle with cancer, a family spokesman said March 15. He was 78.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actress Sheila MacRae , who portrayed Alice Kramden in a 1960s revival of "The Honeymooners" on "The Jackie Gleason Show," died on March 6, according to her family. She was 92.
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People we lost in 2014 – Spanish guitarist Paco de Lucia , seen here in 2006, died February 25 of an apparent heart attack. He was 66. De Lucia transformed the folk art of flamenco music into a more vibrant modern sound.
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People we lost in 2014 – Actor, writer and director Harold Ramis , seen here on the far left with fellow "Ghostbusters" Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray, died at his Chicago-area home on February 24. He was 69. Other popular Ramis films include "Stripes," "Groundhog Day" and "Analyze This."
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People we lost in 2014 – Maria von Trapp , seen here posing with a photo of her family, was the last of the singing siblings immortalized in the movie "The Sound of Music." She died February 18 of natural causes at her Vermont home, according to her family. She was 99.
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People we lost in 2014 – Journalist Garrick Utley died at age 74 following a long battle with cancer, his wife of 40 years said in February. Utley worked for CNN after his 30-year career at NBC News.
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People we lost in 2014 – Devo guitarist Bob Casale , known by fans as "Bob 2," died February 17, his brother and band mate announced. Casale was 61.
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People we lost in 2014 – John Henson , the son of Jim Henson who is perhaps most notable for his portrayal of Sweetums on "The Muppets," died after a "sudden, massive heart attack," his family's company said on February 15.
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People we lost in 2014 – Veteran actor Ralph Waite died at 85 on February 13, according to an accountant for the Waite family and a church where the actor was a regular member. Waite was best known for his role as John Walton Sr. on 'The Waltons."
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People we lost in 2014 – Sid Caesar , whose clever, anarchic comedy on such programs as "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" helped define the 1950s "Golden Age of Television," died on February 12. He was 91.
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People we lost in 2014 – Hollywood child star Shirley Temple , who became diplomat Shirley Temple Black, died February 10 at her Woodside, California, home. She was 85.
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People we lost in 2014 – Joan Mondale , the wife of former Vice President Walter Mondale, died on February 3, according to a statement from the family's church.
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People we lost in 2014 – Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his Manhattan apartment of an apparent drug overdose, law enforcement sources said February 2.
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People we lost in 2014 – Maximilian Schell died on February 1 in a Austrian hospital with his wife by his side, his agent Patricia Baumbauer said. He was 83. Schell was nominated for an Oscar three times. He won in 1962 for "Judgment at Nuremberg."
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People we lost in 2014 – Legendary folk singer Pete Seeger , known for classics such as "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)," died of natural causes in New York on January 27, his grandson told CNN. He was 94.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ruth Robinson Duccini , who played one of the Munchkins in the 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz," died on January 16. She was 95.
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People we lost in 2014 – Former Playboy centerfold Cassandra Lynn Hensley was found dead at a friend's home in Los Angeles, the coroner there said on January 17. Hensley was 34. Her cause of death was not immediately known.
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People we lost in 2014 – Hiroo Onoda , center, salutes after handing over his military sword on Lubang Island in the Philippines in March 1974. Onoda, a former intelligence officer in the Japanese army, had remained on the island for nearly 30 years, refusing to believe his country had surrendered in World War II. He died at a Tokyo hospital on January 16. He was 91.
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People we lost in 2014 – Russell Johnson , center, stands with Alan Hale Jr., left, and Bob Denver in an episode of "Gilligan's Island" in 1966. Johnson, who played "the professor" Roy Hinkley in the hit television show, passed away January 16 at his home in Washington state, according to his agent, Mike Eisenstadt. Johnson was 89.
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People we lost in 2014 – Ariel Sharon, whose half century as a military and political leader in Israel was marked with victories and controversies, died on January 11 after eight years in a coma, Israeli Army Radio reported. Sharon was 85.
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People we lost in 2014 – Franklin McCain , seen center wearing glasses, one of the "Greensboro Four," who made history for their 1960 sit-in at a Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter, died on January 10 after a brief illness, according to his alma mater, North Carolina A&T State University.
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People we lost in 2014 – Larry Speakes , who served as President Ronald Reagan's press secretary, died January 10 at his home in Cleveland, Mississippi, following a lengthy illness, according to Bolivar County Coroner Nate Brown. He was 74.
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People we lost in 2014 – Poet Amiri Baraka , who lost his post as New Jersey's poet laureate because of a controversial poem about the 9/11 terror attacks, died on January 9, his agent said. Baraka was 79.
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People we lost in 2014 – Sir Run Run Shaw , the media tycoon who helped bring Chinese martial arts films to an international audience, died at his home in Hong Kong on January 7 at age 106, the television station he founded said.
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People we lost in 2014 – Stage, TV and film actress Carmen Zapata , who founded the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts as a means of of introducing "the rich and eloquent history of the diverse Hispanic culture to English-speaking audiences," died on January 5 at her Los Angeles home. She was 86.
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People we lost in 2014 – Portugal football legend Eusebio , who was top scorer at the 1966 World Cup, died from a heart attack on January 5 at age 71, said his former club, Benfica.
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People we lost in 2014 – Alicia Rhett , who had been one of the oldest surviving cast members of the classic film "Gone With the Wind," died on January 3 in her longtime hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, a retirement community spokeswoman said. She was 98.
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People we lost in 2014 – Singer Phil Everly , left -- one half of the groundbreaking, smooth-sounding, record-setting duo the Everly Brothers -- died on January 3, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 74.
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| Colombian |
Which UK national newspaper was awarded a share in a Pulitzer Prize in 2014? | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | Colombian author | Britannica.com
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Albert Camus
Gabriel García Márquez, (born March 6, 1927, Aracataca, Colombia—died April 17, 2014, Mexico City , Mexico ), Colombian novelist and one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, mostly for his masterpiece Cien años de soledad (1967; One Hundred Years of Solitude). He was the fourth Latin American to be so honoured, having been preceded by Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral in 1945 and Pablo Neruda in 1971 and by Guatemalan novelist Miguel Ángel Asturias in 1967. With Jorge Luis Borges , García Márquez is the best-known Latin American writer in history . In addition to his masterly approach to the novel , he was a superb crafter of short stories and an accomplished journalist. In both his shorter and longer fictions, García Márquez achieved the rare feat of being accessible to the common reader while satisfying the most demanding of sophisticated critics.
Gabriel García Márquez, 1982.
© Lutfi Ozkok
Life
Born in the sleepy provincial town of Aracataca, Colombia , García Márquez and his parents spent the first eight years of his life with his maternal grandparents, Colonel Nicolás Márquez (a veteran of the War of a Thousand Days [1899–1903]) and Tranquilina Iguarán Cotes de Márquez. After Nicolás’s death, they moved to Barranquilla , a river port. He received a better-than-average education but claimed as an adult that his most important literary sources were the stories about Aracataca and his family that Nicolás had told him. Although he studied law, García Márquez became a journalist, the trade at which he earned his living before attaining literary fame. As a correspondent in Paris during the 1950s, he expanded his education, reading a great deal of American literature , some of it in French translation. In the late 1950s and early ’60s, he worked in Bogotá , Colombia, and then in New York City for Prensa Latina, the news service created by the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro . Later he moved to Mexico City, where he wrote the novel that brought him fame and wealth. From 1967 to 1975 he lived in Spain. Subsequently he kept a house in Mexico City and an apartment in Paris, but he also spent much time in Havana , where Castro (whom García Márquez supported) provided him with a mansion.
Works
Before 1967 García Márquez had published two novels, La hojarasca (1955; The Leaf Storm) and La mala hora (1962; In Evil Hour); a novella, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1961; No One Writes to the Colonel); and a few short stories. Then came One Hundred Years of Solitude , in which García Márquez tells the story of Macondo, an isolated town whose history is like the history of Latin America on a reduced scale. While the setting is realistic, there are fantastic episodes, a combination that has come to be known as “ magic realism ,” wrongly thought to be the peculiar feature of all Latin American literature . Mixing historical facts and stories with instances of the fantastic is a practice that García Márquez derived from Cuban master Alejo Carpentier , considered to be one of the founders of magic realism. The inhabitants of Macondo are driven by elemental passions—lust, greed, thirst for power—which are thwarted by crude societal, political, or natural forces, as in Greek tragedy and myth .
Britannica Stories
Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent
Continuing his magisterial output, García Márquez issued El otoño del patriarca (1975; The Autumn of the Patriarch), Crónica de una muerte anunciada (1981; Chronicle of a Death Foretold), El amor en los tiempos del cólera (1985; Love in the Time of Cholera; filmed 2007), El general en su laberinto (1989; The General in His Labyrinth), and Del amor y otros demonios (1994; Of Love and Other Demons). The best among those books are Love in the Time of Cholera, about a touching love affair that takes decades to be consummated , and The General in His Labyrinth, a chronicle of Simón Bolívar ’s last days. In 1996 García Márquez published a journalistic chronicle of drug-related kidnappings in his native Colombia, Noticia de un secuestro ( News of a Kidnapping ).
Literary Favorites: Fact or Fiction?
After being diagnosed with cancer in 1999, García Márquez wrote the memoir Vivir para contarla (2002; Living to Tell the Tale), which focuses on his first 30 years. He returned to fiction with Memoria de mis putas tristes (2004; Memories of My Melancholy Whores), a novel about a lonely man who finally discovers the meaning of love when he hires a virginal prostitute to celebrate his 90th birthday.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica
Assessment
García Márquez was known for his capacity to create vast, minutely woven plots and brief, tightly knit narratives in the fashion of his two North American models, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway . The easy flow of even the most intricate of his stories has been compared to that of Miguel de Cervantes , as have his irony and overall humour. García Márquez’s novelistic world is mostly that of provincial Colombia, where medieval and modern practices and beliefs clash both comically and tragically.
| i don't know |
Which knighted actor directed the 2011 superhero movie Thor? | Audience Reviews for Thor
½
Despite the talent of the strong lead, who is also incredibly handsome and charismatic, this superhero blockbuster is very unimpressive and never takes risks, trying more to be a prequel to The Avengers than anything else. Besides, the character goes through sudden changes in his personality that are really hard to buy.
Carlos Magalhães
Super Reviewer
So we have the next big Marvel hero adaptation on the long highway to 'The Avengers' with 'Iron Man' so far being a surprise decent film, this time its Thor's turn to roll the dice. Again I am pleasantly surprised at how reasonably competent this film is, I thought this would be a hideous mess but actually its not too bad. I'm not gonna get carried away and say its a brilliant film as it isn't, in my opinion 'Iron Man' is better but this is OK despite the silly material. Branagh has done well in his attempt and done half the work in the casting, all players add good realism and gravitas to the cheesy plot allowing the film to just about get by. Hopkins, Hemsworth and Hiddleston are the best contributors of course and were great choices for the roles, they looked right and didn't come across camp in any way. The effects are decent and not too obvious, a very colourful and vivid film and some good stand out moments like the Rancor type creature on Jotunheim showcasing decent CGI. The Frost Giants looked reasonable but slightly childish for me whilst the giant metallic Destroyer looked rather B-movie-ish and tacky to be honest, a bit like Gort from 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (1951). Asgard was impressive and colourful looking neat n sharp harking back to cityscape's of the new Star Wars trilogy and just as good. I'm not up on the whole Thor comicbook plot to be honest but I admit I still found faults with things in the film, obviously Thor and his homeworld are aliens, an alien race (which are exactly the same as humans? hmm) but also somehow manage to have horses ale roast beef pork etc...in their realm too? kinda silly methinks, oh and everyone speaks English it seems. There is nice humour throughout which is good, Thor getting accustomed to earth has good moments, but The Warriors Three felt way too farcical and lame frankly, they just came across as inept posh talking sidekicks much like C3PO from 'Star Wars', they also looked like characters from a kids cartoon which let down the rest of the quite good costumes. You never find out about the other realms, there is no real reason for why Odin goes into a coma or sleep and the Frost Giants did seem kinda lame, uninspired and unoriginal (if they were made for the film?) with a silly name. Of course if you know the comicbook all this might be common knowledge but for myself it isn't. Overall I liked this but lets face it it was pretty hokey really, a modern day Flash Gordon if we're being honest here, it wasn't camp but it was very very gentle and cartoony which I did suspect as Thor is a hard character to put on film I think. Its a valiant attempt but I just think it could of been better or a bit more serious and less like an action figure promotion.
Phil Hubbs
| Kenneth Branagh |
Which member of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning side was born in Shirebrook? | Superhero Bits: Hulk, Wolverine, Amazing Spider-Man, Thor 2, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises - /Film
Superhero Bits: Hulk, Wolverine, Amazing Spider-Man, Thor 2, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises
Posted on Friday, May 6th, 2011 by Germain Lussier
Curious about Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of The Hulk in The Avengers? Where that leaked Avengers script has recently turned up? Who is interested in directing Thor 2? Could Wolverine could appear in X-Men: First Class sequels? Are there any set photos of The Dark Knight Rises yet? And what’s the latest on The Amazing Spider-Man? Never fear, Superhero Bits is here!
Now that Thor is in theaters, [MINOR SPOILER COMING] featuring an awesome cameo by Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, [MINOR SPOILER OVER] and with Captain America: The First Avenger on the way, the only member of The Avengers we won’t have seen by July is Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Marvel President Kevin Feige spoke to The Playlist recently about what Ruffalo is bringing to the character:
I think like James Bond changing actors many times or Batman changing actors many times, or Dr. Who changing actors, every actor brings something different to it and I think what we’re going to find [with Mark Ruffalo is] a pathos that I think we haven’t seen in Bruce Banner since Bill Bixby. Ruffalo is I think going to be matching that in terms of really sort of feeling for that character and caring for that character. I think one of the reasons Mark wanted to come on is that Banner becomes as interesting a character as the Hulk does. And all rooted in that pathos for this brilliant man who has this condition.
And while he seems pleased as punch at that casting, one thing Feige certainly wasn’t happy about recently was the leak of Samuel L. Jackson’s script for The Avengers. Though rumors that production would be delayed were exaggerated, once a leak begins, it’s hard to stop. According to Movieweb, the script has already found its way into the bins of bootleg screenplay salesman in Downtown Los Angeles. Head to Movieweb to read more.
As you well know by now, Kenneth Branagh‘s Thor is in theaters and already experiencing success. That begs the questions, what’s up with Thor 2 and will Branagh be back to direct it? Well, in several recent interviews he was keenly aware not to say “yes” or “no” but his quotes all suggested he’d be up for it. In a Q&A with the Los Angeles Times , he said the following:
It would be a great problem to have, I must say. It would be a very nice problem to have that conversation….obviously the film gets to an ending that kind of begs a question. There are other tales to tell and we’ll listen to the public and see if they want us to tell them.
You can watch him say that, and much more, in the below video (the quote in question is at about 4:30) or head to MTV Movies for even more non-committal answers about Thor 2.
Two other major Marvel comics have upcoming films that will not tie into The Avengers. Those, of course, are X-Men First Class and The Amazing Spider-Man. X-Men First Class is out in less than a month and, as was discussed above, that means it’s already time to look towards a possible sequel. With The Wolverine dead in the water, producer Bryan Singer confirmed that there would be room for Hugh Jackman‘s character to appear in a First Class sequel.
I think there would definitely be room. I think it would be a very exciting thing. This universe has to establish itself first, but that would be a very interesting and fun thing.
| i don't know |
Who was Joseph Stalin’s immediate successor as Premier of the Soviet Union? | The Death of Stalin (April 2003) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin
Portrait of a young Stalin; the rising Communist with Vladimir Lenin, ca. 1922; Joseph Stalin
Participants engaged in a lively discussion of Eisenhower's actions in the days and months after Stalin's death, the cause of Stalin's death (was it murder?), the impact of his death on the Soviet Union, and the future need to study and decry Stalin's slaughter of 25 million Soviets.
About 100 people attended the March 5 event in Room LJ 119 of the Jefferson Building. This was one of several programs hosted by the Kluge Center, which brings distinguished scholars from around the world to the Library for varying periods of time to pursue their research in the Library's vast collections.
The panel included eight "historical witnesses," who were involved in the events of the 1950s or close to those who were involved. Retired Army Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, Abbott Washburn and Robert Bowie served as advisers to Eisenhower. Sergei Khrushchev, professor at Brown University, is the son of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. Susan Eisenhower, president of the Eisenhower Institute, is the granddaughter of the president, and Avis T. Bohlen, herself a former ambassador to Bulgaria, is the daughter of Charles Bohlen, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union (1953-57). Raymond Garthoff worked at the CIA and Helmut Sonnenfeldt in the State Department.
The panel's five historians were Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, a noted Russia scholar himself; Hope Harrison, George Washington University; Mark Kramer, Harvard University; Kenneth Osgood, Florida Atlantic University, and Vojtech Mastny, of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Left: Klaus Larres chaired a discussion on Stalin's death that included, from left, first row: Andrew Goodpaster, Abbott Washburn, Robert Bowie, Sergei Khrushchev; second row: Susan Eisenhower, Avis Bohlen, Raymond Garthoff, Hope Harrison; right: Kenneth Osgood and Vojtech Mastny. - Yusef El-Amin
When Stalin died in March 1953, Eisenhower had been in office for only two months. Andrew Goodpaster said Eisenhower asked his advisers to evaluate three lines of policy toward the Soviet Union: containment, massive retaliation, and "roll back," which was the use of force to recover the countries of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination. Goodpaster said Eisenhower settled on containment, "supplemented by a vigorous information program that would keep the hope of freedom alive."
Goodpaster said Eisenhower's policy was one of "strength and civility," and his approach was to remain militarily strong but civil. "You would never find Dwight Eisenhower speaking disparagingly or in a threatening way to the Soviet people. He had a deep feeling for what they had endured during the war and for their tremendously important role in bringing the war to a successful conclusion."
Susan Eisenhower said there was considerable debate in her grandfather's administration on how he should respond to Stalin's death. He stated the administration's commitment to peaceful policy in his first speech to the American people, titled "Chance for Peace."
"It very clearly laid out the basic principles of the free world … and it told the Soviets what they could do to indicate that a new era had begun," she said. "The speech made it clear the United States would not attack the Soviet Union during its period of high vulnerability."
Stalin with President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Teheran in 1943
Moderator Larres asked the panel if the Soviet leaders had indicated any conciliatory tone. Eisenhower adviser Auburn Washburn said, "Not that I could find. I wasn't aware of any."
Vojtech Mastny said there was no opportunity for thawing the Cold War after Stalin's death. "détente remained elusive. It never got off the ground in the aftermath of Stalin's death, because neither his successors (Georgi Malenkov or Nikita Khrushchev) really dared to want it. They were never secure enough to risk détente nor insecure enough to need it."
Hope Harrison said the Soviet leaders succeeding Stalin were mindful of the West and tried to initiate moderate policies in East Germany, but ran into problems. Wishing to stem the loss of citizens to the West (447,000 people fled from 1951 to 1953), the East Germans asked shortly after Stalin died if the border could be closed in Berlin. "But Stalin's successors said ‘No, absolutely not. That would make us look terrible. Grossly simplistic, unacceptable approach,'" Harrison said.
Three months later, she said, the new Soviet leaders completed a review of Stalin's policies and handed the East Germans a document known as "New Course," which called for liberalization and reaching out to the West. "They told the East Germans they had to change their policies so people would stop fleeing. They told them to stop being so aggressive, to reach out their hand in friendship.
"But it didn't work," Harrison said. "Every time the Soviets tried to change harsh policies, Soviet citizens would push for more leniency through protest and uprisings. In 1961, the Berlin Wall went up, and the Soviets gave up on moderation."
The dictator at rest, lying in state in the Hall of Columns in the House of Unions in Moscow, 1953
The roundtable participants also spent time debating the cause of Stalin's death. The conclusion? He succumbed to natural causes. Sergei Khrushchev said, emphatically, "No, he was not poisoned." He argued that Stalin did not taste any food unless his closest advisers, including Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev, tried the food first. Also, Stalin was tightly guarded. "I don't see any technical possibility for murder," Khrushchev said.
Stalin collapsed on March 1, 1953, and remained unconscious until he died on March 5. Khrushchev said he didn't receive immediate medical care because Stalin's advisers at first thought he was drunk and would regain consciousness. "He was on the floor and they brought him [up] on the sofa," said Khrushchev.
A member of the audience, Vladimir Shamberg, described himself as a close friend of Svetlana, Stalin's daughter. "I believe I was the first person she saw after her father's death, and she never spoke about something fishy," he said. Shamberg said he believes Stalin's advisers failed to get him immediate medical care because they were afraid of the consequences, not because they wanted him dead. "They thought if he regained consciousness and saw the doctors, he would suspect a plot and have them all executed," said Shamberg, adding that Stalin eventually received treatment from a major in his guard who happened to be a veterinarian.
Panel participants agreed Stalin probably was not murdered, but they did speculate over the lack of medical care. "There was a motivation to letting him die,"Garthoff said. "Stalin was planning a major purge in which most of them [his advisers] would be swept aside." Larres pointed out that in February 1953, Stalin ordered construction of four new giant prison camps.
Stalin's death brought change to the Soviet Union. "After Stalin was gone, these people were able to break out of that awful system; that's one of the thankful things," said Kramer. "The Soviet Union remained a repugnant dictatorship, but it was a very different place after Stalin was gone."
Mastny said, "The death of Stalin was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union." Stalin, he explained, left an unmanageable legacy, economically and in terms of security.
Billington spoke of the need of Russia and the world to face up to the horrors of the Stalin regime. "The tragedy of Stalinism was not simply a tragedy of Stalinism, but a failure of the civilized world–a moral failure of the Western world," he said.
"There is no definitive document or any work on the gulag. People still don't want to think about it. They still haven't fully understood this. There is no memorial for the gulag anywhere in the world," Billington said. There are small efforts to address the topic, some researchers doing work, but they're having a hard time getting support, he said.
Soon afterwards, his reputation began to deteriorate inside and outside the Soviet Union: below left, "Epitaph" by Ross A. Lewis (Ross Aubrey) from the March 7, 1953, issue of the Milwaukee Journal; and "The Forgotten Man" by Daniel Robert Fitzpatrick, published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on May 11, 1953.
Kramer said, "Russia would be a lot better off if there was a systematic effort to recount, recall and memorialize the horrors of the Stalin period."
Some on the panel expressed concern that Stalin rates highly in Russian opinion polls today. Harrison attributes the popularity to the older citizens who are thankful to Stalin for getting them through World War II.
Panelists expect that the atrocities of Stalin will be researched over the next 25 years. They pointed out that although Germany is a stronger country today for facing up to its crimes during the Nazi regime, it took many years for the Germans to deal with their history. Eisenhower said, "It wasn't until recently that the Holocaust was thoroughly digested, and it's been 50 years since the end of the war. The Soviet Union is only 10 years gone."
Larres concluded the discussion by briefly drawing a line to the problems of the present regime change in Iraq. He said, "While history never offers any precise lessons, the events in the Soviet Union 50 years ago may be able to give us some useful food for thought. After Stalin's death, it took democracy 40 years to put down tentative roots in Russia and Eastern Europe. It probably can't be assumed that a similar process in Iraq and the Arab world will happen within a short period of time."
Donna Urschel is a freelance writer.
| Georgy Malenkov |
Which island is known to the French as Aurigny? | After Stalin, 1953-1956
After Stalin, 1953-1956
Uncertainty in Succession
For many millions of Soviet citizens, the death of Stalin in March 1953 was a shattering event. For decades Stalin had been the "father" of the nation, and many grieved as if they had lost a family member. Tens of thousands of ordinary Russians wept openly in spontaneous and genuine displays of public grief when crowds gathered in Moscow to pay their last respects; several mourners were killed in the crush to file past the bier. In spite of his brutal repression and his rigorous control of the economy, Stalin was still hugely popular throughout the Soviet Union. His death marked the end of an era; for most Soviet citizens it had been an era of greatness for their country.
Among the Communist leaders in Moscow, Stalin's death provoked a mixture of grief, relief, and anxiety for the future. With no clear successor evident, the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet publicly declared a form of collective leadership. But this merely masked the beginnings of a bitter power struggle. Georgi Malenkov was appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers, in effect premier, with Lavrenti Beria as his deputy and chief of state security. Molotov returned as foreign minister and Nikolai Bulganin as minister of the armed forces. Nikita Khrushchev's role was not entirely clear initially, but his name was listed first among the five secretaries of the party secretariat. Malenkov was also appointed first secretary of the Communist Party, Stalin's old position, but nine days later he was forced to surrender this post (which in six months would fall to Khrushchev) when the new leadership decided that all the top offices should never again be held by one person. Still, to the West, it seemed that the progressive Malenkov, then just fifty-one years old, was emerging as Stalin's heir.
Dignitaries from throughout the Communist world assembled in Moscow to pay final respects to the man who had been their unchallenged leader, the generalissimo who had defeated fascism. Zhou Enlai, China's premier and foreign minister, was one of the pall bearers; the others were leading members of the Politburo. While Zhou was in Moscow, Malenkov and Molotov met with him to discuss the war in Korea, which they all wanted to end. Mao Zedong had already decided separately on this, so within a fortnight of Stalin's death, Pyongyang was ordered to resume the armistice talks in earnest.
Then, in one of his first speeches, Malenkov hinted at a new mood of coexistence with the West. "There is no disputed or unsolved question," he stated, "which could not be settled by peaceful means with any foreign country, including the United States." Less than a month after Stalin's death, the Presidium approved a general amnesty for anyone who had been sentenced to a term of less than five years' imprisonment. All those who had been arrested in Stalin's final days were released, as were tens of thousands of other political prisoners. The so-called Doctors' Plot, which had punctuated Stalin's final months, was now described as a "provocation and fake."
Georgi Malenkov, Heir Apparent
Georgi Malenkov was the chubby figure often seen standing alongside Stalin in photographs. Born in Orenburg on the borders of Kazakhstan in 1902, he was the descendant of tsarist military officers. After the Russian Revolution, Malenkov became a political commissar on a Red Army propaganda train, and in the late 1920s he worked in the bureau of the party's central secretariat. By the late 1930s Malenkov had been promoted to the inner circle of administrators implementing the worst of Stalin's purges, the Great Terror, the elimination of dissenters or possible opponents of the regime. From 1939 to 1941 Malenkov, along with Beria, carried out the purging of newly conquered Baltic states and eastern Poland. During the war Malenkov became one of the most important administrators in the Soviet Union, and afterwards he joined the Council
Malenkov was seen in the West as one of Ministers, which determined all of the best hopes for a new, less aspects of state policy. No fiery revolu-tionary, he was a practical man, a manager, who presided over the core party administration at the heart of Stalin's empire. Along with Beria, Stalin assigned to Malenkov the task of building up the postwar military industrial complex. Malenkov liked to think of himself as a technocrat, as encouraging the new science that would develop the Soviet Union's postwar greatness.
After Stalin's death Malenkov showed no desire to maintain the culture of repression and fear that were characteristic of his master's rule. He was happy to move forward. In spite of his years of loyal service to Stalin,
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In the United States, Eisenhower was only weeks into his presidency when Stalin died, and he was furious to discover that there were no contingency plans for dealing with the Soviet leader's death. The new secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, stressing a "new era of liberty, not enslavement," proclaimed that "the Eisenhower era begins as the Stalin era ends.... For ten years the world has been dominated by the malignant power of Stalin. Now Stalin is dead. He cannot bequeath to anyone his prestige." The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, wrote to Eisenhower suggesting a meeting with Malenkov in case "both of us together or separately be called to account if no attempt were made to turn over a new leaf." But for the moment Eisenhower ruled out any direct meeting with the new Soviet leadership.
In the meantime, Washington was sending out conflicting signals to Moscow. During the Truman administration, under the influence of George Kennan, the key word in US policy towards the Soviet Union had been "containment." Washington forged strategies to contain Soviet power - in the Middle East, in Berlin, in Europe, and in Korea. But Dulles had a new catchword: "rollback." The United States should take the initiative in rolling back communism wherever possible. But it was never clear how this could be done without direct confrontation. On 16 April 1953, in a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Eisenhower called on the Kremlin to demonstrate that it had broken with Stalin's legacy by offering "concrete evidence" of a concern for peace. He appeared to be holding out an olive branch, hoping the Kremlin would grab it. This became known as Eisenhower's Chance for Peace speech, and it was widely reported within the Soviet Union. Only two days later, before the same, group of editors, Dulles spoke in much harsher terms and declared, "We are not dancing to any Russian tune." The National Security Council backed Dulles. A secret report concluded that the Soviet interest in peace was illusory and that confrontation would be long drawn out.
In Eastern Europe the new spirit evident in the Kremlin caused concern among the various mini-Stalins who held power. In the Soviet zone of Germany, control was in the hands of Walter Ulbricht, a hard-line Stalinist of the old school who had spent most of the Nazi era in Moscow. One of Stalin's most loyal lieutenants, he had begun, in the summer of 1952, the "accelerated construction of socialism" in East Germany, aimed at building a strict command economy. A huge programme of farm collectivization was started, along with a rush towards Soviet-style industrialization, with great emphasis on heavy industry at the expense of consumer goods. Stalin intended to force the East German economy to complement that of the Soviet Union, to supply the USSR with iron and steel, of which it was in desperate need. Ulbricht allowed no opposition inside East Germany. His secret police, the Stasi, were everywhere, urging friend to inform on friend, worker on worker.
Ulbricht was uneasy with changes taking place in post-Stalin Moscow. In May the collective leadership in the Kremlin summoned him to Moscow. For some time, the Kremlin had been considering a review of its German policy, supporting the idea of a re-unified but neutral Germany. The Soviets had no hope of controlling all of Germany, but a neutral Germany would at least prevent the western half, with its vast industrial base, from becoming a permanent part of the Western bloc. The Kremlin encouraged Ulbricht to follow a new course of liberalization, and to ease the pace of enforced industrialization.
Workers Demonstrate
But Ulbricht ignored the advice, and in June imposed new work quotas on industrial workers, demanding higher productivity without any increase in pay. Anger and dashed expectation combined to cause East German workers to erupt in protest. On 16 June a huge demonstration of workers in East Berlin called for a lifting of the new quotas. Like the force unleashed by opening a dam, workers' demands gushed forth. As the employer was the state, industrial protest over work norms soon became a political demand for free elections, and a call for a general strike. The American radio station in West Berlin, RIAS, publicized the demands and reported there would be major demonstrations the following day. On 17 June protests took place in East Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Magdeburg, and all the major towns of East Germany.
Over the next four days more than 400,000 German workers took to the streets. Ulbricht and his unpopular government were terrified by this vast display of worker power. But the demonstrations were spontaneous; they lacked any central direction or coherent organization. Lavrenti Beria called on the Soviet tank units stationed all over East Germany to confront the strikers, to prevent the Ulbricht regime from collapsing. He told the Soviet high commissioner not to "spare bullets" in suppressing the rising, and forty workers were killed, more than four hundred wounded. When thousands of strike leaders were arrested, the demonstrations ended as suddenly as they had begun. Ulbricht had learned a lesson and in time acceded to many of the workers' economic demands.
There were anti-government riots in Czechoslovakia as well, and strikes in Hungary and Romania. There was even a prisoners' strike in Siberia. The Soviets saw behind these events a well-orchestrated campaign to undermine the Soviet Union and its allies, part of Dulles's "rollback" of communism in Eastern Europe. The power struggle in the Kremlin now reached new intensity. Molotov, the old revolutionary, continued to see the Cold War as a clash between two opposing systems. He believed wholeheartedly in the MarxistLeninist line that capitalism would ultimately destroy itself, and his diplomacy exploited what differences he could discern between the United States and its West European allies. However, for Malenkov and Beria, both of whom owed their power base entirely to Stalin, the Cold War was seen in strictly practical terms.
First of all, the Cold War was an arms race. Stalin had quickly realized how important it was to break the US atomic monopoly and in 1945 had put Beria in charge of the Soviet atom bomb project. In the summer of 1949, several years ahead of the West's predictions, the first Soviet bomb had been successfully tested. After Stalin's death Beria took more direct control of the Soviet nuclear project. Without consulting his colleagues, he ordered scientists in the closed city of Arzamas-16 to race ahead with developing a hydrogen bomb to rival America's thermonuclear weapons. If Soviet strength rested on ever more powerful nuclear weapons and he was in charge of developing them, Beria calculated, then he would control the mainsprings of Soviet power.
But this sort of arrogance was no longer acceptable inside the Kremlin. Within days of the quelling of the rising in East Germany, Khrushchev became convinced that Beria was preparing to make a grab for absolute power. Malenkov concurred, and he denounced Beria at a meeting of the Presidium. Forever tainted from heading Stalin's terror apparatus, Beria was arrested on trumped-up charges of being a Western agent. In what to many seemed a just reversal of fate, the man who had sent hundreds of thousands to their deaths was not even allowed to attend his own trial. He was found guilty and shot. Beria's removal marked a huge shift in the power balance within the Kremlin, but he was the only Soviet leader at this juncture whose fate was settled by a bullet. Times had changed.
Khrushchev Takes Charge
Beria was out of the way, but doubts about the firmness of Malenkov's leadership sent him into political decline. Khrushchev had already replaced him as first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. During the next two years Khrushchev out-manoeuvred his remaining rivals to emerge as the Kremlin's leading light. One of his first priorities was to repair Sino-Soviet relations, which, sorely tried during the Korean War, had been aggravated by mutual suspicions between Mao and Stalin. In September 1954 he visited Beijing and agreed to new trade terms that were immensely favourable to the Chinese. His new trade treaty reinforced the alliance to build socialism in Asia. In Europe, Khrushchev negotiated a farsighted agreement with Austria. Soviet troops, occupying part of the country since the end of the war, were withdrawn in return for an Austrian commitment to neutrality. In May 1955 a state treaty was signed in Vienna by the four occupying powers, and Austria remained neutral throughout the Cold War. This was a breakthrough for Khrushchev, who later said he had grown up during these negotiations, trading his "boy's pants for adult trousers." In May, Khrushchev made a dramatic visit to Yugoslavia to try to "bury the hatchet" with Tito.
Khrushchev's growing international standing was matched by popularity at home; he encouraged the development of consumer industries and called for increases to pensions and other state disbursements. Thousands more prisoners were released from labour camps. New amnesties were issued. The rigid conformity demanded of the arts was relaxed. The Kremlin was even opened to visitors, and for children's parties. All this became known as "socialism with a human face."
Seismic change also took place in the West. West Germany's chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, sought to build up his country's relationship with the NATO countries. The United States, burdened with a major military commitment in Korea, came around to supporting the idea of German rearmament, partly to lighten its load in the defence of Europe. But in Europe the notion of German rearmament was still unpopular, especially with the French, who delayed acceptance of a new German army for several years. Eventually, Adenauer came up with guarantees that persuaded the French they could no longer block German rearmament; the manufacture of nuclear weapons would be banned in Germany. In May 1955 the Western Allies formally ended their occupation of West Germany, and the Federal Republic was admitted to NATO. The response in Moscow to this setback was to create the Warsaw Pact, a formal military alliance among the states of Eastern Europe, who agreed to come to each other's defence if any one of them was attacked. In effect the Warsaw Pact was little more than a codification of existing Soviet military control over its satellites, but now the division of Europe into two rival camps was complete.
In this climate the first postwar East-West summit was held in Geneva in July 1955 - ten years after the meeting in Potsdam that marked the end of the war in Europe. Britain and France attended, along with the Soviet Union and the United States. Before leaving for the summit, Khrushchev obtained a vote of support from the Party Plenum for his innovative foreign policy. At Geneva it was clear to the West that Khrushchev was now in charge of the Soviet delegation. At last London and Washington knew with whom they should deal in Moscow. But despite a friendly atmosphere, nothing of real substance came out of Geneva. Eisenhower proposed that both sides should be free to overfly each other's territory, the policy of Open Skies. Khrushchev rejected this as "a bold espionage plot." Other proposals also got nowhere. All the same, Pravda was able to write about "the spirit of Geneva," implying a new thaw in superpower relations and an endorsement of Khrushchev's foreign policy.
Khrushchev was also winning friends and building support for communism in the Third World, where, in the mid-1950s, much of Southeast Asia and Africa was still dominated by the old European imperial powers. By reaching out to the newly independent states, Khrushchev made communism a beacon to those looking to liberate themselves from colonial rule. In India, Khrushchev and his close supporter Nikolai Bulganin were given a rapturous welcome during their visit in 1955. At one point the two men had to be rescued from a crowd that had grown too enthusiastic. Other visits, to Burma and Indonesia, proved equally successful. Khrushchev realized then that there were huge parts of the world, outside the zones of US-Soviet confrontation, that were eager to hear the socialist message. And the charismatic Khrushchev presented a new image - of an open, friendly, young Soviet Union - quite different from that of Stalin's day. Khrushchev himself gained prestige and self-confidence from the success of his personal diplomacy.
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev
Ernst Niezvestny, who created Khrushchev's memorial headstone, placed the portrait bust in a pedestal of interlocking black and white stone, symbolizing, among other things, the two sides of Khrushchev's character. At times, he was as brutal and as aggressive as Stalin, his mentor; at other times, he was a peacemaker, overawed by the destructive capacity he controlled.
Khrushchev was born in 1894, in Kalinovka, a village near the Ukrainian border, into a family of poor illiterates. The crude peasant bluntness from his hard childhood never left him. Opponents would often underestimate his cunning, seeing in him only a clowning, overweight rustic. Eccentric bluster in meetings would often obscure the shrewdness in his thought. After Stalin's death, Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov failed to perceive him as a serious rival.
Already excited by Marxism at the time of the revolution in 1917, Khrushchev served in the Red Army during the civil war as a political commissar. In 1929 he was sent by his local party to the Stalin Industrial Academy in Moscow. He studied there alongside Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, through whom he got to know Stalin. At this point his career took off. During the Great Terror of the 1930s, he rose to be second in command of the Moscow party organization, and he oversaw construction of much of Moscow's underground system. In 1939 he became a full member of the Politburo. During the war against Hitler, he was a political commissar and visited the front lines several times, seeing more of the devastation of the war than most, an experience that affected him profoundly.
Although Khrushchev later censured the evils of the Stalin era, his own hands were by no means free of blood. During the late 1930s he denounced several fellow students and workers as "enemies of the people," and he willingly took part in the extermination of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. For twenty years his political vision was dominated by that of Stalin. In old age he commented, "I was infected by Stalin, but liberated myself."
Khrushchev was an instinctive, spontaneous, and often unpredictable politician, a combination that, when the stakes were high; could be immensely dangerous. But often his instinct paid off. He had no education above the elementary level of Sunday School and workers' lectures, but he had a quick mind. He was always proud of his roots in the peasant society of Russia.
Khrushchev's leadership of the Soviet Union marked a crucial transition in communism. His own political roots went back to the radical bolshevism of the revolution, and most of his career was spent under the eyes of Stalin; but as a reformer and an advocate of the "human face of socialism," . he ushered in an era in which a generation would be free to reassess the entire Communist world.
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The process of reform, and the rejection of Stalinism, culminated at the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in February 1956. Delegates from throughout the Communist world, and from nations locked in "liberation" struggles with their colonial masters, were invited to Moscow for the first major Communist gathering since Stalin's death. Party congresses were always formal affairs, a forum for leaders to make set-piece statements, but in a radical public speech Khrushchev abandoned the conventional Marxist-Leninist view that war between communism and capitalism was inevitable. He claimed that because the world camp of communism had grown to be so powerful, war was no longer likely or necessary. Socialism would still be victorious, but this could come through the ballot box and would happen due to the superiority of Communist means of production.
All this was extrkordinary enough. But at
midnight
on the last day of the congress, Khrushchev called all the Soviet delegates together in closed session. No cameras or reporters were present. Then, for six hours, Khrushchev proceeded to denounce Stalin's reign of terror and its crimes. He revealed that the case against the so-called Trotskyite conspirators of the 1930s had been trumped up by the secret police under Stalin's orders, with the help of forced confessions made under torture. He announced that Stalin was "a flawed leader" who had acted like a pathological criminal. Such accusations, coming less than three years after Stalin's death, caused a sensation. Many old party members felt he had gone too far. Several cried, "Shame!" as he spoke. Some remembered Khrushchev's own role in the murderous repression in the Ukraine. Others heaved an immense sigh of relief that finally the clouds of fear and paranoia were to be lifted, that the truth of Stalin's horrors was coming out. Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin marked a turning point in Soviet history. Although delivered amidst late-night theatrics, the speech was never intended to remain secret; copies were immediately made available to party officials and to foreign Communist parties. News of the speech spread by word of mouth to millions of citizens within the Soviet bloc.
The
CIA
obtained the speech- through Mossad, Israeli intelligence. In Washington it also had huge impact, convincing the Eisenhower administration that genuine change was taking place in the Soviet Union. After being thoroughly dissected by the
CIA
, it was passed to the press and appeared in newspapers throughout the West in June 1956.
The shock waves of Khrushchev's speech rippled out across the entire Communist world. The Chinese Communists, who had built up their own rigidly authoritarian system under Mao Zedong, were deeply offended. Beijing began to reject Moscow's leadership of the Communist world and to develop its own, independent line. In Eastern Europe many Communist party leaders, gravely upset by the impact, were concerned for the continued stability of their authoritarian regimes. But for the people of Eastern Europe, the speech was an incitement to action; at last there seemed to be an opportunity for change.
Two months after the Party Congress, the Kremlin dissolved Cominform, which Stalin had created in 1947 to impose his orthodoxy over the satellites. The hard-line conservative Molotov was dismissed as foreign minister, and later banished to Mongolia as Soviet ambassador. A loyal supporter of Stalin throughout his career, Molotov had been firmly opposed to any reconciliation with Tito of Yugoslavia, but now the door was open again. Tito visited Moscow in June for a three-week state visit, amidst much pomp. Nothing could have been more symbolic of the new attitude towards Eastern Europe. But how far would the Soviet Union go in relaxing its influence there? In both Poland and Hungary, now released from the yoke of Stalinist rule, people wanted more control over their own destinies.
On 28 June 1956, in Poznan, one of Poland's main industrial cities, workers went on strike against government-imposed wage cuts and harsh working conditions. Just as in East Germany three years earlier, strikes over specific economic grievances soon snowballed into protests against the government. On what became known as Black Thursday, the Polish government sent two divisions and three hundred. tanks of the Polish army to put down the protests - bloodily. Seventy-four strikers were killed, and about three hundred wounded. For the present, order was restored.
In Moscow it was clear that the situation in Poland was unstable. Bulganin, premier since early 1955, and Marshal Zhukov, both strong Khrushchev supporters from the Central Committee, were sent to Warsaw to sort things out. There they proclaimed that the strikes had been provoked by "imperialist agitators" from the West. The Polish party reformers wanted to restore to office a popular Communist, Wladyslaw Gomulka, who had been general secretary of the party after the end of the war. At first the Soviets resisted, but slowly a compromise was reached by which Gomulka would be readmitted to power but orthodox hard-liners would be left in charge. The Soviets were torn between taking a hard line, as Stalin would have done, and allowing their satellites a degree of independence.
Gomulka, one of those East European Communists who sincerely believed in different national versions of socialism after 1945, had spoken up in favour of Tito's independent policies in 1948. When Stalin imposed his hard line on East Europe, Gomulka was expelled from the party, and in 1951, he was imprisoned. Released two months before the strikes erupted in Poznan, Gomulka was now something of a national hero. Predictably, the compromise arrangements for his return to power did not work, and discontent spread. Hopes for change had been raised, and now had to be met or directly confronted.
The Polish leaders were invited to Moscow but refused to go. Khrushchev now decided to intervene personally. Uninvited, he flew to Warsaw on 19 October. Because no warning had been given of his arrival, his aircraft was bounced by Polish fighters as it approached Warsaw. On landing, he descended from the plane, shook his fist at the hastily assembled welcome party, and spoke loudly of the "treacherous" activity of the Polish leaders. On that same day, Russian troops across Poland left their garrisons and moved in columns towards the country's main cities. In Warsaw, Soviet units took up secret positions across from the Belvedere Palace, where the Communist leaders were about to meet. These were clear threats that the Soviets were prepared for military intervention in Poland, and in the rest of Eastern Europe.
Khrushchev and the Soviet delegation met Gomulka and the other Polish leaders in a tense, tempestuous showdown. Khrushchev threatened to use force to maintain Soviet control, but Gomulka countered that the Polish army would resist and that the people would rise up against the Soviet Union.
Gomulka repeatedly stressed that Poland "will not permit its independence to be taken away." Furthermore, Gomulka made it absolutely clear that events in Poland were a direct consequence of Khrushchev's speech at the Twentieth Party Congress. During the heated exchanges, Gomulka was informed that Soviet tank and infantry units were advancing on Warsaw. He demanded that these forces be pulled back. After some hesitation, Khrushchev ordered that all troop movements be halted.
Khrushchev had miscalculated badly. Across Poland, people came out onto the streets to demonstrate against the Soviet presence. When he realized the strength of feeling in the Polish Communist Party and among the Polish people, Khrushchev, in a bad temper, conceded that Gomulka could be appointed first secretary of the party. Gomulka agreed to preserve the party organization, and promised that Poland would remain a loyal member of the Warsaw Pact. This was the main issue as far as the Soviets were concerned. Under Khrushchev the Kremlin would allow its satellites a degree of national independence, but only if the new regime was led by a trustworthy leader, loyal to Moscow. After the showdown in Warsaw, the situation calmed down. Out of the confrontation the Poles got a more popular leader who made some welcome economic concessions. And Gomulka, for fourteen years, fulfilled his promise to be a faithful ally of the Soviet Union.
Hungary Issues a Challenge
Events elsewhere, however, were moving fast. On 24 October, as Gomulka was telling a mass meeting in Warsaw that the Soviet troops were returning to barracks, students in Budapest had already begun the most serious challenge yet to Soviet rule in Eastern Europe by demonstrating in sympathy with the Poles. The Budapest students were met with bullets from the secret.police. At this point several workers groups joined the students, and the giant statue of Stalin in the centre of Budapest was pulled down.
The Hungarian prime minister, Erno Gero, called on Yuri Andropov, the Soviet ambassador in Budapest, to help restore order. Andropov passed the request on to Moscow, and Khrushchev spoke with Gero by telephone. The following day, at dawn, thirty thousand Soviet troops entered Budapest and sealed off Hungary's capital city. Fierce fighting erupted. Martial law was declared, but the situation remained unstable. What was especially disturbing for governments in both Budapest and Moscow was that some of the Soviet troops fraternized with the workers. And many Hungarian army units seemed shaky in their support for the regime. As in Poland, the search was now on in Hungary for a new leader of the Communist Party, to restore confidence in the nation's leadership. The man who looked most likely to play the part of a Hungarian Gomulka was Imre Nagy, who had been prime minister until purged in 1955. Nagy was hurriedly brought back into government on the day that Russian tanks rolled into Budapest. Nagy called for an immediate end to the fighting, offering an amnesty for all participants in the uprising, and political and economic reform. On the following day, Janos Kadar, who had been purged from Hungary's government in the early 1950s, was also brought back and was appointed party first secretary. Nagy assured Moscow of Hungary's loyalty. But the Kremlin was split between those who wanted to accommodate the new government and those advocating a further show of strength. Khrushchev finally ordered the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Budapest on 28 October; but at the same time he deployed more divisions along the border with Hungary.
Throughout Hungary there was a mood of anger and expecta tion. Industrial workers seized public buildings and formed revolutionary councils. Open elections were held in villages and towns. In several government departments, new councils were formed to challenge the state. And several thousand members of the Hungarian army defected to the workers' cause, taking their weapons with them. Meanwhile Radio Free Europe, the
CIA
-backed station that broadcast into Eastern Europe, was dramatically talking the situation up, proclaiming the West's backing for what it called Hungary's "freedom fighters."
Carried along by the momentum of events he could barely control, Nagy announced on 30 October that he was abolishing the one-party system and would form a new coalition government. He agreed to recognize many of the revolutionary councils that had been created. Immediately, several suppressed Hungarian political parties began to reconstitute themselves, among them the Social Democrats and the National Peasant Party. On that same day the army established a revolutionary council, composed of representatives from the military and police. Its leader was also appointed to the new government.
For a while it looked as though the Soviets would give in to this massive display of people power opposing the apparatus of the state. A declaration was issued outlining the relationship between the Soviet Union and the socialist states. In it the Kremlin acknowledged that Hungarian workers were "justified" in raising issues and in pointing out the "serious mistakes" of the previous regime. The news agency TASS announced that the Soviet Union "deeply regrets" the bloodshed in Hungary, and agreed with the removal of Soviet soldiers from Hungarian soil.
At this moment, as the crisis in Hungary was still unfolding, the Israelis, in league with the British and French, launched an invasion of Egypt across the Sinai Desert. Within days British and French troops began their own wellprepared seizure of the Suez Canal, which had been nationalized by General Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president, earlier in the year. The Suez crisis proved a disastrous venture for Britain and France, and for their prestige in the Middle East. The military intervention was universally denounced as the dying act of imperialist powers. The US government was furious; it had not been consulted on the military operation and was opposed to it. With the presidential elections only a week away, Washington was now presented with two international crises simultaneously.
The Suez affair distracted attention from events in Hungary as they entered their most critical phase. It split the Western camp and offered Moscow, with all eyes temporarily on Suez, a perfect cover for moving into Budapest. But at first it had the opposite effect, delaying Moscow's intervention in Hungary, for Khrushchev did not want to be compared to the "imperialist aggressors" in Egypt. After all, he had withdrawn Soviet troops in Poland when confronted by Gomulka; perhaps now he could rely on Prime Minister Nagy to bring Hungary into line.
Budapest Goes Too Far
But on 1 November, Nagy, still feeling that the initiative was with him, protested Soviet troop movements, declared Hungary's neutrality, repudiated the Warsaw Pact, and cabled Dag Hammarskjold, the secretary-general of the United Nations, to ask that the question of Hungarian neutrality be put on the agenda of the UN General Assembly. This went much further than the Poles had dared in their revolt; it effectively faced the Kremlin with an ultimatum to get out. Deng Xiaoping was visiting Moscow at the time as an official delegate of the Chinese Communist Party. He told Khrushchev that the Hungarian rebels were not only anti-Soviet but anti-Communist, and should not be tolerated. In the face of this open revolt, the Soviet leaders decided they had to act. On 3 November fifteen Soviet army divisions, along with more than four thousand tanks, deployed within Hungary and encircled the capital. At dawn the following morning, the Russian tanks entered Budapest. The shooting began immediately.
Nagy broadcast on Radio Budapest early that morning and told the Hungarian people: "Today at daybreak, Soviet troops attacked our capital with the obvious intent of overthrowing the lawful democratic Hungarian government." He vowed not to surrender. Two hours later Radio Budapest broadcast an
SOS
signal and went off the air. Many Hungarians, buoyed up by the promises of Radio Free Europe, still felt certain that the West would come to their aid. But no support was forthcoming - except that the White House issued a strong protest to the Kremlin. Eisenhower and his advisers were deeply concerned but, distracted by the Anglo-French-Israeli aggression against Egypt and the approaching climax of an election, did nothing except loudly condemn the Soviet action in the final speeches of the campaign. The New York Times accused the Soviet Union of "the foulest treachery and basest deceit known to man"; it claimed the invasion of Budapest was a "monstrous crime against the Hungarian people" that "can never be forgiven or forgotten."
Despite Soviet claims that the West was behind the rising, events clearly had caught the Western powers by surprise. For them the stakes at risk in intervention were too high. The National Security Council concluded that there could be no American military or political intervention in the affairs of Soviet satellites, no ventures behind the Iron Curtain. As with Poland, Eisenhower and Dulles realized they could not chance a world war over the fate of an East European nation. The United States, in practice, could not embark on rollback. It would settle for containment. The Hungarian people were abandoned in their hour of need.
Determined this time to avoid any risk of fraternization with the rebels, the Soviets sent in tanks rather than infantry against the Hungarians. For two weeks bitter and intense street fighting scarred Budapest. The Molotov cocktail was the street fighters' only effective weapon against tanks. Nearly 700 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed and 1,500 wounded. Between 3,000 and 4,000 Hungarians were killed. The uprising was put down, and about 200,000 Hungarians fled across the borders, mostly into Austria.
The Kremlin had clearly picked the wrong man in Imre Nagy. Soviet ambassador Andropov switched his support to Janos Kadar as the leader who would restore authority and guarantee loyalty. On the day that Nagy went into hiding, Kadar reappeared inside Soviet-occupied territory and announced the formation of a new party, the Socialist Workers Party, and a new government. Kadar welcomed the Soviet troops; the new government could use their support in fighting the "counter-revolutionary threat." Kadar promised economic and social reforms, as well as new agreements with the other Eastern bloc nations.
The rising was crushed. But it took several months for Kadar to re-impose the hard-line centralized control the Soviets wanted. The first few arrests were made in late November. Nagy was lured out of his hiding place in the Yugoslav Embassy with a promise of safe passage. But he was betrayed, captured, and imprisoned, to be later executed. As Kadar won the upper hand, 35,000 activists were arrested, and three hundred leaders of the uprising were executed. Hungary was saved for one-party Communist rule, but the price was the spirit of the Hungarian people. For more than thirty years, Hungarians would live under a regime that had betrayed them, in a system they did not want.
From Moscow's perspective, the events of October and November 1956 had represented a major crisis; the Kremlin was seriously fearful that Poland and Hungary would both defect from the Soviet alliance. Although Khrushchev had denounced Stalin as an evil tyrant, when it came to it, he too had not hesitated to use force to ensure control of Russia's East European fiefdoms. The events of 1956 showed just how far Moscow would go in allowing liberalization. Stalin was dead, but the opportunity for national emancipation under Soviet rule was very limited. Eastern Europe was firmly back under Soviet control.
In 1957 Khrushchev consolidated his position as undisputed leader of the Soviet Union, but not before he had been nearly toppled by a palace coup in the Presidium while he was out of the country, visiting Finland. The old guard decided that the pace of reform had been too rapid, and moved to overthrow his rule. But when he returned, Khrushchev insisted that he could not be removed by the Presidium since he had been appointed by the larger Central Committee, which gave Khrushchev an overwhelming vote of support. Unlike in previous eras, those who had plotted against the leader were not rounded up and shot, nor were they sent to starve to death in a labour camp during a Siberian winter. Malenkov, who had led the revolt, was expelled from the party and appointed manager of an electric power plant in Kazakhstan. Lazar Kaganovich, who begged not to be dealt with as "they dealt with people under Stalin," was made director of a cement factory. There was now no opposition left to trouble Khrushchev.
There is a postscript to the process of dismantling Stalinism. At the Twenty-second Party Congress, held in Moscow in 1961, Khrushchev proposed that Stalin's body be removed from the mausoleum where it had been displayed alongside Lenin's. It was agreed that the corpse should be reinterred by the walls of the Kremlin, a far less illustrious resting place. In this final gesture, Khrushchev rid the nation of one more reminder of the tyrant who had dominated Soviet life for more than two decades.
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Helen Graham is the eponymous protagonist of which 19th-century novel? | The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë | lisadcwrites
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Posted in: 1800's . Tagged: Alcoholism , English Fiction , Marriage , Romance . Leave a comment
“When the mysterious and beautiful young widow Helen Graham becomes the new tenant at Wildfell Hall rumours immediately begin to swirl around her. As her neighbour Gilbert Markham comes to discover, Helen has painful secrets buried in her past that even his love for her cannot easily overcome.”*
Published in 1848, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has been overshadowed, as has the author, by her own sisters’ literary contributions, most notably Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. But standing away from the Brontë canon, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall does a remarkable job at standing on its own two feet.
Anne Brontë deserves a great deal of respect and admiration for dealing with some pretty powerful and controversial themes in her novel. She does not shy away describing the effects of alcoholism, and how a love of drinking caused the downfall of a man. While Brontë possessed the courage to identify alcoholism and to discuss the evils and aftermath of drink, I would rather concentrate on another, more significant theme in her novel – marriage. Adultery is what truly causes Helen Graham to leave her husband. I have not read many 19th Century novels that seriously deal with a wife fleeing her husband. Helen Graham has the courage to leave her husband and to make a living by herself – that is the most remarkable thing about this novel. Anne Brontë created a character who committed a great moral wrong, in leaving her marriage, yet for the most part, readers still fell in love with her character. And that is the best part of this novel.
Regarding the narrative, I confess that the first hundred pages of the novel – under the narration of Gilbert Markham, bored me. Yes, the mystery of Helen Graham and who she was intrigued me, but under the words of Markham, I was disinclined to hurry and find out about the mystery woman. But once Helen Graham’s narration came underway, I perked up. Under Helen’s story, the true narrative style of Anne Brontë reveals itself. She lays claim to true emotions and masters the element of suspense rather well. I felt what Helen felt the whole way through, and as each new surprise revealed itself, I fell more deeply into Helen’s, and Anne’s, spell.
Verdict: A classic – for the heavy themes Anne deals with, and for the way she dealt with them. Anne managed to truly outline the ravages of alcohol and what it does to a marriage, and she defines marriage as a partnership that thrives on equality. Despite a rather too emotional hero
*Brontë, Anne. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. London: Vintage Books, 2009.
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Which restored castle in West Sussex is the seat of the Duke of Norfolk? | Project MUSE - The Woman Painter in Victorian Literature (review)
June Sturrock (bio)
The Woman Painter in Victorian Literature by Antonia Losano; pp. 300. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2008. $67.50.
Antonia Losano approaches her subject—women artists as represented by women novelists—with enthusiasm and vigour. Her arguments are complex, but she repeatedly returns to the idea that "painting always becomes a seduction where women are concerned" (114). Selecting primary texts and illustrations with intelligence, she addresses a wide range of novelists, canonical and otherwise.
In the chapters discussing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Jane Eyre, Losano is at her best. She shows how Anne Brontë's Helen Graham, as a painter, moves towards "resolutely less self-expressive art" (69), and also explores Helen's financial difficulties in relation to Caroline Norton's struggle and the slow movement toward the Married Women's Property Act of 1870 (the second, more effective, act of 1882 she does not mention). She might have added that Anne Brontë seems less attracted by male power than her sisters, which may help to explain her lesser popularity, a concern for Losano. In her chapter on Jane Eyre, "Ekphrasis and the Art of Courtship," she demonstrates convincingly how in describing Jane's art, Charlotte Brontë insists on Jane's own choices and activity as an artist, reminding us of how Brontë represents Jane first as a viewer and then as a producer of images.
Other chapters, however, are seriously weakened by lack of consideration and by various kinds of carelessness. The muted tragedy of Margaret Oliphant's Rose Lake, the young art teacher and designer in Miss Marjoribanks, is a good subject in a discussion of "Making a Living" as an artist, but any analysis of this novel in relation to women's work should at least acknowledge Elizabeth Langland's important discussion in Nobody's Angels. Moreover, though Losano's page numbering in discussing the major revisions concerning Rose clearly refers to the appendix to Elisabeth Jay's fine edition, I find no reference to the edition either in the notes or the works [End Page 161] cited. To move to the novel itself, Oliphant's Carlingford is not, as Losano avers, a cathedral town (136); part of Oliphant's concern in her Chronicles of Carlingford was to create a community that resembled in its claustrophobic narrowness Austen's Highbury rather than Trollope's Barchester. Lucilla, the novel's protagonist, does not mock Rose's clothes (143), though she silently deplores them; to do so would be quite out of character. Such errors (and others like them) weaken Losano's credibility. And I flinched at a reference to Oliphant's "message" (121), for she is far too subtle a writer to deal in "messages."
The careless reading evident in Losano's treatment of Charlotte Yonge's The Pillars of the House is more serious still, as it renders much of her argument untenable. The artist in question here is Geraldine (Cherry) Underwood. Losano examines Yonge's contrasting of Cherry and her artist brother, Edgar, a rich topic. A (fictional) critic comments on Edgar's Royal Academy painting "Brynhild" as "the flaming production of a tyro in suspense between the Pre-Raffaelite and the Turneresque, who in the meantime had better study the primary rules of drawing" ( Yonge II. 115 ). Alluding to this comment without providing its context, Losano assumes that it indicates Yonge's distaste for Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites, whereas it actually suggests the inadvisability of mixing the two on one canvas. She goes on to suggest that Yonge faults Edgar for aiming at "high art" rather than "the realm of moral narrative realism" (Losano 206), which is, she argues, Cherry's province. In fact, Yonge continually contrasts Cherry's careful drawing with Edgar's laziness over the basics of his art. Her point is that Cherry is more dedicated as an artist, more professional than her brother, despite his lengthier training. (Losano claims that Cherry has no training [200], but in fact Yonge sends her to "the South Kensington Museum" [2.34] for art lessons.) Another argument based on misreading, and therefore untenable, is the contrast between Cherry and her older sister, Wilmet. Losano argues that Wilmet spends the money that Cherry earns and that there is therefore a "gendered division of labour" between them (201). However, Wilmet not only runs the impoverished Underwood household with extraordinary efficiency, she also helps support it by school-teaching. Losano's argument has nothing to do with Yonge's novel. Moreover, Wilmet marries not "a young sailor" (198) but a major in the Royal Engineers; Cherry is never, as Losano asserts, the "sole mistress" of the Underwood estate (206) but rather the joint guardian of her small nephew, the heir (and son of the dead Edgar); and Rachel Curtis, in The Clever Woman of the Family, does not end up as a "pathetically dependent and meek housewife" (207) as the novel's last chapter makes clear, although she is somewhat daunted by her earlier failures. It seems that Losano has merely skimmed these novels for passages relevant to her arguments—and failed to read those thoroughly. Non-canonical writers deserve as much respect from scholars as their better-known sisters.
A related concern is Losano's failure to develop some of her most interesting arguments. In her section on Daniel Deronda, for instance, her comparison between Eliot's treatment of gender and art in the Meyrick family could have been enriched by a more extended comparison between the Meyrick women and the Alcharisi. Losano's arguments about Dinah Mulock Craik's conflicted representation of her [End Page 162] heroine in Olive might have been more powerful if she had considered the role of Lyle Derwent who falls in love with the "disfigured" Olive.
Losano seems, in short, to have produced this study in too great a hurry. Her subject is rich, her extensive coverage of women's fiction stimulating, and some of her arguments well worth consideration. With more time, she could have avoided her numerous and varied errors. (The one that irked me most was the assertion that Colonel Brandon, in Sense and Sensibility, buys Marianne a piano [266]—as he does, not in Austen's novel, but in Ang Lee's film.) Words—which matter—are used carelessly throughout: an upbringing cannot be "parthenogenic," for instance (186). There are various faults of linguistic logic and apparent self-contradiction and much clumsy writing. The weaknesses of this book are the more irritating for its good qualities.
June Sturrock
| i don't know |
Which Derbyshire railway station has the three-letter code CMF? | Cromford Railway Station Map and Location Information
Station Three Letter Code: CMF
Address: Cromford station, Lea Road, Cromford, Derbyshire, DE4 5JJ
| Cromford |
The Brooklyn Bridge connects Brooklyn to which other New York borough? | cromford railway station : definition of cromford railway station and synonyms of cromford railway station (English)
6 External links
Description
The now unstaffed station is served by East Midlands Trains , who operate the service from Nottingham to Matlock (via Derby). For journeys beginning at Cromford, the full range of tickets for travel for any destination in the country are purchased from the guard on the train at no extra cost. Journey time to Derby is approximately 26 minutes. During service disruption, buses will pick up or set down on the A6 main road. Services are approximately hourly, Monday to Saturday, following service improvements in December 2009.
The station, and, in particular, the old Waiting Room, was the setting for the cover artwork of Oasis ' single " Some Might Say ".
Services
Services are formed using diesel multiple units of Classes 153 , 156 or 158 trains.
Preceding station
Matlock Bath
History
Originally known as "Cromford Bridge", it was opened by the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway in 1849. [1] This is one of the few stations on the line that has been preserved and is a Grade 2 listed building . It is said to have been designed by G.H.Stokes, son-in-law of Joseph Paxton . It is believed that Stokes also designed Station House (built in 1855), the extremely ornate former Station Master's residence opposite the station on the side of the hill as well as the ornate villa style waiting room, on what was the 'up' platform. According to English Heritage , [2] this is the original station building. The present station building on the opposite (down) platform was added by the Midland Railway at a later date
Willersley Tunnel, 764 yards (699 m) long is immediately north of the station.
Following many years of neglect and decline, a long lease on the main station building was purchased by the Arkwright Society , and the building has been restored and improved, re-opening as office space in May 2009. Station House, of which the old Waiting Room is a part, is now self-contained holiday accommodation. [3]
In the year 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2010 journeys from the station had increased by 16.88%. [4]
Incidents
2009 murder
In September 2009, the station was the site of the motiveless murder of a taxi driver, Stuart Ludlam, by gun fanatic, Colin Cheetham., [5] [6]
References
| i don't know |
The Vasco da Gama Bridge, the longest in Europe, spans which river? | Picture of the Day: The Longest Bridge in Europe «TwistedSifter
THE LONGEST BRIDGE IN EUROPE
Photograph by F Mira
The Vasco da Gama Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge flanked by viaducts and rangeviews that spans the Tagus River in Parque das Nações in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. It is the longest bridge in Europe (including viaducts), with a total length of 17.2 km (10.7 mi), including 0.829 km (0.5 mi) for the main bridge, 11.5 km (7.1 mi) in viaducts, and 4.8 km (3.0 mi) in dedicated access roads. Its purpose is to alleviate the congestion on Lisbon’s other bridge (25 de Abril Bridge), and to join previously unconnected motorways radiating from Lisbon.
Construction began on February 1995; the bridge was opened to traffic on 29 March 1998, just in time for Expo 98, the World’s Fair that celebrated the 500th anniversary of the discovery by Vasco da Gama of the sea route from Europe to India. The $1.1bn project was split in four parts, each one built by a different company, and supervised by an independent consortium. There were up to 3,300 workers simultaneously on the project, which took 18 months of preparation and 18 months of construction. [Source: Wikipedia ]
| Tagus |
Which is the most southerly city to have hosted the Winter Olympics? | Vasco da Gama bridge | The Vasco da Gama Bridge (Portuguese:… | Flickr
Jan Herremans ( slow to reply at the moment) By: Jan Herremans ( slow to reply at the moment)
Vasco da Gama bridge
The Vasco da Gama Bridge (Portuguese: Ponte Vasco da Gama; pronounced: [ˈpõt(ɨ) ˈvaʃku dɐ ˈɡɐmɐ]) is a cable-stayed bridge flanked by viaducts and rangeviews that spans the Tagus River in Parque das Nações in Lisbon, capital of Portugal. It is the longest bridge in Europe (including viaducts), with a total length of 17.2 kilometres (10.7 mi), including 0.8 kilometres (0.50 mi) for the main bridge, 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi) in viaducts, and 4.8 kilometres (3.0 mi) in dedicated access roads. Its purpose is to alleviate the congestion on Lisbon's other bridge (25 de Abril Bridge), and to join previously unconnected motorways radiating from Lisbon.
Construction began on February 1995; the bridge was opened to traffic on 29 March 1998, just in time for Expo 98, the World's Fair that celebrated the 500th anniversary of the discovery by Vasco da Gama of the sea route from Europe to India.
The bridge carries six road lanes, with a speed limit of 120 km/h (75 mph), the same as motorways, except on one section which is limited to 100 km/h (60 mph). On windy, rainy, and foggy days, the speed limit is reduced to 90 km/h (56 mph). The number of road lanes will be enlarged to eight when traffic reaches a daily average of 52,000.
| i don't know |
Which is the most southerly of the Met Office’s shipping forecast areas? | Shipping forecast - Met Office
Shipping forecast
Shipping forecast and gale warnings
Issued at 0505 UTC on Friday 20 January 2017
For the period 0600 UTC Friday 20 January to 0600 UTC Saturday 21 January 2017
The general synopsis at midnight
High eastern Europe 1041 with ridge extending westwards to England and Wales, slow-moving, declining 1037 by midnight tonight. New high expected Dogger 1034 by same time
Sea area
Viking
Wind
Westerly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first in north, becoming variable 3 or 4 later.
Sea state
Rough at first in north, otherwise moderate.
Weather
North Utsire
Wind
Westerly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first in north, becoming variable 3 or 4 later.
Sea state
Rough at first in north, otherwise moderate.
Weather
Northwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first in southeast.
Sea state
Westerly backing southerly, 3 or 4, occasionally 5 later in northwest.
Sea state
Westerly backing southerly, 3 or 4, occasionally 5 later.
Sea state
Westerly backing southerly, 3 or 4.
Sea state
Westerly backing southerly, 3 or 4.
Sea state
Westerly backing southerly, 3 or 4.
Sea state
Westerly veering northwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first in northeast.
Sea state
Moderate or good, occasionally very poor at first.
Humber
Moderate or good, occasionally very poor at first.
Thames
East or northeast 3 or 4, increasing 5 at times.
Sea state
East or northeast 3 or 4, increasing 5 at times.
Sea state
Easterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in north, then veering southeasterly 3 or 4 later.
Sea state
Easterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in north, then veering southeasterly 3 or 4 later.
Sea state
Easterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in north, then veering southeasterly 3 or 4 later.
Sea state
Easterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in south, becoming variable 3 or 4.
Sea state
Slight or moderate in east, moderate or rough in west.
Weather
Trafalgar forecast - Issued: 0015 UTC on Friday 20 January 2017
Wind
North or northwest 3 or 4, occasionally 5 at first.
Sea state
Moderate, occasionally rough in west.
Weather
Easterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in south, becoming variable 3 or 4.
Sea state
East or southeast 4 or 5, decreasing 3 at times.
Sea state
East or southeast 4 or 5, increasing 6 at times.
Sea state
East or southeast 4 or 5, decreasing 3 at times.
Sea state
Slight or moderate in northeast, moderate or rough in southwest.
Weather
Southeasterly 3 increasing 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later in north.
Sea state
Smooth or slight at first in north, otherwise slight or moderate.
Weather
Southeasterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in northwest.
Sea state
South 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later.
Sea state
Rough in northwest, slight or moderate in southeast.
Weather
South or southwest 5 or 6.
Sea state
Southwest backing south, 5 to 7.
Sea state
Southwest 5 to 7 backing south 4 or 5.
Sea state
Southwesterly backing southerly, 5 to 7, decreasing 4 at times in east.
Sea state
Moderate or rough in east, rough or very rough in west.
Weather
Moderate or good, occasionally poor.
Southeast Iceland
Southwesterly backing southerly, 5 to 7.
Sea state
Rain or drizzle, fog patches at first.
Visibility
Moderate or good, occasionally very poor at first.
There are no gale warnings currently in force for the selected sea area.
Shipping forecast and gale warnings
The shipping forecast is issued four times a day at 2300, 0500, 1100, 1700 UTC and covers a period of 24 hours from 0000, 0600, 1200 and 1800 UTC respectively.
The waters around the British Isles are divided into 31 sea areas shown on the map.
The forecast contains details of gale warnings in force, a general synopsis and sea-area forecasts containg forecast wind direction and force, weather and visibility.
Gale warnings are issued as required throughout the day (for winds of Gale Force 8 or more).
More marine weather
Marine forecasts for printing and low-bandwidth devices (such as mobile phones)
In the UK, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) is responsible for the provision of Maritime Safety Information (MSI) to ships at sea, which includes the broadcast of warnings and forecasts. The Met Office initiates warnings and prepares routine forecasts for dissemination on behalf of the MCA.
Caution: The internet is not part of the Maritime Safety Information system and should never be relied upon as the only means to obtain the latest forecast and warning information. Access to the service may be interrupted or delayed from time to time, updates may also be delayed. Please refer to GMDSS services, INMARSAT SafetyNET or international NAVTEX for the latest information. When using these web pages, always check that the page on your screen is not from your cache. Use the Refresh or Reload button if in any doubt.
| Trafalgar |
Spoken by Gloucester, what are the first seven words of Shakespeare’s Richard III? | The Shipping Forecast: a Map of Britain's Splendid Isolation | Big Think
The Shipping Forecast: a Map of Britain's Splendid Isolation
March 21, 2016
by Frank Jacobs
The general synopsis at midday: High west Sole 1028 expected east Sole 1019 by midday tomorrow. Low southern Portugal 1010 losing its identity. The area forecasts for the next 24 hours. Viking, North Utsire: Northwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first. Moderate or rough. Occasional rain. Good, occasionally poor.
The Shipping Forecast is quite possibly the most British thing ever. It’s quirkier than cricket, defiantly old-fashioned and ceremonial, and as reassuringly regular as Big Ben. Produced by the UK’s Meteorological Office, it's broadcast four times a day by BBC Radio Four.
But it is more than mere maritime meteorology. For over 90 years, the Shipping Forecast has been a punctual reminder of Britain’s island status – a declaration of geopolitical detachment expertly disguised as a weather bulletin. Splendid isolation masquerading as shifting isobars. And as such, one of the greatest examples of classic British understatement. If that isn’t an oxymoron.
South Utsire: Northwesterly 5 or 6. Moderate or rough. Occasional rain. Good, occasionally poor. Forties, Cromarty: Northwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first. Moderate, occasionally rough in northeast Forties. Rain or drizzle, fog patches developing. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor.
Listing the weather conditions in 31 sea areas surrounding the British Isles, the Shipping Forecast is read out at 5.20 am, 12.01 pm, 5.54 pm and 00.48 am. The first and last broadcasts of the day also include reports from additional weather stations and inshore waters forecasts. The last one also includes an outlook for next-day weather across the UK itself.
Forth, Tyne, West Dogger: Westerly or northwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first. Slight or moderate. Fair. Good. East Dogger, Fisher, German Bight: Northwesterly 5 or 6. Moderate, occasionally rough. Fair then occasional rain, fog patches later. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor later.
Much of the Forecast’s charm derives from the – literally – outlandish names of the sea areas listed in the bulletin. The names derive from sandbanks (e.g. Dogger, Bailey), estuaries (Forth, Thames, Shannon), islands or islets (Wight, Rockall, Utsire), towns (Dover), or other geographic features (e.g. Malin Head, Ireland’s northernmost point).
Humber, Thames: West or northwest 4 or 5. Slight or moderate. Mainly fair. Good. Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth: Variable 3 or 4. Slight. Fair. Good.
One is named FitzRoy, after the captain of HMS Beagle, Britain’s first professional weatherman and the founder of the Met Office. The southernmost region, Trafalgar is only mentioned standard in the last forecast of the day. The regions are always listed in the same order, starting north with Viking, between Scotland and Norway, and then proceeding in a roughly clockwise direction:
Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, Trafalgar, FitzRoy, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, Fair Isle, Faeroes and Southeast Iceland.
Biscay: Northeast 4 or 5, increasing 6 at times. Slight or moderate. Fair. Good. Southeast Fitzroy: Northerly or northeasterly 5 or 6, occasionally 7 at first. Moderate or rough. Showers. Good.
The map shown here also lists the coastal weather stations mentioned in the Shipping Forecast:
(1) Tiree, (2) Stornoway, (3) Lerwick, (4) Fife Ness, (5) Bridlington, (6) Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, (7) Greenwich Light Vessel Automatic, (8) Jersey, (9) Channel Light Vessel Automatic, (10) Scilly Automatic, (11) Valentia, (12) Ronaldsway, (13) Malin Head
A few others are mentioned only in the 00:48 broadcast: Boulmer, Milford Haven, Liverpool Crosby, Machrihanish Automatic, among others.
Northwest Fitzroy: Northeasterly 4 or 5 becoming variable 3 or 4. Moderate. Rain later in west. Good. Sole: Variable 3 or 4, becoming southerly 4 or 5 in west. Slight or moderate. Rain later in west. Good.
One of the Shipping Forecast’s attractions to others than fishermen and sailors is its poetic effect, the result of its very strict format and an arcane terminology, only intelligible to the initiated.
Each bulletin begins with exactly the same opening line, and follows the same structure. Preceded by gale warnings if necessary, a General Synopsis gives the position, pressure in millibars and track of pressure areas. Then follows the forecast for each of the 31 areas, sometimes with some areas grouped together if they have the same outlook. Each of these lists wind direction and strength, precipitation if applicable, and visibility (‘good’ for more than 5 nautical miles, ‘poor’ for less than 2 nm, and ‘fog’ for less than 1,000 metres). The whole thing never exceeds 370 words.
Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea: Westerly 4 or 5 at first in east Lundy, otherwise variable 3 or 4. Smooth or slight, occasionally moderate in Fastnet. Fair. Good. Shannon, Rockall: Southerly or southwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in west. Slight or moderate, becoming moderate or rough. Rain later in west. Mainly good.
The gap between Radio Four’s last programme of the day and the final Shipping Forecast, at 48 minutes past midnight, is plugged with as much as necessary of ‘Sailing By’, an orchestral piece by Ronald Binge, otherwise famous for his arrangements for Mantovani. The repetitive waltz helps sailors find the right frequency. For the many landlubbers tuning in to the last Shipping Forecast of the day, the cozy number signals that it’s almost time to turn in for the night.
Malin: Southwest 4 or 5. Slight or moderate. Mainly fair. Good. Hebrides: West 5 or 6, backing southwest 4 or 5. Moderate. Occasional drizzle. Good, occasionally poor.
Thousands use the day’s last forecast as a lullaby. Adding to its hypnotic, soporific effect is the fact that it’s read out at a deliberately slow pace, to allow seafarers to make notes. The strange place-names and the weird jargon give the Shipping Forecast a magical shine. And perhaps they give the thousands tucked away safe in their beds pause to think about those out at sea at that very moment, in the dark, listening to the same bulletin.
The forecast is followed by God Save the Queen, after which it’s exactly 1 am, and BBC World Service takes over.
Bailey: West backing south or southeast 5 or 6, decreasing 4 for a time. Moderate. Occasional rain. Good, occasionally poor. Fair Isle, Faeroes:West or northwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first, becoming variable 3 or 4 at times later. Mainly moderate. Occasional rain, fog patches developing. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor.
The Shipping Forecast has made a huge mark on music, literature and the wider culture. It inspired songs by Jethro Tull, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Wire, Blur, Radiohead, Tears for Fears, British Sea Power, Beck and the Prodigy, among others, and it was used in the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics.
Nobel-prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney wrote a sonnet called ‘The Shipping Forecast’, and British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy mentions “the radio’s prayer” in one of her poems. The programme is used in books, films, tv series, and has been parodied countless times (once as ‘The Shopping Forecast’, listing UK supermarkets instead of sea regions).
Southeast Iceland: Cyclonic becoming easterly or southeasterly 4 or 5, increasing 6 or 7 later in west. Moderate, occasionally rough. Occasional rain. Good, occasionally poor. Trafalgar: Cyclonic 4 in southeast, otherwise northerly 5 to 7. Slight or moderate in southeast, otherwise moderate or rough. Thundery showers. Good, occasionally moderate.
Here is BBC Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast page. Quoted text is that of the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office at 16.25 on Monday 21 March 2016, retrieved here from the Met Office website . Map of the sea regions by Emoscopes, found here on Wikimedia Commons .
Update 27 March 2016: changed the composer's name from Ronald "Ronnie" Biggs, whose fame derives from his participation in the Great Train Robbery. Thanks Aneel for pointing out the error!
Update 11 January 2017: Many thanks to Janos Vargha for sending in this news item about this artwork by Jane Tomlinson, awarded the John C Bartholomew Award for Thematic Mapping by the British Cartographic Society.
Strange Maps #774
| i don't know |
Which European language is spoken by a lusophone? | Lusophone Studies Conference | Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics - YouTube
Lusophone Studies Conference | Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
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Published on Sep 17, 2013
The Lusophone Studies Association Inaugural Conference: Exploring the Crossroads and Perspectives of Lusophone Studies is scheduled to take place October 29 to November 1, 2013 at York University.
There are approximately 250 million speakers of Portuguese in the world today, in nations and territories such as Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guiné-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Macau, East Timor, Goa, Daman and Diu. Immigrants from these nations are also scattered in large communities throughout the world, with major concentrations in the United States, Canada, France and other European destinations. Lusophone Studies (the study of this Portuguese-speaking world) is a broad interdisciplinary area that includes the many crossroads, perspectives, and contexts, which have contributed to this diaspora and to the Portuguese language today being the 6th most spoken in the world and the 3rd most spoken in the western hemisphere. Both in terms of historical past and contemporary settings, Lusophone lives have been molded by many factors that range from historical, social, political and economic circumstances, to established and new migration patterns between Lusophone and non-Lusophone countries. The outcome is visible in both geographical and ethnocultural development of many lusophone identities that intersect in many countries. Lusophone studies focuses on these perspectives and intersections in interdisciplinary ways, in order to create an inclusive study of current issues and viewpoints which relate to this historical legacy. Until recently, this body of scholarship had been largely ignored, in Canada. In order to address this omission, the newly created Lusophone Studies Association -- the first of its kind in this country -- is holding its inaugural conference at York University in the fall of 2013. The conference seeks to gather all those interested in Lusophone Studies by offering a forum to encourage current and new debates in this emerging area of scholarship.
The organizing committee is seeking individual papers, workshop panels and roundtable presentations on various aspects of Lusophone Studies. Five central areas will be examined: The present and future of Lusophone Studies: crossroads and perspectives. Historical evolution of the Lusophone world. Exploring Lusophone literatures, linguistics, and language. Studying the geopolitical Lusophone world. Contextualizing contemporary lusophone societies, migration, and identities. Lusophone survival within host-country.
Other themes related will also be considered.
A 300 word abstract, in MS Word or RTF format, should be submitted by Monday, February 18, 2013. Please use plain text, Times New Roman font, size 12. Avoid using footnotes, special formatting, characters, or emphases, such as bold, italics or underline. E-mail subject-lines should be entitled: Exploring the Crossroads and Perspectives of Lusophone Studies. Please indicate if you are proposing an individual paper, workshop panel or a roundtable presentation. Individual papers are formal papers to be presented in workshop panels; workshop panels are thematic panels comprised of 3 to 4 workshop papers; rountable presentations are shorter reflection papers (maximum 10 minutes), designed to promote discussion on specific topics, in informal roundtables. Abstracts must contain the following information in the order below: author(s) affiliation email address title of abstract body of abstract if proposal is for individual paper, workshop panel, or for roundtable presentation
Please direct your submissions to The Lusophone Studies Association at [email protected]. We will acknowledge receipt of all proposals. If you do not receive a reply within one week, please contact Professor Kenedy ([email protected]) to confirm receipt of your submission. We look forward to receiving your abstracts.
Robert A. Kenedy, PhD
| Portuguese |
The song Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend comes from which musical? | Language | About Brazil | Rough Guides
South America » Brazil » Language
Learning some Portuguese before you go to Brazil is an extremely good idea. Although many well-educated Brazilians speak English, and it’s now the main second language taught in schools, this hasn’t filtered through to most of the population. If you know Spanish you’re halfway there: there are obvious similarities in the grammar and vocabulary, so you should be able to make yourself understood if you speak slowly, and reading won’t present you with too many problems. However, Portuguese pronunciation is utterly different and much less straightforward than Spanish, so unless you take the trouble to learn a bit about it you won’t have a clue what Brazilians are talking about. And contrary to what you might expect, very few Brazilians speak Spanish themselves.
Unfortunately, far too many people – especially Spanish-speakers – are put off going to Brazil precisely by the language, but in reality this should be one of your main reasons for going. Brazilian Portuguese is a colourful, sensual language full of wonderfully rude and exotic vowel sounds, swooping intonation and hilarious idiomatic expressions. You’ll also find that Brazilians will greatly appreciate even your most rudimentary efforts, and every small improvement in your Portuguese will make your stay in Brazil ten times more enjoyable.
People who have learned their Portuguese in Portugal or in Lusophone Africa won’t have any real problems with the language in Brazil, but there are some quite big differences. There are many variations in vocabulary, and Brazilians take more liberties with the language, but the most notable differences are in pronunciation: Brazilian Portuguese is spoken more slowly and clearly; the neutral vowels so characteristic of European Portuguese tend to be sounded in full; in much of Brazil outside Rio the slushy “sh” sound doesn’t exist; and the “de” and “te” endings of words like cidade and diferente are palatalized so they end up sounding like “sidadgee” and “djiferentchee”.
Essentials
| i don't know |
The Malabar Coast is found in which country? | Malabar Coast | region, India | Britannica.com
Malabar Coast
Middle East
Malabar Coast, name long applied to the southern part of India’s western coast , approximately from the state of Goa southward, which is bordered on the east by the Western Ghats range. The name has sometimes encompassed the entire western coast of peninsular India . It now includes most of Kerala state and the coastal region of Karnataka state. The coast consists of a continuous belt of sand dunes. Behind this are many lagoons paralleling the coast and linked by canals to form inland waterways, much used by small boats. Inland is level alluvial land, well watered by streams flowing down from the Western Ghats. Rice and spices are the principal crops, with coconut palms on the coastal sand dunes. Fishing is also important. Kochi (Cochin) is the main port.
A large part of the Malabar Coast fell within the ancient kingdom of Keralaputra (Chera dynasty). The Portuguese established several trading posts there and were followed by the Dutch in the 17th century and the French in the 18th. The British gained control of the region in the late 18th century.
Learn More in these related articles:
Goa
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two mountain ranges forming the eastern and western edges, respectively, of the Deccan plateau of peninsular India. The two ranges run roughly parallel to the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea coasts, respectively, from which they are separated by strips of fairly level coastal land. In Hindi ghat...
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Date Published: February 02, 2009
URL: https://www.britannica.com/place/Malabar-Coast
Access Date: December 31, 2016
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Mentioned in the title of Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine, what is a beguine? | Coastal plains of India: An Amazing Geologic Feature! | MapsofIndia Blog
Coastal plains of India: An Amazing Geologic Feature!
MapsofIndia Blog 8 comments
Coastal plains in India
Coastal plains of India are the waved platforms and the raised beaches above the water mark. These are mainly the emerged floors from the seas that are adjacent to the land. The Peninsular India plateau is bordered by the narrow Coastal Plains. Following the surfacing of these lowlands, the sea level fluctuations have brought some important changes in the surface features of the sea shores. The Deccan plateau in India is also surrounded by the coastal plains in the west and the east.
The Coastal plains that surround the Palghat town in the southern region of Kerala are comparatively broad. In some places the width of the plains get extended to about 96km. The off-shore bars are enclosed with lagoons running parallel to the coastal plains in the south of Kerala. Also referred as Kayals, the lagoons receive water from numerous rivers, to which these are linked through narrow openings. The coastal zone located in the western part alongside the Arabian Sea is known in the south of Goa, as Malabar, while in the north of Goa, it is called Konkan.
Further, there are numerous estuaries in the Indian Coastal Plains . Among these, the major ones are Narmada River and Tapi River in the state of Gujarat. The plain is also blessed with natural harbors such as Marmagao and Mumbai. In the south, the coastal plains get combined with the salt water lakes also known as lagoons. Spits and sand bars can be found at their mouths. The coast is popular for the serene backwaters. The coastal plains alongside the Bay of Bengal are very extensive and also differ from the plains in the western strip. Fast flowing, small rivers cut part the rocky coastal strip.
That what separates the coastal plains in India from the interior is a large land of mass characterized by unique features. Though having limited vegetation, yet the coastal plains in India significantly contributes to the geography of the country. Coastal plains of India: An Amazing Geologic Feature can be found both on the eastern as well the western coasts of the country. Hence the Coastal Plains in India can be divided into 2 basic types, namely, the Eastern Coastal Plains and the Western Coastal Plains.
The Eastern Coastal Plains
Nestled within the Bay of Bengal and the Eastern Ghats, is the eastern coastal plains, a wide stretch of land having a width of about 120km. The plains extend from the state of Tamil Nadu in the southern part to the state of West Bengal in the northern region of India. There are several rivers that drain the eastern coastal plains of India. There are few river deltas as well that occupy these valleys.
These plains experience a temperature of over 30 degrees Celsius, characterized by high humidity level. Abundant rainfall is received by this region that amounts in between 1000mm to 3000mm annually. The plains are subject to southwest as well as northeast monsoon rains.
The peninsulas of Kutch and Kathiawar, the Rann of Kutch, and the Gujarat Plain serve as the important physiographic regions. Lying north of the Kutch is presently a huge desolate plain that got formed by the deposition of silt. Kutch that lies on the southern side of the Rann of Kutch was previously an island. Now it happens to be a sandy terrain alongside the coastal plains. On the south of the Kutch is Kathiawar. It is a hilly, rolling plain having an elevation of 200m. Huge amount of sediments are deposited by the Narmada River, Tapti River, Sabarmati River and Mahi River into the Gulf of Cambay. This has resulted in the coming up of a fertile land in the north of Daman. This plain extending towards north up to the Aravalli Mountain Ranges is known as the Gujarat Plain.
The eastern coastal plains are characterized by numerous rivers, large deltas, fertile and irrigated lands, lagoons, spits and off-shore bars. At places the plains are bordered with dunes. Mangrove forests also grow in this region. Following shallowness of the sea in the Eastern Coastal lowlands, there is no deep natural harbor in the region except Marmagao (Goa) and Mumbai. Locally the eastern coastal plain is known as the Northern Circars in the region between Krishna and Mahanadi rivers whereas in regions between the Kaveri and the Krishna River, it is known as Carnatic.
In the state of Tamil Nadu, the eastern coastal plain is much wider, stretching to about 100 to 120km of width. The three main divisions into which the eastern coastal plains can be divided are the Andhra Plains, Utkal Plains and Tamil Nadu Plains.
Utkal Plains: This is the coastal stretch of the state of Orissa and consists of the Mahanadi delta. The famous feature of the region is the Chilka Lake lying on the south of the Mahanadi Delta.
Tamil Nadu Plains: The plains extend from the Pulicat Lake to Kanyakumari. The prominent feature of the region is the Kaveri delta, the fertile soil and irrigational facilities of which makes it a granary in South India.
Andhra Plains: The plains extend from the Utkal Plains on the North to Pulicat Lake in the south. The delta formation by the River Kaveri and River Godavari happens to be the important feature of the region.
The expansive area of the eastern coastal plains that is the three broad divisions, mentioned above can be further divided into 6 regions:
Mahanadi Delta in Orissa
Coromandel or Madras Coast in Tamil Nadu
Sandy Coastal regions
Western Coastal Plains
In contrast to the eastern coastal plains, the western coastal plain of India is situated on a thin strip of land. The plains are nestled with the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats. Having a length of about 1,400 kilometer and a breadth of 10-80 kilometer, the western coastal plans cover an area of about 64,284 square kilometer. Extending from the state of Gujarat, in the northern side to the south in the state of Kerala, the western coastal plains are characterized by many rivers and backwaters and rivers that drain into this area. The rivers that flow through this region, results in the formation of many estuaries in the western coastal plains. The storm activity experienced by these plains is less in comparison to the eastern coastal plains. Most of the storm activity that takes place in the western coastal plains is in March. When compared with the eastern coastal plains, the western coastal plains are small and can be divided into 3 parts, namely
Konkan region that is the northern part of the coast
Kanara region, which forms a separate transitional zone in between the Malabar coast
Malabar Coast that is the southern part of the coast
The western coastal plains also consist of the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. On the northern of the coast, there happens to be 2 gulfs namely the gulf of Khambat and the gulf of Kachch.
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What is the name of the fictional island that provides the setting for Death in Paradise? | NH.gov - New Hampshire Almanac - State Emblem
State Emblem. The state emblem shall be of the following design: Within an elliptical panel, the longest dimension of which shall be vertical, there shall appear an appropriate replica of the Old Man of the Mountain; surrounding the inner panel, and enclosed within another ellipse, there shall be at the bottom of the design the words of any state motto which may be adopted by the general court; and at the top of the design, between the inner and outer elliptical panels, the words, New Hampshire, appropriately separated from the motto, if adopted, by one star on each side. Said emblem may be placed on all printed or related material issued by the state and its subdivisions relative to the development of recreational, industrial, and agricultural resources of the state.
New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated (RSA) 3:1
Anderson, Leon. History. Manual for the General Court 1981.
State Motto. The words "Live Free or Die," written by General John Stark, July 31, 1809, shall be the official motto of the state.
It was the 1945 Legislature that gave New Hampshire its official motto and emblem, as World War II approached a successful end.
The motto became "Live Free Or Die," as once voiced by General John Stark, the state’s most distinguished hero of the Revolutionary War, and the world famous Old Man of the Mountain was voted the official state emblem.
The motto was part of a volunteer toast which General Stark sent to his wartime comrades, in which he declined an invitation to head up a 32nd anniversary reunion of the 1777 Battle of Bennington in Vermont, because of poor health. The toast said in full: "Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst of Evils." The following year, a similar invitation (also declined) said: "The toast, sir, which you sent us in 1809 will continue to vibrate with unceasing pleasure in our ears, "Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils."
New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated (RSA) 3:1, 8
Anderson, Leon. History. Manual for the General Court 1981.
Moore, Howard Parker. A Life of General John Stark of New Hampshire. Howard Parker Moore author and publisher, c.1949.
The New Hampshire Almanac is compiled by the New Hampshire State Library from state statutes and other sources as noted.
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