question
stringlengths 18
1.2k
| facts
stringlengths 44
500k
| answer
stringlengths 1
147
|
|---|---|---|
Which ventriloquist was Lord Charles' sidekick? | BBC News - Ventriloquism: Return of the dummy run
BBC News
Ventriloquism: Return of the dummy run
By Jon Kelly
BBC News Magazine
The death of British comedian Ray Alan recalls a lost age when ventriloquists were cosy family entertainment favourites. Today, they are more likely to be found at the cutting edge of subversive alternative comedy.
Go on, try it. Try saying something - "bottle of beer," even - without moving your lips.
Now imagine keeping 30 million TV viewers entertained at the same time.
Once ventriloquism was not just a party trick or a kitsch throwback. It was a major branch of showbusiness.
The passing of Ray Alan - a ventriloquist of rare technical accomplishment - is a reminder of how far from public favour this branch of stagecraft has fallen. With his sidekick puppet Lord Charles, Alan became a prime-time favourite in a more innocent era.
It's a sort of licensed Tourette's
Nina Conti
Ventriloquist
In the 1950s and 60s there were thought to be some 400 full-time ventriloquists working in the UK - but by the early 2000s this had dwindled to just 15, according to estimates by Professor Steven Connor of Birkbeck University.
But if the act now calls to mind working men's clubs and end-of-pier shows, or nostalgia clip show staples like Roger de Courcey (and Nookie Bear) and Terry Hall (with Lenny the Lion), its latest incarnation is very different.
Nowadays the biggest names in ventriloquism include Americans like the brash, politically incorrect Jeff Dunham and David Strassman, whose Chuck Wood puppet makes Eric Cartman from South Park sound like Larry the Lamb.
The shift in the craft's centre of gravity is symbolised by America's Got Talent winner Terry Fator, an all-round entertainer and singer whose ventriloquism act nonetheless plays with taboos surrounding race and sex.
All have achieved this by tapping into the latent weirdness of the form - let's face it, those puppets are creepy - and refashioning them with an edgy, punk rock sensibility.
One ventriloquist - or, as those in the know would put it, "vent" - who has been at the forefront of this new wave is Nina Conti, whose sweetly-spoken onstage persona is thrown into darkly comic relief by her puerile, foul-mouthed monkey puppet Monk.
Even Keith Harris has updated his act to keep up with the new ventriloquists
Now an award-winning staple of Britain's comedy clubs, Rada-trained Conti turned to ventriloquism when her acting career initially failed to take off.
Initially she dismissed the craft as a throwback to a bygone era, but quickly discovered its subversive potential - and has been working on a documentary, Her Master's Voice, which explores its subversive roots.
"It's a sort of licensed Tourette's," she says. "I'm shocked by what the puppet can get away with - things I could never say to someone in a million years.
"I started this thinking one day I wanted to give it up eventually. But then I realised that there are really no limits to what you can do with it."
Still, Conti's street credibility is far removed from the previous generation of British vents who suddenly found that their work had become unfashionable.
Usually recruited from the working men's circuit or even, if they were old enough, music hall, they suffered from television's move away from traditional variety formats.
One victim of the shift in attitudes was Keith Harris, whose partnership with Orville the duck and Cuddles the monkey had made him a major star before he was dropped from the airwaves as the 1990s dawned.
"All of a sudden we didn't get the chance to be on TV any more," he complains, still audibly bruised. "Running things you had these new, young guys from universities who thought they knew what people wanted."
Whoever was to blame, it still was a long way from the days when the act was so popular that vents like Edgar Bergen and Peter Brough could, bizarrely, deliver their routines on radio to general acceptance.
But perhaps, all along, it was the unthreatening, mainstream entertainers who were out of step with ventriloquism's traditions.
Ray Alan and Lord Charles were more subversive than their image suggested
Dr Helen Davies, a lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University who has studied the subject, believes there was always a darkness to ventriloquism during its peak years, which ran from the late-19th to mid-20th Century.
"The subversive properties are all there," she says.
"It stems from this idea of mimicry and parody and the idea of the dummy talking back, as well as the inanimate becoming animate - it's all about a transgression of boundaries."
In this respect, she says, the most successful modern vents have cannily tapped into the legacy of dummy-themed horror films like 1964's Devil Doll and 1978's Magic, which starred Anthony Hopkins as a deranged ventriloquist.
And, indeed, even the most popular vents of the television variety era appeared to realise this.
Ray Alan may have presented an unthreatening, cardigan-wearing charm, but Lord Charles's drunken, lecherous persona allowed for comedy based around sex, class and alcoholism.
"I dreamed the other day that I was giving a speech at the House of Lords, and d'y'know, when I woke up, I was," ran a typical Lord Charles routine - predating the anarchic, anti-establishment puppetry of Spitting Image by decades.
And even Keith Harris - whose career apotheosis came with Orville's rendition of the sickly ballad I Wish I Could Fly - has moved with the times, offering an adults-only version of his act in which Cuddles turns the air blue.
"Maybe with the Americans coming over - they're a bit more straight-talking," he adds. "But there's nothing new in ventriloquism. The basic gags they do, like leaving the puppet onstage on its own, are ones I was doing 35 years ago.
"It's just about bringing it up to date."
Perhaps, all along, ventriloquism has been about telling the audience to talk to the hand.
Below is a selection of your comments.
As a young doy, I renender stending nenny hours trying to sveak wizout nooving ny lits... It gave me a lifelong appreciation of the amazing skill involved in ventriloquism! On the very rare occasions that my children have seen a ventriloquist, they have been entranced just as we were. However, recently, they have come across adult ventriloquists on YouTube and I have had to step in and redirect them towards something more suitable for their ages (6 & 9 yrs). Some of the material makes a puerile monkey seem quite tame. Maybe it's time for a new series of The Slammer?
Simon Sanders, London
I've seen Nina Conti live and can vouch for the incredible contrast between this sweet, pretty girl, and the incredibly offensive outbursts that come from the monkey puppet. It's hilarious. Jeff Dunham's Achmed The Dead Terrorist similarly plays with taboos; in that case, criticising Islamic terrorism. Anything that allows us to examine taboos publicly must be a good thing.
Ross Davies, London, UK
There is something creepy about the dummy, that gives the act a darker edge which I am very glad to see moving to the fore now in these acts. Even when I was a child I thought that Orville was creepy, a green duck in a nappy turning his head on his own ugh! give me Achmed the terrorist any day.
Evil Edna, Bury St Edmunds
Comedy has never been the same since the well-known ventriloquists disappeared from our screens. The so-called comics of today are just a load of rubbish.
Thomas Hayes, Bradford, UK
Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop were good fun.
Candace, New Jersey, US
A lot of not-so-expert ventriloquists were scuppered by TV. You may not have seen their lips move on stage but TV close-ups were very unforgiving. Perhaps that's why of late some of the most successful have kept the puppet and ditched the vent. Step forward Kermit, Miss Piggy and Basil Brush. Boom! Boom!
Terry, Skipton
My introduction to ventriloquism was via Ray Allen's childrens programme, Tich and Quackers. This programme seem to be almost completely forgotten now.
John N Hunter, Scalloway, Shetland
Roger de Courcey's puppet was originally a subversive, foul-mouthed character; he only toned down the act in order to get on TV.
Richard, London
Besides Shari Lewis, there were many "vent" acts on local TV stations in America during the Golden Age of the 1950s and '60s. I spent many mornings with Jimmy Weldon , a nationally-known voiceover actor, in Fresno, California. He and "Webster Webfoot" were one of the best acts of his era.
Brian, Cincinnati, USA
| Ray Allen |
In which TV series did the Muppets first appear? | BBC News - Ventriloquism: Return of the dummy run
BBC News
Ventriloquism: Return of the dummy run
By Jon Kelly
BBC News Magazine
The death of British comedian Ray Alan recalls a lost age when ventriloquists were cosy family entertainment favourites. Today, they are more likely to be found at the cutting edge of subversive alternative comedy.
Go on, try it. Try saying something - "bottle of beer," even - without moving your lips.
Now imagine keeping 30 million TV viewers entertained at the same time.
Once ventriloquism was not just a party trick or a kitsch throwback. It was a major branch of showbusiness.
The passing of Ray Alan - a ventriloquist of rare technical accomplishment - is a reminder of how far from public favour this branch of stagecraft has fallen. With his sidekick puppet Lord Charles, Alan became a prime-time favourite in a more innocent era.
It's a sort of licensed Tourette's
Nina Conti
Ventriloquist
In the 1950s and 60s there were thought to be some 400 full-time ventriloquists working in the UK - but by the early 2000s this had dwindled to just 15, according to estimates by Professor Steven Connor of Birkbeck University.
But if the act now calls to mind working men's clubs and end-of-pier shows, or nostalgia clip show staples like Roger de Courcey (and Nookie Bear) and Terry Hall (with Lenny the Lion), its latest incarnation is very different.
Nowadays the biggest names in ventriloquism include Americans like the brash, politically incorrect Jeff Dunham and David Strassman, whose Chuck Wood puppet makes Eric Cartman from South Park sound like Larry the Lamb.
The shift in the craft's centre of gravity is symbolised by America's Got Talent winner Terry Fator, an all-round entertainer and singer whose ventriloquism act nonetheless plays with taboos surrounding race and sex.
All have achieved this by tapping into the latent weirdness of the form - let's face it, those puppets are creepy - and refashioning them with an edgy, punk rock sensibility.
One ventriloquist - or, as those in the know would put it, "vent" - who has been at the forefront of this new wave is Nina Conti, whose sweetly-spoken onstage persona is thrown into darkly comic relief by her puerile, foul-mouthed monkey puppet Monk.
Even Keith Harris has updated his act to keep up with the new ventriloquists
Now an award-winning staple of Britain's comedy clubs, Rada-trained Conti turned to ventriloquism when her acting career initially failed to take off.
Initially she dismissed the craft as a throwback to a bygone era, but quickly discovered its subversive potential - and has been working on a documentary, Her Master's Voice, which explores its subversive roots.
"It's a sort of licensed Tourette's," she says. "I'm shocked by what the puppet can get away with - things I could never say to someone in a million years.
"I started this thinking one day I wanted to give it up eventually. But then I realised that there are really no limits to what you can do with it."
Still, Conti's street credibility is far removed from the previous generation of British vents who suddenly found that their work had become unfashionable.
Usually recruited from the working men's circuit or even, if they were old enough, music hall, they suffered from television's move away from traditional variety formats.
One victim of the shift in attitudes was Keith Harris, whose partnership with Orville the duck and Cuddles the monkey had made him a major star before he was dropped from the airwaves as the 1990s dawned.
"All of a sudden we didn't get the chance to be on TV any more," he complains, still audibly bruised. "Running things you had these new, young guys from universities who thought they knew what people wanted."
Whoever was to blame, it still was a long way from the days when the act was so popular that vents like Edgar Bergen and Peter Brough could, bizarrely, deliver their routines on radio to general acceptance.
But perhaps, all along, it was the unthreatening, mainstream entertainers who were out of step with ventriloquism's traditions.
Ray Alan and Lord Charles were more subversive than their image suggested
Dr Helen Davies, a lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University who has studied the subject, believes there was always a darkness to ventriloquism during its peak years, which ran from the late-19th to mid-20th Century.
"The subversive properties are all there," she says.
"It stems from this idea of mimicry and parody and the idea of the dummy talking back, as well as the inanimate becoming animate - it's all about a transgression of boundaries."
In this respect, she says, the most successful modern vents have cannily tapped into the legacy of dummy-themed horror films like 1964's Devil Doll and 1978's Magic, which starred Anthony Hopkins as a deranged ventriloquist.
And, indeed, even the most popular vents of the television variety era appeared to realise this.
Ray Alan may have presented an unthreatening, cardigan-wearing charm, but Lord Charles's drunken, lecherous persona allowed for comedy based around sex, class and alcoholism.
"I dreamed the other day that I was giving a speech at the House of Lords, and d'y'know, when I woke up, I was," ran a typical Lord Charles routine - predating the anarchic, anti-establishment puppetry of Spitting Image by decades.
And even Keith Harris - whose career apotheosis came with Orville's rendition of the sickly ballad I Wish I Could Fly - has moved with the times, offering an adults-only version of his act in which Cuddles turns the air blue.
"Maybe with the Americans coming over - they're a bit more straight-talking," he adds. "But there's nothing new in ventriloquism. The basic gags they do, like leaving the puppet onstage on its own, are ones I was doing 35 years ago.
"It's just about bringing it up to date."
Perhaps, all along, ventriloquism has been about telling the audience to talk to the hand.
Below is a selection of your comments.
As a young doy, I renender stending nenny hours trying to sveak wizout nooving ny lits... It gave me a lifelong appreciation of the amazing skill involved in ventriloquism! On the very rare occasions that my children have seen a ventriloquist, they have been entranced just as we were. However, recently, they have come across adult ventriloquists on YouTube and I have had to step in and redirect them towards something more suitable for their ages (6 & 9 yrs). Some of the material makes a puerile monkey seem quite tame. Maybe it's time for a new series of The Slammer?
Simon Sanders, London
I've seen Nina Conti live and can vouch for the incredible contrast between this sweet, pretty girl, and the incredibly offensive outbursts that come from the monkey puppet. It's hilarious. Jeff Dunham's Achmed The Dead Terrorist similarly plays with taboos; in that case, criticising Islamic terrorism. Anything that allows us to examine taboos publicly must be a good thing.
Ross Davies, London, UK
There is something creepy about the dummy, that gives the act a darker edge which I am very glad to see moving to the fore now in these acts. Even when I was a child I thought that Orville was creepy, a green duck in a nappy turning his head on his own ugh! give me Achmed the terrorist any day.
Evil Edna, Bury St Edmunds
Comedy has never been the same since the well-known ventriloquists disappeared from our screens. The so-called comics of today are just a load of rubbish.
Thomas Hayes, Bradford, UK
Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop were good fun.
Candace, New Jersey, US
A lot of not-so-expert ventriloquists were scuppered by TV. You may not have seen their lips move on stage but TV close-ups were very unforgiving. Perhaps that's why of late some of the most successful have kept the puppet and ditched the vent. Step forward Kermit, Miss Piggy and Basil Brush. Boom! Boom!
Terry, Skipton
My introduction to ventriloquism was via Ray Allen's childrens programme, Tich and Quackers. This programme seem to be almost completely forgotten now.
John N Hunter, Scalloway, Shetland
Roger de Courcey's puppet was originally a subversive, foul-mouthed character; he only toned down the act in order to get on TV.
Richard, London
Besides Shari Lewis, there were many "vent" acts on local TV stations in America during the Golden Age of the 1950s and '60s. I spent many mornings with Jimmy Weldon , a nationally-known voiceover actor, in Fresno, California. He and "Webster Webfoot" were one of the best acts of his era.
Brian, Cincinnati, USA
| i don't know |
What is the name of the dog in Punch and Judy? | Punch Names
What are the names of the Punch and Judy characters?
They vary with different showmen, and at different periods of the history. First there is Punchinello, or Punch. Originally his wife was called Joan which later changed to Judy. There is often a dog called Toby, and nearly always a clown called Joey (named after the famous Victorian clown Joseph Grimaldi). The baby is frequently called Marmaduke. If the hanging scene is used then the hangman is often know as Jack Ketch, named after an actual public hangman. The devil is Old Nick. The old shows used to have a black man called Jim Crow. The Doctor and Policeman rarely have names, nor did the Beadle or the clergyman. The dog originally didn't belong to Punch and the owner was called Mr. Scaramouche. Punch used to knock his head off his shoulders. Scaramouche is also the general term for a class of trick puppets involving extending necks, sometimes with multiple heads. In one of the classic shows such a character is called The Courtier.
| Toby |
In which Gerry Anderson TV series did Mike Mercury appear? | Punch and Judy | Puppet Wikia | Fandom powered by Wikia
[ show ]
History
The Punch and Judy show has roots in the 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte . The figure of Punch derives from the Neapolitan stock character of Pulcinella or Punchinello. He is a manifestation of the Lord of Misrule and Trickster figures of deep-rooted mythologies. Punch's wife was originally called "Joan." The figure who later became Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England in May 9, 1662 , which is traditionally reckoned as Punch's UK birthday. The diarist Samuel Pepys observed a marionette show featuring an early version of the Punch character in Covent Garden in London. It was performed by an Italian puppet showman, Pietro Gimonde , a.k.a. "Signor Bologna." Pepys described the event in his diary as "an Italian puppet play, that is within the rails there, which is very pretty." In the British Punch and Judy show, Punch wears a brightly colored jester 's motley and sugarloaf hat with a tassel. He is a hunchback whose hooked nose almost meets his curved, jutting chin. He carries a stick as large as himself, which he freely uses upon most of the other characters in the show. He speaks in a distinctive squawking voice, produced by a contrivance known as a swazzle or swatchel which the professor holds in his mouth, transmitting his gleeful cackle. So important is Punch's signature sound that it is a matter of some controversy within Punch and Judy circles as to whether a "non-swazzled" show can be considered a true Punch and Judy Show. In the early 18th century, the marionette theatre starring Punch was at its height, with showman Martin Powell attracting sizable crowds at both Covent Garden and Bath, Somerset . In 1721, a puppet theater that would run for decades opened in Dublin . Punch was extremely popular in Paris , and, by the end of the 18th century, he was also playing in Britain's American colonies, where even George Washington bought tickets for a show. However, marionette productions presented in empty halls, the back rooms of taverns , or within large tents at England's yearly agricultural events at Bartholomew Fair and Mayfair were expensive and cumbersome to mount and transport. In the latter half of the 18th century, marionette companies began to give way to glove-puppet shows, performed from within a narrow, lightweight booth by one puppeteer, usually with an assistant, or "bottler," to gather a crowd and collect money. These shows might travel through country towns or move from corner to corner along busy London streets, giving many performances in a single day. The character of Punch adapted to the new format, going from a stringed comedian who might say outrageous things to a more aggressive glove-puppet who could do outrageous—and often violent—things to the other characters. About this time, Punch's wife name changed from "Joan" to "Judy." The mobile puppet booth of the late 18th- and early 19th-century Punch and Judy glove-puppet show was originally covered in checked bed ticking or whatever inexpensive cloth might come to hand. Later Victorian booths, particularly those used for Christmas parties and other indoor performances, were gaudier affairs. In the 20th century, however, red-and-white-striped puppet booths became iconic features on the beaches of many English seaside and summer holiday resorts. Such striped cloth is the most common covering today, wherever the show might be performed.
Originally intended for adults, the show evolved into primarily a children's entertainment in the late Victorian era. Ancient members of the show's cast, like the Devil and Punch's mistress "Pretty Polly," ceased to be included when they came to be seen as inappropriate for young audiences. The term "pleased as Punch" is derived from Punch and Judy; specifically, Mr. Punch's characteristic sense of gleeful self-satisfaction. The story changes, but some phrases remain the same for decades or even centuries: for example, Punch, after dispatching his foes each in turn, still squeaks his famous catchphrase: "That's the way to do it!!" Modern British performances of Punch and Judy are no longer at the seaside. They can now be seen at carnivals, festivals, birthday parties, and other celebratory occasions.
Characters
The characters in a Punch and Judy show are not fixed as in a Shakespeare play, for instance. They are similar to the cast of a soap opera or a folk tale like Robin Hood . While the principal characters must appear, the lesser characters are included at the discretion of the performer. New characters may be added as the tradition evolves, and older characters dropped. Along with Punch and Judy, the cast of characters usually includes their baby, a hungry crocodile, a clown, an officious policeman, and a prop string of sausages. [1] The devil and the generic hangman Jack Ketch may still make their appearances but, if so, Punch will always get the better of them. The cast of a typical Punch and Judy show today will include:
Mr. Punch
Characters only seen in a historical re-enactment performance include:
The Beadle
The Servant (or "The Minstrel")
The Blind Man
Other characters included Boxers, Chinese Plate Spinners, topical figures, a trick puppet with an extending neck (the "Courtier") and a monkey. A live Dog Toby which sat on the playboard and performed 'with' the puppets was once a regular featured novelty routine.
Story
There is no one definitive "story" of Punch and Judy. As expressed by Peter Fraser in Punch & Judy (1970), "the drama developed as a succession of incidents which the audience could join or leave at any time, and much of the show was impromptu." This was elaborated by George Speaight in his Punch & Judy: A History (1970), who explained that the plotline "is like a story compiled in a parlour game of Consequences ... the show should, indeed, not be regarded as a story at all but a succession of encounters." The most recent academic work, Punch & Judy: History, Tradition and Meaning by Robert Leach (1985), makes it clear that "the story is a conceptual entity, not a set text: the means of telling it, therefore, are always variable." Much emphasis is often placed on the first printed script of Punch and Judy (1828). Based on a show by traveling performer Giovanni Piccini, it was illustrated by George Cruikshank and written by John Payne Collier . Collier, however, in the words of Speaight, is someone of whom "the full list of his forgeries has not yet been reckoned, and the myths he propagated are still being repeated. (His) 'Punch and Judy' is to be warmly welcomed as the first history of puppets in England, but it is also sadly to be examined as the first experiment of a literary criminal." The tale of Punch and Judy, as previously with Punchinello and Joan, varies from puppeteer to puppeteer and has changed over time. Nonetheless, the skeletal outline is often recognizable. It typically involves Punch behaving outrageously, struggling with his wife Judy and the Baby, and then triumphing in a series of encounters with the forces of law and order (and often the supernatural), interspersed with jokes and songs. As performed currently in the UK a typical show will start with the arrival of Mr. Punch followed by the introduction of Judy. They may well kiss and dance before Judy requests Mr. Punch to look after the baby. Punch will fail to carry this task out appropriately. It is rare for Punch to hit his baby these days, but he may well sit on it in a failed attempt to "babysit", or drop it, or even let it go through a sausage machine. In any event Judy will return, will be outraged, will fetch a stick and the knockabout will commence. A policeman will arrive in response to the mayhem and will himself be felled by Punch's slapstick. All this is carried out at breakneck farcical speed with much involvement from a gleefully shouting audience. From here on anything goes. Joey the Clown might appear and suggest it's dinner time. This will lead to the production of a string of sausages, which Mr. Punch must look after, although the audience will know this really signals the arrival of a crocodile whom Mr. Punch might not see until the audience shouts out and lets him know. Punch's subsequent comic struggle with the crocodile might then leave him in need of a Doctor who will arrive and attempt to treat Punch by walloping him with a stick until Punch turns the tables on him. Punch may next pause to count his "victims" by laying puppets on the stage only for Joey the Clown to move them about behind his back in order to frustrate him. A ghost might then appear and give Mr. Punch a fright before it too is chased off with a slapstick. In less squeamish times a hangman would arrive to punish Mr. Punch, only to himself be tricked into sticking his head in the noose. "Do you do the hanging?" is a question often asked of performers. Some will include it where circumstances warrant (such as for an adult audience) but most do not. Some will choose to include it whatever the circumstances and will face down any critics. Finally the show will often end with the Devil arriving for Mr. Punch (and possibly to threaten his audience as well). Punch — in his final gleefully triumphant moment — will win his fight with the Devil and bring the show to a rousing conclusion and earn a round of applause. While Punch and Judy, as with the tale of Robin Hood, might follow no one fixed storyline, there are nevertheless episodes common to many recorded versions. It is these set piece encounters or "routines" which are used by performers to construct their own Punch and Judy shows. A visit to a Punch and Judy Festival at Punch's "birthplace" in London's Covent Garden will reveal a whole variety of changes that are wrung by puppeteers from this basic material and although scripts have been published at different times since the early 19th century none can be claimed as being the definitive traditional script of Punch and Judy. Each printed script reflects the era in which it was performed and the circumstances under which it was printed. The various episodes of the show are performed in the spirit of outrageous comedy—often provoking shocked laughter—and are dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch. While the Victorian version of the show drew on the morality of its day, the Punch & Judy College of Professors considers that the 20th- and 21st-century versions of the tale have evolved into something more akin to a primitive version of The Simpsons , in which a bizarre family is used as vehicle for grotesque visual comedy and a sideways look at contemporary society.
“
In my opinion the street Punch is one of those extravagant reliefs from the realities of life which would lose its hold upon the people if it were made moral and instructive. I regard it as quite harmless in its influence, and as an outrageous joke which no one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct. It is possible, I think, that one secret source of pleasure very generally derived from this performance… is the satisfaction the spectator feels in the circumstances that likenesses of men and women can be so knocked about without any pain or suffering ...
”
— Charles Dickens , The Letters of Charles Dickens Vol V, 1847 - 1849
While censorious political correctness threatened Punch and Judy performances in the UK and other English speaking countries for a time, [2] the show is having one of its cyclical recurrences [3] and can now be seen not only in England , Wales , and Ireland , but also in Canada , the United States (including Puerto Rico ), Australia, New Zealand and South Africa . In 2001, the characters were honoured in the UK with a set of commemorative postage stamps, issued by the Post Office . [4]
Published scripts
In 1828, the critic John Payne Collier published a Punch and Judy script under the title The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy The script was illustrated by the well-known caricaturist George Cruikshank . Collier said his script was based on the version performed by the "professor" Giovanni Piccini in the early 19th century, and Piccini himself had begun performing in the streets of London in the late 18th century. The Collier/Cruickshank Punch has been republished in facsimile several times. Collier's later career as a literary forger has cast some doubt on the authenticity of the script, which is rather literary in style and may well have been tidied up from the rough-and-tumble street-theatre original. Punch is primarily an oral tradition, adapted by a succession of exponents from live performances rather than authentic scripts, and in constant evolution. A transcript of a typical Punch and Judy show in London of the 1840s can be found in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor.
Allusions in other media
Punch , the former British humour magazine, was named after Mr. Punch.
In the Marx Brothers ' 1931 comedy Monkey Business , Harpo joins a live Punch & Judy show (performed by an uncredited Al Flosso, a famous American Punchman) while trying to avoid capture by the crew members of the ship he has stowed away on.
Riddley Walker , a 1980 novel by Russell Hoban , utilizes Punch and Judy characters as quasi-political symbols.
The Old Curiosity Shop , an 1841 novel by Charles Dickens , features the Punch and Judy performing partners Mr. Codlin and Short Trotters.
The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch , a 1994 graphic novel by writer Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean , explores a boy's memories triggered by a Punch and Judy show.
The band Marillion had a #29 hit in the UK in 1984 with a song entitled " Punch and Judy ".
The band Lightning Seeds ' album Jollification features a song called "Punch and Judy", that deals with issues of domestic violence .
In the film Time Bandits , a Punch and Judy show is seen when the characters are transported back in time.
The Punch cigar brand was named after Mr. Punch, and features him on the label.
The 1963 Ingmar Bergman film The Silence (or Tystnaden ) features a boy, Johan, who plays with Punch and Judy dolls.
The 1987 horror film Dolls by director Stuart Gordon features a young girl named Judy, who is gifted with a Punch doll that comes to life and protects her.
In The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers , the clown-magician Horrabin is introduced performing a morbid version of the Punch story.
Punch and Judy is the eighth track on the album Either/Or by Elliott Smith .
The DC Comics villains Punch and Jewellee, wearing greasepaint and harlequin clothing styled after Punch and Judy puppets, appeared regularly in the pages of Suicide Squad .
Game designer John Tynes created a role-playing game called Puppetland based on the Punch and Judy shows and stories.
One of the killers in the movie Screamtime was a puppeteer, who used a Mr Punch doll.
Punch and Judy are Agatha's adoptive parents in Girl Genius . The characters Punch and Judy are also a popular feature in the traveling circus Agatha joins.
See also
References
Further reading
Punch and Judy: A Short History with the Original Dialogue by John Payne Collier, illustrated by George Cruikshank (1929, 2006) Dover Books
Mr. Punch by Philip John Stead (1950) Evans Brothers Ltd.
Punch & Judy: A History by George Speaight (1955, 1970) Plays, Inc.
The Art of the Puppet by Bil Baird (1965) Ridge Press/MacMillan
Punch & Judy: A Play for Puppets by Ed Emberley (1965) Little, Brown
Punch and Judy by Peter Fraser (1970) B.T. Batsford, Ltd.
Punch and Judy: Its Origin and Evolution by Michael Byrom (1972, 1988) DaSilva Puppet Books
The Punch & Judy Show: History, Tradition and Meaning by Robert Leach (1985) Univ. of Georgia Press
External links
| i don't know |
In Thunderbirds what was the unnamed villain known as? | The Hood (Thunderbirds) | Villains Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
International Rescue haven't heard the last of me...
„
~ The Hood's final line in the very first episode of Thunderbirds (Trapped in the Sky), after his police car getaway has crashed and his photographs of Thunderbird 1 get destroyed.
The Hood is a criminal mastermind, and is the main antagonist and Bigger Bad from the 1965 TV series and subsequent films of Gerry Anderson's most successful Supermarionation TV series, Thunderbirds.
He is the archenemy of the Tracy family, and even his own half-brother, Kyrano (and his half-niece, Tin-Tin). His primary intention in life appears to be getting his hands on the secrets of International Rescue, for they will make him, in his words, "the wealthiest man in the world".
He was voiced by the late Ray Barrett, who also voiced John Tracy, Jeff's second oldest son (behind Scott), the controller of Thunderbird 5. In the 2004 film he was portrayed by Ben Kingsley, now in the rebooted tv series he is voiced by Andres Williams.
Contents
[ show ]
TV series
Feared as the world's dangerous man, The Hood (so named because of his many disguises) is the half brother of Kyrano and wields an uncanny supernatural power over him. Unlike his brother, he is massive in stature and his main aim in life is the acquisition of wealth regardless of justice and ethics. His primary target is International Rescue, as the plans of their amazing high-tech vehicles and machines could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Operating from his hidden temple deep in the heart of the Malaysian jungle, the Hood has successfully eluded capture by the world's security forces for many years. Ruthless and calculating beyond comprehension, he uses mystical powers steeped in voodoo and black magic allowing nothing to get in the way of his evil objectives.
The Hood's precise origins are unknown. While it is known that he is the half-brother of Kyrano, the precise details of their relationship - such as which parent they share, or which of them is the elder - remain a mystery, as do the origin of his mysterious hypnotic powers. Even his real name remains a mystery; throughout the entire TV series, he was only ever referred to as 'Agent Seven-Nine', and even that was only on one occasion when he was in contact with the even more mysterious ' General X '; in another incident, with General Bron , he was referred to as '#671'. Even his name is never used in the TV series - it was revealed in spin-off media and promotional materials.
The Hood is known to be well-known to the criminals of Earth, such as Generals X and Brom, who use him for schemes, such as sabotaging the British Red Arrows aerial acrobatics team and other things. His Aztec looking temple, which he calls home, is outfitted with hi-tech devices such as advanced CCTV, an underground helicopter/other VTOL aircraft bunker and other things. In contrast to this, he also has a massive statue of Kyrano, which he uses to psychologically torture him for information, or to use him for his own purposes (such as in "Martian Invasion", where he managed to get Kyrano to disable Thunderbird 1's Automatic Camera Detector).
To facilitate his plans to capture the Thunderbirds' craft and use them for evil, the Hood has been known to make phony rescues in order to lure the Tracy brothers away from their secret base, such as putting nuclear warheads on passenger aircraft, sabotaging film sets, and sending a self-aware camera into Thunderbird 2. However, these plans fail, usually due to his shortsightedness or due to simple bad luck.
Appearances
Although he's been considered one of the staple characters of the show, the Hood has only appeared in six episodes of this much-loved sci-fi series.
Trapped in the Sky
The Hood's first appearance is in the pilot episode of Thunderbirds, entitled "Trapped in the Sky". The very, very first scene of the show depicts him in his temple, planning to find out about International Rescue, via his unsuspecting half-brother, Kyrano. He uses his powers to probe Kyrano's mind, to find out when International Rescue will start operating, but to no 'proper' avail.
Soon after, the Hood goes to London International Airport and, disguising himself as an engineer, he attaches a nuclear explosive to the wheel-well of Air Terranean's revolutionary new nuclear-powered hypersonic airliner, the Fireflash, the first of which is about to go on its maiden flight to Tokyo. After the Fireflash takes off, the Hood phones Commander Norman (London International Airport's chief air traffic controller) and tells him about the explosive, saying it (the explosive) will automatically detonate when the Fireflash lands at Tokyo, blowing it into 1,000,000 pieces and releasing the toxic contents of the nuclear reactors over a large area of Japan.
After two unsuccessful attempts to dislodge the explosive, Commander Norman is horrified to hear that if the Fireflash doesn't land with the space of the next 2 hours, then the radiation shielding will fail and all onboard will be exposed to potentially toxic radiation. His conversation is picked up by John in Thunderbird 5, who then informs his father, Jeff, of what's happened. Jeff then realizes the Fireflash is carrying Kyrano's daughter, Tin-Tin. He then sends Scott in Thunderbird 1 and Virgil in Thunderbird 2 to London.
Whilst Scott tries to hold the fort with Norman until Virgil arrives, the Hood (who by now has disguised himself as an airport policeman) sneaks into the now-unguarded Thunderbird 1 and uses a camera concealed inside his policeman's cap to photograph the inside of Thunderbird 1. However, the Automatic Camera Detector in Thunderbird 1 goes off; the Hood, together with the photographs of Thunderbird 1's insides, makes an escape in a police car, in the direction of Birmingham via the M1.
Scott then radios Lady Penelope and tells her that the Hood has photographic records of Thunderbird 1, is heading towards her area and also tells her the Hood's car's license plate number. She summons her butler, Parker, and tells him to ready FAB1, as "they're going for a drive". They pursue the Hood up the M1, and Parker fires FAB1's cannon, which causes the Hood's getaway car to flip over and crash. Despite the Hood surviving the crash, the photographs of Thunderbird 1 get wrecked, and he swears revenge upon International Rescue.
Meanwhile, Virgil gets three Elevator Cars out of Thunderbird 2 to get the Fireflash to land. The first attempt fails, as Elevator Car 3 develops a fault and crashes into some empty planes. Virgil readies Elevate Car 4, and the Fireflash lands on top of all three cars. However, the Master Elevator Car 1 (which Virgil is driving) crashes, but Virgil isn't hurt. Although the Hood's explosive falls, it doesn't go off, and everybody is saved.
Edge of Impact
Movies
Thunderbirds Are Go
The Hood is still the Thunderbird's archenemy in the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go, where he plans to sabotage the revolutionary new spaceship, Zero-X, which is about to blast off on a mission to investigate the surface of Mars. The Hood smuggles himself into one of the lifting bodies of Zero-X. He gets his foot trapped in the mechanism, causing Zero-X to crash (all five crewmembers, and the Hood, survived). This postpones the mission for two years, due to an investigation into the disaster.
At the end of the trial (which lasted for 2 years, ending in 2067), the Hood tries to get inside Zero-X by disguising himself as Captain Paul Travers (who commands the Zero-X mission), but is found out by Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and Parker (Lady Penelope had given all 5 members of Zero-X's crew a special St. Christopher badge each at a press conference the previous night, which are disguised radio transmitters). The Hood tries to flee, but during his many-layered escape (involving transferring from his car to a speedboat and then into a helicopter, which is piloted by an accomplice), he appears to finally die when Parker fires FAB1's cannon at the helicopter, causing it to crash into the sea and explode.
Thunderbird 6
Following his apparent death in Thunderbirds Are Go!, the Hood doesn't appear in Thunderbird 6 at all. However, the Hood's puppet was recycled into the film's baddie, Black Shadow , who was voiced by Gary Files. Furthermore, Sylvia Anderson (the ex-wife of the show's creator, Gerry Anderson), who created the characters of the show, said Black Shadow could be the Hood's son, or the Hood could've survived his demise in the helicopter crash.
Thunderbirds (2004)
In the live-action remake of the series directed by Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation et al), the Hood is played by veteran actor Sir Ben Kingsley. He is described as running his own illegal diamond mines somewhere in Malaysia (which are never seen, and it could be near his temple). However, one day, there was a cave-in, and International Rescue, led by Jeff (Bill Paxton) were called out to rescue them. However, the Hood wasn't rescued in the Mole tunneling machine, and this was when his vendetta against the Tracy family started.
In the film, the Hood is shown operating from his own futuristic-looking submarine, with his aides, Transom and Mullion. The Hood plans to lure the Tracy brothers away from their island and steal their machinery. To facilitate the plan, he fires a missile at Thunderbird 5, from his futuristic-looking submarine. The missile tears through Thunderbird 5's outside ring and seriously injures John (Lex Shrapnel). True to the Hood's prediction's, Jeff, Scott (Philip Winchester), Virgil (Dominic Colenso) and Gordon (Ben Torgerson) immediately blast off in Thunderbird 3, leaving Brains (Anthony Edwards) and his family, Kyrano and his family, and Alan (Brady Corbet), the youngest son, behind. The Hood soon invades Tracy Island, and uses Brains to give him access to Thunderbird 2 and the Mole, which he'll use to rob the 10 largest banks in the world, starting with England. When Alan tries to attack the Hood when Lady Penelope (Sophia Myles) arrives, they all get thrown inside the villa's deepfreeze, while the Hood launches his attack on the Bank of England. He flies Thunderbird 2 to London and deploys the Mole to tunnel into the vault, causing a cable car to fall into the Thames in the process.
Alan escapes from the deepfreeze (after Parker (Ron Cook) unseals the door using the wire from Lady Penelope's bra) and, following a conversation with Jeff, during which life support is returned to Thunderbird 5 (the Hood tried to shut it off) and getting authorization to be a Thunderbird, gives chase in Thunderbird 1, along with Lady Penelope, Tin-Tin (Vanessa Hudgens) and Fermat (Brains' son, played by Soren Fulton). He launches the abandoned Thunderbird 2 and drops himself into Thunderbird 4 and rescues the cable car (with a hand from Tin-Tin). Thunderbird 3 lands, and everybody piles into the bank vault, where a fight ensues.
The Hood is then shown being carried out of the vault by a policeman, and mutters "See you soon, Jeff" as Thunderbirds 1, 2 and 3 leave. What his fate is after this is never revealed.
In a departure from the original TV series, the Hood can no longer hypnotise people, and doesn't appear to be mentally linked to Kyrano. In place of this, he is telekinetic (this ability appears to be hereditary, as his niece, Tin-Tin (Vanessa Hudgens) can also use this power; her eyes turn green reptilian, or more probably like a wildcat). However, quite how they both have the same power is never explained. When he uses his telekinetic power, his eyes turn red and reptilian-looking, and the power is quite effective (such as guiding Brains to the "Command and Control" Switch, picking up a satellite chip being thrown away from him, and strangling Alan in a Star Wars-esque moment). However, if he overuses these powers, he is drained temporarily.
It was revealed during the film that these powers apparently activated after the Hood was left for dead during one of International Rescue's first missions; the Hood accuses Jeff of leaving him to die in the cave-in at the diamond mine, but Jeff later tells Alan that, at the time, he left the Hood because he could see no way to save him that wouldn't kill them both. Despite what the Hood had done to him and his family, however, when faced with the chance to let the Hood fall into the Mole's drilling mechanisms, Alan instead saved him when the Hood was weakened by over-use of his powers, subsequently allowing him to be captured.
Other shows based on Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds 2086
?
Thunderbirds Are Go! (2015 series)
In the series, The Hood (now voiced by Andres Williams, following the death of Ray Barrett in 2009) is once again the uncle of Tin-Tin (now named Kayo), and had something to do with the disappearance and death of Jeff Tracy.
Contrary to his previous selves, this Hood no longer has any powers of any sort (which has aroused disappointment in fans of the original series); however, he still maintains his mastery of disguise, albeit through menacing holographic projections. Instead of his incredibly jeweled gold tunic, he always wears a black suit. His base of operations is now a flying-fortress (with three thugs), as opposed to the temple in Malaysia.
Before the series began, Lady Penelope (now voiced by Rosamund Pike) had helped Jeff unmask 7 of the Hood's alter egos, before he killed Jeff in a boat accident.
| Neighbourhood |
In the Sooty show what kind of animal was Ramsbottom? | Thunderbirds (2004) - IMDb
IMDb
There was an error trying to load your rating for this title.
Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later.
X Beta I'm Watching This!
Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends.
Error
When The Hood finds and invades International Rescue's secret base and traps most of the Tracy family, only young Alan Tracy and his friends can save the day.
Director:
From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video
ON DISC
a list of 25 titles
created 06 Nov 2011
a list of 35 titles
created 05 Dec 2012
a list of 29 titles
created 31 Mar 2013
a list of 32 titles
created 25 Nov 2013
a list of 26 titles
created 26 Feb 2014
Search for " Thunderbirds " on Amazon.com
Connect with IMDb
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.
Edit
Storyline
The year is 2010. Teenager Alan Tracy, sent off to a distant boarding school, is the youngest of the sons of Jeff Tracy, a retired American astronaut. Jeff, a widower, has formed International Rescue, and raised his sons to act as a secret, volunteer organization which uses highly advanced technology to save lives worldwide. Jeff and his older sons John, Virgil, Scott, and Gordon, who like Alan were named after the Mercury Seven astronauts are joined in this effort by Lady Penelope and her butler/chauffeur Parker. Their futuristic hardware is largely developed by a genius scientist known as Brains, who lives at the International Rescue base on Tracy Island, somewhere in the Pacific. Written by Anthony Pereyra {[email protected]}
Prepare for the new generation. See more »
Genres:
Rated PG for intense action sequences and language | See all certifications »
Parents Guide:
30 July 2004 (USA) See more »
Also Known As:
£1,350,974 (UK) (23 July 2004)
Gross:
Did You Know?
Trivia
The Hover Bike used by Alan to tow Tin-Tin and Fermat is modeled on the same equipment used by the Tracy brothers in episodes such as "City Of Fire" and "Attack Of The Alligators!" from the original series. See more »
Goofs
When FAB 1 takes off, Parker has a HUD (Head Up Display) coming down from his hat's visor. In a later shot piloting FAB 1, the HUD has mysteriously disappeared, only to come back later. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
News Anchor : From a secret island in the South Pacific, the courageous Tracy family run an organization called International Rescue. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, they are always first on the scene. They go by the name they gave they're incredible machines. The Thunderbirds. 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Thunderbirds are GO!
See more »
Crazy Credits
The opening credits are animated (cartoon style) with the 4 Thunderbird Rescue Craft "saving"/manipulating the text which is in danger of being destroyed by disasters (Volcano Lava, Meteors, etc.). For those who have never seen the original TV Shows, it offers a peek at the design of the Craft and how they function at the disaster sites. A jazzed-up/updated version of the TV Theme Music is used for this sequence. See more »
Connections
(Swanscombe, Kent, England) – See all my reviews
The basic formula for the original series was; take someone, get the audience to like them, then put them into Mortal danger. This formula worked for the 32 episodes made between 1964-68.
Now, we jump forward 40 years to 2004.. We are introduced to Alan Tracy, a somewhat less-than-diligent college school kid, with his friend, Fermat, a young know-it-all. They are whisked off by Lady Penelope in her pink Ford Thunderbird to the island paradise where the Tracy Family live, for the school holidays. Almost immediately, they are left in the care of Kyrano and his daughter, Tin-Tin whilst the adults go to rescue John from Thunderbird 5 which has been damaged by a staged accident. This is all part of The Hood's scheme to take over Tracy Island so that he can steal the Thunderbird machines ...
To rob a bank!
Yes. The plot IS as limp as that!
The dialogue is banal, the acting more wooden than that of the (fibreglass) puppets, the effects, anything but special and Hans Zimmer's score
? What little there was of Barry Gray's glorious theme shone through Zimmer's lackluster orchestration. The rest of the score was eminently forgettable. In fact, part of the score was broadcast the following week on the radio and didn't recognise it! I didn't even bother to stay to witness Busted's mediocre efforts with the end titles
To be fair, Ron Cook worked quite well as Parker, he and Sophia Myles as Penelope seemed wasted. With the right material, they could have been show stoppers. The CGI work was what I would have called leading edge - 5 years ago.
The Dynamics of the main craft were just wrong; The original series models at least moved as if they had mass
Another sore point is that the whole production seemed to be one long set of product placements, from every vehicle being built by Ford to the entire content of the Tracy Freezer being produced by Ben & Jerry's.
My son (9) enjoyed the film but this cross between Spy Kids and 'Clockstoppers', aimed squarely at his age group, added nothing to the Thunderbirds legend. When Star Trek hit the big screen in 1979 with 'The Motion Picture', a whole new lease of life was breathed into the franchise which then continued for another 20 years or so. With this film, Frakes has missed a golden opportunity to do the same with the Thunderbirds franchise.
I predict that this film, like 'The Avengers' and 'the Saint' before it, will sink into obscurity within 6 months, leaving the original series to its 'classic' status.
38 of 49 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
| i don't know |
Who wrote and performed as Captain Kremmen | Captain Kremmen - The Full Wiki
The Full Wiki
More info on Captain Kremmen
Wikis
Advertisements
Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles .
Encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Captain Kremmen was a science fiction radio serial set in the early 21st Century. (The pilot opens in 2005.) It was written and performed for Capital Radio by the DJ Kenny Everett , and was also broadcast on Liverpool's Radio City . It featured the eponymous vain and dimwitted spaceship captain. Everett took the name Kremmen from a record label owned by the son of comedian Mel Blanc . Each episode began with a recap by Everett's fellow DJ, Tommy Vance .
The premise was subsequently adapted for television and other media.
Contents
4 External links
Main characters
Captain Elvis Brandenburg Kremmen - Born in Liverpool on Christmas Day in 1950, Kremmen grew up with an interest in becoming an astronaut like his idol, Dan Dare . In the animated version, he bears a striking resemblance to Kenny Everett, who was also born in Liverpool on Christmas Day (but in 1944).
Graduating from the Space Academy, Kremmen went on to become the world's most fabulous man, as well as a captain for Star Corps. He also has bionic veins, and a bionic left foot with a detachable big toe that converts into a space cannon. According to a 'computer read-out' at the beginning of the episodes, he has an IQ of 498 and a height of 6 ' 10 " , and is a Supreme Athlete, a Concert Pianist, Concorde Pilot, Mountain Climber, Diplomat, Space Captain & Genius. Another variation on the opening script said he had 'muscles in places where most other people don't even have places'.
Carla - An American, Carla is the world's most voluptuous woman. She came from a poor family, and used her beauty to get a job in Star Corps. Whenever alone with Kremmen, she persuades him to have casual sex with her. Her first visual appearance saw her looking like Marilyn Monroe , but this was changed in the TV series. She appears to be based on Dale Arden .
Dr. Heinrich von Gitfinger - Named "Grelbman" in the graphic novel, Gitfinger is Kremmen's scientific aide from Germany . In some areas, he is portrayed as a Nazi . He is married and has children living in West Germany .
Other minor characters include Gonad, Schmuckstein, Threllmer and Fooman, who are all technicians aboard the Troll-1 – Kremmen's spaceship, which is more than a little reminiscent of a portable cassette recorder .
Foes
The Thargoids - Based on their synthetic homeworld of Thargoidia, the Thargoids are a race of beings led by Gort (a parody of a movie character with the same name ), who drain all other beings of their knowledge so that they will be the most intelligent beings in the universe. They are described as having transparent heads, furry green eyeballs, seven legs and three lips. This latter feature is the reason the Thargoids drink tea; as Gort explained: "You try asking for llllager and llllime with llllips llllike these!"
The Krells - Originally nine-headed creatures with enormous lips, the Krells later became slimy lumps in the TV series. They are the second alien race to appear in the series after the Thargoids. Their first leader was Queen Iris, followed by King Zarno during their "lump" stages in the radio and TV series. The "nine-heads" appeared only in the book, and were led by Zorro, who was more welcoming to Kremmen than the other leaders. Their final appearance was in a war against the Macronites, who were planning revenge for an earlier Krell attack. They seem to be named after the alien civilisation mentioned in Forbidden Planet .
The Sun-Suckers - A nearby sun died out years ago, and a race of beings called the Sun-Suckers began to die from the intense cold. By stealing solar energy from the Earth's sun, the Sun-Suckers were able to stay alive for a little longer. Their number was 1,000 when Kremmen arrived, and their leader was known as Vardak the Elder. The Sun-Suckers are lumps like the Krells, but have four ears according to Kremmen.
Further appearances
In 1977 a comic book was released by Corgi , explaining Kremmen's time before he became a space hero. In his earlier years, Kremmen was more of an anti-hero , offering to allow the Krells to destroy Birmingham instead of his hometown of Liverpool . The story was quite surreal, and portrayed Kremmen as a womaniser as well as a control freak. The Krells planned to dump poisonous Thronn over Liverpool to destroy it, but the Thronn quickly turns into jelly when it reacts with grease from various fish and chip shops en route. The comic also introduced several new characters, with some politically incorrect ones, such as the Jewish Moyshe Pukestein, and the Jamaican nightnurse, Dr. Winston.
The series became an animated cartoon in The Kenny Everett Video Show and The Kenny Everett Television Show. This was produced for the series by Cosgrove Hall Films .
The single "Captain Kremmen (Retribution)" was a chart hit for Kenny Everett in late November 1977. Its main lyric, "Tread boldly, men", was a skit on Star Trek 's opening monologue .
The final piece of memorabilia on Captain Kremmen was made in 1980: a 20-minute film entitled Kremmen: The Movie. However, like the comic book, it was unusual. As well as several new characters, the only original characters were Kremmen, Carla and Gitfinger. The plot itself centred on Kremmen finding a giant space-monster that was eating planets. When his new spaceship is eaten by the monster, Kremmen is able to help the ship escape by pumping oxygen into the stomach and making the monster vomit , but the creature itself isn't destroyed, and it is not made clear if the other planets that were eaten were rescued.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.
External links
Episodes of the Capital Radio Captain Kremmen series are now available free of charge at the Creation Podcasts website: Creation Podcasts
| Kenny Everett |
Who captained the whaling ship Pequod | Cartoon Characters, Cast and Crew for Captain Kremmen (Series)
Produced By Ray Cameron, Barry Cryer.
Executive Producers: Brian Cosgrove, Mark Hall.
Written By Kenny Everett.
Submit Additional Information:
Do you have anything to add to this page? Have we made any mistakes... or do you ahve any additional information about Captain Kremmen (Series)? If so, we would love to hear from you. Please send us a quick note with your additions or corrections to this page, and we will make the corrections as soon as possible!
Report Errors / Submit Additional Information
Cartoon Summary:
The good Captain (of Star Corps) and his beautiful, busty second-in-command Carla ("She's so sexy, hormones take her!") save the Earth from the Krells (a type of evil alien blancmange). This was definitely NOT one for... ( more )
Read The Full Synopsis...
Cartoon Comments:
Do you love Captain Kremmen (Series), or do you think it is the worst cartoon ever? Let us know what you think! Surely you have an opinion... so share what you think. Take a minute and post your own comments about this cartoon here .
Related
| i don't know |
Captain Cook is a geographical area which grows coffee on which island | The Demise Of Captain Cook
The Demise Of Captain Cook
by Betty Fullard-Leo
Captain Cook Monument in Kealakekua Bay.
The bay at Kealakekua is so translucent, so placid, that scores of novice snorkelers slip into the water daily, arriving by boats from Kailua-Kona, which anchor, bobbing peacefully, just beyond the obelisk that marks a far more violent episode in Hawaiian history. It was here that the great navigator Captain James Cook was killed on February 14, 1779.
Cook and his crew had sailed through the Hawaiian Islands little more than a year earlier when they anchored off Kaua'i to re-provision his flagship Resolution and a smaller vessel, Discovery. This was Cook's third Pacific voyage, but his first to explore the North Pacific. It was the voyage that earned him credit as the first westerner to discover the Hawaiian Islands.
When the British ships sailed past O'ahu to Kaua'i in January 1778, they were met by a fleet of canoes filled with Islanders prepared to do battle. Luckily, Cook and his men had learned a bit of Tahitian months earlier. Tahitian was close enough to the Hawaiian dialect so the two groups could communicate, and when Cook gave gifts, the Hawaiians realized he had come in peace. The boats had been anchored for three days at Waimea Bay, Kaua'i, where the crews had discovered that Hawaiian women gave freely of their sexual favors. While there, the High Chief Kaneoneo returned from across the island to board the Discovery and meet Captain Charles Clerke before the two English ships left Waimea, headed for Alaska and Canada. Cook had anchored off Kaua'i during the time of makahiki, a period of months set aside for the collection of taxes in the form of produce, crafts and other goods, while war was suspended and ceremonies and games were the order of the day. There are, however, no notations in Cook's logs that indicate he knew anything about the makahiki season or its peaceful traditions. Ten months later, he returned from the north, badly in need of provisions and a safe harbor to repair his ships. It was November; once again it was the makahiki season. Cook dropped anchor first off Maui, where a meeting with King Kahekili went well. The Hawaiians were pleased to obtain valuable iron nails to fashion into fishing hooks, as well as iron tools, in trade for food and water.
An interpretation of Hikiau Heiau, the temple at Kealakekua Bay, based on 1779 descriptions Painting by Herb Kawainui Kane.
Near Hana, Cook's ships were met by King Kalaniopu'u, who had been warring against Kahekili, but because of the makahiki, the fighting had been suspended. Eight of Kalaniopu'u's chiefs (among them the young Kamehameha) remained on board to direct Cook to the Big Island. From his reception, Cook surmised that swift canoes had raced across the channel to forewarn the Big Islanders of his arrival. Off the northern shore of the Big Island, near Waipi'o Valley, canoes laden with men waving white banners paddled out to greet them. During makahiki, white kapa banners were always hung for ceremonies and displayed at heiau around the islands. Next came young women dressed in their finest kapa, and canoes loaded with "pigs, fruit and roots."
The ships were re-provisioned, but unable to make landing. Cook chose to circumnavigate the Big Island around the windward side, extending his journey far beyond the few days it would have taken for him to reach Kealakekua Bay sailing to the lee. The Islanders, and presumably King Kalaniopu'u, were happy with the decision, as at each seaside village canoes paddled out to trade for valuable western goods. By the time the Discovery and the Resolution, with torn sails and rotting lines, were able to enter Kealakekua Bay for repairs, they were surrounded by possibly 1,000 canoes and thousands of people swimming or on surfboards.
Captain William Bligh, Cook's sailing master, who would later go down in history as captain of the mutinous crew of the Bounty, was sent ahead to check the depth of the bay and to find fresh water, thus becoming the first European to actually set foot on Hawaiian soil.
Cook invited one of the Hawaiian elders to dine with him and received a pig and a red tapa cloak in return. Lieutenant James King kept detailed journals of the proceedings. When Cook went ashore, with King in the retinue, King wrote, "...[We] were received by 3 or 4 men .....who kept repeating a sentence wherein the word E Rono was always mention'd, this is the name by which the Captn has for some time been distinguish'd by the Natives."
Early historians determined that Cook had been mistaken for the god Lono, most closely associated with the makahiki, but later scholars and Hawaiians cast doubt on the idea. One theory sometimes advanced is that Hawaiians were saying, "E rono," translated as "listen" or "attention," which they called out to attract the crowd's attention to Cook's presence and his important stature.
Cook was led to a heiau, the same rock temple called Hikiau that can be found at Kealakekua Bay today, to take part in an elaborate ceremony, at the conclusion of which he was made to bow to the ground and kiss an image of the war god Ku.
Cook was not the only one to be treated with honor; Captain Clerke was also led to the temple, and a small pig was sacrificed to him, accompanied by an elaborate ceremony and chanting.
Nine days passed before the Big Island king appeared, accompanied by a long line of sailing and paddling canoes. The British were surprised that the king was none other than their old friend Kalaniopu'u, who had settled in the village where about 125 dwellings were occupied by chiefs. This is the same area that holds the monument to Captain Cook today.
The following morning, the king boarded the Resolution from his own 70-foot canoe. He was surrounded by chiefs attired in bright red-and-yellow feather cloaks and helmets and accompanied by canoes carrying chanters, feather idols, and provisions.
While their ships were repaired, the British camped in a nearby sweet potato field, and some attempted to learn about the Hawaiian culture; others, like Surgeon's Mate David Samwell, learned lascivious songs from the young Hawaiian women and enjoyed feasts and boxing exhibitions, typical makahiki past times.
When Cook ordered the king to purchase the wooden railings atop the heiau they were freely given, possibly because the makahiki season was drawing to a close and the ceremonial structures would soon have been dismantled anyway. The British ships sailed away on February 4, but within days a gust of wind had broken the Resolution's main mast and Cook had to return. By then the time of peace was past.
The mast was hauled ashore; all the while, Islanders continually pilfered from Cook's ships. When an Islander was spotted making off with a pair of blacksmith's tongs from the Discovery, British sailors rowed ashore in pursuit of his canoe. They tried to confiscate his canoe to hold until their tongs were returned, but the canoe's owner came out and was struck with an oar. Hawaiians retaliated by throwing stones.
Cook, with Lieutenant King and a marine, came down the beach to intervene, and the three Britishers set off in pursuit of the man with the tongs, but they were misled and laughed at by the Hawaiians. Cook ordered the sentries to reload their fine-shot to the more deadly ball ammunition.
When a boat was discovered missing from the Discovery on February 14, ill feelings escalated. The British fired cannons at canoes in the bay and Cook went ashore with some sailors to try to bring Kalaniopu'u back to the Resolution as a hostage. A crowd had gathered by the water's edge when, at the far end of the bay, a shot rang out from one of the British boats, and the chief Kalimu, standing in his canoe, was killed. The Hawaiians began to don their war clothing and, when a challenging motion was made toward Cook, he turned and fired his musket. Then his marines fired. When the king's guards charged, the marines, who had no time to reload, headed for the water. Many of the men, like Cook, could not swim.
The death of Cook, February 14, 1779. Painting by Herb Kawainui Kane.
The recorded details are not exact, but it is thought that Cook was struck with a club from behind, then stabbed repeatedly with an iron dagger that had been obtained from the British in trade by a chief named Nua.
Following Cook's death, five British sailors were killed, and four Hawaiian chiefs and thirteen kanaka maoli (commoners) died, before cannon fire from the British ships forced everyone to leave the beach. Captain Clerke, suffering from tuberculosis, took command and had repairs completed to the foremast on deck. He asked repeatedly for Cook's body, only to learn through friendly Hawaiian priests that it had been cut into pieces and the bones stripped of flesh; as was the Hawaiian custom in the treatment of the remains of a high chief. Islanders believed that the keeper of such bones inherited the mana, the spiritual power, of the deceased.
Animosity continued, with Hawaiians on shore taunting the British sailors, until three days later. On the 17th of February, Clerke fired cannons toward the shoreline. Two chiefs came to the ships to discuss peace, but that same evening, British sailors who came onshore to replenishing their fresh water, were pelted with rocks. The sailors burned an unprotected village and cut off the heads of two Hawaiians, displaying them on poles, until Captain Clerke had them deposited into the ocean to show that the British were not cannibals.
The following evening, a truce was declared. Some of the remains of Captain Cook were returned to the British, which Clerke deposited in a weighted box and sank in Kealakekua Bay. Kalaniopu'u is said to have kept Cook's long bones and jaw, and the young warrior Kamehameha was given the hair.
The Hawaiians questioned what the British would do and they wanted to know when Erono would return. In early history books, these questions were often said to indicate that the Hawaiians considered Cook the god Lono, while others say it only indicated they feared retribution from Cook's ghost, as ghosts were very real to them.
Clerke and his men sailed north after further provisioning off Kaua'i, but Clerke died off Siberia before returning to his native land. In England, the story of Cook became a legend, and he was immortalized in books and in a French stage play: "La Mort du Captain Cook". The story that Hawaiians believed Cook was their god Lono was commonly accepted. With the blurring of history, it is a question that probably never will be settled completely.
"Readers may submit editorial comments to any of our stories by sending an email to [email protected] . We would be happy to attach your comments and feedback to anything we publish online. Thank you for your interest."
Story appeared originally in Coffee Times print magazine and appears online for archival purposes only. Any use or reprinting of these stories without the expressed written consent of the author is prohibited.
Copyright � 2006 LBD Coffee LLC dba Coffee Times, Kauai, HI 96746 USA
| Hawaii |
Which Belgian cartoonist created Captain Haddock | Spring Special - Stay 5 Nights, Pay for... - HomeAway Opihihale
About the property
Romantic retreat near ocean, 2bd/2ba sleeps 4, 150 yards to the beach
Kona Dreams is a private retreat in Captain Cook, 35 miles south of Kona Airport. An easy drive on highways 19 & 11 along the dramatic coastline takes you past Kailua-Kona, to history rich Keauhou, Kealakekua, Captain Cook, and Honaunau, through the Big Island’s fertile agricultural region, where coffee grows alongside macadamia, cacao, vanilla beans, avocado, and an endless feast of tree ripened fruit.
A clearly marked turn takes you from an elevation of 1,100 ft through the quiet Kona Paradise community, right down to sea level and the ocean.
Park your car and walk for less than 60 seconds to the ocean. Look for turtles or even a monk seal resting on the beautiful black lava pebble beach.
This home was designed to capture every breeze. The interior is decorated with artwork the owners collect during their travels around the Pacific Rim. A spacious living area is equipped with a flat screen TV, media player, guidebooks, and leisure reading. Comfortable furniture invites you to relax under the cathedral ceiling supported by solid ohia logs.
The airy master bedroom features a king size bed made of local ohia wood and has a separate walk-in closet, master bath, and a private lanai. The guest bedroom has a full bath and a lanai of its own. The kitchen is equipped with everything to make enjoyable meals from scratch. While you enjoy sitting on the shaded lanai, watch the tropical sunset or look for breaching whales.
You may do laundry onsite, beach towels are provided. Wifi, high-speed broadband, and free telephone calls to the mainland US and Canada keep you wired and connected.
The house sits on a lovingly landscaped lot with flowering orchids, plumeria trees, coconut palms. Feel free to pick luscious mangos and limes in season.
The bay beyond the beach is well known for scenic snorkeling and excellent scuba diving. In the garage you will find snorkel gear, water toys, beach furniture, umbrella and cooler to enjoy during your visit. Or take the kayak out for a paddle and look for dolphins swimming in the bay.
Detailed information about these and many other activities are available to guests, just ask.
The owner's apartment, downstairs next to garage, is entirely separate from the rental unit upstairs. It is rarely used.
The excellent Kona Community Hospital is 18 miles north on Highway 11.
Keywords: romantic getaway, couples retreat, honeymoon, quiet, serene, peaceful, romantic, beach house, beach, ocean, ocean view, Hawai'i vacation rental, Hawai'i accommodations, Big Island, leeward, sunset view, whales, dolphins, smoke free, non smoking, Kona Paradise, Kona Dreams, Kona coast, South Kona, Captain Cook, Pebble Beach, Kealia, Kaohe Bay, adventure travel, Merrie Monarch, Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, Ironman, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
Hawaii Tax ID W95173274
| i don't know |
What is the name of Captain Mainwaring's wife | Mainwaring Surname, Family Crest & Coats of Arms
Mainwaring Surname, Family Crest & Coats of Arms
Buy JPG Image »
Mainwaring is one of the many new names that came to England following the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Mainwaring family lived in a place that in Anglo-Norman French was named Mesnil Warin, which means domain of Warin. The Mesnil-Garin's were a well-known Norman family. The family name Mainwaring was brought to England after the Norman Conquest , when William the Conqueror gave his friends and relatives most of the land formerly owned by Anglo-Saxon aristocrats. The Normans frequently used the name of their estate in Normandy as part of their name. They also imported a vast number of Norman French personal names, which largely replaced traditional Old English personal names among the upper and middle classes.
Mainwaring Early Origins
Buy PDF History »
The surname Mainwaring was first found in Cheshire where "Randulphus de Mesniwarin, who accompanied William the Conqueror, and received from him Warmingham, Peover, and thirteen other lordships in Cheshire , together with one in Norfolk . His descendants spread into many branches in Cheshire, and into northern counties." [1] CITATION[CLOSE]
Lowe, Mark Anthony, Patronymica Britannica, A Dictionary of Family Names of the United Kingdom. London: John Russel Smith, 1860. Print. Sir William Dugdale stated "the name of this celebrated family has been spelt in the astonishing number of one hundred and thirty-five forms, in old records and more modern writings." Also in Cheshire, Ashton was an ancient family seat . "The manor [of Ashton] was held in the reign of Edward I . by the Mainwaring family, from whom it descended by female heirs to the Veres and Trussells." [2] CITATION[CLOSE]
Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England. Institute of Historical Research, 1848, Print. However some of the family were found south in Devon . "In the reign of Elizabeth the manor [of Sidmouth] was leased to Sir William Perryan, and in that of James I. to Sir Christopher Mainwaring; it was subsequently sold to Sir Edmond Prideaux, with the exception of the great tithes, which were given to Wadham College." [2] CITATION[CLOSE]
Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England. Institute of Historical Research, 1848, Print. And another branch of the family was found at Baddiley in Cheshire . "Baddiley Hall, once the noble residence of the Mainwarings, is now a farmhouse." [2] CITATION[CLOSE]
Lewis, Samuel, A Topographical Dictionary of England. Institute of Historical Research, 1848, Print.
Mainwaring Spelling Variations
Mainwaring Spelling Variations
Anglo-Norman names tend to be marked by an enormous number of spelling variations . This is largely due to the fact that Old and Middle English lacked any spelling rules when Norman French was introduced in the 11th century. The languages of the English courts at that time were French and Latin. These various languages mixed quite freely in the evolving social milieu. The final element of this mix is that medieval scribes spelled words according to their sounds rather than any definite rules, so a name was often spelled in as many different ways as the number of documents it appeared in. The name was spelled Mainwaring, Maynwaring, Mannering and others.
Mainwaring Early History
Mainwaring Early History
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Mainwaring research. Another 275 words (20 lines of text) covering the years 1515, 1589, 1661, 1634, 1625, 1661, 1623, 1689, 1660, 1656, 1702, 1689, 1702, 1586, 1653 and 1616 are included under the topic Early Mainwaring History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Mainwaring Early Notables (pre 1700)
Mainwaring Early Notables (pre 1700)
Outstanding amongst the family at this time was Sir Philip Mainwaring (1589-1661), Principal Secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland (1634) and English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1625 and 1661; Sir Thomas Mainwaring, 1st Baronet (1623-1689), Member of Parliament for Cheshire 1660; Sir John Mainwaring, 2nd...
Another 70 words (5 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Mainwaring Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Mainwaring In Ireland
Mainwaring In Ireland
Some of the Mainwaring family moved to Ireland , but this topic is not covered in this excerpt. Another 57 words (4 lines of text) about their life in Ireland is included in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
The Great Migration
The Great Migration
Because of the political and religious discontent in England , families began to migrate abroad in enormous numbers. Faced with persecution and starvation at home, the open frontiers and generally less oppressive social environment of the New World seemed tantalizing indeed to many English people. The trip was difficult, and not all made it unscathed, but many of those who did get to Canada and the United States made important contributions to the young nations in which they settled. Some of the first North American settlers with Mainwaring name or one of its variants:
Mainwaring Settlers in United States in the 17th Century
Mary Mainwaring, who landed in Maryland in 1650
Thomas Mainwaring, who settled in New Jersey in 1664
Mainwaring Settlers in United States in the 18th Century
Charles and James Mainwaring settled in Virginia in 1767
Mainwaring Settlers in United States in the 19th Century
John Mainwaring, who arrived in Colorado in 1896
Mainwaring Settlers in Australia in the 19th Century
George Mainwaring arrived in Adelaide, Australia aboard the ship "Hindoo" in 1848 [3] CITATION[CLOSE]
State Records of South Australia . (Retrieved 2010, November 5) HINDOO 1848. Retrieved from http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/BSA/1848Hindoo.gif
Mainwaring Settlers in New Zealand in the 19th Century
John Mainwaring landed in Wellington, New Zealand in 1843
James Mainwaring arrived in Lyttelton, New Zealand aboard the ship "Canute" in 1867
Contemporary Notables of the name Mainwaring (post 1700)
Contemporary Notables of the name Mainwaring (post 1700)
Daniel Mainwaring (1902-1977), American novelist and screenwriter, who sometimes wrote under the name Geoffrey Homes
Captain John Mainwaring, American WWII pilot
Marion Mainwaring (b. 1922), American novelist
John Mainwaring (1735-1807), English theologian and the first biographer of the composer Georg Friedrich Handel
Matthew Thomas "Matty" Mainwaring (b. 1990), English football midfielder
William Thomas "Billy" Mainwaring (b. 1941), Welsh international second row rugby union player
Bernard Mainwaring (1897-1963), British film director
Chris Douglas Mainwaring (1965-2007), Australian rules footballer
Brigadier Hugh Mainwaring (b. 1906), British Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire (1951-1974), and Lord Lt. of Clwyd (1974-1976)
William Henry Mainwaring (1884-1971), Welsh coal miner and trade unionist, who became a long-serving member of the UK Parliament
... (Another 1 notables are available in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.)
Mainwaring Historic Events
| Elizabeth |
Captain John Francis McIntyre is a fictional TV character, better known by what name | Photographs of Over Peover, Cheshire, England, UK, and Mainwaring family
St. Lawrence, Over Peover
Over Peover is sometimes called Peover Superior. Sir Peter Leicester in his Historical Antiquities of 1673, states that the church was a daughter chapel to Rostherne. He believed that it was built in the reign of Edward III (1327-1377) but did not find any monuments earlier than the reign of Henry VI (1422-1461). The tower was built of brick in 1739 and the nave and chancel were rebuilt in brick by William Turner in 1811. The two Mainwaring chapels, built of stone, were preserved. In the South Chapel there are alabaster effigies of Randle Mainwaring and his wife, Margery. He died in 1456 and it is possible that the chapel was built either by Randle or by his widow. Margery was the daughter of Hugh Venables, Baron of Kinderton. He rests on the head of an ass, the family crest.
The North Chapel was built in 1648 by Ellen the widow of Philip Mainwaring to house his monument. Ellen, who was the daughter of Edward Minshull of Stoke near Nantwich lived until 1656. In the Chapel are the effigies of Philip Mainwaring and his wife. He is in plate armour and died in 1647 while his wife lived until 1656. The couple had eight sons and one daughter. Nearby is the tomb of John Mainwaring in mail armour; he died in 1410. There are two incised alabaster monumental slabs in the North Chapel as shown in my photographs. The earliest, shown above on the left, depicts John Mainwaring, Knight, who died in 1515 and his wife Katherine who died in 1529. At the base are listed 13 sons and two daughters. The second alabaster panel depicts Philip Mainwaring, who died in 1573, and his wife Anne, the daughter of Sir Ralph Leycester. Three children are listed below and named as Ro'dull, Edmo'de and Elyzabe. The apostrophes signify missing letter n so in we have Randle, Edmund and Elizabeth in modern spelling.
The incumbents of St. Lawrence have been recorded since 1556.
To the left of the path leading to the church door is a sad gravestone in the form of a cross that records the murder of a young man aged 19 in 1873. He was said to be killed during the course of his duty and may have been a gamekeeper. The memorial reads as follows and beneath is a twelve line verse that appears to have been written specifically for the occasion.
"Sacred to the Memory of Arthur Barnard who died January 13 1873, aged 19 years from a gunshot wound by an unmerciful hand whilst in the execution of his duty in higher Peover Woods."
Near the entrance to the church is an unusual sun-dial which records in an inscription above the clock faces the latitude and longitude of a shipwreck in December 1717.
Peover Hall
Peover Hall was open to the public on Monday afternoons from May to September in 2001. I was fortunate to visit again on 7 August 2014 and on this occasion the church was also open allowing me to take the interior shots shown above. There is a small pamphlet available for visitors to the house and a reprint of an article from The Field magazine of 1985 by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd.
The Mainwarings held this manor from the time of the Norman Conquest. The current house was built by Sir Randle Mainwaring in 1585 and had a Georgian extension built by Sir Henry Mainwaring, the last male heir. Following the change of ownership to Thomas Wettenhall, who took the name of Mainwaring in 1797, the house continued in that family until 1919. It was then sold to John Peel, the son of a Manchester cotton merchant who sold it in 1940 to Mr. Harry Brooks, a furniture manufacturer. During the war it was requisitioned for army use and became the headquarters for General Patton prior to D-Day. It was not released again to its owner until 1950 by which time it was in a poor condition. The 18th century wing was demolished in 1964 and a new facade erected to match the Elizabethan brickwork. This is shown at the extreme right of my picture from the East.
There is a well-known picture by Van Dyck of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, with Sir Philip Mainwaring, painted about 1639/40. Sir Philip (1589 - 1661) was a younger brother of Sir Randle (the younger) at Peover. Sir Randle died in 1632 and his eldest son, also a Philip, died in 1647. The original picture was on display at the Van Dyck Exhibition at the Royal Academy in the late 1990s; it was loaned by the trustees of the Rt. Hon. Olive, Countess Fitzwilliam. A copy can be seen at Weston Park, the former home of the Earls of Bradford, and a further copy is at Peover Hall. It was commissioned by the sitter, Thomas Wentworth, created Baron Wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse in July 1628, Viscount Wentworth in December 1628, Baron Raby and Earl of Strafford in 1640. He was beheaded in 1641 following impeachment by Parliament for his handling of affairs in Ireland. Charles I might have saved him but sacrificed him to his enemies in an attempt to save his own position. Sir Philip Mainwaring described as being Strafford's private secretary, was in effect Strafford's Secretary of State for Ireland. He was knighted in 1636.
Inn sign at Peover Heath, formerly 'The Gay Dog'
Sources
Arthur Mee's Cheshire, published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1938; fourth impression 1950.
The Buildings of England, Cheshire, by Nikolaus Pevsner and Edward Hubbard, Yale University Press, 2003, ISBN 0 300 09588 0
Old Cheshire Churches, with a supplementary survey of the lesser old chapels of Cheshire, completely revised and enlarged by Raymond Richards, first published in 1947 and reprinted by E. J. Morten, Didsbury, 1973.
Stuart Raymond, in Cheshire: A Genealogical Bibliography, Vol. 2 includes the following sources on the Mainwarings:
1. The Mainwarings of Over Peover, a Cheshire Family in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, by J. T. Driver in Journal of the Chester Archaeological and Historical Society, 57, 1974, 27-40
2. A Short History of the Mainwaring Family, by R. Mainwaring Finley, first published by Grifftith, Farran, Okeden and Welsh in 1890, reprinted by Research Publishing in 1976.
3. A Cheshire Feud, by Edward M. Kandel in Coat of Arms, N.S. 37 (109), 1979, 129-33.
4. Mainwaring families of Kermincham, Nantwich, Newton and Peover are covered in a series of short articles in Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd Series, 12, 1917, pp. 79, 27-28, 87 and 44 respectively.
The Mainwarings of Peover
Sir Peter Leicester, in his Historical Antiquities of 1673 tells us that at the time of the Norman Conquest, Ranulphus the supposed ancestor of the Mainwarings occupied Over Peover. Ormerod in his The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, gives an extensive pedigree of the family from which the following has been taken from the middle of the 17th century onwards. The last male heir was Sir Henry Mainwaring who inherited at birth in 1726 as both his uncle and father had died earlier that year. Sir Henry was responsible for the Georgian extension to the house.
1. Sir Randolph Mainwaring of Pever, Knt. died 1632.
+ Jane dau. of Sir Thomas Smith of Hough, Knt. Children were Philip, George, Elizabeth and Anne Margaret.
2. Philip Mainwaring, died 10 Dec 1647
+ Ellen dau. of Edward Minshull of Stoke in Cheshire. Children were Randle and Philip who died in infancy then Sir Thomas see below, Edmund, George and Philip, who all died in infancy, and Edward (who married Frances dau of Sir Peter Holford of Newbrooke in Cheshire), and Jane who died infancy. It was Ellen who built the stables for her son, Thomas, around 1653 to 1656. She died in 1656.
3. Sir Thomas Mainwaring of Peover Bart., aged 40 by 10 Sept 1663. Thomas was Sheriff of Chester in 1657, towards the end of the Protectorate, and got his baronetcy in November 1660 which was after the Restoration.
+ Mary dau. of Sir Henry Delves of Duddington in Cheshire. Married 26 May 1642, died 1 March 1670, buried Over Peover. They had six sons and six daughters of whom we follow only John. Children noted in 1663 and recorded in the Ashmolean manuscript were Philip, Thomas, Randle and Henry who all died young, John son and heir who was 7 in 1663, William aged 5, Mary and Ellen who died young, Eliz aged 11, Anne aged 9 and Katherine aged 1
4. Sir John Mainwaring, Bart., of Over Peover, 4th son and heir, born 8 May 1656, became an MP, died 4 November 1702 and buried at Over Peover.
+ Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Roger Whitley of Peel in Cheshire, married 28 September 1676. She died 4 November 1719 and was buried at Over Peover. They had five sons, four of whom died young or without issue, and two daughters.
5. Sir Thomas Mainwaring of Baddiley, Bart., born Peel 7 August 1681 and died without issue on 20 September 1726. The estate then passed via his late brother Henry to his son.
5. Henry Mainwaring of Over Peover, born 3 August 1686, married 26 July 1725 and died 1 July 1726.
+ Diana daughter of William Blackett, Esq., died 2 May 1737.
6. Sir Henry Mainwaring of Over Peover, Bart., posthumous son, born 7 November 1726. He died unmarried on 6 April 1797 and was buried at Over Peover. He was responsible for the Georgian wing of the house, which has now been demolished.
Henry was the last of the male line of the Mainwarings. The estate then passed to his uterine half brother as his mother had married a second time as shown below. This family is not descended from Sir Thomas Mainwaring but is shown with matching generation numbers.
5. Diana, daughter of William Blackett, Esq., died 2 May 1737, 1st husband Henry Mainwaring.+ 2nd husband, Thomas Wettenhall, clerk, rector of Walthamstow, born 1708, died 1776. This union led to one son, Thomas, and a daughter, who died young.
6.Thomas Wettenhall, born 26 November 1736, assumed the name and arms of Mainwaring by the will of his uterine half-brother. He died 4 July 1798 and was buried at Over Peover.
+ Catherine, the daughter of William Watkis, Esq. of Nantwich on 21 June 1781. They had three sons and three daughters. We follow the eldest son.
7. Sir Henry Mainwaring Mainwaring of Over Peover, Bart., born 25 April 1782. The baronetcy was re-created for him on 26 May 1804. He was Sheriff of Cheshire in 1806 and died 11 January 1860. The baronetcy died out in 1934.
+ Sophia, the daughter of Sir Richard Cotton of Combermere , baptised 29 December 1803 and died 1838.
Notes on Some Branches of the Mainwaring Family in the 17th Century
The following notes are taken from a series of short articles in Cheshire Sheaf, 3rd Series, 12, 1915, pages 27, 44, 79 and 87. They deal with the Mainwaring family and come from manuscripts in the Ashmolean Collection at the Bodleian Library. They are believed to have been taken from the Visitation of the Heralds in 1663-4, carried out in Cheshire by Dugdale. The dates given for ages do not indicate birthdays; they are presumed to be the date on which the information was collected by the herald. The information on the Mainwarings of Peover (MS Ashmole 836 page 701) in this series of articles has been incorporated into the tree shown above.
1. Mainwaring of Nantwich. (In MS Ashmole 836 p. 699 and Ormerod iii 440.
According to Ormerod, two branches of the Mainwaring family settled in Nantwich, one being descended from William Mainwaring the fifth son of Ralph Mainwaring of Carincham (Kermincham). However, this source does not give the family tree, only a reference to Harlean Manuscript 1535.
Note that Carincham is the old form of Kermincham, where there was formerly Kermincham Hall, now demolished. The property currently named Kermincham Hall is actually on the site of the old Lodge. The document in the Ashmolean collection was signed by George Mainwaring, who must have been the informant. In some documents the surname is given as Manwaring and in others as Mainwaring.
1. Randall Manwaring of Carincham Esqr.
2. Hugh was the 7th son of Randall.
3. John Manwaring of Namptwich
4. Hugh Manwaring of Namptwich died 1621 who married Margery Wilks of Namptwich first wife by whom he had Ann, wife of John Delves of Namptwich, who died 1636. Hugh then married Jone Broughton of Marquewheele in Derbyshire, by whom he had George. He married thirdly Elizabeth Davenport.
5. George Mainwaring of Namptwich aged 56 on 11 Sept 1663. He married Margaret, dau of Edw: Owen of Plasitha in Denbigh.
6. Hugh Mainwaring son and heir aged 31 on 11 Sept 1663.
The article also mentions that on a tablet fixed to the rood loft of Nantwich is the following inscription, which most family historians can only dream of finding.
Here lyeth the body of Anne late wife to John Delves, gentleman by whom she had issue 3 sons and 3 daughters, wich Anne was daughter of Hugh Manwaring, the son of John Manwaring, who immediately descended from Hugh the 7th son of Randle Manwaring of Calingham Esq., She finished her mortal course 13 Feb 1636 aged 41.
2. Mainwaring of Kermincham (In MS Ashmole 846, folio 42b and 43. and Omerod iii, page 80)
The Mainwaring of Kermincham line derives from that of Peover. Ralphe le Maynwarynge of Kermincham was the third son of Randle Maynwarynge of Over Peover in the time of Henry VI and purchased Kermincham in 1444. We pick up the family tree in the early 17th century to show those living in the period of the English Civil War.
The male line died out with Roger Mainwaring in generation 7 in 1783 and his uncle, John, in generation 6, who died the following year. Subsequently, the third son of John's niece, Catherine Uniacke, and her husband, John Robert Parker, assumed the name of Mainwaring. In Ormerod the surname is given as Manwaring.
1. Henry Mainwaring of Carincham in Cheshire, Esq., died 1637. (Ormerod says 1639) He was the eldest of four sons of Henry Mainwaring (buried 2 April 1617 at Swettenham) and his wife Elizabeth dau. of Kenelme Dygby of Stoke in County Rutland. Elizabeth was buried at Swettenham in 1624.
+ 1st wife, Mary dau to Anth: Kinnardsley of Loxley in Staffs, Esq.
2. Henry Mainwaring of Carincham, Esq. aged 56 on 14 Sept 1663. This is the Henry who was a Colonel in the Parliamentary army and who signed the Peace of Bunbury .
+ Frances sister and co-heiress of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Baronet of Gawsworth.
3. Roger Mainwaring died in the lifetime of his father in 1660,
+ Sarah dau of Randall Ashenhurst of Ashenhurst in Staffs. She was buried at Goosetry, Feb 15, 1653. Children mentioned in 1663, were Roger and four daughters, Frances, Elizab, Anne and Sarah.
4. Roger aged 14 in 1663, Deputy Lieutenant of Cheshire in 1695.
+ Mary Weyman or Wileman of Nottingham.
5. Roger Mainwaring of Kermincham, baptised Swettenham, 19 June 1673, Deputy Lieutenant of Cheshire in 1714/15, died 22 July 1752 and buried at Swettenham.
+ 1st wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Joshua Ratcliffe of Todmorden, buried 24 August 1730 at Swettenham.
6. Radcliffe Mainwaring, born 14 July and baptised 3 August 1692 at Swettenham, died without issue.
6. James Mainwaring, second son, baptised 27 September 1694, died before his father.
+ Margaret Swettenham of Swettenham.
7. Roger Mainwaring, only son, the grandson and heir expectant of Roger in 1743, died without issue on 6 May 1783. He had married Mary Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Wm. Dudley of Clapton in Northamptonshire. With him the male line ended.
6. George Mainwaring, baptised 22 March 1695/6 at Swettenham, died unmarried and buried Swettenham, 13 March 1729/30
6. Edward Mainwaring, baptised 29 September 1699 at Swettenham and died unmarried.
6. Henry Mainwaring, died unmarried and buried at Swettenham 8 March 1731/2
6. Robert Mainwaring, died unmarried and buried at Swettenham on 30 January 1733/4.
6. Randle Mainwaring died unmarried.
6. Catherine (1691)
6. Mary (1697)
6. Elizabeth, (1701)
+ 2nd wife of Roger, Frances Potts of Moston Cheshire, died 11 December 1774, buried at Warmincham and removed to Swettenham.
6. John Mainwaring of Kermincham, only surviving son in 1743, baptised 1 December 1734 at Swettenham and buried there on 3 June 1784.
+ Sarah Oakes of Woodhill in Shropshire
7. Elizabeth Mainwaring who married John Furnival of Sandbach and had issue.
6. Frances Mainwaring (1733-1786)
+ John Uniacke of Cottage, Youghall in County Cork.
7. John Mainwaring Uniacke of Kermincham, only son and heir, born 6 January 1762, baptised at Goosetrey on 6 January 1775 aged 13 and living in Chester in 1817.
+ Mary, dau. of Rev. Dixie Blundell, DD, Dean of St. Patrick's in Dublin. They had two children, John aged 14 in 1809 and Mary aged 13 in that year.
7. Frances, wife of Henry Turner of Kensington, still living in 1809
7. Catherine eldest daughter of John Uniacke, married 15 July 1779 and living in 1809.
+ John Robert Parker of Green Park in Youghall. They had children John, Henry, Roger, Elizabeth, Penelope, Katherine, Mary, Sarah, Richard, Thomas and Frances. The third son Roger Mainwaring Parker, became Roger Mainwaring Mainwaring, born 1794 and assumed the name Mainwaring by sign manual on 6 January 1809.
6. Mary Mainwaring, died 1808
6. Catherine Mainwaring.
5. Charles Mainwaring, second son, baptised Swettenham, 30 June 1675 and died without issue.
5. Anne
4. Also daughters Frances, Elizabeth, Anne and Sarah.
3. Peter, died 1664 without issue.
3. Edward, vicar of Widdenbury (Wibunbury), living 1666, married Elizabeth, dau. of Henry Hertstongue of Westmorland.
3. Mary, Anne and Jane died young.
2. Anthony Mainwaring of Cotton in Staffs, died 1657.
+ 1st wife, Anne dau. and heir of Thomas Venables of Coton near Tamworth.
3. Mary
+ 2nd wife of Anthony, Anne dau. of Peter Mainwaring of Smalewood in Cheshire
3. Henry aged 22 on 14 Sept 1663.
2. Arthur, died without issue (not mentioned in Ormerod)
2. Roger, died without issue.
2. Philip Mainwaring (not mentioned in Ormerod)
+ Mary dau. of Sir John Millard of Islington in Middlesex, Knt.,
3. Philip Mainwaring aged 21 on 4 Sept 1663 and Frances.
2. Mary, who became wife of Henry Hardware of Peele near Tarvin in Cheshire.
+ 2nd wife of Henry was Felilcia dau. of Thomas Baskerville of Withington.
2. Elizabeth died as a child.
2. Peter Mainwaring, Barester of Grayes Inn (sic). and living in 1666.
2. Samuel Mainwaring, illegitimate son, died in infancy.
2. Philemon Mainwaring, illegitimate son of Henry Mainwaring, who married the dau of Tho: Parsons of Macclesfield and had a son Philemon.
2. Hugh Mainwaring, illegitimate son of Henry Mainwaring, who died in his youth.
| i don't know |
Who played the title character in the film Hook | See the Kids From 'Hook' Then and Now
REDDIT
TriStar
It’s been a little over 20 years since ‘Hook’ hit theaters. The film, which acted as a sequel to ‘Peter Pan,’ was directed by Steven Spielberg, and had a terrific cast of adult actors, including Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams and Julia Roberts. Not to mention a memorable gang of child actors who played The Lost Boys.
In ‘Hook,’ Peter Pan has grown up to be a corporate lawyer, played by Williams. The now Peter Banning has to embrace his roots as Pan when Captain Hook (Hoffman) kidnaps his two young children.
In addition to Charlie Korsmo and Amber Scott, who played Peter’s kids Jack and Maggie Banning, ‘Hook’ was full of child actors who were nowhere near as famous as the adult thespians Spielberg had put together.
So what has happened to all the little Bannings and Lost Boys since 1991? Some have continued acting, others have started interesting new careers, and one is among the biggest stars in the world. Catch up with the whereabouts of your favorite ‘Hook’ kids below.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Young Wendy
TriStar/Christian Augustin, Getty Images
Then: Gwyneth Paltrow played a young Wendy Darling in ‘Hook’s’ flashback scenes. It was her second movie role, following her appearance in the John Travolta film ‘Shout.’ ‘Hook’ director Steven Spielberg is Paltrow’s godfather, which explains why he gave the then-18-year-old a leg up on on the other young actresses auditioning for the role.
Now: Paltrow doesn’t really need much of a reintroduction. She’s an Academy and Emmy award winner, she’s been in high profile relationships with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck and is now married to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. When she’s not doing the acting thing in films like ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Contagion,’ Paltrow dispenses pricey and controversial lifestyle advice on her website goop .
| Dustin Hoffman |
Who was captain of HMS Bounty at the time of the famous mutiny | Audience Reviews for Hook
½
A film solely made for children with very little adult substance to sustain it's tedious 142 minute running time. I will say that Robin Williams and all the kids involved throughout this film are very well-cast and they make the film seem better than it really is. It may have one of the silliest and most unnecessary stories, but the payoff is nice and it makes what was ridiculous worth it in a way. I can neither confirm nor deny whether I liked this film or not, because it had so many elements that I hated, but quite a few that I loved as well. Taking place after the event of the original "Peter Pan" from Disney, "Hook" is all about the remeberance of the character and a revenge story of captain hook. Full of cheese, an uneven script, plot holes galore, and a waste of talent by Steven Spielberg, "Hook" is mediocre at best. However, the score, landscapes, and action scenes are very well-done. I never grew up watching this film, so I do not feel that nostalgic factor that some do, but I completely see why people love this movie.
KJ Proulx
Super Reviewer
Wendy Darling: So, Peter, you've become a pirate. "What if Peter Pan grew up?" Hook was one of the many movies I remember vividly from my childhood. It's also one I remember liking a lot more than I do now. The movie is nothing amazing. It's definitely one of Steven Spielberg's weaker movies, but still a fun and entertaining one. The production is pretty large and looks really good, for the most part. How they decided to do the Peter Pan story for Hook is interesting and although it could have been better, I liked it. Peter Banning is a 40 year old lawyer who has no time for his two children, Jack and Maggie. He makes promises to them, but ends up always missing the important moments. Him and his family fly to London to visit Wendy, who is having a ceremony to dedicate an orphanage to her name. Peter remembers her as the lady who found him a family, but Wendy tries to explain to him that he's really Peter Pan. He's forgotten it all, but when his children are stolen from their beds in the night and a letter with a sword through it says Captain Hook; Peter is forced to remember as he is taken to Neverland by Tinkerbell. I like the usage of symbols and foreshadowing in the film. My favorite part of the movie is when the family first arrives at Wendy's house and we get all these little clues from the dialogue. When in Neverland, the movie begins to get extremely silly and maybe to silly for its own good. Hook is a decent family movie. I wish it was as good as I remember it being as I kid, but older eyes show the glaring imperfections. Dustin Hoffman gives a wonderful performance as Hook, which is nice, as the rest of the cast is pretty weak. All in all, it's a worthwhile movie if you like the Peter Pan story, just don't expect anything too amazing.
Melvin White
| i don't know |
How long does it take from light from the Sun to travel to Earth? | How Long Does it Take Sunlight to Reach the Earth? - Universe Today
Universe Today
How Long Does it Take Sunlight to Reach the Earth?
Article Updated: 16 Oct , 2016
by Fraser Cain
Here’s a question… how long does it take sunlight to reach Earth? This sounds like a strange question, but think about it. Sunlight travels at the speed of light. Photons emitted from the surface of the Sun need to travel across the vacuum of space to reach our eyes.
The short answer is that it takes sunlight an average of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth.
If the Sun suddenly disappeared from the Universe (not that this could actually happen, don’t panic), it would take a little more than 8 minutes before you realized it was time to put on a sweater.
Here’s the math. We orbit the Sun at a distance of about 150 million km. Light moves at 300,000 kilometers/second. Divide these and you get 500 seconds, or 8 minutes and 20 seconds.
This is an average number. Remember, the Earth follows an elliptical orbit around the Sun, ranging from 147 million to 152 million km. At its closest point, sunlight only takes 490 seconds to reach Earth. And then at the most distant point, it takes 507 seconds for sunlight to make the journey.
But the story of light gets even more interesting, when you think about the journey light needs to make inside the Sun.
You probably know that photons are created by fusion reactions inside the Sun’s core. They start off as gamma radiation and then are emitted and absorbed countless times in the Sun’s radiative zone, wandering around inside the massive star before they finally reach the surface.
What you probably don’t know, is that these photons striking your eyeballs were ACTUALLY created tens of thousands of years ago and it took that long for them to be emitted by the sun.
Once they escaped the surface, it was only a short 8 minutes for those photons to cross the vast distance from the Sun to the Earth
As you look outward into space, you’re actually looking backwards in time.
The light you see from your computer is nanoseconds old. The light reflected from the surface of the Moon takes only a second to reach Earth. The Sun is more than 8 light-minutes away. And so, if the light from the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) takes more than 4 years to reach us, we’re seeing that star 4 years in the past.
There are galaxies millions of light-years away, which means the light we’re seeing left the surface of those stars millions of years ago. For example, the galaxy M109 is located about 83.5 million light-years away.
If aliens lived in those galaxies, and had strong enough telescopes, they would see the Earth as it looked in the past. They might even see dinosaurs walking on the surface.
We have written many articles about the Sun for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the color of the Sun , and here are some interesting facts about the Sun .
If you’d like more info on the Sun, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration Guide on the Sun , and here’s a link to the SOHO mission homepage , which has the latest images from the Sun.
We’ve also recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast all about the Sun. Listen here, Episode 30: The Sun, Spots and All .
| 8 minutes and 20 seconds |
On average who's hearts beat faster; men or women? | How long does it take sunlight to reach the Earth?
How long does it take sunlight to reach the Earth?
April 15, 2013 by Fraser Cain, Universe Today
Here's a question… how long does it take sunlight to reach Earth? This sounds like a strange question, but think about it. Sunlight travels at the speed of light. Photons emitted from the surface of the Sun need to travel across the vacuum of space to reach our eyes.
The short answer is that it takes sunlight an average of 8 minutes and 20 seconds to travel from the Sun to the Earth.
If the Sun suddenly disappeared from the Universe (not that this could actually happen, don't panic), it would take a little more than 8 minutes before you realized it was time to put on a sweater.
The video will load shortly
Here's the math. We orbit the Sun at a distance of about 150 million km. Light moves at 300,000 kilometers/second. Divide these and you get 500 seconds, or 8 minutes and 20 seconds.
This is an average number. Remember, the Earth follows an elliptical orbit around the Sun, ranging from 147 million to 152 million km. At its closest point, sunlight only takes 490 seconds to reach Earth. And then at the most distant point, it takes 507 seconds for sunlight to make the journey.
But the story of light gets even more interesting, when you think about the journey light needs to make inside the Sun.
You probably know that photons are created by fusion reactions inside the Sun's core. They start off as gamma radiation and then are emitted and absorbed countless times in the Sun's radiative zone, wandering around inside the massive star before they finally reach the surface .
What you probably don't know, is that these photons striking your eyeballs were ACTUALLY created tens of thousands of years ago and it took that long for them to be emitted by the sun.
Once they escaped the surface, it was only a short 8 minutes for those photons to cross the vast distance from the Sun to the Earth
As you look outward into space, you're actually looking backwards in time.
The light you see from your computer is nanoseconds old. The light reflected from the surface of the Moon takes only a second to reach Earth. The Sun is more than 8 light-minutes away. And so, if the light from the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) takes more than 4 years to reach us, we're seeing that star 4 years in the past.
There are galaxies millions of light-years away, which means the light we're seeing left the surface of those stars millions of years ago. For example, the galaxy M109 is located about 83.5 million light-years away.
If aliens lived in those galaxies, and had strong enough telescopes, they would see the Earth as it looked in the past. They might even see dinosaurs walking on the surface.
SDO's crazy-looking Sun due to syzygy
April 4, 2011
It looks like something is eating the Sun in recent pictures from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and in recent SDO videos, the Sun suddenly disappears! What is going on? Could it be aliens, Planet X, or the Great Galactic ...
Earth's orbit creates more than a leap year
February 8, 2008
The Earth's orbital behaviors are responsible for more than just presenting us with a leap year every four years. According to Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences ...
November 13, 2012
(Phys.org)—On Nov. 13, 2012, the sun emitted a mid-level solar flare, peaking at 9:04 p.m. EST.
A cool discovery about the Sun's next-door twin
February 20, 2013
(Phys.org)—ESA's Herschel space observatory has detected a cool layer in the atmosphere of Alpha Centauri A, the first time this has been seen in a star beyond our own Sun. The finding is not only important for understanding ...
Fear no supernova
December 16, 2011
Given the incredible amounts of energy in a supernova explosion as much as the sun creates during its entire lifetime another erroneous doomsday theory is that such an explosion could happen in 2012 and harm ...
Prepare for a total solar eclipse
November 13, 2012
(Phys.org)—Tomorrow's total solar eclipse will only be visible in its entirety to ground-based observers watching from northern Australia, but ESA's Sun-watching Proba-2 satellite will have a ringside seat from its orbit ...
Recommended for you
Observations of Ceres indicate that asteroids might be camouflaged
January 20, 2017
The appearance of small bodies in the outer solar system could be deceiving. Asteroids and dwarf planets may be camouflaged with an outer layer of material that actually comes from somewhere else.
Image: Wavemaker moon Daphnis
January 20, 2017
The wavemaker moon, Daphnis, is featured in this view, taken as NASA's Cassini spacecraft made one of its ring-grazing passes over the outer edges of Saturn's rings on Jan. 16, 2017. This is the closest view of the small ...
Freeze-dried food and one bathroom: Six simulate Mars in dome
January 20, 2017
Crammed into a dome with one bathroom, six scientists will spend eight months munching on mostly freeze-dried foods—with a rare treat of Spam—and have only their small sleeping quarters to retreat to for solace.
Astronomers search for signs of life on Wolf 1061 exoplanet
January 19, 2017
Is there anybody out there? The question of whether Earthlings are alone in the universe has puzzled everyone from biologists and physicists to philosophers and filmmakers. It's also the driving force behind San Francisco ...
NASA study in Hawaii paving way for human travel to Mars
January 19, 2017
A group of NASA-funded researchers is poised to enter an isolated geodesic dome on a remote Hawaii volcano to study human behavior in long-term space exploration, including a planned voyage to Mars.
'Failed' clocks fresh blow for Europe's Galileo satnav (Update)
January 18, 2017
Europe's beleaguered Galileo satnav has suffered another setback, with clocks failing onboard a number of satellites in space, the European Space Agency said Wednesday.
| i don't know |
The Rovers Return is now a free house but is still supplied by which brewery? | Hilda Ogden | Coronation Street Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
Jean Alexander
Hilda Alice Ogden (née Crabtree) was a resident of 13 Coronation Street from 1964 to 1987 . The devoted wife of Stan , Hilda and her husband were the roughnecks of Coronation Street and had frequent clashes with their neighbours.
Hilda and Stan were life's losers. Due to Stan's drunken rages, two of their children - Tony and Sylvia - were taken into council care, and their other two children - Irma and Trevor - ran away from home. They lived on the breadline, with Hilda holding up to five charing jobs at once just to keep the house going, compensating for Stan who ducked out of work whenever possible to drink and laze around. No one knew Stan's flaws better than Hilda, who often had to nag him out to work, but for the most part she doted on him and defended him vehemently against his detractors.
Except for the rare social occasions, Hilda wore her hair in curlers and a headscarf. She was the Street's principal gossip and revelled in spreading it around, particularly if it could cause trouble. As a result, she had no real friends in the Street, and the neighbours treated her and Stan like a joke - a matter which greatly upset Hilda. As part of her continuing quest to gain the respect and envy of the neighbours, Hilda erected a mural on No.13's parlour wall. She also considered herself a skilled clairvoyant, and offered teacup readings for a fee.
Hilda was widowed when Stan died from a heart attack in 1984 . She lived at No.13 for three more years, taking in Kevin Webster as her lodger in May 1985 , and his girlfriend Sally Seddon in the following May . They married in October 1986 , and stayed on as lodgers at No.13 until December 1987 , when Hilda decided to move to Derbyshire to keep house for Doctor Lowther , whose wife had died only a few weeks previously from injuries sustained in a robbery that went wrong. He offered her accommodation in a cottage attached to his home.
Just before leaving Weatherfield for good, Hilda sold No.13 to the Websters at a generously low price, so they had somewhere to live without having to leave the neighbourhood.
Contents
Hilda Alice Crabtree was born to Arnold and Florence Crabtree of Silk Street , Weatherfield on 2nd February 1924 . She was the youngest of three, after Norman and Archie .
The Crabtrees never got rich from Arnold's earnings from his work as an embalmer, and Hilda spent her youth moving from one slum to another. Worst of all was Back Butler Street , although even in those circumstances Florence kept a good house and the fumigation crew never descended on the Crabtree household.
Hilda was educated at St. Joseph's Elementary School and left at fifteen, entering the working world just as war broke out in Europe. At seventeen, Hilda spent a week working in the office at Spencers, the funeral director. For most of the war she worked in a munitions factory, while living with her parents in Kitchener Street , but still found the time to have fun with her friends Daisy Shaw , Mollie Lancaster , and Maureen Hegerty , and even had a romance with American GI Ralph Curtis .
On one night in 1943 , after helping her inebriated Army boyfriend Harry Battersby home following an evening's drinking at the Tripe Dressers Arms , the lights went out, stranding Hilda a mile from home. Racing to the nearest shelter in Crimea Street , Hilda passed the Co-op where she tripped over what she took to be a bundle of clothes - until it started moving, and Hilda found herself entangled with a beer-sodden tramp. Stanley Ogden had just left the Docker's Arms after winning the pint drinking contest for the fifth year running and was recuperating in a heap when Hilda fell over him. Though he'd taken a kick in the stomach, Stan helped the mystery woman to her feet, and Hilda reciprocated, getting a darkened glimpse of a man who had a look of Clark Gable about him. After limping along to the shelter, Hilda was thrilled to see Stan trailing her - but as the light hit him, he looked more English lout than Hollywood superstar. Even so, Hilda's head had been turned, and she spent the night in the shelter talking away to him.
Six short days later, the star-crossed lovers were married. After the ceremony, the couple headed for the Spinners' Arms , where Stan resumed his pint, and their reception took place. The event was a great success - until Joan Fairhurst walked in and announced that the groom was her fiancé. Best man Bernie Sparks saved the day by proposing to Joan himself. Their first night of married bliss was barely behind them when the military police knocked on the door to arrest Stan for over-staying his four-day leave. The Ogden marriage had begun in earnest.
1943-1964: A long-distance marriage
On marrying Stan, Hilda moved into his parents' house in Mare Street . Mary Ogden approved of her, and, when Hilda announced her pregnancy, she pampered her daughter-in-law. Hilda then found that she wasn't pregnant after all, but didn't tell Mary, who threw Hilda out when she discovered the truth. Hilda rented 17 Charles Street and waited for her Stan to come home.
While working with the Army, Stan gained an HGV licence and after being demobbed, he became a long-distance lorry driver, stopping by Weatherfield so rarely that it was as if he'd never returned from the war. Hilda became a career cleaner, supporting single-handedly a family that seemed to gain an extra member whenever Stan visited; eldest, Freda , born in 1946 , was followed by Dudley , Tony , and Sylvia . Hilda's faith in her husband never wavered, but he didn't send on enough money for the family to get by, and they often had no money for rent, resulting in many a moonlight flit. Hilda coped gamely on her own with Freda and Dudley, but Tony and Sylvia were mentally retarded, and with the extra problem of Stan being drunk and violent to her and the kids whenever he was around, Hilda was relieved when their younger children were taken off them and placed in a home.
By the 1960s , Hilda was sick of having a long-distance husband and demanded that Stan give up his job or she'd leave him. Meanwhile, Freda decided she'd had enough of her parents and, at seventeen, she left their Chapel Street home to live in a flat over a pie shop with barmaid Marion Black , got a job at the Corner Shop in Coronation Street , and changed her name to Irma. Estrangement from Freda encouraged Hilda to make good on her threat to Stan, and after a brief separation he gave in and agreed to get a local job and unite the Ogdens under one roof.
1964-1968: Arrival at number thirteen
1964 : Hilda and Stan join Irma in Coronation Street
In July 1964 , Stan sent word to Hilda that he'd found Irma and a house - 13 Coronation Street . Putting his £200 savings down, Stan took out a £350 mortgage on the house, and the Ogdens moved to Coronation Street - their first real home.
Hilda loved the house and quickly found a job as cleaner at the Rovers Return , but regular work eluded Stan, and Irma soon regretted giving up her independence to live with her parents again. However, it was Dudley (now called Trevor) who left the family home first; while the Street residents were evacuated to the mission cellar during a bomb scare, the fifteen-year-old stole from the houses and ran off to London . Due to their shame, Stan and Hilda took no steps to trace him, although Hilda laid into Stan for being such a poor father figure and role model. A year later, Irma married David Barlow they bought the Corner Shop together. With a wall between them, Irma's relationship with her parents improved.
The only problem now was Stan. By turn a milkman, ice cream vendor, chauffeur, wrestler, and waste paper businessman, Stan failed in every line of work he entered. Stan was willing to try his hand at anything that promised to make him rich with little effort, but his total resistance to hard graft meant that he never lasted long. Hilda often had to nag him out to work, even if he usually only made it as far as the Rovers, which had become his second home.
With Stan's bone-idleness, and Hilda's assumed position as the Street gossip, the Ogdens were treated like a joke by the neighbours, and they struggled to make friends. After a while, Hilda began to fear she'd spend the rest of her life skivvying and, looking to the recent engagement of Elsie Tanner - a woman she disparaged in public - began to envy her eventful, exciting life, and became depressed and vague. While on a visit to her cousins', Hilda went missing. As she had the club outing money with her, Stan thought it was a pre-planned flit and that a man was involved, but after a week's absence Hilda was found on the Pier head in Liverpool in a confused state, having suffered a nervous breakdown. Doctor McKenzie diagnosed paranoid psychosis, attributed to jealousy over Elsie. Although Hilda didn't remember anything when she woke, Stan came through for her in the ensuing weeks, being the attentive husband he'd never been.
In January 1968 , Hilda developed a platonic friendship with George Greenwood , keeper of Oakenshaw Park where she often went for a walk. George showed Hilda his workhut and introduced her to his budgie, Winston, and even gave her her own budgie, which she called Mabel and kept in the hut with Winston. Though there was nothing untoward about their meetings, Hilda felt that she was somehow betraying Stan, and told George she couldn't see him again. Unbeknown to Hilda, Stan had been notified that they were seeing each other by George's wife Agnes , and advised to make the most of Hilda's guilt by getting her to spoil him.
1968 : Hilda is upset as Irma flies the nest
A few months later, David and Irma decided to emigrate to Australia so that David could relaunch his football career there. Hilda was so distraught at losing Irma that she proposed that she and Stan move there too, but Stan's absolute refusal to leave England caused her to back down. A small consolation came seven months later, when the Barlows announced the birth of Darren , Hilda and Stan's first grandson.
1968-1971: Irma returns
In June that year, Stan bought I-spy Dwyer 's window cleaning round for £45. Hilda was so approving that she agreed to help out, taking responsibility for Stan's lady customers who might take a fancy to him. One woman in particular was Clara Regan of 19 Inkerman Street , whose affair with Stan was the worst kept secret in Weatherfield. Hilda believed Stan was faithful, and soon left his business to him, but Stan servicing 19 Inkerman Street's windows was the butt of many jokes from the likes of Ray Langton and Billy Walker for years to come.
The Ogdens continued to struggle financially. In 1969 , Stan traded in his round for a car park attendant's position, and early in 1970 Hilda took on an extra cleaning job at Alan Howard's Salon .
1970 : What is Dave Smith 's interest in Irma ? Hilda tries to protect her daughter
A few months later, Ken Barlow broke the news that Irma, David and Darren had been involved in a car crash. Irma was treated for shock but was otherwise fine, however both her husband and son died from their injuries. Hilda rushed to her daughter's side, with Stan borrowing £600 from bookie Dave Smith to pay for her flights - her first journey abroad. A week later, Hilda and Irma returned to the UK, by which time the Ogdens had received enough money from well-wishers to pay Dave back. However, in a misguided gesture of love for his daughter, Stan used the money to buy Irma into the Corner Shop . In the wake of David and Darren's deaths, Irma acted out in odd ways, and at one point dated Dave Smith. When Hilda objected, Stan informed her that as security for the loan, he'd signed their house over to Dave, and so she'd better not upset him. That, plus the prospect of having a wealthy son-in-law caused Hilda to change her tune, but in any case Irma and Dave's relationship was casual and mostly for show.
Hilda enjoyed having Irma back in the Street and she would often linger in the shop to complain about Stan or eavesdrop on conversations. Irma remained in the Street until December 1971 , when she moved to Llandudno and sold her share in the shop. Irma's departure coincided with the Ogdens finally settling their debt with Dave; after Hilda won £500 on Premium Bonds, Stan insisted on on paying Dave the £370 still owed, making No.13 unequivocally theirs again. Determined to treat herself with the remaining £95, Hilda bought a coffee percolator, a tray, a table centre, a cocktail bar and an electric tooth brush on a shopping spree, and threw a cocktail party, only to discover that Stan had drunk all the miniatures and filled the bottles with cold tea!
1971-1974: Reconciliation with Trevor
In July that year, Hilda was reunited with her old friend George Greenwood, who was on the judging panel at the Community Centre flower show. Thinking they were bound to win, Stan stole an orchid from the park and passed it off as theirs - but George immediately recognised one from his collection, much to Hilda's shame.
1971 : Stan unveils the serving hatch to a thrilled Hilda
Much derided by the neighbours, Hilda yearned to be envied by them. In August , she took delivery of a colour television set, and spent the next week enthusing about it to all and sundry before it was repossessed by the rental company (all the while failing to notice everyone's total disinterest). The following month, while Hilda was away, Stan made a serving hatch. It was too big and on the wrong wall, but finally No.13 was set apart from its neighbours in a good way, and so Hilda couldn't have been happier.
In April 1972 , after two years working for Fairclough and Langton , Stan returned to the lorries, but after a crash put him in hospital, Hilda decided his days of lorry driving were over and made him start up his window cleaning round again. Meanwhile, with the Ogdens feeling the pinch, Hilda took on additional work - alongside her job at the Rovers, she cleaned the Betting Shop as well as Benny Lewis 's flat and The Capricorn nightclub, where she also did the washing up. With Hilda doing so much, Stan felt free to retire - but Hilda wasn't going to let him off that lightly, and made him do all of the housework. Stan actually showed promise early on but within days Alan Howard sacked Hilda from the Capricorn for gossiping about him and Rita Littlewood , and normal service was resumed.
1973 : Hilda and Stan get a cool reception when they turn up on Trevor and Polly 's doorstep
A year later, the Ogdens celebrated their pearl wedding anniversary with a party at No.13. As Hilda lorded it over the neighbours, gloating to Betty Turpin about Elsie Howard's recent family troubles, Betty snappily reminded her of her estrangement from Trevor. Betty's comments hit home; letting Trevor slip away was one of Hilda's biggest regrets. Stan still held a grudge against his son, but Hilda was determined to track him down. Using a letter sent to them by Trevor two years earlier, the Ogdens found Trevor living in a detached house in Avondale Avenue, Chesterfield , having worked his way up from a wood yard to become an estate agent. Now the husband of Polly and father of Damian , Trevor was embarrassed by his parents and warned Polly that they would try to sponge off them. Hopeful of building a relationship with the family, Hilda put on a front, trying not to appear common, but Stan showed only contempt for Trevor, and when Polly let slip that Trevor had told her that his parents were dead, Hilda was so upset that she and Stan left.
Afterwards, Trevor occasionally let the Ogdens see Damian, at his and Polly's convenience. Keen to prove her worth to Trevor, Hilda got an interview for the Kabin to replace Mavis Riley as Rita's assistant. Given a trial by Len Fairclough , Hilda ordered Stan to come in as a customer, carefully planning a scene which would show Rita how efficient she was, but Stan spent the money in the Rovers instead and rolled up to the Kabin blind drunk, where he giggled and said he'd forgotten what Hilda told him to say. In the end, Lucille Hewitt got the job.
1974-1976: Getting away from it all
In desperate need of a break, Hilda took a six-week cleaning job on a cruise ship, the Monte Umber . Not long after she returned, the Ogdens were offered a caretakership at the Community Centre , a post they'd previously applied for but lost out to Gertie Robson . Thinking their luck was finally changing, Hilda quit the Rovers and sold No.13 to Jimmy Graham for £2,500, however at the last minute the Bishops told them they didn't have the jobs due to their poor record with the health inspector. The Ogdens called off the deal with Jimmy, and Hilda wept as her dreams were shattered once again - although she managed to get her Rovers job back with a pay rise.
Now in her fifties, Hilda was worn out and increasingly dissatisfied with No.13. As the 1970s wore on, the Ogdens' usual troubles were exacerbated by economic recession and Stan's failing health - which meant that Hilda had to work even more. In 1975 , Stan became so ill that he went off beer and, forced out to work by Hilda who thought he was trying to skive, he collapsed in the street. While he was on the sick, the Ogdens received only £7.65 benefit for his incapacity as Stan hadn't paid his National Insurance for six months, so to make ends meet Hilda took on an extra job doing the washing up at the Mark Brittain Warehouse and did Stan's round, with the help of Eddie Yeats .
1976 : Hilda shows off her "muriel" to Annie Walker and Bet Lynch
Newly released from Walton Jail , Eddie Yeats vowed never to return and kept his nose clean. Lazy and workshy, he found a kindred spirit in Stan, and frequently called at No.13 to cadge a free dinner or coax Stan out for a drink (not that he had to try very hard). In July 1976 , he offered to help Hilda decorate No.13's parlour by getting her half-price wallpaper from a mate, in exchange for lodgings in the Ogdens' spare room. However, half of the wallpaper Eddie brought faded with only three walls covered. For the last wall, after a few suggestions which Hilda rejected, Eddie supplied a special wallpaper which created a mural of the Canadian Rockies. The "muriel" was everything Hilda wanted - looking at it, she could imagine herself in more picturesque surroundings, and as no one else had one, No.13 gained prestige. She immediately fell in love with it.
Towards the end of the year, Hilda fell into a slump again. In October , when swerving her car to avoid hitting a dog, Annie Walker slammed into Stan's cart, putting him out of work again until a sympathetic Len, Ray and Terry Bradshaw made him a new one. A few weeks later, Hilda's missing red mac turned up on a bonfire guy which two young boys were pushing around. When they came into the Rovers, the regulars noticed Hilda's mac and roared with laughter, humiliating her. To cheer his wife up, Stan bought the mac back from the boys for 10p, but Hilda refused to wear it and decided to treat herself to a new one. Dipping into her Christmas money, Hilda was furious to find that Stan had already taken half of it. At the end of her tether, she launched into a tirade at Stan, telling him she wished she'd never met him, and threw him out.
1976 : Hilda fetches Stan from Norman 's chip shop, fearing Edie Blundell has designs on him
After a few hours, Hilda calmed down and awaited her husband's return. However, days went by with no sign of him. After a week, Hilda started to fear the worst and confided in Annie, who rang the police to report him missing. Her fears were put to rest when her brother Norman called round to complain about Stan imposing on him at his Oakhill chip shop. With Hilda refusing to beg Stan to return, and Stan being looked after by assistant Edie Blundell , Eddie decided to intervene but inadvertently made matters worse by telling Stan that Hilda wanted an apology from him; Hilda's outburst had hurt Stan deeply and he felt that he was owed an apology. After hearing about Edie, Hilda went to fetch Stan herself, and got into a slanging match with Edie and Norman, with Stan stepping up to defend his wife. Thrown out of the shop by Norman, the Ogdens realised that, for better or worse, they belonged together, and life at No.13 returned to normal.
1977-1980: Battles at the factory
In May 1977 , Hilda was taken on as cleaner at the recently-opened Baldwin's Casuals , working evenings. Out of curiosity, Hilda had a go on one of the sewing machines and, discovering a knack for it, made herself denim cleaning mittens from offcuts after finishing her cleaning duties. Thinking she was onto a winner, Eddie persuaded Hilda to go into partnership with him making curtains, with Eddie supplying the material, but Mike Baldwin soon caught her making curtains on his time and put a stop to it.
The extra wage made life a little easier for the Ogdens, and Hilda was excited at the thought that they might be able to afford to move. When the Langtons moved, Hilda wanted to buy No.5 , the most modern house in the street, but they were beaten to the punch by the Tilsleys .
1978 : Hilda and Ralph Curtis jive
In May 1978 , Hilda received a letter from her American flame, Ralph Curtis, who was in the country and wanted to meet up with her. Hilda was unsure about seeing him again as it had been so long, but Renee Roberts pushed her into calling his hotel from the Corner Shop , and he arranged to visit the house. Once Ralph arrived, time fell away and Hilda enjoyed his visit immensely. With the same boundless energy and enthusiasm she remembered, Ralph was quite a contrast to Stan and Hilda couldn't help wondering what might have been.
Hilda was used to working without support or solidarity. When she asked for a new broom for her factory work, Mike accused Hilda of cutting up her broom and sacked her. Hilda was stunned when Ivy Tilsley led the girls out on strike in sympathy, a strike not backed by the union due to Hilda not being a member. Surprisingly, Hilda herself wasn't bothered by the sacking and walked into a new job cleaning the offices at the abbatoir, leaving the picket line to work. However, when Mike backed down and agreed to reinstate her, Hilda quit her new job for fear of what the girls would do if they knew.
Two years later, Hilda was the source of another factory row. Thrown out of the pools syndicate by Vera Duckworth for missing a week, Hilda got revenge by copying the winning pools numbers onto the factory girls' copy, to make Vera think she'd won a little money. However, she messed up and the factory girls celebrated a win of thousands. Hilda was too afraid to tell the girls the truth, but confessed to Mike when the girls found out they hadn't won and blamed the error on Martin Cheveski . Eager for a peaceful solution, Mike broke the news to the girls and threatened to fire anyone who touched Hilda. The girls responded by sending Hilda to Coventry, leaving Mike with no choice but to sack her. The situation upset Hilda so much that she went to stay with Trevor for a while. In her absence, Vera exacted revenge by tipping off Johnny Webb 's wife Maureen Webb that Hilda was her husband's mistress (in reality, Stan was letting him lodge at No.13 while Hilda was away). Maureen had a public slanging match with Hilda, but backed down when she saw the size of Stan.
1980-1984: Stan's final years
Eddie Yeats lived with Hilda and Stan from 1980 to 1983
In July , Hilda offered a homeless Eddie the Ogdens' front bedroom for £20 a week, satisfied that he could pay his way as he'd finally got a full-time job on the bins after four years on the dole.
Hilda bounced back from the factory fiasco by getting a job cleaning No.9 for Len and Rita . As a Christmas treat for herself, she hired Mrs Palin as a regular cleaner for No.13 at £1.75 an hour, but had to reluctantly let her go after a few weeks as they could no longer afford her. She carried on working for the Faircloughs until September 1981 , when she got an interview for a cleaning job at a businessman's flat , which turned out to be Mike's. Mike took Hilda on, feeling that she was honest and trustworthy. On her first day, Hilda accidentally set off the burglar alarm, attracting the attention of a police officer, who questioned Hilda and sent for Mike. Hilda was relieved when Mike laughed it off.
After visiting her brother Archie's plush new home, Hilda's thirst for a change of scenery was reawakened, and she began looking at show homes. The Ogdens decided to buy a house in River Park Estate for £17,000 and put the house up for sale, but they were denied a mortgage as Stan didn't earn enough. They were tempted to accept an offer from the Bells of £7,500 cash for No.13 and try for a council house, but after a warning from Elsie that the road was in a rough area, Hilda returned the Bells' cheque and took the house off the market. Stan too fancied a change; with another harsh winter coming up, Stan put his round up for sale and decided to take early retirement, only for Hilda to answer the ad (planning to buy the round for Stan) and read him the riot act!
In October 1982 , Hilda realised a long-held ambition to clean a big house when she was taken on by Doctor and Mrs Lowther at Goldenhurst , Oakfield Drive . Finding the house and the owners a delight, Hilda didn't mind the extra work.
1983 was a big year for the Ogdens. In February , money lender Syd Kippax got onto Hilda about £185 Stan owed him, giving him 24 hours to pay up. Hilda was confused as Stan had been giving her money for housekeeping, but under questioning he admitted that he'd been borrowing money to hand in instead of working as was no longer able to climb ladders in bad weather. Fortunately Eddie came to the rescue by buying the round for £185 and getting Stan to work for him. Hilda supported Stan throughout, admiring his determination to go on working.
A few months later, Hilda was saddened when her brother Archie passed away from a heart attack. As his only surviving family, she stood to inherit Archie's chip shop , however after his death his assistant Avril Carter also put in a claim for the shop, telling Hilda that she was Archie's fiancée and that with his dying breath he had expressed his desire for her to have the shop. Hilda battled Avril for the shop and, after finding out Avril was having an affair with a married man which would be exposed in court, forced her to drop her claim. Hilda's victory came with a sting in the tale; due to Archie's debts her inheritance came to £1,583, and she had to sell the shop after the landlord, Mr Holt , put the rent up. Hilda opened a bank account for the first time and celebrated by booking an expensive French restaurant for a meal, threatening to strangle Stan if he ruined the evening for her. Not understanding the French menu, the Ogdens ordered melon and sea bass and had an enjoyable time.
The year had a happy but bittersweet ending as Eddie left No.13 to marry Marion Willis , with Hilda standing in for his mother. The Yeats moved to Bury just after the Ogdens celebrated their Ruby wedding anniversary with a party in the Rovers select.
1984 : Hilda is left alone
In 1984 , Stan turned sixty-five and started drawing his pension. For health reasons, he had given up work a few months earlier, and by the latter half of the year he was permanently bed-ridden. Hilda was run ragged looking after him, collapsing at home, and later broke down at No.13 when Billy Walker called to have a go at her for failing to turn in. In November , Doctor Meakin arranged for an ambulance to take Stan into hospital for tests. He'd been there for a few days when the hospital phoned Hilda, via the Corner Shop, to tell her that Stan had died. The neighbours rallied round Hilda in the wake of Stan's death, with Trevor arriving to support her at the funeral. Although Trevor suggested a cheap cremation, Hilda insisted on a burial as she wanted a plot with room for her when she died. After being strong for Stan at the funeral, Hilda mourned for her husband privately, the grief and loss hitting her as she looked through Stan's effects from the hospital.
1985-1998: Life after Stan
Hilda returned to work immediately after the funeral, sick of moping around in the empty house.
Since moving in, she'd been against having lodgers, but the quietness plus fond memories of Eddie saw her reverse her position. Terry Duckworth stayed at No.13 for a few months in 1984, followed by railway ticket collector Henry Wakefield in January 1985 . Shortly after he moved in, Hilda found out from Curly Watts that Henry was actually unemployed; Henry admitted that he couldn't get a work as he was known by the unions as a strike breaker. He offered to leave, but Hilda felt sorry for him and got Mike to give him a job as a van driver at the factory. However, the girls soon found out he was a strike breaker and threatened to walk out. Mike ignored the threat but Henry took their comments to heart and resigned, leaving his lodgings at the same time. Hilda was upset to see Henry go as she'd enjoyed his company.
In July , Hilda was targetted by corrupt builder Les Pringle . When Alf Roberts decided to modernise the Corner Shop, he planned the expansion with Les, and asked Hilda if she'd be willing to sell him No.13. Hilda didn't want to go, but agreed to sell for £14,000 when Les told her the house's roof was sagging and could bring the house down. However, the guilt preyed on her mind and before the sale went through she told Alf about the roof. Inspecting it, Alf discovered the roof was fine and pulled out for Hilda's sake.
That summer, Kevin Webster left his lodgings at No.3 , finding landlady Emily Bishop too strict, and moved into No.13 at Terry's recommendation. Kevin found Hilda more fun and easygoing, while Hilda found Kevin polite and respectable, so they got on well. However, they had a minor falling out when Kevin started dating Sally Seddon ; Hilda knew the Seddons were a rough family and asked Terry and Curly to get Kevin away from Sally, but after a few months she accepted that Sally wasn't like her parents and even took her in when she discovered her father Eddie Seddon was abusive and took all of her earnings.
Later that year, Kevin and Sally got married and moved into the Corner Shop flat . Hilda met and started a friendship with Sally's uncle Tom Hopwood . In 1987 , Tom decided to retire and asked Hilda to marry him and move to a bungalow in Formby with him. Hilda was stunned by the proposal, as she'd only ever seen Tom as a friend, and as such she told him she couldn't marry him; she was still Stan's wife, even in death.
1987 : On Christmas Day , the residents say a fond farewell to Hilda
In November , Mike sacked Hilda when she tried to advise him about his and Susan 's marriage breakup. At the same time, the Lowthers decided to retire to Hartington , much to Hilda's disappointment, although Joan Lowther offered to recommend Hilda as a cleaner to the house's new owners. While they were packing, Hilda and Joan were attacked by burglars and Joan received a bump on the head. Although Hilda made a full recovery physically, Joan died from her injuries, and a stunned Hilda became withdrawn and afraid to be in her own home. The grieving Dr. Lowther decided not to change his plans to retire, and asked Hilda to keep house for him and live in a flat attached to the cottage. Hilda immediately accepted, and started planning her move away from Coronation Street after 23 years, selling No.13 to Kevin and Sally at a generously low price. Her last full day in Weatherfield was Christmas Day, which she spent with the Websters at No.13, reflecting on days gone by. Calling to say goodbye at the Rovers, she was thrilled to find a surprise party waiting for her, showing Hilda how loved she was in Coronation Street when she thought they'd be glad to see the back of her. For the first time ever, Hilda had a captive audience as she led the residents in a chorus of Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye.
Hilda's only subsequent visit to Coronation Street was in 1990 , when she called in at the Rovers on her way to Stan's grave. She was disappointed when no one was around to see her arrive in style in a taxi, but milked every moment when her former neighbours listened keenly as she revealed the latest developments in her life, including a proposal of marriage by Dr. Lowther - although, of course, she left them guessing what her answer would be. Later, at Stan's grave, Hilda told her late husband that she wouldn't be marrying Dr. Lowther and she would always remain an Ogden. Between 1996 and 1998, Dr Lowther died, leaving his house to Hilda.
Hilda as she appeared in 1998
As of 1998 , Hilda still lived in Derbyshire , where she occasionally received a visit from Betty Williams . On one such visit, Hilda and Betty reminisced about their old friends and neighbours in Coronation Street. As Betty reported the latest goings-on, Hilda listened eagerly; over ten years and many miles removed from her old life, she was still the same old Hilda Ogden of number thirteen.
Personality
"They'll put that on me gravestone, won't they? 'She didn't look much, or weigh much, she didn't expect much, but she always managed.'"
Hilda keeps the residents informed of the latest goings-on
Hilda was a tough working-class Northern woman. A loyal wife, she spent four decades working herself to the bone to make up for Stan 's shortcomings. Hilda's life was about somehow making ends meet in a world which seemed to have it in for the Ogdens. She was a naturally boisterous woman; fun and outgoing, she spent all her spare pennies on brightening up her life. She was also wistful, talking constantly about her hopes and dreams with genuine enthusiasm - until she looked at Stan and was brought back to grim reality.
Though immensely unlucky, the Ogdens' misfortunes couldn't be wholly blamed on that; more often, it was Stan's idiocy or Hilda's gossiping that was to blame. The local busybody, Hilda knew everything about everyone, and spread the latest news with relish, particularly to those who would not enjoy hearing it. Hilda used gossip to pour scorn on people such as Elsie Tanner , reminding people of the more scandalous moments from their past at the least opportune moments in order to judge and hurt. She also delivered news like a brick; for example, when the police were about to inform Emily Bishop that her husband Ernie had been seriously injured by a shotgun blast, Hilda insensitively blurted out "she's the wife!"
Hilda's attempts to stir things up were always seen for what they were, earning her little to no friends in the Street and making her the object of ridicule. However, Hilda herself denied being a gossip and claimed to be the soul of discretion. She knew her limits, and chose her battles. When she had a beef with someone, Hilda was similarly unsubtle, hurling accusations with a voice like breaking glass, but always easily put in her place with a quip from her more restrained opponent. Even so, she managed to avoid being completely alienated from her neighbours, as her pettiness was seen as unthreatening and many felt sorry for her and Stan.
Hilda's judgementalism hid a deep envy of her neighbours, and she was desperate to be seen as just as good as the rest. She took any opportunity to show off, and would often fake an understanding of art or culture in a transparent attempt to earn their admiration, and in a similar vein, she often made malapropisms resulting in much hilarity. She also had an old-fashioned moral code, believing strongly that only married couples should have sex.
Traits
Hilda was a short woman with a thin, sparrow-like frame. For most of the day, she totted about Coronation Street in her old red (later blue) mackintosh, clad in the same pinny and green headscarf she worked in, with her hair in rollers. For evenings, she took her rollers out, with just a dab of lipstick.
Relationships
1976 : Norman Crabtree with his sister Hilda
Hilda had great affection for her family and upbringing, and would sometimes refer to herself as a Crabtree. However, references and visits to individual family members were rarer. In March 1966 , Stan sold a framed photograph of Hilda's mother Florence to Jed Stone for his "Viaduct Bargain Boutique", resulting in a furious Hilda snatching it back.
As adults, Hilda and her brothers Norman and Archie lived a stone's throw from each other in Weatherfield but all led separate and very different lives. With his own chip shop in Oakhill , Norman was the most successful. His only interaction with Hilda during her time in Coronation Street was in 1976 , when Stan took root in the shop after a row with Hilda. Annoyed at being involved, Norman tried to get Stan and Hilda back together - but more for his own sake than theirs.
Hilda seemed closer to Archie. His only visit to 13 Coronation Street was in May 1972 , while Stan was in hospital. With his beer belly and laziness, Archie could more easily pass as Stan's brother than Hilda's, and for three weeks, Archie filled Stan's void in Hilda's life. Archie built a porch for Hilda but it was only when they were admiring the completed porch that Jerry Booth reminded them that they would need planning permission. The debacle ended with the mysterious disappearance of the porch, after Hilda was told by Councillor Warburton to take it down. When news came through that Stan was due to come home, Hilda told Archie to leave, none too impressed with his suggestion that she take on another job and look after both of them.
Hilda occasionally went to visit Archie, particularly when his circumstances improved in the early 1980s , with Archie marrying Doris and becoming the owner of Crabtree's Chip Shop . After his death in 1983 , Hilda inherited the shop, his money, and also, sadly, his considerable debts.
Stan Ogden
Hilda and Stan get ready to take on the world
"I suppose."
"I suppose. I suppose. That's your problem Stanley, you're too damn suppository. Now go out and insert y'self!"
Hilda's entire life with Stan was encapsulated in their first week together in 1943 . In a story she would often repeat, she fell over an inebriated Stan in a blackout, and six days later he married her - but not, as she hoped, out of romantic gallantry, but because he was on the run from the military police for being AWOL.
Hilda was raised with traditional beliefs about marriage and a wife's duty to her husband. While her total responsibility for the house and children wasn't unusual, Hilda also tried to be a loyal and obedient wife to Stan, particularly in the early years of their marriage where Stan dominated Hilda with his abusiveness and drunken rages, which Hilda once told a shocked Concepta Hewitt she didn't mind. In January 1966 , Hilda filled out the winning pool numbers for Stan to check against his and, thinking they were his numbers, he celebrated an estimated £75,000 win by buying drinks all round at the Rovers . When a terrified Hilda told him the truth, Stan went berserk and chased her round the house.
Stan was a man of simple pleasures, sending little money to Hilda and drinking the rest away. For the family to survive, Hilda had to become everything he wasn't: tough, resourceful, and driven. When they moved to Coronation Street , it was up to Hilda to motivate her oaf of a husband out to work, and her nagging, piercing voice was enough to drive anyone out the door. Hilda constantly criticised Stan, attributing most of their financial woes to his uselessness. However, when he showed ambition, even for something bizarre such as scrap art ( September 1969 ) or songwriting ( February 1970 ), Hilda beamed with pride, believing in her husband's hidden talents.
Another drawback to being married to Stan was his inattentiveness. He was incapable of making a romantic gesture off his own back; the first time he sent Hilda a Valentine's card was in 1982 , when they'd been married for 38 years, and he only did so out of guilt over forgetting Hilda's birthday. Hilda was so flabbergasted that she refused to believe it was from Stan, preferring the notion that she had a secret admirer.
Stan was poor at predicting his wife's needs, particularly her need to be treated like a woman, and he often showed her up in public. His understanding of his wife was so lacking that in 1981 , they came last place in a "Mr and Mrs" competition in the Rovers, with Stan giving three embarrassing (and, to the audience, hilarious) answers. To avoid bother, Stan would often risk making matters even worse, such as in May 1967 when he burned Hilda's London cup final ticket so he wouldn't have to admit he'd sold his and couldn't get it back. To keep up the pretext, he spent the day on a park bench, but of course Hilda found out anyway and made him paint the house as a penance. Their lowest moments came whenever Hilda caught him dipping into her hard-earned money; in December 1978 , he put all the money in the house into a (previously empty) fruit machine, and then unthinkingly let Eddie Yeats take it the machine away with their TV plug attached. Just as the realisation set in, the house was plunged into darkness as the electricity meter ran out - all in all, a typical day at the Ogdens'.
However, Stan genuinely wanted to make Hilda happy, and his gestures which did work were all the more touching for their rarity. He scored a definite hit with the serving hatch in 1971 , and in October 1969 he secretly joined Fatties Anonymous with Betty Turpin , telling the people at the meeting that he was doing it for his wife. In spite of her problems with Stan, Hilda couldn't imagine life without him and was lost whenever he wasn't around; when he vanished one night in March 1976 , she scoured the streets for him before she found out he and Albert Tatlock had accidentally been locked in the Rovers cellar. After spending the night getting merry and singing war songs down in the cellar, they were found by Hilda and Annie Walker , and Hilda was furious when Stan grinned and asked if she'd missed him.
Stan had his faults but Hilda knew his limits. In August 1972 , he was caught in the backing where a peeping tom had been seen spying on the women of the Street. A lynch mob led by Billy Walker and Ray Langton carted him over to No.13, their minds made up that he was the peeping tom, but Hilda believed in her husband's innocence, even though he was supposed to be at The Flying Horse . The mere accusation was enough to defeat Stan, but Hilda wanted to fight back and told the residents what she thought of them in the Rovers, referencing Billy's dirty magazines, and spat on the floor. The residents had to swallow their pride and apologise when the true culprit was caught.
Hilda and Stan's affection for each other was strengthened by the fact that they were both life's victims. Despite being the neighbourhood joke, for most of their time at No.13 theirs was the most successful marriage in the Street. In public, Hilda would defend Stan from the very accusations she threw at him at home. Her image of Stan was so idealised that she was paranoid about other women plotting to get their hands on him, from Freda Woods at the British Legion to Mary Bonnetti , Stan's ice-cream vendor partner. The latter got Hilda so worried that she reported Stan to the Town Hall for trading without a licence, ending the partnership. A continuing thorn in Hilda's side was Clara Regan of 19 Inkerman Street , or rather the rumours of her affair with Stan which were all over Weatherfield. Hilda didn't believe them - finding out in January 1973 that Clara was co-habiting with Tommy McAllistair was enough to satisfy her - but she hated everyone sending them up about it and refused to dignify Clara with a name, referring to her only as "19 Inkerman Street".
1977 : "What's that lipstick taste of?" "Woman Stanley, woman!"
Hilda's happiest moment came when the Ogdens won third prize in a "Loving Cup Shandies" competition - a second honeymoon night in a five-star hotel with her winning slogan "Be a mistress as well as a wife and your husband'll still be a boyfriend". Hilda was determined to enjoy herself in luxury for once, forcing Stan to give her the romantic evening she craved, when he just wanted to watch TV and raid the drinks cabinet.
After Stan's death, all past rows were forgotten and Hilda would always remember Stan as the perfect husband.
Irma Ogden
1970 : Mother and daughter exchange words over a morning cuppa
What Irma got from her parents could be written on the back of a playing card. Irma was fun-loving, didn't take life too seriously, and even a little reckless. Where her parents were concerned, Irma couldn't wait to get away, even though she loved them. She frequently put Stan and Hilda down, often without them realising it.
Hilda liked having Irma close by as the Ogdens had so few friends in the Street. She approved of her wedding to David Barlow , and also of their decision to buy the Corner Shop - Irma allowed the Ogdens a generous amount on tick. Irma helped her parents out whenever she could, and in May 1966 , when she got a job at the PVC Factory , she sent in Hilda to fill her shoes at the shop, much to David's horror. That August , the couples went on a caravan holiday, where Hilda and Irma bonded and threw water over their husbands when they stayed out all night.
When Irma and David decided to move to Australia , Hilda was so distraught that she sent drayman Vince Boyle to share his terrible experiences of the country with Irma, a move which nearly caused them to part on a sour note. Out of loyalty to Irma, Hilda took in Irma and David's foster daughter Jill Morris when she turned up at the shop looking for them as her mum was in hospital.
In September 1970 , with Irma on holiday in Torquay and Maggie Clegg in Birmingham , Hilda looked after the shop. As Irma hadn't left her precise instructions for replenishing the stock, Hilda decided to try something different and ordered large quantities of specialised stock from Walter Gilfeather , surprising even him. The scheme ended in disaster, with Hilda ending up having a bargain sale to shift the new stock, and she ended up £7, 2/9 down. When she got back, Irma got Hilda to clean the shop to make it up to her.
When Irma suddenly fled to Llandudno that December , Hilda looked after her interests at the shop, although Betty Turpin opined that she had really left to get away from Stan and Hilda. Irma then gradually faded out of the Ogdens' lives, and eventually moved to Canada , where she was living when Stan passed away in 1984 . Hilda excused her daughter's non-appearance at the funeral, telling Trevor that she was starting a new life abroad.
Elsie Tanner
1968 : Handbags at dawn
"Come back here Elsie Tanner, I want to sort you out!"
Elsie Tanner of No.11 was Hilda and Stan's next-door neighbour. Hilda looked down on Elsie for having so many men in her life, in some ways taking up the mantle from Ena Sharples , but unlike her previous nemesis who could get Elsie really riled up with her vicious tongue, Hilda wasn't taken seriously and was treated mainly as an irritant.
In June 1968 , Hilda and Elsie had a row in the Street where Hilda accused Elsie of having an affair with Stan, as they'd been AWOL for hours after Stan gave Elsie a driving lesson (the explanation being that they'd run out of petrol on the moors). Elsie laughed at Hilda's allegations, saying she'd never go for Stan as she had eyes.
On two occasions, Hilda nearly caused Elsie to lose her job by informing her employers about Elsie being in court for stealing from Miami Modes , and in 1973 Elsie's disappearance led to all kinds of rumours, most of them started by Hilda, leading to a confrontation in the Rovers in which Alan Howard punched Stan, who had stood up to defend his wife. If not their biggest, then certainly their pettiest battle occurred in 1978 , when Suzie Birchall accidentally put her foot through No.13's bedroom ceiling while moving a nest of pigeons in the loft. Elsie refused to pay the repairs as the pigeons had got in through a missing slate in Hilda's roof, and so Hilda poked holes in Elsie's ceiling with her broom to get even. The households then went to war, doing everything from blaring music through the wall and dirtying their neighbours' washing. It was resolved in court, where Hilda and Elsie were ordered to pay for their own repairs - a resolution which satisfied Elsie, but not Hilda.
In July 1980 , Hilda called round to No.11 to borrow a cup of sugar and found the sofa ablaze and Elsie unconscious. With Stan's help, she dragged Elsie away to safety. Proclaimed a heroine, Hilda made the most of it by getting Elsie to buy her drinks and over-dramatising her heroics. Eventually Elsie got so sick of Hilda going on about it that she told Hilda to walk past the next time her house was on fire!
In possibly her only act of kindness towards her neighbour, Hilda donated some clothes to Elsie when hers were cut up by Muriel Fielding in May 1981 .
Annie Walker
Annie Walker was Hilda's pretentious employer at the Rovers. Annie was generally kind to Hilda, although she often had to remind her that she was there to clean and not to chit-chat. Hilda first discovered Annie's iron fist a month after arriving in the Street; when Annie caught Hilda and Irma shifting onions Trevor had secretly stored in the Rovers' cellar, Annie sacked them both on the spot, although Hilda managed to get her job back.
1977 : Hilda confronts Annie when she is underpays Stan, who is subbing for Hilda
Hilda admired Annie but envied her standing in the community and greatly wanted to out-do her. In 1974 , before Hilda left Weatherfield to board cruise ship the Monte Umber for a six-week cleaning job, Annie coached Hilda on etiquette, advising her to step aside to let a first class passenger past. When she got back, Hilda showed off by ordering a "Planeter's Punch" cocktail to try and catch Annie out. Annie easily made the drink but charged 98p for that and a pint for Stan, reminding Hilda that the ship was duty free and the Rovers wasn't. In 1976 , when Hilda put up her beloved mural, part of its appeal was that Annie didn't have one, but when Hilda invited her over to the house to show it off, Annie barely gave it a second glance, although she couldn't help noticing that Hilda had copied her bedroom wallpaper. "Isn't it amazing how different things seem in a different room?" commented Annie sardonically.
Annie occasionally suffered the consequences of Hilda's gossip, such as in 1975 when Hilda informed Newton & Ridley about a break-in at the Rovers which Annie wanted to keep quiet as she didn't want to lose the brewery's confidence. In direct confrontations, however, Annie's way with words easily outmatched Hilda's all-guns-blazing approach.
Eddie Yeats
1977 : Eddie spends Christmas with the Ogdens
Edward Yeats entered the Ogdens' lives in December 1974 . On parole from Walton , he bought their Christmas tree from Stan for £2. In March 1975 , when his fellow 5 Coronation Street houseguest Ena Sharples proved to be less of a soft touch than his landlady Minnie Caldwell , he partnered up with Hilda on Stan's window round. He and Hilda were a good team, bringing in more money than Stan had.
Released from Walton for the last time in July 1976 , Eddie soon fell in with the Ogdens. Hilda didn't trust him because of his shady past and dodgy mates, and his laziness and flannel did nothing to endear him to her. She treated him like a bad penny whenever he darkened No.13's doors, greeting him with a resigned "oh, it's you". Over time, Eddie demonstrated that he had a good heart and an affinity for the Ogdens, who were all the 'family' he had, and Hilda became fond of him.
Both moronic and bone-idle, Eddie and Stan were kindred spirits. They would often get up to things behind Hilda's back, knowing she would not approve. In October 1978 , Eddie's friend Tiny Hargreaves paid Stan for the use of his cart to shift stolen lead, but Hilda saw Tiny using the cart and took it when he wasn't looking, thinking he'd stolen it. Hilda was then stopped by the police and the cart impounded because of the stolen lead. Fearing repercussions, Eddie refused to shop Tiny, but Hilda refused to have Stan arrested and made him tell the police the truth. The following April , with Hilda away, Eddie took possession of six hens and talked Stan into letting him store them in No.13's back yard after Albert Tatlock told him he couldn't have them on his allotment. After returning home to find a chicken on her table, Hilda told Eddie to get rid of the hens, but was talked round when Eddie said they faced the slaughter. To keep Hilda on side, Eddie bought eggs from the Corner Shop and planted them in the chicken coop. Getting wind of the scheme, Suzie mischievously put some hard-boiled eggs in the coop, which Hilda gave to Ena, resulting in much embarrassment in the Rovers when Ena cut an egg open in front of Hilda. Hilda ordered Eddie to kill the hens, planning to eat one for Stan's birthday, but in the end Albert had to perform the deed as they'd all grown so attached to them, and, unable to bring himself to carve them, Eddie sold them to a butcher for £3.
From 1980 to 1983 Eddie was the Ogdens' lodger, taken in due to his full-time job on the bins. In March 1981 , Eddie caused the Ogdens to lose all their washing when he accidentally took a black bag containing their laundry to the tip instead of a bag of rubbish. Determined to recover it, Hilda made Stan and Eddie help her scour the tip for the bag, but surrounded by so many identical black bags, they didn't find their washing. A guilty Eddie organised a whip-round for the Ogdens and managed to earn their forgiveness, the whole debacle treated like just another Ogden misadventure.
Hilda took a somewhat motherly role in Eddie's love life. In 1980 , she approved of advised Lorna Ferguson to go steady with Eddie. Two years later, she made the effort to get to know Marion Willis , but nearly had a falling out with Eddie when he copied her key to Mike Baldwin 's flat to court Marion there, pretending he was a businessman. Eddie left the Ogdens' lives in December 1983 when he and Marion, now a married couple, moved to Bury , but the following year Eddie phoned the Rovers to pass onto Hilda the news that Marion had had a baby girl, Dawn , and in 1987 he paid a visit to Weatherfield to see Hilda when she was hospitalised after she and Joan Lowther were attacked by burglars.
Kevin and Sally Webster
In May 1985 , Kevin Webster decided he'd had enough of his landlady Emily Bishop 's stuffiness and fellow lodger Curly Watts 's 5am wake-up calls, and with Hilda's approval moved into No.13. Kevin found Hilda a friendly, easygoing landlady, and would refer to her affectionately as "Mrs. O". He gave Hilda no trouble in his two years at No.13, showing himself to be a respectable young man.
1986 : Hilda hopes Kevin and Sally won't last long
Hilda's relationship with Sally Seddon wasn't so smooth-sailing. Introduced to Kevin's new girlfriend early in 1986 , Hilda was cold to her due to her being from the roughneck Seddon family, and decided she wasn't good enough for Kevin. In March , she warned Kevin she'd seen Sally with another man, but he didn't believe her and stayed with Sally. Two months later, after accepting that Sally wasn't like her parents, Hilda agreed to let Sally live at No.13 to get away from Eddie Seddon , Convinced that Kevin and Sally would try to sleep together against her permission, Hilda laid a trap for Sally on the stairs, only to forget about it and fall herself. While Hilda was out of work with a sprained ankle, Sally stood in for her at the Lowthers' house and the Baldwins ' flat , where she did such a bad job that Susan Baldwin nearly sacked her. Hilda's derogatory comments about her work upset Sally so much that she returned to live with her parents.
Kevin and Sally were married by the end of the year. On their wedding day, Hilda gave Sally marriage advice, telling her not to blame Kevin in times of trouble. The following year, Hilda helped them get the Corner Shop flat by pretending to Alf Roberts that Sally would be leaving her job at the shop immediately and the Websters moving to Partington . As he was in the middle of a council election campaign, Alf needed Sally behind the counter and offered the Websters the flat without hesitation. When she left Weatherifeld a few months later, Hilda sold No.13 to the Websters for a generously low price as a mark of affection for the young newlyweds.
Hobbies, interests and skills
1979 : Hilda's one-fingered performance of Beautiful Dreamer garners a less than stellar reception...
Hilda frequently showed an interest in art and culture to have something to show off about. She would always exaggerate how well she knew the subject, but then give the game away with her malapropisms or basic misunderstandings, with comic results.
Her forays into art and culture were numerous and short-lived. She once wrote a play about a gas leak which led to nothing, and in February 1976 , she joined an art class at the Community Centre . In January 1979 , while painting the skirting boards at No.13, she found by accident that she could copy abstract art. When a painting of hers fetched £20 from Annie Walker (who had no idea the identity of the artist), Hilda made the most of it by getting Annie to compliment it at every opportunity, however Annie found out and got revenge by telling Hilda she sold it to an art dealer at a huge profit. That August , she taught herself to play the piano and actually showed promise, beaming with pride when Ena - a seasoned harmonium player - applauded her after a performance. Others, however, were not complimentary; walking in on Hilda practicing Beautiful Dreamer on the Rovers piano, Annie accused her of turning it into an ugly nightmare.
In June 1973 , Hilda joined a ballroom dancing class at the centre, agreeing to be Ted Loftus 's partner (with Stan's permission). She also partook in the 1969 football grudge match between the Rovers and The Flying Horse , where she scored an equaliser (much to her worn out team-mates's fury as they then had to play on to extra time), and at the 1984 Pub Olympics between the two pubs she won the egg-and-spoon race when she came in second behind Vera Duckworth who was disqualified due to cheating.
Hilda also took to the stage during the Street's Christmas panto productions, filling out the cast in bit parts including Wishee Washee in Aladdin in 1968 and one of the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella in 1975. In 1977, tricked by Bet Lynch into thinking it was fancy dress, Hilda turned up at the factory Christmas party dressed as Charlie Chaplin. She ended up having a good time, blacking up and singing an Al Jolson song to the OAPs next door at the centre when the booked act never turned up.
Hilda loved to sing, especially her old 1940s favourites. With a trilling singing voice compared to Mick Jagger stuck up the plumbing, and a piano going down a flight of stairs, Hilda could most often be heard as she went about her cleaning, hanging out the washing, or admiring her mural.
Clairvoyancy
1969 : Hilda turns psychic
Hilda had "the gift" since before she moved to Coronation Street. In December 1964 , she read the cards of several residents, including Valerie Barlow , where she correctly predicted that Val would have twins.
In early 1969 , Hilda took it up again and considered reading tea leaves professionally. While he didn't believe in her gift, Stan was keen on the idea as, charging half a guinea a time, they'd be quids in if Hilda could pull it off. To encourage her, he went around trying to make her predictions come true without her knowledge, but confessed to Hilda out of fear that a reporter would find out and accuse her of fraud. To avert suspicion, Hilda publicly announced her gift had gone.
Hilda continued to believe that she had the sight, and often gave impromptu readings. In August 1977 , after two predictions came true, her clairvoyancy attracted some attention. Along with Bet, Suzie, Elsie and Gail Potter , she held a seance in No.13, where she seemed to go into a trance and be possessed, although she later claimed to have no memory of the event.
Travel
Hilda's long-held desire to get away from everything was apparent to every visitor to No.13's back room. In 1978 , her beloved mural of the Canadian Rockies was ruined when Stan left the taps running in the bathroom and flooded the house. Hilda bought a replacement herself, this time depicting a seascape.
Hilda and Stan's getaways were few and far between, and when they did plan a holiday, catastrophe would always strike. In September 1969 , when Stan got a week off work, Hilda insisted on going to Llandudno, but Stan "accidentally" tripped over a roller-skate left on the street and they spent the day sat outside the Rovers under Annie's umbrellas instead.
Hilda particularly longed to visit France . In January 1972 , the Ogdens got as far as booking a day trip to Paris and getting to the airport, but Stan panicked in the terminal and went to get fresh air, causing them to miss the plane. To keep up appearances, they spent the day in the airport bar and staggered into the Rovers later, pretending they'd been on the trip. Hilda finally got to go to France in 1980 , when she won an exchange visit to Charleville , Weatherfield's twin town, where she went to a rave-up with Vera and Ivy Tilsley .
1974 : Hilda in Majorca
In August 1974 , Stan bought a tandem from Billy Walker for £8.50. Hilda excitedly planned a trip to Morecambe , but when the time came, the Ogdens found the tandem too difficult to ride and left the bike with railway porter Syd Greaves , who gave it to Ray Langton. When they came back (of course, pretending to everyone that they'd used the tandem), Ray tried to set them up by painting the tandem white and claiming it was his, but, on Hilda's instructions, Stan painted it black again, making Ray look like an idiot when he said it was his; for once, the Ogdens came out on top. Hilda would occasionally take the tandem out again but, met with Stan's disinterest, eventually sold it to Gail and Suzie for £7 - only to find out from Len Fairclough that it was worth £100. Eddie managed to buy the bike back for £15 without letting on the girls its true worth, and went off to sell the bike with Stan, but when they abandoned it to go into a pub, the wall it was resting against was demolished, burying it - a tale Hilda point blank refused to believe.
Television
In the 1970s , as the nation switched to colour television, Hilda was determined that No.13 would be the first house in Coronation Street to upgrade. Hilda saved her pennies and for nine glorious days in 1971 (after which it was repossessed), the Ogdens' back room was graced with a colour set. Hilda battled on, trying to get one on approval, but the Ogdens were turned down as they were on a credit blacklist.
Over the next few years, one-by-one the neighbours bought colour sets. In January 1978 , Hilda camped outside Perkins overnight to be first in the morning queue, guaranteeing her a colour TV for £5 in the sale. After spending the night in the company of a meths-drinking tramp called Ozzie , Hilda lost her place in the queue as she was in the middle of being interviewed by a local radio reporter, Ted Thomas , when the shop opened its doors, and someone else bought the TV.
Three years later, Eddie managed to borrow a colour TV for the day so that Hilda could watch the Royal Wedding . Hilda took out her curlers for the occasion.
1976 : After years of having a telly and no licence, the Ogdens have a licence and no telly...
On one occasion, the Ogdens didn't have a TV at all. In February 1976 , when a TV detector van roamed the area, Hilda bought a TV licence to be on the safe side. As she walked into the house to tell Stan, she surprised him when he was moving the TV to hide it away, causing him to drop and break it. After a tip from Betty Turpin , Stan set fire to the TV and told the rental company it had burst into flames, but rental man Sid Wilson didn't believe him and demanded £75 for the set. Meanwhile, Hilda was getting caught up in entering competitions and won a trolley dash at a delicatessen. Together with Deirdre Langton , she grabbed £107.32 worth of goods, but, missing her programmes, traded it in for the cash amount and paid the TV bill.
Background information
1964 cast portrait of Jean Alexander as Hilda
In the spring of 1964 , producer Tim Aspinall initiated Coronation Street 's first major cast shake-up, axing six characters in total. To fill the void, a new family was planned around the character of Irma Ogden , a recent addition to the programme played by Sandra Gough . The family would be more vulgar than viewers were used to seeing, headed up by layabout lorry driver Stan and his nagging wife Hilda, and supported by their four children - Irma, Trevor , Tony and Sylvia .
Jean Alexander was born in Liverpool in 1926 . She began her career as a library assistant before transferring her talents to repertory theatre, firstly as a wardrobe mistress and then as a stage mistress, in various places in the North West including Oldham , York , and the Adelphi Guild Theatre in Macclesfield . She then realised her ambition of becoming an actress, spending seven years with Southport rep. She had an early TV role as Mrs. Webb , landlady of baby kidnapper Joan Akers , in two episodes of Coronation Street in 1962 , which paved the way for her subsequent casting as Hilda two years later. Betty Driver also auditioned for the part, but was rejected as casting directors wanted a more slender actress for Hilda.
Stan made his debut in Episode 370 but viewers had to wait to be introduced to his wife as transmission of the following episode was delayed by a week by strike action by the ACTT (Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians). An additional result of the strike was that the following week's episodes, which were at the rehearsal stage when the strike occurred, went unrecorded, with production picking up with Episode 374 the week after. The unmade episodes would have seen the Ogdens move into No.13 and Tony and Sylvia make their debut appearances. During this period, plans for the Ogdens were revised, cutting the number of children from four to two.
The rise of Stan and Hilda
Stan and Hilda rose in popularity throughout the 1960s
Amid the controversy over Aspinall's cast cull, the Ogdens stood out as a bright spot to writer H.V. Kershaw , who returned to his role as producer when Aspinall stepped down in September . Praising the chemistry between the actors, he remarked in his 1981 book The Street Where I Live (1981): "After a few weeks of Bernard Youens and Jean Alexander as the ill-starred Stan and Hilda, it is patently obvious that they are here to stay for ever."
Initially, Hilda was characterised as a tough working class woman who stood at her uncouth husband's side, blind to his flaws. This was subtly changed as writers realised the comic potential of Hilda being more of a fishwife - all the while defending him vehemently when anyone else dared take a potshot, as remarked upon by Kershaw: "The Ogdens, Hilda and Stan, arguably one of the funniest cross-talk teams on television, are to my mind at their best when they are poignant. Hilda, thin and defiant, defending the fat, lazy Stan against an unkind world," and Jean Alexander: "They would bicker between themselves but one one else dared raise a finger or say a word against either of them or they'd both be up in arms." (Fifty Years of Coronation Street, Headline Publishing Group, 2010) On her role: "As a character she's interesting to play, and I like her because she's the opposite of me. She lets fly at people in a way I'd like to myself and never do. When I'm being Hilda, I can get it all out of my system." (The Coronation Street Story)
Their relationship was tinkered with again when Bill Podmore took over as producer in 1976 , with Stan becoming more hen-pecked and Geoffrey Hughes entering the fray as Eddie Yeats , the Ogdens' prodigal son (with Irma and Trevor long having left the programme). Podmore: "Stan and Hilda were one of the great comedy couples. In my book they rivalled Morecambe and Wise." (Coronation Street: The Inside Story, 1990)
At the peak of Hilda's popularity, character and actress gained a number of accolades, including being named as the fourth most recognisable woman in the UK after the Queen , Queen Mother and Diana in a 1982 poll and, more oddly, prompting Michael Parkinson , Russell Harty and Sir John Betjeman to form the British League for Hilda Ogden, with Laurence Olivier as it's president. Olivier was such a fan of the character that he requested a part in the programme. A part was written for him - a meths-drinking tramp called Ozzie who camped outside a shop next to Hilda while she queued overnight for a discounted colour TV - however a scheduling conflict resulted in Olivier being unable to take the role. Podmore: "Hilda Ogden was a legend. Universities wanted to make her their rector; a Welsh rugby team hailed her as their mascot; even the Falklands Fleet urgently called for a picture of their pin-up complete with curlers, to inspire the troops for battle."
Glad rags and that voice
Jean Alexander as Hilda in the 1970s
Hilda's famous look - with her curlers, headscarf and pinny - was developed over time by Jean Alexander and the wardrobe department. Alexander felt that the curlers said something about the character: "I remembered seeing the women working on munitions during the war. All the girls in the factories had to have their heads covered because of the machinery. They used to wear these scarves, like pudding clothes, tied up and the curlers would be in.. I thought Hilda would have worked on munitions and would have had her hair tied up... She was always ready to go out - only she never went out. The curlers were always in, just in case she happened to be going out in the evening." (The Coronation Street Story, Boxtree Limited, 1995) About the pinny: "It was donkeys' years old, but it seemed to fascinate viewers who used to write in in droves to see where they could buy one similar." (Life in the Street, Boxtree Limited, 1991)
One bonus of Hilda sporting such a different look from Alexander's day clothes was that she wasn't recognised all that often - a fact appreciated by an actress who guarded her privacy. Podmore: "She could transform herself within seconds. A touch of lipstick, a headscarf, an old mackintosh and a curler or two, and there stood Hilda Ogden in all her pinched-mouth glory. At the end of the day the cloak of Hilda was discarded as quickly as it was created and left behind in the studio. Jean Alexander could stand on Salford station and catch her train home safe in the knowledge that none of her fellow passengers would give the elegant lady a second glance."
Another trait of Hilda's worked out early on was her famously shrill singing voice. Viewers were introduced to Hilda's "talent" soon after she arrived in the street, as Jean Alexander recalls: "I'd been in it a couple of months and the script said: 'Hilda is out of shot in the backyard pegging out washing and singing.' So I just started singing the sort of songs that Hilda would know, that were from my own era actually, and the crew fell about laughing. They all thought it was hysterical, so after that whenever they wrote in "Hilda sings". they'd never state the song and they'd just leave that to me." (Fifty Years)
The "muriel"
The Oggies with Eddie and the "muriel"
When Bill Podmore became Coronation Street's producer in 1976, one of his goals was to increase the amount of comedy in the scripts. One of the first stories devised for the Ogdens was the re-decoration of No.13's parlour and the establishment of Hilda's beloved mural, or "muriel" as she called it (an example of her malapropisms which were frequently worked into scripts), and its flying ducks - one of which could never stay up.
According to Alexander, the scenes inside No.13 were recorded at the end of of Episode 1616 's studio day, leaving no margin for error: "We had about six scenes, with the room in various stages of stripping and repapering, we had fifty minutes of studio time left to do these six scenes. It was so fast! We'd do one scene and then the prop men would come on and strip a bit more wallpaper off. You couldn't enjoy it because nobody dared dry." (The Coronation Street Story) On the mural itself: "(Hilda's) was a life of disappointment, so it was my idea that the middle flying duck on her famous 'muriel' should always be taking a nose-dive. Each time Hilda went past she would try to push it up straight, but it always fell down again. Which summed up her life really. They did live at Number 13 after all." ( 50 Years of Coronation Street: The (very) Unofficial Story , JR Books, 2010)
Stan's death
In 1975 , Bernard Youens suffered a minor stroke, the first in a series of health problems which plagued the actor for the rest of his life. By the early 1980s , his speech and mobility were affected, and as a result Hilda and Eddie took on most of the dialogue in their scenes to ease the burden on the actor, who wished to continue on in the programme. He died aged sixty-nine on 27th August 1984 , much to the sadness of the cast and crew, particularly his screen wife of twenty years. Alexander: "I miss him more than I can say. We never had to discuss a scene or go over a piece of dialogue together. He always turned up word-perfect, just as I did, and we knew exactly how we were going to play it. Working without "Bunny" was like acting without my arm." (Life in the Street)
Stan passed away peacefully in hospital in November 1984 after a lengthy absence from screens. In a famous scene, after holding back the tears for the duration of the episode, Hilda broke down alone in No.13 while unwrapping Stan's effects from the hospital. Podmore: "Coronation Street's scriptwriting team, with Jean's total approval, had decided that Hilda would never allow herself to shed a tear in public no matter how great her sadness. We all thought long and hard about how she might deal with her husband's death. The breakdown had to come some time, and we chose the moment when Hilda unwrapped the sad little parcel she brought home from the hospital, which contained Stan's few personal effects. Jean's playing of that scene was devastating; as she closed Stan's spectacle case the nation wept with her."
Alexander's performance during the scene won her the Royal Television Society's Best Performance Award the following year. Alexander: "It was the first award I had ever received, and the proudest moment of my life." (Life in the Street)
Departure
In the mid- 1980s ; Bill Podmore took a step back into a role as executive producer , with John G. Temple taking over as producer. For the next three years, Alexander remained with the programme, exploring Hilda's life as a widow. According to Podmore, this wasn't the original plan: "My long-term plan was for Eddie Yeats to take over as comic-relief lodger. It just might have worked, and Jean Alexander's wonderful character might still have been bottoming out the Rovers and mopping up every morsel of Coronation Street 's gossip." However, Hughes quit the programme in 1983 , and Hilda was instead supported by newcomers Kevin and Sally Webster .
1987 : Hilda's final appearance draws a record audience
In 1987 , Alexander decided that it was time to move on, and broke the news to the producer: "It was nice and it was a secure job and all that, but suddenly I thought, I don't want to be here for the rest of my life. I'd like to do some of the things I was doing before I ever came into this show. I would like to play other parts before I fall off my perch... I went in to see Bill Podmore and said, 'I've decided I want to leave at the end of my contract - Christmas .' 'Oh,' he said, 'I've been dreading the day when you'd come in and say that. (The Coronation Street Story) Podmore: "I really did think Hilda's retirement would be one of the great watersheds, and I was dreading the inevitable moment."
Hilda's final appearance , broadcast on Christmas Day 1987 , saw Hilda sing " Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye ", in her trademark trilling voice, before leaving Weatherfield to keep house for her employer, Doctor Lowther - a happy ending for a character who had spent her life going from pillar to post. The episode was watched by 17.97 million viewers on Christmas Day, with 8.65 million viewers catching up via a one-off omnibus repeat, resulting in a total audience of 26.62 million viewers - Coronation Street's second-highest ever audience figure.
Reprising the role
Hilda returns in the 1990 ITV Telethon
Jean Alexander has declined numerous invitations to reprise her character, with four exceptions. The first was the 1990 ITV Telethon , which featured a mini-episode showing a more prosperous Hilda visit the Street on her way to Stan's grave. Alexander was reluctant to return to the part, but on this occasion the circumstances were right: "When Granada asked me to return, I had to stop and think. I didn't really want to be Hilda again. I was worried I'd start up the old associations. But, as it was a one-off for such worthwhile charities, I couldn't really say no." On what viewers could expect: "Hilda has changed. Having sold her house, she's got a few pennies tucked away, along with her wages from the doctor, plus her own flat in his house. Now that she's better off, she's less envious. But, knowing Hilda, she might show off a bit."
Jean Alexander reprised her role again in 1996 to record the audio book 'Street Talk - Hilda Ogden: In Her Own Words', and appear in a one off advert for Granada Plus.
Alexander last played Hilda in a 1998 video special The Women of Coronation Street . The special showed Betty Williams visit Hilda in Derbyshire and reminisce (and gossip) about the women of Coronation Street past and present, segueing into archive clips.
Despite the passage of time, Hilda remained immensely popular. In 2005 , she was voted the UK's favourite soap character of all time in a TV Times poll. However, she has never returned to the show proper, despite numerous invitations. Writer John Stevenson : "They've asked her to come back many times but she won't, and it's too late now." (50 Years) On her reasons for staying away, Alexander: "It'd be a complete mistake to go back. And Hilda would be a different person now because she has achieved the status she'd wanted all her life - to be the doctor's housekeeper and have her own apartment in his house. She'd have smartened herself up no end." (Fifty Years) On her character's enduring appeal: "Hilda would have loved that and I am honoured people still remember her so fondly. I suppose the viewers recognised the type, and on location on the backstreets of Manchester , I've happened upon a few Hildas myself who could've come straight off the Coronation Street set." (Fifty Years)
See also
"Hey Stan look, we've got two taps" (First line)
---
"Drop dead Stan. And then get up and do it again!"
---
"I've come in here more times than I care to remember. Cold. Wet. Tired out. Not a penny in me purse. And seeing them ducks and that muriel ... well they've kept me hand away from gas tap. And that's a fact."
---
"Woman, Stanley. Woman!" (To husband Stan Ogden when he enquires what her lipstick tastes of)
---
"He'd skin a flea and then sell it in a vest, would Alf Roberts !"
---
"Oh, they are. She lived with him at No. 3 , you know, for quite some time." (Final line, to Alec Gilroy about Bet and Mike Baldwin )
| newton ridley |
What is the name of the inn where Jim Hawkins lives at the start of Trwasure Island? | Alec Gilroy | Coronation Street Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
Roy Barraclough
Alexander "Alec" Gilroy was a theatrical agent who had two stints as landlord of the Rovers Return .
Alec's first wife was Joyce , with whom he had a daughter, Sandra , in 1958 . In 1971 , he became estranged from Joyce and Sandra, and concentrated on his career, managing clubs and artistes, including singer Rita Littlewood . In 1986 , he was managing the Graffiti Club in Rosamund Street when he had a dalliance with Bet Lynch , then-landlady of the Rovers. He claimed not to be interested in the Rovers but when Bet couldn't afford the tenancy on her own, Alec proposed marriage to her so that they could run the pub together, and Bet accepted.
Alec was happy with Bet but they were rather an odd couple; Bet was bold and brassy, while Alec was morose and miserly. Theirs was a marriage of convenience but while they came to love each other, they had different outlooks and goals in life and in 1992 , when he was offered the job of MC on a cruise ship, Bet refused to relocate to Southampton with him, and Alec told Bet their marriage was over.
Alec returned to Weatherfield in 1996 and spent a year running the local branch of Sunliners Travel Agency . After being made redundant, he bought into the Rovers, gradually edging partners Jack and Vera Duckworth out of the business until he had total control. In 1998 , a tired and weary Alec sold the Rovers to Natalie Barnes to go into partnership with granddaughter Vicky McDonald at a wine bar in Brighton .
Contents
Edit
1960s : Alec when he had it all - a family and a fledgling career. He lost both in 1971
Alexander Gilroy was the younger of two children born to Reg and Mabel Gilroy at 4 Back Gas Street , on the rough side of Weatherfield . Growing up, Alexander (or "Alec" as he preferred) and his sister Edna became accustomed to the house's peculiar smell which was caused by fumes from the local gasworks, where Reg worked as a stoker, and the lingering odour from Tasker's Glue Factory clinging to Mabel's clothes.
At fourteen, Alec left school to go into grafting, but he was never destined to follow in his father's footsteps. Edna could belt out a tune, and not one to be outperformed by his own sister, Alec built up an act using trained ferrets. Performing as a duo with Edna at any venue that would have them, Alec's first foray into showbusiness ended when Edna got married, and after a particularly raucous evening at the Weatherfield Rugby Club , Alec's ferrets were set free.
Remaining in the showbusiness game, Alec moved backstage with a job at the Weatherfield Majestic . It was here that he honed his craft as a talent scout, bolstering the Majestic's roster of speciality acts with a keen eye for talent, and negotiating skills to match. Alec became known locally for his ability to pluck a performer from obscurity and have them on stage that same day. One of his acts was Harry "Bing" Crosby , who played a musical saw. Harry was assisted backstage by his daughter Joyce , who on meeting Alec was swept away by his tales of showbusiness and the big time. Thinking he'd found his Mrs. Gilroy, Alec popped the question, and in 1955 the couple were married. Alec's rise to the top continued when he was promoted to front of house and in 1958 Alec and Joyce's daughter Sandra was born.
Unfortunately, in wider circles, Alec's success at the Majestic amounted to little more than a blip. Alec had joined the industry at a time when all good talent was deserting variety in favour of television and cabaret, and although his farmyard impressionists and balloon benders were an improvement on the slackwire acts and strong women who tore up telephone books, Alec was powerless against the changing tide, and in 1971 the Majestic was turned into a bingo hall. An unemployed Alec also faced the end of a marriage, as Joyce, seeking a more glamorous life, ran off with footballer Stan Shaw , taking thirteen-year-old Sandra with her. Alec maintained minimal contact with Joyce, and didn't see Sandra again for many years, putting his heartbreak behind him by concentrating on his career.
1972-1985: Alec Gilroy presents
1972 : Alec books Rita Littlewood as he takes over the Victoria Street Working Men's Club
In 1972 , Alec tried his hand at club management, taking over the Working Men's Club in Victoria Street when it was opened in June of that year. One of the acts Alec booked for opening night was singer Rita Littlewood , who at that point was back on the club circuit after leaving her common-law husband Harry Bates . The night's entertainment went down well, with Alec telling Len Fairclough over a drink that he was keen to hire Rita again. Having taken a shine to Rita, Len tipped her off her about Alec wanting her back, allowing her to get more money out of him.
After three years toiling in working men's clubs, Alec was still as penniless as the day he started in Victoria Street, when at last his chance came. At eighty years old, talent agent legend Joe Bluntstone was retiring, which meant his agency of 100+ acts would soon be on the market. Alec offered the man 50% of the agency's takings for the rest of his life, in exchange for Alec getting the rest with no money down. A week after Joe accepted the deal, he dropped dead. While basking in his good fortune, Alec encountered Rita Littlewood in the Rovers Return , and persuaded her to sign with the Bluntstone Gilroy Organisation (later renamed Alec Gilroy Presents ), with Ernest Bishop as her pianist. Rita and Ernie played together at a number of venues in the latter half of 1975, after which her singing career once again died a death.
After Joe's death, Alec found his acts gradually deserting him, having only stayed on out of loyalty to Joe. Within a few short years he had only novelty acts left on his books, and he was forced to take on additional work managing local night spots.
In later years, Alec would describe 1981 as "a very bad time" for him.
By the mid- 1980s , Alec was managing the Graffiti Club in Rosamund Street . The Graffiti Club was a Newton & Ridley venue, and Alec maintained a sideline of providing acts from his dwindling agency for entertainment at Newton & Ridley's establishments.
1986-1987: Lynched
Alec in 1986
Originally a venture of Mike Baldwin and Alec Yardley aimed at the young and trendy crowd, the Graffiti Club's best days were behind it by the time of Alec's arrival; the disco had closed down, and the bar area made the Mary Celeste look overcrowded. The club saw a revival of fortunes when the Rovers Return was closed following a devastating fire, with Alec poaching Jack Duckworth and Gloria Todd as bar staff. However, trade fell back to normal levels when the brewery opened a renovated Rovers, and Alec's new recruits abandoned him. Not that Alec minded; his talent agency was once again thriving, and raising its profile was far more worthy of a man of Alec's skill than tending bar.
Across the Street from the Graffifi, the Rovers Return was a backstreet boozer, managed by Bet Lynch , with whom Alec had established a friendly rivalry. In November 1986 , under pressure from the brewery to increase trade, Bet turned to Alec for artistes, but refused to pay his prices and held an open mike night instead. The night was a disaster, but Alec gained Bet's respect and friendship by giving her a special discount for a second night's entertainment, putting her back in favour with the brewery.
Alec continued to visit the Rovers to discuss business with Bet, developing an attraction to the brassy barmaid at the same time. In fact, he spent more time at the Rovers than the Graffiti, and the brewery decided to sack him from the Graffiti - not that he minded. After an enjoyable night out with Bet, Alec told her that he hoped they had a future together, but, offended by Bet's insinuation that he was only interested in her because he wanted the Rovers, Alec walked out of her life.
After going on a Spanish tour with a cabaret package, Alec returned to Weatherfield and resumed contact with Bet. At that point, she had just been offered the tenancy of the Rovers by Newton & Ridley, but was unable to get a loan with affordable repayments, and faced losing the pub. Keen to help, Alec loaned Bet the £12,000 she needed, asking her to keep the deal a secret from the brewery. Afterwards, he proved a handful for Bet, with his ordering the staff around and using the back room as his office causing her to remind her that the Rovers was hers.
In May , Bet upped sticks, leaving behind a note for Alec blaming her disappearance on financial pressures. With Bet apparently untraceable, Alec tried to recover his money from the brewery, but his ally in the brewery, Cecil Newton , could only offer him the measly position of temporary manager in lieu of the tenancy being bought over. With his money tied up in the pub, Alec had no choice but to accept, and became the Rovers' seventh licensee.
As the Rovers' most sour-faced landlord yet took control, he wasted no time in putting his mark on the place. Out went Betty Turpin , who resigned when Alec kept watching her like a hawk when she so much as walked past the till, and in came Margo Richardson , a hand-picked barmaid replacement.
1987 : Tracking Bet down in Torremolinos , Alec stuns her with a suggestion...
Finally, in August , Bet got in touch with the brewery to arrange the repayment of the money, returning the tenancy to Newton & Ridley. As his financial arrangement was with Bet, Alec was told by Cecil Newton that it was up to him to contact her and get his money back. With only the knowledge that she was working at a bar in Torremolinos to go on, Alec flew out to Spain to track her down, leaving Gloria in charge of the Rovers. After spending the day searching hundreds of bars, Alec found Bet waiting tables at Mac's Bar . After initially fussing about his money, Alec surprised Bet by being gentle with her, showing concern that she didn't feel able to confide in him. When Bet lamented her failure as a landlady, Alec made the radical suggestion that they buy the tenancy together and run the Rovers as man and wife. The suggestion stunned Bet, who, knowing Alec, understood that this was as much a declaration of feelings as it was a business proposition, and although disappointed that his motivation hadn't been entirely romantic, she accepted his proposal, and the couple immediately returned home.
Back in Weatherfield, Alec and Bet successfully lobbied for the Rovers tenancy, and set a date of 9th September for the wedding, at All Saints Church . Their engagement stunned friends and neighbours, with some expecting them to come to their senses and cancel, including Alec's best man Charles Halliday , who spent the stag night trying to put the bridegroom off marriage. However, the wedding went ahead without a hitch, and as a wedding present Alec told Bet the Rovers was hers.
1987-1989: A marriage of convenience
Edit
A period of adjustment followed for the Gilroys . Their relationship having been mostly business beforehand, it wasn't until they got married that they really got to know each other, and their histories; after finding out that Bet had previously shared a house with Mike Baldwin and not told him, Alec felt he was the butt of the customers' jokes, and responded by making cracks about his wife's promiscuity, causing the couple to fall out. After a few days not speaking to each other, Alec made up with Bet, admitting that his trust issues were due to his incredulity at being married to her.
1988 : The Gilroys share a tender moment when Bet loses the baby
In early 1988 , Bet broke the news to Alec that she was pregnant at forty-seven. Both were anxious about being parents at their ages, especially Alec to whom children were an alien species, but the thought of having a son or daughter who would be theirs saw them warm to the idea. Sadly, Bet had a miscarriage a few days later. The Gilroys mourned their baby together, admitting how much it had come to mean to them in that short space of time.
Alec kept up his theatrical work, and was often seen negotiating with friends in the business using the phone in the Rovers hallway. In October 1987 , Alec was asked to assemble a troupe to entertain the British Army in Germany , resulting in his absence from the Rovers for a few weeks. In July 1988 , he set up his "friend" Gus Ferris with a duff act (Jack Duckworth) to put him in lumber with Margery Smith at the Old Band Club , causing Margery to drop Gus and come to Alec for acts in future. Alec kept Bet out of his agency business, not even telling her how much money he was making from the enterprise; when he was mugged on his way to the bank in September 1988 , and his briefcase containing the weekend's takings plus his club earnings, Bet was stunned to learn that it amounted to £2,134, and offered him help to spend all that money!
The insurance company paid out on Alec's losses from the mugging but his financial problems were to continue. In January 1989 , Wally Simpson offered Alec the job of managing a nine-week tour of the Middle East. He was going to accept, but when Bet showed her jealousy of his friendship with Megan Morgan (aka Tanya the Exotic Dancer ), who was also going on the trip, he decided to turn down the tour. Immediately afterwards, Alec's accountant Bernie Greenwood informed him that the Inland Revenue was onto him about his tax returns - due to Newton & Ridley disclosing his payments on his entertainment work for them, the tax office suspected Alec had undeclared earnings. Faced with the alternative of shopping his artistes who hadn't paid tax, and therefore losing his standing in the business, Alec did the unthinkable and paid £8,000 in unpaid tax on his artistes' behalf. To recover funds, Alec accepted the Middle East tour after all and departed right away.
1989 : What has Bet been up to with Paul Rigby ?
In May , Alec returned home from the tour three weeks early, planning to surprise Bet, but instead he found the staff running the Rovers and Bet nowhere to be found. Bet had gone out with Paul Rigby , husband of her friend Stella , and returned with him at midnight. Cross words were exchanged as Alec sent Paul packing and accused Bet of being unfaithful in his absence - Paul was a well-known womaniser and Alec refused to believe their dalliance was innocent, although Bet swore that there was nothing in it. Hoping to prompt a confession, Alec demanded a divorce, but instead Bet hit back at him by consulting a solicitor , asking for a divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. A battle of wills then followed between man and wife; Alec fired Bet from the Rovers and told Stella what had been going on behind her back, causing Stella to fall out with Bet, while Bet put off Alec's new housekeeper Mrs Hargreaves by telling her Alec was a sex maniac. However, Alec was mistaken in his belief that Bet had shopped him to the brewery when Nigel Ridley got wind of their marital problems - having actually been informed by Jack Duckworth, who wanted to take over the Rovers himself. When he accused Bet, Alec was surprised by her defeated attitude, and finally lowered his guard and admitted that he'd got it wrong, allowing the couple to make peace. Their reconciliation was heralded by a much-delayed honeymoon in Spain .
1989-1991: The Gilroy connection
Edit
1990 : Alec is reunited with daughter Sandra after 19 years
Later that year, the sudden death of an old act, Frankie Radcliffe , got Alec thinking about the his own legacy, and, feeling the shame of his absence from Sandra's life, he decided to track down his now grown-up daughter. Getting her address from Joyce, Alec found Sandra living in a massive house in Handforth , Cheshire , now married to solicitor Tim Arden , and mother to twelve-year-old Victoria . Tim and Victoria responded well to Alec but Sandra was merely shocked, giving no immediate impression whether she would welcome Alec back into her life. Giddy at the reunion, Alec made plans to get re-acquainted with his daughter, and having received an invite to her birthday party by Tim, dragged a nervous Bet along. Alec was aware that Bet had mixed feelings about the whole affair, so when she told him that she'd overheard Sandra telling Tim that she didn't want Alec there, he didn't believe her, despite her words being supported by the fact that Sandra hadn't made the effort to speak to Alec at the party. Hoping for something more intimate, Alec invited the Ardens to a meal at the Rovers, but when Sandra arrived, it was to tell Alec that she didn't want him to be a part of her life - he'd stayed away so long that his return meant nothing to her. A heartbroken Alec decided to respect Sandra's wishes, but Bet had a word with her and she agreed not to cut him off. Backing off, Alec contented himself with the occasional visit.
In May 1990 , the Gilroys faced their biggest crisis yet. With Cecil Newton retiring, Nigel Ridley made plans to turn the Rovers into Yankees , a New York -style theme bar, expanding into 1 Coronation Street which Deirdre Barlow had agreed to sell to the brewery. Having previewed the new bar and decided it wasn't for them, the Gilroys tried to oppose the move, causing Nigel to order them out of the Rovers. With the support of the neighbours, Alec and Bet protested by locking down the pub, with Alec at one point bodily ejecting Nigel from the premises. The story made waves in the local press, with the Gazette interviewing the Gilroys about their eviction and the local radio station interviewing them from the upstairs window. However, it was a battle the Gilroys were doomed to lose, and the brewery eventually came to repossess the pub. Alec and Bet were moments away from eviction when Cecil Newton arrived and, reminding Nigel that he was still on the board, told him that he'd put a stop to his "foolish young ideas", and that the Rovers was to stay as it was, with Alec and Bet being kept on. Alec celebrated with free drinks all round - before putting the prices up the next day.
Alec still hoped to make his fortune and he knew he would never make a penny running the Rovers. In February 1991 , he decided to go into business with Phil Jennings , setting up a club in the empty Graffiti building. Alec became so keen on the idea that he planned to sell the Rovers tenancy to go in with Phil, as he was only able to get a £30,000 loan from the bank, and together they came up with "The Al-Phi-Bet Club" as a name. However, Phil suddenly dumped the Gilroys, telling Alec he couldn't let them risk everything. The club never opened it doors but Alec still felt the need to retaliate and, remembering Deirdre selling them out to the brewery, managed Alf Roberts 's council election campaign when he was standing against Deirdre, with Phil managing her campain. Alf was successfully re-elected, reclaiming his council seat from Deirdre.
1991 : Alec and Vicky grieve for Sandra
In July , Sandra informed Alec that Joyce had passed away. Alec decided not to attend the funeral, and instead look after Victoria while Sandra and Tim were at the funeral in Whitby . Alec and Bet were just about to leave to collect Victoria when a policeman called at the Rovers to break the news that the Ardens had both been killed in a car crash in Whitby. Alec told Victoria the news himself, and after a period of grief by both parties, discussion turned to Vicky's care. As Alec was her closest surviving relative, Vicky was placed at the Rovers, despite her wish to be among friends in Handforth. Vicky spent the weeks before going back to boarding school dejected and resentful of her dingy surroundings in Weatherfield , struggling to find common ground with her grandparents.
1991-1996: Alec sets sail
Edit
Alec yearned for more glamorous surroundings, and in November a job for Sunglobe Shipping Company supplying six artistes for a cruise became much more when his chosen Master of Ceremonies, Archie Archer , dropped out, and Alec decided to take on the job himself, seeing it as a stepping stone to greater things. Bet stiffly opposed the idea, angry at the thought of Alec abandoning her over Christmas and New Year to go on holiday. After failing to win Bet over by laying on an early Christmas dinner, Alec left for Southampton to board his ship.
1992 : Cherie Watkins meets the late Mrs Gilroy
While on the cruise, Alec befriended Cherie Watkins , who was related to a director of the shipping company, and told her he was a widower so as not to put off the woman who was clearly interested in him. Just before Christmas, Bet summoned Alec home, however he claimed to be too busy. When he returned home in early January , he discovered that Bet had got a past love of hers, Des Foster , to decorate their bedroom, and that Des had tried it, resulting in Bet having to fight him off. Alec was initially skeptical but he believed Bet when she showed him the bruises she got fighting Des off, and with the truth out in the open Alec agreed to drop the subject. Shortly afterwards, it was Alec's turn to explain himself, when Bet intercepted a postcard from Cherie Watkins. Bet invited Cherie to tea and forced Alec to confess her the truth about being a widower by playing the role of Alec's mother (as Cherie had assumed she was when she heard she was "Mrs. Gilroy"), by bossing "little Alec" about, much to the embarrassment of both Alec and Cherie.
1992 : "It's you, Bet , it's you who's let me down"
Alec didn't expect to hear from Sunglobe again but in August , they contacted him out of the blue to ask him to manage their entertainment full-time, a job which would entail relocating to Southampton. Alec didn't need asking twice - the Rovers was neither fulfilling nor rewarding - and broke the news to his stunned wife, telling her he wanted to take it but that it would be a joint decision. Bet felt the pull of the Rovers, having worked there for 22 years, but after seeing Alec at his happiest in years, she agreed to go along with his plans. Alec then busiest himself with arrangements, selling the Rovers tenancy back to the brewery and announcing their departure to the regulars. However, on the day of departure, a forlorn Bet told her disbelieving husband that she was staying behind, and remaining at the Rovers as manager, having accepted initially only for his sake. Refusing to see his wife's point of view, Alec reacted angrily, accusing Bet of trying to blackmail him into staying and stifling his career. But Bet knew that Alec would still go, and as Alec drove off, he told Bet sternly that even though he was leaving, she was the one walking out on him.
Settling into his new life, Alec accepted the demise of his marriage but he was so hurt by Bet's betrayal that he refused to get involved with another woman except for companionship.
In 1994 , Vicky left school and the following January she turned eighteen, whereupon she inherited her parents' fortune. As she'd moved in with Bet, Alec was absent throughout her financial dealings with ex-boyfriend Steve McDonald . Vicky had invested in Steve's print business Dun 2 A T and ended up losing money, but she remained with Steve as she hoped to drive him away from his girlfriend Fiona Middleton . In July , Vicky and Steve announced their engagement, and fearing that Steve - who had a history of messing Vicky about - was only after her for her money, Bet summoned Alec from Southampton. Returning to the Rovers for the first time in nearly three years, Alec teamed up with Bet to stop the wedding, although Alec's measures were more underhanded, such as asking Steve's debtor Frank Mottram to lean heavily on Steve, and inventing a clause in the Ardens' will which would give Alec control of Vicky's finances. In the end, Vicky and Steve fled to St. Lucia to marry there, and as an unusually sentimental Alec prepared to return to Southampton, he asked Bet if she would have him back. Though she'd enjoyed their reunion, Bet knew that he hadn't really changed and gently turned down his request.
The following year, Alec had to move on from the cruises after clashing with his new boss, who'd been promoted over his head. Taking the position of manager of the Weatherfield branch of Sunglobe, now renamed Sunliners Travel Agency , Alec returned to his old stomping grounds.
1996-2002: Alec's greatest hits
Edit
1996 : The wanderer returns
Alec had traded Coronation Street for a life on the seas and he returned to Weatherfield full of bluster about his grand lifestyle, enthusing to Vicky and Steve about his "promotion" up north when he arrived in April 1996 . Taking permanent lodgings at a B&B at 15 Park Road , run by ex-chorus girl Jessie Wilcox , Alec took control of the shop, recruiting Deirdre Rachid as an assistant and Joyce Smedley as cleaner. Sadly, his diminished circumstances were plain for all to see as former staff and customers visited his dump of a workplace.
By the time of Alec's return, Bet had resigned from the Rovers and left the area, and within a few weeks Vicky too moved on, taking a hotel management course in Lausanne , Switzerland , after a messy breakup with Steve which saw Steve jailed for two years for handling stolen whiskey and perverting the course of justice after trying to put the blame on Vicky.
After Vicky's departure, Alec bought 12 Coronation Street flat above the Kabin . He still avoided getting too serious with women but he wasn't adverse to marrying if the right one came along, as he explained to Joyce Smedley, with whom he had rapidly become friends. Joyce agreed to accompany Alec on a break to the Lake District , where they slept in separate rooms, and was disappointed when Alec didn't make a move, but they reached an understanding when Alec explained to her how he'd been hurt in the past. Their friendship ended when Alec caught Joyce stealing from the Rovers and the travel agents, and sacked her when she threatened to blackmail him for having her invoice Sunliners for cleaning his flat.
If Sunliners wasn't the most invigorating workplace, Alec at least had more time to put into his agency. He hoped to find an act that would take him to the big time and started his search in Coronation Street, nurturing Fiona Middleton as a singer and Roy Cropper with his perfect memory. However, neither performer wanted to work with Alec and they had to go to extreme measures to put him off.
1997 : Alec and Jack pose as draymen to get into the Rovers when Vera changes the locks
At Christmas , while Jack Duckworth was in hospital, Alec helped Vera out at the Rovers, which was now under Duckworth ownership. Vera swore Alec to secrecy, but Jack found out anyway and warned Alec to stay away from the Rovers and Vera. Made redundant from Sunliners the following May , Alec began sniffing around the Rovers, advising Rita against a 50/50 partnership with the Duckworths before offering them one himself for £17,000. With a VAT bill of £17,650 to settle, Jack got £25,000 out of Alec, with Alec ceding the accommodation to the Duckworths. It was an unprecedented partnership with no trust on either side, but unlike Jack and Vera who feared Alec was trying to push them out of the Rovers, Alec only had to worry about the Duckworths not pulling their weight. The relationship got off to a bad start, with Vera changing the locks upon finding out about the deal after her return from a holiday in Morecambe . Alec and Jack has to pose as draymen to get back in. Alec ran rings round the Duckworths with ease, making them pay to hold their 40th wedding anniversary at their own pub and billing Jack for all the free drinks.
Another of Alec's ventures was the Golden Years Agency , which offered escorts for companionship, although he was forced to lie low for a while when one of his clients, Babs Fanshawe , passed away during a meal with Ken Barlow .
Since moving into the flat adjacent to Rita Sullivan's, Alec had become friendly with his former artiste, with Rita finally looking on him favourably after years of keeping him at arm's length. In July 1998 , when Rita was hospitalised with carbon monoxide poisoning, Alec felt responsible for her and tackled Steve McDonald about a gas fire he'd installed which was the cause of Rita's illness. When Rita was back on her feet, Alec confessed his growing feelings for her and proposed, however she fell out with him when he reported Steve to the Health and Safety people against her wishes, accusing Alec of using her to get back at Steve for what he did to Vicky. Soon afterwards, Rita started becoming forgetful due to the after-effects of the poisoning, and again Alec came to the rescue, taking over the Kabin and arranging for her to visit Mavis Wilton in Cartmel . Seeing that Alec genuinely cared about her, Rita cooked him a meal to clear the air, however she became annoyed when he proposed again as she was happy with things the way they were.
After a spat with the Duckworths, Alec decided to end the partnership and return to Southampton, but in a surprising turn of events, Rita agreed to marry him after all, and Alec pushed for full ownership of the Rovers, offering them £30,000 for their half of the pub with the promise of keeping them on as staff and allowing them to stay on in the living quarters. The Duckworths agreed, but once Alec had total control, he decided to fire them, only holding back because he knew that Rita would find it despicable. Meanwhile, he and Rita decided to live together instead of getting married, with Alec building a door between their two flats so that they could come and go as they pleased.
1998 : Alec gives the Duckworths their due as he leaves the Street in triumph
As Christmas loomed, Vicky paid Alec a Yuletide visit and told him about her plans to buy a wine bar in Brighton . Meanwhile, annoyed at the Duckworths' cheek at asking for Christmas off to visit their grandson Tommy in Blackpool , Alec decided to grant them the holiday and evict them from the Rovers in their absence. He had their belongings put in storage but, having been tipped off, Jack and Vera returned home on Christmas Eve and barricaded themselves in the living quarters. Alec decided to wait them out - they had to come down eventually - but when Rita told him that she was the one who warned the Duckworths as what he'd done to them was cruel, Alec became dispirited and told Rita he didn't want to see her anymore. Realising he had nothing to stay in Weatherfield for, Alec accepted an offer by Natalie Barnes to buy the pub, using the money to go into partnership with Vicky. After boarding up the door in the flat, Alec left for Brighton, stopping only to congratulate the Duckworths on their much-earned victory.
In 2002 , Bet returned to Weatherfield and told the residents that she and Alec had got a divorce.
Personality
Edit
What is Alec scheming?
"You view people as opportunities - what you can get out of them, not what you can give them." - Bet Gilroy
Alec entered the world of showbusiness as an artiste, performing onstage with ferrets. He honed his craft as a talent scout, learning to be savvy and devious enough to keep the Weatherfield Majestic supplied with acts. He dreamed of fame and fortune, but it never came, replaced with a stoic cynicism as he fought to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of showbusiness.
Club management led naturally to the licenced trade and, eventually, the Rovers Return . He considered it a waste of his talent, but Alec ran the Rovers efficiently, treating the bar like a stage and putting the staff on their best behaviour, cracking the whip when required (usually snarkily). He was a workaholic; all of his time went towards running the pub, his agency, or meeting friends in the business. Bet even had to drag him away from his work to be physical with him.
Alec was mean with money, and being a man so consumed by his work, he could come across as having no motive in life other than greed. He pocketed the wages of staff who no longer worked under him at the Rovers, and at Sunliners , he claimed Joyce Smedley 's salary even after she'd passed away. At the Rovers, double Scotch drinker Mike Baldwin was always met with a smile and chit-chat, while Percy Sugden was left in the cold to nurse his half-a-mild.
Underneath his prickly exterior, Alec was a sensitive man, though few people got to see this side of him. He kept people at a distance emotionally to avoid heartbreak; his separation from Bet was so painful that for a few years he only had lady companions. He liked a laugh, although it was usually at someone's expense. Ultimately, it was his ruthlessness in getting what he wanted which alienated him from some of the most important people in his life.
Traits
Edit
Alec was short (although he described himself as "slightly above medium") and wore glasses. He smoked heavily, often to steady his nerves. In 1988 , he claimed he disliked holidays which were "too foreign".
Alec had a fear of dogs. When Bet took in an Alsatian guard dog, Rover , from the RSPCA, Alec paid Tommy Ferguson to say it was his missing dog. However, he didn't mind spiders, as evidenced by him hiring a £500 Mexican mouse-eating spider to display in the Rovers to stir up trade. The escapade ended when the spider got loose and Alec had to squash it with his bare hands without being noticed during an inspection by the health inspector.
Relationships
Edit
1995 : Alec comperes on the QE2 , with his half-sister Brenda
"I'm not the exhibitionist type, Bet . Come to think of it, I don't think I even said I love me own mother."
All Alec got from his father Reg was a propensity for penny-pinching and being in public houses (albeit on opposite sides of the bar). Reg left Alec's mother Mabel for another woman when Alec and his sister Edna were children. They were reunited many years later, when Reg got in touch with Alec out of guilt when he thought Reg was dying, and introduced him to his 27-year-old half-sister Brenda .
Alec's theatrical bent arose from competition with his sister Edna, although, like his parents, Edna played no part in Alec's adult life. However, he kept in touch with Brenda and helped her out by giving her work in the entertainment industry as Melody Lane , including a prestigious spot on the QE2 in December 1995 , despite her questionable level of talent.
Rita Sullivan
Edit
1975 : Alec signs Rita to his new agency
When Alec settled in Coronation Street in 1986 , Rita Fairclough was the only person he knew from the "old days"; they'd collaborated a few times in the 1970s in their respective roles of impresario and singer. During her short time on Alec's books, Rita found Alec and his showbiz pals dodgy, claiming that she only survived it as she was old enough to know her way around. When Jenny Bradley sang for Alec, hoping he would sign her up, Rita told Alan her experiences and advised him to put a stop to it.
Rita and Alec crossed paths only rarely during his and Bet 's marriage; early in their romance, Rita advised Bet not to get involved with Alec, telling her he was rotten to the core, but Bet ignored her friend's advice. In 1989 , concerned friends learned of a missing Rita's whereabouts when she turned up at The Strand Hotel in Blackpool , which was run by a friend of Alec's, Cyril Partridge , and Cyril rang Alec.
Rita's opinion of Alec began to change when they were on a cruise together in December 1995 . Having been dismissive of him the entire journey, Rita was surprised to learn that a talentless singer he'd given a spot to on the QE2 was not a woman with whom he was having an affair, but his sister Brenda, and also that he'd given his cabin to Curly and Raquel Watts . They shared a rare moment of understanding, with Alec confessing that he'd pocketed money owed to her when she worked for him and that he hadn't sold her contract to a big London agent who could have taken her to the top. His kindness and candour went a long way to convincing Rita that the heartless money-grabber she used to know had changed.
Alec and Rita became closer upon Alec's full-time return to Weatherfield in 1996 . Spending more time finding new talent for his agency, Alec sometimes asked Rita her opinion on acts, and she agreed to coach Fiona Middleton as a singer. Their newfound friendship was noticed by Rita's would-be suitor Fred Elliott , though at that point Rita insisted her relationship with Alec was strictly business. In 1998 , after Rita's carbon monoxide ordeal, Alec's intentions became more serious, and Alec decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Rita. It was only with time - and two proposals - that he managed to win Rita over, but when his battle with the Duckworths became more heated, Rita saw the old Alec emerge and decided to warn Jack and Vera that Alec was going to evict them from the Rovers while they were away. When she confessed to Alec, Alec immediately turned against her, proving to her that he hadn't really changed. Alec left Weatherfield without saying goodbye to her.
In 2002 , when Bet Lynch returned to the area, Rita broached the subject of her engagement to Alec, causing Bet to reveal that Alec had described the entire ordeal as him "going through a nostalgic phase".
Bet Gilroy
Edit
1987 : Alec and Bet behind the bar
Alec and Bet Lynch crossed paths very briefly when Alec drank at the Rovers in 1975 when Bet was working behind the bar. Eleven years later, Bet was a year into her stewardship of the Rovers and still finding her feet in the job. Meanwhile, Alec was a dab hand in the licence trade and would seem to be a good fit in the flashy Graffiti Club , but in fact his was a lonely and dull job. Their relationship started out professionally - they were colleagues in the trade, and friendly rivals. Alec was attracted to Bet, and slowly moved their relationship in a more personal direction, while Bet appreciated Alec's agency help and advice and gradually began to trust him.
Alec and Bet had never properly dated before they became engaged; Alec fell out with Bet when he found out she thought he was using her to get to the Rovers. Their interactions afterwards were purely financial, although Alec demonstrated a great deal of faith in Bet by loaning her the money to buy the Rovers tenancy. Bet proved to be a financial risk but after recovering his losses, Alec offered marriage so that she could remain landlady. Alec was proposing a real marriage but, keeping his feelings for Bet close to his chest, he seemed to Bet to be suggesting a marriage of convenience. However, Bet knew that Alec was serious about her, and even though his proposal could have been more romantic, Bet accepted, and they were married on 9th September 1987 .
Alec and Bet couldn't have been more different. Bet was a fun-loving barmaid, sassy, and popular with the customers, and her pint-sized husband morose and miserly. They had in common a jaded, unsentimental outlook on life, which both helped them bond and gave rise to many catty exchanges between the pair. The spice of the Gilroy marriage was Alec and Bet's power games, with man and wife conspiring to get one over on each other. For example, in December 1988 , Alec found out from Paul Rigby that Bet and Stella successful turn at a health farm had actually been a disaster, with the women dropping out of the regime and spending the rest of their time feasting in a hotel. Alec got a kick out of making Bet talk about the health farm at every opportunity and going on about it in front of the customers, although Bet soon cottoned on and pretended to book the health farm for Alec to scare him.
The practicality of the Gilroy marriage both guaranteed its survival but also doomed it from the outset. When Alec got the opportunity to move to Southampton and manage the entertainment on the cruise ships, it was the move he'd been waiting for. At first, Bet went along with his plans, not having the heart to ask him not to take it, but her doubts were overwhelming and she decided to remain at the Rovers. When she broke the news to Alec, Alec accused her of trying to blackmail him into staying, but Bet knew that Alec would still go - he'd always done what he wanted. As he left for pastures new, Alec told Bet that she was the one walking out on their marriage, however much she tried to blame him.
During Alec's brief return to Weatherfield in 1995 , he and Bet put their own feelings aside to concentrate on stopping Vicky Arden from marrying Steve McDonald . Although Bet enjoyed having Alec around again, his presence made her certain that she'd done the right thing three year earlier; he viewed people as opportunities, and she was no exception.
Jack Duckworth
Edit
Alec was introduced to one Jack Duckworth when the Rovers cellarman asked him for a job at the Graffiti Club just after the Rovers fire. Reeking of desperation for work, Jack had nothing to recommend him but Alec seized upon his boast that most of the customers only went into the Rovers because of him; subject to him bringing that custom to the Graffiti, Alec agreed to take Jack on. Jack won the challenge by buying people free drinks at the establishment, but his employment at the Graffiti only lasted for a few weeks, as he returned to a refurbished Rovers when it opened.
Jack became a regular thorn in Alec's side when Alec became Rovers licensee. Lazy, shifty, and incompetent, "Jacko" was only useful for doing the donkey work. When Alec was in a bad mood, Jack was the usual recipient of his vitriol, although Alec was insulting and snappy with his instructions in any mood, often getting in jibes about Jack being henpecked by Vera . Jack was a perennial suck-up, and so he always took what Alec threw at him, but occasionally he would show loyalty to Newton & Ridley over the Gilroys, such as in 1989 when he informed the brewery about their break-up in hope of being offered the Rovers himself. Their relationship wasn't entirely acrimonious, however, with the pair often sharing their musings on the strange phenomenon of women.
1992 : Jack tries to hide from Alec when he moonlights as a pallbearer
A notable incident involving the pair occurred in March 1992 . Secretly working as a pallbearer, Jack feigned back trouble to get a day off work so he could do a funeral. Unluckily for Jack, it was one of Alec's friends who had died, and, when the pair made eye contact in the graveyard, Jack abandoned his post and ran off, with Alec giving chase. Jack made it home and covered himself up in a blanket, which fooled Alec when he arrived there moments later, intending to catch him out, but his eagle-eyed employer spotted the muddy shoes and sacked Jack on the spot for moonlighting. Fortunately, Alec was adverse to cellar work and Jack managed to grovel his way back into the Rovers.
Later, as business partners, Alec and Jack got on better; two years of being lord and master of the Rovers had taught Jack a thing or two, and he'd developed the confidence to put Alec in his place. The Alec of this period was a man biding his time, waiting patiently for his opportunity to oust the Duckworths for good, but keeping them sweet in the meantime.
Betty Turpin
Edit
"There's no getting rid of her, is there? She should be written into the deeds of this place."
Business was no place for sentiment, and when Alec first arrived at the Rovers, one member of staff who stood out for all the wrong reasons was 67-year-old Betty Turpin , the pub's longest-serving barmaid and hotpot queen. Alec saw Betty as the most expendable member of the Rovers staff, and any staffing crisis would invariably see Alec try to force her into retirement.
Their first clash came when Alec first took over the Rovers as manager in 1987 , when Betty walked out because of Alec watching her whenever she went over to the till, despite her stainless record at the pub in her years of loyal service. Bet managed to persuade Betty to return while Alec was off sick, and got him to be nicer to Betty as they needed her in the kitchen. However, even Betty's famous hotpot wasn't safe from Alec; he once tried to get her to put more salt in the recipe to make the customers thirsty, but Betty was having none of it. In 1992 , when the Health and Safety people were onto the Rovers about the state of the kitchen, Alec decided to stop serving food and unceremoniously fired Betty. Once again, she wasn't gone for long, as profits fell so much without her cooking that Alec decided to invest in a new kitchen and grovelled to Betty to get her to return. Alec made another attempt to oust her in 1997 when he got sick of her taking time off due to illness. He wrote Betty a note telling her she was fired and posted it through her letterbox, however he then had to retrieve it when Betty's husband Billy Williams passed away that same day. After the funeral, Vera Duckworth promised Betty a job for life.
1998 : Not what it looks like
Alec and Betty's closest encounter came on a night in 1998 , when Alec returned home feeling randy and climbed into bed in the dark with who he thought was Rita, but was actually Betty, who was staying at Rita's while the decorators were working at her house. Betty woke up and hit Alec with a pillow.
Vicky Arden
Edit
1990 : Alec tackles a "stupid little brat"
When Alec was introduced to his 12-year-old grand-daughter Victoria Arden by his son-in-law Tim , it was the second time he'd seen her that day; earlier, while stopped in a country lane, Alec had sharply reversed his car, nearly hitting Victoria while she was riding her pony Saracen . Steadying the horse, Vicky tetchily reminded Alec that there were "country codes for motorists" and made him switch off his car's engine until she'd made her way down the lane. Alec then moved off, labelling her a "stupid little brat" under his breath as he continued his search for his daughter Sandra 's house in Fernwood Place, Handforth .
Victoria (or "Vicky") was the apple of her grandfather's eye from their first (proper) meeting. The same age as Sandra when Alec split from Joyce, Vicky was a reminder to Alec of his failure as a father. She brought out his softer side, and they rarely exchanged a cross word. Occasionally Alec's mask slipped, such as in April 1992 when Vicky discovered that Alec had charged her estate for most of the cost of Saracen's new saddle which he had supposedly bought as a Christmas present, Alec having been unwilling to pay the full price.
Sandra and Tim's deaths meant that Alec's role in Vicky's life was more parental than grandparental. In 1992, when he caught Vicky kissing Steve McDonald , he warned Steve off as Steve was three years older than Vicky and had a criminal record. Shortly before leaving for Southampton , he caught Steve with another girl and told Vicky, ending their relationship. By 1995 , Steve was living a lifestyle beyond his means, and Vicky was willfully funding his business interests, having recently turned eighteen and inherited her parents' estate. When they decided to get married, Alec visited to make sure she didn't go through with it, doing everything he could think of from luring her away to Southampton to "discuss" the wedding, to offering Steve a lucrative job on the cruise ships and £5,000 to stay away from Vicky, all of which failed. Before leaving for Southampton, Alec remarked to Bet that he wasn't surprised that Vicky stuck to her guns - she was a Gilroy.
Alec maintained a good relationship with Vicky throughout her troubles with Steve but his return to Weatherfield was marred by her rapid decision to move on from the area. In 1999 , they opened a restaurant in Brighton together, however in November of that year Alec missed Vicky's wedding to Robert due to being held up in Dubai .
Background information
1986 : Roy Barraclough finally joins Coronation Street full-time on his seventh stint in the programme
Roy Barraclough was a Preston -born actor who began his career as a draughtsman, performing in local amateur dramatics groups in his spare time. He eventually quit to pursue an acting career, and trod the boards in repertory in Huddersfield , Stoke-on-Trent and Oldham , where he developed a love of the theatre. In the 1960s , he branched out into television, making a number of appearances on programmes for Granada and YTV , usually in guest parts.
In Episode 1194 , transmitted on 26th June 1972 , Barraclough made his debut appearance as Alec Gilroy, appearing in both of that week's episodes. At that point, Barraclough was one of Coronation Street 's most prolific bit part actors, having appeared in four previous episodes in different roles: a Blue John Mines Tour Guide in June 1965 , an electric guitar salesman in July 1967 , window cleaner I-spy Dwyer in June 1968 and finally restaurant-diner Harry in June 1970 . A four-episode reprisal of the character in 1975 cemented Barraclough's role as Alec, but with the actor enjoying success as part of a comedy partnership with Les Dawson , producers failed to tie him down to a regular role.
In 1986 , the producership of John G. Temple and Bill Podmore (as executive producer ) finally persuaded Barraclough to sign for the Street full-time, granting him eight weeks off a year to do a play. On signing the actor, Bill Podmore recalls: "It was never a great problem inducing Roy to make a fleeting visit to Weatherfield . The tough job was persuading him to stay. While many actors would give their right arm to land a Coronation Street contract, Roy's terrific talent meant he was rarely short of work, either on stage or the more lucrative television, and he was not easily tempted." (Coronation Street: The Inside Story, Bill Podmore, 1990) Episode 2632 (23rd June 1986) was Alec's first appearance as a regular.
Partnership with Bet
Edit
Alec appeared initially as manager of the Graffiti Club in Rosamund Street - a temporary home to the Rovers regulars while the pub was renovated - but writers quickly decided to focus on his sparring relationship with Bet Lynch . Barraclough enjoyed playing Alec's nasty side, and was surprised at the direction writers took the character: "The public loved to hate Alec because he was such a devious so-and-so and was up to every scam in the book. The viewers loved all that roguery, I think. Of course, when he got together with Bet he was really up against it because she had the measure of his craftiness. " (Fifty Years of Coronation Street, Headline Publishing Group, 2010).
In 1987 , Alec's relationship with Bet became more serious, and the couple decided to marry in what was the Street's unlikeliest marriage to date, with Alec becoming licensee of the Rovers. The decision stunned Barraclough and Julie Goodyear , who both had misgivings: "They were a most unlikely couple. I think that Julie and I both thought that. I wasn't very enamoured with the idea because I thought that the marriage, however unlikely it was, would of necessity mellow the characters down and I thought there was more fun to be had with the sharp banter that they had before." (The Coronation Street Story, Boxtree Limited, 1995) However, Podmore, who had recently returned to the position of producer , believed the comic potential of the pairing to be worth it: "Julie Goodyear's natural flair for comedy and Alec's droll, expressive face have produced some memorable moments. Theirs may have seemed an improbable match, but like Emily Bishop and Percy Sugden they make a perfect odd couple, and a fertile area for comedy writing." (Coronation Street: The Inside Story)
1987 : Alec and Bet marry for the Rovers
Alec's proposal to Bet was shot on location in Torremolinos , where Bet had been living for three months (as Julie Goodyear had been granted compassionate leave earlier that year to look after her seriously ill mother). When the time came to record the wedding, Roy Barraclough's mind was on matters more material: "These seamstresses had toiled for weeks, creating this Emmanuel-style wedding dress. I mean, if she fell off the Forth Bridge, she could have quite happily parachuted to safety. Yet there was no one available to hem up my trousers for the wedding suit. They were like concertinas, round the shoes, and in desperation the floor manager rushed forward and turned them up with sellotape. There I stood, with a crowd of what must have been 300 members of the public, who'd gathered outside the church to watch this very special wedding being filmed with these awful trousers." (The Coronation Street Story)
Despite his doubts, the benefits of Alec and Bet marrying were not lost on Roy Barraclough. Reflecting on his screen marriage, Barraclough: "He was very much taken with Bet, and marriage has changed him... For Alec, in that seedy little area, Bet represented showbusiness. She was the only one around there with style, panache, theatricality. Julie and I have worked very hard at making the two characters work as a couple, but we already knew each other so well. I performed at Oldham Rep more than 20 years ago when she was an assistant stage manager there and we've always been good friends and had a natural rapport and share the same, rather bizarre sense of humour. We have a lot of fun in rehearsals and joke a lot, which leads to a very relaxed atmosphere." (Life in the Street, Boxtree Limited, 1991)
Roy Barraclough calls time
Roy Barraclough /Alec behind the Rovers bar
In 1988 , with his contract due to expire, Barraclough decided to quit the programme, citing typecasting as a reason for his departure. His exit storyline was in early planning stages when he had a surprise change of heart, as Bill Podmore recalls: "He insisted on leaving before he became better known as Alec Gilroy than Roy Barraclough, and all my efforts to dissuade him failed. Suddenly, out of the blue, he had a change of heart and the scriptwriters were spared the task of inventing a plausible exit for Bet's tubby hubby. To this day I don't know what brought about the change of mind." (Coronation Street: The Inside Story) Barraclough references this in a 1990 interview: "For the foreseeable future, I will continue playing Alec because I'm enjoying it, but two years ago I thought I was going to pack it all in. The actor's instinct is to do it, move on and tackle another challenge. With soap, once you have established the character, it's just a case of learning a different situation each week. There's nothing else to explore. But Granada outlined all sorts of interesting ideas they had to develop the character and it sounded smashing." (Life in the Street)
One of the new ideas for Alec was to introduce his estranged daughter Sandra . For this storyline, Alec's backstory was changed from established history (given in Episode 2810 ) that he and first wife Joyce had separated while Joyce was still pregnant, to them divorcing when Sandra was thirteen years old. In 1991 , Chloe Newsome became a permanent addition to the cast, playing Alec's grand-daughter Vicky Arden (originally played by Helen Warburton in 1990 ).
However, Barraclough remained non-committal about his future with Coronation Street, a situation not helped by the addition of a third weekly episode in October 1989 . Barraclough: "It's damned hard work. If you're featured prominently in a storyline for five or six weeks, the pressure begins to get to you and the strain really starts to tell. It's very much bed and work. At the moment it's OK, but one could foresee a time when it could all get too much. I spent my life permanently tense." (Life in the Street) Roy Barraclough had another short absence from the Street over Christmas 1991.
In 1992 , Barraclough quit the Street, and this time he didn't change his mind. Although he expressed a desire for Alec to be killed off, writers instead chose to send him away to Southampton to resume his entertainment career, believing that Bet's new status as a separated woman had dramatic potential. Barraclough's first part after leaving was in Feed, a Tom Elliott -penned play at Bolton 's Octagon Theatre.
Comebacks
Edit
1996 cast portrait of Alec
When Julie Goodyear decided to leave Coronation Street after 25 years in 1995 , Roy Barraclough was persuaded to return as Alec for a storyline which saw the Gilroys reunite to stop Vicky marrying Steve McDonald . The story saw Bet and Alec pick up where they left off, entertaining viewers with their bickering one last time.
Alec next appeared in direct-to-video Coronation Street - The Feature Length Special , also in 1995, before returning to the regular programme full-time from April 1996 . Initially returning as manager of the local branch of Sunliners Travel Agency , Alec was eventually moved to his former position at the Rovers, this time opposite Jack and Vera Duckworth .
On 1st September 1998 , tabloids carried the story of Barraclough's resignation from the Street, with The Mirror carrying a quote from the actor: "It's true I've told them I want to go at the end of my six month contract. It's hard work these days and I've just completed a 19 week stint at the studios." Episode 4534 , transmitted on 30th December , was his final appearance.
In The Stars of the Street, a countdown of the top fifty Coronation Street characters released on DVD in 2010 , Alec was ranked at #37.
Quotes
"I've told Len you're here, he's just finishing a break in the games room." (First line, to Alan and Elsie Howard )
---
| i don't know |
What was the name of the local in Only Fools And Horses? | Only Fools and Horses.... (TV Series 1981–2003) - IMDb
IMDb
17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC
NEWS
There was an error trying to load your rating for this title.
Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later.
X Beta I'm Watching This!
Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends.
Error
Classic comedy following the misadventures of two Wheeler Dealer brothers Del Boy and Rodney Trotter who scrape their living by selling dodgy goods believing that next year they will be millionaires.
Creator:
The Nag's Head regulars head to the seaside town of Margate for an eventful day trip.
9.6
Raquel is nervous when she prepares to introduce her parents to Del Boy, following a long rift with them. As usual, Del is determined to make sure they have a meeting to remember. Meanwhile, Rodney ...
9.6
Arnie, a jeweller who retired early on health grounds, sells Del and his mates some gold chains but then says he wants them back for a previous customer. However he will ensure that he gets double ...
9.4
a list of 35 titles
created 06 Aug 2011
a list of 23 titles
created 15 Aug 2012
a list of 34 titles
created 23 Apr 2013
a list of 46 titles
created 31 Aug 2014
a list of 34 titles
created 10 Aug 2015
Title: Only Fools and Horses.... (1981–2003)
8.9/10
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.
17 wins & 15 nominations. See more awards »
Photos
Hotel owner Basil Fawlty's incompetence, short fuse, and arrogance form a combination that ensures accidents and trouble are never far away.
Stars: John Cleese, Prunella Scales, Andrew Sachs
Stuck in the middle of World War I, Captain Edmund Blackadder does his best to escape the banality of the war.
Stars: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Stephen Fry
Crazy sitcom about 3 priests and their housekeeper who live on Craggy Island, not the peaceful and quiet part of Ireland it seems!
Stars: Dermot Morgan, Ardal O'Hanlon, Frank Kelly
In the Tudor court of Elizabeth I, Lord Edmund Blackadder strives to win Her Majesty's favour while attempting to avoid a grisly fate should he offend her.
Stars: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Tim McInnerny
In the Regency era, Mr E. Blackadder serves as butler to the foppish numskull Prince George amidst the fads and crazes of the time.
Stars: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Hugh Laurie
Follows four friends and their antics during their final years of school.
Stars: Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison
Red Dwarf (TV Series 1988)
Comedy | Sci-Fi
The adventures of the last human alive and his friends, stranded three million years into deep space on the mining ship Red Dwarf.
Stars: Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules
Alan Partridge a failed television presenter whose previous exploits had featured in the chat-show parody Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, and who is now presenting a programed on local radio in Norwich.
Stars: Steve Coogan, Phil Cornwell, Simon Greenall
The story of an office that faces closure when the company decides to downsize its branches. A documentary film crew follow staff and the manager Brent as they continue their daily lives.
Stars: Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook
Top Gear (TV Series 2002)
Comedy | Talk-Show
The hosts talk about everything car-related. From new cars to how they're fueled, this show has it all.
Stars: Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May
The Simpsons (TV Series 1989)
Animation | Comedy
The satiric adventures of a working-class family in the misfit city of Springfield.
Stars: Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Julie Kavner
A comedy panel game in which being Quite Interesting is more important than being right. Stephen Fry is joined each week by four comedians to share anecdotes and trivia, and maybe answer some questions as well.
Stars: Alan Davies, Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey
Edit
Storyline
Hugely successful British comedy about of two streetwise London brothers: Del (Derek) and Rodney Trotter. In early years they shared their council flat with 'Grandad' (until the death of actor 'Lennard Pierce') later to be replaced by 'Uncle Albert', a WWII Navy veteran with an anecdote for any occasion. Del and Rodney are best described as lovable and harmless black market traders; they buy and (try to) sell almost anything and many an episode is based around some faulty/stolen stock bought by Del. As with other comedies from writer John Sullivan, the humor is devilishly engineered so as not to telegraph the jokes before the punchlines and there's always a strong cast of support characters. The series has won countless awards and ratings battles. Written by Rob Hartill
8 September 1981 (UK) See more »
Also Known As:
Did You Know?
Trivia
David Jason said the message of the show was the same one as The Darling Buds of May (1991): that the most important thing is what happens at home and with the family. See more »
Goofs
In Mother Natures Son, when the Trotter's check in to the hotel in Brighton, the porter is carrying Del Boy's leopard skin suitcase. This however, is the same suitcase that was stolen previously in Miami Twice Part 2. See more »
Quotes
Del Boy : Now look Rodney, Raquel, Raquel is a lady and when a lady is ready to... well, when she's ready to, she will let me know.
Del Boy : [thinks] I dunno.
Rodney : Maybe she'll put an announcement in the Sunday Sport.
The Greatest British Sitcom in History!
19 November 1999 | by riddler_1138-3
(Broken Arrow, Ok) – See all my reviews
`Only Fools and Horses' is by far the most funniest, original, and well developed British Comedy ever. Myself being a British citizen, I have to say that there is no other funnier show. Derrick "DelBoy" Trotter and his brother Rodney are put together, two of the funniest British actors to ever grace the Television screen. While there were many visual jokes on-screen, there were also many verbal assaults and comments that made this show legendary. Famous mostly for it's Cockney accents and truly original characters, this show was the Best of the Best. Even though it ended sadly in 1991, you can still buy the shows on video and watch them over and over again. They never grow old.
Out of 10.......11/10!
44 of 53 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
| Nags Head, North Carolina |
This Cornish pub is the name of a Daphne du Maurier novel and Alfred Hitchcock film. | Only Fools and Horses - Movies & TV on Google Play
Only Fools and Horses
Is it his sudden vegetarianism or another row with Cassandra that is making Rodney look so down these days? Del has other things on his mind right now, what with a job lot of wigs to shift and the ...
0
Season 7
Episode 6
Is it his sudden vegetarianism or another row with Cassandra that is making Rodney look so down these days? Del has other things on his mind right now, what with a job lot of wigs to shift and the baby due any day now.
Season 7
Best of Only Fools and Horses
0
Del is delighted that Raquel has finally agreed to move into his room. Meanwhile, Rodney's attempt to win back Cassandra is hampered by Del and Boycie's satellite dish escapades.
0
Del's latest money-spinner is 1,000 musical doorbells which play the National Anthem. Raquel, meanwhile, is rehearsing for Shakespeare's As You Like It - but does she stand a chance with the ever-h...
0
With Raquel pregnant, Del can't resist the offer of £600 for putting on a cabaret show. But too late he discovers that macho Latino crooner, Tony Angelino, has a problem with singing the 'wight' wo...
0
A school reunion in the Nag's Head is ruined when Roy Slater turns up. No one likes a bent copper, even if he has just come out of prison, and Slater has been responsible for arresting most of them...
0
Street crime is affecting the tenants of Nelson Mandela House, and when Uncle Albert is mugged Del decides to take the law into his own hands. After all, the law has taken him into their hands ofte...
0
Is it his sudden vegetarianism or another row with Cassandra that is making Rodney look so down these days? Del has other things on his mind right now, what with a job lot of wigs to shift and the ...
0
It's the age of city high fliers and yuppies, and Del - armed with his filofax, briefcase and red braces - is ready to make his first killing on the market. Meanwhile, Rodney's on the pull, having ...
0
Del continues to deal in dodgy goods including video recorders, crates of tomatoes and, most lethal of all, a box of dolls he acquires from Denzil. For the safety of the Trotter household it is bet...
0
Del strikes up a cushty deal for case of 18-carat chains. He manages to rope Mike, Boycie, Trigger, Albert and Rodney into a consortium in which no-one can lose. Or can they? Everything is looking ...
0
Rodney has won a Mediterranean holiday for three, courtesy of Del and the Megaflakes drawing competition. The only snag is that the competition was for kids, and he has to pretend he is a 14-year-o...
0
Del is suffering from terrible stomach pains and the health salts are not helping. However, he is still determined not to visit the doctors, so Rodney and Uncle Albert have to do some clever plotti...
0
Rodney thinks he's failed his diploma in computer science, which could cost him a good job at Cassandra's father's company. On top of that, he can't come up with his share of the dosh for the new f...
0
When a German damsel turns up in the Nag's Head, she is definitely in distress - nine months' worth of distress. Rodney is all beer and sympathy, but Del sees a way to turn it to account. Could thi...
0
Feeling guilty about his dodgy lifestyle, Del has a rare religious urge and heads to the confession booth of his local Catholic church. He is about to put some money into the collection box when Fa...
0
Del, Rodney, and Albert are mistakenly apprehended as shoplifters at the supermarket. Up in the manager's office they are soon joined by another shoplifter, Lennox Gibley. But Lennox has a gun and ...
0
Del and Rodney are competing for the affections of Trigger's young niece, Lisa. When Rodney falls asleep on the sunbed, Del spots an opportunity to scupper his chances and whacks up the heat. A red...
0
Rodney has received a £10,000 grant from the arts council to produce a video. He sets about to script the production, but Del has designs on the video gear. And Mickey knows a bird who is willing t...
0
Del's old business partner from the 1960s, Jumbo Mills, returns to the UK shores to strike a deal with Boycie. Jumbo has made his fortune after leaving rainy London for Australia with Del Boy's las...
0
Del rekindles an old romance with June, who he last saw around nineteen years ago, while Rodney is also lucky in love with a girl from the newsagents called Debby. It soon transpires that Debby is ...
0
It's a sad time in the Trotter household as Del and Rodney try to cope with the unexpected death of Grandad. The funeral provides a surprise addition to their flat though, as among the mourners is ...
0
The Trotters have fallen on hard times, largely due to Rodney's £500 investment in suntan lotion during one of the worst winters ever seen. But throughout all this trouble Uncle Albert keeps tellin...
0
Rodney has joined a new band, and Del immediately capitalises on this by booking them into The Shamrock Club to play for the St Patrick's night festivities. The gig descends into a fight and the ba...
0
For a mere £60 a week Del persuades Boycie and Marlene to entrust him with the care of their great dane puppy, Duke, when they go away on holiday. It's not long before Del and Rodney are worried th...
0
Mickey Pearce bets Rodney that he won't bring a girl to the Saturday night bash in The Nag's Head. Del helps out by setting Rodney up with Yvonne, an old flame who he knows isn't too picky who she ...
0
Del uses Denzil's redundancy money to finance a dodgy louvre door deal. But when it falls through, Denzil and his five brothers come looking for their money. With nowhere else to go, the Trotters v...
0
The wear and tear of climbing twelve floors in Mandela House takes its toll as Grandad's legs finally give way. And after a visit to the doctors' it is recommended that they seek some different hou...
0
Rodney is taking stock of his life, and at the age of 24 he is disappointed to find he has only risen to become Del's look-out while they're on the make with dodgy goods. After a bit of soul-search...
0
The Trotters take a trip down to Cornwall to make use of Boycie's country cottage for a spot of salmon poaching. On the way down, a policeman stops them to warn of an escaped axe murderer on the lo...
0
Del Boy enters the world of fine art dealing when he attempts to sell a posh antiques dealer a 'Queen Anne' original. She is wise to the ruse and coolly declines, only to meet Del again when she an...
0
Del Boy's arch-enemy from school turns up in Peckham, but this time he's known as Detective Inspector Slater from the Met Police. Having known Del and his wily ways since they were at school togeth...
0
When Rodney helps a drunken woman on the street, he is stunned when she looks petrified, accuses him of man-handling her, and promptly cries 'rape!'. Del realises his little bruv must have encounte...
0
Del arranges for Rodney and Grandad to redecorate Denzil and Corrine's flat. The problems begin when Rodney steams up the whole flat by leaving the kettle on, but the worst is yet to come when the ...
0
Del Boy and Grandad are horrified to hear that Rodney is dating a police officer. But while Grandad is worried about Sandra finding out about the Trotters' sullied reputation, Del is sweating over ...
0
When Trigger's grandmother passes away, the Trotters gather round to offer their condolences. Ever the considerate friend, Del offers to take some of her valuables off Trig's hands. He spots two ur...
0
Even Del's double headed coin can't seem to rescue him from financial trouble. Nevertheless, when Boycie challenges him to a winner-takes-all poker game, Del is eager to host it. As the night progr...
0
Rodney falls for Irene Mackay - a woman twice his age - and Del Boy isn't happy about it. She's married to a hard nut who's doing time in Parkhurst prison. Worse yet, he's about to be released. Whe...
0
When Del arranges a job redecorating a Chinese Restaurant, he unwisely decides to employ the services of Rodney 'Leonardo' Trotter and buys some paint from Trigger. It's only when they've finished ...
0
Trotters' Independent Trading Company has been forced off the market, with the continuing downpour keeping most of Peckham indoors. Del then spots an opportunity for discounted family holiday to Sp...
0
Chandelier cleaning is the Trotter's latest business opportunity. When they stop to help a posh sort who has broken down, Del overhears that the Lord of the Manor is having trouble getting his chan...
0
Del is confident that he's on to a winner with Trigger's consignment of Old English vinyl briefcases. How can his brother Rodney even think of abandoning the high flying world of trading for a real...
0
Del and Rodney are looking after Boycie's E Type Jaguar for the week. They head off for a night on the tiles and get lucky with a pair of sorts in Nicky and Michelle. The girls write their phone nu...
0
Eager to forge new business contacts, Del befriends Vimmal Malik, a wealthy businessman who seems eager to work with Trotters Independent Traders. All Del has to do to secure the deal of a lifetime...
0
Del meets Trigger in The Nags Head, and he's stunned to hear that Pauline Harris, his ex-fiancee, is back in Peckham - twelve years after she left him to go to America. But with her return, Del is ...
0
Del persuades the local bus company to hand over one of their open-top buses in exchange for Rodney working as a Trainee Nocturnal Security Officer - part of their latest company, Trotter Watch. Bu...
0
Another successful dodgy deal means Del has over a grand's worth of lead from a disused factory to get rid of. When Rodney points out the three tons of lead are in fact a DIY nuclear fall-out shelt...
0
Del is confident that he's on to a winner with Trigger's consignment of Old English vinyl briefcases. How can his brother Rodney even think of abandoning the high flying world of trading for a real...
0
Del and Rodney are looking after Boycie's E Type Jaguar for the week. They head off for a night on the tiles and get lucky with a pair of sorts in Nicky and Michelle. The girls write their phone nu...
0
Eager to forge new business contacts, Del befriends Vimmal Malik, a wealthy businessman who seems eager to work with Trotters Independent Traders. All Del has to do to secure the deal of a lifetime...
0
Del meets Trigger in The Nags Head, and he's stunned to hear that Pauline Harris, his ex-fiancee, is back in Peckham - twelve years after she left him to go to America. But with her return, Del is ...
0
Del persuades the local bus company to hand over one of their open-top buses in exchange for Rodney working as a Trainee Nocturnal Security Officer - part of their latest company, Trotter Watch. Bu...
0
Another successful dodgy deal means Del has over a grand's worth of lead from a disused factory to get rid of. When Rodney points out the three tons of lead are in fact a DIY nuclear fall-out shelt...
0
Rodney has run out of yuletide cheer, as the annual Trotter festivities are wearing thin. Burnt turkey, charred Christmas pudding, the same old things on television, and nothing but a book lent to ...
0
Del Boy and Grandad are horrified to hear that Rodney is dating a police officer. But while Grandad is worried about Sandra finding out about the Trotters' sullied reputation, Del is sweating over ...
0
When Trigger's grandmother passes away, the Trotters gather round to offer their condolences. Ever the considerate friend, Del offers to take some of her valuables off Trig's hands. He spots two ur...
0
Even Del's double headed coin can't seem to rescue him from financial trouble. Nevertheless, when Boycie challenges him to a winner-takes-all poker game, Del is eager to host it. As the night progr...
0
Rodney falls for Irene Mackay - a woman twice his age - and Del Boy isn't happy about it. She's married to a hard nut who's doing time in Parkhurst prison. Worse yet, he's about to be released. Whe...
0
When Del arranges a job redecorating a Chinese Restaurant, he unwisely decides to employ the services of Rodney 'Leonardo' Trotter and buys some paint from Trigger. It's only when they've finished ...
0
Trotters' Independent Trading Company has been forced off the market, with the continuing downpour keeping most of Peckham indoors. Del then spots an opportunity for discounted family holiday to Sp...
0
Chandelier cleaning is the Trotter's latest business opportunity. When they stop to help a posh sort who has broken down, Del overhears that the Lord of the Manor is having trouble getting his chan...
0
Whilst drowning his yuletide sorrows in the Nag's Head, Del falls hook, line and sinker for the lovely Heather and it seems that Rodney may even be getting a sister-in-law for Christmas.
0
The wear and tear of climbing twelve floors in Mandela House takes its toll as Grandad's legs finally give way. And after a visit to the doctors' it is recommended that they seek some different hou...
0
Rodney is taking stock of his life, and at the age of 24 he is disappointed to find he has only risen to become Del's look-out while they're on the make with dodgy goods. After a bit of soul-search...
0
The Trotters take a trip down to Cornwall to make use of Boycie's country cottage for a spot of salmon poaching. On the way down, a policeman stops them to warn of an escaped axe murderer on the lo...
0
Del Boy enters the world of fine art dealing when he attempts to sell a posh antiques dealer a 'Queen Anne' original. She is wise to the ruse and coolly declines, only to meet Del again when she an...
0
Del Boy's arch-enemy from school turns up in Peckham, but this time he's known as Detective Inspector Slater from the Met Police. Having known Del and his wily ways since they were at school togeth...
0
When Rodney helps a drunken woman on the street, he is stunned when she looks petrified, accuses him of man-handling her, and promptly cries 'rape!'. Del realises his little bruv must have encounte...
0
Del arranges for Rodney and Grandad to redecorate Denzil and Corrine's flat. The problems begin when Rodney steams up the whole flat by leaving the kettle on, but the worst is yet to come when the ...
0
Reg Trotter, absentee father to Del and Rodney, unexpectedly arrives to celebrate Christmas with his boys, having been recently diagnosed with a hereditary blood disorder. When it is revealed that ...
0
Del rekindles an old romance with June, who he last saw around nineteen years ago, while Rodney is also lucky in love with a girl from the newsagents called Debby. It soon transpires that Debby is ...
0
It's a sad time in the Trotter household as Del and Rodney try to cope with the unexpected death of Grandad. The funeral provides a surprise addition to their flat though, as among the mourners is ...
0
The Trotters have fallen on hard times, largely due to Rodney's £500 investment in suntan lotion during one of the worst winters ever seen. But throughout all this trouble Uncle Albert keeps tellin...
0
Rodney has joined a new band, and Del immediately capitalises on this by booking them into The Shamrock Club to play for the St Patrick's night festivities. The gig descends into a fight and the ba...
0
For a mere £60 a week Del persuades Boycie and Marlene to entrust him with the care of their great dane puppy, Duke, when they go away on holiday. It's not long before Del and Rodney are worried th...
0
Mickey Pearce bets Rodney that he won't bring a girl to the Saturday night bash in The Nag's Head. Del helps out by setting Rodney up with Yvonne, an old flame who he knows isn't too picky who she ...
0
Del uses Denzil's redundancy money to finance a dodgy louvre door deal. But when it falls through, Denzil and his five brothers come looking for their money. With nowhere else to go, the Trotters v...
0
Season Only
All Del Boy has to do is collect a few diamonds from Amsterdam and bring them back to the UK and he'll earn a cool 15K. So why does he end up on a boat twice as far away in the opposite direction?
0
When a German damsel turns up in the Nag's Head, she is definitely in distress - nine months' worth of distress. Rodney is all beer and sympathy, but Del sees a way to turn it to account. Could thi...
0
Feeling guilty about his dodgy lifestyle, Del has a rare religious urge and heads to the confession booth of his local Catholic church. He is about to put some money into the collection box when Fa...
0
Del, Rodney, and Albert are mistakenly apprehended as shoplifters at the supermarket. Up in the manager's office they are soon joined by another shoplifter, Lennox Gibley. But Lennox has a gun and ...
0
Del and Rodney are competing for the affections of Trigger's young niece, Lisa. When Rodney falls asleep on the sunbed, Del spots an opportunity to scupper his chances and whacks up the heat. A red...
0
Rodney has received a £10,000 grant from the arts council to produce a video. He sets about to script the production, but Del has designs on the video gear. And Mickey knows a bird who is willing t...
0
Del's old business partner from the 1960s, Jumbo Mills, returns to the UK shores to strike a deal with Boycie. Jumbo has made his fortune after leaving rainy London for Australia with Del Boy's las...
0
Rodney meets Vicky, a seemingly impoverished artist who it transpires is the daughter of the Duke of Maylebury. Having obtained a pair of tickets to the sold-out production of Carmen, Rodders seems...
0
Trotters Independent Trading is causing mayhem with their faulty RAJAH computers. Rodders gets a new job at a funeral directors, while Albert and Del hit the health market with their miracle cure ...
0
A feature length episode, which sees an unusually good month for Trotters Independent Trading. An unprecedented demand for ladies razors has meant Del and Rodney can escape the daily struggle and e...
0
It's the age of city high fliers and yuppies, and Del - armed with his filofax, briefcase and red braces - is ready to make his first killing on the market. Meanwhile, Rodney's on the pull, having ...
0
Del continues to deal in dodgy goods including video recorders, crates of tomatoes and, most lethal of all, a box of dolls he acquires from Denzil. For the safety of the Trotter household it is bet...
0
Del strikes up a cushty deal for case of 18-carat chains. He manages to rope Mike, Boycie, Trigger, Albert and Rodney into a consortium in which no-one can lose. Or can they? Everything is looking ...
0
Rodney has won a Mediterranean holiday for three, courtesy of Del and the Megaflakes drawing competition. The only snag is that the competition was for kids, and he has to pretend he is a 14-year-o...
0
Del is suffering from terrible stomach pains and the health salts are not helping. However, he is still determined not to visit the doctors, so Rodney and Uncle Albert have to do some clever plotti...
0
Rodney thinks he's failed his diploma in computer science, which could cost him a good job at Cassandra's father's company. On top of that, he can't come up with his share of the dosh for the new f...
0
Cassandra organises a dinner party, inviting her yuppie boss and his wife in the hope of getting a promotion. Del and Uncle Albert soon arrive to put their feet firmly in their mouths and ruin the ...
0
Rodney seems to have it all, a beautiful wife, a cushy job at the father-in-law's printing company, and a lovely home. Del is very happy too, Raquel has agreed to live with him having returned from...
0
Del is delighted that Raquel has finally agreed to move into his room. Meanwhile, Rodney's attempt to win back Cassandra is hampered by Del and Boycie's satellite dish escapades.
0
Del's latest money-spinner is 1,000 musical doorbells which play the National Anthem. Raquel, meanwhile, is rehearsing for Shakespeare's As You Like It - but does she stand a chance with the ever-h...
0
With Raquel pregnant, Del can't resist the offer of £600 for putting on a cabaret show. But too late he discovers that macho Latino crooner, Tony Angelino, has a problem with singing the 'wight' wo...
0
A school reunion in the Nag's Head is ruined when Roy Slater turns up. No one likes a bent copper, even if he has just come out of prison, and Slater has been responsible for arresting most of them...
0
Street crime is affecting the tenants of Nelson Mandela House, and when Uncle Albert is mugged Del decides to take the law into his own hands. After all, the law has taken him into their hands ofte...
0
Is it his sudden vegetarianism or another row with Cassandra that is making Rodney look so down these days? Del has other things on his mind right now, what with a job lot of wigs to shift and the ...
0
It's Damien's Christening - and a chance for Del to make some money with his pre-blessed wine, and for his Godparents, Rodney and Cassandra, to get together as their marriage is having problems. Wh...
0
In Miami, mafia godfather Don Occhetti is on trial and facing a life sentence. Del could be his double, and when the Occhetti boys spot him in a nightclub, they realise this could be their chance t...
0
Del and Rodney are strapped for Christmas cash. To make matters worse, while Cassandra finally has her promotion, Raquel is suffering from post-natal depression. Rodney is concerned that Del has lo...
0
Raquel is worried that Santa will be too busy down the 121 Club getting drunk, to provide Damien with any presents. Rodney raises the problem with Del, who explains he is brokering a deal to get ho...
0
Rodney's fertility schedule is wearing him down. Such is Cassandra's need to have a baby, he buys her a rabbit, Roger, to care for until a little one arrives. Del has a shipment of Latvian alarm c...
0
Del considers the snip (and regrets flogging Doctor Singh that dodgy paint) and, with the help of a new man's manual, is learning to give attention to Raquel - if only she'd stop talking while he's...
0
Raquel's parents are coming to lunch so Del pulls out all the stops - if only Uncle Albert knew the difference between coffee and gravy granules. The next morning, Rodders' stock-take reveals Trott...
0
It's been five years since Del and Rodney drove off into the sunset to the tune of £6.5 million. Now they're back and thanks to a dodgy South American investment, Trotters Independent Trading Compa...
0
Over the years, fans will have come to know the Trotters and their friends from Peckham as well as they know their own family. They have followed every up and down of their lives, including the dea...
0
Del, Rodney and Boycie are in jail in France for kidnapping. The stowaway in their van whom they assumed was an illegal immigrant turned out to be an important businessman who had been trapped in t...
0
Chandelier cleaning is the Trotter's latest business opportunity. When they stop to help a posh sort who has broken down, Del overhears that the Lord of the Manor is having trouble getting his chan...
0
It's the age of city high fliers and yuppies, and Del - armed with his filofax, briefcase and red braces - is ready to make his first killing on the market. Meanwhile, Rodney's on the pull, having ...
0
Del continues to deal in dodgy goods including video recorders, crates of tomatoes and, most lethal of all, a box of dolls he acquires from Denzil. For the safety of the Trotter household it is bet...
0
Rodney has won a Mediterranean holiday for three, courtesy of Del and the Megaflakes drawing competition. The only snag is that the competition was for kids, and he has to pretend he is a 14-year-o...
0
Is it his sudden vegetarianism or another row with Cassandra that is making Rodney look so down these days? Del has other things on his mind right now, what with a job lot of wigs to shift and the ...
0
With Raquel pregnant, Del can't resist the offer of £600 for putting on a cabaret show. But too late he discovers that macho Latino crooner, Tony Angelino, has a problem with singing the 'wight' wo...
0
Del and Rodney are strapped for Christmas cash. To make matters worse, while Cassandra finally has her promotion, Raquel is suffering from post-natal depression. Rodney is concerned that Del has lo...
0
Rodney's fertility schedule is wearing him down. Such is Cassandra's need to have a baby, he buys her a rabbit, Roger, to care for until a little one arrives. Del has a shipment of Latvian alarm c...
0
Raquel's parents are coming to lunch so Del pulls out all the stops - if only Uncle Albert knew the difference between coffee and gravy granules. The next morning, Rodders' stock-take reveals Trott...
0
When a German damsel turns up in the Nag's Head, she is definitely in distress - nine months' worth of distress. Rodney is all beer and sympathy, but Del sees a way to turn it to account. Could thi...
0
Season Only
Description
Britain's best-loved comedy follows the dodgy deals and money making schemes of the quarrelsome Trotter family. From their high-rise council flat in South London, two brothers - Del-Boy, a crafty, confident wheeler dealer, and the lanky, eternal 'plonker' Rodney - are forever chasing that big business deal that will allow them to escape the grim realities of Nelson Mandela House and live the life of luxury. They remain endearingly undeterred as they duck and weave through setbacks and failures, spurred on by Del-Boy's cheerful cries of 'This time next year, we'll be millionaires!'
My review
1 38
Jane Lawn
The best ever in my opinion! Best ever comedy show of all time pass + future and could off kept going till the end of time. But I'm afraid even the actors could not hang on in there. Just before Christmas the writer JOHN SULLIVAN DIED + a few weeks ago Roger Lloyd Pack passed away. So I expect that it really is time to hang up there suit cases. SO ALL I CAN SAY NOW IS R.I.P FOOLS and HORSES.JANE LAWN
Paul Carter
A classic but ruined by cuts. I have the originals transfered from video. Most people are unaware that the BBC have repeatedly cut and buchered the series pandering to the politically correct brigade. The most recent cuts came with the creators sons giving permission for even more cuts. I expect purely for financial gain. I bought the boxed set a few years back. After comparing with the original version I gave the set to charity shop. So sad what they have done to a TV classic.
Stuart Evans
Re-edited Rubbish not a patch on the original individual silver case DVD'S. The 1 star is not in relation to the show it is a must have comedy classic every episode is a laugh a minute in it's original form but not in this re-edited format as it is missing many crucial funny scenes including copyrighted music so the bbc edited it out so they didn't have to pay the performing rights society any royalties so i will never buy the digital version or any of the box sets because of this re-editing that was done to this show so i will keep to my individual silver case dvd's series one to seven are not re-edited but four or five of the silver case dvd specials have also been re-edited as well total b**tardisation of a great comedy sitcom from the BBC GRRR ! 😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠.
kevdavid94
Can't beat a bit of Del Boy Best British comedy ever made. You can laugh and laugh at this and then watch it again, and laugh your socks off a little more.
Classic TV series Not sure why everyone is complaining about cuts to this series because, from what I've seen so far, there doesn't seem to be any or many. Tea for Three for example doesn't appear to have the cuts mentioned on the OFAH website. And I frequently hear racist language that was supposedly removed as well. My only gripe is that the picture quality isn't that great but I guess that can't be helped given the age of the series.
Louise Pike
Only fools and horses Brilliant series, been watching it my whole life, i could never get tired of it.. It's stood the test of time and is still my number 1 comedy
User reviews
Jane Lawn March 23, 2014
The best ever in my opinion! Best ever comedy show of all time pass + future and could off kept going till the end of time. But I'm afraid even the actors could not hang on in there. Just before Christmas the writer JOHN SULLIVAN DIED + a few weeks ago Roger Lloyd Pack passed away. So I expect that it really is time to hang up there suit cases. SO ALL I CAN SAY NOW IS R.I.P FOOLS and HORSES.JANE LAWN
Full Review
Paul Carter April 22, 2016
A classic but ruined by cuts. I have the originals transfered from video. Most people are unaware that the BBC have repeatedly cut and buchered the series pandering to the politically correct brigade. The most recent cuts came with the creators sons giving permission for even more cuts. I expect purely for financial gain. I bought the boxed set a few years back. After comparing with the original version I gave the set to charity shop. So sad what they have done to a TV classic.
Full Review
Stuart Evans October 3, 2016
Re-edited Rubbish not a patch on the original individual silver case DVD'S. The 1 star is not in relation to the show it is a must have comedy classic every episode is a laugh a minute in it's original form but not in this re-edited format as it is missing many crucial funny scenes including copyrighted music so the bbc edited it out so they didn't have to pay the performing rights society any royalties so i will never buy the digital version or any of the box sets because of this re-editing that was done to this show so i will keep to my individual silver case dvd's series one to seven are not re-edited but four or five of the silver case dvd specials have also been re-edited as well total b**tardisation of a great comedy sitcom from the BBC GRRR ! 😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠.
Full Review
kevdavid94 March 4, 2014
Can't beat a bit of Del Boy Best British comedy ever made. You can laugh and laugh at this and then watch it again, and laugh your socks off a little more.
Full Review
October 18, 2016
Classic TV series Not sure why everyone is complaining about cuts to this series because, from what I've seen so far, there doesn't seem to be any or many. Tea for Three for example doesn't appear to have the cuts mentioned on the OFAH website. And I frequently hear racist language that was supposedly removed as well. My only gripe is that the picture quality isn't that great but I guess that can't be helped given the age of the series.
Full Review
Louise Pike December 27, 2014
Only fools and horses Brilliant series, been watching it my whole life, i could never get tired of it.. It's stood the test of time and is still my number 1 comedy
Full Review
Darryl Meechan June 28, 2016
Edited. 😠 Before i start, only fools and horses is my most favourite show ever. I won't be buying the digital collection, after reading some of the reviews about it being cut. Apparently some of the best and funniest scenes have been removed. I'll just stick with my original silver case dvd's that have every episode uncut. Shame on you BBC for ruining the best TV show ever. 😠
Full Review
paul wey October 16, 2016
Best fullest set you'll get few edits most restored upped to four star as tea for three is unedited version most edits from DVD are taken off so these are Ireton full except royal flush writers own edits the scene where del says Cassandra boss is yuppie despite a review is there minute 14 sadly even the p word that imo shpuld be edited simply not needed I've never used that word nor anyone I know those who did were most rare jolly boys has a whipping nine minutes restored tea fir two a minute or so tea scene at flat fully restored
Full Review
Marisa Hunt July 28, 2015
Stands out above the rest You cannot beat the antics of the trotter family and friends to make you laugh one minute and then with the next line have you close to tears. John sullivan's excellent writing larger than life characters, spot on observational humour and one liners plus David Jasons Derek Trotter will have you watching again and again.
Full Review
David Bond March 27, 2014
nothing better! red dwarf, men behaving badly and only fools and horses were the best comedys ever and still are. The americans can only dream their comedies were even half as good. rip trigger (Rodger) and john.
Full Review
Harry Anderson February 23, 2014
You plonker! Where do I start. What a fantastic show, aided by the performances of Sir David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst in roles that could become as equally dramatic as they were comedic. I have the complete boxset of this magnificent series and have seen every episode at least five times. It was a shame when it ended.
Full Review
Alex Cook January 31, 2015
Only Fools and Horses Officially the BEST COMEDY of all time. Based in a place called Peckham which is just round the corner from where I am from. I used to run a boozer there that was just like the real NAGS HEAD.
Full Review
Kevinbarry Brown January 16, 2015
Only Fools and Horses In my opinion they should be selling these seasons for triple the price they are worth it that much! Bargain at its finest
Full Review
Rae Smith December 29, 2014
Only fools and horses Wach it on TV it is very funny and relaxed but some rude words in there only for( 10 to 100) year old not (0 to9 year old )
Full Review
April 4, 2014
Only fools and horses Just a timeless classic !! My grandad showed me I am n showing my daughter this will be on forever jade 24 Cheshire x
Full Review
Dave Clarke November 15, 2014
Only fools and horses Love this show a big big fan all ways will if it only kept going
Full Review
Ava Eades March 5, 2014
Only falls and horses So so so so so funny dell boy is the funniest one and I'm Not saying it to be nasty it's just that grampas old and Why does grampa have a beard. ?
Full Review
The HoneyMonsta April 20, 2014
Absolutely brilliant! By far the best sitcom their is, Americans tried to replicate it, Aus tried to replicate it, in fact many parts of the world tried to replicate it, but their is only one that stands out amongst them all! I've been watching Only Fools all my life (26 now) and it never gets old, never gets boring! 11/10 :-)
Full Review
October 1, 2016
Missing scenes Hey Google, why do your downloads of only fools and horses have missing scenes, and why do my saved episodes require re downloading almost every week!!
Full Review
Paul Riches February 21, 2016
I love Only Fools. The 2 stars is not a rating on the TV show, it's a reflection that it is not complete. The Jolly Boy's Outing episode is not complete. One of the best scenes where Dell boy tells Casandra's boss that he is a yuppy is not there :-(. I have emailed Google about this and received no response and the episode remains incomplete.
Warren Alexander-Dean October 6, 2014
ONLY FOOLS AND HORESE Best British comedy ever!
raymond clarke July 11, 2015
Only fools and horses Brilliant comedy they don't make like this anymore
Berni N'dure April 27, 2016
Best ever comedy Laughed till I cried
Jon Cloke December 18, 2015
Only Fools & Horses Extremely funny, as usual!!
Full Review
Joe Hoskins July 12, 2015
Joseph hoskins I really love this as I once lived in Peckham and was once in the background of a market seen for about 12 to 13 seconds but I did not meet David Jason. And did not know I was in it till it was on TV lucky me..
Full Review
Keith Carver June 22, 2016
Only fools and horses Best comedy ever made nothing like it on tv anymore watched every episode ever made including specials
Full Review
Ian Butcher August 15, 2016
Great show I will not be buying this from Google play as it has been edited to suit the pc brigade and the BBC, yet no where does it it advise that this is the case....so wrong on every level.....Google, start being up front with us, the buying public.!!!!!!!
Full Review
emma ayres October 2, 2014
Only fools and horses Every episode love em and I can't wait for convention this month again to meet the cast again good day that is
Patrick Jarvis April 17, 2016
Only fools and horses One of my favourite shows. It is really entertaining and funny. :)
Full Review
David Myers January 15, 2014
Edited? Does anyone know if these are edited as many of the DVD's are? Episodes like Yuppy Love were badly edited because of music issues I believe
Stuart Kilpatrick October 4, 2014
Only fools Never stop laughing!
Stuart Flethcer July 18, 2014
Only Fools and Horses The Greatest TV show EVER!
jamie mabon August 4, 2016
Only Fools And Horses I Love It ❤❤❤
Alan Burgess July 5, 2015
Only Fools and Horses The best and funniest sitcom ever made
Paul Barnet October 10, 2015
Only fools and horses Comedy at its best
Thomas Crabtree July 13, 2015
Only fools and horses Totally priceless comedy
Full Review
Trigger Roddy March 12, 2016
Only fools n horses Awesome the best TV show of all time. Never a bad episode every one a great belly wobble lol . More more more we want more.
david campbell January 14, 2017
Only Fools And Horses Comedy.
Karl Haldane July 19, 2016
Only Fools And Horses. It's comedy. Brilliant.
| i don't know |
What is the name of the Edinburgh pub favoured by Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus? | The Edinburgh of Rankin & Rebus Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland
The Edinburgh of Rankin & Rebus
Leith & the River Forth from Calton Hill
Edinburgh is home to author Ian Rankin and to his best known creation, Inspector John Rebus. Rebus is the focus of a series of detective novels that have sold millions of copies worldwide in 20 languages. But the city is not just the backdrop to the Rebus novels, it is also a central character in most of them. Through Rebus many people have come to know Edinburgh less as the beautiful capital of a newly reborn nation than as a starkly monochrome city of crime, sleaze and overstressed police.
You can experience the Edinburgh of Rankin & Rebus from the gripping pages of the novels, and find out more from the official fan site. But a growing number of people from all corners of the globe are travelling to Edinburgh to see the actual locations from the books for themselves: the pubs, the public buildings, the police station where Rebus works and even the mortuary where autopsies on victims are held.
The best way to follow in the footsteps of Edinburgh's most celebrated detective is by taking one of several Rebus guided walks operated by Rebustours. These two-hour walking tours introduce you to the world of Rebus and show you a variety of historic locations not normally part of the conventional tourist trail. More information and online booking is available from the Rebustours website.
Each two-hour walk is different, with a brand new one on offer which takes a route through the Old Town, past the Holyrood Scottish Parliament site and then through some charming Regency terraces overlooking Arthur's Seat, the craggy landscape that dominates many of the books. A more established Rebus walk follows the hidden Water of Leith in the city centre which takes as its theme the connections between Robert Louis Stevenson and Ian Rankin's books.
Judging by worldwide sales and by the thousands of fans who flock to Ian Rankin's book-signings and appearances at events across the world, his fan base extends to millions of readers, many of whom have not yet visited Edinburgh but who are nonetheless fascinated by his depiction of John Rebus, the grumpy, dishevelled, divorced and dysfunctional Edinburgh detective. The character's very name is a giveaway: a rebus is the Latin for a picture puzzle, a mystery that has to be unlocked
The first Inspector Rebus book was Knots and Crosses, published in 1987, and Ian Rankin admits he did not set out to write a series, still less a definitive crime novel. He saw it as a 20th-century reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson fully recognized the divisions within the Edinburgh of his time. For him it was forever a place of contrasts: rich and poor, good and evil, daytime virtues and nightly lusts, the slums of the Old Town overlooking the surface splendours of the Georgian New Town.
Ian Rankin, like Stevenson a graduate of Edinburgh University, acknowledges not just Stevenson as an influence but also other classic Scottish writers. James Hogg's eerie work Notes and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) is regarded as one of the first psychological thrillers, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is based on his own teacher, the forensic expert Dr Joseph Bell, who was a formative influence on Doyle as a medical student at the University. Muriel Spark's novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) reveals the divisions within Edinburgh society as seen through the eyes of girls at a private school in the 1930s.
The Rebus books are published in the UK by Orion and by other publishers overseas. They are also available on audio tape and CD. Each novel is a complete story in its own right so you can jump into the series at any stage. But as Rebus himself matures as a character, many prefer to read the books in chronological order. Rankin has also published three collections of short stories, some of which also feature John Rebus, along with other books penned under the name Jack Harvey.
Part of the great fascination of the Rebus series is the way Ian Rankin draws on real events or places in weaving his plots. The Falls revolves around some eerie wooden dolls on display in the Museum of Scotland, and links them to legends surrounding Rosslyn Chapel. Set in Darkness involves the building of the new Scottish Parliament building. And a more recent novel A Question of Blood mixes a number of real events, including a military helicopter crash similar to a real tragedy on the Mull of Kintyre.
And perhaps the most real of all the many settings in the books is John Rebus's favourite pub, the Oxford Bar. This can be found in a back street in Edinburgh's New Town: and just happens also to be Ian Rankin's favourite pub...
West Bow
| The Oxford Bar |
Shaun of the Dead and Minder featured watering holes with what name common to both? | A Pint With Rebus - All About Beer
A Pint With Rebus
January 1, 2012 By Ian Rankin
I arrived in Edinburgh as a student in October 1978, and began my love affair with the city’s pubs. At first, I stuck to the student haunts but was soon introduced to “proper” bars such as Bennets on Leven Street and The Café Royal Bar in the city center. I was in the process of becoming a writer, but it took a few years for me to produce my first novel. It was called The Flood and was a farewell of sorts to my old self and the town where I grew up. For my second book, I decided Edinburgh would be the setting–the Edinburgh the tourist never saw. It’s probably for this reason that I created a detective called Rebus as the central character–cops have access to different layers of society, meaning I could explore Edinburgh’s complexity.
In the first few Rebus books, he worked in a fictitious police station and drank in a series of made-up pubs. At some point, however, I realized I was making unnecessary work for myself, so moved him into real-life locations. My favoured pub in Edinburgh by this time was The Oxford Bar. It’s the classic old-fashioned drinking den–a place you go for quiet contemplation or to share the local news and gossip. Back in the day, many cops drank there when off-duty. Politicians and the city’s movers and shakers might also take up residence for an hour or two, but democracy reigned–if you had the price of a pint on you, you were as good as anyone.
Although the Oxford Bar is fairly central (maybe a three-minute walk from Princes Street, Edinburgh’s main shopping thoroughfare), it is also tucked down a narrow side street. To me, it represented the hidden city. It was perfect for Rebus and my books. I’d been introduced to the place by a student flatmate of mine, Jon Curt, who happened to work there part time as a barman. The owner at that time was John Gates, so I decided to make them a double act in my novels–the city’s pathologists, consulted by Rebus on occasion, are Professor Gates and Dr Curt. Also mentioned in the books is the “rudest barman in Scotland.” His name is Harry–in real-life as in fiction. When John Gates retired, Harry bought the pub from him, so he can’t really afford to be so rude to his clientele these days, though he still makes the effort for me on occasion.
There are now Rebus walking-tours of the city, and fans often stop off at the Oxford Bar to see if Rebus still drinks there. One lady was told that I was reading a newspaper in the back room. She approached me, but then asked for proof. She reckoned Harry had been setting her up for a practical joke. I couldn’t be Ian Rankin because I didn’t look like Rebus. I showed her some ID, but I’m still not sure she was convinced.
The Oxford Bar isn’t the only pub mentioned in my books. Kay’s Bar, the Abbotsford, the Royal Oak and the Sheep Heid Inn are all visited by Rebus. Then there are the places he’s not yetthe series is over; there is no yet been to, but I like: Sandy Bell’s and the Bow Bar and the Last Drop Tavern, Swany’s Lounge Bar and Mather’s which one; there are threeand Clark’s and The Bailie. These all share common characteristics: A good choice of real ales; no bells and whistles; not too noisy; and focussing on beer rather than food. You can sit with a book or the sports pages and not be interrupted. But if you want conversation, there’ll be someone at the bar happy to oblige. These are “locals” in the best sense of the word.
Edinburgh is a small city blessed with a wealth of quality watering holes. We used to accommodate more than 40 breweries, but now only have one–the Caledonian Brewery. They make my favorite beer (and Rebus’,, too): Deuchars IPA. To celebrate the inspector’s 20th anniversary in 2007, Caledonian brewed a beer called Rebus Ale. Only for a month, but how amazing to walk into the Oxford Bar and ask for a pint of the stuff! In fact, I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it. Cheers!
Ian Rankin
Ian Rankin is the author of over 30 bestselling novels, most recently The Complaints. He lives and drinks in Edinburgh.
1 Comment
| i don't know |
What is the second book of the bible? | Introduction to the Book of Exodus
Introduction to the Book of Exodus
Introduction to the Book of Exodus
Second Book of the Bible & of the Pentateuch
By Austin Cline
What is Exodus?
Exodus is a Greek word meaning "exit" or "departure." In Hebrew, though, this book is called Semot or "Names". Whereas Genesis contained many stories about many different people over the course of 2,000 years, Exodus focus on a few people, a few years, and one overarching story: the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Facts About the Book of Exodus
Exodus is the second book of the Bible, the Torah and, the Pentateuch
Exodus has 40 Chapters & 1,213 Verses
Exodus starts 300 years after Genesis ends
Chapter & verse divisions are of Christian origin
Moses: Leads the Hebrews out of Egypt and towards Canaan .
Aaron: Moses' older brother
Pharaoh: Unnamed ruler of Egypt, responsible for keeping the Hebrews enslaved
Who Wrote the Book of Exodus?
Traditionally the authorship of the Book of Exodus was ascribed to Moses, but scholars began to reject that in the 19th century.
With the development of the Documentary Hypothesis , the scholarly view on who wrote Exodus has settled around an early version being written by the Yahwist author in the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE and the final form being put together in the 5th century BCE.
When Was the Book of Exodus Written?
The earliest version of Exodus probably wasn't written any earlier than the 6th century BCE, during the exile in Babylon. Exodus was probably in its final form, more or less, by the 5th century BCE but some believe that revisions continued down through the 4th century BCE.
When Did the Exodus Occur?
Whether the exodus described in the Book of Exodus even occurred is debated — no archaeological evidence whatsoever has been found for anything like it. What's more, the exodus as described is impossible given the number of people. Thus some scholars argue that there was no "mass exodus," but rather a long-term migration from Egypt to Canaan.
Among those who believe that a mass exodus did occur, there is debate over whether it occurred earlier or later. Some believe that it occurred under the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep II, who ruled from 1450 to 1425 BCE. Others believe that it occurred under Rameses II, who ruled from 1290 to 1224 BCE.
Book of Exodus Summary
Exodus 1-2: By the end of Genesis, Jacob and his family had all moved to Egypt and become wealthy. Apparently this created jealousy and, over time, Jacob's descendants were enslaved. As their numbers grew, so did the fear that they would pose a threat.
Thus at the beginning of Exodus we read about the pharaoh ordering the death of all newborn boys among the slaves. One woman saves her son and sets him afloat on the Nile where he's found by the pharaoh's daughter. He's named Moses and must later flee Egypt after killing an overseer beating a slave.
Exodus 2-15: While in exile Moses is confronted by God in the form of a burning bush and ordered to free the Israelites. Moses returns as instructed and goes before the pharaoh to demand the release of all the Israelite slaves. Pharaoh refuses and is punished with ten plagues, each worse than the last, until finally the death of all first-born sons forces pharaoh to submit to Moses' demands. Pharaoh and his army are later killed by God when they pursue the Israelites anyway.
Exodus 15-31: Thus begins the Exodus. According to the Book of Exodus, 603,550 adult males, plus their families but not including the Levites, march across Sinai towards Canaan. At Mount Sinai Moses receives the "Covenant Code" (the laws imposed on the Israelites as part of their agreeing to be God's "Chosen People"), including the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 32-40: During one of Moses' trips to the top of the mountain his brother Aaron creates a golden calf for people to worship. God threatens to kill them all but only relents because of Moses' pleading. Afterwards the Tabernacle is created as a dwelling place for God while among his Chosen People.
The Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus
The Book of Exodus is one source of the Ten Commandments, though most people aren't aware that Exodus contains two different versions of the Ten Commandments. The first version was inscribed on stone tablets by God , but Moses smashed them when he discovered the Israelites had started worshipping an idol while he was gone. This first version is recorded in Exodus 20 and is used as by most Protestants as the basis for their Ten Commandments lists.
The second version can be found in Exodus 34 and was inscribed on another set of stone tablets as a replacement — but it is radically different from the first . What's more, this second version is the only one which is actually called "The Ten Commandments," but it looks almost nothing like what people usually think of when they think of the Ten Commandments. Usually people imagine the expected list of rules which is recorded in Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5.
Book of Exodus Themes
Chosen People: Central to the entire idea of God taking the Israelites out of Egypt is that they were to be God's "Chosen People". To be "chosen" entailed benefits and obligations: they benefited from God's blessings and favor, but they were also obliged to uphold special laws created by God for them. Failure to uphold God's laws would lead to a withdrawal of protection.
A modern analog to this would be a form of "nationalism" and some scholars believe that Exodus was largely the creation of a political and intellectual elite trying to arouse strong tribal identification and loyalty — possibly during a time of crisis, like the exile in Babylon.
Covenants : Continued from Genesis is the theme of covenants between individuals and God and between entire peoples and God. Singling out the Israelites as the Chosen People stems from God's earlier covenant with Abraham. Being the Chosen People meant that there was a covenant between the Israelites as a whole and God — a covenant that would also bind all their descendants, whether they liked it or not.
Blood & Lineage: The Israelites inherit a special relationship with God through the blood of Abraham. Aaron becomes the first high priest and the entire priesthood is created from his bloodline, making it something acquired through heredity rather than skill, education, or anything else. All future Israelites are to be considered bound by a covenant solely because of inheritance, not because of personal choice.
Theophany: God makes more personal appearances in the Book of Exodus than in most other parts of the Bible. Sometimes God is physically and personally present, as when talking to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Sometimes the presence of God is felt through natural events (thunder, rain, earthquakes) or miracles (a burning bush where the bush is not consumed by fire).
In fact, the presence of God is so central that the human characters hardly ever act of their own accord. Even the pharaoh only refuses to release the Israelites because of God compelling him to act in that way. In a very real sense, then, God is practically the only actor in the entire book; every other character is little more than an extension of God's will.
Salvation History: Christian scholars read Exodus as part of the history of God's efforts to save humanity from sin, wickedness, suffering, etc. In Christian theology the focus is on sin; in Exodus, though, the salvation is the physical deliverance from slavery. The two are united in Christian thought, as seen in how Christian theologians and apologists describe sin as form of slavery.
| Exodus |
What is the second book in the Harry Potter series? | Books of the Bible
Books of the Bible
Books of the Bible in Canonical Order
Old Testament
The Pentateuch
Genesis
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
Exodus
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
Leviticus
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Numbers
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Deuteronomy
Historical Introduction
Joshua
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Judges
Introduction 1 2 3 4
1 Samuel
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
2 Samuel
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
1 Kings
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
2 Kings
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
1 Chronicles
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
2 Chronicles
Wisdom Books
Job
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
Psalms
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150
Proverbs
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Wisdom
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Sirach
Prophetic Books
Isaiah
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
Jeremiah
| i don't know |
Who was the second president of the USA? | The Second US President - John Adams
John Adams
�
John Adams was the second President of the United States. He was a member of both Continental Congresses and he signed the Declaration of Independence. He was the first Vice President of the United States.
In 1755, he graduated from Harvard University and then went on to study law before being admitted to the Boston Bar in 1758.
He married Abigail Boylston of Braintree, Massachusetts. Adams went on to write for two different newspapers under two different pen names. He argued both sides of issues using each of his pen names. He remarked that he was "carrying on a dialogue with himself in the two leading Boston newspapers."
In 1770, he ambitiously defended British soldiers in the shooting deaths of five colonists in what was known as the Boston Massacre. He won the acquittal of the commanding officer
and most of the soldiers.
Adams always kept personal diaries, which revealed his true character; he was a much different man from the self-righteous, intellectual he seemed to project in public. When Adams was appointed to the Continental Congress, he made passionate speeches for the rights of colonists to revolt against England and its tyrant King George III. Adams was the first to call for
independence, but the other delegates, thinking that he was obnoxious, rarely listened to him. Adams suspected that history would judge him more kindly than his peers did; he was right. It later became apparent that Adams was politically or morally correct on almost all of the issues.
Adams was a member of the Declaration of Independence Committee with Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Jefferson wrote most of the document and John Adams presented it passionately in Congress. The vote passed on the day that became Independence Day, July 4, 1776.
Adams served the new nation as a diplomat, negotiating the Treaty of Paris. He, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin successfully negotiated the treaty in 1782 and 1783. In the treaty, Great Britain agreed to recognize its former thirteen colonies as the free and sovereign United States of America. From 1785 to 1788, Adams served as diplomatic envoy to Great Britain, a position that would later be held by both his son and his grandson.
Adams served as Vice President under George Washington because he came in second place during both elections. As Vice President, he limited himself to presiding over the Senate. His detractors called him "His Rotundity" because he was short and heavy. When George Washington refused a third term in 1797, Adams was elected President (1797-1801).
In 1797, Adams became the second President of the United States. He was the first President who belonged to a political party - the Federalists. The Federalist Party was formed while George Washington was President. The party believed in a strong central government. Adams, however, was an independent thinker and voted his conscience instead of the "Party Line." This put him at odds with many in his own party.
While Adams was President, the United States government moved from Philadelphia to Washington, DC. Adams became the first President to live in the White House. The Department of Navy and the Marine Corps were established during his presidency.
During Adams' term as President, the dominant issue was the threat of war with France. He maintained his resolve to keep the United States out of war. Although the country's ships fought many battles, war was never formally declared.
In order to silence critics of the possible war with France, Congress approved the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. The Alien Act gave the President permission to arrest and deport any foreigner whom he considered to be dangerous. The Sedition Act made it a criminal offense to print false, malicious, or scandalous statements which criticized the government or government officials. In 1799, Adams sent new peace commissioners to France to reopen negotiations. He settled the differences between the countries at the Convention of 1800 and avoided war.
Much to his joy, Adams lived to see his son, John Quincy Adams, follow in his footsteps. His son became the sixth President. Both father and son were born in Quincy, Massachusetts. At the time, the town was called Braintree.
During much of his life, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were bonded by their love for their country. Later in life, however, politics had them at each other's throats. Finally near the end of their lives, each forgave the other and expressed his feelings in a letter. Both men died on July 4, l826, without getting to read the other's letter.
| John Adams |
What is the second planet from the sun? | John Adams - 2nd President of the United States
John Adams
Birth: October 30, 1735 at Quincy, Massachusetts
Death: July 4, 1826 at Quincy, Massachusetts
The Life of President John Adams
Birthplace and Gravesite
Further Information about John Adams
National Historic Sites, State Historic Sites, Landmarks, Memorials & Places to Visit
John Adams Fun Facts
The purpose of this site is to provide researchers, students, teachers, politicians, journalists, and citizens a complete resource guide to the US Presidents. Feel free to make a link to this or any other page on this web site.
If you would like to suggest a Presidential link, report a broken link, or have any comments please contact [email protected]
| i don't know |
What is the second letter of the Greek alphabet? | The Greek Alphabet
The Greek Alphabet
The alphabet is among the few linguistic elements that have remained essentially unchanged between the Ancient and Modern Greek languages. Before listing the letters, let us make a brief comment on the pronunciation of the language, as it evolved through the millennia.
Pronunciation
How close is the sound of Modern Greek to that of Classic Greek?
Phonetically, Classic Greek would sound rather alien to contemporary Greeks, but don’t ever say this to them!
It is an issue that most Greeks, even educated ones, ignore. (1) I suspect it is because the alphabet has stayed unchanged, so Greeks can read classic texts with no trouble at all (pronouncing in Modern Greek). After all, it all looks Greek to them!
If any (non-Greek) scholar attempts to pronounce classic texts in the reconstructed (2) pronunciation, that, to Greeks is tantamount to sacrilege. As a contemporary Greek myself , I can give you my personal feeling for how the reconstructed pronunciation sounds: it is as if a barbarian is trying to speak Greek. (3) For example, take the word “barbarian” itself (which is of Greek origin): in Classic Greek it would be pronounced [bár·ba·ros]. In Modern Greek, it is [vár·va·ros]. In general, the second letter of the alphabet, beta, was pronounced as [b] in Plato’s time, but was changed to [v] by the time the Gospels were written. Now, to the modern Greek ear, [v] is a soft sound (a “fricative” in linguistics), sort of smooth and gentle, while [b] is a hard one (a “plosive”), kind of rough and crass. The same can be said about the letter delta, which was pronounced as [d] by Plato, and as [ð] (as in this) since around Christ’s time; and the letter gamma ([g] in Classic Greek, [γ] later
the latter sound is a “voiced velar fricative”; click here to see the full repertoire of Modern Greek sounds). Greek readers of this text who do not believe that Plato, Socrates, etc., were sounding so barbaric, may take a clue from this very word: “barbaros” was coined after somebody who, as a non-native speaker of Greek would produce incomprehensible speech, which sounded like... well, what? Could it be “var-var-var”? Wouldn’t it sound more barbaric if it were like “bar-bar-bar”? Besides this word, direct evidence for beta comes from a fragment of Attic comedy where it is said that the voice of the sheep is BH-BH. (4) In Modern Greek this would read as “vi-vi”, rather un-sheepish-like; while in the reconstructed way it would be “beeh-beeh”, exactly the sound that we, contemporary Greeks, attribute to the animal. (If the reader would like to make a comment on the above issues, email to me , and let me know what you think; but please make sure to have first read the links that say “Evidence” on the rightmost column of the table, below.)
However, the truth is when non-Greek scholars attempt to pronounce Classic Greek in the reconstructed way, they think they pronounce accurately. To me, American scholars sound distinctly American (like Platos with spurs and cowboy hats), Germans sound German, etc. Probably nobody can reproduce exactly the Classic Greek pronunciation: we might know the rules of the reconstructed system, but when it comes to moving our jaws, tongue, and lips, something different comes out of our mouths. As native speakers of this or that language we necessarily carry over our native phonology. Finally, let it be noted that Classic Greek used pitch to differentiate vowels in words, while nearly all modern European languages (including Modern Greek) use stress instead. (5)
The Alphabet
(Click on the speaker icon,
next to the letter name, to hear the pronunciation in Modern Greek)
1
Alpha
[a], as in “father”. Same as [a] in Spanish and Italian. Phonetically, this sound is: open, central, and unrounded. As in Modern Greek 2
Beta
[v], as in “vet”; a voiced labiodental fricative. [b], as in “bet”; a voiced bilabial plosive. Evidence 3
Gamma
[γ], a sound that does not exist in English. If followed by the sound [u] then it sounds almost like the initial sound in “woman”, but with the back of the tongue touching more to the back (soft) palate. To pronounce [γa], try to isolate “w” from “what” without rounding your lips, and then say [a]. In Castilian Spanish this sound exists in “amiga”. Same is true for [γo]: try eliminating the [u] sound from “water”. (C. Spanish: “amigo”.) On the other hand, due to a phonetic phenomenon called palatalization , [γe] sounds a bit like “ye” in “yes”, and [γi] sounds a bit like “yi” in “yield”. Phonetically, gamma is a voiced velar fricative. (Its palatalized version is a voiced palatal fricative.) [g], as in “got”; a voiced velar plosive. Evidence 4
Delta
[th], as in “this”; a voiced dental fricative. [d], as in “do”; a voiced alveolar plosive. Evidence 5
Epsilon
[e] as in “pet”, except that the [e] in “pet” (and other similar English words) is lax, whereas in Greek it is tense. To pronounce a tense [e] pull the edges of your lips to the sides a bit more than when you say “pet”. (We pull the edges of our lips to the sides when we smile; but I don’t mean you need to smile every time you pronounce the Greek epsilon, OK?
) As in Modern Greek 6
Zeta
[z], as in “zone”, a voiced alveolar fricative. Actually, the remark for sigma (see below) applies to zeta as well (it is shifted a bit toward [ʒ], as in “pleasure”). Read the remark for sigma to understand why, and how to pronounce it. [zd], as in “Mazda”. Also: [z], and even: [dz]. Evidence 7
Eta
[i], as in “meet”, but shorter, not so long. This is one of the three [i]’s in the Greek alphabet; they all have identical pronunciation. The reason for this redundancy has to do with Classic Greek, where they were not redundant. long open mid-[e], as in “thread” (but long). Evidence 8
Theta
[θ], as in “think”; a voiceless dental fricative. In Castilian Spanish: “zorro”. [th], as in “top”, but more aspirated. Evidence 9
Iota
[i], exactly like eta (see above). The name of the letter is pronounced “yota” in Modern Greek. (The reason for the y-sound in front of the letter’s name is due to the phonetic transformation of [io] into [yo]). As in Modern Greek 10
Kappa
[k], as in “skip”. Notice that in English [k] is aspirated if it appears word-initially; Greek makes no such distinction. When followed by the vowels [e] or [i] it becomes palatalized — for the exact pronunciation please check the page on palatalization . Phonetically, it is a voiceless velar plosive. (Its palatalized version is a voiceless palatal plosive.) As in Modern Greek 11
Lambda
[l] as in “lap”. When followed by the vowel [i] it becomes palatalized, turning to a sound that does not exist in English (check the page on palatalization ). The name of the letter is pronounced [lamða] ([b] is eliminated because it is difficult to pronounce it between [m] and [ð]). A voiced alveolar lateral approximant. As in Modern Greek 12
Mu
[m], as in “map”; a voiced bilabial nasal. Notice that the name of the letter is pronounced [mi] (mee), not “mew” as in American English. As in Modern Greek 13
Nu
[n], as in “noble”; a voiced alveolar nasal. When followed by the vowed [i] it becomes palatalized, turning to a sound that does not exist in English (but exists in Spanish, written as ñ; see the page on palatalization ). Notice that the name of the letter is pronounced [ni] (ñee), not “new” as in American English. As in Modern Greek 14
Ksi
[ks] as in “fox”. Contrary to the English “x”, the letter ksi does not change pronunciation at the beginning of a word (it does not become a [z]; Greeks have no trouble starting a word with [k]+[s]). For example, in the word ksenofovia (ξενοφοβία = xenophobia) the initial sound [k] is not omitted. Don’t put any aspiration between [k] and [s] when pronouncing this letter. The remark for sigma applies to the [s]-sound of ksi, too. As in Modern Greek 15
Omicron
Same like [o] in “got” the way it is pronounced in British English. Notice how the vowel in British “got” is tense, which means that you should really round your lips when you pronounce the Greek [o]. A mid-close back rounded vowel. As in Modern Greek 16
Pi
[p], as in “spot”; a voiceless bilabial plosive. Notice that in English [p] is aspirated if it appears word-initially; Greek makes no such distinction. As in Modern Greek 17
Rho
[r]: between vowels it is a sound that exists in American English in the pronunciation of “tt” in “butter” (but not in Brittish English). Sounds like the Spanish [r] in “pero”. (Spanish speakers: in Greek there is no difference in whether you trill your rho as in “perro” or not; but normally Greeks pronounce it more as in “pero” than as in “perro”.) Otherwise it’s a trill, like the Italian [r]. Almost every Greek can pronounce rho as a long trill if they wish (like the Russian [r]), and you will hear it pronounced like that in some Greek songs. Phonetically, it is a voiced alveolar tap (and occasionally a trill). Probably as in Modern Greek when single, and as a trill when double. Word-initially: aspirated: [hr] 18
Sigma
[s], as is “soap”; a voiceless alveolar fricative. Actually, if you listen carefully to native Greek speakers, it sounds a bit like between [s] and [sh] (probably because there is no [sh] in Greek, so the sound is somewhat shifted in the phonological space). However, to the native English ear it sounds much closer to [sh] than to [s], whereas every native Greek speaker would swear they pronounce it exactly like the English [s], unless forced to admit the difference by looking at spectrograms. In reality, you can produce it like this: feel where your tongue is when you say [s]: very close to the front teeth, right? Now feel where it is when you say [sh] (far back). Place it somewhere midway, and you will produce the Greek [s]. You’ll find that you’ll need to make a similar adjustment to the shape of your lips, midway through rounded for [sh] and tense for [s]; in the Greek sigma the lips are relaxed. This is the way “s” is pronounced in Castilian Spanish (as opposed to Latin American Spanish). Notice that the second way of writing the lower case sigma is used exclusively when the letter appears at the end of a word (there is only one capital form). Probably as in Modern Greek 19
Tau
[t], as in “stop”; a voiceless alveolar plosive. Notice that in English [t] is aspirated if it appears word-initially; Greek makes no such distinction. As in Modern Greek 20
Upsilon
[i], exactly like eta and iota (see above). The name of the letter is pronounced [ipsilon] (ee-psee-lon), not “yupsilon” as it is called in American English. Rounded [i], as in French “une”. Evidence 21
Phi
[f] as in “fat”; a voiceless labiodental fricative. [ph], as in “pit”, but more aspirated. Evidence 22
Chi
[x], a sound that does not exist in English (but exists in Scottish, as in “loch”; German: “Bach”; Spanish: “Jorge”). When followed by vowels [e] or [i] it is pronounced as in German “ich”. For the exact pronunciation in this case, please check the page on palatalization . Phonetically, it is a voiceless velar fricative. (Its palatalized version is a voiceless palatal fricative.) [kh], as in “cut”, but more aspirated. Evidence 23
Psi
[ps] as in “lopsided”. Contrary to English, the sound of the letter does not change at the beginning of a word (it does not become a [s]; Greeks have no trouble starting a word with [p]+[s]). For example, in the word psychologia (ψυχολογία = psychology) the initial sound [p] is not omitted. Don’t put any aspiration between [p] and [s] when pronouncing this letter. The remark for sigma applies to the [s]-sound of psi, too. As in Modern Greek 24
Omega
[o], exactly like omicron. (Once again, the reason for the redundancy is to be found in Classic Greek.) Long open mid-back [o], as in “law”. Evidence
Phonology and Orthography
Oops! Twenty-four letters only? Surely some sounds must be missing?
That’s correct. There are sounds common in other languages that do not exist in Greek. Such sounds are all the postalveolar fricatives and postalveolar affricates ([ʃ] as in “shop”, [ʒ] as in “pleasure”, [tʃ] as in “church”, and [dʒ] as in “job”). So what do Greeks do when they want to pronounce foreign words with these sounds? If they are not trained to pronounce correctly, they simply transform these postalveolar sounds to their corresponding alveolar ones: [ʃ] → [s], [ʒ] → [z], [tʃ] → [ts], [dʒ] → [dz]. Ask a Greek to pronounce “fish ’n chips” next time you want to have some linguistic fun.
And what about other very common sounds, like [b], [d], [g], etc.? These seem to be missing from the alphabet, too! Are they also missing from the repertoire of the sounds of the language?
No! These are existent as sounds in the language. It is just that there are no single letters to denote them. When Greeks want to write those sounds they write them as two-letter combinations: [b] is written as μπ (mu + pi), [d] as ντ (nu + tau), and [g] as γκ (gamma + kappa), or as γγ (double gamma). Why all this trouble? Remember, as explained in the introductory paragraph on this page, the sounds [b], [d], and [g] used to exist in Classic Greek. Later, probably some time after the New Testament was written in the so-called Koine (common) Greek, these three sounds had shifted in pronunciation to the corresponding “soft” ones ([v], [ð], and [γ]). This left a void in the phonological space. Words that contained combinations like “mp” and “nt” started being pronounced as [mb] and [nd], respectively. So the “plosive” sounds were re-introduced, but pairs of letters were used now to denote them.
There is one more sound in the language which is absent from the alphabet: it is [ŋ], the “ingma”, the last consonant in “king”. This sound is very rare in Greek, and when it appears (as in “άγχος”: anxiety; “έλεγχος”: checking) it is denoted by the combination gamma + chi, with the gamma pronounced as [ŋ].
All of the above plus much more, including the pervasive phenomenon of palatalization, can be found in this page on the details of Modern Greek pronunciation, which includes sound samples with the author’s voice for all of the presented examples.
You may also find useful this page, showing the sounds of Modern Greek against all possible sounds of any language in the world . The tables for consonants and vowels in that page are very familiar to linguists, but you don’t need to be a linguist to understand it.
For your convenience, here is a table to use as quick reference, listing the two-letter clusters that result in new sounds, not included in the Greek alphabet:
Cluster
Further:
ΜΠ μπ
[b], as in “bee”, at the beginning of words or in loanwords; otherwise: [mb], as in “combat”.
ΝΤ ντ
[d], as in “do”, at the beginning of words or in loanwords; otherwise: [nd], as in “fund”.
ΓΚ γκ
ΓΓ γγ
[g], as in “go”, at the beginning of words or in loanwords; otherwise: [ŋg], as in “fungus”.
Note: the form γγ never appears at the beginning of words, so it is always [
g], as in “fungus”.
ΓΞ γξ
In front of χ (chi) the letter γ (gamma) is pronounced as an “ingma”: [ŋ] (king), followed by χ.
In front of ξ (ksi) the letter γ (gamma) is pronounced as an “ingma”: [ŋ] (king), followed by ξ.
Note: the cluster γξ is too rare; it appears only in uncommon words such as λυγξ (the lynx).
Arguably, there are also the following pairs, which do not result in unique sounds but are perceived as “one thing” by native speakers of Greek:
Cluster
ΤΣ τσ
[ts], as in “cuts”, but without separating [t] from [s].
Note: in rare cases where τσ is at the end of a word, the sigma (σ) is written as a final sigma (ς); thus: τς.
What about vowels? Is there any similarity with the English vowels, or with those of any other language?
Vowels in Greek are easy. That is, if you are not a native speaker of English!
That’s because although English is very rich in vowel sounds, still, it lacks almost completely the Greek vowels. The latter are more like the vowels of Italian, Spanish, or Japanese: they are the five sounds [a], [e], [i], [o], and [u] (6) . Now, there are three letters for [i] in the alphabet (eta, iota, and upsilon), pronounced identically, and two letters for [o] (omicron and omega), also pronounced identically. For the sound [u] (as in “loot”) the combination ου (omicron + upsilon) is used.
Here are three good rules of thumb for native English speakers:
Greek vowels never sound like glides. That is, English speakers tend to pronounce Greek [e] almost always as [ei] (as in “bay”, “buffet”, “claim”, etc.), a phenomenon known as gliding. In Greek that’s wrong! Try to avoid adding the sound [i] at the end
just stay with [e] (almost like “bet”, but notice, that [e] in “bet” is lax; whenever the tense [e] is pronounced in English, it glides and sounds like [ei]). The same is true for [o]: Avoid pronouncing it as [ow] (as in “rope”, “bone”); just stay with [o], as in “awe”, “law”, etc., but make it a bit shorter (and don’t open your mouth as much as is required by “awe”; that’s suitable for omega of the Classic Greek times; Modern Greek [o] is a bit more closed).
If you know Spanish, Italian, or Japanese (6) , there is a one-to-one correspondence between the five vowel sounds in these languages and Greek. Trust your knowledge then, and use it.
Greek words often end in [s] (sigma), and when English speakers hear Greeks pronouncing such endings they think they hear “sh”. (For an explanation read the comments of the letter sigma, in the table.) If you can’t reproduce the Greek sigma exactly, simply approximate it with English “s”, as in “boss”. Remember, there is no “sh” in Greek (except in the dialect of Crete, to be accurate), and that’s why hearing “sh” sounds very foreign to the Greek ear.
So, sounds simple. Is there anything else about vowels?
Not in pronunciation. In writing, however, there is. There are three so-called “diphthongs”, which are not diphthongs anymore, but digraphs. (A diphthong is a long vowel with more than one part, each of which has a different quality, such as the ou in “loud”, or the oy in “boy”; a digraph is two letters which, when put together, are read as one unit, such as the English th in “think”, or the ph in “graph”.) Here are the Greek digraphs of vowels:
Exactly like ε (epsilon, 5th letter, see above)
[ai], as in “buy”. Evidence
Exactly like ι (iota, 9th letter, see above)
[ei], as in “bay”. Evidence
Exactly like ι (iota, 9th letter, see above)
[oi], as in “boy”. Evidence
Exactly like ι (iota, 9th letter, see above; also read comment below)
~[yui]. Evidence
[u], already explained in a previous paragraph
As in Modern Greek
[av] if the following sound is voiced, and [af] if the following sound is unvoiced
[au], as in “loud”. Evidence
[ev] if the following sound is voiced, and [ef] if the following sound is unvoiced
[eu]. Evidence
[iv] if the following sound is voiced, and [if] if the following sound is unvoiced
~[e:u]. Evidence
Notes:
Thus, Archimedes’s famous “eureka!” (εύρηκα) in Modern Greek is pronounced as [évrika] (with the stress on epsilon); but in ancient Greek it should be [éure:ka]
(again with the stress on the first vowel of the diphthong, i.e., the [e]).
The digraph ηυ (eta + upsilon) is extremely rare in Modern Greek; it appears in three verb-forms only: εφηύρα [efivra] (=“I invented”), απηύδησα [apivthisa] (=“I got fed up”), and απηύθυνα [apifthina] (=“I directed my speech to sb.”); it was much more common in ancient Greek, though.
The digraph υι (upsilon + iota) appears only in a very small number of Modern Greek words: υιός [ios] (=“son”, but this form is obsolete; the modern one is γιος), and its derivatives: υιοθετώ (=“adopt”), υιοθεσία (=“adoption”), υιικός (=“filial”) and a few rare ones, such as άρπυια (~a mythological creature), καθεστηκυία (=“established, prevailing” [fem.]), etc.
If you want to know the reason why these weird-looking combinations of letters exist, once again, blame ancient Greek, in which those were true diphthongs. When later the vowel space was flattened to its present five members, and no long vowels existed anymore, the diphthongs were transformed as the table above shows.
Does that mean that the sound [ai] (as in “buy”), for example, can never occur in Modern Greek, because if written as αι it would be pronounced [e]?
It is possible to have the letters alpha and iota next to each other and producing the sound [ai], but then we need to show this in writing. We do this by putting a pair of dots, the diaeresis, over the iota, like this: αϊ, as in the word παϊδάκι [paithaki] (=“rib steak”). It is even possible to have the stress together with the diaeresis over the iota: παΐδι [paithi] (=“rib”). The diaeresis can “dismiss” any of the vowel-digraphs: αϊ, εϊ, οϊ, υϊ, οϋ, αϋ, and εϋ (whereas ηϋ does not occur in Modern Greek), in which case the two constituent vowels are pronounced separately. More about the diaeresis in my page on accent marks .
What are those short straight lines placed over some vowels in Greek texts?
That’s the stress. It shows which syllable should be pronounced slightly higher in pitch and volume than the rest. I suggest that you click here to learn all the details about how to place accent marks to show the stress in Greek. But if you want only a brief description, perhaps the following two paragraphs would suffice.
In Modern Greek, the accent mark is placed only in lowercase writing, and only over the vowel of the stressed syllable. If the vowel is written with a digraph (see above), the accent mark is placed over the second letter of the pair. Monosyllabic words are not shown with stress, since the information would be redundant. In Greek (of all times), only one of the last three syllables of a word can be stressed. Native Greek speakers “internalize” this rule (they also learn it explicitly at school), and tend to apply it even to languages that allow placement of stress on any syllable, such as English. (For example, the word difficulty is often pronounced [dee-`fee-kal-tee] by Greeks who start learning English as a second language.)
In Classic Greek there were no lowercase letters, only capitals. So there were no accent marks over the letters. Later, during the Hellenistic times (last three centuries BC) lowercase letters were introduced, and along with them, the accent marks. However, the situation was quite complex, because there were three marks for the stress, and two “aspiration marks”, placed over the initial vowel of a word, if any. One of the latter two (the “rough breathing mark”, written like a tiny “c”) stood in place of the by-then-obsolete initial letter H, and was pronounced like English [h]. (In Classic times this letter was actually written.) So, words like “history”, “hydrogen”, “hour”, “Hellenic”, and many others, passed into English (filtered first through Latin) with the initial “h” written and pronounced, while the corresponding Greek words were written with the rough breathing mark over the initial vowel. Later, even the pronunciation of this mark was dropped, so one had to learn what breathing mark to put over the initial vowel without having any clue from pronunciation. This situation lasted until fairly recently. (As a child, I had to learn those orthographic rules, too.) In 1982, all breathing marks were officially dropped, and the three types of stress marks were reduced to one
and even that one is used only on multisyllabic words.
Do Greek letters have some inherent meaning? (7) What are the dictionary definitions of words like “alpha”, “beta”, etc.?
No, there is no meaning in Greek letters. You are probably thinking of Chinese ideograms, or ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which are symbols with some associated meaning. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc., bear no more meaning in Greek than a, bee, cee, dee, etc., bear in English. Their names are just a bit longer, that’s all, that’s why they might look like meaningful words. Now, there is an English letter the name of which can be said to have some meaning, however trivial: it’s w, which we pronounce “double-u”. The name of this letter is derived from ancient forms of it, when it was written as two U’s, joined like this: UU. Similarly, there are a handful of Greek letters that can be said to have such trivial meanings, associated always with their pronunciation: epsilon (εψιλον) is really e-psilon, meaning “light e”, “bare e”, or “mere e”, a name introduced in Byzantine times, to distinguish it from the other [e], the digraph alpha-iota (see above). In ancient (e.g., classical) times this distinction was unnecessary, because ε and αι had completely different sounds, so the name of this letter was simply ε. Similarly, upsilon (υψιλον) is really u-psilon, meaning “mere u”, distinguishing it from the other two [i]’s: ι and η; in ancient Greek its name was υ. Finally, omicron (ομικρον) is o-micron, or “little o”, to distinguish it from o-mega (ωμεγα), or “great o”. Again, these names were introduced in later times, when the pronunciations of the two letters had become identical; in ancient times their names were simply ο and ω.
That said, it should be mentioned that the origin of the Greek letters, which is the ancient Phoenician alphabet, did assign meaning to each letter. For example, the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet (a close cousin of the Hebrew alphabet, the first three letters of which are aleph, beth, and gimel) was written as an inverted A, a stylized depiction of the triangular head of an ox with its horns. In Phoenician, the name of the letter was the word for “ox”. Similarly, the letter gamma (Hebrew gimel) is derived from the Phoenician word for “camel”; and so on. But this is not specific to Greek, it is present in Semitic languages. In Greek, the letters are just symbols, devoid of meaning.
Footnotes (clicking on the footnote-number, on the left, brings back to the text)
(1) . As I was informed recently by a Greek reader of this page, now they do learn at school that the ancient pronunciation was different. Good, that’s progress; in my high school years (late 70’s) we were left in the dark. However, I tested this reader’s information by asking a couple of young Greek students (friends’ children), and found out that just about the only thing they learn is that some vowels, such as the omega and eta, were pronounced differently by the ancients; at least that’s what was registered in those young students’ memory.
(2) . An earlier version of this page referred to the “Erasmian” pronunciation of Greek, after the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536), who established a pronunciation system for ancient Greek that was geared towards the phonological abilities of speakers of Dutch. Later, his system was adopted by speakers of various other languages, who adjusted it slightly to their own needs. Since today it is not known what exactly one refers to when one mentions “the Erasmian system”, this page refers to the “reconstructed” system of pronunciation, as shown on the rightmost column, “Classic Greek Pronunciation (Attic)”, and as explained if you follow the links that say “Evidence”.
(3) . Some readers (esp. fellow Greeks) took this comment to mean that I do not believe the reconstructed pronunciation is right. Wrong! I do believe it is right. However, what I believe or not is totally inconsequential. One should believe their eyes (looking at data, that is) and that is why I have collected the data (which is known to me) under those links that say “Evidence” (last column of the table; you know, those blue underlined things? Click on them!). I made this comment to explain to non-Greeks what it feels to hear the reconstructed pronunciation if you are a Greek, and if you have been educated thinking that Pericles could have said to his wife, “Ασπασία, τι γκαντεμιά! Εγώ τη ψυλλιάζομαι τη δουλειά, φιρί-φιρί το πάνε να μας την πέσουν οι Λακεδαιμόνιοι. Πρέπει να τους σπάσουμε τον τσαμπουκά!”
(4) . Cratinus, in Dionysalexandros:
the fool goes about like a sheep saying “ba ba”.
(5) . Not really all modern Indo-European languages, though; Serbo-Croatian, for example, uses pitch. There are probably other I-E languages using pitch as well.
(6) . But, English speakers beware: the symbol [e] does not stand for the sound of “ee” as in “meet”, but for the sound of “e” as in “get”. Likewise, [i] stands for a shorter version of “ee” as in “meet”. Also note, since the Japanese language was mentioned: actually the Japanese [u] is unrounded, whereas the Greek [u] is rounded.
(7) . Occasionally young people from the U.S.A. who want to establish a new fraternity or sorority ask me this question, because they want to choose “meaningful” Greek letters for their organization. If you are one of those people and are disappointed by the answer of this question, there is still hope.
Select two or three English words that are meaningful to you, ask me what the corresponding Greek words are, and choose the initial Greek letters for your fraternity or sorority.
| Beta |
What is the second element in the periodic table? | Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. Photo Canvas Print | Great Big Canvas
Share this:
About the Image
Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2 and is used to denote a variable in mathematics and physics, where it often has specific meanings f
Fast Turnaround
All our products are custom printed on demand and ship within 4-7 business days.
About Our Products
Every image we print is reviewed by our in-house team, adjusted by hand for the best possible print quality, then expertly transferred to canvas on state-of-the-art printing equipment. Then we hand stretch artist-grade canvas over a wooden frame that is light enough to easily hang on your wall yet strong enough to support your artwork for years to come.
Floating Frames and Framed Prints are custom made right here in our own frame shop where experts assemble every piece by hand to ensure the highest quality.
What Our Customers Say
(via ResellerRatings.com )
5/5
| i don't know |
What is the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise? | Indiana Jones (franchise) | Lucasfilm Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
The Indiana Jones franchise is an entertainment franchise, based on the adventures of Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones , a fictional archaeologist. It began in 1981 with the film Raiders of the Lost Ark . A prequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , followed in 1984 and the sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. In 1992, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles , featuring adventures the character had as a child as he traveled around the world with his father, began airing on television. A fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , was released in 2008. The series was created by George Lucas ; the films star Harrison Ford and were directed by Steven Spielberg .
The franchise has expanded beyond movies and TV. Marvel Comics began publishing The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones in 1983, and Dark Horse Comics earned the comic book rights to the character in 1991. Novelizations of the films have been published, as well as many novels with original adventures, including a series of German novels by Wolfgang Hohlbein, twelve novels set before the films published by Bantam Books, and a series set during the character's childhood inspired by the television show. Numerous video games about Indiana Jones have been released since 1982.
In October 2012, The Walt Disney Company agreed to acquire Lucasfilm , granting Disney ownership rights to the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises. [1] [2] However, although Disney owns the intellectual property, Disney CEO Bob Iger says that Indiana Jones was not initially factored to its equation during the deal, as Paramount Pictures continues to retain certain rights to future film installments of Indiana Jones. [3] [4] [5]
Contents
Edit
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is set in 1936. Indiana Jones ( Harrison Ford ) is assigned by government agents to locate the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis do, to make them invincible like the Israelites in the Old Testament, who revered it as the dwelling place of God. The Nazis are being helped by Indiana's nemesis René Belloq ( Paul Freeman ). With the help of his old flame Marion Ravenwood ( Karen Allen ) and Sallah ( John Rhys-Davies ), Indiana manages to recover the Ark in Egypt . The Nazis steal the Ark and capture Indiana and Marion. Belloq and the Nazis perform a ceremony to open the Ark, but when they do so, they are all killed gruesomely by the Ark's wrath. Indiana and Marion, who survived by closing their eyes, manage to get the Ark back to America, where it is stored in a secret government warehouse.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) is set in 1935, a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana escapes Chinese gangsters with the help of singer/actress Willie Scott ( Kate Capshaw ) and his twelve-year-old sidekick Short Round ( Jonathan Ke Quan ). The trio crash-land in India , where they come across a village whose children have been kidnapped. A destructive cult led by Mola Ram ( Amrish Puri ) has also taken the holy Sankara Stones, which they will use to take over the world. Indiana manages to overcome Mola Ram's evil power, rescues the children and returns the stones to their rightful place, overcoming his own mercenary nature.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) opens in 1912 with a thirteen-year-old Indiana ( River Phoenix ) attempting to recover an ornamental cross belonging to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado , a task which he finally completes in 1938. Indiana and his friend Marcus Brody ( Denholm Elliott ) are assigned by American businessman Walter Donovan ( Julian Glover ) to find the Holy Grail . They are teamed up with Dr. Elsa Schneider ( Alison Doody ), following on from where Indiana's estranged father Henry ( Sean Connery ) left off before he disappeared. It transpires that Donovan and Elsa are in league with the Nazis, who captured Henry Jones in order to get Indiana to help them find the Grail. However, Indiana recovers his father's diary filled with his research, and manages to rescue him before finding the location of the Grail. Both Donovan and Elsa fall to the temptation of the Grail, while Indiana and Henry realize that their relationship with each other is more important than finding the relic.
The countries visited in the four Indiana Jones films.
Red = Countries visited in Raiders
Green = Countries visited in Temple of Doom
Brown = Countries visited in all Indiana Jones films
Blue = Countries visited in Last Crusade
Yellow = Countries visited in Raiders and Crystal Skull
Orange = Countries visited in Crystal Skull
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) is set in 1957: nineteen years after The Last Crusade, thus acknowledging the real-life passing of years between films. Indiana is having a quiet life teaching before being thrust into a new adventure. He races against agents of the Soviet Union , led by Irina Spalko ( Cate Blanchett ) for a crystal skull . His journey takes him across Nevada , Connecticut , Peru , and the Amazon rainforest in Brazil . Indiana is faced with betrayal by one of his best friends, Mac ( Ray Winstone ), is introduced to a greaser named Mutt Williams ( Shia LaBeouf ), who turns out to be his son (his real name revealed to be Henry Jones III), and is reunited with Marion Ravenwood, an old flame introduced in the first movie.
Development
Edit
In 1973, George Lucas wrote The Adventures of Indiana Smith. [6] Like Star Wars , it was an opportunity to create a modern version of the movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s. [7] Lucas discussed the concept with Philip Kaufman , who worked with him for several weeks and decided upon the Ark of the Covenant as the key plot device . The project was stalled when Clint Eastwood hired Kaufman to write The Outlaw Josey Wales . [8] In May 1977, Lucas was in Maui , trying to escape the enormous success of Star Wars . His friend and colleague Steven Spielberg was also there, holidaying from work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind . Spielberg told Lucas he was interested in making a James Bond film , but Lucas told him of an idea "better than James Bond", outlining the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark . Spielberg loved it, calling it "a James Bond film without the hardware ", [9] though he had the character's surname changed to Jones. [7] Spielberg and Lucas made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five Indiana Jones films. [9]
Spielberg and Lucas aimed to make Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom much darker, because of their personal moods following their respective break-ups and divorces. Lucas made the film a prequel as he did not want the Nazis to be the villains again. He had ideas regarding the Monkey King and a haunted castle, but eventually created the Sankara Stones. [10] He hired Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz to write the script as he knew of their interest in Indian culture . [11] The major scenes that were dropped from Raiders of the Lost Ark were included in this film: an escape using a giant rolling gong as a shield, a fall out of a plane in a raft, and a mine cart chase. [7] For the third film, Spielberg revisited the Monkey King and haunted castle concepts, before Lucas suggested the Holy Grail . Spielberg had previously rejected this as too ethereal, but then devised a father-son story and decided that "The Grail that everybody seeks could be a metaphor for a son seeking reconciliation with a father and a father seeking reconciliation with a son." [12]
Following the 1989 release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , Lucas let the series end as he felt he could not think of a good plot device to drive the next installment, and chose instead to produce The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles , which explored the character in his early years. Ford played Indiana in one episode, narrating his adventures in 1920 Chicago . When Lucas shot Ford's role in December 1992, he realized that the scene opened up the possibility of a film with an older Indiana set in the 1950s. The film could reflect a science fiction 1950s B-movie , with aliens as the plot device. [13] Ford disliked the new angle, telling Lucas: "No way am I being in a Steve Spielberg movie like that." [14] Spielberg himself, who depicted aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , resisted it. Lucas devised a story, which Jeb Stuart turned into a script from October 1993 to May 1994. [13] Lucas wanted Indiana to get married, which would allow Henry Jones Sr. to return, expressing concern over whether his son is happy with what he has accomplished. After learning that Joseph Stalin was interested in psychic warfare, Lucas decided to have Russians as the villains and the aliens to have psychic powers. [15] Following Stuart's next draft, Lucas hired Last Crusade writer Jeffrey Boam to write the next three versions, the last of which was completed in March 1996. Three months later, Independence Day was released, and Spielberg told Lucas he would not make another alien invasion film (or at least not until War of the Worlds in 2005). Lucas decided to focus on the Star Wars prequels instead. [13]
In 2000, Spielberg's son asked when the next Indiana Jones film would be released, which made him interested in reviving the project. [16] The same year, Ford, Lucas, Spielberg, Frank Marshall , and Kathleen Kennedy met during the American Film Institute 's tribute to Ford, and decided they wanted to enjoy the experience of making an Indiana Jones film again. Spielberg also found returning to the series a respite from his many dark films during this period. [17] Spielberg and Lucas discussed the central idea of a B-movie involving aliens, and Lucas suggested using crystal skulls to ground the idea. Lucas found these artifacts as fascinating as the Ark, [18] and had intended to feature them for a Young Indiana Jones episode before the show's cancellation. [13] M. Night Shyamalan was hired to write for an intended 2002 shoot, [16] but he was overwhelmed by the task, and claimed it was difficult to get Ford, Spielberg, and Lucas to focus. [19] Stephen Gaghan and Tom Stoppard were also approached. [16]
Frank Darabont , who wrote various Young Indiana Jones episodes, was hired to write in May 2002. [20] His script, entitled Indiana Jones and the City of Gods, [13] was set in the 1950s, with ex-Nazis pursuing Jones. [21] Spielberg conceived the idea because of real-life figures such as Juan Perón in Argentina , who protected Nazi war criminals. [13] Darabont claimed Spielberg loved the script, but Lucas had issues with it, and decided to take over writing himself. [13] Lucas and Spielberg acknowledged that the 1950s setting could not ignore the Cold War , and the Russians were more plausible villains. Spielberg decided he could not satirize the Nazis after directing Schindler's List , [22] while Ford felt "We plum[b] wore the Nazis out." [14] Darabont's main contribution was reintroducing Marion Ravenwood as Indiana's love interest, but he gave them a 13-year-old daughter, which Spielberg decided was too similar to The Lost World: Jurassic Park . [13]
Jeff Nathanson met with Spielberg and Lucas in August 2004, and turned in the next drafts in October and November 2005, titled The Atomic Ants. David Koepp continued on from there, giving his script the subtitle Destroyer of Worlds, [13] based on the Robert Oppenheimer quote. It was changed to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as Spielberg found this a more inviting title which actually named the plot device. [23] Koepp wanted to depict the character of Mutt as a nerd, but Lucas refused, explaining he had to resemble Marlon Brando in The Wild One ; "he needs to be what Indiana Jones' father thought of [him] – the curse returns in the form of his own son – he's everything a father can't stand". [13] Koepp collaborated with Lawrence Kasdan on the film's "love dialogue". [24]
Future
Edit
The introduction of Mutt Williams ( Shia LaBeouf ) in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has led to speculation that he will take over the franchise from Ford. [25] In an interview with IGN , " Spielberg indicated that LaBeouf has to make multiple Transformers movies before he can move over and take on the fedora and bullwhip of Indiana Jones." [26] The actor himself said, "Am I into it? Who wouldn't be? I don't think that's reality. It's a fun rumor." [27] Ford said he would return for a fifth film if it doesn't take another twenty years to develop, [28] while Spielberg responded it would happen "only if you [the audience] want more". [29] In an interview with Time, when asked about passing the fedora to LaBeouf in the next film, Ford said, "What are you talking about? It's mine. I would love to do another Indiana Jones movie. George Lucas is working on an idea now. Shia can get his own hat. I earned that hat." [30]
At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival , Lucas made a further suggestion that there would be a fifth film, revealing an idea "to make Shia LaBeouf the lead character next time and have Harrison Ford come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie [ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ]." At the time Last Crusade was filmed, Connery was still only 58. Lucas also said that age need not be a factor, as Ford was "65 and did everything in this movie [Crystal Skull]. The old chemistry is there, and it's not like he's an old man. He's incredibly agile; he looks even better than he did 20 years ago, if you ask me." [31] In August 2008, Lucas was researching potential plot devices, and stated Spielberg was open to the idea of the fifth film. [32] He also changed his mind about continuing the series with a spin-off, joking "Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones. If it was Mutt Williams it would be Mutt Williams and the Search for Elvis or something." [33] Two months later, Ford stated that he would not return if the fifth film was an animated film like The Clone Wars , because "I'd hate to see it reduced in any way from the movies that we have done and the way we have done them." He also called Lucas' concept for the fifth film "crazy but great". [34]
When asked how being married to Marion Ravenwood and having a son would affect the character in a fifth film, Ford only replied: "He's seen something. Remember those are the only witness to what he's seen. That's kind of interesting." [35] In January 2010, Ford said, "I think it would be interesting to advance the understanding of the character, as we always have had that ambition throughout the series. I think it would be interesting to deepen the relationship between he and his son and play on that relationship... It's full of opportunity. The series is full of opportunity." [36]
The possibility of Indiana Jones 5 continued to be discussed through 2009 and 2010. Reports speculated in June 2009 that the next installment would start filming in 2011 with a plot involving the Bermuda Triangle , [37] although these rumors were later described as "completely false" by Frank Marshall on his Twitter page. [38] Speaking to BBC journalist Lizo Mzimba in June 2009, LaBeouf confirmed that "Steven [Spielberg] just said that he cracked the story on it [the fifth film], I think they're gearing that up." [39] Lucas stated he was working on the film as of December 2009. [40] Most recently, in November 2010, Ford said that he and Spielberg were waiting for Lucas to present an idea to them. [41] In March 2011, the Deadbolt website interviewed Karen Allen and asked her about the fifth film's status. "What I know is that there’s a story that they like," said Allen, "which is a huge step forward. I heard this about six months ago, that they have a story that they like and they’re working on it. " [42] In July 2012, Frank Marshall indicated that the film was unlikely to be announced in the near future, saying: "I don't know if it's definitely not happening, but it's not up and running... It's not on until there is a writer on the project. There is no writer on Indy.". [43]
When The Walt Disney Company announced its acquisition of Lucasfilm on October 30, 2012, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated that Indiana Jones was not initially factored into the equation during the deal, because Paramount Pictures still has a contract in place for future films. [44] [45]
Reception
A TV series entitled The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–1996) featured three incarnations of the character: Sean Patrick Flanery played Indiana aged 16–20; Corey Carrier played an 8- to 10-year-old version in several episodes; and George Hall narrated the show as the 93-year-old Jones, who bookended each episode. Lucas began developing the series in 1990 as " edutainment " that would be more cerebral than the films. The show was his first collaboration with producer Rick McCallum , and he wrote the stories for each episode. Writers and directors on the show included Carrie Fisher , Frank Darabont , Vic Armstrong , Ben Burtt , Terry Jones , Nicolas Roeg , Mike Newell and Joe Johnston . In the Chronicles, Jones crosses paths with many historical figures, played by stars such as Daniel Craig , Christopher Lee , Bob Peck , Jeffrey Wright , Marc Warren , Catherine Zeta-Jones , Elizabeth Hurley , Anne Heche , Vanessa Redgrave , Julian Fellowes , Timothy Spall and even Harrison Ford as a 50-year-old Indiana in one episode (taking the usual place of Hall). [60] [61] [62]
The show was filmed in over 25 countries for over 150 weeks. Season one was shot from March 1991 to March 1992; the second season began two months later and wrapped in April 1993. [63] The ABC network was unsure of Lucas's cerebral approach, and attempted to advertise the series as an action-adventure like the films. Ratings were good if unspectacular, and ABC was nervous enough to put the show on hiatus after six episodes until September 1992. [60] With only four episodes left of the second season to air, ABC eventually sold the show to the Family Channel , who changed the format from 50-minute episodes to 90-minute TV movies. Filming for the final four episodes took place from January 1994 to May 1996. [63] The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles received a mixed reception from fans, although it won 10 Emmy Awards out of 23 nominations, as well as a 1994 Golden Globe nomination for Best Drama series . It was also an experimentation ground in digital effects for Lucasfilm . [60]
The series was released on home video in VHS and DVD formats. Lucas had been working for some time on drastically reediting and restructuring the show for a home video release; major structural changes were made, including the complete removal of the 93-year-old Jones 'bookend' sections. The DVD boxset was released to tie in with the theatrical debut of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Amongst other extras, the discs include approximately 100 new historical featurettes.
Characters
Edit
Template:Update A novelization of Raiders of the Lost Ark was written by Campbell Black and published by Ballantine Books in April 1981. [64] It was followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom, written by James Kahn and published by Ballantine in May 1984. [65] Finally, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was published in May 1989, and was the first Indiana Jones book by Rob MacGregor. [66] A fan of the first two films, MacGregor admitted that writing the novelization made him "somewhat disappointed" with the third film, as he had expanded the script whereas Steven Spielberg had cut scenes to tighten the story. [67]
George Lucas asked MacGregor to continue writing original novels for Bantam Books . These were geared toward an adult or young adult audience, and were prequels set in the 1920s or early 1930s after Jones graduates from college. Of the film characters, Lucas only permitted Marcus Brody to appear. [67] He asked MacGregor to base the books on real myths, but except for the deletion of a sex scene, writer was given total creative freedom. Barring Stonehenge , MacGregor chose locations he had visited in the past. [68] His six books – Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi, Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants, Indiana Jones and the Seven Veils, Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge, Indiana Jones and the Unicorn's Legacy, and Indiana Jones and the Interior World – were published from February 1991 to November 1992. The Genesis Deluge, published in February 1992 and featuring Noah's Ark , was the best-selling novel; MacGregor felt this was because it "had a strong following among religious-oriented people [...] because they tend to take the Noah’s Ark story to heart and think of it as history and archaeological fact, rather than myth." MacGregor's favorite book was The Seven Veils, [67] which featured real-life explorer Percy Fawcett and the death of Indiana's wife, Deirdre Campbell. [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74]
Martin Caidin wrote the next two novels in Bantam's series, Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates and Indiana Jones and the White Witch. These feature Gale Parker as Indiana's sidekick; they introduced afterwords to the series, regarding each novel's historical context. [75] [76]
Caidin became ill, [77] so Max McCoy took over in 1995 and wrote the final four novels: Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone, Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs, Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth, and Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Sphinx. McCoy set his books closer in time to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which led to his characterising Indiana as "a bit darker". The prologue of his first book featured a crystal skull , [78] and this became a recurring story, concluding when Jones gives it up in the final novel. Lucas's involvement with McCoy's novels was limited, although LucasFilm censored sexual or outlandish elements in order to make the books appeal to younger readers; [77] they also rejected the theme of time travel in the final book. [78] Sallah , Lao Che , Rene Belloq and the Nazis made appearances, and McCoy also pitted Jones against Benito Mussolini 's fascists and the Japanese. Jones also has a doomed romance with Alecia Dunstin, a librarian at the British Museum . [79] [80] [81] [82] A novel involving the Spear of Destiny was dropped because Dark Horse Comics was developing the idea. [78]
The books were only published in paperback, as the series editor felt readers would not be prepared to pay the hardback price for an adventure novel. [83] In February 2008, the novelizations of the first three films were published in one edition; [84] James Rollins ' Kingdom of the Crystal Skull novelization arrived the following May. [85] Children's novelizations of all four films were published by Scholastic in 2008. [86]
MacGregor was said to be writing new books for Ballantine for early 2009, but none have been published. [87] In May 2009, a new "middle grade" series entitled Untold Adventures began with books titled Pyramid of the Sorcerer and Mystery of Mount Sinai. [88] A new adult adventure, Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead by Steve Perry , was released in September 2009. [89] A novel based on the video game Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings , written by MacGregor to coincide with the release of the game, was cancelled due to problems around the game's production. [90]
List of novels
Edit
Ballantine Books published a number of Indiana Jones books in the Find Your Fate line, written by various authors. These books were similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure series, allowing the reader to select from options that change the outcome of the story. Indiana Jones books comprised 11 of the 17 releases in the line, which was initially titled Find Your Fate Adventure. [91]
Indiana Jones and the Curse of Horror Island (June 1984) – R. L. Stine
Indiana Jones and the Lost Treasure of Sheba (June 1984) – Rose Estes
Indiana Jones and the Giants of the Silver Tower (Aug 1984) – R. L. Stine
Indiana Jones and the Eye of the Fates (Aug 1984) – Richard Wenk
Indiana Jones and the Cup of the Vampire (Oct 1984) – Andy Helfer
Indiana Jones and the Legion of Death (Dec 1984) – Richard Wenk
Indiana Jones and the Cult of the Mummy's Crypt (Feb 1985) – R. L. Stine
Indiana Jones and the Dragon of Vengeance (Apr 1985) – Megan Stine and H. William Stine
Indiana Jones and the Gold of Genghis Khan (May 1985) – Ellen Weiss
Indiana Jones and the Ape Slaves of Howling Island (1986) – R. L. Stine
Indiana Jones and the Mask of the Elephant (Feb 1987) – Megan Stine and H. William Stine
Young Indiana Jones
Edit
The first Indiana Jones video game was a 1982 adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark , released on the Atari 2600 . Atari also released Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1985. In 1987, Mindscape released Indiana Jones in Revenge of the Ancients for the Apple II and PC DOS computer platforms. In 1988, a Nintendo Entertainment System version of Temple of Doom was released. LucasArts released two games based on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, entitled The Action Game and The Graphic Adventure. A NES version of The Last Crusade was released in 1991. The final adaptation of the films, until 2008, was Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures , released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1994. In 2008, LucasArts released Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures , which was based on the original three movies; it was followed by Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues .
The social gaming company Zynga partnered with Lucasfilm to produce Indiana Jones Adventure World in late 2011. [93]
Attractions
Edit
Action on the set of the "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!"
Prior to Disney's acquisition, George Lucas collaborated with Walt Disney Imagineering on four occasions to create Indiana Jones attractions for Disney Parks :
Edit
Template:Further2 For the holiday season following the June 1981 debut of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Kenner produced a 12-inch-tall "Authentically styled Action Figure" of Indiana Jones. The next spring they delivered nine smaller-scale (3 Template:Fraction ") action figures, three playsets , replicas of the German desert convoy truck and Jones' horse, all derived from the Raiders movie. [94] They also offered a Raiders board game . [95]
In conjunction with the theatrical release of Temple of Doom in 1984, TSR, Inc. released miniature metal versions of twelve characters from both films for a role playing game . LJN Toys Ltd. also released action figures of Jones, Mola Ram, and the Giant Thugee; there were plans for the addition of Willie Scott and Short Round, and also a mine car racing set, but these were never made available. [96]
No toys were produced to tie in with The Last Crusade in 1989, but in 1993 Horizon released highly detailed vinyl model kits of Indiana and Henry Jones, [97] while in 1995 Micro Machines produced a set of ten die-cast toy vehicles from all three films. [95] Micro Machines also considered a mini. playset, but this was never made available. [98] In 1999, Toys McCoy released a Japanese-market-only limited edition 12-inch figure of Indiana and his horse from Raiders. [99] In 2001, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts sold new, exclusive action figures and model vehicles, [100] and a second wave followed in August 2003. This included G.I. Joe versions of Jones, including an African-American styled toy, to honor the black performers at their stunt shows. [101]
Hasbro released toys based on Raiders of the Lost Ark and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008. Further figures, including characters from The Last Crusade and Temple of Doom, followed later in the year, [102] but were distributed on a very limited basis. This line of toys included 3 Template:Fraction -inch and 12-inch figures, vehicles, a playset, and a series of "Adventure Heroes" aimed at young children. [103] Hasbro announced the cancellation of the line in the fall of 2008, due to decreasing sales, although some figures continued to be released up until the 2011 San Diego Comic Convention.
Sideshow Collectibles , Gentle Giant, Diamond Select Toys and Kotobukiya [104] also earned Indiana Jones licensing rights in 2008. [105] [106] [107] [108] Lego released eight play sets to coincide with the fourth film, based on Raiders and The Last Crusade as well as on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [109] [110]
Merchandise featuring franchise cross-overs include a Mr. Potato Head "Taters Of The Lost Ark" set by Hasbro, [111] Mickey Mouse as Indiana Jones, [112] and a Muppets -branded Adventure Kermit action figure , produced by Palisades Toys and based on the frog's appearance in the Disney World stunt show as seen in The Muppets at Walt Disney World . [113]
Role-playing game
| Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom |
In legend, vampires are unable to cross a threshold without being invited. What other natural barrier are they unable to cross? | INDIANA JONES - Movie Reviews - YouTube
INDIANA JONES - Movie Reviews
Want to watch this again later?
Sign in to add this video to a playlist.
Need to report the video?
Sign in to report inappropriate content.
The interactive transcript could not be loaded.
Loading...
Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.
Published on Mar 18, 2016
WATCH Jon's Indiana Jones parody film from 2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EidTx...
Episode #184: The Indiana Jones Franchise
Donning his fedora, Jon reviews the four first "Indiana Jones" feature films all directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford as the title character; the groundbreaking original installment from 1981, "Raiders Of The Lost Ark", its darker prequel, "Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom", the amusing father-son third chapter, "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade", and the poorly recieved 21st-centry sequel, "Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull", co-starring Shia LaBeouf.
VISIT: http://bit.ly/JPMNYT for individual reviews and trailer commentaries.
WATCH more episodes of Movie Night at: http://bit.ly/JogJPMN
Tonight's Films:
• Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) - Spielberg's magnum opus and the quintessential adventure film, 10/10.
• Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom (1984) - Still an exciting adventure with thrilling set-pieces, 8/10.
• Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade (1989) - Funny, if familiar; the ultimate adventure for all movie fans, 10/10.
• Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008) - Not a bad movie, just a bad Indiana Jones movie, 6/10.
Review Next Episode's Films:
• Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016)
~~ Movie Night ~~
Your host, and film critic Jonathan Paula reviews everything from opening day releases, recent DVDs, upcoming trailers, and classics from years past, with an interactive format that integrates audience comments into a polished presentation. Along with your votes, each film is scored on the "Rate-O-Matic" for a 1-10 ranking. Episodes are filmed "on-location" inside the world's most famous movie house, the TCL Chinese Theater in downtown Hollywood, and usually contain three or more film reviews focused on a specific theme. Quick reviews and trailer commentaries are also posted weekly to the "MovieNight" channel. New episodes uploaded every weekend, except during the summer.
Born in February 1986, Jonathan Paula is a professional YouTuber and co-creator of "Is It A Good Idea To Microwave This?". In April 2006 he founded Jogwheel Productions, a new media production company that specializes in web video. Jon graduated from Emerson College in 2008 with a degree in Television Production / Radio Broadcasting. He currently lives in Rockingham, NH with his wife Rebecca.
~~ Jogwheel Shows ~~
| i don't know |
Which British film company produced many vampire movies in the 1960's and 70's? | The guide to British Cinema and Movie History Backgound
Dr Stranglelove
The Stagnation of the 70’s
With the film industry in both Britain and the United States entering into recession, American studios cut back on domestic production, and in many cases withdrew from financing British films altogether. Major films were still being made at this time, including Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), and David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970), but as the decade wore on financing became increasingly hard to come by.
Also in the 70’s, spurred on by his success with Women In Love, Ken Russell challenged the censors wildly with ‘The Music Lovers’ and ‘The Devils’ only just managing to get a certificate. Likewise Roegs ‘Performance’ with James Fox was a shock to the system for many who saw it. But boundaries were gone by now and a couple of years later ‘The Exorcist’ was to hit the screens only to be banned after to many people fainted or were sick in the cinema!
The British horror boom of the 1960s also finally came to an end by the mid-1970s, with the leading producers Hammer and Amicus leaving the genre altogether in the face of competition from America. Films like ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (1974) made Hammer's vampire films seem increasingly tame and outdated, despite attempts to spice up the formula with added nudity and gore.
Stanley Kubrick made Clockwork Orange, just about getting a certificate, Dr Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In mainstream terms pure British cinema was diminishing and was to get worse before it got even worse.
Ken Russell
Rank
The 80’s decline and re-emergence
The 1980s began with the worst recession the British film industry had ever seen. In 1980 only 31 UK films were made, down 50% on the previous year, and the lowest output since 1914. This decade also started the downward trend in self financing British movies – the Americans began to take over and really never looked back. When movies were made in Britain they were either American financed or had American directors / producers. This was in part because the market potential in Britain is too small to produce a profit return on anything more than the most modestly budgeted production.
However, the 1980s soon saw a renewed optimism, led by companies such as Goldcrest (and producer David Puttnam), Channel 4, Handmade Films and Merchant Ivory Productions. Under producer Puttnam a generation of British directors emerged making popular films with international distribution, including: Bill Forsyth (Local Hero, 1983), Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire, 1981), Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields, 1984), Alan Parker and Ridley Scott. Handmade Films, part owned by George Harrison, had produced a series of modest budget comedies and gritty dramas such as The Long Good Friday (1980) that had proven popular internationally.
Also in this era Sir Richard Attenborough was directing Gandhi (1982) and Lewis Gilbert - Educating Rita (1983). The later half of the decade saw general decline. That said there were still successful British actors and actresses around but the big budget blockbusters were now being populated by mainly Americans.
Following the final winding up of the Rank Organisation, a series of company consolidations in UK cinema distribution meant that it became ever harder for British productions. Another blow was the elimination of the Eady tax concession by the Conservative Government in 1984. The concession had made it possible for a foreign film company to write off a large amount of its production costs by filming in the UK — this was what attracted a succession of blockbuster productions to UK studios in the 1970s. With Eady gone many studios closed or focused on television work.
Lord Puttnam
| Hammer |
Which famous horror movie star was buried in his Dracula costume? | Movies of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s
Movies of 1989
'Back to the Future Part II' - With Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F Wilson, Elisabeth Shue, Elijah Wood.
Plot Intro: Marty McFly goes into the future to save his kids, but when he goes back to 1985 he finds out that he made a mistake that changed the space-time continuum. So he has to go back to 1955 again to correct it.
Review: A classic. Still fun to watch. Starting on October 26, 1985, Marty, Jennifer, and Doc go to October 21, 2015. Then Marty and Doc go back to November 12, 1955.
Rating:
Back to the Future Part III (1990).
'Batman' - Comic book superhero fantasy movie with Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Palance, Jerry Hall. Directed by Tim Burton.
Plot Intro: A boy sees his parents killed by a serial killer known as the Joker. He grows up to become Batman. Later he finds out who killed his parents.
Review: Excellent film with stylistic photography and a dark atmostpheric feel. Keaton and Nicholson are great. Basinger is very good as the helpless victim and potential love interest of Batman.
Rating:
My review of "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012).
'Cinema Paradiso' - Dramedy. Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.
Plot Intro: A boy grows up in a small Italian town whose central point interest for the citizens is the local theatre. The boy's life is followed from the time he is a little boy during World War II to when he is in his forties or fifties. As a boy, he is fascinated by movies. As a teenager, he becomes interested in a new girl in town, but he never loses his interest in movies and the local movie theatre.
Review: One of the best foreign films ever. One of my personal favorites.
Rating:
'Driving Miss Daisy' - Drama with Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, Dan Aykroyd.
Plot Intro: As a woman gets older, her son attempts to help her be able to get around town by setting her up with a chauffer. They develop a deep friendship.
Review: Received the Best Film Oscar for 1989. A great film with great performances. The central characters played by Tandy and Freeman are great. Tandy received the Best Actress Oscar. Freeman proves himself to be one of today's best actors. One of the first parts for Aykroyd in a drama, and he is great as well. "I'm trying to drive you to the sto'."
Rating:
'Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives' - With Michael Paré.
Plot Intro: The singer who everyone thinks is dead is actually living under an assumed name. He is rediscovered.
Review: If you liked the first movie, you might want to see the sequel. It's better if you've seen the 1983 movie. Everything is obviously dubbed, but most of the music is good to listen to.
Rating:
'Fletch Lives' - Comedy with Chevy Chase, Hal Holbrook, Julianne Phillips.
Plot Intro: Fletch investigates a minister who is running a big con.
Review: Sequel to the first movie "Fletch". Nearly as good as the first movie.
Rating:
My review of 'Fletch' (1985)
'Glory' - Civil War drama starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman, Andre Braugher.
Plot Intro: Black men volunteer for a special unit in the Union army. They are trained and sent against a Confederate fort.
Review: Great Civil War film. Tells the story of the black units which fought for the Union during the Civil War — a story which was not generally known at the time of the film's release. Denzel Washington received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Rating:
'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' - Adventure starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Kate Capshaw, Dan Aykroyd. Story by George Lucas.
Plot Intro: Jones saves his father from the Nazis.
Review: Entertaining fluff. How can you go wrong with Ford and Connery?
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'Roger and Me' - Documentary by Michael Moore.
Plot Intro: Moore attempts to interview the CEO of GM about why there are killer layoffs in Flint, Michigan.
Review: The film had an impact on making Americans think about our economy - and our emphasis on cheap foreign goods. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2013.
Rating:
'UHF' - Comedy starring "Weird" Al Yankovich, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards ("Kramer" from "Seinfeld").
Plot Intro: "Weird" Al tries to save a UHF TV station.
Review: Richards is very funny. Not "Gone with the Wind," but fun to watch.
Rating:
'Uncle Buck' - Comedy with John Candy, Macauley Culkin, Gaby Hoffman, Jean Louisa Kelly, Amy Madigan, Laurie Metcalf.
Plot Intro: A down-on-his-luck Uncle is asked to baby-sit with his nieces and nephew.
Review: Some comedy in the first half, and some drama in the second half. Candy is great. Culkin and Hoffman are very good. Kelly does good.
Rating:
'When Harry Met Sally' - Romantic comedy with Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby, and Rob Reiner's mom.
Plot Intro: Two single people meet. She doesn't like him, he doesn't like her. He likes her, she likes him. Same-o, same-o.
Review: Very good romantic comedy. Best known for Meg's "orgasm" in the restaurant, and Rob Reiner's mother's great line.
Rating:
Movies of 1988
'Bull Durham' - With Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Robert Wuhl. Directed by Ron Shelton.
Plot Intro: A catcher is sent down to a minor league club to train a pitcher with a live arm.
Review: Great sports film. One of Costner's best.
Rating:
'The Dead Pool' - With Clint Eastwood, Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson.
Plot Intro: Harry has a new partner, and he is forced to deal with the media. In the meantime, there is someone who has a list of people, and the people are dying one by one.
Review: One of the better Dirty Harry sequels.
Rating:
'Die Hard' - Action/thriller starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman.
Plot Intro: A NYC cop, separated from his wife, visits his wife at her office. One thing leads to another.
Review: A classic action/thriller. Great action. Willis is fresh, humorous. The bad guys are great. Still holds up after all these years.
Rating:
My review of "A Good Day To Die Hard" or "Die Hard 5" (2013).
'A Fish Called Wanda' - Comedy starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Palin, Kevin Kline.
Plot Intro: A team of British and American criminals attempt to rob a diamond exchange. They are at odds after the crime is committed. A British barrister finds himself in the middle.
Review: Kline received Best Supporting Actor Oscar. For some reason, this movie was more humorous when it was first released in the theatre when viewed with a large group of people. It isn't nearly as funny now.
Rating:
'Funny Farm' - Comedy with Chevy Chase, Madolyn Smith, Alice Drummond.
Plot Intro: A sports writer for a New York City newspaper quits his job and moves out to a little town to write his first book.
Review: Very funny movie that shows a man spiraling down into near madness.
Rating:
'The Great Outdoors' - With John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Annette Bening, Robert Prosky. Written by John Hughes.
Plot Intro: A man takes his family to a remote camping resort, but he is followed by his no-account brother-in-law.
Review: Not one funny moment. Not worth seeing. The film wastes the efforts of all the stars.
Rating:
'Midnight Run' - Comedy starring Robert DeNiro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, Joe Pantoliano.
Plot Intro: A bounty hunter (DeNiro) attempts to bring a "failure to appear" (Grodin) all the way across the country to California. The FTA does everything he can to hinder the trip.
Review: Great buddy picture. Still very funny. One of my favorite films.
Rating:
'Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad' - Comedy with Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, OJ Simpson, Ricardo Montalban, George Kennedy, Nancy Marchand, Weird Al Yankovic. Written by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. Directed by Jim Abrahams.
Plot Intro: There is a plot to kill the Queen of England when she visits Los Angeles.
Review: A funny movie. The movie is an attempt to bring a failed TV series "Police Squad" to the big screen. Nielsen is excellent in this kind of part.
Rating:
My review of Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994)
'Rain Man' - Comedy with Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Galino. Directed by Barry Levinson.
Plot Intro: A young man's father dies and leaves most of his estate to the older of two brothers. The younger brother doesn't understand.
Review: Received Best Film Oscar of 1988. Very good with very good performances. Dustin Hoffman received a Best Actor Oscar. Cruise is OK.
Rating:
'Scrooged' - Comedy with Bill Murray, Alfre Woodard, Bobcat Goldthwait, Karen Allen, Carole Kane.
Plot Intro: A self-centered scrooge is haunted by three ghosts.
Review: This attempt to update the Charles Dickens story is in the end failed. It is an early Bill Murray effort which is pretty much a one-note performance by Murray. Think of his loudest over-the-top scenes in "Ghostbusters", and you can picture how he performed almost every scene in "Scrooged." It is too much. The Scrooge character requires more of a nuanced performance — particularly in this comedy — in order for the film to be funnier. Karen Allen's attempt to be all smiles and sweetness-and-light comes off as a painful performance. There is no real spark between Murray and Allen. The writing could definitely be better. There are more times in the movie where a person will wince or grimace than laugh. The photography is also oddly done. Many times during the viewing of the film I wished that the camera angle could have been different — somehow better.
Rating:
'Stand and Deliver' - With Edward James Olmos, Lou Diamond Phillips.
Plot Intro: A high school teacher inspires his students to learn calculus.
Review: Based on an inspiring true story. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2011.
Rating:
'Talk Radio' - Drama with Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, Alec Baldwin, John Pankow.
Plot Intro: An offensive talk radio jock creates some enemies and a lot of trouble for himself just when he is going national with his show.
Review: Offensive over-the-line dialogue between the talk radio jock and his audience may put some people off.
Rating:
'Thin Blue Line' - Documentary by Errol Morris.
Plot Intro: A man is railroaded by an incompetent system in Texas.
Review: Important film about how the justice system can end up broken. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2001.
Rating:
'Things Change' - Comedy with Don Ameche, Joseph Montegna, Robert Prosky.
Plot Intro: A barber is mistaken for a powerful mafioso.
Review: One of Don Ameche's last films. A very good film.
Rating:
'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' - Comedy with Bob Hoskins, Joanna Cassidy, Christopher Lloyd. Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Plot Intro: A detective must discover who framed Roger Rabbit and save Toontown. Pu-pu-pu-puhlleease!
Review: Mix of live actors and cartoon characters was advanced for its time. It is getting a little dated now. The best part of the movie is the opening cartoon. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2016.
Rating:
Plot Intro: Two sisters who live in a religious community take in a French woman.
Review: One of the best foreign films ever.
Rating:
'The Last Emperor' - Drama. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Plot Intro: The Empress Dowager dies leaving a very young boy as Emperor of China. He is has to survive several political changes.
Review: Best Picture Oscar. Bernardo Bertolucci received Best Director Oscar. A sweeping drama.
Rating:
'Lethal Weapon' - With Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey.
Plot Intro: A policeman gets a new partner who may not be all there mentally.
Review: The first of the series. Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are great.
Rating:
My review of Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
'The Living Daylights' - With Timothy Daulton, Maryam D'Abo, Jeroen Krabbé, Joe Don Baker, John Rhys-Davies, Desmond Llewelyn, Caroline Bliss, John Terry. Directed by John Glen.
Plot Intro: James Bond fights against the plans of a weapons dealer.
Review: Bond 17. Daulton adds an athletic aspect to the character that was mostly missing since George Lazenby. It reminds me of what Daniel Craig adds.
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'Manon of the Spring' - Drama with Yves Montand, Emmanuel Béart, Daniel Auteuil. Directed by Claude Berri. AKA "Manon des sources".
Plot Intro: A man falls in love with a beautiful goatherdess, but they both have pasts that lead to heartache.
Review: One of the greatest foreign films of all time. The sequel to "Jean de Florette" (1986). "Manon of the Spring" should not be viewed before seeing "Jean de Florette." Béart is at her most beautiful in the film.
Warning: Brief nudity. Some gross body piercing, but the scene can be quickly forwarded through while getting the basic idea.
Rating:
My review of "Jean de Florette" (1986)
'Princess Bride' - Fantasy comedy with Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Wallace Shawn, Andre the Giant, Christopher Guest.
Plot Intro: A girl grows up on a farm and becomes betrothed to a prince. A small gang of men kidnaps the princess in order to start a war. "Inconceivable!"
Review: A great film. Highly recommended. Has held up very well through the years. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2016.
Rating:
'Roxanne' - Comedy with Steve Martin, Darryl Hannah. Adapted by Steve Martin from a play by Edmond Rostand.
Plot Intro: A guy is too shy because of his large nose to act on his attraction to a beautiful woman who just moved into town. She is attracted to a handsome guy who is somewhat dimwitted.
Review: An adaptation of the Cyrano de Bergerac story. Excellent. A modern day classic.
Rating:
My review of "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990)
'Stakeout' - Romantic comedy/thriller starring Richard Dreyfuss, Madeleine Stowe, Emilio Estevez, Aidan Quinn.
Plot Intro: A ruthless killer escapes from prison. The police must stakeout his girlfriend. "Oo oo oo, I like my job."
Review: Still very entertaining to watch. Great fun and thrills.
Rating:
'Three Men and a Baby' - Comedy with Tom Selleck, Ted Danson, Steve Guttenberg, Margaret Colin, Nancy Travis. Directed by Leonard Nimoy.
Plot Intro: Three men are forced to take care of an infant girl who is abandoned at their apartment by the mother who is a former girlfriend of one of the men.
Review: Based on a French film "Trois hommes et un couffin" (1985). The movie depends on a chemistry between the three main actors. They aren't always believable, but the movie is still worth at least one viewing.
Rating:
Movies of 1986
'Aliens' - Science fiction thriller starring Sigourney Weaver. AKA "Alien 2"
Plot Intro: The lone survivor of an encounter with an alien is prevailed upon to help rescue colonists on an alien-infested planet. At the end it's mother against mother.
Review: Harrowing, hair-raising. Doesn't have the atmospheric horror of the first "Alien", but the action makes up for it somewhat. The second of the Alien pictures. Followed by "Alien 3" (1992) and "Alien Resurrection" (1997).
Rating:
My review of "Alien" (1979)
'Clockwise' - Comedy with John Cleese.
Plot Intro: An English schoolmaster gets into all kinds of trouble in an attempt to make it to a ceremony where he is to receive a most important award. "Right!"
Review: A nice little film.
Rating:
'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' - Comedy with Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Jennifer Grey. Directed by John Hughes.
Plot Intro: A smarter-than-the-average high school senior takes a sick day to have a blast in the city of Chicago. "Bueller, Bueller, Bueller."
Review: A classic. Broderick and Hughes at their best. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2014.
Rating:
'Hoosiers' - Drama starring Gene Hackman.
Plot Intro: The story of a basketball coach and his team in basketball-crazy Indiana.
Review: Very good film. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2001.
Rating:
'Jean de Florette' - Drama with Gérard Depardieu. Foreign.
Plot Intro: Two men in a French village covet property that has a spring. A stranger moves onto the property with his family. Trouble follows.
Review: One of the greatest foreign films ever made. Must be viewed with "Manon of the Springs" (1987).
Rating:
'Platoon' - Vietnam War drama with Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker. Directed by Oliver Stone.
Plot Intro: A new recruit tries to survive the action in Viet Nam and the politics within the army.
Review: Best Picture and Best Director Oscars.
Rating:
'Radio Days' - A comedy written and directed by Woody Allen.
Plot Intro: A kid grows up in Depression era New York City. Radio is an important form of entertainment.
Review: A nice little comedy. Allen without Chekhov or Bergman.
Rating:
'Ruthless People' - Comedy starring Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold. Directed by Jim Abrahams.
Plot Intro: A businessman wants to get rid of his wife. She is kidnapped her for ransom, but he doesn't intend to pay. She was "marked down" and "kidnapped by Kmart."
Review:Humorous. DeVito and Midler at the top of their game.
Warning: Brief nudity.
'Stand By Me' - Drama with River Phoenix, Kiefer Sutherland. Directed by Rob Reiner.
Plot Intro: Kids take a walk to see a dead body.
Review: Based on a Stephen King novelette. Very good film.
Rating:
'Tai-Pan' - Drama with Bryan Brown, Joan Chen, Kyra Sedgwick, Janine Turner. Based on the novel by James Clavell.
Plot Intro: Traders are chafing at the limitations put on them by the Chinese, but after the Boxer Rebellion - and the British win - they acquire the rights to Hong Kong, a great harbor with a smallish village. Two of the British traders are enemies, and they try to destroy each other.
Review: Three of my favorite books are by Clavell: 'King Rat', 'Tai-Pan', and 'Shogun'. I've read each of them multiple times. Only Shogun was brought to the screen with the anything close to the quality of the original story. As is usually true, the book is better in this case. The movie is more of a summary. After a while I was able to get into the movie.
Rating:
'Top Gun' - With Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt, Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan. Directed by Tony Scott
Plot Intro: Students at the US Navy weapons school.
Review: A classic of the 1980s. Tom Cruise made quite an impression. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2015.
Rating:
Movies of 1985
'Back to the Future' - With Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F Wilson, Claudia Wells.
Plot Intro: Marty McFly accidentally goes back in time, and Doc has to send him 'back to the future.'
Review: A classic. Still fun to watch. The film starts on October 25, 1985. On October 26, 1985 Marty goes back to November 5, 1955. On November 12, 1955, Marty goes back to October 26, 1985. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2007.
Rating:
'Brazil' - Directed by Terry Gilliam. With Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Ian Richardson, Kim Greist, Jim Broadbent.
Plot Intro: A man triesto find the woman of his dreams.
Review: Set in a futuristic (?) society, the set design is great. The technology involved is a blend of the past, present, and possible futures. Some of the dream imagery is very beautiful.
Rating:
'The Breakfast Club' - With Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall. Written and directed by John Hughes.
Plot Intro: High school kids have to be in detention, but they are all from different groups of the school - nerds, jocks, etc.
Review: Has become a classic teenage-oriented movie. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2016.
Rating:
'Fletch' - Comedy with Chevy Chase, Geena Davis, George Wendt, Tim Matheson. Plot Intro: A newspaper reporter stumbles on a murder plot and a drug ring while fending off his ex-wife's divorce attorney and his editor. Review: Based on the first of a series of novels by Gregroy MacDonald. Very good part for Chevy who also does great scene by scene commentary. Great background music.
Rating:
'Ran' - Samurai epic directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Plot Intro: A ruler retires and divides his land between his sons; based on King Lear.
Review: Akira Kurosawa at his best.
Rating:
'Teen Wolf' - Comedy with Michael J Fox.
Plot Intro: A high school student finds out that a streak of werewolf runs in his family. At first he is shocked, but then he becomes somewhat of a celebrity.
Review: Fox elevated this movie to be more successful than it would have been without him. More like a TV movie.
Rating:
'A View To A Kill' - With Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Patrick Macnee, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell. Directed by John Glen.
Plot Intro: Bond must foil a plot to destroy the microchip industry in California.
Review: Bond 16. Good entertainment.
Rating:
'Weird Science' - With Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, Bill Paxton, Robert Downey Jr. Written and directed by John Hughes.
Plot Intro: Two high school kids make the perfect woman with their computer.
Review: Not sure how this film was ever made. Pretty moronic. Kelly LeBrock looks great.
Rating:
'Witness' - Harrison Ford, Danny Glover, Kelly McGillis, Alexander Godunov.
Plot Intro: An Amish boy witnesses a murder in a men's restroom in Philadelphia. His family and the policeman (Ford) who attempts to protect them are threatened by those who want to cover it up.
Review: A thriller with some romance. Harrison Ford doing what he does best.
Rating:
'Amadeus' - Historical comedy/drama with Tom Hulce, F. Murray Abraham. Directed by Milos Forman.
Plot Intro: A court composer plots to destroy Mozart's life.
Review: Excellent. A portrait of what personal jealousy can cost everyone. Received Best Picture and Best Director Oscars.
Rating:
'Footloose' - Romantic comedy with Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer, Chris Penn, Sarah Jessica Parker, John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest.
Plot Intro: Dancing and rock music are outlawed in a western town. But it's hard to hold the kids down. As Jeff Goldblum says in 'Jurassic Park', life will find a way.
Review: A favorite film of many who grew up in the era. A showcase for a group of young stars. The film attempts to make the point that many religious based rules are transitory.
Rating:
'Ghostbusters' - Comedy with Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts. Directed by Ivan Reitman
Plot Intro: Ghosts are running around in anticipation of some big day.
Review: Has become a classic. Was remade in 2016. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2015.
Rating:
'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' - Adventure with Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw.
Plot Intro: How "Indiana" Jones became what he became.
Review: The second of the Indiana Jones series. A lot of fun.
Rating:
My review of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008)
'Purple Rain' - Rock Pic with Prince, Apollonia.
Plot Intro: 'The Kid' and his band have good music, but no one understands it. He has a competitor who kind of sabotages him. And his band is disgruntled.
Review: Very popular film and soundtrack. Won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score - a category that was renamed for the next year. The music performances are the reason to see the film.
Rating:
'The Terminator' - Classic futuristic thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn.
Plot Intro: A killer cyborg comes back from the future to kill a woman in order to prevent the birth of the leader of the humans in the human-vs.-machine war in the near future. A human comes back from the future to protect her.
Review: So good it demanded a sequel. Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Schwarzenegger looks like he's unstoppable. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2008.
Rating:
'This Is Spinal Tap' - Comedy with Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Bruno Kirby. Directed by Rob Reiner.
Plot Intro: A band is followed around by a documentary filmmaker.
Review: Satire on some of these kinds of documentaries. Tongue in cheek. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2002.
Rating:
'2010' - Sci-fi with Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow, Keir Dullea, Madolyn Smith Osborne, Bob Balaban, Mary Jo Deschanel. Based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke.
Plot Intro: A group of scientists - a mixture of Americans and Soviets - are sent to the moons of Jupiter to find out what happened to the mission shown in '2001: A Space Odyssey'.
Review: A good sequel that is supposed to explain what the first movie is all about.
Rating:
Movies of 1983
'The Christmas Story' - Holiday comedy with Peter Billingsley, Darrin McGavin, Melinda Dillon.
Plot Intro: A kid's dream gift is the Red Ryder BB gun with the compass in the stock. 'You'll shoot your eye out'.
Review: Great fun. Has become a Christmas classic. It isn't Christmas unless you watch "The Christmas Story." Warning: Some foul language and bullying. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2012.
Rating:
'Eddie and the Cruisers' - With Michael Paré, Tom Berenger, Joe Pantoliano, Helen Schneider, Ellen Barkin.
Plot Intro: A reporter looks into the disappearance of a local rock singer and the mystery of the missing last tapes.
Review: Has the quality of a TV movie of the time. The music is pretty good. The band and the lead singer make the viewer think of Bruce Springsteen.
Rating:
My Review of 'Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives' (1989)
'Gorky Park' - Drama with William Hurt, Lee Marvin, Brian Dennehy, Ian Bannen, Joanna Pacula, Ian McDiarmid, Ian Bannen.
Plot Intro: Three bodies are found in Gorky Park. Their finger tips are removed along with the skin off of their faces. Who are they, and who is their killer?
Review: I watched this film the first time before I read the book. Recently I read the book and then viewed the film again. The story made a lot more sense. I thought that the book was very well constructed. The film may not be quite as good as the book, but the movie is still very good. Marvin is excellent, and Dennehy is very good. Hurt attempts to put on a British accent, not very successfully, but his acting is very good otherwise. Besides Marvin, Hurt, and Dennehy, the film includes the actor who played the Emperor in the first three Star War films (McDiarmid) and one of the leading actors in 'Waking Ned Devine'.
Rating:
'King of Comedy' - Comedy with Jerry Lewis and Robert DeNiro. Plot Intro: A "Johnny Carson" type of late night show host gets kidnapped. Review: Not for everyone. It may be too dark for some. Though if you like Jerry Lewis you might like seeing him get kidnapped, and if you don't like Jerry Lewis you might like seeing him get kidnapped. It's a win - win.
Rating:
'Max Dugan Returns' - Comedy with Marsha Mason, Jason Robards, Matthew Broderick, Donald Sutherland, Dody Goodman, Charlie Lau. Written by Neil Simon.
Plot Intro: An old man visits his estranged daughter - a struggling teacher - and grandson, carrying a suitcase full of money. He claims he has 6 months to live, and he says people are hunting him.
Review: Mason and Robards are great. The interaction between them is fun to watch.
Rating:
'Never Say Never Again' - With Sean Connery, Kim Basinger, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Barbara Carrera, Max von Sydow, Edward Fox, Rowan Atkinson. Directed by Irvin Kershner.
Plot Intro: Two nuclear warheads were stolen, and Bond must find them.
Review: Bond 15. Very good, but Connery is too old for this.
Rating:
My review of 'Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens' (2015)
'The Right Stuff' - Drama with Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Barbara Hershey, Veronica Cartwright.
Plot Intro: The US missile program struggles, but jet technology continues to develop. Then the USSR launches Sputnik and puts a man in space. During all of this the US begins its development of the Mercury program.
Review: Excellent portrayal of what it might have been like during that era. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2013.
Rating:
'Sudden Impact' - With Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke.
Plot Intro: Harry investigates a series of murders. They all are linked to an incident at a small town carnival.
Review: Some unsavory scenes. Clint is good, as usual.
Rating:
My Review of "The Dead Pool" (1988)
'Who Will Love My Children?' - TV movie with Ann-Margret, Frederic Forrest, Cathryn Damon.
Plot Intro: The mother of several children finds out she's dying of cancer. What will happen to her family?
Review: Based on a true story. If I could give this more than 4 stars I would. I'm including it here even though it's a TV movie. It's an excellent movie. Ann-Margret gives a wonderful performance, and everyone in the movie is great - increasing the impact of the film.
Rating:
'Blade Runner' - Science Fiction with Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, M. Emmett Walsh, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy. Directed by Ridley Scott.
Plot Intro: A former blade runner is recruited to find four replicants.
Review: Amazing graphics and art direction. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1993.
Rating:
'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid' - Mystery-Comedy with Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, Carl Reiner.
Plot Intro: A beautiful woman comes to a detective's office and hires him to find out who killed her father.
Review: A very clever mystery-comedy which intersperses many clips from old film noir movies, making them part of the story. Ward is beautiful in the film.
Rating:
'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial' - With Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Plot Intro: A boy finds an extra-terrestrial who is stranded on Earth.
Review: A special film from Spielberg. One of the best movies of the 1980s. Includes a very young Barrymore. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1994.
Rating:
'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' - Romantic comedy with Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Sean Penn, Ray Walston.
Plot Intro: Kids growing up. A naive girl believes everything she is told and gets pregnant. Pothead drives history teacher to distraction. HS senior loses job after job, but eventually figures out where his niche is.
Review: Classic high school comedy. Some nudity. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2005.
Rating:
'The Man From Snowy River' - With Tom Burlinson, Kirk Douglas, Sigrid Thornton.
Plot Intro: A young man gets hired on a cattle ranch in Australia. He is on a quest to retrieve a horse he lost. He meets the ranch owner's daughter. Later, the owner's family secrets come out.
Review: Excellent story of romance and adventure.
Rating:
Plot Intro: High school boys are obsessed with sex, and girls know it.
Review: Raunchy with foul language and nudity.
Rating:
'Tootsie' - Cross-dressing comedy with Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Geena Davis, Dabney Coleman.
Plot Intro: An out-of-work actor who runs acting workshops takes a part on an afternoon soap opera as a woman character. Things get more complicated for him than just getting in and out of his girdle.
Review: Great comedy. Dustin does great as a man dressed as a woman. Lange received Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1998.
Rating:
'The Verdict' - Drama with Paul Newman.
Plot Intro: A down and out lawyer in Boston sues a well-respected hospital and its doctors on behalf of a woman who dies during an operation.
Review: Newman should have received Oscar for this movie. Everyone realized the mistake and gave him one for "Color of Money." These things happen.
Rating:
'Body Heat' - Drama with William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson.
Plot Intro: A local lawyer gets involved with a married woman which leads to murder.
Review: Atmospheric. A loose remake of "Double Indemnity" (1944; another great flick). Another man whose brain does not work when other organs are functioning.
Rating:
'Chariots of Fire' - Drama.
Plot Intro: Dramatized version of the events leading up to Britain's 1924 Olympic track team competing in Paris. Will they be able to beat those Americans?
Review: Received Best Picture Oscar. It seems that this film is one the people either like a lot or don't like at all. I like it. The story and the movie's main theme music are very moving. The beach running scene was filmed on the beach in St. Andrews Scotland.
Rating:
'For Your Eyes Only' - With Roger Moore, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn, Topol. Directed by John Glen.
Plot Intro: James Bond investigates the sinking of a British spy ship.
Review: Bond 13. Very good.
Rating:
Movies of 1980
'Airplane!' - Comedy with Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar.
Plot Intro: Food poisoning affects the flight crew and many of the passengers on a commercial flight. A former pilot must overcome his fears to save everyone. "And stop calling me Shirley." "I guess I picked the wrong time to give up cigarettes." "Does anyone know how to fly a plane?"
Review: This may be the funniest movie of all time. It hasn't aged a bit. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2010.
Rating:
'The Blues Brothers' - Comedy with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher, John Candy. Directed by John Landis.
Plot Intro: Two brothers are on a mission from God to save their childhood home.
Review: A lot of fun.
Rating:
'Caddyshack' - Comedy with Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight. Plot Intro: A caddy must win a caddy golf tournament and then win another match in order to have enough money to go to college. He also must navigate through all of the normal problems of a teenager. It is basically a coming-of-age story. "It looks good on you though." "Be the ball." "You're lean, you're mean...." Review: Very funny. Dangerfield, Chase, and Murray make the movie what it is. Rodney steals all of his scenes.
Rating:
'The Empire Strikes Back' - Science Fiction by George Lucas. With Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, Billy Dee Williams. AKA 'Star Wars: Episode 5 - The Empire Strikes Back'.
Plot Intro: The Rebellion is in trouble. Their base is destroyed, and all must flee before the wrath of the emperor and Darth Vader.
Review: Excellent follow up to the Star Wars blockbuster. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2010.
Rating:
My review of 'Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens' (2015)
'Hopscotch' - Comedy with Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Sam Waterston, Ned Beatty, Herbert Lom. Plot Intro: Before he can be "put out to pasture", a CIA agent teaches the agency that he still is the best. Review: This is a great film for all of us who are aging and have to deal with people who think they know it all or that we know less than nothing. I find it very entertaining and can watch it multiple times. One piece of trivia: The man from whom Matthau buys the plane has the last name of "Ludlum" which I'm sure is an "in" joke.
Rating:
'Kagemusha' - Written and directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Plot Intro: A clan leader (in the latter half of the 16th century in Japan) is killed at night by a sniper. The clan decides to use a double to hide the fact of his death.
Review: One of the best of Kurosawa's films. A masterpiece of costume, staging, and photography. The costumes are amazing. I would recommend buying the Criterion version. The commentary by Stephen Prince is excellent. The sequence of events occurred when three leaders were vying for power: Takeda Shingen, Oda Nobunaga, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. But Shingen was dead, Nobunaga is assassinated by one of his allies, and it is Ieyasu who eventually becomes Shogun after the Battle of Sekigahara.
Rating:
The Wikipedia article on Takeda Shingen .
See my webpage A Brief History of Japan , which I wrote in conjunction with some pages I wrote about the computer game "Shogun: Total War".
Some books by Eiji Yoshikawa : I would also recommend the book "Taiko" by Eiji Yoshikawa which deals with this period but from the point of view of Nobunaga, Ieyasu, and Nobunaga's general, Hideyoshi. "Taiko" is an extremely good book, as is his book "Musashi".
'The Long Riders' - Western with Stacy Keach, James Keach, David Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine, Randy Quaid, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Guest, Nicholas Guest, Harry Carey Jr.
Plot Intro: The Jesse-Younger gang robs trains, stagecoaches, and banks after the Civil War.
Review: Well-conceived movie with real life brothers playing members of the gang who were brothers. Some brief nudity.
Rating:
'Nine to Five' - Comedy with Dabney Coleman, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton. Plot Intro: Women who work 9 to 5 — and have to deal with a male chauvenist (Coleman) every work day — try to teach the chauvenist a lesson. Review: Tries to teach the same lesson as "Fatal Attraction" only in a light, humorous way. People deserve to be treated with respect.
Rating:
'Oh God! Book II' - Comedy with George Burns, Suzanne Pleshette, David Birney, Louanne Sirota, Conrad Janis, Hugh Downs, Joyce Brothers, Wilfred Hyde-White, Edie McClurg, Howard Duff, Hans Conreid.
Plot Intro: God appears to a small girl and asks her to come up with a slogan for God. She is suspended from school, and nearly placed in an institution.
Review: I actually liked this film better than the first. Pleshette is one of my favorite actresses, and I've always liked Burns. Groups of child actors could have made the film hard to watch, but the filmmaker had just the right amount.
Rating:
My review of 'Oh God!' (1977).
'Private Benjamin' - Comedy with Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, Albert Brooks, Armand Assante, Harry Dean Stanton.
Plot Intro: A young woman discovers that her husband has died on their wedding night. Depressed and despondent, she is convinced by an Army recruiter to join the Army. She finds that it is not what she bargained for.
Review: Some humorous moments. The theatrical version contains some nudity.
Rating:
'Raging Bull' - Historical Drama with Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci. Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Plot Intro: Dramatized version of part of Jake LaMotta's life.
Review: DeNiro won an Academy Award. Filmed in black and white. Brutally honest in its portrayal of the violence of boxing. One of DeNiro's and Scorsese's best. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1990.
Rating:
Movies of 1979
'Alien' - Science Fiction thriller with Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright.
Plot Intro: A space ship answers a distress signal. One of the crew gets attacked, and the rest of the crew are threatened.
Review: Very effective thriller. Just hearing the opening music is enough to make your skin crawl if you've seen the movie before. Followed by three sequels: "Aliens" (1986), "Alien 3" (1992), "Alien Resurrection" (1997).
Warning: Extremely violent and scary. Not for the very young or impressionable. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2000.
Rating:
'Apocalypse Now' - War drama with Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Plot Intro: American forces in Vietnam have to deal with the total confusion.
Review: One of the great movies of the 1970s. A tour de force. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2000.
Rating:
'Breaking Away' - With Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern.
Plot Intro: A kid who grew up in Bloomington, Indiana is obsessed with the Italian Cinzano bicycle team. He befriends a girl who is attending the University of Indiana. After a series of events, he rides in the local bike race against teams from the university.
Review: Great film.
Rating:
'Manhattan' - Comedy with Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep; written and directed by Woody Allen in black and white.
Plot Intro: A script writer for a TV show has dating problems and ex-wife problems.
Review: Manhattan at its finest. The movie opens up with a view of Manhattan timed to Gershwin's 'Rhapsody in Blue.' Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2001.
Rating:
'Moonraker' - With Roger Moore, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn, Richard Kiel. Directed by Lewis Gilbert.
Plot Intro: James Bond investigates the hijacking of a spaceship.
Review: Bond 12. Very good.
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'1941' - With Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, John Candy, Ned Beatty, Robert Stack, Christopher Lee, Toshiro Mifune, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, Tim Matheson, Elisha Cook Jr, Patti LuPone, Slim Pickens, Joe Flaherty, Penny Marshall. Written by Bob Gale and Bob Zemeckis. Directed by Stephen Spielberg.
Plot Intro: Weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the west coast of the United States is nervous about whether they are next. Chaos ensues. The film is supposed to follow the young man played by Bobby Di Cicco. He is in love with the main girl, and he runs afoul of Treat Williams, steals a uniform to get into the USO, etc.
Review: Better than the initial reviews. Pretty funny stuff if you really listen and notice what is going on. One thing that might go over some peoples' heads is the fact that Christopher Lee speaks German, Toshiro Mifune speaks Japanese, and Slim Pickens speaks English with a strong Southern accent -- all in the same scene, and the all understand each other. There are also references to "Jaws" and "Dr. Strangelove" in the film. The special feature on the DVD was very interesting.
Rating:
'10' - Romantic comedy with Dudley Moore, Bo Derek, Julie Andrews.
Plot Intro: A middle aged man becomes obsessed with a young woman who he first sees on her way to her wedding.
Review: The movie made a splash when it came out, but it doesn't hold up very well. Moore's acting can get annoying. He doesn't play a drunk very well. The film contains a lot of nudity.
Rating:
Movies of 1978
'Animal House' - Comedy with John Belushi, Tim Matheson, Thomas Hulce, Peter Riegert, Donald Sutherland, Karen Allen, Stephen Furst, Kevin Bacon, Martha Smith, Mary Louise Weller. AKA 'National Lampoon's Animal House'.
Plot Intro: A fraternity is suspended by their school for bad grades and bad behavior. They get even.
Review: Very funny. Belushi is inspired. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2001.
Rating:
'The Great Train Robbery' - With Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, Leslie-Anne Down. Written and directed by Michael Crichton. Based on Crichton's 1975 book.
Plot Intro: A master criminal plans and executes the robbery of gold from a moving train.
Review: hBased on a true story. Mostly based on Crichton's book about what is known as "The Great Gold Robbery of 1855" which resulted in the theft of 25000 British pounds worth of gold. The movie summarizes Crichton's account some. There are arguments about the accuracy of the account in Crichton's book. Some of these are detailed in a Wikipedia article. The true story was explained in "The First Great Train Robbery" by David C. Hanrahan.
Rating:
'The Return of the Pink Panther' - With Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom. Directed by Blake Edwards.
Plot Intro: After everyone thinks he's dead, Inspector Clouseau, the most incompetent detective in the French force, investigates who was trying to kill him.
Review: Very humorous combination of scenes.
Rating:
'Annie Hall' - Comedy with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.
Plot Intro: A man has dating problems.
Review: Considered by many to be one of Woody Allen's best. The film was chosen as Best Picture, and Allen received an Oscar for directing and another for screenplay. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1992.
Rating:
'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' - Drama with Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon.
Plot Intro: Strange things are happening in the countryside, and people are being drawn to the Devil's Tower in the Dakotas.
Review: Great special effects. Dreyfuss is great as the obsessed man who has one of the close encounters. Dillon is great as the protective mother. At the beginning, some parts of the film are a little slow. For example, the opening scene is the discovery of five WW2 planes, but it seems to take forever for the reveal of what significant item was found. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2007.
Rating:
'Oh God!' - Comedy with George Burns, John Denver, Teri Garr, Donald Pleasance, Ralph Bellamy, William Daniels, Paul Sorvino, Dinah Shore, David Ogden Stiers. Directed by Carl Reiner
Plot Intro: God appears to an assistant manager at a local food mart. Trouble starts.
Review: The film made a splash when it came out, but it doesn't hold up. Denver seems to be a poor fit. Sorvino is hard to watch. It was funny to see an AMC Pacer.
Rating:
My review of 'Oh God! Book II'
'Saturday Night Fever' - With John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Sam Coppola, Donna Pescow, Fran Drescher.
Plot Intro: A nearly 20 year old is about to compete again in a dance contest. He has become unsatisfied with his family, his job, his friends, and his dance partner. Then he sees a girl who can really dance.
Review: This is the film that launched Travolta from being on a popular TV show to be an international star. Too much foul language. Unnecessary nudity and sex scenes. Best parts of the film are when Travolta dances (there are 3 of these scenes), the first two being the best. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2010.
Rating:
'The Spy Who Loved Me' - With Roger Moore, Curd Jurgens, Barbara Bach, Richard Kiel, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Lewis Gilbert.
Plot Intro: Bond must work with a beautiful Soviet agent to find the plans for a means to capture nuclear submarines.
Review: Bond 11. Not as good as other Bond films.
Rating:
Movies of 1976
'All the President's Men' - Historical drama with Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook.
Plot Intro: The amazing story of the investigation into the events where the laws and the Constitution of the United States were twisted beyond recognition. Is this a democracy or isn't it?
Review: A great film, but still appalling to watch. I understand the desire for power - and that all kinds of things happen during a campaign, but there are limits to what is acceptable. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2010.
Rating:
'The Enforcer' - With Clint Eastwood, Tyne Daly.
Plot Intro: A radical group kidnaps the mayor of San Francisco and asks for money and a plane. Harry Callahan is given a very young female partner, and he is not happy about it.
Review: A pretty good Dirty Harry movie. The villains are cartoonish though.
Rating:
My Review of "The Dead Pool" (1988)
'Network' - Drama with Peter Finch, William Holden, Faye Dunaway.
Plot Intro: A TV personality becomes the leader of a movement. 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more.'
Review: Dunaway and Finch received Oscars. Great film. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 200.
Rating:
'The Outlaw Josey Wales' - Western with Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke.
Plot Intro: During the conflict between Union-sympathetic and Confederate-sympathetic forces in Missouri, innocent farmers are attacked. In one of those incidents, the family of Josey Wales is killed. Wales joins confederate sympathizers. At the end of the Civil War, neither side is willing to forgive and forget. Instead of signing a pledge to the Union, Josey Wales flees Missouri. A price is on his head.
Review: Very good Eastwood movie. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1996.
Rating:
'The Pink Panther Strikes Again' - With Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Lesley-Anne Down. Directed by Blake Edwards.
Plot Intro: Inspector Clouseau, the most incompetent detective in the French force, is the target of assassination by the former Chief Inspector.
Review: Very humorous combination of scenes.
Rating:
'Rocky' - Drama with Sylvester Stallone, Burgess Meredith, Talia Shire.
Plot Intro: A contender for the championship belt gets his shot.
Review: Received Best Film Oscar. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2006.
Rating:
'The Seven Per-Cent Solution' - Detective drama with Nicol Williamson, Robert Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Arkin, Laurence Olivier, Samantha Eggar, Joel Grey. AKA The 7% Solution.
Plot Intro: Watson and Sherlock's brother, Morcroft, trick Sherlock into trailing Moriarity to Vienna. There he meets Sigmund Freud who uses hypnosis to cure Holmes of his addiction, and the reason for Sherlock becoming a detective and his obsession about Moriarity is explained.
Review: Not specifically based on any book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. An odd teaming of actors to play Sherlock and Watson. Duvall attempts a British accent, and Arkin attempts an Austrian accent. Arkin is a little more successful. I can't figure out how much of the film is dubbed. The sound is a little odd, like it may have been recorded in an enclosed studio. The screenplay takes details from the Sherlock Holmes writings - Sherlock's violin playing, his use of drugs, his obsession with Moriarity, his faked death - and it creates a storyline that explains these inconsistencies and mysteries about the Sherlock system.
Rating:
'The Song Remains The Same' - Concert video with The Led Zeppelin: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham.
Plot Intro: Footage of a Led Zeppelin concert.
Review: Some of the film includes fantasy dramatizations. I would rather have watched more of Led Zeppelin on stage. At one point in the first half, the camera is in a vehicle going over a bridge, and there is a US flag to the right that's at half mast.
Rating:
'A Star Is Born' - Drama with Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson, Gary Busey.
Plot Intro: An established star helps a young ingenue, later marrying her. But then she outshines him. How will he handle it?
Review: A classic film that is a remake of the 1937 film (Gaynor). It was remade in 1954 (Garland). Plans for another in 2018 (Lady Gaga).
Rating:
Movies of 1975
'Dog Day Afternoon' - Drama with Al Pacino; "Attica"
Plot Intro: Two men attempt to rob a bank, but the robbery is soon discovered, and the bank is surrounded by the police.
Review: A great film. Based on a true story. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2009.
Rating:
'Jaws' - Drama with Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw; directed by Stephen Spielberg.
Plot Intro: A shark terrorizes a beach and the nearby ocean during summer tourist season. "I think we're going to need a bigger boat."
Review: A great film. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2001.
Rating:
'Love Among the Ruins' - TV movie with Katharine Hepburn, Lawrence Olivier. Directed by George Cukor
Plot Intro: An aging actress goes to an advocate to defend her in a breach of promise case, but he turns out to be someone she had been romantic with forty years before - and he's still in love with her.
Review: Often humorous. Hepburn and Olivier still have all of the skills to draw on.
Rating:
'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' - Drama with Jack Nicholson, Christopher Lloyd, Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito. Directed by Milos Forman.
Plot Intro: A man is committed to a mental institute. He has to learn to survive mentally while attempting to bring a sense of freedom to the other patients.
Review: A great film. Received Best Film Oscar, Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Director (Forman). Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1993.
Rating:
'The Return of the Pink Panther' - With Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Christopher Plummer, Catherine Schell. Directed by Blake Edwards.
Plot Intro: Inspector Clouseau, the most incompetent detective in the French force, investigates the theft of a diamond.
Review: Very humorous combination of scenes.
Rating:
Movies of 1974
'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' - With Ellen Burstyn, Harvey Keitel, Kris Kristofferson, Alfred Lutter III, Diane Ladd, Vic Tayback, Valerie Curtin, Jodie Foster, Laura Dern.
Plot Intro: A husband dies, and his wife and son travel toward Monterey California, but the settle in Tucson.
Review: Inspiration for the Series "Alice". Burstyn won an Oscar for her portrayal. Some foul language and frank sex talk.
Rating:
'Blazing Saddles' - Western comedy with Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, Alex Karras, John Hillerman. Written and directed by Mel Brooks.
Plot Intro: A black man is appointed sheriff in a western town.
Review: Mel Brooks films always push the edge. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2006.
Rating:
'Chinatown' - Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicholson, John Huston. Directed by Roman Polanski.
Plot Intro: While investigating for a rich woman in 1930s Los Angeles, a private eye finds out that something is happening to the water.
Review: A classic. One of the great films of the 1970s. A little twisted at the end. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1991.
Rating:
'The Conversation' - Drama with Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Cindy Williams, Harrison Ford.
Plot Intro: An expert in surveillance discovers a murder plot. What to do, what to do.
Review: Thought provoking. Is there really any privacy in today's world? Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1995.
Rating:
'The Godfather: Part II' - Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall; directed by Francis Ford Coppolla; Best Picture Oscar.
Plot Intro: The parallel stories of two young men around the same age - the father and the son.
Review: The story alternates between the young Vito (DeNiro) and the young Michael (Pacino). Some feel that this film is better than the first. I think the first is a little better. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1993.
My review of "The Godfather: Part III" (1990)
Rating:
'The Man With The Golden Gun' - With Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Maud Adams, Britt Eckland, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Guy Hamilton.
Plot Intro: Bond is led to believe that an assassin is out to get him, so he tries to hunt him down, but it's a trap.
Review: Bond 10. Not as good as other Bond films.
Rating:
'Young Frankenstein' - Horror comedy with Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Teri Garr. Written and directed by Mel Brooks.
Plot Intro: The grandson of Dr Frankenstein sets out to rediscover the secret of reanimation.
Review: Mel Brooks films are always uniquely funny. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2003.
Rating:
Movies of 1973
'American Graffiti' - With Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Wolfman Jack, Suzanne Sommers. Directed by George Lucas.
Plot Intro: High School kids, some of whom are about to graduate, are make the most of their time before they have to prepare for college.
Review: One of the best movies of the 1970s. Has a great soundtrack that goes along with a great group of young actors. Lucas says that the success of 'American Graffiti' allowed him to have the funds for the first 'Star Wars' film. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1995.
Rating:
'Coffy' - Drama with Pam Grier.
Plot Intro: A nurse is on the hunt for the people who got her younger sister hooked on drugs.
Review: Lots of violence and lots of nudity.
Rating:
'The Day of the Jackal' - Drama with Edward Fox. Plot Intro: Former members of the French military are embittered because of the fiasco in Algeria. They plot to kill President DeGaulle. Review: Based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth. Excellent film. Highly recommended.
Rating:
'Electra Glide in Blue' - Mystery with Robert Blake, Elisha Cook Jr, Billy Green Bush, Mitch Ryan, Jeanine Riley.
Plot Intro: A short motorcycle cop in Arizona wants to transfer to the detective division, and his chance comes when he discovers an apparent suicide of a hermit.
Review: Impressively portrayed, filmed, and edited. Blake and Cook are excellent. Written and filmed at a time when hippies were portrayed as a sinister force in society, so it seems a little dated in that way, but it still comes across as well-done.
Rating:
'Live and Let Die' - With Roger Moore, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Seymour, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Guy Hamilton.
Plot Intro: A heroin dealer is trying to be more than just Mr. Big.
Review: Bond 9. Roger Moore's first effort as James Bond. Very good. Not quite as gritty or athletic in appearance as Connery, but he was a good follow-up.
Rating:
My Review of "The Dead Pool" (1988)
'Serpico' - Drama with Al Pacino.
Plot Intro: A police rookie faces corruption in all departments and at all levels of the New York City Police Department.
Review: Based on a true story. Excellent film. Highly recommended.
Rating:
'The Sting' - Comedy with Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Plot Intro: Con men con the biggest con in town.
Review: Very humorous film. Excellent. Newman and Redford at their best. Received Best Picture Oscar. This film forever resurrected the Ragtime music of Scott Joplin and others. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2005.
Rating:
Movies of 1972
'Deliverance' - Drama with Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox. Directed by John Boorman.
Plot Intro: Friends decide to canoe down a river in Georgia that will be damned forever. The run into the locals.
Review: Parts of the movie are very difficult to watch. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2008.
Rating:
'The Godfather' - Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall; directed by Francis Ford Coppola; based on the Mario Puzo novel; screenplay by Coppola and Puzo; Best Picture Oscar.
Plot Intro: The story of a Mafia family and of the development of a young man to the most powerful position in the organization.
Review: Very influential. Always on the lists of the best films of the 20th century. Excellent. The movie transitions from having Vito (Brando) as the center to having Michael (Pacino) as the center. May be too violent for some. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1990.
'The French Connection' - Drama starring Gene Hackman, Roy Scheider, Fernando Rey.
Plot Intro: Police are trying to stop the flow of drugs into New York City.
Review: Based on a true story. Best Picture Oscar. The film set out to beat the race that occurred in "Bullitt" (1968). Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2005.
Rating:
'Harold and Maude' - Dark comedy with Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon.
Plot Intro: A love story of a young man who has suicidal tendencies and an elderly woman.
Review: Gordon and Cort really get into their parts. Many may not find the film humorous. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1997.
Rating:
'Murders in the Rue Morgue' - Mystery with Jason Robards Jr, Herbert Lom, Lilli Palmer.
Plot Intro: Murders are happening at a theater where a murder mystery is dramatized.
Review: Has the feel of a 1970s movie. Not necessarily a good thing.
Rating:
'The Return of Sabata' - With Lee Van Cleef, Ignazio Spalla. AKA "Ehi amico... c'è Sabata, hai chiuso!"
Plot Intro: A small town is being "milked" by a syndicate of thieves.
Review: Spaghetti western with Van Cleef.
Rating:
My review of The Return of Sabata (1971).
'Support Your Local Gunfighter' - With James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, Harry Morgan, Jack Elam, Joan Blondell.
Plot Intro: Two competing groups vie for the services of a gunfighter who happens to come into town.
Review: Kind of a humorous version of the Japanese film "Yojimbo".
Rating:
My review of Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)
'Walkabout' - With Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, David Gulpilil. Directed by Nicholas Roeg.
Plot Intro: A father who is going through a depression takes his two children as far as their car will take them and then tries to kill them before killing himself. The children are left to fend for themselves in the middle of the outback where they meet a young Aborigine on his walkabout.
Review: "Walkabout" must have been an arthouse film, because it includes what some would think of as artistic photography and unnecessary nudity. The film was too long and at times was boring
Rating:
'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' - With Gene Wilder. Screenplay by Raold Dahl - based on his book.
Plot Intro: A poor child finds the Golden Ticket and becomes one of the kids who could win a huge prize from Willy Wonka.
Review: The classic. Gene Wilder is great. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2014.
Rating:
'Adios Sabata' - With Yul Brynner, Ignazio Spalla. AKA "Indio Black, sai che ti dico: Sei un gran figlio di..."
Plot Intro: Revolutionaries attempt to steal a wagon-full of gold. Sabata helps
Review: Spaghetti western with Yul Brynner.
Rating:
My review of The Return of Sabata (1971).
'Little Big Man' - Western with Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George, Martin Balsam, Richard Mulligan. Directed by Arthur Penn.
Plot Intro: Jack Crabb begins to tell a young researcher the story of his life. His story begins with his parents being killed and ends with a description of his involvement in the massacre at Little Big Horn.
Review: Watched 'Little Big Man' recently and thoroughly enjoyed it. Hoffman and Chief Dan George are great. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2014.
Rating:
'MASH' - Comedy with Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Robert Duvall, Gary Burghoff. Directed by Robert Altman.
Plot Intro: Surgeons in a mobile hospital try to survive the Korean War with some sanity.
Review: Very funny. Excellent. Still holds up to a large extent. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1996.
Rating:
'Patton' - Drama with George C. Scott.
Plot Intro: A general in the U.S. Army takes part in defeating the Germans in World War II.
Review: Best Picture. Quintessential George C. Scott. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2003.
Rating:
'Tora Tora Tora' - War drama.
Plot Intro: A detailed account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Review: Based on the book. Much research went into the making of the film in order to ensure that the account was truthful. Some events were left out, because it was thought that the viewer would think that parts of the screenplay were untrue. Still, the film at times is painful to watch. The Japanese were so efficient. The Americans were attempting to face attacks through terrorism and sabotage rather than a bold military attack — even in the face of repeated warnings from different sources. The film is told from both the Japanese and American points of view, making it a better film than the more recent 'Pearl Harbor.'
Rating:
'Anne of a Thousand Days' - Drama with Richard Burton, Geneviève Bujold, Anthony Quayle.
Plot Intro: About one of Henry VIII's wives and how she lost her head.
Review: Excellent.
Rating:
'The Battle of Britain' - War Drama with Laurence Olivier, Trevor Howard, Christopher Plummer, Michael Caine, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Robert Shaw.
Plot Intro: Britain is trying to survive the bombing by their enemies.
Review: Based on the true story of the British air force hanging on at the beginning of World War 2.
Rating:
'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' - Western with Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross.
Plot Intro: Two bandits attempt to avoid a posse that is chasing them.
Review: Very entertaining pairing of the two actors. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2003.
Rating:
'The Italian Job' - With Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill, Rossanno Brazzi.
Plot Intro: A crew of British burglars plot to steal a shipment of gold in Turin/Torani Italy.
Review: A Michael Caine vehicle. Sometimes it is hard to follow the plot.
Rating:
'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' - With George Lazenby, Telly Savalas, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Peter R. Hunt.
Plot Intro: Space ships are being hijacked, and Bond must find out who is doing it and why.
Review: Bond 7. Excellent James Bond picture; some consider it to be the best. Lazenby is great. His voice was dubbed for the film's release due to his strong Australian accent.
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'Ring of Bright Waters' - With Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, Peter Jeffrey.
Plot Intro: A man adopts an otter and moves to Scotland where he meets a doctor with a dog.
Review: Endearing story. I enjoy this every time I watch it. Great kids film (though there is one scene that might be upsetting).
Rating:
'Sabata' - With Lee Van Cleef, Ignazio Spalla. AKA "Ehi amico... c'è Sabata, hai chiuso!"
Plot Intro: Several people rob a safe in order to buy property through which the railroad will run. They have to deal with Sabata.
Review: Spaghetti western with Van Cleef.
Rating:
My review of The Return of Sabata (1971).
'Support Your Local Sheriff' - With James Garner, Joan Hackett, Harry Morgan, Walter Brennan, Bruce Dern, Jack Elam.
Plot Intro: A cowboy who is on his way to Australia comes into a town that is going through the gold rush.
Review: Humorous western. Garner is always good at this kind of character. It's where he made his living. The film is full of character actors. Brennan, in one of his last films, gives a great performance. Hackett is great as the clumsy love interest. Followed up in 1971 with "Support Your Local Gunfighter.".
Rating:
My review of Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971)
'True Grit' - With John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Strother Martin, Kim Darby.
Plot Intro: A young girl's father is killed. She hires Rooster Cogburn to track him down. A Texas lawman joins them in the hunt.
Review: A very good John Wayne western. Darby was in her early 20s when she made this film. One thing I noticed at the beginning was the interior shots. Most of them are too well lit. The film could have used some film noir-like lighting in some of the scenes. Remade in 2010.
Rating:
Movies of 1968
'Bullitt' - With Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bissett, Robert Vaughn, Robert Duvall.
Plot Intro: A policeman is assigned to protect a witness. The witness is killed, and he tries to track down the killers.
Review: Very good cop drama. Excellent car chases. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2007.
Rating:
'Day of the Evil Gun' - With Glenn Ford, Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger, Harry Dean Stanton, .
Plot Intro: A man leaves his home after killing someone in self defense. He comes home to find that his wife had been involved with another man, and then she had been kidnapped (along with their two daughters) by Indians. He sets out to find them.
Review: Very good western. Somewhat cliche today, but Ford is appropriately intense.
Rating:
'Oliver!' - Direcred by Carol Reed. Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens's "Oliver Twist".
Plot Intro: An orphan goes through some hard times.
Review: Great Film. Memorable music. Received Best Film Academy Award.
Rating:
'The Producers' - With Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Lee Meredith, Christopher Hewett. Written and Directed by Mel Brooks.
Plot Intro: An accountant suggests the idea to sell more shares than are available, choose a script that is sure to fail, close the play after one showing, and pocket the ill-gotten gains. Unfortunately, the play is a huge hit.
Review: Gets more and more funny as the movie progresses. It is more funny to me now than when I first saw it. Mostel and Wilder are great, and Dick Shawn is extremely funny. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1996.
Rating:
'2001: A Space Odyssey' - Sci-fi with Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood. Based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Plot Intro: From the beginning of mankind to the discovery of life on one of Jupiter's moons. The movie begins with the conflict between two primitive groups of men at the dawn of mankind. One group discovers how to use primitive weapons and drives the other group off. The film transitions to a group of scientists traveling to the moons of Jupiter where a monolith was discovered. They are never heard from again. Another group of scientists are sent to discover what happened to them. The computer on the "rescue" ship, HAL 9000, has been created to be able to mimic human thought and emotions. It becomes kind of defensive.
Review: Movie based on an Arthur C. Clarke book. HAL. The film explores the basic nature of man to survive and dominate. And it explores how our basic selves are essentially the world we relate to. At times it seems that the moviemaker was intent on making something that should be viewed while on LSD. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1991.
Rating:
My review of '2010' (1984).
'Where Eagles Dare' - With Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood.
Plot Intro: A US General is captured by the Germans, and he must be rescued before he reveals too much.
Review: I've watched the film, and I've read descriptions of the plot. I still don't get it. First he's a general, then he's a corporal. If he is a corporal, why do they send a team to extricate him? I came to the conclusion that the screenwriter was trying to put in so many surprises that the script and the movie became too confusing.
Rating:
Movies of 1967
'Bonnie and Clyde' - With Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Denver Pyle, Gene Wilder. Directed by Arthur Penn.
Plot Intro: Two young robbers avoid being captured by the police all the way to the very end.
Review: A stylishly good movie. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1992.
Rating:
'Casino Royale' - With David Niven, Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Deborah Kerr, William Holden, Charles Boyer, John Huston, George Raft.
Plot Intro: After James Bond retires, he is called back to save civilization.
Review: Bond 6. A take-off or parody of the Bond films. Might be interesting to some for how it reflects the time period.
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'Cool Hand Luke' - With Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet, Dennis Hopper.
Plot Intro: A new inmate is brought into prison, and he frustrates the prison guards and inspires the other prisoners.
Review: One of the great movies of the 1960s. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2005.
Rating:
'The Dirty Dozen' - Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, James Brown, Telly Savalas, John Casavetes
Plot Intro: A military group is formed who are sent to wreak havoc behind enemy lines in World War 2.
Review: Very good war drama with memorable characters and very good action scenes.
Rating:
'Frankenstein Created Woman' - With Peter Cushing, Susan Denberg.
Plot Intro: Frankenstein's assistants reanimate him after being dead for an hour in order to prove the soul never left his body. Frankenstein also reanimates a young woman who seeks revenge on those who tormented her, killed her father, and framed her boyfriend.
Review: If you are really interested in Frankenstein movies, and if you are really interested in Hammer Film Production movies, then this movie is for you.
Rating:
'The Graduate' - Comedy with Dustin Hoffman, Ann Bancroft, Katherine Ross, William Daniels, Buck Henry; Simon and Garfunkle soundtrack; directed by Mike Nichols.
Plot Intro: A young man, fresh out of college, has to endure his parents and their friends before discovering what he really wants out of life.
Review: A great comedy once you realize that the story is about a young man on whom everything happens. His desires are virtually ignored. The film launched Dustin Hoffman's film career. Plastics. Look for Norman Fell and a short appearance by Richard Dreyfuss. The DVD has an interview of Dustin on it that I highly recommend. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1906.
Rating:
'Hombre' - With Paul Newman, Richard Boone, Frederick March, Barbara Rush, Martin Balsam, David Canary.
Plot Intro: A white man who is a former member of the Indian reservation police force gets on a stagecoach, but the stagecoach is robbed, and things get complicated.
Review: The first part of the film is like a remake of 'Stagecoach', but the last part is different. Overall the movie is very good.
Rating:
'In the Heat of the Night' - With Rod Steiger, Sidney Poitier, Warren Oates, Lee Grant. Directed by Norman Jewison. Based on the book by John Ball.
Plot Intro: A black man is arrested at the train station in Sparta, Mississippi. The town had found a very rich man dead on their street, and they assumed that since the young black man has money in his wallet, he is the murderer. But the man turns out to be a Philadelphia homocide detective. He is assigned by his superior in Philadelphia to help in the investigation.
Review: Excellent combination of two great actors with a very good script. Rod Steiger received an Oscar, and the film was given the Academy Award for Best Film. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2002.
Rating:
'You Only Live Twice' - With Sean Connery, Donald Pleasance, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Gilbert Lewis. Screenplay by Roald Dahl.
Plot Intro: Space ships are being hijacked, and Bond must find out who is doing it and why.
Review: Bond 5. Very good. Fun to watch Connery.
Rating:
Movies of 1966
'Born Free' - Drama with Virginia McKenna, Bill Travers.
Plot Intro: A lion cub is raised by two people who decide to try to put the grown up lioness back in the wild.
Review: A great theme song highlights this film based on a true story.
Rating:
'Cat Ballou' - Western musical comedy with Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Dwayne Hickman, Nat King Cole.
Plot Intro: A young girl comes home to find that her father is under threat. After he is killed, she hires a killer to avenge him.
Review: An odd western musical comedy. Did not age well.
Rating:
'Closely Watched Trains' - From Czechoslovakia with subtitles.
Plot Intro: During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, a young man follows in his father's footsteps to work for the train company. He has his first affair.
Review: Best Foreign Film Oscar of the year.
Rating:
'The Deadly Affair' - Drama with James Mason, Simone Signoret, Maximilian Schell, Lynn Redgrave. Based on John LeCarré's "Call For the Dead".
Plot Intro: Solving a mystery hangs on a call for a dead man.
Review: Based on John LeCarré's book "Call for the Dead". LeCarré's stories always have interesting twists. LeCarré was an alternative in the 60s to Fleming's type of spy.
Rating:
'El Dorado' - Western with John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Ed Asner. Directed by Howard Hawks.
Plot Intro: Law officers have a man in custody who is awaiting trial, but his men intend to break him out.
Review: Remake of 'Rio Bravo' (1959).
Rating:
'A Funeral in Berlin' - With Michael Caine, Oskar Homolka. Based on Len Deighton's novel.
Plot Intro: A British agent is sent to Berlin to connect with a defector.
Review: A good mid-60s espionage movie. Caine is good as the agent. Deighton was an alternative to Fleming's type of spy.
Rating:
'Harper' - Mystery with Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Robert Wagner, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, Harold Gould, Strother Martin. Based on "The Moving Target" by Ross Macdonald.
Plot Intro: A rich wife hires a detective to find her missing husband.
Review: The movie has great people in it, and the screenplay was by William Goldman who wrote many (if not all) of the "Columbo" episodes.
Rating:
'A Man For All Seasons' - Costume drama with Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Orson Welles, Robert Shaw, Nigel Davenport, Susannah York, John Hurt, Corin Redgrave, Colin Blakely.
Plot Intro: Based on the true story of Sir Thomas More. Henry VIII wants to get a divorce, and he needs More's public approval..
Review: Classic, high-quality drama. Events take place at a time when loyalty to the king and religious persuasion pulled people in different directions. Excellent.
Rating:
'One Million Years BC' - Fantasy with Raquel Welch, John Richardson.
Plot Intro: A cave man is cast out from his tribe and finds another tribe. But he wears out his welcome there as well.
Review: A silly film. More of a 'B' movie than anything serious. Noteworthy for starring Welch. Could be watched on mute - and maybe in fast-forward.
Rating:
'Our Man In Marrakesh' - Spy comedy with Tony Randall, Senta Berger, Terry-Thomas, Herbert Lom, Wilfred Hyde-White, Klaus Kinski. AKA "Bang Bang Your Dead".
Plot Intro: An oil executive flies into Marrakesh and gets sucked into espionage.
Review: Randal and Berger are good. Randall is good as a "fish out of water."
Rating:
'The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!' - With Carl Reiner, Alan Arkin, Eva Marie Saint, Brian Keith, Jonathan Winters. Directed by Norman Jewison.
Plot Intro: A Soviet sub runs aground off New England. The crew is desperate to find a way to dislodge their sub. They go into a nearby town. One thing leads to another.
Review: I remember seeing this when I was young. The humor was more subtle than what I liked at the time. I saw the film recently, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.
Rating:
'The Sand Pebbles' - Drama with Steve McQueen, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen, Richard Attenborough, Gavin MacLeod.
Plot Intro: A US river gunboat in 1926 attempts to protect American citizens against the Nationalists and the Bolsheviks, but things get complicated.
Review: Not sure if any of the movie relates to historical events. McQueen is very good, and Bergen does well.
Rating:
'Spinout' - With Elvis Presley, Shelley Fabares, Dodie McBain, Deborah Walley, Una Merkel.
Plot Intro: a singer-race car driver is chased by women.
Review: One of the many formulaic Elvis movies.
Rating:
Movies of 1965
'Arizona Raiders' - Western with Audie Murphy, Buster Crabbe.
Plot Intro: Quantrill's Raiders created havoc in Missouri until the end of the war. Quantrill was dead, but the gang got back together and began operating in Arizona. A former member of the Raiders is given a chance to work undercover.
Review: Murphy is his usual tough self.
Rating:
'How to Murder Your Wife' - Comedy with Jack Lemmon, Virna Lisi, Terry-Thomas, Claire Trevor, Eddie Mayehoff.
Plot Intro: A comic strip author gets married to an Italian beauty after getting a little too drunk at a party. She turns his life upside-down. He then plots to murder his wife.
Review: Humorous with some good acting by the character actors.
Rating:
'The Satan Bug' - With George Maharis, Richard Basehart, Anne Francis, Dana Andrews, Edward Asner, Frank Sutton.
Plot Intro: Some people die at a germ warfare facility, and at first it is thought that that it was an accident. But investigators realize that some of the flasks are missing.
Review: Interesting to see Asner and Sutton in this film. Some tense moments that end up as kidnapping.
Rating:
'The Sound of Music' - Musical with Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer.
Plot Intro: A girl is sent to be the governess for several children of a widower.
Review: Great film with great music. Best Picture Oscar. Julie Andrews received Best Actress Academy Award. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2001.
Rating:
'Thunderball' - With Sean Connery, Adolfo Celi, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Terence Young.
Plot Intro: Two nuclear bombs are stolen, and Bond is sent to find out where they are and prevent disaster.
Review: Bond 4. Very good. Fun to watch Connery.
Rating:
'Dr. Strangelove' - With Peter Sellers, George C Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Whitman, James Earl Jones. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. AKA 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'
Plot Intro: An insane general attempts to provoke World War 3.
Review: One of the great movies of the 1960s. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1989.
Rating:
'Goldfinger' - With Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Guy Hamilton.
Plot Intro: James Bond investigates gold smuggling.
Review: Bond 3. Very good. Fun to watch Connery.
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'The Gorgon' - With Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee.
Plot Intro: The spirit of one of the gorgons inhabits a young woman, and bad things happen at the full moon.
Review: Another Hammer Film production. Good color. Weak story.
Rating:
'The Last Man on Earth' - Horror film with Vincent Price. Black & white.
Plot Intro: A disease makes people into undead vampires. A scientist becomes a vampire hunter during the day, making stakes by night.
Review: Somewhat interesting twist on zombies and vampires.
Rating:
'Man's Favorite Sport' - Rock Hudson, Paula Prentiss.
Plot Intro: A man who poses as an expert in fly-fishing is sent to a camp where they will be having a fly-fishing competition.
Review: I find this film fun to watch. One of my favorites. Much of film based on "Bringing Up Baby", fishing scenes based on "Libeled Lady". Recently watched the film, and it really holds up. Prentiss steals the scenes she is in. She's a joy to watch. Hudson is very funny throughout the film, but particularly the fishing scenes.
Rating:
'Mary Poppins' - With Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Elsa Lanchester, Reginald Owen, Ed Wynn.
Plot Intro: A new nanny comes to the house of a banker, and she shakes things up.
Review: A classic film. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2013.
Rating:
'My Fair Lady' - Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Theodore Bikel. Directed by George Cukor. Screenplay by Alan Lerner.
Plot Intro: A professor makes a bet with a friend that he can transform a flower girl into someone who would fool nobility with her manners and accent.
Review: Excellent. A classic. Best Picture Academy Award.
Rating:
'The Pawnbroker' - Drama with Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters. Directed by Sidney Lumet.
Plot Intro: A pawnbroker who survived the Holocaust has trust issues.
Review: One of the great movies of the 1960s. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2008.
Rating:
'The Pink Panther' - Peter Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner, Capucine. Directed by Blake Edwards.
Plot Intro: A thief targets a princess and her huge jewel that has the image of a pink panther in it.
Review: Great movie. One of my favorites. The combination of Peter Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner, and the other actors are perfect.
Rating:
'Robin and the 7 Hoods' - Musical-comedy-drama with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Falk, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr, Victor Buono, Barbara Rush.
Plot Intro: The ups and downs of some Chicago hoods during a gang war.
Review: Another chance to for the Rat Pack to get together (they made 'Ocean's 11' in 1960), only this time they get to sing. Includes the very popular hit of Sinatra - 'My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)'.
Rating:
'7 Faces of Dr. Lao' - Western fantasy with Tony Randall, Barbara Eden, Arthur O'Connell, Wallace Beery Jr.
Plot Intro: A magician and his circus come to a western town that is in danger of being bought by a local tychoon.
Review: Might be entertaining for some. Kind of formulaic with primitive special effects at times.
Rating:
'A Shot In The Dark' - With Peter Sellers, Elke Sommer, George Sanders. Directed by Blake Edwards.
Plot Intro: Inspector Clouseau, the most incompetent detective in the French force, investigates the murder of a chauffeur.
Review: Very humorous combination of scenes.
Rating:
'The Birds' - Suspense drama with Tippi Hedron, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Plot Intro: Birds of all sizes begin to attack humans.
Review: One of the greatest movies of all time. Excellent. Highly recommended. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2016.
Rating:
'Bye Bye Birdie' - Musical with Ann-Margret, Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, Maureen Stapleton, Bobby Rydell, Paul Lynde.
Plot Intro: A major rock 'n' roll star is about to be drafted into the army, and his manager and his song writer plan a last event for him. He will kiss a lucky fan before going into the service.
Review: Somewhat reminscent of Elvis Presley going into the army, though no events like this occurred in his career. The movie doesn't necessarily age well. It's reminds me of a movie that is stage-bound, being transferred form a play to film, though my understanding is that it is based on a book. Some of the songs are entertaining, but it is Ann-Margret who steals the movie. She sizzles.
Rating:
'Dr. Strangelove' - Peter Sellers. Also known as, "Dr. Strangelove - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".
Plot Intro: The commander of a military base kind of goes crazy with the right-wing propaganda, and he decides to take matters into his own hands.
Review: Excellent black-and-white movie. Peter Sellers portrays several characters - all very well.
Rating:
'From Russia With Love' - With Sean Connery, Robert Shaw, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn. Directed by Terence Young.
Plot Intro: Bond is sent to Turkey to track down an electronic device, but it's a trap.
Review: Bond 2. Very good. Fun to watch Connery.
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'The Great Escape' - James Garner, Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn, David McCallum. Directed by John Sturges.
Plot Intro: World War 2 prisoners who have a record of escape attempts are put into a supposedly escape-proof camp.
Review: Excellent movie with a great sound track.
Rating:
'Lilies of the Field' - With Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Stanley Adams, Dan Frazer.
Plot Intro: An ex-GI who was passing through is traveling through the southwest US when he has car trouble. He stops at a convent run by nuns who escaped from East Germany. The mother superior believes that he is sent by God to build them a chapel.
Review: Great film. Poitier won an Best Actor Academy Award.
Rating:
'The Nutty Professor' - Comedy with Jerry Lewis.
Plot Intro: A chemistry professor concocts a formula that turns him from a nerdy professor into a slick operator.
Review: A reverse of the 'Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde' story. Remade by Eddie Murphy in 1996. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2004.
Rating:
The Nutty Professor (1996)
'The Old Dark House' - With Tom Poston, Robert Morley.
Plot Intro: A friend invites a young man to his family's home, and then he dies. And it gets weirder.
Review: Low budget, low interest thriller.
Rating:
'The Pink Panther' - With Peter Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Claudia Cardinale. Directed by Blake Edwards.
Plot Intro: Inspector Clouseau, the most incompetent detective in the French force, is attempting to capture the the burglar who has targeted the jewel known as the Pink Panther.
Review: Very humorous combination of scenes. Remade in 2006 with Steve Martin along with sequels. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2010.
Rating:
'Tom Jones' - Romantic comedy with Albert Finney, Susannah York, Lynn Redgrave.
Plot Intro: An abandoned baby boy grows up to love the opposite sex - many times.
Review: Best Picture Academy Award of 1963.
Rating:
Movies of 1962
'Burn Witch, Burn' - With Peter Wyngarde, Janet Blair, Margaret Johnston, Kathleen Byron.
Plot Intro: A college professor finds out that his wife has been using witchcraft to keep bad events from happening to them. He's a skeptic, so he burns everything.
Review: Most movies I've seen that involve witchcraft in the plot have a comedic slant. This is one of the exceptions. It is an effective plot, and the movie is well-acted.
Rating:
'Chushingura' - With Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Daisuke Katô. AKA "The 47 Ronin" or "The 47 Samurai". Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki.
Plot Intro: Set in 1701, 47 loyal samurai seek revenge for the death of their lord.
Review: Great historical Japanese costume drama. The Shogun's castle alone is worth watching this classic.
Rating:
'Dr. No' - With Sean Connery, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord, Lois Maxwell, Desmond Llewelyn, Ursula Andress. Directed by Guy Hamilton.
Plot Intro: James Bond investigates a murder in Jamaica and some odd things related to the space program.
Review: Bond 1. Very good start to the Bond series. Fun to watch Connery.
Rating:
Bond25. My review of "Spectre" (2015).
'The Horizontal Lieutenant' - Romantic war-time comedy with Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, Jack Carter, Jim Backus, Miyoshi Umeki, Marty Engels.
Plot Intro: An Army intelligence officer is knocked on the head several times during the movie, but he falls in love with a woman he knew in school.
Review: Paula Prentiss is one of my favorite actresses from the 1960s. This movie shows her at her best.
Rating:
'Lawrence of Arabia' - Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Alec Guinness.
Plot Intro: A lawyer moves west and encounters the worst outlaw, Liberty Valance.
Review: One of the greatest movies. Widescreen/letterbox recommended. Best Picture Oscar. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1991.
Rating:
'Lolita' - Romantic drama with James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, Peter Sellers.
Plot Intro: A professor takes a vacation and rents a room from a single mother. He becomes enamored with the her teenage daughter.
Review: A weird beginning and end of the movie that should have been combined at the end. Mostly titillating. Winters has the kind of voice that makes the film hard to watch.
Rating:
'The Longest Day' - War drama with John Wayne, Eddie Albert, Paul Anka, Richard Burton, Red Buttons, Sean Connery.
Plot Intro: A dramatization of the events of D-Day.
Review: John Wayne against Hitler.
Rating:
'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' - James Stewart, Lee Marvin, John Wayne.
Plot Intro: A lawyer moves west and encounters the worst outlaw, Liberty Valance.
Review: One of the great westerns. One of the greatest movies. Noticed after multiple viewings that John Wayne's character's last name was Doniphon. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2007.
Rating:
'The Manchurian Candidate' - Drama with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury. Directed by John Frankenheimer.
Plot Intro: A captured soldier is brainwashed to be involved in an assassination.
Review: Remade in 2004. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1994.
Rating:
'The Music Man' - Musical with Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Hermione Gingold, Ron Howard.
Plot Intro: A con man attempts to sell music instruments to a small town.
Review: Excellent film with an excellent cast. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2005.
Rating:
'To Kill A Mockingbird' - Drama with Gregory Peck, Alice Ghostley, Robert Duvall. Horton Foote, screenplay. Harper Lee, novel.
Plot Intro: A southern lawyer has to defend an innocent man who is already convicted in everyone's minds.
Review: One of the greatest films of all time. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1995.
Rating:
'Waltz of the Toreadors' - With Peter Sellers, Dany Robin, Margaret Leighton, Prunella Scales, Cyril Cusack, John Fraser.
Plot Intro: An old general can't give up some of the things of his youth, and fidelity in his marriage is not one of his priorities. On one trip to Paris with his wife he meets a young woman. They dance to the music 'Waltz of the Toreadors'.
Review: The humor of the film doesn't age well - something that could be said for many comedies of the period. It's unfortunate, since Peter Sellers was such a talented actor.
Rating:
'ZOTZ!' - With Tom Poston, Jim Backus.
Plot Intro: An ancient language professor discovers a coin-medallion that gives him the power to use the word zotz.
Review: I watched the movie for Poston and Backus, but it is a silly film.
Rating:
'The Absent-Minded Professor' - Comedy with Fred MacMurray, Keenan Wynn, Nancy Olson, Leon Ames, Ed Wynn. B&W, Disney.
Plot Intro: A chemistry professor accidentally invents a new substance that can create its own energy.
Review: More of a fantasy. A great family film, a classic with some funny moments. A totally white film - a product of the time. And no seat belts.
Rating:
'Breakfast At Tiffany's' - Romance with Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Ebsen. Directed by Blake Edwards.
Plot Intro: A socialite becomes interested in a young man who moves into her building, and she's fascinated by the jewelry store Tiffany's.
Review: For people who have never seen the film: there is no breakfast eaten at Tiffany's. I had heard the movie title for a long time, but I had avoided it. I wish I had never seen it. Just the thought of seeing Rooney again in any scene as Mr Yunioshi is enough to make me want to view something else. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2012.
Rating:
'The Hustler' - Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason.
Plot Intro: A cocky pool player meets his match.
Review: A classic. One of the best Paul Newman films. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1997.
Rating:
'The Roman Summer of Mrs. Stone' - With Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty, Jill St John, Carl Jaffe, Lotte Lenya.
Plot Intro: A struggling middle-aged actress retires to Rome after her husband dies. She begins a relationship with a handsome young man.
Review: Leigh, Beatty, and Lenya are very good.
Rating:
'Two Rode Together' - Western with James Stewart, Richard Widmark, Shirley Jones, Linda Cristal, Andy Devine. Directed by John Ford.
Plot Intro: A marshal gets roped into a mission to find kids who were kidnapped by the Commanches.
Review: Kind of rehashed material with an attempt at some humor by Stewart and Widmark. Cristal does well in a sympathetic part.
Rating:
'West Side Story' - Musical drama with Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris.
Plot Intro: Inner City conflict between two gangs. Everyone breaks out in singing and dancing.
Review: High quality musical based on a Broadplay play. Best Picture Academy Award of 1961. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1997.
Rating:
'Yojimbo' - With Toshiro Mifune, Daisuke Katô, Takashi Shimura; written and directed by Akira Kurosawa; AKA "Yôjinbô".
Plot Intro: A clever samurai arrives at a town that is split into two factions at war. He works for the highest bidder.
Review: Excellent film. Inspired "A Fistful of Dollars" ("Per un pugno di dollari").
Rating:
Movies of 1960
'The Apartment' - Drama with Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray.
Plot Intro: Executives keep an apartment where they can take girls from the secretarial pool. A young executive has to maintain it.
Review: Best Picture Academy Award of 1960. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1994.
Rating:
'The Magnificent Seven' - Western drama with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn. Directed by John Sturges.
Plot Intro: Seven gunfighters volunteer to help a small village preyed on by bandits.
Review: Based on Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai". Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 2013.
Rating:
'The Millionairess' - With Peter Sellers, Sophia Loren, Alistair Sim.
Plot Intro: A millionairess was given a test by her father before he died. She applies the test to each potential husband. She meets a young doctor who is not interested in marrying her. It becomes a challenge.
Review: Very hard to watch.
Rating:
'Ocean's 11' - Drama with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis Jr, Joey Bishop, Angie Dickinson, Cesar Romero, Richard Conte, Shirley MacLaine, Red Skelton, George Raft, Richard Boone, Hoot Gibson.
Plot Intro: Army buddies decide to do a heist in Las Vegas.
Review: A chance for the Rat Pack and their friends and family to be in a major movie together. Good to see these guys in their prime.
Rating:
'Psycho' - Suspense with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh; directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Plot Intro: Strange things are happening at a remote motel.
Review: Another great film from Alfred Hitchcock. Added to the National Film Registry of The Library of Congress in 1992.
Rating:
'Spartacus' - Drama with Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Ireland, Herbert Lom. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Plot Intro: A slave rebels and is joined by other slaves. The rebellion spreads.
Review: Drama based on the historical uprising of slaves led by Spartacus in what is now Italy in 73 BCE.
Rating:
| i don't know |
Which Hungarian Countess is reputed to have killed over 600 women in order to bathe in their blood? | 1000+ images about Elizabeth bathory on Pinterest | Elizabeth bathory, Blood and Serial killers
Forward
Elizabeth Bathory was a 16th century countess in Hungary who was responsible for the murder of 200-300 young women, who were brought to her castle after being promised well-paid work as servants. They were tortured and killed. Atrocities include severe beatings; burning or mutilation of hands, faces and genitalia; freezing of victims; biting of flesh of faces and other body parts; surgery on victims; starving of victims; and rape and molestation of victims.
See More
| Elizabeth Báthory |
On average, who has the faster/sharpest reflexes? | Article: The Elizabeth Bathory Genre
The Elizabeth Bathory Genre
Origins in Folklore, Literature and Myth
Article By: Jozef Borovský , January 1, 2016
Copyright © 2016 Jozef Borovský. All Rights Reserved.
Foreword
The Elizabeth Bathory myth and subsequent entertainment genre with which so many are familiar, is but a tiny fragment of a much larger, and complicated set of historical events. The roots lie in very real national, religious, political and cultural divisions behind the many wars of sixteenth and seventeenth century central Europe. So, it should be understood in no uncertain terms, that the 'Blood Countess', or 'Lady of Cachtice' myth began with an act of treason against the Habsburg crown. Everything subsequent, had, and continues to have, as its sole purpose, the obfuscation of historical truths from entire nations of peoples by those that intended to subjugate them. It is not our intention to dive into the political history involving Elizabeth Bathory in this article which is a subject for another time. (See the article, Elizabeth Bathory: The Making of a Serial Killer ) Nevertheless, the reader should keep this backdrop in mind as we explore the folklore, myth and subsequent entertainment genre of Elizabeth Bathory, its literary origins within popular culture.
It is true, that her political enemies succeeded in eliminating Elizabeth Bathory for political reasons with manufactured charges of mass murder and torture. That was just seventeenth century politics. What they could never have appreciated or ever imagined, is just how effective they were in assassinating her character, her reputation as well as that of her family, well into the present day and more than 400 years after her death! The seeds for Elizabeth Bathory's myth were produced in 1610 with her 'criminal', or we should say, political, arrest and subsequent conviction. These seeds lay dormant and forgotten by time for more than one hundred years until they were rediscovered in the eighteenth century by the historian, Ladislav Turoci. His contemporary, Matthias Bel would later add to it. Subsequent authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, just cultivated the myth until it became what it is today... a delightful harvest of the bizzare!
Local Cachtice Folklore
A tale of folklore, that of a cruel Countess who tortured and killed her young female victims, has been told in Slovakia for more than 400 years. Its origins date back to the seventeenth century and first told by local townfolk in Cachtice, Slovakia. Later, the rest of Slovakia and then throughout the world.
The story is that of a very beautiful, but cruel Countess, Bátorička, as she was, and still is, referred to in the Slovak popular culture. She ruled over Cachtice long ago from her castle atop a high hill overlooking the entire town and surrounding countryside. With age, and having become a widow, her youth and beauty began to fade, causing her to become even more cruel, especially to the young servant maidens in her household. Then, one day, as she was being assisted with her dressing, and in a fit of rage, she beat one of her handmaidens to the point of spattering the handmaiden's blood on her own skin. Upon wiping off the blood, the Countess observed that her skin had suddenly taken on a youthful appearance! In this manner, the Countess discovered her secret to rejuvenating her beauty. Because of her vanity, and desperate to attract a suitor, the Countess was driven first to torture, and ultimately progressed to killing young local women in order to draw their blood, which she used to draw a bath so as to maintain her beautiful, youthful appearance.
After some time had passed, at first rumours, then fear, began to spread among the local population. Her sudden youthful appearance coincided with mysterious disappearances of young women and something needed to be done. Could it be that the Countess was behind these disappearances? Word reached the king himself, who, having observed the Countess' sudden youthful appearance himself, ordered an investigation to get to the bottom of these accusations. One day, the king's appointed investigator and his men, while calling on the Countess at her castle unannounced, surprised her as well as her servants red handed, so to speak, in the monstrous act, about to kill a young maiden, having already tortured her beforehand! Bátorička, as well as her servants were arrested and summarily found guilty in a court of law. The guilty servants were sentenced to death, while Bátorička, because she was a noblewoman, was sentenced to life imprisonment, to be walled up in her own castle bedroom wherein she eventually died.
Literary beginnings
Historically speaking, by December of 1611, and following Elizabeth Bathory's second trial, it is important to know that one of the penalties decreed by the King of Hungary, Mathias II, and then passed into law by the Diet of Hungary (Hungarian Parliament active from twelfth to twentieth century), was that her name 'Elizabeth Bathory' be declared illegal. It was criminal to speak, write or bear her name anywhere in the realm! It is little wonder then, that for over a century since her death in 1614, Elizabeth Bathory, the person, or even her trial for the torture and murder of 12 young women, became a private and mostly local subject of the inhabitants of the town of Cachtice, Slovakia and surrounding region.
This folklore was surely told to family - especially daughters - friends and other trusted persons but in a careful, guarded way. After all, nobody wished to run afoul of Hungarian law. In 1610, during her arrest and first trial, the modern day independent state of Slovakia we know today, with its own national Slovak laws, would not exist for another 383 years! Cachtice was still part of Habsburg Austrian Hungary, and, it was the home of the Countess herself. Save for a few travelers passing through, even fewer outsiders knew of her or her 'crimes' for which she was convicted.
The very first mention ever, and introduction of Elizabeth Bathory to the world, came in the dutiful historical writings of Ladislav Turoci. Turoci was a Jesuit priest, teacher and scholar. He studied philosophy in Klagenfurt and Vienna, studied theology and philosophy at the University of Trnava where he received his Doctorate. He taught at University of Košice and University of Trnava and eventually even became rector of the Jesuit seminary in Trnava. He was a very educated, reserved, but devout man in service of the Almighty by way of his religious order and academic training. Imagine his surprise and excitement, then, that when he was writing his first of three academic publications on Hungarian history and rulers [1] he discovered a peculiar omission in the historical record, that of Elizabeth and Francis Bathory Nadasdy! Surely for him, this was an exciting and major academic coup! The problem with Turoczi's discovery, which he included in his book, is that he did not merely 'fill the gap' in the historical record, but embellished it! Perhaps he was influenced by the witch hunt hysteria in Hungary at the time, [2] and because he was swept up in this this hysteria himself, and because no details of the Countess were available (just like in the present), he opted to detail what was known of her; the local Cachtice folklore, witchcraft, murdered virgins, tales of bloodletting and bathing in blood that kept the Countess young and beautiful. Whatever his reason, the folklore was introduced to the public at large! Voilà! The myth was officially born!
Not to be outdone, Turoci's very Catholic historical publication was countered by a very Protestant version in 1736 by Matthias Bel [3] , a highly respected Lutheran pastor and historian, with an ego, we might add, bigger than Elizabeth Bathory's mythology will ever be. He was known as the Great Ornament of Hungary (Magnum decus Hungariae) and described himself as "lingua Slavus, natione Hungarus, eruditione Germanus" ("by language a Slav, by nation a Hungarian, by erudition a German.") [4] In one of his chapters, Bel wrote of the local Cachtice history as well as the Elizabeth Bathory crimes. More notably, he challenged Turoczi's 'facts' such as the blood baths, etc., as fiction. Otherwise, true to his Lutheran philosophy, Bel basically stuck to the official documented trial version of the Elizabeth Bathory crimes which he accepted as fact, which they are. Curiously, Turoci's next two acedemic publications which were updates of his earlier 1729 work, one in 1743 [5] and other in 1768 [6] no longer mentioned Elizabeth Bathory at all.
Cultivation of Her Myth (1812 - 1850)
Other publications contributed to the elaboration of the myth also. In particular, one article in the highly regarded publication Hesperus: ein Nationalblatt für gebildete Leser (Hesperus: National Journal for educated readers) stands out. Alois Freiherr von Mednyansky's 1812 article [7] tells the shocking and true story of the terrible crimes of Elizabeth Bathory. And, if Matthias Bel failed (or lacked the moral courage) to logically deduce and publish that the 1610-11 trial verdict was based on suspect witness testimonies, then another 1817 article, again in Hesperus Magazine, back by popular demand no doubt, 'sealed the factual deal' so to speak, of Elizabeth Bathory's heinous deeds. It was the very first, and sensational, publication of the official court witness testimonies from the legal proceedings against Elizabeth Bathory which were discovered in 1765. [8]
By the time other writers came along, such as John Paget and his 1839 two-volume book about his travel adventures in Hungary and Transylvania [9] and Johann Ernst Daniel Bornschein with his 1852 novel [10] about Elizabeth Bathory, her reputation, the myth, had already been firmly established, although still somewhat romanticized and historically inaccurate, almost into the myth most familiar to us today. It merits a read of Paget's visit to Cachtice Castle:
I know not why, but one always feels less incredulous of the marvelous when one has visited the scene of action and made oneself at home in the whereabouts of dark deeds - as though stone walls had not only the ears so often attributed to them, but tongues also to testify to the things they had witnessed. The history of Csejta [Cachtice], however,requires no such aid to prove its credibility; legal documents exist to attest the truth.
The ruins of a once strong castle still remain on the top of a hill which can be ascended only on one side, for like many old Hungarian castles, Csejta is built on a limestone rock an abrupt precipice on three sides. About the year 1610 this castle was the residence of Elizabeth Bathori sister to the King of Poland and wife of a rich and powerful magnate.Like most ladies of her day she was surrounded by a troop of young persons generally the daughters of poor but noble parents who lived in honourable servitude in return for which their education was cared for and their dowry secured. Elizabeth was of a severe and cruel disposition, and her handmaidens led no joyous life. Slight faults are said to have been punished by most merciless tortures. One day as the lady of Csejta was adorning at her mirror those charms which that faithful monitor told her were fast waning, she gave way to her ungovernable temper, excited perhaps by the mirror's unwelcome hint and struck her unoffending maid with such force in the face as to draw blood. As she washed from her hand the stain, she fancied that the part which the blood had touched grew whiter softer and as it were more young. Imbued with the dreams of the age, she believed accident had revealed to her what so many philosophers had wasted years to discover, that in a maiden's blood she possessed the elixir vita, the source of never failing youth and beauty. Remorseless by nature, and now urged on by that worst of woman's weaknesses, vanity, no sooner did the thought flash across her brain than her resolution was taken the life of her luckless handmaiden seemed as naught compared with the rich boon her murder promised to secure.
Elizabeth however was wary as she was cruel. At the foot of the rock on which Csejta stands was a small cottage inhabited by two old women and between the cellar of this cottage and the castle was a subterranean passage known only to one or two persons and never used but in times of danger. With the aid of these crones and her steward the poor girl was led through the secret passage to the cottage where the horrid deed was accomplished and the body of the murderess washed in virgin's blood. Not satisfied with the first essay at different intervals by the aid of these accomplices and the secret passage no less than three hundred maidens were sacrificed at the shrine of vanity anil superstition. Several years had been occupied in this pitiless slaughter and no suspicion of the truth was excited though the greatest amazement pervaded the country at the disappearance of so many persons.
At last however Elizabeth called into play against her two passions stronger even than vanity or cunning love and revenge became interested in the discovery of the mystery. Among the victims of Csejta was a beautiful maiden who was beloved by and betrothed to a young man of the neighbourhood. In despair at the loss of his mistress he followed her traces with such perseverance that in spite of the hitherto successful caution of the murderess he penetrated the bloody secrets of the castle and burning for revenge flew to Presburg boldly accused Elizabeth Bathori of murder before the Palatine in open court and demanded judgment against her.
So grave an accusation so openly preferred against an individual of such high rank demanded the most serious attention and George Thurzo the then Palatine undertook to investigate the affair in person. Proceeding immediately to Csejta before the murderess or her accomplices had any idea of the accusation he discovered the still warm body of a young girl whom they had been destroying as the Palatine approached and had not had time to dispose of before he apprehended them. The rank of Elizabeth mitigated her punishment to imprisonment for life but her assistants were burned at the stake.
With this tale fresh in our minds we ascended the long hill gained the castle and wandered over its deserted ruins The shades of evening were just spreading over the valley the bare gray walls stood up against the red sky the solemn stillness of evening reigned over the scene and as two ravens which had made their nest on the castle's highest towers came towards it winging their heavy flight and wheeling once round each cawing a hoarse welcome to the other alighted on their favourite turret I could have fancied them the spirits of the two crones condemned to haunt the scene of their former crimes while their infernal mistress was cursed by some more wretched doom.
The castle though once strong particularly towards the village is now fast falling to decay It is loosely built of unhewn stone held together by mortar and crumbles away with every shower and blast. [11]
She Was a Werewolf!
Turoczi, Bel and Mednyansky had created kindling for the Elizabeth Bathory myth which was rehashed once more by Paget and others. All it needed now was the spark to ignite it. This spark came in 1854 by way of Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, a Vicar in the Church of England in Devon, in his publication, The Book of Werewolves, which captivated reader's imaginations. He begins one of his chapters about the 'Hungarian Bather in Blood' with:
It was not till the close of the Middle Ages that lycanthropy was recognized as a disease; but it is one which has so much that is ghastly and revolting in its form, and it is so remote from all our ordinary experience, that it is not surprising that the casual observer should leave the consideration of it, as a subject isolated and perplexing, and be disposed to regard as a myth that which the feared investigation might prove a reality.
In this chapter I purpose briefly examining the conditions under which men have been regarded as werewolves. [12]
He gives some examples of other "werewolves" and of Elizabeth Bathory, he goes on to quote another writer, Michael Wagener from his book, Beitrage zur philosophischen Anthropologie (Contributions to a Philosophical Anthropology), Vienna, 1796... [Note that the name of Elizabeth Bathory was still forbidden in Austria in 1796!]
"...Michael Wagener... relates a horrible story which occurred in Hungary, suppressing the name of the person, as it was that of a still powerful family in the country. It illustrates what I have been saying, and shows how trifling a matter may develop the passion in its most hideous proportions. "Elizabeth ------ was wont to dress well in order to please her husband, and she spent half the day over her toilet. On one occasion, a lady's-maid saw something wrong in her head-dress, and as a recompense for observing it, received such a severe box on the ears that the blood gushed from her nose, and spirited on to her mistress's face. When the blood drops were washed off her face, her skin appeared much more beautiful--whiter and more transparent on the spots where the blood had been.
"Elizabeth formed the resolution to bathe her face and her whole body in human blood so as to enhance her beauty. Two old women and a certain Fitzko assisted her in her undertaking. This monster used to kill the luckless victim, and the old women caught the blood, in which Elizabeth was wont to bathe at the hour of four in the morning. After the bath she appeared more beautiful than before.
"She continued this habit after the death of her husband (1604) in the hopes of gaining new suitors. The unhappy girls who were allured to the castle, under the plea that they were to be taken into service there, were locked up in a cellar. Here they were beaten till their bodies were swollen. Elizabeth not unfrequently tortured the victims herself; often she changed their clothes which dripped with blood, and then renewed her cruelties. The swollen bodies were then cut up with razors.
"Occasionally she had the girls burned, and then cut up, but the great majority were beaten to death.
"At last her cruelty became so great, that she would stick needles into those who sat with her in a carriage, especially if they were of her own sex. One of her servant-girls she stripped naked, smeared her with honey, and so drove her out of the house.
"When she was ill, and could not indulge her cruelty, she bit a person who came near her sick bed as though she were a wild beast.
"She caused, in all, the death of 650 girls, some in Tscheita, on the neutral ground, where she had a cellar constructed for the purpose; others in different localities; for murder and bloodshed became with her a necessity.
"When at last the parents of the lost children could no longer be cajoled, the castle was seized, and the traces of the murders were discovered. Her accomplices were executed, and she was imprisoned for life. [13]
Michael Wagener, whom Baring-Gould quoted, was no doubt influenced by the writings of the earlier works of Turoczi, Bel and no doubt others, as was Baring-Gould.
So there you have it. In Baring-Gould's opinion, Elizabeth Bathory was suffering from nothing less than clinical lycanthropy, defined as a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform into, has transformed into, or is a non-human animal... a werewolf! Excellent diagnosis, Reverend!
A Vampire or Whatever You Want Her to Be
Little wonder then, that by the end of the 19th century Victorian Era when the Irishman Bram Stoker published his 1897 bestseller Gothic horror novel, Dracula, Elizabeth Bathory's fate as the bloody Lady of Cachtice had already been sealed in popular mythology. Note also, that somewhere between von Mednyansky's 1812 article and Baring-Gould's 1854 werewolf book - a mere space of 43 years - Elizabeth Bathory's victims ballooned from an original 12 to 650!
The 20th century was no different and featured an absolute flood of mostly fictional as well as supposedly non-fictional works. One author, Raymond McNally, who was an American author and a professor of Russian and East European History at Boston College, published his 1983 book about Elizabeth Bathory, Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania. In his book, McNally explored Stokers research that gave rise to his vampire character and even went so far as to connect Vlad The Impaler a.k.a. Bram Stoker's Dracula, to Elizabeth Bathory! No surprise then, that in 2009, Bram Stoker's great grand-nephew Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt finished where McNally left off and published a sequel to the original novel Dracula the Un-dead. In this sequel, Elizabeth Bathory is is introduced as a vampire, related to Dracula no less.
Thanks to Stoker and the likes of Baring-Gould, the public hunger for Gothic tales of horror became insatiable. And thanks to McNally's weird literary history, her character became firmly sealed as the most prolific psychotic mass murderess of all time, factually speaking, to even that of a fictional bloodthirsty vampire. The Elizabeth Bathory genre of Gothic horror was born!
A Hungarian 'Ghoul'ash of Stories
There are dozens of books - fiction and non-fiction - published about Elizabeth Bathory in many languages around the world. A small sampling and flavour of English language books in print today, are listed below.
The Bloody Countess: The Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory, Valentine Penrose, Alexander Trocchi, 1962.0
Synopsis: Descended from one of the most ancient aristocratic families of Europe, Erzsebet Bathory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies, where only the spilling of a woman's blood could satisfy her urges. By middle age, she had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathological necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, cannibalism and wholesale slaughter. These years, at the latter end of the 16th century, witnessed a reign of cruelty unsurpassed in the annals of mass murder, with the Countess' depredations on the virgin girls of the Carpathians leading to some 650 deaths. Her many castles were equipped with chambers where she would hideously torture and mutilate her victims; hundreds of girls were killed and processed for the ultimate, youth-giving ritual: the bath of blood. The Bloody Countess is Valentine Penrose's true, disturbing case history of a female psychopath, a chillingly lyrical account beautifully translated by Alexander Trocchi (author of Cain's Book), which has an unequalled power to evoke the decadent melancholy of doomed, delinquent aristocracy in a dark age of superstition.
The Blood Countess: A Novel, by Andrei Codrescu, 1995.
Synopsis: A Hungarian-American journalist confronts the beauty and terror of his aristocratic heritage in this suspenseful chronicle of murder and eroticism. Turmoil reigns in post-Soviet Hungary when journalist Drake Bathory-Kereshtur returns from America to grapple with his family history. He’s haunted by the legacy of his ancestor, the notorious sixteenth-century Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who is said to have murdered more than 650 young virgins and bathed in their blood to preserve her youth. Interweaving past and present, The Blood Countess tells the stories of Elizabeth’s debauched and murderous reign and Drake’s fascination with the eternal clashes of faith and power, violence and beauty. Codrescu traces the captivating origins of the countess’s obsessions in tandem with the emerging political fervor of the reporter, building the narratives into an unforgettable, bloody crescendo. Taut and intense, The Blood Countess is a riveting novel that deftly straddles the genres of historical fiction, thriller, horror, and family drama.
Countess Dracula: The Life and Times of Elisabeth Bathory, the Blood Countess, Tony Thorne, 1997.
Synopsis: This is the story of Elisabeth Bathory, a 17th-century Transylvanian countess. She was tried as a vampire and became an inspiration for depraved murderers up to the present day.;Based on research conducted at archives in Eastern Europe, this account includes both the recorded truth and the legend that has grown up around her. Tony Thorne is the author of the "Bloomsbury Dictionary of Slang".
Dandelions in the Garden, Charlie Courtland, 2009.
Synopsis: Journey into the underworld of the Blood Countess. "Dandelions In The Garden," is a historical fiction novel based on one of the most infamous female mass murderers in history, the 16th century Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory. The Blood Countess was a descendant of Vlad Tepes and is undeniably connected with the vampire legends of Transylvania.
The Hidden Will of the Dragon, Charlie Courtland, 2010.
Synopsis: In the sequel to "Dandelions in the Garden," the journey of history's most intriguing noble female murderer continues. Come following Elizabeth and Amara through the canals of Venice and high into the Carpathian Mountains to discover the inevitable. How the story of the Blood Countess really ends!
The Bathory Curse, Renee Lake, 2015.
Synopsis: It is said that Vlad the Impaler's first wife jumped to her death rather than be with such a monster, however... Princess Cneajna of Transylvania didn’t expect to be brought back from death’s door by an ancient Pagan Goddess. She certainly never asked to be made into an immortal witch. All she wanted was to live out her life the wife of Vlad the Impaler and mother of his two sons. However, now she has a new life, and with it comes the impossible task of breaking a centuries old curse placed on the women of her family. A curse that drives each one insane. To make matters even more complicated this is a family she didn’t even know she was related to: The Bathory’s.
Elizabeth Bathory, Edward Eaton, 2012.
Synopsis: When Elizabeth Báthory discovers that the blood of maidens will keep her young, she sets off on a bloody killing spree that lasts for years and results in the deaths of hundreds. When she is finally caught, she is walled up in her own castle. There, ever young and beautiful, she is denied the love and adoration she so craves. Then a young priest, looking for fame and advancement, comes to save her. Will her need for his flesh be stronger than his need for her soul? [A play in five scenes and based on a true story | Elizabeth Bathory is widely considered to be one of the inspirations for Bram Stoker's DRACULA.
Elizabeth Bathory: Evil Beauty, Brian Montgomery, 2011.
Synopsis: A screenplay about the most evil woman to ever walk the Earth - Countess Elizabeth Bathory. Based on the life of Elizabeth Bathory, the Transylvanian countess who inspired the Dracula legend. Fact based fictionalized account of the woman who murdered (and drained of blood) over six hundred young girls in the late 1500's. This story follows the countess from her early years to her ultimate punishment after being caught and tried for the murder of over 600 young girls. In remaining true to the incredible true story, this script is filled with dramatic and horrific details of a story that has never been told in depth. You will be amazed that you have lived your life without ever hearing about this fascinating and gruesome tale.
Behind the Genre, a real Person and Real History
Human creativity seems boundless. It is a wonderful thing, as long as one is responsible and understands the difference between fantasy and reality. The genre that is Elizabeth Bathory is what it is - fantasy. But it grew into what it has because people did not, nor do they know her truth today. Those that do are very few. In this regard, historians past and present have failed, as it is the duty of their profession to be truth tellers not propagandists, or interpreters of historical facts. In the end, whatever the facts, it is logic and reasoning of the historical record which exposes the truth. An honest and unbiased study of her historical record can lead the student to only one conclusion, the truth. One such truth is that the myth that is Elizabeth Bathory, exists today, not because of historical facts, but because of the almost exclusive absence of it. Thus, the world is left with only the original seventeenth century trial. In the absence of much else save the folklore, Elizabeth Bathory is known to the world as an alluring, beautiful, sociopathic, deviant and erotically mythical character. Not knowing the history, or even attempting to seek it out, however, is no excuse for ignorance.
So it should be noted, that, behind the myth, behind these wonderful creative works of fictional Elizabeth Bathory fantasies lies a very real historical person that was once very much alive, that loved, that hated, that had very real hopes and dreams, whose life's accomplishments and tragedy also needs to be told, but in an honest, factual way. These works of fiction, while admittedly entertaining, do nevertheless, inadvertently perpetuate a centuries old elitist character assassination of a woman who simply wanted to, but failed in, liberating her people from Austrian Habsburg rule. Had she succeeded, the world today would certainly be different.
More about that another time.
[1] Turóci, Ladislav. Ungaria suis cum regionibus, ceterisque terrae dotibus : Reges item Ungariae cum accurata singulorum genealogia compendio dati / Studio R. P. Ladislai Turoczi, e Societate Jesu Tyrnaviae : Typis academicis Soc. Jesu per Fridericum Goll. 1729.
[2] Fear gripped the superstitious as well as pious because it was the time of the Szeged Witch Trials of 1728-1729. These took place in the city of Szeged, Hungary. The witch hunt was initiated because there was a bad drought and famine which gave rise to widespread and deadly epidemics from which thousands died. Naturally, the clergy reasoned that it must have been because some fraternized with the Devil. It became the height of the witch hysteria and was the largest witch hunt ever, culminating with the death of 14 people burnt alive at the stake.
[3] Bél, Mátyás/Mikoviny, Sámuel. Notitia Hungariae Novae Historico Geographica Divisa In Partes Quatuor, Quarum Prima, Hungariam Cis-Danubianam; Altera, Trans-Danubianam; Tertia, Cis-Tibiscanam; Quarta, Trans-Tibiscanam: Universim XLVIII. Comitatibus Designatam, Expromit. Regionis Situs, Terminos, Montes, Campos, Fluuios, ... Singulorum praeterea, Ortus & Incrementa, Belli Pacisque Conuersiones, & praesentem Habitum. Fide optima, Adcuratione summa, Explicat Viennae Austriae. 1736.
[4] Krejcí, Oskar. Geopolitics of the Central European Region: The View from Prague and Bratislava. VEDA Publishing House of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Bratislava. 2005. p.279
[5] Turóci, Ladislav. Ungaria Suis Cum Regibus Compendio Data: Dum In Aula Almae, ac Celeberrimae Archi-Episcopali Soc. Jesu Universitatis Tyrnaviensis, Annô M.DCC.XLIII. Trnava. 1743.
[6] Turóci, Ladislav. Ungaria Suis Cum Regibus Compendio Data. Novissima Hac Editione Aucta, Elimata, Et Ad Nostram Usque Aetatem Producta. Collegii Academici Societatis Jesu. Trnava. 1768.
[7]Mednyansky, Alois Freiherr von. Eine wahre Geschichte. Hesperus: Ein Nationalblatt für den gebildete Leser, Nro. 59. Prag: 1812. p. 470-472.
[8]Herausgeber (Editor):Christian, Carl Andre. Abschrift des Zeugen-Verhörs in Betreff der grausamen That, welcher Elisabeth v. Bathori, Gemahlinn des Grafen Franz Nadasdy beschuldiget wird. (1611). Hesperus: Ein Nationalblatt für den gebildete Leser, Nro. 31. Prag: 1817. p. 241-248, Hesperus: Ein Nationalblatt für den gebildete Leser, Nro. 32. Prag: 1817. p. 270-272.
[9] Paget, John. Hungary and Transylvania: With Remarks on Their Condition, Social, Political, Economical, Volume 1, London, John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1839.
[10] [11] Bornschein, Johann Ernst Daniel. Isidore Grafin von Nadasdi, Vicekonigin von Hungarn, zwolffache Morderin auf Eitelkeit und Liebe. Eine wahre furehtbare Begebenheit des 17 Jahrhunderts. Eisenberg.. 1852. Pages 67-70.
[12] [13] Baring-Gould, Rev. Sabine. The Book of Werewolves, 1854. Egregore Press, Denver, CO. 2007. p. 109, p.115-116
Copyright © 2015-2016 ElizabethBathory.org. All Rights Reserved.
| i don't know |
What was the first name of Bond Villan Mr Scaramanga from 'The Man With The Golden Gun'? | Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee)
The Man with the Golden Gun, Paco, Pistols
Age
Francisco Scaramanga is the main villain in the James Bond film and novel The Man with the Golden Gun . Scaramanga was played by the late English actor Christopher Lee , who was also Ian Fleming 's cousin.
Contents
Film biography
Background
Francisco Scaramanga was a British national born in a traveling circus. His father was the ringmaster, a former Cuban national and his mother was a snake charmer. By the age of ten, he was part of the circus as a trick-shot pistol marksman; a skill which he put to use when he shot and killed an abusive animal trainer after the man killed an elephant that had befriended Scaramanga.
By fifteen, he was a gunman in Rio de Janeiro. He was recruited there by the KGB and trained in Eastern Europe where for many years he was basically just another overworked and underpaid assassin for the KGB. He quit the KGB in the late 1950s, becoming an independent hitman-for-hire. All of Scaramanga's dealings go through his diminutive accomplice Nick Nack , which allows Scaramanga to remain anonymous. No photographs of him exist, but he has unusual anatomy: a third nipple . As in the novel, it is shown that Scaramanga makes love prior to killing in the belief that it 'improves the eye'.
During the events of the film, he is at the very apex of his career. Consequently, Scaramanga lives very well, drawing from the exorbitant sums of money he charges to carry out his assassinations ("Current price, one million dollars", according to Bond's briefing), and has built his home on his own private island somewhere off the coast of south-eastern China (apparently part of a deal with the Chinese to carry out assassinations in return). Scaramanga lives alone, accompanied only by Nick Nack, Andrea Anders (his kept woman), and a mechanic named Kra who is in charge of maintenance and security.
Scaramanga also uses some of his wealth to finance research and development of technologies that rival those developed by MI6's Q Branch . Such technologies include his infamous Golden Gun , a car that transforms into an aircraft and a solar-powered laser cannon. In addition, Scaramanga also has a private junk, which Bond later steals to get off the exploding island.
The Solex Agitator
Hiding on a rooftop, Scaramanga prepares to kill Gibson.
In addition to his career as an assassin, Scaramanga is also a junior partner in Hai Fat Enterprises and personal assassin to the company's owner, multimillionaire industrialist Hai Fat . Prior to the film's events, a British scientist named Gibson was employed by Hai Fat to develop a solution to the world's ongoing energy crisis . With the help of Fat's construction company, a highly efficient solar powerplant is constructed on Scaramanga's island. However, following its completion, Gibson attempts to return to Britain; bargaining for immunity with a critical component of the powerplant: the Solex Agitator unit.
Having outlived his usefulness, Francisco is dispatched by Hai Fat to assassinate the scientist and recover the Solex. After meeting with his British contact at a Hong Kong club, Gibson is assassinated and his invention is stolen from the crime scene by Nick Nack. Scaramanga initially returns the device to Fat, but following James Bond 's interference, he instead decides to kill his employer and take the Solex, powerplant and company for himself. With Hai Fat's assets in his possession, the assassin plans to sell Gibson's solar technology to the highest bidder, which was a huge concern given the recent events of the 1973 oil crisis. Criminality was of no concern to Scaramanga; anyone who paid up would be the new owner.
Clash of the Titans
Bond and Scaramanga meet for the first time.
"My name is Scaramanga, Francisco Scaramanga. I feel I know you, although I never thought we should ever meet. It's a very great pleasure for me, Mr Bond, thanks to Miss Anders."
| Francisco |
Grace Jones played May Day in which film? | The Man with the Golden Gun (Film) - TV Tropes
The Man with the Golden Gun
You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account
Share
Film / The Man with the Golden Gun
×
No one can catch him, no hitman can match him...
Bond: Who would want to put a contract out on me?
M: Jealous husbands, outraged chefs, humiliated tailors. The list is endless!
The one with ... erm...uh...yeah. Also, Christopher Lee drives a flying car.
The Man with the Golden Gun is the ninth spy film in the James Bond series and the second to star Roger Moore as the MI6 agent James Bond. A loose adaptation of Ian Fleming 's novel of same name , the film has Bond sent after the Solex Agitator , a device that can harness the power of the sun, while facing the assassin Francisco Scaramanga ( Christopher Lee ), the "Man with the Golden Gun." The action culminates in a duel between them that settles the fate of the Solex.
This was the first Bond movie allowed to be screened in the Kremlin, where a Russian official told Cubby Broccoli that the KGB clearly didn't train Scaramanga very well. Possibly because there is only one mention of them in the entire movie. ( Red China , on the other hand ...) It's also the last film that Harry Saltzman worked on.
This film contains examples of:
Accidental Kidnapping : Goodnight really has nobody to blame but herself when she gets caught by Scaramanga; she actually hides in the trunk of his car while trying to plant a tracking device on it.
Not quite — she's leaning into the trunk to plant the tracking device out of sight. Scaramanga just shoves her the rest of the way.
Action Girl : In a delightful subversion of the Faux Action Girl trope, two karate-kicking schoolgirls save Bond from a gang of mooks while he looks on in appreciation.
Action Prologue : Par for the course, but this time focused on Scaramanga and not Bond himself. Scaramanga is seen duelling with a mafia hitman hired by Knick Knack to keep his skills sharp.
Adapted Out : Felix Leiter is in the book, but for some reason is completely absent from the film and wouldn't appear until The Living Daylights . This is the opposite of Dr. No .
Affably Evil : Scaramanga. Nick Nack is also quite cheerful, courteous and pleasant.
Aluminum Christmas Trees : The Bangkok police actually used left hand drive AMC Matadors when the film was made.
Antagonist Title : Scaramanga of course.
Artistic License � Physics : A 95% efficient solar cell is still way outside the reach of science, even decades after this movie was made. To put things in perspective, early 21st century solar cells achieve around 25% efficiency. Assuming the technology was released in the Bond universe after the events of this movie, it would have, as stated in the movie, ended the energy crisis, but to such an extent that it would have put every other kind of energy out of business practically overnight.
Artistic License � Gun Safety : The Walther PPK in the hands of the Bond dummy, assuming it is real and the one Bond uses after he drops his own one, appears to be loaded.
Asian Drivers : For the most part averted, but one driver in the car chase through Bangkok is so distracted cursing out Scaramanga that he drives his car onto a fruit cart and crashes into another car.
Auction of Evil : Though only if you consider multinational power companies evil. Scaramanga intends to sell the secret of the Solex Agitator to the highest bidder, granting them a monopoly. Or he'll take money from the Arab oil companies to keep solar power off the market.
Badass Driver : Bond, who performs a whole manner of (very real) stunts in the car chase. Scaramanga too, for that matter (in fact, Christopher Lee was credited as a stunt driver).
Ballistic Discount : Bond questions a gunsmith about a custom bullet he made by, in part, threatening to shoot him with a rifle the man is making for a customer who has lost 2 fingers on his right hand and needs something custom balanced. Apparently, the rifle fires an inch below the target for people with 5 fingers. Bond proves this by shooting at, and missing, the gunsmith's wedding tackle.
Bond: So speak or forever hold your piece .
Bavarian Fire Drill : Bond attempts (and succeeds) to masquerade as the villain, Scaramanga, to a Thai entrepreneur — by actually pasting a third nipple on himself and hanging out proudly by the pool. He's gambling on the idea that that the entrepreneur and Scaramanga have never actually met in person, and that the entrepreneur would only know Scaramanga by his identifying physical oddity. The plan actually works but then Bond gets found out and used for practice by a Thai krabi krabong school. Turns out, Scaramanga was RIGHT THERE!
Berserk Button : Unless you're another girl, never cockblock James. Nick Nack learned that the hard way.
Betty and Veronica : Goodnight and Andrea.
Bifurcated Weapon : Scaramanga's gun. It's made of a lighter, a cigarette box, a pen, and a cufflink.
Bling-Bling-BANG! : The eponymous Golden Gun.
Bond Villain Stupidity :
Bond takes up Hai Fat's invitation to join him for dinner in his mansion while pretending to be Scaramanga, not knowing that the real Scaramanga had already gotten in touch with the guy. When he arrives there late at night, he's incapacitated by some guards in an ambush. As they're about to kill him, Hai Fat forbids them from doing so because he doesn't want Bond killed in his home. They'll just take him somewhere else to finish him off right? Nope. Hai Fat has Bond placed in a krabi krabong school to...get beaten up? Maybe? Scaramanga rightfully ridicules Hai Fat's thinking before killing him.
Scaramanga: What do they teach at that school, ballet dancing?
Justifiably invoked by Scaramanga late in the film; he freely admits that he could have used his solar-powered laser to blow up Bond's plane before he even landed on the island, but chose not to do so because of how unsatisfying it would be.
Brick Joke : The kid trying to hawk the wooden elephant to Mrs. Pepper, who's not paying any attention. When she gets off the boat, she rushes off to buy one.
Bullying a Dragon : Hai Fat is stupid enough to tell Scaramanga that he's just a lackey.
...But He Sounds Handsome : Bond makes a point of complimenting his skills while impersonating Scaramanga.
Butt Monkey : Sheriff J.W. Pepper.
Can't Bathe Without a Weapon : Andrea pulls a gun on Bond when he walks in on her in the shower.
Bond: A water pistol?
The Cavalry : Lt. Hip and his nieces , who show up Just in Time to save Bond from Hi Fat's minions. This results in a Crowning Moment of Funny when they accidentally drive off without him!
Chekhov's Dummy : The mannequin of Bond seen in Scaramanga's funhouse during the cold opening comes in handy during the final confrontation.
Closet Shuffle : Bond forces Goodnight to hide in a closet when he is visited by Andrea. She falls asleep there, and is quite dismayed when she finds out that she spend two hours there.
Collapsing Lair : Scaramanga's hideout, when the helium's temperature rises too high.
Convection Shmonvection :
We're told that the beam of concentrated sunlight, which goes through open air with no isolation from the machine's operator, heats up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Bond later has it lit up a few centimeters from his face.
Slightly averted, at least by this trope's usual standards. Bond is clearly shielding his face and in considerable discomfort from being so close to the beam. He really should be bursting into flames from his proximity to that much heat, but it's notable that he's affected by it as much as he is.
Cool Plane : The Republic RC-3 SeaBee seaplane which Bond uses to fly to the Supervillain Lair , donated by a wealthy American James Bond fan (though only on the condition he fly it himself. Which he did, all the way from the United States to Thailand).
Counting Bullets : While Bond wanders through Scaramanga's funhouse, Nick Nack taunts him over the PA by saying "You only have three bullets left!"
Dark and Troubled Past : Scaramanga, whose only companion as a child was an elephant from his father's circus that was killed by a trigger-happy handler.
Deadpan Snarker : J.W. Pepper, of all people, during the car chase.
Death by Sex : Andrea Anders gets killed in public - with no one noticing - after having sex with Bond.
Death Ray : One of the few supervillain tropes in this movie.
Scaramanga: Now that's what I call solar power.
Bond: That's what I call trouble.
It "realistically" fires an invisible laser beam, but this only occurred because the special effects team didn't have the money to make the "golden beam of laser light" the script called for.
Defictionalisation : The Bottoms Up strip club kept the same interior used in the film until it closed in 2004. The island which is Scaramanga's hideout (Ko Tapu or Nail Island) was virtually unknown to outsiders — it's now called James Bond Island and is an overcrowded tourist attraction (much to the annoyance of Christopher Lee when he took his wife there). Longtail boats are also referred to as "James Bond boats" in Thai tourist advertisements.
Department of Redundancy Department : J.W. Pepper, upon being re-united with Bond.
J.W.: I know you! You're that secret agent! That English secret agent from England!
Depraved Dwarf : Downplayed with Nick Nack. He's Affably Evil at all times, but he does work for a renowned contract killer, and does not hesitate to try and kill others when he feels like it.
Bond jumping with a car on a destroyed bridge.
Yes, it was real; and yes, the producers had the guts to add a Narmy slide whistle! note The director stated in the DVD commentary that he added it because he didn't think there was a way the audiences would take such stunt seriously.
J.W.: "You're not thinkin' o'—"
Also, the first time a stunt was computer-simulated before in order to get it right.
Performed by American Thrill Show stunt drivers, and done in their shows for years after.
In the DVD's commentary, the director admitted that after the years he had come to regret adding the slide whistle.
Double Meaning Title : Scaramanga points out that in addition to having a weapon made of gold , after the solar-powered beam is shot "You must admit I am now undeniably the Man with the Golden Gun. "
Dragon-in-Chief : Scaramanga. Hai Fat refers to him as his "junior partner", and Fat is the one who is actually after the MacGuffin , has most of the Mooks , and his company paid for and built Scaramanga's evil lair. But there's a reason he's not the title character.
Dragon Their Feet : Nick Nack, pissed off that Scaramanga's base blew up (since it was to be his after his death), attacks Bond and Goodnight as they make their way back to civilization on the junk.
Duel to the Death : Between Bond and Scaramanga.
Dumb Blonde : Mary Goodnight, the most blatant example in the whole Bond series. Especially bad, considering she's supposed to be a trained agent herself (albeit in the Foreign Service, but still...). In the original novel, she was actually Bond's secretary, who wouldn't be expected to have field training. This lack of training apparently came through.
Evil Counterpart : Scaramanga is essentially Bond if he were a freelance killer with fewer scruples.
Evil Laugh : One of the features of the funhouse is a recording of a deranged version of this.
Evil Pays Better : This is part of Scaramanga's Not So Different speech to Bond, to illustrate the one difference between the two men as Scaramanga sees it. He can afford to live on an island paradise because he gets paid a million dollars per assassination contract, while Bond, as Scaramanga puts it, "work(s) for peanuts, a hearty 'well done' from Her Majesty the Queen and a pittance of a pension".
Fanservice :
The scene where Mary Goodnight's bikini-clad butt keeps knocking against the Big Red Button activating the killer laser. Sure, it's a Crowning Moment of Stupid, but who's going to argue with a tight close-up of Britt Ekland's booty?
Were it not for the ripples of the water in the pool, Chu-Mi's one appearance would constitute full-frontal nudity.
Flying Car : A Truth in Television example (though apparently without the range cited in the movie)
Gilded Cage : Scaramanga's mistress has a luxurious life on his secret island, but she is virtually his prisoner. Also, Scaramanga doesn't restrain Goodnight in any way, reasoning that there's no way for her to leave the island anyway, so there's no harm in letting her go where she pleases. (Boy, how wrong he was...)
Going Commando : Bond encounters Chu-Mi, a beautiful Thai girl swimming in Hai Fats' pool, who invites him to join her.
Bond: I don't have any swimming trunks.
Chu-Mi: Neither do I.
Going Critical : Notably averted. There's a sign in Scaramanga's lair that reads "Absolute zero must be maintained to avoid prompt criticality." When Goodnight pushes Scaramanga's technician into the liquid helium, it leads to the whole base blowing up.
Good Is Dumb : Mary Goodnight.
Go-Go Enslavement : In a Call Back to Diamonds Are Forever , Scaramanga forces Mary Goodnight to wear a bikini - a rare justification, it's so she can't have concealed weapons, a legitimate concern as Goodnight is (at least supposed to be) a trained agent. The psychological effect of forcing her to be almost totally naked in the midst of her enemies, enhancing her sense of vulnerability, would probably be a good reason as well.
Groin Attack :
Bond stops a sumo wrestler's Bear Hug by tightening his jockstrap.
Two young karate-kicking Asian schoolgirls aid Bond from within a fight against a couple of mooks and near the end of the battle, one of the mooks gets kicked in the balls from behind by one of the schoolgirls, which causes Bond to be most impressed by it.
Hall of Mirrors : Scaramanga's funhouse.
Hidden in Plain Sight : Scaramanga's golden pistol is constructed from what appears to be an ordinary gold cigarette case and lighter, a gold pen, and a cufflink, thus enabling him to take it out and assemble it in full view of his victim without them realising what he's doing until it's too late.
Holiday in Cambodia : A third or more of the movie takes place in Thailand .
Hollywood Police Driving Academy : One of the police cars pursuing Bond crashes into the wrecked car, after swerving and skidding sideways, instead of simply moving over to the right.
Hollywood Silencer : Notably averted in the opening scene, where the gangster assassin's silenced weapon is still quite loud, although that might just be a foley goof.
I Have You Now, My Pretty : Scaramanga's technician caresses Goodnight very suggestively while Scaramanga and Bond have their duel.
Hunting the Most Dangerous Game : Scaramanga likes to hunt at the beginning and the end of the film.
I'll Kill You! : Nick Nack to Bond, during their fight at the end.
IKEA Weaponry : Scaramanga keeps his gun disassembled to pass it safely through customs.
In the fight at the belly dancer's room, a chair , a spray can, a bottle and lastly a mirror are used to hurt a human being.
Bond wards off Fat's mooks with the prop of a longtail boat.
In-Name-Only : The plot of the book and the film are fairly far off. In the book Bond goes to only one place (Cuba), Scaramanga isn't the Big Bad type he is in the film and the Solex Agitator isn't even a part of it.
Incurable Cough of Death : Hai Fat coughs briefly after he's shot.
Improbable Aiming Skills : Scaramanga's gun fires a 4.2mm bullet. A caliber that small (.165) has no stopping power to speak of unless you hit a point guaranteed to be an instant kill, which he always does.
Jerkass : Inflicted upon Bond by the studio, in an effort to counteract Roger Moore's natural urbanity. Bond is infamously a total asshole throughout this film, threatening to break a woman's arm, slapping said woman, threatening to blow off a guy's testicles, and later pushing a kid salesman ("bloody tourist!") into a rapid stream during a boat chase. Having sex with Anders while Goodnight, who he was just about to have sex with, is hiding in the closet. And then she still has sex with Bond at the end! This could be viewed as reversing the changes of previous movies, as the Bond of the books started off as a much more ruthless, cold-blooded and racist Jerk Ass than is generally portrayed (at least up until the second Casino Royale (2006) . Or Licence to Kill , anyway), plus the undeniable fact that this is exactly how a real life agent would behave - you don't get to save the world without, at the very least, threatening violence. And keep in mind though that in this one, he also has a target on his back from the beginning, so like most other people who are being threatened, he's understandably willing to go to extreme lengths to save his hide. Of course, it still doesn't justify everything he does, but it's got to play a part in some of his actions.
Just Between You and Me : After Bond and Scaramanga finally meet, Scarmanaga shows him around his island and explains his operation, concentrating on the solar energy collection setup.
Kidnapped by an Ally : Bond doesn't find out that Hip is an ally until well after being arrested by him.
Kingpin in His Gym : Scaramanga has a warped relationship with his diminuative manservant Nick-Nack; in the event of his death, Nick-Nack inherits everything... in return for Nick-Nack actually trying to kill him by hiring the best assassins in the world for Scaramanga to pit his skills against.
Land of Dragons : Two different locales, actually, none of them the mainland. The first is Hong Kong , the second is Scaramanga's island lair, somewhere in the Chinese-controlled part of the South China Sea.
Legendary in the Sequel : Scaramanga wishes to fight James Bond because of his reputation as the best.
Lighter and Softer : Easily one of the most jarring examples of this in the series, with the film's over-reliance on comedy regularly earning it scorn from many longtime Bond fans.
Load-Bearing Boss : Averted. Scaramanga's death has no impact on the collapse of his lair, which was the result of Goodnight shoving Scaramanga's technician into a liquid helium vat, which destabilized the power station.
MacGuffin : The Solex Agitator.
Marked Bullet : The gold bullet sent to Bond has his number on it.
Masquerading As the Unseen : Subverted. M tells Bond that no one knows what Scaramanga looks like. Later Bond assumes that when Hai Fat hired Scaramanga they never met. He decides to meet Hai Fat while posing as Scaramanga. It turns out Hai Fat had met Scaramanga and knew Bond was an imposter.
The One with... : The one where the villain has a third nipple .
Overt Rendezvous : Bond is scheduled to meet with Andrea Anders at a boxing venue so she can give him the Solex Agitator. When he gets there he finds her dead - murdered by Scaramanga.
Phallic Weapon : Scaramanga makes love only before he kills, and it's clear from one scene with Anders that the gun is a penis substitute (he's caressing Anders with it suggestively as they lie in bed).
Product Placement : Tabasco Sauce. And AMC Motors, which is why Bond isn't booting around in an Aston Martin or BMW in this one. Also an early example of the series' long-standing love affair with Sony.
Shooting Gallery : Scaramanga's funhouse.
Shout-Out : Scaramanga's funhouse, especially the hall of mirrors, was no doubt inspired by The Lady from Shanghai .
There's a useful four letter word. And you're full of it.
Sighted Guns Are Low-Tech : Scaramanga is a good enough of a marksman that, even though the pen clip that is part of his gun is in the correct position for a sight, he only aims obviously with it once.
Skinny Dipping : Bond finds a woman swimming naked in a swimming pool. She invites him to join her, and he politely declines until she asks again. The people he was waiting to meet interrupt him before he can cast off his clothes.
Sleeping Dummy : Referenced — When Mary Goodnight is hiding under the covers, James Bond tells Andrea Anders that he was using the Sleeping Dummy trick.
Spy Ship : An odd variation. James Bond discovers that the partially sunken RMS Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong Victoria harbor has been turned into a British listening post for spying on the Chinese.
Tap on the Head : Nick Nack knocks Bond out with a trident.
Tempting Fate : Hai Fat building his own mausoleum. And an In-Universe example — Scaramanga has left Nick Nack all his money in his will. Nick Nack in return arranges for various Professional Killers to murder his boss, but this is actually what Scaramanga wants, since it helps him test his skills.
Ten Paces and Turn : Subverted - it's 20 for a start. Scaramanga disappears while Bond's back is turned, leading to a hunt.
Theme Tune Cameo : A piano version and a jazz version plays in Scaramanga's funhouse.
Thug Dojo : The martial arts school where Hai Fat has Bond sent to is a place where students Duel to the Death in front of the sensei, likely what Hai Fat intended for Bond. (Bond cheats against the first student who tries to fight him, the second is far more careful.)
Scaramanga: [after presenting Bond his solar-powered laser weapon] You must admit I am now undeniably the Man with the Golden Gun.
Too Dumb to Live : Mary Goodnight and Sheriff J.W. Pepper. Unfortunately, they both do.
| i don't know |
Who sang the theme song in the film 'From Russia with Love'? | From Russia with Love (song) | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
From Russia with Love (song)
2,128pages on
From Russia with Love is the theme song for the film From Russia with Love . It was composed by Lionel Bart, and performed by English singer Matt Monro .
Lyrics
From Russia with love I fly to you,
much wiser since my good-bye to you,
I've traveled the world to learn,
I must return from Russia with love.
I've seen places, faces and smiled for a moment,
but oh, you haunted me so,
Still my tongue tied, young pride,
would not let my love for you show,
in case you'd say no.
To Russia I flew but there and then,
I suddenly knew you'd care again,
my running around is through,
I fly to you from Russia with love.
| Matt Monro |
George Lazenby's only Bond film was 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. Who played Blofeld in that film? | From Russia With Love Lyrics by Matt Monro
by Iv on 6/5/2008 5:44pm
I love this song, I mean, it's a lovely one!!!
by clarc on 6/19/2008 6:41am
this song is very very nice one! i really love it! i'm a no. 1 fan of the james bond movies!
by Albert Wai on 6/20/2008 10:18am
I must say it's the best of Matt Monroe ever1
by You-Know-Who on 7/23/2008 1:31pm
It really does paint a picture...
by ... some one love's russian on 8/30/2008 8:54pm
that is so sweet..
by JAG on 10/9/2008 9:06pm
Yeah, this is quite the song, and it fits in very well with the movie. Everyone out there should listen to some of the other James Bond theme songs, they're wonderful.
by JAG on 10/22/2008 3:42am
great one by John Barry ...I love to sing this song...
by Quentin Cooper on 10/22/2008 6:15am
Listen to the Skatalites version of this too, also very good (instrumental Jamaican ska).
by Artillery7 on 11/9/2008 7:28am
First class!
by abdeslam on 12/18/2008 12:45pm
great
by Kemi!!! on 1/26/2009 12:27pm
My favorite song of all time!!!
by Regis on 1/30/2009 1:05pm
you should listen to the version by Natacha Atlas!!
by Ricky Rojas on 2/9/2009 5:38pm
'In case you'd say no'
by Bappa on 2/14/2009 3:41am
This song has such depth that it makes me feel like falling in love with a russian beauty
by enemigomalo on 3/24/2009 10:35am
Fuck,what a powerful song...
by girl from the heart of Russia. on 4/3/2009 2:43pm
Russia is a country ! and "R" in this word should be a capital letter!! this is disrespect to country!
by angry Russian girl on 4/5/2009 2:43am
fucking americans ! where is my comment??? Russia!!! Russia!!! Capital letter R!!!
by boris badenov on 6/6/2009 3:25am
russian girl makingk beeg trouble for moose and squirrel!
by sebastian on 8/5/2009 4:17pm
To my opinion the best song of the Bond films! and to make it clear, the composer is Lionel Bart, not John Barry...
by Edward Elgar on 8/21/2009 4:32am
whilst it was remiss to omit the capital letter 'R' for Russia, I am surprised at the postings of the offended Russians. Are you so insecure of your national identity that a simple mistake can reduce you to swearing?
by francois on 11/30/2009 3:47am
Why spoil a beautiful song with unfair comments,a woman told me she loved me during this song and l will never forget it......
by manoyanx on 12/14/2009 12:42pm
my fave song... epic.... nothing compares...
by Yakov Shmirnov on 2/9/2010 6:46am
In Soviet Russia, Russia fly to YOU!
by James Bond on 2/22/2010 6:44am
I approve of this song.
by kurniawan on 3/25/2010 10:16pm
a brilliant song, sang by a brilliant one.
by Yuri form Russia on 4/7/2010 4:04am
One of the best songs from the entire James Bond movie collection! In my view, it compares only to THUNDERBALL, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, and GOLDENEYE.
by Albert Wai on 7/16/2010 8:52am
To me, it is the epitomy of Matt Monroe's singing career, better than Love is Blue, and certainly has outdone any other James Bond movie songs [though the other JB movie songs are not bad at all]!
by Aliona on 8/9/2010 5:28pm
bellisima
by Q on 11/5/2010 10:54am
I wished 007 had paid more attention to bringing back the equipment Q branch had issued to him. Ra ra Rasputin.
by Such an awesome song on 11/5/2010 11:34am
I must say, being a school kid and travelling to Russia for a school trip was quite an experience. Playing this song over and over again just made it so perfect and unforgettable. I love Russia!!!
by Rochel on 2/17/2011 8:48pm
awesome
by PHILIPPINES on 3/14/2011 8:39am
im from Philippines but ilove this song from Russia with love..i will sing this tomorrow..gudluck for me..im a no.1 fan of Matt Monro..
by Pearl Superable Corpes on 7/25/2011 7:03pm
Matt Monroe has been our favorite singer since 1960. And this song has been one of our favorites too.
by Masoud on 9/12/2011 8:43am
The best song of the best James Bond Movie! EVER GREEN!
by malcolm on 11/26/2011 1:03pm
A great singer, said a certain Frank Sinatra.
by Trung on 12/5/2011 11:25pm
it's great!
by silv,romannoff on 12/16/2011 12:42pm
elder great family would kill all that english bullshit off
by Petr of Russia, almost 60 :( on 12/27/2011 9:55am
I bought a CD of 007-songs in Belfast (!) in 2001 and finally could listen thoroughly (pirate videocassettes sountracks here then were interrupted by Russian translators' voices). A very good song on a par with Dr Zhivago's "Somewhere My Love". Touches some points in me too, cause I've also " seen faces, places". The small letter is just a technical error. i keep all 007-songs on my MPPlayer - an impostant part of the world's cultural heritage. Let's have neither cold war nor cold peace, but cool peace :) Ok?
by Mister K on 1/31/2012 5:42pm
Just to reiterate what Sebastian wrote, this song is by Lionel Bart - that's words AND music. John Barry only did the orchestration. But it does sound like Barry, which shows what a great songwriter Bart was.
by Mister P on 2/14/2012 7:35pm
I read that Lionel Bart was originally engaged to score the movie, but as it turned out he did not actually know how to read or write music; so then the producers found John Barry. Interesting that Bart wrote the lyrics and music to the song though. It's an amazing song.
by E.L. on 4/26/2012 6:04pm
I did not have tv in my home when this song came out. I was a huge james Bond fan and when I heard this song on the radio, I was in tears! My favorite song of all time. Fantastic job by Matt Monro.
by Mi6 company on 5/23/2012 9:53am
We need agent 007
but we aprove these song
by MI6 company on 5/23/2012 9:59am
We need agent 007
but we aprove these song
by rick on 6/21/2012 7:42pm
I told a girl I couldn't date because we were both committed that it was like she was in Russia and I was trying to love her. Years later I got free and let her know I was doing a Karoake. She brought girlfriends, I brought guys. I sang From Russia with Love then danced with her and we have been together ever since.
by Merlino on 8/5/2012 12:49pm
Loved the song then... Love it now... After I've bern there.
by Ellina on 12/5/2012 12:59am
I love this song and I love Russia!!!!
by amanda mason 20/10/13 on 10/20/2013 3:45am
thank you very much for another lovely song it was a big massive hit for ian fellingham and the john barry seven.
by muhammad riski fauzy on 8/29/2014 5:45am
I am crazy in love to this song.
by amanda mason 15/12/14 on 12/15/2014 8:26am
as i have found my true love at last its trent whidditon he is mine to keep and i love him toobits.
by Leah, Jimenez and Ivan Braginsky on 2/5/2015 3:28am
This is a great song! I love it so much! Gonna sing it again and again... The Russia should be a capital letter "R" though... My friend, Ivan kept complaining about it
by Julia on 5/1/2015 3:21am
I think admin didn't want to offend Russia or russians. It was a mistake. If he or she did it expressly it's shame on he but not russians. Those people ho swearing are unpleasant for me because I'm russian too. "Make love not war".
Also string "I case you say no" I hear as "in case you'd say no"
by Ratbag on 12/9/2016 12:52am
Some lyrics to this are wrong here (and elsewhere). Last line second verse should be "In case you'd say no"
by Amrita Chakraborty on 1/7/2017 9:08pm
This is one of the best James Bond songs I've ever heard. Beautiful music. And great baritone of Matt Monroe.. I love it.
Name:
| i don't know |
Which character has been played among others by Jack Lord, Cec Linder, David Hedison and Jeffrey Wright? | Felix Leiter | James Bond Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
Share
All the major versions of Felix Leiter depicted in the Eon film series.
Felix Leiter is a fictional character invented by Ian Fleming in the James Bond books, who also appears in the Bond movies. In the films, Leiter works for the CIA , and assists Bond in his various adventures, although in Licence to Kill , Leiter had transferred to the DEA. In the novels, Leiter initially works for the CIA, then later becomes a private detective after suffering a catastrophic injury.
The name "Felix" comes from the middle name of Fleming's friend Ivor Bryce, while the name "Leiter" was the surname of Fleming's friend Marion Oates Leiter Charles, then wife of Thomas Leiter.
| Felix Leiter |
Which singer had a cameo as a fencing instructor in 'Die Another Day'? | Who is the best Felix Leiter? (Page 2) - The James Bond Films - Absolutely James Bond
Who is the best Felix Leiter?
26 Reply by Theundeadkennedy 5th Feb 2013 05:22
Theundeadkennedy
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Blackleiter wrote:
I agree! In fact, I like Casey's Felix so much that he is the inspiration for my name.
Theundeadkennedy wrote:
Bernie Casey
Yeah he was pretty much awesome. He's the only Felix that would keep up with Bond if things got real crazy.
Hedison is definitely my second favorite though.
27 Reply by Firemass 5th Feb 2013 05:54
Firemass
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Blackleiter wrote:
I agree! In fact, I like Casey's Felix so much that he is the inspiration for my name.
Theundeadkennedy wrote:
Bernie Casey
Yet your signature is from the other "black leiter" in Casino Royale... hmm I did ask you about this in my NSNA DVD thread.
"With the Walther PPK in its leather holster warm against his stomach and his own name in his passport, James Bond looked out of the window at the English Channel."
1. The Spy Who Loved Me 2. Dr. No 3. Tomorrow Never Dies 4. Moonraker 5. Goldeneye
6. GF 7. AVTAK 8. OP 9. QoS 10. TWINE 11. LTK 12. NSNA … and then the rest.
28 Reply by 0073 5th Feb 2013 12:47
0073
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Jack Lord, there's no other!
He's the only one that you can imagine any of the Bonds doing any serious drinking with.
"I mean, she almost kills bond...with her ass."
-Mr Arlington Beech
29 Reply by Blackleiter 5th Feb 2013 18:05
Blackleiter
Posts: 5,546
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
True about my signature, but I like it because it refers to a "brother" from Langley. By the way, I'm a big fan of Wright's Felix as well, but Bernie Casey was given more to do in the role.
Firemass wrote:
Blackleiter wrote:
I agree! In fact, I like Casey's Felix so much that he is the inspiration for my name.
Theundeadkennedy wrote:
Bernie Casey
Yet your signature is from the other "black leiter" in Casino Royale... hmm I did ask you about this in my NSNA DVD thread.
"Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley."
30 Reply by Napoleon Plural 6th Feb 2013 17:20
Napoleon Plural
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
"I've got a brother..."
Bond: Mr. Mathis, there's something that's been worrying me...
Mathis: Yes?
Bond: Well, you're a French police inspector, yet you speak with an Italian accent.
Mathis: Mamma mia, it worries me, too.
31 Reply by Silhouette Man 6th Feb 2013 19:06
Silhouette Man
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Napoleon Plural wrote:
'Like' TBB on Facebook: TBB Update Page
Remembering Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-1964)
32 Reply by jon courage 6th Feb 2013 19:11
jon courage
Posts: 129
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
I honestly don't remember the other ones and would have to go re-watch the older Bond movies, but, I'll say I've really enjoyed Wright's acting.
33 Reply by Silhouette Man 6th Feb 2013 19:13
Silhouette Man
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
jon courage wrote:
I honestly don't remember the other ones and would have to go re-watch the older Bond movies, but, I'll say I've really enjoyed Wright's acting.
Yes, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter in CR and QoS was pretty good, too!
'Like' TBB on Facebook: TBB Update Page
Remembering Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-1964)
34 Reply by AlphaOmegaSin 6th Feb 2013 20:24
AlphaOmegaSin
Posts: 11,337
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
I really wish they would have a Leiter who is more accurate to Novel Version of him.
1.On Her Majesties Secret Service 2.The Living Daylights 3.license To Kill 4.The Spy Who Loved Me 5.Goldfinger
35 Reply by Silhouette Man 6th Feb 2013 20:36
Silhouette Man
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
AlphaOmegaSin wrote:
I really wish they would have a Leiter who is more accurate to Novel Version of him.
Yes, that seems to ever elude the producers/writers on Bond films. The character's well enough plotted out on the novel page, so I can't see why it is that they can't, really.
'Like' TBB on Facebook: TBB Update Page
Remembering Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-1964)
36 Reply by Sir Hillary Bray 6th Feb 2013 21:16
Sir Hillary Bray
Posts: 3,528
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Jack Lord (DN) was overall the best. Not blond and without the Texas personality Fleming wrote about, but overall had the goods.
Rik Van Nutter (TB) had the look, but the poor man was a worse actor than Tanya Roberts.
I actually think John Terry (TLD) had a lot of the right stuff -- young, laconic style, slight drawl, didn't suck up to Bond -- but he had terrible lines to work with and didn't do a great job on those he was given. He's turned out to be a decent character actor on US television, but he didn't bring his best to TLD.
Hedison was good, but I can't get past how badly-used he was in LTK.
Bernie Casey -- very underrated. Love how he nailed Felix's funnier side.
Jeffrey Wright -- great actor, decent turn in CR but a little serious. Then they turned him into a bitter pawn in QOS, which I absolutely hated.
Gee, no one's mentioning Cec Linder or Norman Burton?!?
Hilly...you old devil!
37 Reply by Barbel 6th Feb 2013 21:40
Barbel
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Sir Hillary Bray wrote:
Gee, no one's mentioning Cec Linder or Norman Burton?!?
I mentioned Burton (negatively) a few posts earlier. Cec Linder was a decent actor (brilliant in Quatermass And The Pit) but the wrong man for Leiter.
8 songs done, 3 in various stages of disarray for next album!
38 Reply by Blackleiter 6th Feb 2013 21:51
Blackleiter
Posts: 5,546
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Casey's humor was one of the things I enjoyed most about his portrayal of Leiter. Plus he has the physical presence to suggest that he could hold his own with Bond. It is a shame that the folks at EON didn't go in that direction with some of their actors playing Felix, particularly Jeffrey Wright. I think that would have been a good way to offset the seriousness of Craig's Bond (as long as they didn't go overboard with it!)
Sir Hillary Bray wrote:
Jack Lord (DN) was overall the best. Not blond and without the Texas personality Fleming wrote about, but overall had the goods.
Rik Van Nutter (TB) had the look, but the poor man was a worse actor than Tanya Roberts.
I actually think John Terry (TLD) had a lot of the right stuff -- young, laconic style, slight drawl, didn't suck up to Bond -- but he had terrible lines to work with and didn't do a great job on those he was given. He's turned out to be a decent character actor on US television, but he didn't bring his best to TLD.
Hedison was good, but I can't get past how badly-used he was in LTK.
Bernie Casey -- very underrated. Love how he nailed Felix's funnier side.
Jeffrey Wright -- great actor, decent turn in CR but a little serious. Then they turned him into a bitter pawn in QOS, which I absolutely hated.
Gee, no one's mentioning Cec Linder or Norman Burton?!?
"Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley."
39 Reply by Jarvio 6th Feb 2013 22:00
Jarvio
Posts: 5,021
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
David Hedison is hands down my favourite, as I've mentioned, but here are my thoughts on the others:
Jack Lord (DN) - He was decent, and one of the best. I don't understand why he didn't return...
The guy from GF - He was ok I guess, but looked too old IMO.
Rik Van Nutter (TB) - He looked the part, but couldn't act too well...
The DAF guy - I didn't mind him too much really. Not great, but not bad by all means either.
The TLD guy - The worst of all. He did nothing for me.
Jeff Wright (CR/QOS) - Interesting and different. Seemed more developed than most, but not too great in QOS.
I can't comment on the NSNA guy - haven't seen it for years.
1 - Avtak, 2 - Ltk, 3 - Op, 4 - Lald, 5 - Fyeo, 6 - Sf, 7 - Ge, 8 - Ohmss, 9 - Daf, 10 - Dn, 11 - Tmwtgg, 12 - Tld, 13 - Sp, 14 - Mr, 15 - Tswlm, 16 - Yolt, 17 - Gf, 18 - Frwl, 19 - Dad, 20 - Twine, 21 - Tnd, 22 - Qos, 23 - Tb, 24 - Cr
1 - Moore, 2 - Dalton, 3 - Craig, 4 - Connery, 5 - Brosnan, 6 - Lazenby
40 Reply by Barbel 6th Feb 2013 22:04
Barbel
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
Jarvio wrote:
Jack Lord (DN) - He was decent, and one of the best. I don't understand why he didn't return...
He wanted equal pay and billing with Sean Connery. Cubby and Harry weren't about to do that!
8 songs done, 3 in various stages of disarray for next album!
41 Reply by Le Samourai 6th Feb 2013 22:57
Le Samourai
Posts: 570
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
My favorite is Jeffrey Wright, though I admit a personal bias since I'm a big fan of Wright as an actor. I do think he brings more personality to the role than many of the others who have played Felix. I hope he returns in Bond 24.
I also like Jack Lord's take on the character.
For me, the thing Wright and Lord have that the other Leiters don't is a sense of cool.
—Le Samourai
A Gent in Training.... A blog about my continuing efforts to be improve myself, be a better person, and lead a good life. It incorporates such far flung topics as fitness, self defense, music, style, food and drink, and personal philosophy.
42 Reply by Lazenbyfan 11th Feb 2013 17:47
Lazenbyfan
Posts: 55
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
David Hedison for me. The only one who had any real chemistry with a Bond actor. And he was featured opposite two! They're supposed to be buddies, but aside from Hedison's portrayal, I never felt it in the performances of any of the others
"She likes you, I can see it."
"You must give me the name of your oculist."
43 Reply by L Jones 12th Feb 2013 21:46
L Jones
Posts: 132
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
My three favorite Felix Leiters were - Jeffrey Wright, David Hedison and Norman Burton (whose sarcastic humor I enjoyed).
44 Reply by MooseWithFleas 14th Feb 2016 18:38
MooseWithFleas
Posts: 747
Re: Who is the best Felix Leiter?
1.) David Hedison - Two timer was solid in both performances. If he was only in LALD, I'd probably have him ranked closer with Lord and Wright. LTK cements him in the top spot, especially with the expanded role in the first third of the film.
2.) Jeffrey Wright - Oozes cool. Like the range of performances from CR to QoS. His introduction is the coolest of the bunch.
3.) Jack Lord - Another one that just comes off as cool. If Wright's intro as Leiter is the best, then Lord's is not far behind.
4.) Rik Van Nutter - Had the look and was a solid performer. I also liked his helicopter flying outfit, equipped with tropical shirt and red hat.
5.) Norman Burton - Starts the bottom tier of the ranking. Hedison is the clear top choice for me. Wright and Lord are great, while RVN is good. Burton is okay and has a couple decent moments. Comes off as too old and clueless at times.
6.) Cec Linder - Only 43 when he played Leiter, but looked ancient and out of shape. Definitely not what Leiter should look like. Recently heard for the first time that he and Austin Willis switched roles in pre-production (guy who played cards with Goldfinger). Both didn't seem appropriate for the role.
7.) John Terry - Actually didn't mind his look, but the appearance is so brief and throwaway here that it seems they just threw it in for the sake of having Leiter. How many lines did he actually have in the film?
Unranked: Bernie Casey - Honestly, I have not seen NSNA recently nor enough in general to fairly rank Bernie. From what I remember, I liked him, but I need another rewatch or two to solidify where he would rank.
| i don't know |
Which was the last film in which Desmond Llewelyn played Q? | Q (Desmond Llewelyn) :: Allies :: MI6 :: The Home Of James Bond 007
Place of Birth: Newport, South Wales, UK
"Remember, if it hadn't been for Q Branch, you'd have been dead long ago."
Pleased To Meet You
James Bond first meets with Major Boothroyd, head of Q-Branch , at MI6 before being dispatched to Istanbul. The soon-to-be familiar gadget-master gives an impatient 007 a detailed rundown on his latest creation: a nasty bag of tricks in the form of a sleek brown attaché case .
Personality
Boothroyd is a genuinely kind and resourceful man who has spent over 35 years of his life in public service. Having replaced his superior as the head of his department shortly before the " From Russia With Love " mission, the Major quickly earned his nickname 'Q', after his department. The name stuck and the man became a frequent asset to the secret service inner circle. In demeanour Q is the stereotypical boffin with an answer to everything.
"Inside the case you'll find an AR7 folding sniper's rifle, .25 caliber, with an infrared telescopic sight."
He clashes wits with 007 regularly, and finds the agent's reckless regard for government property - and his painstaking work in particular - completely exasperating. Nonetheless, Bond almost always gets his way, with Q allowing Bond to field-test some of his most precious gizmos. It may first appear that Q has no time for practical jokes or humour, but this is not the case. He is, however, serious about his work and expects others to treat his creations with due respect.
Involvement
Q's work is simply too varied and his department's achievements too numerous to list in any detail. However, this dossier will give a broad overview of Q-Branch inventions utilised by 007 as well as the Major's involvement in James Bond 's missions.
The gadget-man would quickly become accustomed to working in the field - first assembling a makeshift laboratory in the Bahamas at 007's request, when the spy was tailing Largo on the " Thunderball " mission. Q has supplied equipment to Bond in the field numerous times since, including work on location in: Japan, Hong Kong, Sardinia, Rio de Janeiro , India, Isthmus and Germany.
Notably, Q went behind the back of his superiors on the " Licence To Kill " mission in order to provide 007 with anther infamous Q-Branch bag of tricks; this time including Dentonite Toothpaste , X-Ray Polaroid camera and a portable Fingerprint Signature Gun . The Major also gets involved in 'field work' - not for the first time - driving the Tug for 007 as he stows away onboard the Wavekrest and together with CIA pilot, Pam Bouvier , Q traces Bond's movements as he infiltrates Sanchez 's drug smuggling racket.
Although he is unable to brief 007 in person on the " Live And Let Die " mission, the only documented case of this occurrence, Q-Branch issues Bond (via M) with an updated Rolex watch complete with magnet and buzz saw.
Q is clearly shaken by the death of his Indian colleague, Vijay , whilst on watch duty for the " Octopussy " affair. The gadget-master is unaccustomed to the stark realities of the field and it is finding his partner's masticated body that deters Q from frequent fieldwork.
"Look, 007, I've had a long and tiring journey, probably to no purpose, so I'm in no mood for juvenile quips."
The department is particularly able at turning out 'fully loaded' customised sports cars - namely Aston Martin and BMW marques - that serve as company cars for MI6's highest profile agents.
Q is often called into briefings in order to explain the technical elements of a mission to 007 or another of his colleagues. He describes the revolutionary submarine tracking system as 'quite simple' in " The Spy Who Loved Me ", and is frequently able to rattle off an explanation for the latest technology, much to the bemusement of M and others.
"Don't touch that! That's my lunch."
The work of Boothroyd and his department is widely known and respected - often too widely - by the intelligence community. This is demonstrated by Russian Agent Anya Amasova 's working knowledge of Q's pride and joy, a Lotus Esprit submarine, dubbed 'Wet-Nellie' . Incidentally, the codename (Little) 'Nellie' , was first used years earlier by Q-Branch for a light-weight flying craft, technically known as an auto-gyro, that served 007 on the " You Only Live Twice " mission.
In his senior years, Q began to train an apprentice - although reports seem to suggest that the gadget-master found his assistant less than adequate. Dubbed ' R ' by James Bond , prior to departing on the " World Is Not Enough " mission, the apprentice would take over the management of Q-Branch after Boothroyd's retirement.
Quotes
Bond: Ejector seat? You're joking!
Q: I never joke about my work, 007.
Q: Right. Now pay attention, 007. I want you to take great care of this equipment. There are one or two rather special accessories...
Bond: Q, have I ever let you down?
Q: Frequently.
Q: I've been saying for years, sir, that our special equipment is obsolete. And now, computer analysis reveals an entirely new approach: miniaturization. For instance, radioactive lint. When placed in an opponent's pockets, the anti-personnel and location fix seems fairly obvious.
"Oh and they missed you, what a pity!"
Q: Now, this I'm particularly proud of - behind the headlights, stinger missiles!
Bond: Excellent, just the thing for unwinding after a rough day at the office.
Q: Need I remind you, 007, that you have a license to kill, not to break the traffic laws.
Vijay: Is he still there?
Q: You must be joking! Double-0 seven on an island populated exclusively by women? We won't see him till dawn!
Q: Something we're making for the Americans. It's called a "Ghetto Blaster".
Q: I've always tried to teach you two things. First, never let them see you bleed.
Bond: And the second?
Q: Always have an escape plan.
Q: It has not been perfected, out of years of patient research, ENTIRELY for that purpose, 007. And incidentally, we'd appreciate its return, along with all your other equipment, INTACT for once, when you return from the field.
Bond: Well, you'd be surprised the amount of wear and tear that goes on out there in the field.
Bond: [handing Q his coat] Do you think you can help me? Someone seems to have stuck a knife in my wallet.
Q: Oh, and missed you, did they? What a pity!
Bond: Well, that takes care of the normal wear-and-tear. Is there any other protection I need?
Q: Only from me 007, unless you bring that car back in pristine order.
Minister of Defence: My God, what's Bond doing?
Q: I think he's attempting re-entry, sir.
Biography
Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn was born on September 12th, 1914. At age 9, Desmond attended the Priory preparatory boarding school before enrolling at Radley College, a Church of England boy's school in Oxfordshire. Llewelyn earned a small-time job at the local theatre as a stage hand before a friend convinced him to try out for a new production at the theatre - this time for an on-stage role. After his debut he worked on and off with the Forsyth Players before joining the priesthood. He quickly discovered that lifestyle was not for him and his gregarious personality enamoured Desmond with the ladies he met.
On 16th May 1938, Desmond married his high school girlfriend Pamela Pantlin and the pair would remain together until Desmond's passing. Llewelyn was accepted into RADA but not before he would have to serve a stint in the army, as the Second World War saw a halt in his acting career.
In 1946 Desmond was cast in a screen adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and followed this up with a role in the mini-series "My Wife Jaqueline".
Llewelyn's big-screen debut would not come until the '50s. The film was a war-drama, "They Were Not Divided", directed by Terence Young .
He was quickly cast in the second of many James Bond films to come, by its director (Young) but it was not until " Thunderball " that his character, Q, would earn the famous nickname.
The role of Q was one that required hours of preparation for Desmond. Throughout his career on the Bond pictures - appearing in 18 out of 19 consecutive adventures - Llewelyn would battle with the outrageously complicated dialogue he was required to deliver.
With the commercial success of " Goldfinger ", Llewelyn and his fellow Bond filmmakers were flung into stardom. His scenes quickly became something of a feature of each film and Q became a favourite of Bond fan's. His scenes were always eagerly awaited by cinemagoers.
"Fully loaded I think is the term."
Between 1971 and 1974 Desmond was performing as one of the regulars in English drama "Follyfoot". The show ran for three seasons and Llewelyn's character of Geoffrey Maddocks appeared in all but two. With Llewelyn busy with his regular "Follyfoot" commitments, the Bond producers took the opportunity to experiment with a different form of Bond, when they introduced Roger Moore as 007 in "Live and Let Die".
Llewelyn never shared the spoils of having a film contract, nor did he receive bonuses based on the series' success so it was on the receiving a larger part in the "Licence To Kill" story that Llewelyn remarked it was the first time he had made any real money out of Bond.
"The World Is Not Enough" saw Q hand over to R (John Cleese) in preparation for Llewelyn's retirement from the Bond films. It was to be his last Bond film, whether he truly intended this or not.
On the 19th of December 1999, exactly a month after the opening of "The World Is Not Enough", Llewelyn was driving home from a book-signing of "Q: The Biography of Desmond Llewelyn" when his vehicle collided with another on the A27 in East Sussex. The other driver was seriously injured and Desmond passed away in hospital a few hours later - he was 85. At his memorial service, friends and family from throughout his life and career appeared to pay tribute. His sons spoke as well as many of his Bond colleagues, including Roger Moore, who delivered the eulogy.
| The World Is Not Enough |
Which Olympic silver medallist played Oddjob in Goldfinger? | Desmond Llewelyn; Actor Played Q in Bond Films - latimes
Desmond Llewelyn; Actor Played Q in Bond Films
December 20, 1999 |MYRNA OLIVER | TIMES STAFF WRITER
Desmond Llewelyn, best known as "Q," the faithful and canny supplier of trick cars, reverse-firing guns, exploding toothpaste and other spy-baiting toys through 17 of the 19 James Bond films, died Sunday of injuries suffered in a car crash. He was 85.
Llewelyn was returning home from autographing books about his life in the town of Firle in East Sussex south of London when his car slammed head-on into another auto. Sussex police said the actor died of massive multiple internal injuries after he was airlifted to a hospital.
Three people in the other car were said to be in stable condition, and no cause was given for the accident. Llewelyn was driving alone.
Even as the actor portraying the suave British secret agent changed from Sean Connery to George Lazenby to Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton to the current Pierce Brosnan, Llewelyn endured. His most recent Bond caper, "The World is Not Enough," is now in theaters.
Aging wisely in the current film, Llewelyn is shown trying to train an apprentice--the comic John Cleese--for the day he ultimately might retire.
But in real life, the actor had no intention to ease out of the franchise that brought him his greatest fame, cinematic status and, at long last, modest wealth.
"I will play Q as long as God lets me. I have no inclination to stop," he told a newspaper shortly before the opening of the current film, which introduces Cleese, designated "R," moving into the gadget department.
Less than a month ago, Llewelyn told CBS News that he hoped to be on board for the 20th Bond installment scheduled for release in 2002.
Meanwhile, in existing footage, Llewelyn continues to devise new miracle gadgets for Bond, ever hopeful that his prize material may survive the mayhem-prone agent's deployment. In the 1997 "Tomorrow Never Dies," Llewelyn's first line to Brosnan as Bond was a cautionary "Now pay attention, 007." His last of the film, after Bond's usual field day of explosive action, was: "Oh grow up, 007."
On board from the second Bond film, "From Russia With Love" in 1963, Llewelyn resisted the director's instruction that he use a Welsh accent, although he was born in South Wales, the son of a Welsh coal mining engineer.
"My interpretation of the character was that of a toffee-nosed English," Llewelyn said. "At the risk of losing the part and with silent apologies to my native land, I launched into Q's lines using the worst Welsh accent, followed by the same in English."
The actor's version, now a part of motion picture history, won out.
Llewelyn missed only the first Bond film, "Dr. No" in 1962, and the 1973 "Live and Let Die," Moore's first outing as 007.
The Q character, formally named Maj. Boothroyd, was nicknamed "Q" for Quartermaster, a position in the British army that specializes in sciences for the military. No such character existed in the Ian Fleming novels creating James Bond, although the written Bond did receive equipment from Q Branch.
Ironically, Llewelyn said that absent the Bond cinematic magic, he was "allergic to gadgets" and couldn't even manipulate a hotel key card correctly. His comfortable home in Bexhill, England, has no computer or cell phone.
Asked repeatedly to name his favorite Bond gadget and his favorite Bond, Llewelyn hedged. Didn't have favorites, he would say, but then concede he particularly liked a grenade fountain pen from the 1995 "Golden Eye." As for the actors, he clearly liked and admired Connery and Moore, noting that Moore simply gave Bond a lighter style. He always dismissed Lazenby with "He wasn't an actor," and called Dalton "tough, the nearest to Fleming's Bond." But he rated Brosnan "terrific," credited him with reinventing Connery's 007 and bluntly predicted that Brosnan "will be the definitive Bond."
As a youth in Wales, Llewelyn envisioned careers as a clergyman or accountant. But at 17, he spent a religious retreat perusing Film Weekly magazine instead of praying. So he focused on acting, beginning as a stagehand in high school, and studied with the Royal Academy for the Dramatic Artists.
Llewelyn spent his entire career as a character actor in supporting roles and achieved fame only in his 50s as Q. His first film was the 1939 "Ask a Policeman."
When World War II intervened, Llewelyn joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers of the British army. He was captured in France and was a German prisoner of war for five years.
After the war, he toured in small repertory theater troupes before resuming his film career in 1950. In addition to a dozen or so non-Bond films, Llewelyn appeared on several television series, including 1979 episodes of PBS' "Masterpiece Theater."
The actor is survived by his wife of 61 years, Pamela, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease; two sons, Ivor and Justin, and two grandchildren.
MORE:
| i don't know |
Which was the first James Bond film directed by Sam Mendes? | Next James Bond Movie Won't Be Directed by Sam Mendes
Next James Bond Movie Won't Be Directed by Sam Mendes
439 Shares
Brian Gallagher | 8 months ago
Ever since the release of the 24th James Bond movie Spectre, rumors have swirled about star Daniel Craig, regarding whether or not he will be back to star as 007 in James Bond 25 . A few days ago, we reported that Tom Hiddleston has entered early talks to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond, but his involvement has yet to be confirmed. Today we have word that Skyfall and Spectre director Sam Mendes will not be returning to the helm for James Bond 25.
Associated Press caught up with the filmmaker, who confirmed that he will not be directing the new 007 movie. Eon Productions, which produces all of the Bond movies, has yet to confirm whether or not Daniel Craig will be back, but even if he does return, the actor will be directed by a new filmmaker. Here's what Sam Mendes had to say in his interview below.
"It was an incredible adventure , I loved every second of it. But I think it's time for somebody else."
As for the rumors of Daniel Craig leaving the franchise, the filmmaker wouldn't clarify who will be the next James Bond . The director would only say that producer Barbara Broccoli will decide who the next Bond is, stating "It's not a democracy." Tom Hiddleston has emerged as the favorite for the role, but others have expressed interest such as Jamie Bell and Idris Elba, who has become a fan-favorite for the role.
Earlier this month, we reported that producers were eager to get Daniel Craig back in that iconic tuxedo to the tune of 68 million pound. Which almost equates to $100 million in the states. This news arrives just days after bookmakers called off all 007 bets, with Thor star Tom Hiddleston reportedly securing the role. Thus far, Craig is the highest paid actor to have ever played the role, netting 38 million pounds for the first four movies, which includes 2006's Casino Royale, 2008's Quantum of Solace, 2012's Skyfall and last year's Spectre.
It also isn't clear who will distribute the new 007 movie. Sony Pictures' deal with MGM and Eon Productions ended after Spectre, and it's believed that Sony and Warner Bros. are in the running for a new distribution deal, but nothing is set in stone yet. As for Sam Mendes, it isn't ultimately clear which project he'll take on next, but he stated he wants to return to making stories with new characters. Stay tuned for more on James Bond 25 as more updates come in.
| Skyfall |
Sean Connery returned as 007 in 'Never Say Never Again' but on which of Ian Fleming's books was the film based? | Spectre: New James Bond Trailer Debuts Online | Variety
Print
July 22, 2015 | 12:37AM PT
Sony and MGM have released the first full-length trailer for “ Spectre ,” the new James Bond film directed by Sam Mendes.
Starring Daniel Craig as 007, “Spectre” was shot this past year in London, Austria, Italy, Mexico and Morocco.
It opens in U.S. theaters on Nov. 6.
The 24th film in the Bond franchise, “Spectre” co-stars Christoph Waltz as the villainous Franz Oberhauser, Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomie Harris as Eve Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as Q. New cast members include Monica Bellucci and Lea Seydoux.
The previous Bond pic, “Skyfall,” delivered the best performance in the series with grosses topping $1.1 billion worldwide.
The name SPECTRE was featured in Ian Fleming’s Bond novels and stands for “Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion.” It’s a fictional global criminal syndicate and terrorist organization, led by supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and first appeared in the novel “Thunderball” and in the film “Dr. No” in 1962.
Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli produced the film based on a script by John Logan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade.
| i don't know |
What is the capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands? | Netherlands Facts on Largest Cities, Populations, Symbols - Worldatlas.com
(conversion rates)
Twenty Euros
Ethnicity: Dutch 80.7%, EU 5%, Indonesian 2.4%, Turkish 2.2%, Surinamese 2%, Moroccan 2%, Caribbean 0.8%, other 4.8% (2008 est.)
GDP total: $709.5 billion (2012 est.)
GDP per capita: $42,300 (2012 est.)
Language: Dutch (official), Frisian (official)
Largest Cities: (by population) Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Tilburg, Groningen, Breda, Apeldoorn, Nijmegen
Name: Netherlands comes from the Dutch word Nederland, which means "lower land."
National Day: April 30, Queen's Day
It celebrates the birthday of the former Queen Juliana and is one of the largest, most vibrant celebrations on the Dutch calendar. Flags fly, music pumps and millions take to the streets for a national celebration.
Religion: Roman Catholic 30%, Dutch Reformed 11%, Calvinist 6%, other Protestant 3%, Muslim 5.8%, other 2.2%, none 42% (2006)
| Amsterdam |
Which river traditionally forms the border between England and Scotland ? | Amsterdam the capital city of Netherlands - YouTube
Amsterdam the capital city of Netherlands
Want to watch this again later?
Sign in to add this video to a playlist.
Need to report the video?
Sign in to report inappropriate content.
Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.
Published on Mar 20, 2013
Know more about Amsterdamn at http://www.placesfortour.com/netherla...
Know about more places at http://www.placesfortour.com
Amsterdam is the capital of Netherlands and the largest city in the country located in the province of North Holland. The city has a population of 820, 000 within its city and a metropolitan population of over 2 million with areas of 219 square km and 1815 square km respectively. Amsterdam is renowed for this quality of living and is frequently ranked as one of the top 10 places to live in the world. It is also the cultural capital and commercial capital of the country with some of the world's top comapnies headquarters set up in the city
Category
| i don't know |
Which actress played Samantha in the comedy series Bewitched | Bewitched (TV Series 1964–1972) - IMDb
IMDb
There was an error trying to load your rating for this title.
Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later.
X Beta I'm Watching This!
Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends.
Error
A witch married to an ordinary man cannot resist using her magic powers to solve the problems her family faces.
Creator:
Endora and Clara have their powers switched when Endora is exposed to an extinct Do-Do bird.
9.3
After wishing to be his boss for a day, Darrin turns into Larry Tate.
9.3
Endora puts a spell on Darrin which causes his ears to grow anytime he lies. Unfortunately he has a surprise present for Samantha which he has to be sneaky about.
9.3
a list of 43 titles
created 11 Apr 2013
a list of 30 titles
created 21 Apr 2014
a list of 25 titles
created 18 Mar 2015
a list of 31 titles
created 12 Jun 2015
a list of 25 titles
created 01 Jan 2016
Search for " Bewitched " on Amazon.com
Connect with IMDb
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.
Nominated for 4 Golden Globes. Another 13 wins & 27 nominations. See more awards »
Photos
A United States astronaut finds his life vastly complicated when he stumbles on to a bottle containing a female genie.
Stars: Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman, Bill Daily
A family of friendly monsters have misadventures, never quite understanding why people react to them so strangely.
Stars: Fred Gwynne, Al Lewis, Yvonne De Carlo
The misadventures of a blissfully macabre but extremely loving family.
Stars: John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan
Seven men and women are stranded on an uncharted island following a torrential storm.
Stars: Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus
A nouveau riche hillbilly family moves to Beverly Hills and shakes up the privileged society with their hayseed ways.
Stars: Buddy Ebsen, Donna Douglas, Irene Ryan
The Cunningham family live through the 1950s with help and guidance from the lovable and almost superhuman greaser, Fonzie.
Stars: Ron Howard, Henry Winkler, Marion Ross
The misadventures of two single women in the 1950s and '60s.
Stars: Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams, David L. Lander
The misadventures of a large family united when two widowed people married.
Stars: Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Ann B. Davis
A New York City attorney and his wife attempt to live as genteel farmers in the bizarre community of Hooterville.
Stars: Eddie Albert, Eva Gabor, Tom Lester
A wacky alien comes to Earth to study its residents, and the life of the human woman he boards with is never the same.
Stars: Robin Williams, Pam Dawber, Ralph James
The misadventures of a suburban boy, family and friends.
Stars: Jerry Mathers, Hugh Beaumont, Barbara Billingsley
The misadventures of a TV writer both at work and at home.
Stars: Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie
Edit
Storyline
The young executive of an advertisement agency, Darrin Stephens marries a beautiful woman, Samantha Stephens. On their honeymoon, Sam discloses a secret to him: she is a witch with magic powers. He makes her promise him that she will live like a mortal, without using witchcraft and spells in their lives, but sometimes she uses her magic to help Darrin and herself. Sam's mother, Endora does not accept her mortal son-in-law, hates him and can hardly say his name correctly. In the suburb of Westport, Connecticut in the street of Morning Glory Circle, where they live, their curious next-door neighbor Gladys Kravitz suspect Samantha, but can never prove the weird situations she sees to her husband Abner Kravitz. Darrin works in the McMahon and Tate ad agency with Larry Tate, who is married to Louise Tate. Samantha frequently receives her witch aunts in her house, specially her sweet old Aunt Clara. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
17 September 1964 (USA) See more »
Also Known As:
The Witch of Westport See more »
Filming Locations:
Did You Know?
Trivia
Bernard Fox appeared earlier on the show as a witch-hunting anthropologist before taking on the role of Dr. Bombay. See more »
Goofs
In early episodes, the daughter is referred to in the credits as "Tabatha". In later episodes, however, the spelling of her name is changed to "Tabitha". See more »
Quotes
See more »
Crazy Credits
Whenever Samantha's cousin Serena appeared on the show, the credits for the episode listed the actress as "Pandora Spocks". This was Elizabeth Montgomery 's idea as an inside joke. Elizabeth Montgomery played Serena. See more »
Connections
(England) – See all my reviews
The 1960's was a great time for TV comedy-we had The Munsters, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie and my personal favourite-Bewitched.
The late Elizabeth Montgomery played modern day witch Samantha Stevens who was married to Darrin Stephens. The episodes were very formulaic-Darrin would mess something up and through a sequence of events Samantha would put it right with a twitch of her nose whilst trying not to arouse the suspicion of the neighbours/friends etc.
The funniest thing about this show was how true to life it was. I think it's safe to admit that us males usually need a woman to sort out any problems we have. Okay, she may not literally do it with the twitch of a nose but a woman is always good at sorting a problem out. That was the crux of Bewitched. Darrin was always making mistakes and getting into a predicament but he could always depend on his wife Samantha to sort things out. In fact, he would have been lost without her.
All in all, a great comedy show with some truly hilarious episodes particularly any featuring Agnes Moorehead as Endora.
12 of 15 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
| Elizabeth Montgomery |
Which 1965 movie, remade in 2004, involved the survival of passengers after their plane crashed in the desert. | 'Bewitched' Celebrates its 50th Anniversary and – Oh Baby! – Look at Tabitha Now! (EXCLUSIVE) : Entertainment : Headlines & Global News
'Bewitched' Celebrates its 50th Anniversary and – Oh Baby! – Look at Tabitha Now! (EXCLUSIVE)
By Sep 18, 2014 11:36 AM EDT
HNGN spoke with Erin Murphy, who played Tabitha in the classic show "Bewitched." PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER AMERUOSO EXCLUSIVELY FOR HNGN
Advertisement
This week marks the 50th anniversary of "Bewitched," the now-classic television comedy about witches and warlocks that ran from 1964 to 1972, and is known to even contemporary audiences. Modern kids have enjoyed shows such as "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and of course the Harry Potter craze, but we all know Samantha was the original enchanter.
For the uninitiated, "Bewitched" revolved around a gorgeous nose-twitching witch named Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) who was married to a bemused advertising executive husband, Darren (Dick York and Dick Sargent), an ideologue who believed in "earning his keep" and strongly disapproved of his wife using her powers to help them get ahead in the mortal realm (aka the suburbs). Throw in a catchy theme song, some great opening animation, and some colorful characters, and the show couldn't help but become an instant hit. Other beloved personas include Samantha's indulgent warlock dad and her indignant son-in-law-hating mother, played by Hollywood veteran Agnes Moorehead. Then producers went and spiced things up in the third year by introducing the world to darling "Baby Tabitha," the couple's half-witch daughter who took after mom in both the looks and talents departments.
The build-up to the extraordinary television birth was something of an event on the scale of Little Ricky's birth on "I Love Lucy" a decade and a half earlier. The adorable and magical tot Tabitha was played by Erin Murphy, who started acting before she could speak and was a self-described "good kid."
Erin grew up on the show's soundstage set and says she thought of Elizabeth Montgomery as a second mother. In fact, she often gets mistaken for her on-set mom whose real-life daughers are still "like cousins." These days Erin lives on a ranch where she raises horses and alpacas. She has six sons who "bring the chaos" she confesses to thriving on. She is often surrounded by a large group of friends, many of whom are former child actor friends from shows such as "The Brady Bunch," "The Partridge Family," "My Three Sons," "Little House on the Prairie," and "The Waltons." Over the years Erin kept in touch with her "Bewitched" co-stars, but is now essentially the only cast member still alive. She also attended the premiere of the 2005 movie remake of "Bewitched" starring Nicole Kidman. She enjoyed the movie, and said the only thing that would have made it better was if they had switched Darrens halfway through. Erin still acts, but a number of projects routinely take her away from the set: writing magazine articles, running a martini popsicle business and fighting for autism awareness. In celebration of the long-lived show's anniversary, Erin will host a 24-hour-long marathon to air on Antenna TV this Saturday Sept. 20.
HNGN recently caught up with Erin, who took us on a nostalgic journey to celebrate the classic television comedy's golden anniversary.
HNGN.com: What are your fondest memories from the making of the show?
Erin Murphy: It's a really great place to grow up. I started out on the show on the very first color episode, so the first episode of the third season and then I was on for the rest of the eight seasons. I had a lot of fun, I worked with wonderful people...it was a really, really fun place to grow up. I have memories of working with everybody; I was 8 when the show went off the air so I remember a lot of it.
HNGN.com: Do you have any especially memorable moments on the set? Anything that stands out?
EM: My favorite ones are always when they have the animals there, when they would bring on a pony and turn it into a unicorn. Also seeing the special effects people setting everything up for the magic, seeing behind the scenes was fun.
HNGN.com: Do you remember how they performed the special effects on the show?
EM: When Elizabeth Montgomery wiggled her nose it was filmed at a slow speed and then played back at a fast speed. But for me they figured a baby witch couldn't twitch her nose like that so they had me do it with my finger.
HNGN.com: Do you know what inspired the idea for "Bewitched" in the first place?
EM: They were going to do a show called "The Rich Girl" or something like that, and the premise was that there was a really, really rich girl (who would have been Elizabeth Montgomery) who fell in love with a really poor boy. So she marries him, she could have had anything that she wanted in the world but she chose this poor guy and gave up her money. It's sort of the same thing as a witch who gives up her powers to marry a mortal, so it was a takeoff of that. I don't think most people know that, but that is the true story.
HNGN.com: Do you think the other cast members' personalities were similar to their roles in the show or were they really different people?
EM: I think they were really different. I think Elizabeth Montgomery was more like the character Serena than Samantha, she had a lot of fun when they brought that character on.
HNGN.com: Do you remember when they switched Darrens?
EM: I do. I worked with each of them for three seasons each. Dick York was in so much pain in the end that he had this board on the set he had to lean against because he had a bad back; so he had to lean against that or sit down or lay down. They wrote seven episodes that season without the Darren character altogether. One time he had a seizure on set and after that they decided they had to replace him.
HNGN.com: Were you there when that happened?
EM: I was.
HNGN.com: Was it scary?
EM: I don't remember it being scary. I mean I'm sure it probably was, I remember it, I just don't remember being afraid.
HNGN.com: What was your relationship like with him?
EM: We stayed in touch after, he was very inspirational. As of late he was on oxygen and in bad condition because of emphysema, but he was still working to raise money and gathering mattresses for homeless shelters and things like that, he was a very inspirational guy.
HNGN.com: Was it strange to have Dick Sargent on set as a replacement?
EM: It wasn't; he was really good friends with Elizabeth Montgomery. They had actually offered him the role of Darren first and another actress the role of Samantha so I think he was the only choice when they brought him on set. He was a really great guy. It wasn't like they replaced a nice guy with a bad guy, they were both really great.
HNGN.com: What was your relationship like with Agnes Moorehead (Endora)?
EM: I loved her, she was probably my favorite. It's funny because people ask me more than the other characters if she was scary, but she was the least scary person in the world. She was like my Grandma, I loved her like a Grandma. I thought she was so pretty because she was so colorful with her red hair and purple eyeshadow.
HNGN.com: Was the staff on set patient with you? Was it hard to learn your lines being such a young child at the time?
EM: No, because I grew up on the set (I started acting when I was 11 months old) it's easy, it's always been a part of my life. People were really patient with me too, I was really, really well behaved. I was a good kid.
HNGN.com: Was it strange to have a sort of alternate set of parents on the set?
EM: It's the only life I know, so I grew up with two sets of parents. It seemed normal, but they also did seem like other parents. I know in a lot of ways I'm more like Elizabeth Montgomery in my own life than my own Mom and I think it might be because we spent so many daytime hours together. I definitely have her dirty sense of humor. So much of my personality is similar to hers and so many of her children and family and friends say that I'm so much like her. It's funny because the parts of her personality that I have horrify my own mother.
HNGN.com: Did you keep in touch with most of the cast after the show went off the air?
EM: I did, we talked a bunch of times about doing a "Bewitched" remake, there's even talk about doing it now but I'm still looking at scripts and deciding. We stayed in touch in different ways; Elizabeth Montgomery's children are still some of my closest friends...I see them all the time, they come to parties at my ranch, we go out for lunch, we're Facebook friends. Her daughter Rebecca and I share a birthday, so we're very close. You could say they're more like cousins than siblings, we're really, really good friends.
HNGN.com: I know your twin sister Diane was on the set with you for a bit and then wasn't as you got older. Did that cause any strain in your relationship?
EM: It didn't cause strain at all. They were only auditioning twins for the role of Tabitha and we were fraternal twins so even at the beginning they didn't really use us interchangeably, they would shoot my sister from the back or at a distance. She kind of hated being on set, so I think she was happy to go back home and not do it. Entertainment is either for you or it's not; some people sort of thrive on it, which I do, but my sister hates it. So I think it worked out great, and of course she's one of my closest friends, she's my sister!
HNGN.com: Do you know what happened to the twins that played your little brother on the show?
EM: One works in post-production and the other is a chef.
HNGN.com: Did you keep in touch with them?
EM: I did. We have this group that is sort of every child actor. We started with a party at my ranch and invited every kid actor from every T.V. show we knew from all the generations, so we're kind of all friends. It's like this little secret underground thing.
HNGN.com: Who else is involved in that?
EM: If you name a T.V. show from "The Brady Bunch" to "The Waltons"... we're all in it. There's a certain common ground that child actors share, we have experiences that other people don't, so I think it's easy to fall into friendships based on that. Susan Olsen from "The Brady Bunch" is a great friend, she walks my dogs when I go out of town.
HNGN.com: Who are some of your best friends from the group?
EM: Oh my gosh that's hard... Cathy Silvers who played Jenny Piccalo in "Happy Days" is one of my great friends.
HNGN.com: Do you feel like people still think of you as baby Tabitha or have you moved past that by now?
EM: I think people loved the show so much, so of course they remember me from that. I think I was one of the few child actors who had a steady career in the business as an adult because I'm familiar but I don't automatically look like Tabitha.
HNGN.com: Do you ever get recognized on the streets?
EM: Constantly. I've kind of stayed in the business, I mean I'm still on T.V. and on talk shows. I get a lot of 'oh I know you, I know you' and they almost always get it. At first they sometimes think I'm Elizabeth Montgomery but then they're like 'you're much too young. Did you play Tabitha?' Which is very flattering.
HNGN.com: Was it hard to transition into being an actress as an adult?
EM: It really surprisingly wasn't, but I think it's because I took some time off where I wasn't acting but doing other things in the entertainment business. I worked in casting for years, I worked as a PA, I had all different careers on set. When I thought about coming back to acting people were kind of welcoming and I think it's because I turned down so many things over the years. I think sometimes kid actors keep trying to act right after whatever their big thing is and then it gets to the point where maybe they can't find work and then they can't make the transition later. I think since I kind of walked away from the business they were really welcoming to me when I came back.
HNGN.com: What advice would you give to child actors trying to make the transition today?
EM: Well, I think the best advice you could give to anyone, adult or child actors, is to have something else that you're interested in doing. Acting is great but so few people actually make a living as actors. You can do community theater, but maybe pick a different career, entertainment somewhere or education or something else to fall back on.
HNGN.com: So what are you doing now?
EM: I'm doing a lot of things. I'm doing a play out here in L.A. called "Hollywood Shorts," it's written by T.V. writers and performed by former T.V. actors. That's something I'm really just doing for fun, I'm still acting, I'm an entrepreneur and I own a company that makes frozen martini popsicles. We're all across the country and in Australia and China. I have a ranch where I raise horses and alpacas...I do a million things.
HNGN.com: And what about your home life? I know you have six sons, did you ever wish you could have some magical powers to help you out with that?
EM: Well, I think everybody wishes they could twitch their nose and get the house clean. But I thrive on chaos, so I'd rather be doing a million things at once than one thing, so I think it's fun. I always wanted a big family.
HNGN.com: Did your kids watch "Bewitched" growing up?
EM: Yeah they did. And it's funny, because I don't specifically sit down and watch it myself. I had to remind myself 'oh gosh the kids haven't even seen this' and kind of tell them 'hey I was on this show' and introduce them to it, they love it. It's funny because their teachers always end up knowing who I was and are excited so the kids have to know what the show is.
HNGN.com: You have an autistic son and work with autism awareness organizations. Do you think people are becoming more aware of the condition?
EM: I think they are. There is something in the environment, there's something out there, that has caused the number of cases of autism to rise so drastically. Growing up I truly had never even heard of autism and now the numbers are so great. I was involved with autism-related charities before my son was diagnosed, but as a parent you're there to support other parents and answer questions. I think talking about it openly helps let people know about it because it's a very confusing condition.
HNGN.com: You've also written for magazines, is that something you plan to keep doing?
EM: I love to write, I always thought I'd be a writer when I grew up but I'm still waiting to grow up. I'm writing a book right now on crowd funding of all things. I've written articles about fashion and lifestyle and beauty.
HNGN.com: That's great. Going back a bit, what did you do with the money you got from "Bewitched."
EM: When I turned 21 I got my money from "Bewitched" and I got a house and a horse. It wasn't like lunch money it was real money.
HNGN.com: How do you feel about the upcoming 50th anniversary of "Bewitched"?
EM: I think it's exciting that 50 years later people are still watching the show and are interested in it. It's great that a show we made so long ago is still loved by so many people.
SEE MORE PHOTOS OF ERIN BELOW
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER AMERUOSO EXCLUSIVELY FOR HNGN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER AMERUOSO EXCLUSIVELY FOR HNGN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTOPHER AMERUOSO EXCLUSIVELY FOR HNGN
© 2016 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
| i don't know |
Which sports stadium has the highest seating capacity in the world (at 247,000) | Largest stadiums in every US state | FOX Sports
Largest stadiums in every US state
Oct 09, 2013 1:00a ET
Lambeau Field
GREEN BAY, WI - SEPTEMBER 13: A general view of Lambeau Field before a game between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears on September 13, 2009 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The biggest of the big houses
From the aptly named "Big House" in Michigan to a little baseball stadium in Vermont, here is every state's largest sports venue on the basis of maximum seating capacity. Though football dominates, there are a few wild cards in the mix. For the purposes of this list, we excluded auto-racing tracks, though all instances in which they would be No. 1 are noted.
Alabama -- Bryant-Denny Stadium
The Tuscaloosa home of the dominant Alabama Crimson Tide college football program seats 101,821 at full capacity, the fifth largest total of any stadium. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Talladega Superspeedway wins out with roughly 175,000 permanent seats.
Alaska -- Sullivan Arena
Opened in 1983, Sullivan Arena in Anchorage seats 6,251 spectators and is one of only two entries on this list that is not primarily used for football.
Arizona -- Sun Devil Stadium
Located in Tempe, the home of Arizona State Sun Devils college football seats 73,378 fans, beating out nearby University of Phoenix Stadium — home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and the Fiesta Bowl — by about 10,000.
Arkansas -- Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium
The Arkansas college football sanctuary in Fayetteville can pack in 72,000 screaming Razorbacks faithful.
California -- L.A. Memorial Coliseum
It's a tight race with the Rose Bowl, but the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the state's largest city clocks in at a little over 93,000 seats, just ahead of its Pasadena counterpart's 92,000. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Sonoma's Infineon Raceway would lead the way with 102,000 permanent seats.
Colorado -- Sports Authority Field at Mile High
Home of the NFL's Denver Broncos, the stadium in the state's capital seats 76,125, holding a healthy lead over No. 2 finisher Folsom Field in Boulder, which seats 53,750.
Connecticut -- Yale Bowl
The first of two Ivy League home stadiums to make the list, the home of Yale's football squad seats 64,269 and comfortably beats out UConn's Rentschler Field with only 40,000.
Delaware -- Delaware Stadium
Aptly named, the home of the University of Delaware football team, located in the town of Newark, seats 22,000. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Dover International Speedway dwarfs Delaware Stadium, coming in at 140,000 seats.
Florida -- Ben Hill Griffin Stadium
Florida has plenty of football cathedrals, but none bigger than the University of Florida's 88,548-seater. It's the 12th-largest football stadium in the country and beats out five other Sunshine State behemoths over 65,000. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Daytona Beach's Daytona International Speedway takes top billing with roughly 168,000 seats.
Georgia -- Sanford Stadium
The eighth-largest stadium in the country, the University of Georgia's hallowed ground sits 92,746 Bulldog fans, over 20,000 more people than can cram into Atlanta's Georgia Dome. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton would be No. 1, seating roughly 125,000 people.
Hawaii -- Aloha Stadium
Home of the University of Hawaii's football team and the NFL's Pro Bowl, the Honolulu venue seats about 50,000 fans.
Idaho -- Bronco Stadium
Known for the blue "Smurf Turf" that matches the team colors, the home of those loveable BCS-busting Boise State Broncos seats about 37,000 fans.
Illinois -- Soldier Field
The home of the NFL's Chicago Bears seats 61,500 people and leads the way by a very narrow margin. Memorial Stadium in Champaign, home to the University of Illinois football team, would be No. 1 if not for a recent seat reduction that dropped it down to just over 60,000. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet would be tops with about 75,000 seats.
Indiana -- Notre Dame Stadium
The historic home ground of Notre Dame football in South Bend seats 80,795 people, a solid 17,000 ahead of Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis, home to the NFL's Colts. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, this one wouldn't even be close. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the highest capacity stadium facility in the world, seating 257,000+ around the track and featuring infield seating capacity to raise it up to 400,000.
Iowa -- Kinnick Stadium
The home of the University of Iowa's Hawkeyes in Iowa City seats 70,585, comfortably beating out the 55,000-seater in Ames that houses the rival Iowa State Cyclones.
Kansas -- University of Kansas Memorial Stadium
In the closest race of the bunch, Kansas University's Memorial Stadium — with an official capacity of 50,071 — is just 71 seats ahead of rival Kansas State's 50,000-seat Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium. With standing room and extra seating area accounted for, Kansas State's facility has actually recorded the higher record attendance number. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas, would rank No. 1 with over 72,000 seats.
Kentucky -- Commonwealth Stadium
Home of University of Kentucky football, Commonwealth Stadium seats 67,606 Wildcats fans, holding a comfortable lead over Louisville's football stadium. Famed horse-racing facility Churchill Downs, if you're wondering, seats about 52,000. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Kentucky Speedway in Sparta would lead the way with about 107,000 seats.
Louisiana -- Tiger Stadium
Yes, more people can cram into seats in the cathedral of LSU football than in the Superdome. The Tigers' home field in Baton Rouge has 92,542 seats, making it the ninth-largest stadium in the country. New Orleans' Superdome seats a little over 73,000.
Maine -- Harold Alfond Sports Stadium
The home ground of the University of Maine's Black Bears in the town of Orono seats about 10,000, enough to make it tops in the sparsely populated state.
Maryland -- FedEx Field
One of the few NFL facilities on the list, the home of the Washington Redskins in Landover packs in 82,000 fans on game days. It's the third-largest stadium in the league by seating capacity. The Ravens' home facility in nearby Baltimore, M&T Bank Stadium, seats a little over 70,000 and comes in at No. 2.
Massachusetts -- Gillette Stadium
Just shy of 69,000 fans can take a seat at the home of the New England Patriots in Foxborough. It holds a healthy 25,000-seat lead over the home of Boston College football, Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill.
Michigan -- Michigan Stadium
They call it "The Big House" for a reason. The Ann Arbor home of University of Michigan Wolverines football seats over 107,000 fans, making it the largest stadium of its kind in the country. Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, home ground of the rival Michigan State Spartans, is No. 2 in the state at just over 75,000 seats. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn is ahead of Spartan Stadium at No. 2 with 85,000 permanent grandstand seats.
Minnesota -- Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
The domed home of the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis seats 64,111 at full football capacity. Nearby TCF Bank Stadium, home to the university's Gophers, seats a little over 50,000.
Mississippi -- Vaught-Hemingway Stadium
The University of Mississippi's Rebels call this stadium home, with 60,580 seats for fans. Second-place David Wade Stadium in Starkville — home to the rival Mississippi State Bulldogs — sits about 55,000 fans. UPDATE: We somehow overlooked Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, which also has a seating capacity over 60,000 seats. We regret the error. A phone call to that stadium to confirm capacity yielded a busy signal. A phone call to Ole Miss athletics confirmed the seating capacity of Vaught-Hemingway as 60,580.
Missouri -- Arrowhead Stadium
The Kansas City Chiefs play in front of a seated crowed of as many as 76,416, about 5,000 more than can cram into the University of Missouri football team's Faurot Field in Columbia.
Montana -- Washington-Grizzly Stadium
The home of the University of Montana's football team in Missoula — appropriately looked over by a random big hill — seats a little over 25,000 Grizzlies fans. UPDATE: Apologies for knocking the hill, which Montana fans are turning out in droves to point out is actually the 1,958-foot Mount Sentinel. Rock on!
Nebraska -- Memorial Stadium
A recent expansion put the home of Nebraska Cornhuskers football up over 87,000 seats, making it one of the top 15 largest in the country and easily largest in the state. TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha — home of the College World Series — is No. 2 in Nebraska with a little under 25,000 seats. UPDATE: A reader points out that a recent expansion in August makes it about 92,000 seats at Memorial Stadium.
Nevada -- Sam Boyd Stadium
Home of the Las Vegas Bowl and UNLV football, Las Vegas' Sam Boyd Stadium leads the way in Nevada with a seating capacity of 36,800. The University of Nevada's Mackay Stadium comes in second with about 30,000 seats. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Las Vegas Motor Speedway would take the cake with about 142,000 seats.
New Hampshire -- Memorial Field
Another Ivy League stadium makes the list, as the home of Dartmouth football in Hanover is tops in New Hampshire. It seats about 13,000 fans. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon would be running away with it, seating about 93,000 fans.
New Jersey -- Metlife Stadium
The shiny, shared new home of the NFL's New York Giants and New York Jets — and home of the 2014 Super Bowl — in East Rutherford seats about 82,500 fans, outpacing the Rutgers football program's home stadium by about 30,000 seats.
New Mexico -- University Stadium
The home of the University of New Mexico Lobos football team, University Stadium in Albuquerque can pack in about 40,000 fans on game days, about 10,000 more than New Mexico State's home stadium in Las Cruces.
New York -- Ralph Wilson Stadium
With the New York City NFL teams outsourced to New Jersey, it clears the way for the Orchard Park home of the NFL's Buffalo Bills to take top honors in the Empire State. Ralph Wilson Stadium seats about 74,000 fans. Yankee Stadium in the Bronx is No. 2 with about 50,000 seats.
North Carolina -- Bank of America Stadium
With over 73,000 seats, the Charlotte home of the NFL's Carolina Panthers is No. 1 in North Carolina. Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, home to University of North Carolina football team, comes in second with about 63,000 seats. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Charlotte Motor Speedway is easliy No. 1, with about 140,000 permanent seats.
North Dakota -- Fargodome
With 25,000 seats at full capacity, the home of North Dakota State Bison football is the largest venue in the state — though it shrinks to 19,000 for the football set-up. The Alerus Center in Grand Forks is close behind, seating 21,000 at full capacity.
Ohio -- Ohio Stadium
The fourth largest stadium in the country, the imposing horseshoe-shaped home of the Ohio State Buckeyes seats over 102,000 red-clad fans on game day, dwarfing the state's second-largest facility — the Browns' 73,000-seat FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.
Oklahoma -- Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium
The home of the Oklahoma University Sooners football program, this mammoth stadium in Norman seats over 82,000 fans. Oklahoma State's Boone Pickens Stadium in Stillwater is in second place with just over 60,000.
Oregon -- Autzen Stadium
The Eugene confines of the flashy, Nike-fueled University of Oregon Ducks football team seats about 54,000 people to lead the way. Oregon State's football stadium, Reser Stadium, seats around 45,000.
Pennsylvania -- Beaver Stadium
The imposing home of the Penn State Nittany Lions in State College hosts about 107,000 fans on game days, making it the second-largest football stadium in the country behind Michigan Stadium. Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, home of the NFL's Eagles, seats a little over 68,000 to come in second. Note: With over 76,000 seats, Pocono Raceway in Long Pond would come in second.
Rhode Island -- Brown Stadium
Little 20,000-seat Brown Stadium in Providence, home of the Ivy League's Brown Bears, is tops in the nation's smallest state. The Dunkin' Donuts Center, home of Providence Friars basketball, comes in second with a capacity of 12,400.
South Carolina -- Memorial Stadium
That dramatic, steep stand can be found in Clemson, home of the Tigers. With about 82,000 seats, Memorial Stadium is one of the largest venues in the country. Columbia's Williams-Brice Stadium, home of the rival Gamecocks, comes in just short at a little over 80,000 seats.
South Dakota -- Coughlin-Alumni Stadium
The home of South Dakota State Jackrabbits football, located in the town of Brookings, seats about 15,000 fans at full capacity — good enough for No. 1 in the lightly populated state.
Tennessee -- Neyland Stadium
The robust round home of Tennessee Volunteers football in Knoxville can pack in about 102,000 fans, making it third on the list of all stadiums in the country. It dwarfs the second-ranked stadium in the state — LP Field in Nashville, home of the NFL's Titans, which seats about 68,000. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, NASCAR would once again be king. Bristol Motor Speedway can sit about 160,000 fans.
Texas -- Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium
The epicenter of Longhorns football in Austin seats just north of 100,000 burnt orange faithful, good for No. 6 overall and No. 1 in the football-crazed state. Three other Texas stadiums rank in the top 25 overall — the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Kyle Field in College Station, and Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Texas Motor Speedway would be No. 1 with about 138,000 permanent seats.
Utah -- LaVell Edwards Stadium
With room for about 64,000 fans, the home of BYU Cougars football in Provo is tops in Utah. The University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City comes in a distant second with around 45,000 seats.
Vermont -- Centennial Field
One of the only non-football stadiums on the list, the University of Vermont's baseball facility, Centennial Field, is No. 1 in the state with about 4,400 permanent seats. The hockey team's 4,000-seat Gutterson Fieldhouse comes in at No. 2.
Virginia -- Lane Stadium
The home of Virginia Tech Hokies football in Blacksburg seats about 66,000 fans, about 5,000 more than Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, home of the rival Virginia Cavaliers. Note: With auto-racing tracks included, Richmond International Raceway is easily tops, with seating for over 100,000 fans.
Washington -- Husky Stadium
The Seattle home of the University of Washington football program outranks the nearby facility for the NFL's Seahawks. The Huskies can seat about 70,000 fans on game days, their pro counterparts only about 67,000.
West Virginia -- Mountaineer Field
No surprise here. The Morgantown venue, home to the state's biggest football draw — the West Virginia University Mountaineers, seats about 60,000 fans. Joan C. Edwards Stadium in Huntington, home to Marshall University football, is second with about 38,000.
Wisconsin -- Lambeau Field
In one of the closest races on the list, the Green Bay confines of the NFL's Packers narrowly edges out the Wisconsin Badgers' facility thanks to a recent expansion. Lambeau checks in with an official capacity of 80,750 while the university's Camp Randall Stadium is just behind with 80,321. Your move, Madison.
Wyoming -- War Memorial Stadium
The 34,000-seat home of Wyoming Cowboys football leads the way in the sparsely-populated state. Nearby (and quaintly named) Arena-Auditorium, home of the university basketball squad, is a distant second at around 15,000 seats.
| Indianapolis Motor Speedway |
Which car manufacturer's current range includes the Navigator, MKX & MKC models | 10 of the world's best sports venues | CNN Travel
10 of the world's best sports venues
10 of the world's best sports venues
The stadiums, clubs and courses that make the actual sport look like a sideshow
By Tony Smart 9 March, 2012
The Olympics is still an entire spring season away, so instead we're going to hijack the IAAF World Indoor Championships (that's athletics for any sports dodos out there) as our peg for this list.
They start today, so what better way to kick off three days of sprained hamstrings and frustrating false starts than with a rundown of 10 fantastic sports stadiums?
Clearly there are many more great sports venues than these 10, so before any fans of Soccer City or others get their vuvuzelas in a twist, you can have your moment in the comments box below.
1. Yankee Stadium, New York, United States
Concentrated Americana. Just add beer.
The new Yankee Stadium is the third most expensive stadium ever built (US$1.5 billion), after Wembley Stadium in London and the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
It's been open for only two years, and is home to the most famous team in American sport, but also a legion of vociferous, outspoken, frequently funny fans who are just as happy to cheer a streaker as they are to jeer a poor play.
In its first season it hosted a World Series clinching game as the Yanks beat the Philadelphia Phillies four games to two.
Typical fan: Large guy with beer gut clutching giant hotdog in one hand and cup of beer in the other, screaming insults at the Red Sox ... even when the Sox aren't in town.
Yankee Stadium, E.161st Street and River Avenue, Bronx, N.Y., United States; +1 718 293 4300; newyork.yankees.mlb.com
2. Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia
Every third man's most hated away game.
The biggest cricket venue in the world, the biggest stadium of any kind in Australia and also the oldest of the stadiums on our list.
Built in 1853, with the first game of cricket played on September 30, 1854, up to 130,000 people could once be crammed in -- however, renovations and safety regulations have since restricted capacity to the current 100,000.
The MCG, or The G as locals call it, is the symbolic heart of sport in the country.
For cricket fans there's no better place to be, cold drink in hand, watching Australia and England battle out an Ashes Test when the atmosphere would give a chainsaw a hard time, especially in the infamous Bay 13, one of the most disorderly spectator areas in sport.
In a One-Day International in the late 1990s, behavior in Bay 13 was so bad that Shane Warne had to enter the ground from his dressing rooms and tell the crowd to settle down at the request of opposing England captain Alec Stewart.
Typical fan: Large man with cans of Fosters in his hat, shouting obscenities at both sides' players.
Melbourne Cricket Ground, Brunton Avenue, Melbourne, Australia; +61 3 9657 8888; www.mcg.org.au
3. Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain
The action is usually as colorful as the fans.
Feel free to make your case Real Madrid fans. Sure, we can grant Santiago Bernabeu elite status among world stadiums, but Camp Nou edges it by a hair.
Overall, the complex is more impressively grandiose and the fans rowdier. And it's home to the world's best soccer team. No other soccer stadium in Europe can compete with the capacity crowds of Camp Nou.
At 100,000 strong, the homeside can rely on an incessant atmosphere that intimidates like no other, a quality current players Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi appreciate.
At times it can get extremely heated, both on and off the pitch.
In August 2011, during a Spanish Supercopa match against arch rivals Real Madrid, there was an on-pitch brawl between not only the players, but Real manager José Mourinho and Barcelona assistant coach Tito Vilanova.
Typical fan: Sweaty Catalan waving scarf excitedly and chanting nonstop.
Camp Nou, Avinguda Aristides Maillol, Barcelona, Spain; +34 93 496 36 08; www.fcbarcelona.com
4. Rungrado May Day Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea
Squint, and you may be able to spot a smile somewhere in there.
The monumental Rungrado May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, makes our list because it has the largest seating capacity of any sports stadium in the world and the largest capacity of any non-motorsport venue in the world.
Plus it's in North Korea, which makes it an adventure just to get there.
Built in 1989 for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students, and seating a staggering 150,000 people, it now mostly hosts football matches and athletic events.
Resembling a magnolia blossom, or, some say, a parachute, it has 16 arches arranged in a ring. In 1995, an incredible 190,000 people crammed in for a professional wrestling event. One to tick off if you're a real sports stadium fanatic.
However, don't come expecting to see North Koreans breaking out of their oppressively intact shells -- there's absolutely no atmosphere whatsoever in this stadium, even when packed full of people.
Typical fan: Any one of more than 24 million North Koreans happy to get a taste of real life.
The only contact information North Korea makes available is Rungrado May Day Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea.
5. Wimbledon, London, England
The retractable roof ensures there will be no repeat of the 1996 "Cliff Richard episode."
It may be the center of the tennis world for only two weeks of the year (or slightly longer depending on the British weather) but there's no tennis venue like Wimbledon.
Center Court becomes a circus of oohs and aahs. Strawberries drip with cream. Henman Hill burns with suspense. Sir Cliff Richard sings in the rain .
And of course Andy Murray, or whoever the favored British "star" is this year, loses in the semi-finals yet again.
Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and now Rafael Nadal have shone here. The All England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon has it all.
Typical fan: English rose with posh accent, glass of Pimm's and bedroom completely wallpapered with photos of Andy Murray, or a topless Rafael Nadal.
Wimbledon, Church Road, Wimbledon, London, England; +44 20 8944 1066; www.wimbledon.com
6. Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indiana, United States
How two wheels can mesmerize 257,000 people.
Beyond doubt the biggest sporting venue in the world, with a permanent seating capacity of more than 257,000, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has everything for motor sports fans .
With infield seating, the Indy 500, the annual 800-mile race held over Memorial Day weekend, billed as "The Greatest Spectacle In Racing," can raise crowd numbers to 400,000.
There are more big races: the Brickyard 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race. The Red Bull Indianapolis motorcycle Grand Prix. Indianapolis even hosted the U.S. Formula One GP from 2000-2007.
Beer, hot dogs, the smell of motor oil, the roar of highly tuned engines and the chance of a fatal accident. This is mecca for motor sports fans.
Typical fan: Loud American, male or female, wearing baseball cap and clutching mobile phone camera in hand, waiting to shoot footage of the first mishap to post on YouTube.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 4790 W. 16th St., Indianapolis, Ind., United States; +1 317 492 8500; www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com
7. Estadio Azteca, Mexico City, Mexico
And this is just during the halftime "tacos at half price" announcement.
The Azteca Stadium, located in Mexico City, is a football (soccer) stadium with an official capacity of 114,465 people. It makes our list because it's the home of the Mexico national team and the only stadium ever to host two World Cup final matches, in 1970 and 1986.
It also hosted football matches in the 1968 Olympics. In the 1986 World Cup quarterfinal between Argentina and England, Diego Maradona scored both the "Hand of God" goal and the " Goal of the Century ."
The stadium also hosted the "Game of the Century," when Italy defeated West Germany 4-3 in extra time in one of the 1970 semifinals. So Estadio Azteca brings out the best and the worst in the world's best football players. The buzz here, especially when Mexico are playing, is electric.
Typical fan: Highly emotional Mexican, probably wearing green or Mexican national colors.
Estadio Azteca, Santa Ursula, Mexico City, Mexico; +52 55 5487 3205; www.esmas.com
8. Augusta National Golf Club, Georgia, United States
One of the few courses more beautiful than Colin Montgomerie's swing.
The Old Course at St. Andrews may be the home of golf, but Augusta National in Georgia is golf heaven.
Created in 1933 by the legendary Bobby Jones, this incredible golf course is home every April to the U.S. Masters, the first golf Major tournament of the year.
The hallowed fairways that run through stands of huge, stately trees make it golf's greatest venue. Winners here include all of golf's greats, from Ben Hogan through Palmer, Nicklaus and Player to Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods.
Spectators are called "patrons" and can be ejected from the venue if caught running anywhere on the course.
Indeed, organizers are so paranoid about maintaining the club's sedate image that legendary CBS commentator Gary McCord was banned for life for announcing on air that the greens were so fast they must have been "bikini-waxed."
Tickets to the tournament are like gold dust, but several golf tour operators now run packages to the Masters that include tournament tickets.
Typical fan: Carries portable seat and picnic hamper, arrives at first light, proceeds to favorite place on course and sits there all day waiting for a glimpse of Tiger.
Augusta National Golf Club, 2604 Washington Road, Augusta, Ga., United States; +1 706 667 6000; www.augusta.com
9. Circuit de Monaco, Monaco
The one country where it's bad form not to speed in the streets.
There are dozens of Formula One Grand Prix circuits around the world, but there's nothing like Monaco. This isn't a circuit, this is a Grand Prix effectively taking place on the streets of a whole country.
Monaco is a tiny city state on the French Riviera and the GP is held on a narrow course with many elevation changes and tight corners, as well as a tunnel, making it one of the most demanding tracks in Formula One.
In spite of the relatively low average speeds, it's a dangerous place to race and is usually won by the very best drivers. The list of winners since the first GP in 1929 reads like a who's who of F1 legends -- Ayrton Senna (six times), Alain Prost (four), Michael Schumacher (five), Fernando Alonso (twice) and Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel once each.
Monaco is a tax haven and has been described as "an exceptional location of glamour and prestige" with mega-yachts in the harbor providing the backdrop to the speeding cars. It's celebrity heaven, especially at GP time.
Typical fan: Billionaire watching action from private yacht in harbor or multi-million dollar apartment overlooking track, Champagne in one hand, supermodel in the other.
Monaco, 2 Boulevard Rainier III, Monaco; +377 93 25 47 85; www.monaco-grand-prix.com
10. Wembley Stadium, London, England
The retractable roof is actually meant to soundproof the locals from the hooligan howls inside.
Or New Wembley, to be precise.
Althought the most expensive stadium ever built (US$1.26 billion) is not the same incarnation as the original, it nonetheless has the same spirit and is home to the best events in the United Kingdom, Europe and perhaps the world.
At 90,000 capacity, it seats more people under one retractable roof than anywhere in the world, hosts the final of the world's oldest football tournament, the FA Cup (which started in 1871), is the English national football team's home ground, hosts major rugby tournaments and regular season NFL games and will be the centerpiece of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Overall, the world's preeminent showcase stadium for sport.
Typical fan: Insane and fairly drunk English football supporter who really believes the English team will one day win another World Cup.
Wembley Stadium, Wembley, London, England; +44 844 980 8001; www.wembleystadium.com
Tony Smart is a lifelong golf fanatic and journalist who's been lucky enough to play golf all over the world. He has written for a wide variety of magazines including Golf Digest Ireland, Golf World, Golf Monthly, Golf International, The Robb Report, Asian Golf Monthly, Golf Vacations and The Peak.
| i don't know |
Which singer died in a crash of his own experimental aircraft | CNN - John Denver killed in plane crash - Oct. 13, 1997
John Denver killed in plane crash
October 13, 1997
Web posted at: 1:38 p.m. EDT (1738 GMT)
SALINAS, California (CNN) -- Singer and songwriter John Denver, whose '70 hits such as "Rocky Mountain High" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads" gained him worldwide fame, was killed Sunday when his small aircraft plunged into Monterey Bay, officials said Monday. He was 53.
His remains were positively identified by the Monterey County Coroner's Office through fingerprints obtained from the state of Colorado, Monterey County Sheriff Norman Hicks said. The National Transportation Safety Board was pursuing details on the cause of the crash itself, while the sheriff's coroners will be investigating the circumstances surrounding the cause of death, he said.
"We share a sense of shock and loss to our community, our nation and the world, and we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the many friends, the family, and the many admirers of John Denver," Hicks said at a Monday news conference.
Denver was piloting the two-seat light plane along the California coast when the engine failed shortly after 5 p.m., plunging him into ocean waters just past Monterey Bay.
A L S O :
John Denver's Most Popular singles
His first taste of musical success was in 1969, when the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary recorded Denver's "Leavin' on a Jet Plane," which went on to become the Number 1 song in the country. Denver's voice first hit the charts in 1971, when "Take me Home, Country Roads" went to Number 2.
"Country Roads" was Denver's first million-seller. A string of hits followed in the 1970s, including "Rocky Mountain High," "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and "Annie's Song," an ode to his wife. They separated in 1983 and later divorced.
In 1977, Denver made his big-screen acting debut in "Oh, God," opposite George Burns. He made occasional acting appearances over the years, but was better known for his television specials. Denver appeared in several Christmas shows, including two with Jim Henson's Muppets.
In 1984 and '85, Denver was one of the first Western artists to tour the Soviet Union following a resumption of cultural exchanges with the United States. He was also one of the first Western artists to go on a multi-city tour of China, in 1992.
Standup comics and newspaper cartoonists leapt on a 1988 "Aviation Week & Space Technology" report that Denver asked Soviet space officials to launch him to the Mir space station. The cash-strapped Soviets were reportedly considering the idea, with a price of $10 million.
Denver's legal troubles have made headlines in recent years. Charged with driving under the influence in 1993, Denver pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of driving while impaired.
He was again charged with DUI when his Porsche ran off the road in his Aspen, Colorado, neighborhood in 1994. The trial for that charge ended with a hung jury in July 1997. Denver's defense argued that the singer's thyroid condition made alcohol tests unreliable.
In August 1997, "The Best of John Denver Live" reached Number 47 on the country album charts. It was Denver's first chart appearance since 1988.
| John Denver |
What was the character name of Commander Shore's daughter in the 60's series Stingray (voiced by Lois Maxwell) | AskTog: John Denver: When Interfaces Kill
When Interfaces Kill: John Denver
Ask Tog, June, 1999
When Interfaces Kill: What Really Happened to John Denver
On October 12, 1997, John Denver, popular folk singer and amateur pilot, at the controls of a newly-purchased experimental aircraft, died after crashing into Monterey Bay, in California. He died in an aircraft that had already done its best to kill two previous pilots, an aircraft with a human interface flaw so fundamental, so profound, that it finally managed to kill.
The Long EZ is a kit aircraft designed by Burt Rutan, one of the world's greatest aerospace designers. Rutan was responsible for the Voyager, the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe without refueling. He is currently working on a reusable spacecraft for commercial and tourist operations that can fly into space in the morning, be checked out and refueled over lunch, and fly again that very afternoon. One of his Long EZ planes, similar to John Denver's, holds the altitude record for conventional aircraft. It is a brilliant design, and is well respected in the aviation community.
Experimental aircraft kits, however, need not be built as the designer intended. Indeed, the flaws that led to Denver's death were the work of the builder, and had nothing to do with Burt Rutan. These flaws led from the builder's sincere desire to improve on Rutan's work, a goal that could actually be said to have been accomplished from an engineering perspective, even if it did kill the pilot.
Background
Aircraft are designed to be as safe as possible. This sounds pretty obvious, but if you look back to the history of the motorcar, you can see quite a contrast with aviation. The car companies required government intervention before adding, while still kicking and screaming, such esoteric safety equipment as headlights, windshield wipers, and seat belts. The aviation community, on the contrary, from the beginning made safety their primary goal.
Car fires are a common enough occurrence along America's freeways. A gas line breaks under the hood and soon the engine is engulfed in flames. The cure? Pull over, get out, find a long stick, and start roasting marshmallows.
That same fire in an aircraft at 10,000 feet is a far more serious affair. It can take several minutes to "pull over," during which time that fire can be pouring inky black smoke into the cockpit, blinding the pilot, making a crash inevitable. As a result, aircraft have fuel shutoff valves in the cockpit. Flip the valve and find a nice, friendly field somewhere below where you can safely land your plane.
These shutoff valves, on most aircraft, serve a second purpose, letting you choose between the tank located in the left wing and the tank located in the right wing. (I prefer flying aircraft that also have a "Both" position, so all this gas selection can be avoided.)
The Bad Interface
John Denver's aircraft had a fuel selection valve with only three positions: Off, Left, and Right. Burt Rutan's design called for that valve to be placed on the front panel of the aircraft, making it easy to switch among the options. The builder of the aircraft, however, elected to place the valve back behind the pilot's left shoulder. He did so with the best of intentions. By placing the valve behind the pilot's compartment, on the other side of the back firewall, with only a long rod leading to the handle behind the pilot's left shoulder, he avoided running the gas lines through the passenger compartment, eliminating any possibility of a gasline rupture occuring inside the compartment.
He did so, however, at a terrible cost to the human interface, because the only way to switch tanks was to let go of the controls, twist your head to the left to look behind you, reach over your left shoulder with your right hand, find the valve, and turn it. As the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) discovered, it was difficult to do this without bracing yourself with your right footby pressing the right rudder pedal all the way to the floor. And that's what killed John Denver. His plane was seen veering to the right and plunging into the ocean from only a few hundred feet up, consistent with the NTSB's reconstruction.
Making things worse
The fuel: Denver had three ways to ensure he had enough fuel. Evidence suggests he made use of two of them:
He had fuel gauges in the rear of the aircraft, behind the pilot, and a mirror (!) used to look at them. However, the fuel gauges were not linear and had no markings to indicate that apparently half-full was really close to empty.
He dipped a rod into the fuel tanks while pre-checking the plane before flight to test the fuel level. He may not have been aware, however, that, because of the way the Long-EZ rests, the fuel tends to slosh toward the fuel tank filler port, giving a highly-optimistic reading.
The third method is adding fuel to the tanks, which Denver failed to do. Because the Long-EZ has very large tanks, the common practice is to add an amount of fuel suffient for the flight, plus a healthy margin. It may be John Denver was told not to fill the tanks, but was not told of this partial-filling practice.
The valve: The builder not only placed the valve in a non-standard location, he also rotated it in such a way that turning the valve to the right turned on the left fuel tank. This ensured that a pilot unfamiliar with the aircraft, upon hearing the engine begin missing and spotting in his mirror that the left fuel tank was empty, would attempt to rotate the fuel valve to the right, away from the full tank, guaranteeing his destruction.
Lessons to be Learned
John Denver learned the biggest lesson of all, even if he only had a few seconds to appreciate it: Let the User Beware! And, indeed, the NTSB, as per its long history of setting aside findings, human factors or otherwise, that might conflict with a verdict of pilot error, ruled that the responsibility for this crash lay with the pilot. The interface was relegated to a mere "factor." Had John Denver fueled his aircraft in spite of evidence indicating he had sufficient fuel, had he somehow managed to thoroughly familiarize himself with the idiosyncrasies of this uniquely-assembled experimental aircraft sans manual, he would be alive and well today.
However, to those of us versed in even rudimentary human factors, it is easy to see that the design of this fuel system was a disaster waiting to happen, as was borne out not only by what Denver experienced, but by incidents reported by two previous pilots of this same plane who almost met death under the same circumstances. Presumably, they had a bit more altitude when their fuel starved out and, therefore, a bit more time to react.
With all of aviation's emphasis on safety, the human factors of small planes and the environment in which they fly would be laughable, if it weren't so dangerous. Why? Because the whole thing is awash in "macho." Just as with Unix, just as with DOS, the more confounding everything is, the better it is, because it helps separate the men from the boysand the girls, who aren't really invited. Until that changes, general aviation will continue to experience both a high fatality rate and a continuing drop in new pilots.
We in the PC and web worlds have a lot to learn from this, too. We have a lot of bad design floating around that is just as perverse as fuel valves that face the wrong way, hidden behind firewalls. And it is not all to be found in freeware and shareware programs, where one might argue that, as with experimental aircraft, "let the user beware." Indeed, some of the most egregious examples of design are apparent in the most expensive, mainstream operating systems and applications. Fortunately for the corporations behind them, our screw-ups generally don't kill people outright. Instead, we specialize in driving our users slowly insane.
If you approach software design the way experts in commercial and military cockpit human factors approach their craft, you will end up with designs that are fast, familiar, and forgiving. Such designs would be a refreshing change in the ghastly world of PC software. They'd be a refreshing change in the world of general aviation, too.
Don't miss the next action-packed column!
Receive a brief notice when new columns are posted by sending a blank email to [email protected] .
| i don't know |
Who had hits with Wishin' and Hopin and You don't have to say you love me | 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Dusty Springfield by Dusty Springfield on Apple Music
12 Songs
Album Review
Dusty Springfield recorded so much good material that it's hard to summarize her very best recordings in the space of a 12-track collection. Nevertheless, 20th Century Masters does a good job of squeezing several of her biggest songs — "I Only Want to Be With You," "Wishin' and Hopin'," "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," "The Look of Love" — onto this collection. There are notable omissions, such as "Son of a Preacher Man" or anything from Dusty in Memphis, but that does not belong to the Universal Recording group that released this album — consequently, this only concentrates on Phillips-era recordings, and it's a pretty good snapshot of that time which, after all, gave Dusty her very biggest hits.
Customer Reviews
Dusty Springfield - 20th Century Masters
by cathy46601
This is an exceptional album and should be a part of the music library of all those who value music history. Dusty Springfield was a pioneer. The only song missing from this album is "Son of a Preacher Man."
Great!!
by FortifiedConnections
I am a teen who is a fan of both the music of today and more older ones, such as Dusty Springfield, The Beatles, Wayne Fontana, Tom Jones, Elvis, etc... Dusty Springfield has an awesome, well-rehearsed voice. Her songs are always rekindling fond memories.
Music
by Not A Crook
Even though I am no were near the age of this music I did grow up listening to it on my local station kfrc. Even though it changed to crappy music I spend my time hunting for it's wonderful hits like this. That's why I give it a 5
Biography
Born: April 16, 1939 in Hampstead, London, England
Genre: Pop
Years Active: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s
Britain's greatest pop diva, Dusty Springfield was also the finest white soul singer of her era, a performer of remarkable emotional resonance whose body of work spans the decades and their attendant musical transformations with a consistency and purity unmatched by any of her contemporaries; though a camp icon of glamorous excess in her towering beehive hairdo and panda-eye black mascara, the sultry intimacy and heartbreaking urgency of Springfield's voice transcended image and fashion, embracing...
Top Albums and Songs by Dusty Springfield
1.
| Dusty Springfield |
Which X-Men character has the real name of Ororo Munroe? | Dusty Springfield You Don't Have To Say You Love - YouTube
Dusty Springfield You Don't Have To Say You Love
Want to watch this again later?
Sign in to add this video to a playlist.
Need to report the video?
Sign in to report inappropriate content.
Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.
Uploaded on May 29, 2008
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
When I said I needed you
You said you would always stay
It wasn't me who changed but you
And now you've gone away
Don't you see
And I'm left here on my own
That I have to follow you
And beg you to come home?
You don't have to say you love me
Just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand
I can't help but love you
But believe me
I'll never tie you down
Left alone with just a memory
Life seems dead and so unreal
All that's left is loneliness
There's nothing left to feel
You don't have to say you love me
Just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand
You don't have to say you love me
Just be close at hand
You don't have to stay forever
I will understand
Believe me, believe me, believe me
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
Category
| i don't know |
What is the official Presidential Anthem of the United States? | Hail to the Chief (Official Presidential Anthem of the United States) - YouTube
Hail to the Chief (Official Presidential Anthem of the United States)
Want to watch this again later?
Sign in to add this video to a playlist.
Need to report the video?
Sign in to report inappropriate content.
Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.
Published on Mar 19, 2015
Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises
Hail to the Chief (Official Presidential Anthem of the United States) · Eastman Wind Ensemble
No. 1 Patriotic Music Album
℗ 2014 Magic Gold Records
| Hail to the Chief |
Which children's cartoon series featured characters called Lion-O, Cheetara, Panthro and Tygra? | Hail to the Chief (Official Presidential Anthem of the United States) - YouTube
Hail to the Chief (Official Presidential Anthem of the United States)
Want to watch this again later?
Sign in to add this video to a playlist.
Need to report the video?
Sign in to report inappropriate content.
Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.
Published on Mar 19, 2015
Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises
Hail to the Chief (Official Presidential Anthem of the United States) · Eastman Wind Ensemble
No. 1 Patriotic Music Album
℗ 2014 Magic Gold Records
| i don't know |
To complain or find fault in a petty or disagreeable way; a peevish complaint? | Carp - definition of carp by The Free Dictionary
Carp - definition of carp by The Free Dictionary
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/carp
(kärp)
intr.v. carped, carp·ing, carps
To complain or find fault in a petty or disagreeable way: carped about the poor service at the restaurant. See Synonyms at quibble .
[Middle English carpen, from Old Norse karpa, to boast.]
carp′er n.
(kärp)
n. pl. carp or carps
1. A freshwater cyprinid fish (Cyprinus carpio) native to Eurasia that is widely bred in ponds for food.
2. Any of various fishes of the family Cyprinidae.
[Middle English carpe, from Old French carpe, from Medieval Latin carpa, of Germanic origin.]
carp
(often foll by: at) to complain or find fault; nag pettily
[C13: from Old Norse karpa to boast; related to Latin carpere to pluck]
ˈcarper n
(kɑːp)
n, pl carp or carps
1. (Animals) a freshwater teleost food fish, Cyprinus carpio, having a body covered with cycloid scales, a naked head, one long dorsal fin, and two barbels on each side of the mouth: family Cyprinidae
2. (Animals) any other fish of the family Cyprinidae; a cyprinid
[C14: from Old French carpe, of Germanic origin; compare Old High German karpfo, Old Norse karfi]
carp1
1. to find fault; complain unreasonably; cavil.
n.
[1200–50; Middle English: to speak, prate < Old Norse karpa to brag, wrangle]
carp′er, n.
(kɑrp)
n., pl. (esp. collectively) carp, (esp. for kinds or species) carps.
1. a large freshwater cyprinid fish, Cyprinus carpio, native to Asia but widely cultivated as a food fish.
2. any of various other fishes of the family Cyprinidae.
[1350–1400; < Middle French < Middle Dutch or Middle Low German]
-carp
a combining form occurring in words that denote a part of a fruit or fruiting body: endocarp.
[< New Latin -carpium < Greek -karpion, derivative of karpós fruit]
carp
I will have been carping
you will have been carping
he/she/it will have been carping
we will have been carping
you will have been carping
they will have been carping
Past Perfect Continuous
Noun
1.
carp - the lean flesh of a fish that is often farmed; can be baked or braised
Cyprinus carpio , domestic carp - large Old World freshwater bottom-feeding fish introduced into Europe from Asia; inhabits ponds and sluggish streams and often raised for food; introduced into United States where it has become a pest
freshwater fish - flesh of fish from fresh water used as food
2.
carp - any of various freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae
Cyprinidae , family Cyprinidae - a family of fish including: carp; tench; roach; rudd; dace
cyprinid , cyprinid fish - soft-finned mainly freshwater fishes typically having toothless jaws and cycloid scales
Cyprinus carpio , domestic carp - large Old World freshwater bottom-feeding fish introduced into Europe from Asia; inhabits ponds and sluggish streams and often raised for food; introduced into United States where it has become a pest
Verb
| Carp |
Who was the first woman in Space? | Niggle | Define Niggle at Dictionary.com
niggle
verb (used without object), niggled, niggling.
1.
to criticize, especially constantly or repeatedly, in a peevish or petty way; carp:
to niggle about the fine points of interpretation; preferring to niggle rather than take steps to correct a situation.
2.
to spend too much time and effort on inconsequential details:
It's difficult to be meticulous and not niggle.
3.
to niggle with an uninteresting task.
Origin of niggle
Norwegian
1610-1620
1610-20; < Scandinavian; compare Norwegian nigla to be penurious (ultimately < Old Norse hnøggr stingy, cognate with Old English hnēaw); cf. niggard
Related forms
British Dictionary definitions for niggle
Expand
(intransitive) to find fault continually
2.
(intransitive) to be preoccupied with details; fuss
3.
a slight or trivial objection or complaint
5.
a slight feeling as of misgiving, uncertainty, etc
Derived Forms
C16: from Scandinavian; related to Norwegian nigla. Compare niggard
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for niggle
Expand
v.
1590s (implied in niggling), possibly from a Scandinavian source (cf. Norwegian dialectal nigla "be busy with trifles"), perhaps related to source of niggard . Related: Niggled; niggling; niggler.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Slang definitions & phrases for niggle
Expand
verb
To complain
To spend time on inconsequential things; trifle •With niggling as the adjective form: niggle over the details (1886+)
The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.
Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.
| i don't know |
Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize? | Nobel Prize Awarded Women
More options
Nobel Prize Awarded Women
The Nobel Prize and Prize in Economic Sciences have been awarded to women 49 times between 1901 and 2016. Only one woman, Marie Curie, has been honoured twice, with the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This means that 48 women in total have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2016.
Nobel Prize awarded women 1901-2015.
"in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel"
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry
"in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element"
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
"for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen"
The Nobel Prize in Literature
"in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings"
The Nobel Peace Prize
"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"
Nobel Prize Awarded Women 1901-2016
47 photos
Youyou Tu, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2015, on stage with her family after the Nobel Prize award ceremony on 10 December 2015.
Copyright © Nobel Media 2015
Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2015, presenting her gift to the Nobel Museum's collection: one of her five tape recorders, on 6 December 2015.
Copyright © Nobel Media 2015
Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
May-Britt Moser, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2014, after receiving the news about the Nobel Prize.
Photo: Nancy Bazilchuk, NTNU Communication Div.
Elizabeth Blackburn, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2009, in her lab at the University of California, San Francisco.
Copyright © University of California, San Francisco 2009
Photo: Elisabeth Fall/fallfoto.com
Alice Munro, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2013.
Photo: Jenny Munro
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation
Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2011, is embraced by guests at a party at her family home in Monrovia, Liberia, to celebrate her Nobel Peace Prize.
Copyright © Nobel Media AB 2011
Photo: Glenna Gordon
Jane Addams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1931, at her desk, 30 October 1912.
Source: Library of Congress, USA
Photographer unknown. No known copyright restrictions.
Emily Greene Balch, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1946.
Source: Library of Congress, USA
Photographer unknown. No known copyright restrictions.
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2008.
Copyright © Institut Pasteur 2008
Linda Buck, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2004.
Copyright © Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center 2011
Photo: Roland Morgan
Pearl Buck, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1938. Photo taken ca 1932.
Source: Library of Congress, USA
Photographer unknown. No known copyright restrictions.
Gerty Cori, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1947, and her husband Carl in their laboratory at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, 1947.
Source: U.S National Library of Medicine, Images from the History of Medicine Collection. Photographer unknown.
Mairead Corrigan, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1976.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation
Tawakkol Karman, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
Copyright © Nobel Media AB 2011
Photo: Donnelly Marks
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 1964.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation
Gertrude B. Elion, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1988, in the laboratory.
Source: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc 2.0 UK
Marie Curie, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1903 and in Chemistry 1911, in her laboratory at the Radium Institute in Paris, France, 1921.
Copyright © Association Curie Joliot-Curie
Grazia Deledda, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1926.
Source: Institute of Czech Literature
Photographer unknown.
Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2003, waves to some 4,000 flag-waving children greeting her outside Oslo City Hall, Norway, before the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony on 10 December 2003.
Copyright © Pressens Bild AB 2003, SE-112 88 Stockholm,
Sweden, tel. +46-8-738 38 00. Photo: Odd Andersen
Nadine Gordimer, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1991, at the Göteborg Book Fair in Gothenberg, Sweden, 2010.
Photo: Lärarnas Nyheter, Flickr
Carol W. Greider, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2009, in her laboratory.
Copyright © JHU Gazette 2009
Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2004. Photographed in Munich, September 2001.
Photo: G. Huengsberg
Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
Irène Joliot-Curie, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 1935, and her husband Frédéric Joliot at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in the Golden Hall of Stockholm City Hall, 10 December 1935.
Copyright © Association Curie Joliot-Curie
Photographer unknown
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, in front of her old high school in Monrovia, Liberia.
Copyright © Nobel Media AB 2011
Photo: Glenna Gordon
Selma Lagerlöf, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1909, in her garden.
Photo: Courtesy of Mårbackastiftelsen
Photographer unknown
Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1986, in her laboratory in the early 1960s.
Copyright © Becker Medical Library, Washington University School of Medicine. Photographer unknown
Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2004.
Copyright © Scanpix
Photo: Simon Maina
Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1963, being escorted to the Nobel Banquet by King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, 10 December 1963.
Source: Smithsonian Institution Archives
Photographer unknown
Doris Lessing, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2007, being interviewed at her home in London, 14 April 2008.
Copyright © Nobel Media AB 2008
Barbara McClintock, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1983, in her lab at Cold Spring Harbor, April 1963.
Source: National Institutes of Health. Courtesy: The Barbara McClintock Papers, American Philosophical Society
Gabriela Mistral, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1945.
Source: National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress, USA. Photographer unknown. No known copyright restrictions.
Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1993, speaking at "A Tribute to Chinua Achebe - 50 Years Anniversary of 'Things Fall Apart'", New York City, 26 February 2008.
Photo: Angela Radulescu,
Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike
Herta Müller, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2009, after delivering her Nobel Lecture at the Swedish Academy, 7 December 2009. On her right is Professor Peter Englund, the Swedish Academy.
Copyright © The Swedish Academy 2009
Photo: Helena Paulin-Strömberg
Alva Myrdal, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1982, with German President Gustav Heinemann in Frankfurt, 27 September 1970.
Source: German Federal Archive
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1995. Photo taken 20 June 2007.
Photo: Rama.
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
Elinor Ostrom (middle), Laureate in Economic Sciences 2009, analyses data at a workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, November 1977.
Photo: Courtesy of Indiana University
Nelly Sachs, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1966.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation
Bertha von Suttner, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1905.
Source: Library of Congress, USA. Photographer unknown.
No known copyright restrictions.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1991.
Photo: Htoo Tay Zar, OpenMyanmar project
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1996.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation
Mother Teresa, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1979, during a visit to Bonn, Germany, in 1986.
Photo: Wikimedia-Commons User Túrelio, Creative Commons
Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1992, visiting the Nobel Peace Center, September 2006.
Copyright © Nobel Peace Center 2006
Photo: Kirsti Svenning
Sigrid Undset, Nobel Laureate in Literature 1928. Photo taken 27 March 1927.
Source: Carl Van Vechten photograph collection, Library of Congress, USA. Photographer unknown.
Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1976.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation
Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1997, on a tour around the Nobel Peace Center, June 2005.
Copyright © Nobel Peace Center 2005
Photo: Erlend Aas
Rosalyn Yalow, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 1977.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation
Ada Yonath, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2009, in conversation with His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Nobel Banquet, 10 December 2009.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2009
Photo: Orasisfoto
| Marie Curie |
Who was the first woman to win a Best Director 'Oscar'? | Women Nobel Prize Winners
People > Women of Influence
Women Nobel Prize Winners
Marie Curie was not only the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in 1903, but she was also the only woman ever to win two Nobel Prizes. Below is a list of all women Nobel Prize winners.
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
See Nobel Prizes for Peace at Infoplease.com for the full list of winners.
1905
Emily G. Balch and John R. Mott (U.S.)
1976
Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams (both Northern Ireland)
1979
Mother Teresa of Calcutta (India)
Archive Photos
1982 Alva Myrdal (Sweden) 1991 Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (Burma) 1992 Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala) 1997 International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jody Williams (U.S.) 2003 Shirin Ebadi (Iran) 2004 Wangari Maathai (Kenya) 2011 Jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia), Leymah Gbowee (Liberia), and Tawakkul Karman (Yemen) "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work." 2014 Jointly to Kailash Satyarthi (India) and Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan) "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."
Nobel Prize Winner for Economic Science
See Nobel Prizes for Economic Science at Infoplease.com for the full list of winners.
2009
Nobel Prize Winners for Literature
See Nobel Prizes for Literature at Infoplease.com for the full list of winners.
1909
Pearl Buck of the U.S.
1945
Nadine Gordimer of South Africa
1993
Toni Morrison of the U.S.
Archive Photos
1996 Wislawa Szymborska of Poland 2004 Elfriede Jelinek of Austria 2007 Doris Lessing of the United Kingdom 2009 Herta Müller of Germany 2013 Alice Munro of Canada
Nobel Prize Winners in Science
Marie Sklodowska Curie (Physics, 1903 and Chemistry, 1911) Marie Curie is considered the most famous of all women scientists. She was the only woman ever to win two Nobel Prizes. By the time she was 16, Marie had already won a gold medal at the Russian lycée in Poland upon the completion of her secondary education. In 1891, almost penniless, she began her education at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1903 her discovery of radioactivity earned her the Nobel Prize in physics. In 1911 she won it for chemistry.
AIP Niels Bohr Library
Irene Curie (Chemistry, 1935) Irene Curie was the daughter of Marie Curie. She furthered her mother's work in radioactivity and won the Nobel Prize for discovering that radioactivity could be artificially produced.
Gerty Radnitz Cori (Physiology or Medicine, 1947) Gerty Cori was the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science. She studied enzymes and hormones, and her work brought researchers closer to understanding diabetes. She won the Nobel Prize for discovering the enzymes that convert glycogen into sugar and back again to glycogen.
Maria Goeppert Mayer (Physics, 1963) Maria researched the structure of atomic nuclei. During World War II she worked on isotope separation for the atomic bomb project.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (Chemistry, 1964) Dorothy discovered the structures of penicillin and vitamin B(12). She won the Nobel Prize for determining the structure of biochemical compounds essential to combating pernicious anemia.
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (Physiology or Medicine, 1977) Rosayln Yalow won the Nobel Prize for developing radioimmunoassay, a test of body tissues that uses radioactive isotopes to measure the concentrations of hormones, viruses, vitamins, enzymes, and drugs.
Barbara McClintock (Physiology or Medicine, 1983) Barbara McClintock studied the chromosomes in corn/maize and her work uncovered antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a possible cure for African sleeping sickness.
Rita Levi-Montalicini (Physiology or Medicine, 1986) Rita is an Italian neuroembryologist known for her co-discovery in 1954 of nerve growth factor, a previously unknown protein that stimulates the growth of nerve cells and plays a role in degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease. She received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1986.
Gertrude Elion (Physiology or Medicine, 1988) Gertrude Elion is the only woman inventor inducted into The Inventors Hall of Fame. She invented the leukemia-fighting drug 6-mercaptopurine. Her continued research led to Imuran, a derivative of 6-mercaptopurine that blocks the body's rejection of foreign tissues.
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (Physiology or Medicine, 1995) Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard won the Nobel Prize using the fruit fly to help explain birth defects in humans.
Linda Buck (Physiology or Medicine, 2004) Buck and fellow American Richard Axel discovered how the olfactory system—the sense of smell—works and how people are able to recognize and remember more than 10,000 odors.
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (Physiology or Medicine, 2008) Barré-Sinoussi won the Nobel Prize with Luc Montagnier (both France) for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Carol W. Greider (Physiology or Medicine, 2009) Blackburn and Greider, both of the U.S., along with fellow American Jack W. Szostak, won the Nobel Prize for their "discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase"
| i don't know |
Which shark-infested movie was the first to take $100 million at the box office? | 1975: First Film to Reach $100 Million at the Box Office | Guinness World Records
1975: First Film to Reach $100 Million at the Box Office
By Rob Dimery
Google+
On 20 June 1975, director Steven Spielberg’s (USA) latest movie was released… and promptly began scaring the life out of cinema-goers the length and breath of North America. Jaws – the tale of a seaside town (Amity) terrorised by a great white shark – swiftly proved to be a cinematic sensation.
video
Sure, there had been phenomenal box-office hits in the past – witness animated classic Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (USA, 1937) or Cecil B. DeMille’s biblical epic The Ten Commandments (USA, 1956). And fear and frights had resulted in box-office gold beforehand too – the queues for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (USA, 1960) stretched around the block. But the success of Jaws was on an unprecedented scale.
Production was plagued with problems, including overrunning budgets and schedules (principle photography, originally forecast to take 55 days, took 159 days). The three pneumatically powered mechanical models of the shark – each costing $250,000, they were dubbed “Bruce”, after Spielberg’s lawyer – frequently broke down and really weren’t all that scary. Turning this to his advantage, Spielberg opted to show very little of the eponymous great white (it makes its first appearance at around 1 hour 21 minutes in the 2-hour-long film), which actually helped to ratchet up the tension.
In this, he was aided immeasurably by John Williams’s suspenseful score, highlighted by an ominous two-note motif:
video
Not that Spielberg liked it much at first. Hear director and composer discuss the iconic soundtrack here:
video
The movie was granted a wide release, opening on 464 screens (409 in the USA, the rest in Canada) on 20 June 1975. Critics raved, while its public reception was immediate and emphatic – $7 million (£3 million) taken in the opening weekend and all production costs covered within the fortnight; by August it was showing on 900 screens across North America. It became the First movie to take more than $100 million in theatrical rentals (the amount of the box-office gross that goes back to the studio/distributor after cinemas have taken their percentage for showing the film).
To date, the movie has taken $470.6 million (£303.7 million) at the box office worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Indeed, until the phenomenal success of George Lucas’s Star Wars (USA, 1977), Jaws was the Highest-grossing film ever released – although if you adjust the figures to allow for inflation, Gone With The Wind (USA, 1939) is the most successful film ever, having earned more than $3.4 billion (£2.1 billion).
Jaws had a more long-term impact, though, effectively re-defining the term “blockbuster” for modern cinema. Catching on quick, other studios began putting into production mass-appeal movies scheduled for a mid-year release, to maximise box-office clout, which has inspired the epic action movies that hit our screens every summer.
Since then, Steven Spielberg has made blockbusters his stock-in-trade, racking up worldwide smashes with the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (USA, 1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (USA, 1981), Jurassic Park (USA, 1993) and Saving Private Ryan (USA, 1998). With a CV like that, it’s little wonder that he’s history’s Highest-earning film director. According to Forbes, between 2013 and 2014 Spielberg netted an estimated $100 million (£58 million), adding to an overall personal fortune put at $3.6 billion (£2.3 billion) as of 15 June 2015.
And it all started with a shark called Bruce.
Share
| Jaws |
In Toy story, which of Woddys' boots has Andy's name written on it? | 1975: First Film to Reach $100 Million at the Box Office | Guinness World Records
1975: First Film to Reach $100 Million at the Box Office
By Rob Dimery
Google+
On 20 June 1975, director Steven Spielberg’s (USA) latest movie was released… and promptly began scaring the life out of cinema-goers the length and breath of North America. Jaws – the tale of a seaside town (Amity) terrorised by a great white shark – swiftly proved to be a cinematic sensation.
video
Sure, there had been phenomenal box-office hits in the past – witness animated classic Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (USA, 1937) or Cecil B. DeMille’s biblical epic The Ten Commandments (USA, 1956). And fear and frights had resulted in box-office gold beforehand too – the queues for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (USA, 1960) stretched around the block. But the success of Jaws was on an unprecedented scale.
Production was plagued with problems, including overrunning budgets and schedules (principle photography, originally forecast to take 55 days, took 159 days). The three pneumatically powered mechanical models of the shark – each costing $250,000, they were dubbed “Bruce”, after Spielberg’s lawyer – frequently broke down and really weren’t all that scary. Turning this to his advantage, Spielberg opted to show very little of the eponymous great white (it makes its first appearance at around 1 hour 21 minutes in the 2-hour-long film), which actually helped to ratchet up the tension.
In this, he was aided immeasurably by John Williams’s suspenseful score, highlighted by an ominous two-note motif:
video
Not that Spielberg liked it much at first. Hear director and composer discuss the iconic soundtrack here:
video
The movie was granted a wide release, opening on 464 screens (409 in the USA, the rest in Canada) on 20 June 1975. Critics raved, while its public reception was immediate and emphatic – $7 million (£3 million) taken in the opening weekend and all production costs covered within the fortnight; by August it was showing on 900 screens across North America. It became the First movie to take more than $100 million in theatrical rentals (the amount of the box-office gross that goes back to the studio/distributor after cinemas have taken their percentage for showing the film).
To date, the movie has taken $470.6 million (£303.7 million) at the box office worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Indeed, until the phenomenal success of George Lucas’s Star Wars (USA, 1977), Jaws was the Highest-grossing film ever released – although if you adjust the figures to allow for inflation, Gone With The Wind (USA, 1939) is the most successful film ever, having earned more than $3.4 billion (£2.1 billion).
Jaws had a more long-term impact, though, effectively re-defining the term “blockbuster” for modern cinema. Catching on quick, other studios began putting into production mass-appeal movies scheduled for a mid-year release, to maximise box-office clout, which has inspired the epic action movies that hit our screens every summer.
Since then, Steven Spielberg has made blockbusters his stock-in-trade, racking up worldwide smashes with the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (USA, 1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (USA, 1981), Jurassic Park (USA, 1993) and Saving Private Ryan (USA, 1998). With a CV like that, it’s little wonder that he’s history’s Highest-earning film director. According to Forbes, between 2013 and 2014 Spielberg netted an estimated $100 million (£58 million), adding to an overall personal fortune put at $3.6 billion (£2.3 billion) as of 15 June 2015.
And it all started with a shark called Bruce.
Share
| i don't know |
Bruce Willis is best known for his role of John McCain in which film series? | Bruce Willis - Biography - IMDb
Bruce Willis
Biography
Showing all 169 items
Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trade Mark (7) | Trivia (102) | Personal Quotes (36) | Salary (17)
Overview (4)
6' (1.83 m)
Mini Bio (1)
Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD, placing him in the top ten stars in terms of box office receipts.
Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to a German mother, Marlene K. (from Kassel), and an American father, David Andrew Willis (from Carneys Point, New Jersey), who were then living on a United States military base. His family moved to the U.S. shortly after he was born, and he was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey, where his mother worked at a bank and his father was a welder and factory worker. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.
After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). The series firmly established Bruce Willis as a hot new talent, and his sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. was in effect a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988). This superbly paced action film balanced laconic humor and wholesale destruction as Willis' character single handedly battles a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. Willis reprized the role of tough guy cop "John McClane" in the eagerly anticipated sequel Die Hard 2 (1990) set at snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) this time also starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shopowner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in NYC.
Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley . Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyperviolent The Last Boy Scout (1991), the darkly humored Death Becomes Her (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993). During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Pulp Fiction (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller Twelve Monkeys (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opus The Fifth Element (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic The Sixth Sense (1999).
Willis next starred in the gangster comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less gripping Unbreakable (2000), and in two military dramas, Hart's War (2002) and Tears of the Sun (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Sin City (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Over the Hedge (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high tech Live Free or Die Hard (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".
Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three children.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: [email protected]
Spouse (2)
Was high school student council president.
His recording of "Respect Yourself" reached #5 in January 1987.
(June 24, 1998) He and Demi Moore announce they are ending their marriage of 11 years. No reasons given.
Ranked #22 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
He was born on a military base in Germany. His mother, Marlene, was German, and was born in Kassel, Germany. His father, David Willis, was American-born, and had English, and smaller amounts of Dutch, French, Irish and Welsh ancestry.
Has appeared on Late Show with David Letterman (1993) to advertise for Demi Moore 's Striptease (1996) by doing his own undressing act (1996).
As a young man, his personality was very much like that of the character that he portrayed on Moonlighting (1985). He was always getting into trouble because of this and was bodily ejected from parties by the hosts for being obnoxious.
Has been very vocal in his support of almost every major Republican candidate in recent history except Bob Dole . He felt that presidential candidate Dole was out of line in his attacks on Demi Moore and her role in the movie Striptease (1996).
Was the first actor to ever "act" in a video game ( Apocalypse (1998)). No one before had ever done voice work along with having their likeness and movements digitally added to the game, as well as receiving prominent billing on the game's cover.
Has stated, in 1997, 2001 and 2013, that he will no longer be doing violent action or "save-the-world" movies.
Wears his watch upside down with the face on the inside of his hand. This is also visible in many movies he has done ( Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Mercury Rising (1998), etc.) where they have not requested him to flip this over.
Memorial Day weekend, 1987: Was arrested after reportedly disturbing the peace and assaulting a police officer who was called to quiet a raucous party at his home. The charges were dropped after Willis agreed to apologize to his neighbors.
Acting helped him to overcome a debilitating childhood stutter. In an interview with GQ magazine [March 2013], Willis revealed: "I had a terrible stutter. But then I did some theater in high school and when I memorized words, I didn't stutter, which was just miraculous. That was the beginning of the gradual dispelling of my stutter. I thought I was handicapped. I couldn't talk at all. I still stutter around some people now.".
His younger brother Robert Willis died of pancreatic cancer at age 42 (2001).
Was originally cast as Terry Benedict in Ocean's Eleven (2001) but dropped out.
Attended Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey.
Set a new benchmark for actors' salaries when he was paid $5 million for Die Hard (1988) in 1988. Eight years later, his wife, Demi Moore , set a benchmark of $12 million with Striptease (1996).
His ineptness as a waiter forced him to become a bartender.
Was named Man of the Year by Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals. [February 2002]
Was president of a drama club at school.
Worked in a chemical factory before going to college.
He filled in as a last-minute host for David Letterman on February 26, 2003, a show he was supposed to be the guest for. This was Letterman's first "sick day" in 20 years (other than his time off for heart surgery).
Ranked #3 in Star TV's Top 10 Box Office Stars of the 1990s (2003).
Lives in Hailey, Idaho, where he owns the Mint bar and the Liberty Theater. He also owns the old Hailey Drug Store, but the building has been vacant and unused since the early 1990s.
The scar on his right shoulder is from surgery due to complications from a broken arm when he was age 17.
Personally recommended Bonnie Bedelia for the role of his estranged wife in Die Hard (1988).
Is the hero of singer Nick Lachey . Lachey's ex-wife, Jessica Simpson , unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Kate McClane, John McClane's daughter in Live Free or Die Hard (2007).
He ad-libbed many of John McClane's one-liners in the "Die Hard" films.
Attended and graduated from Penns Grove High School in Penns Grove, New Jersey. His class voted him "Most School Spirit" (1973).
Recommended Michael Clarke Duncan to play the role of John Coffey in The Green Mile (1999).
(October 20, 2004) Sued Revolution Studios for unspecified damages related to a blow to his forehead that he received during "ultrahazardous activity" involved in the filming of Tears of the Sun (2003). He claims that it has caused him extreme mental, physical and emotional pain and suffering.
Attended the Stella Adler Conservatory / Theatre program in New York City for three years.
Plays the harmonica.
France awarded him Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in April 2005. "France pays homage to an actor who represents the force of American cinema and the power of emotions that he invites us to share on screens throughout the world", Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said. "I'm nervous. Bonjour Paris", he replied.
(June 2, 2004) After dating Brooke Burns for ten months and finally being engaged to her, they decided to separate because of the difficulties with maintaining a long-distance relationship.
Was chosen to play John McClane in Die Hard (1988) because the producers felt he brought warmth and humor to an otherwise cold and humorless character. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone had turned down the role.
Has been special ambassador of his birth town Idar-Oberstein since his 50th birthday.
Ten directors cast him at least twice in their films: Blake Edwards , Amy Heckerling , Rob Reiner , Robert Benton , John McTiernan , Alan Rudolph , 'M. Night Shyamalan', Quentin Tarantino , Robert Rodriguez and Barry Levinson .
Along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlton Heston , Willis was one of very few Hollywood celebrities to publicly support the Iraq war. While visiting the troops in 2003, he offered $1 million of his own money for the man who would capture Saddam Hussein . When Hussein was captured, it turned out that military rules prevent troops from collecting such a reward.
Served as a delegate at the Republican National Convention in 1992. In 2000, he was unable to narrate a biographical film of previous presidents to be shown at the RNC due to scheduling conflicts.
Has worked closely with two promising child stars: Miko Hughes in Mercury Rising (1998) and 'Haley Joel Osment' in The Sixth Sense (1999). The boys had major roles in the films opposite him.
Announced his intention to make a film in which American soldiers will be depicted as brave fighters for freedom and democracy. This will be based on the exploits of the heavily decorated members of "Deuce Four", the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry, which has spent the past year battling insurgents in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul. Willis attended Deuce Four's homecoming ball this month in Seattle, Washington, where the soldiers are on leave, along with Stephen J. Eads , the producer of Armageddon (1998) and The Sixth Sense (1999). The actor said that he was in talks about a film of "these guys who do what they are asked to for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom". Willis is likely to take on the role of the unit's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Erik Kurilla. [November 2005]
Honored in Paris for his contribution to the film industry, by the French government. The actor was awarded Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters at a ceremony in the capital, where he was presented with his honor by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres . de Vabres said, "This is France's way of paying tribute to an actor who epitomizes the strength of American cinema, the power of the emotions that he invites us to share on the world's screens and the sturdy personalities of his legendary characters." Willis replied in French that he was "very touched" to receive his medal, adding, "Thank you France and Culture Minister for this great, great honor." (April 13, 2005).
In November 2005, he offered $1 million of his own money to anyone who turns in al-Qaeda terror leaders Osama bin Laden , Ayman Al-Zawahiri or 'Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi', the alleged brains behind the 9/11 attacks. Willis announced his reward on the American television show Rita Cosby Live & Direct (2005), where he also criticized what he claimed to be "biased" media coverage of the Iraq war.
(July 23, 2002) Appointed by President George W. Bush as national spokesman for Children in Foster Care.
His performance as John McClane in the "Die Hard" trilogy is ranked #46 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
He and Linda Fiorentino were employed as bartenders in the early 1980s at the Kamikaze Club in New York City.
Little Richard presided over his wedding to Demi Moore and Ally Sheedy was one of the bridesmaids.
Married Demi Moore at the Golden Nugget Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Turned down the role of Sam Wheat in Ghost (1990) because he did not think the plot would work and that playing a ghost would be detrimental to his career. Ironically, he played a ghost in The Sixth Sense (1999), which was a critical success and is widely regarded as one of his best performances.
He apologized to Colombia after blaming the nation for America's drug problems. The star insisted the United States is as much to blame for the prolific trade and confessed he didn't mean to single out any one country as the supplier. He told the New York Daily News, "I said Colombia because it was the first country to come to mind." The actor was dubbed "ignorant" and "ungrateful" by the Colombian president for his comments in March 2006, and advised not to base his arguments on "Hollywood clichés".
In November 2000, he urged his fans to vote for Republican candidate George W. Bush in the presidential election. He told an interviewer, "If you guys vote for Al Gore , you're out of your minds ... Gore's a knucklehead ... just the lying and mendacity of the last eight years of the regime that Al Gore was a part and parcel of ... I mean, there is only so much lying the American people will take before they go, 'Uh, this doesn't seem like a good idea.' You have to look at what he does and what he stands for.".
He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6915 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on October 16, 2006. The ceremony was attended by his friends Don Johnson , Sylvester Stallone and Kevin Costner .
Stepfather of his three daughters with Demi Moore is Ashton Kutcher .
Has three younger siblings: Florence Willis, David Willis and Robert Willis.
Often supports the careers of other actors he has met on set, and asks they be given supporting roles on later films, most famously Michael Clarke Duncan , whom he worked with on The Whole Nine Yards (2000), asked for him on Armageddon (1998) and suggested him to the producers of The Green Mile (1999). Other actors include Billy Bob Thornton ( Armageddon (1998), Bandits (2003)), Johnny Messner ( Tears of the Sun (2003), The Whole Ten Yards (2004)), Nick Chinlund (Tears of the Sun (2003), The Kid (2000)) and Cole Hauser ( Hart's War (2002), Tears of the Sun (2003)). Met and befriended Matthew Perry on the set of The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and then appeared on Friends (1994) at Perry's request.
Has appeared in 14 movies with numbers in the title: The First Deadly Sin (1980), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Four Rooms (1995), The Fifth Element (1997), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Whole Nine Yards (2000), 16 Blocks (2006), The Whole Ten Yards (2004), Die Hard 2 (1990), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Ocean's Twelve (2004), Catch .44 (2011), The Expendables 2 (2012) and RED 2 (2013).
Has the distinction of playing two psychologists who have suffered serious work-related emotional trauma: Dr. Bill Capa in Color of Night (1994) and Dr. Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense (1999). Ironically, Color of Night (1994) was a box-office bomb and was widely ridiculed by critics (this movie did much better business in home video market, though), while The Sixth Sense (1999) became a box-office smash and received several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
During the Lebanon crisis, Willis signed his name on an ad in the Los Angeles Times in support of Israel, along with Nicole Kidman and numerous other Hollywood celebrities.
He was the only celebrity that attended Julia Roberts ' wedding to Daniel Moder . Their friendship is referred to in Ocean's Twelve (2004), when he mistakes Tess Ocean for Julia Roberts, and asks her about 'Danny'.
Is a huge supporter of NFL team New York Jets.
Has named his acting idols as Robert De Niro , Gary Cooper , Steve McQueen and John Wayne .
Endorsed his friend and former co-star Fred Dalton Thompson in his failed bid to win the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential election.
Maxim magazine had named his sex scenes in Color of Night (1994) as the best sex scenes ever in film history.
Became the first actor to guest star on Friends (1994) and win an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Guest Actor category for their performance.
Was considered for the role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator (1984), which went to Michael Biehn .
Thanked by the rock band Blink 182 in the liner notes of their album "Enema of the State" (1999).
(March 21, 2009) Bruce married his girlfriend of a year, Emma Heming , at his home in Parrot Cay, Turks and Caicos.
Among the guests at his wedding to Emma Heming were his three daughters, Demi Moore , Ashton Kutcher and Madonna .
He visited Michael Jackson on the set of filming the "Smooth Criminal" segment for Moonwalker (1988). Also visiting the set were Gregory Peck and Robert De Niro .
Was in consideration for the role of Lester Burnham in American Beauty (1999) but Kevin Spacey , who went on to win a Best Actor Oscar for his performance, was cast instead.
Has appeared with Samuel L. Jackson in four films: Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Unbreakable (2000), even though they only shared scenes together in the last two.
Was friends with John Goodman , during their New York City struggling actor days.
Admitted to Playboy magazine in 1996 that he was once arrested at age 19 for possessing two joints.
Filmed his role in the mystery thriller Mortal Thoughts (1991) in ten days.
Met Demi Moore at a screening of Emilio Estevez 's film, Stakeout (1987). Although she was seeing Estevez at the time, they were married four months later.
Lives in Los Angeles, Malibu, California and Hailey, Idaho.
Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2011 for his contributions to Arts and Entertainment.
Is left-handed and is displayed in most of his films. In The Sixth Sense (1999), he learned to write with his right hand so this would not be so easily noticeable that his character was not wearing his wedding ring.
Is mentioned in Nicki Minaj 's song "Your Love".
Credits Will Smith with helping him come to terms with his divorce from Demi Moore , and accepting Ashton Kutcher as her new husband.
Has regularly been named on "Best Celebrity Tippers" lists over the years. This is largely due to his early "struggling" waiter/bartender days.
He was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, the highest French culture award, in Paris, France [February 12, 2013].
Once made an album ("The Return of Bruno" (1987)) that sold a million copies in the United Kingdom.
Became a father for the first time at age 33 when his [now ex] first wife Demi Moore gave birth to their daughter Rumer Glenn Willis, aka Rumer Willis , on August 16, 1988.
Became a father for the second time at age 36 when his [now ex] first wife Demi Moore gave birth to their daughter Scout LaRue Willis on July 20, 1991.
Became a father for the third time at age 38 when his [now ex] first wife Demi Moore gave birth to their daughter Tallulah Belle Willis on February 3, 1994.
Became a father for the fourth time at age 57 when his second wife Emma Heming gave birth to their daughter Mabel Ray Willis on April 1, 2012.
As of 2014, has appeared in three films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: The Verdict (1982), Pulp Fiction (1994) and The Sixth Sense (1999).
Is mentioned in the song "Jizz in My Pants" by The Lonely Island. One of the song's composers, Jorma Taccone , shares his birthday with Willis.
Became a father for the fifth time at age 59 when his second wife Emma Heming gave birth to their daughter Evelyn Penn Willis on May 5, 2014.
Willis has played many roles whose character names have the letter "J" in the beginning. Examples include Die Hard (1988) (John McClane), Mercury Rising (1998) (Art Jeffries), Hostage (2005) (Jeff Talley), Mortal Thoughts (1991) (James Urbanski), Twelve Monkeys (1995) (James Cole), The Whole Nine Yards (2000) (Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski), Sin City (2005) (John Hartigan) and the title role in The Jackal (1997).
Has played five characters more than once in the movies: Hartigan from the Sin City films, John McClane from the Die Hard films, Frank from the Red films, Church from the Expendables films, and Jimmy "The Tulip" Tudeski from the Whole Nine Yard films.
His "Inside the Actors Studio" interview was taped on September 10, 2001. The episode was respectfully dedicated by Willis and the Actors Studio Drama School "to the heroes who fell September 11th - and to the heroes who fight on.".
In 2015, he did a Broadway show of Stephen King 's "Misery" with Laurie Metcalf .
The Scots-English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix of the Manche département in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of King Robert I of Scotland (Robert the Bruce) (1274-1329), it has been a Scottish surname since medieval times; it is now a common given name.
Willis, a variant of the name William, is a surname, of Scottish and English origin meaning (Son of Willie).
The name William comes ultimately from the given name Wilhelm (cf. Old German Wilhelm > German Wilhelm and Old Norse Vilhjálmr). That is a compound of two distinct elements : wil = "will or desire" and helm: Old English helm "helmet, protection"; > English helm "knight's large helmet".
Has been in three movies where he meets a younger version of himself: Twelve Monkeys (1995), The Kid (2000) and Looper (2012).
Has twice played a hit man: The Jackal (1997) and The Whole Nine Yards (2000). The Whole Ten Yards (2004) really can not be counted because his character, Jimmy Tudeski was retired.
I'm much more proud of being a father than being an actor.
You can't undo the past... but you can certainly not repeat it.
I'm staggered by the question of what it's like to be a multimillionaire. I always have to remind myself that I am.
[on how he stays in shape, interview in People.com, 10 March 2005] Mostly weight resistance training, almost an hour of cardio at least three times a week. I have a gym in my house in Los Angeles and a gym trailer that I can take on the road with me when I'm on location. At my house there's a very long steep driveway. I do wind sprints that kick my 50-year-old ass. It's part of my job. I have come to associate working out as work. Whenever I don't have to do it for films, I kind of slack off.
I am a sensitive guy. People think they know the real me, but they don't. And then they write things that make me sound like such a jerk.
I hate working out. I work out for films solely. I associate working out with films. As soon as they stop, I stop working out.
Fifty is the new forty. I always thought my best work would come in the years forty to sixty, if I was fortunate enough to hang around - and it is hard to stick around.
Who I am as a father is far more important to me than the public perception.
I am baffled to understand why the things that I saw happening in Iraq, really good things happening in Iraq, are not being reported on.
[on Hudson Hawk (1991)] I always thought it was a little ahead of its time, a little too hip for the room.
I think the rules are going to have to change for me to ever run for public office. My checkered past will always keep me out of politics. If I ever did run I would run on the platform that I did all these bad things, but I no longer do them, and during the four years of being president or whatever office it might be, I would be good and serve my country. I want to serve my country.
I'm a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion, I want them to stop pissing on my money and your money, the tax dollars that we give 50 percent of, or 40 percent of, every year, and I want them to be fiscally responsible, and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I'll say I'm a Republican. But other than that, I want the government to take care of people who need help, like the kids in foster care, the half a million kids who are in orphanages right now - they call them foster homes, but they're orphanages. I want them to take care of the elderly and give them free medicine, give them whatever they need. There's tons, billions and billions of dollars that are just being wasted. Okay? I hate government. I'm apolitical. Write that down: I'm not a Republican.
[February 2006] Look at what happened to James Frey in the last two weeks. That's a great book and so is the follow-up book. And just because his publisher chose to say that these were memoirs, it took it out of being a work of fiction, a great work of fiction and very well-written to this guy having to go be sucker punched on The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986) by one of the most powerful women in television just to grind her own ax about it. Hey Oprah, you had President [ Bill Clinton ] on your show and if this prick didn't lie about a couple of things I'm going to set myself on fire right now. James Frey is a writer, okay? He can write whatever he wants. It's fiction, and it's just hard, it's just shameful how he was treated in some of these things. It's just shameful and it's just not fair and not right...
I'm not an action hero anymore, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to compare anything that happens in Hollywood and the entertainment industry to the tragic loss of life on September 11th.
I spoke to the Colombians. It's fine. I get passionate sometimes. I said Colombia because it was the first country to come to mind. The drug problem has as much to do with what's going on in this country. If there wasn't a demand, there wouldn't be a supply.
I think what the United States, and everyone who cares about protecting the freedoms that the largest part of the free world now has, should do whatever it takes to end terrorism in the world and not just in the Middle East. I'm talking also about going to Colombia and doing whatever it takes to end the cocaine trade. It's killing this country. It's killing all the countries that coke goes into. I believe that somebody's making money on it in the United States. If they weren't making money on it, they would have stopped it. They could stop it in one day. It's just a plant that they grow, and these guys are growing it like it's corn or tobacco or any other thing. By the time it gets here, it becomes a billion dollar industry. And I think that's a form of terrorism as well.
The Iraqi people want to live in a world where they can move from their homes to the market and not have to fear being killed. I mean, doesn't everybody want that?
I have zero interest in performing in films to try to convey any kind of message. My job is to be entertaining. There's a very different point of view about messages in films in Europe than there is in the States. Audiences rebel because they feel that they are being preached to.
[on his planned film about the Iraq war] The movie is about these guys who do what they are asked for very little money to defend and fight for what they consider to be freedom.
I thought about signing up but my friends told me I was too old. I called the White House, called President [ George Bush ] and asked what I could do. So I got involved with the national foster care program.
If you take guns away from legal gun owners then the only people who would have guns would be the bad guys. Even a pacifist would get violent if someone were trying to kill him or her. You would fight for your life, whatever your beliefs. You'd use a rock or tear one of these chairs out of the floor. Hey, maybe I've been watching too many Bruce Willis movies!
I'm always being accused of being a Hollywood Republican, but I'm not! I have just as many Democratic ideas as Republican ones. If they could build three fewer bombs every month and give the money to foster care, that would be great.
The idea of serving my country remained in my mind. Over the past few years from varying sources - Time magazine, books, and television - information began coming to my attention on Foster Care; its history and the current crisis of an antiquated system overburdened with 580,000 children who have no voice. Children need to be protected by interstate technology systems that can track placements, education, medical records and protect these children from predators traveling from state to state. I saw Foster Care as a way for me to serve my country in a system by which shining a little bit of light could benefit a great deal by helping kids who were literally wards of the government.
Hair loss is God's way of telling me I'm human.
[1998] Organized religions in general, in my opinion, are dying forms. They were all very important when we didn't know why the sun moved, why weather changed, why hurricanes occurred or volcanoes happened. Modern religion is the end trail of modern mythology. But there are people who interpret the Bible literally. Literally! I choose not to believe that's the way. And that's what makes America cool, you know?
I don't think my opinion means jack shit, because I'm an actor. Why do actors think their opinions mean more because you act? You just caught a break as an actor. There are hundreds - thousands - of actors who are just as good as I am, and probably better. Have you heard anything useful come out of an actor's mouth lately? Although I liked George Clooney 's documentary on Darfur.
They still haven't caught the guy that killed [ John F. Kennedy ]. I'll get killed for saying this, but I'm pretty sure those guys are still in power, in some form. The entire government of the United States was co-opted.
I happen to live in Los Angeles and it is probably one of the most toxic environments on earth. People live here and they know that the air is poisonous. They know that children are affected by the air in Los Angeles. They say that growing up in Los Angeles is the equivalent of smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes throughout your entire childhood. It's horrific when you can actually look at the air and see it.
No, I am not in favor of the war in Iraq, so let me stop you right there. I am not pro-war but what I am is that, I like to support the young men and women who are over there participating in the war.
[on Twitter] I just can't live with myself if I started twittering. I just think: "That way lies madness".
[on The Expendables (2010) sequel] I talked to Sly [ Sylvester Stallone ] and he's going for all the marbles this time, and he's going to get everybody in this time. Even Stone Cold Steve Austin , who took two bullets in the last film, is coming back. Hopefully, they'll start shooting it while we're young enough to survive!
[on the possibility of Michael Bay directing a a Die Hard film, specifically Live Free or Die Hard (2007)] Would have ruined DH4. Few people will work with him now, and I know I will never work with him again.
[on whether an R-rated 'Die Hard' could be done without producer Joel Silver ] Fuck Joel Silver. That is because you do not understand my relationship with Joel S. We are cordial now when we bump into each other, but we have not worked together since The Last Boy Scout (1991).
I'm really pleased to continue to be asked back to do other versions and other incarnations of Die Hard (1988). The first one really is... that's all there is. Everything else is just trying to be as good as that film.
[on A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)] It's a difficult title. A Good Day to Die Hard? It's like, have a sandwich and let's go shopping - then die hard.
I want to do A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), then one final Die Hard movie - Die Hard 6 - before finally hanging that white vest up for good. At the moment, I can run and I can fight on screen. But there will come a time when I no longer want to do that. That's when I'll step away from the Die Hard films.
Salary (17)
| Die Hard |
In what film would you find bookstore owner William Thacker and Hollywood superstar Anna Scott? | Misery Broadway | Misery Tickets & Reviews | Misery the Play
Running since October 2015
Emmy Award winners Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf star in a new adaptation of Stephen King's spine-tingling thriller.
The Broadway production of Misery closed February 14, 2016. For current Broadway show listings and tickets, please click here .
From the producers: Following a near fatal car accident, a world-famous novelist finds himself in a strange house being nursed back to health by his doting, self-proclaimed Number One Fan. But as her love for his work turns to dangerous obsession, he realizes he must plot his greatest story yet: how to escape with his life.
The new play has a script by Academy Award winner William Goldman ("The Princess Bride"), who returns to Broadway for the first time since his 1962 play "A Family Affair." He also wrote the screenplay to the 1990 film adaptation, which starred James Caan and Kathy Bates, who won an Academy and Golden Globe Award for her performance.
Bruce Willis begn his career on the Off-Broadway stage and then in television in the 1980s, most notably as David Addison in "Moonlighting." He is perhaps best known for his role of John McClane in the "Die Hard" film series. He has appeared in over sixty films, including "Pulp Fiction," "12 Monkeys," "The Fifth Element," "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable," and "Sin City."
Laurie Metcalf earned her most recent Tony nomination in 2013 for "The Other Place." She was also nominated in 2009 for her performance in "November." Metcalf earned three Emmy Awards for her work on the TV series “Roseanne."
Loading...
| i don't know |
What 1997 film was the highest grossing film of the 90's decade? | Top Grossing Movies of the 90s | List of Profitable Movies From the 1990s
G Options B Comments & Embed
1
Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates Box Office: $1,843,201,268
;
2
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley, Ewan McGregor Box Office: $924,317,558
;
Jurassic Park Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough Box Office: $914,691,118
;
Independence Day Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox Box Office: $817,400,891
;
The Lion King Whoopi Goldberg, Jeremy Irons, Matthew Broderick Box Office: $783,841,776
;
Forrest Gump Tom Hanks, Kurt Russell, Sally Field Box Office: $677,387,716
;
The Sixth Sense Bruce Willis, Mischa Barton, Haley Joel Osment Box Office: $672,806,292
;
The Lost World: Jurassic Park Julianne Moore, Steven Spielberg, Camilla Belle Box Office: $618,638,999
;
Men in Black Will Smith, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Spielberg Box Office: $589,390,539
;
Armageddon Ben Affleck, Bruce Willis, Liv Tyler Box Office: $553,709,788
;
Terminator 2: Judgment Day Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong, Linda Hamilton Box Office: $519,398,546
;
Ghost Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Swayze Box Office: $505,702,588
;
Aladdin Robin Williams, Gilbert Gottfried, Frank Welker Box Office: $504,050,219
;
Twister Helen Hunt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Paxton Box Office: $494,471,524
;
Saving Private Ryan Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Vin Diesel Box Office: $481,840,909
;
Home Alone Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, John Candy Box Office: $476,684,675
;
17
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Elizabeth Hurley, Heather Graham, Will Ferrell Box Office: $205,040,086
;
Mrs. Doubtfire Robin Williams, Pierce Brosnan, Sally Field Box Office: $441,286,195
;
Toy Story 2 Tom Hanks, Kelsey Grammer, Tim Allen Box Office: $245,852,179
;
Toy Story Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles Box Office: $191,796,233
;
Dances with Wolves Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Charles Rocket Box Office: $184,208,848
;
Batman Forever Nicole Kidman, Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey Box Office: $184,031,112
;
The Fugitive Julianne Moore, Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones Box Office: $183,875,760
;
Liar Liar Jim Carrey, Jennifer Tilly, Krista Allen Box Office: $181,410,615
;
Mission: Impossible Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Vanessa Redgrave Box Office: $180,981,856
;
Pretty Woman Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Hank Azaria Box Office: $178,406,268
;
There's Something About Mary Cameron Diaz, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stiller Box Office: $176,484,651
;
28
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York Donald Trump, Macaulay Culkin, Tim Curry Box Office: $173,585,516
;
Air Force One Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close Box Office: $172,956,409
;
Apollo 13 Tom Hanks, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ed Harris Box Office: $172,071,312
;
The Matrix Keanu Reeves, Hugo Weaving, Carrie-Anne Moss Box Office: $171,479,930
;
Tarzan Rosie O'Donnell, Glenn Close, Minnie Driver Box Office: $171,091,819
;
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Morgan Freeman, Sean Connery, Kevin Costner Box Office: $165,493,908
;
Big Daddy Adam Sandler, Jon Stewart, Steve Buscemi Box Office: $163,479,795
;
Batman Returns Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Danny DeVito Box Office: $162,831,698
;
A Bug's Life Hayden Panettiere, Ashley Tisdale, Kevin Spacey Box Office: $162,798,565
;
The Waterboy Adam Sandler, Kathy Bates, Rob Schneider Box Office: $161,491,646
;
The Firm Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Gary Busey Box Office: $158,348,367
;
The Mummy Rachel Weisz, Brendan Fraser, Patricia Velásquez Box Office: $155,385,488
;
Jerry Maguire Tom Cruise, Lucy Liu, Renée Zellweger Box Office: $153,952,592
;
Runaway Bride Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Christopher Meloni Box Office: $152,257,509
;
As Good as It Gets Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Julie Benz Box Office: $148,478,011
;
True Lies Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eliza Dushku, Jamie Lee Curtis Box Office: $146,282,411
;
Beauty and the Beast Angela Lansbury, Frank Welker, Jerry Orbach Box Office: $145,863,363
;
The Santa Clause Tim Allen, Frank Welker, Peter Boyle Box Office: $144,833,357
;
Lethal Weapon 3 Mel Gibson, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo Box Office: $144,731,527
;
Dr. Dolittle Eddie Murphy, Ellen DeGeneres, Chris Rock Box Office: $144,156,605
;
Pocahontas Mel Gibson, Christian Bale, Billy Connolly Box Office: $141,579,773
;
A Few Good Men Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson Box Office: $141,340,178
;
Rush Hour Jackie Chan, Roselyn Sánchez, Chris Tucker Box Office: $141,186,864
;
| RMS Titanic |
What was Roger Moore's first film as James Bond? | Top 100 Best 90s Movies
Top 100 Best 90s Movies
in Best Movies 0
Greatest Films of the 1990s
What are the best 90s movies? The Decade of 1990s was a revolutionary decade in the film making. Though the use of technology increased in the film making in 60s decade but it was actually the 90s decade that truly showed how far the industry has developed. The decade is known for many Ground breaking sci fi movies. The 90s is also known for sparking the race for becoming the top grossing film of all time. Earlier the record was held by Steven Spielberg’s ‘E.T. –Extra terrestrial’ which was broken by another Spielberg’s film “Jurassic Park”. However the record was not long with held by Spielberg and was broken by James Cameroon’s Epic film ‘Titanic’. Titanic is a perfect example that how a non sci fi movie used technology and re-visited the historical event of drowning of Titanic.
Apart from producing more than 50 sci fi movies a year, the production company also put their bet on Action movies and comedy movies. However, the genre that received more critical acclaim in the 90s was Crime. 80s didn’t saw many Gangster movies but the 90s was full of it. Interestingly, almost all popular crime movies of 90s decade met critical acclaim.
The genre which didn’t get much critical acclaim was horror. Directors and Producers put their bet on making unnecessary sequels of 80s horror movies. Very few horror movies from the 90s actually stood out of the crowd.
90s gave a new trend of making Twist ending movies. There were many mystery suspense movies released in the 90s decade and interestingly most of them had a twist at the end. For Animation Genre, the decade of 90s was the golden decade. 90s decade was the decade of Disney Renaissance which began from 1989 Disney film ‘The Little Mermaid’ and Ended with 1999 film ‘Tarzan’. I can say Kids who grew up in the 90s decade were most lucky.
New Generation Directors Who become crowd favorite in the 90s were – Quentin Tarantino,Coen Brothers, Sam Mendes, Gus Van Sant, Spike Jonze, Spike Lee, M. Night Shyamalan and Michael Mann. Steven Spielberg and James Cameroon rose more to fame in the 90s. Among the actors, most popular 90s star were – Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Bruce Willis, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey, Edward Norton. Robert De Niro Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Arnold Schwargenneger and Jack Nicholson earned multiple awards for their work in the industry.
1990s was also golden decade for several popular Hollywood actresses. Actresses such as Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, Hilary Swank, Cate Blanchett, Cameron Diaz, Helena Bonham Carter, Jodie Foster, Helent Hunt, Susan Sarandon, Sandra Bullock and Winona Ryder were very among the leading actresses of Hollywood in the 90s.
Here is the list of Top 100 Greatest Films from the 1990s decade:
100. Carlito’s Way
| i don't know |
What Disney film features the best belling song of 2014 Let It Go'? | FROZEN - Let It Go Sing-along | Official Disney HD - YouTube
FROZEN - Let It Go Sing-along | Official Disney HD
Want to watch this again later?
Sign in to add this video to a playlist.
Need to report the video?
Sign in to report inappropriate content.
Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.
Published on Jan 30, 2014
Sing-along with Idina Menzel in this full sequence from Disney's Frozen.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, the studio behind "Tangled" and "Wreck-It Ralph," presents "Frozen," a stunning big-screen comedy adventure. Fearless optimist Anna (voice of Kristen Bell) sets off on an epic journey—teaming up with rugged mountain man Kristoff (voice of Jonathan Groff) and his loyal reindeer Sven—to find her sister Elsa (voice of Idina Menzel), whose icy powers have trapped the kingdom of Arendelle in eternal winter. Encountering Everest-like conditions, mystical trolls and a hilarious snowman named Olaf, Anna and Kristoff battle the elements in a race to save the kingdom.
The film is directed by Chris Buck ("Tarzan," "Surf's Up") and Jennifer Lee (screenwriter, "Wreck-It Ralph"), and produced by Peter Del Vecho ("Winnie the Pooh," "The Princess and the Frog"). Featuring music from Tony® winner Robert Lopez ("The Book of Mormon," "Avenue Q") and Kristen Anderson-Lopez ("In Transit"),
Disney's "Frozen" has been named best animated film by more than a dozen critics associations, has received two Oscars® for best animated feature and best original song ("Let It Go"), a BAFTA® for Best Animated Film, a Golden Globe® for best animated feature, two Critics Choice Movie Awards, and a Producers Guild of America Award for outstanding animated feature.
"Frozen" features eight original songs from songwriting duo Kristen and Robert Lopez ("The Book of Mormon," "Avenue Q"), including the gripping "Let It Go," performed by Broadway star Idina Menzel.
Buy the soundtrack here:
| Frozen |
Monica and Ross Geller were brother and sister in which long running American television series? | Frozen Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD | Disney Frozen
Special Features
Original Theatrical Short - "Get A Horse"
The Making Of Frozen: People want to know how movies are made, this piece will do that for you. Hosts Kristen Bell, Josh Gad and Jonathan Groff take you deep into the Disney Animation Studios on a musical tour written by composers Kristen Anderson Lopez & Robert Lopez. Directed By Kenny Ortega
D’frosted: Disney’s Journey From Hans Christian Andersen to Frozen: While Frozen is a new and unique fairy tale, the story of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen was one of Walt Disney’s projects in development for years. Through research and never before seen concept artwork by Marc Davis, we take a look at the legacy of this story and how it lead the way for Frozen.
DELETED SCENES with introduction by Directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee:
- Never Underestimate The Power Of Elsa
- The Dressing Room
Let It Go (End Credit Version) Music Videos:
- Demi Lovato (English)
Original Theatrical Short - "Get A Horse"
Let It Go (End Credit Version) Music Videos:
- Demi Lovato (English)
| i don't know |
Phil Redmond created with UK Television Soap Opera 18 years ago? | Phil Redmond: Man of the people | The Independent
Phil Redmond: Man of the people
The best-known producer on British television changed the nation's viewing habits
Saturday 9 February 2008 00:00 BST
Click to follow
The Independent Online
With his mane of grey hair and non-matching bushy eyebrows, Phil Redmond resembles an ageing blues musician rather than a TV mogul and cultural commissar. There is nothing grand or seigneurial about him. His accent is an unreconstructed Scouse rasp. He can switch in short order from truculence to a slightly sinister friendliness that can beguile the unwary. He is unfailingly blunt in his views of the TV industry that alternately courts him and buggers him about. He was not put on this earth to be a diplomat, or a pillar of the establishment, but to get things done – to dramatise, to stir things up.
In a career that's spanned 35 years, he has become the best-known producer on British television, and masterminded three programmes that changed the nation's juvenile viewing habits: Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks. Simple titles that have entered the language as shorthand for a certain quality of life in late 20th- and early 21st-century Britain – a life of graft, trouble, want, brutality, revenge and sexual predation.
This week's announcement that Grange Hill will be expelled from the schedules suggests the extent to which other TV has caught up with Redmond's vision. The man himself long ago moved on. For him what matters in 2008 – in which Liverpool is European Capital of Culture – is the cultural health of his home town.
Grange Hill was a drama-soap set in a north London comprehensive, which he offered to the BBC in 1978, scripted by himself. "I wrote Grange Hill so kids would have something to relate to," he said later. "We wanted to move away from the Enid Blyton, middle-class drama the BBC had been showing and portray the realities of school life." It was a revelation. Viewers who recalled Billy Bunter, Goodbye Mr Chips or Please Sir! as being accurate portrayals of schooldays were confounded.
The opening episode saw Peter "Tucker" Jenkins running to beat the school bell, while trying to wolf down a slice of breakfast toast. Soon the audience was deep in Issue territory, as a black child called Benny was called "a golly" by another kid, and the nice girl, Trisha, who defends and befriends him, tells him he can't help being a "nig-nog". Soon viewers were mired in truanting, smoking, bullying and shoplifting.
Complaints poured in, from Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers and Listeners' Association, and from irate individuals. "This is not entertainment," wrote one, "but a glamorisation of hooliganism and the abominable attitude of children to their teachers." Redmond weathered the storms, despite being called to a meeting of BBC executives and told to "tone it down". The second series dealt with vandalism, rioting and a teacher suspended for hitting a child. When Redmond left at the end of series four, the content became noticeably calmer. It remained popular, filmed at Elstree for 25 years until Redmond's Mersey TV brought it north to their Childwall studio in 2003. Redmond's fatherly relationship with the show ended when his TV company was bought by Lime Pictures in 2005.
Grange Hill was seen off this week with a congratulatory farewell from Anne Gilchrist, the BBC controller of children's TV: "Part of CBBC's reputation for reflecting contemporary life back to UK children has been built upon Phil Redmond's brilliantly realised idea..." Redmond, far from regretting the demise of his brainchild, has complained about the way the corporation turned it into a show for younger children. Invited to comment on its 30th birthday, he growled: "The BBC has abandoned what Grange Hill was about in order to attract younger viewers aged six to 12, rather than its 13-plus constituency, so there's nothing to celebrate."
A blunt and restless man with a genius for controversy, Redmond followed up Grange Hill in 1982 by devising Brookside, the nation's most famous cul-de-sac, and changing the face of soap opera. It was originally to be called Meadowcroft until Redmond discovered the real-life Brookside Close, a new housing estate in Liverpool, and bought the whole thing, filming inside the houses rather than relying, Crossroads-style, on flimsy plasterboard sets. It was a fine example of the way he can apply the shrewd, cost-cutting business instincts he learned as a surveyor. He has been no slouch in the marketing of his many enterprises, and has a flair for turning plot lines into tabloid news stories.
The gritty new soap opera first aired on 2 November 1982, the first night of Channel 4, and lasted for 21 years – taking in, along the way, unheard-of scenes of human squalor, misery and venality. Though other producers steered its fortunes into the 1990s, it was Redmond's bleak vision that sustained the show. Favourite themes were unemployment, working-class misery, life on the dole, the allure of the black market, homosexuality, Aids, drug addiction and religious fanaticism. Murder was also popular – the most memorable storyline followed the offing of nasty, wife-beating Trevor Jordache (Brian Murray) by his wife and daughter, and the concealment of his body under the patio, where it was later discovered. The single most memorable scene was the now-legendary, first-ever, pre-watershed lesbian kiss between Beth Jordache (Anna Friel) and Margaret Clemence (Nicola Stephenson) in December 1993.
Now a byword for irresistible TV mayhem, Redmond was called in by the ITV producers of Emmerdale in 1993, and asked if he could think of ways to invigorate the soap and increase the viewing figures. Why yes, he said, as a matter of fact, he could: at Christmas 1993, close to the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie catastrophe, he wrote an episode in which a plane crashed on to the village, killing and wounding many of the inhabitants. Complaints flew from aghast viewers, but it was brilliant television. It allowed the writers to get rid of much dead wood, and reinvent the soap virtually from scratch.
Two years later, in 1995, with both Grange Hill and "Brookie" humming along nicely in the groves of inner-city misery, Redmond turned his attention back to the youth drama that had made his name. He invented a fictional suburb of Chester called Hollyoaks and a further-education establishment called Hollyoaks Community College. The new soap's young cast (late teens, early twentysomethings) do little actual studying, but hurl themselves with abandon into a maelstrom of emotional entanglements. When it comes to addressing taboo subjects and social "issues", Hollyoaks outstrips even its grim predecessors in the Redmond CV. Young persons home from school, watching TV at 6.30 in the interval between The Simpsons and homework, can absorb storylines about drug abuse, cot death, child abuse, anorexia, gambling addiction, CO2 poisoning, surrogacy, self-harming, racism, homophobia and - most notoriously – male rape. The programme often closes by giving viewers a telephone helpline number to call if they've been affected.
You have to wonder about the childhood of a man who has spent so much time and creative energy in dramatising the dark side of experience. Did he undergo some Dickensian privation that scarred him for life? He was born in Liverpool in 1949, the son of an Irish bus driver, and grew up on a council estate in nearby Huyton. He recalls the freezing winters: "I had a path from my bedroom to the kitchen which involved avoiding the cold slabs on the floor." Although he passed the 11-plus and could have gone to grammar school, he was sent instead to one of the first comprehensives in the UK, St Kevin's in Kirby. It was too big and it didn't work. He left with only four O-levels and one A-level.
"The system failed me," he said later. "The idea was that big is beautiful, so you had 2,500 boys together in a kind of detention centre. I admit I enjoyed it. But the whole concept was a mistake." For five years he trained as a quantity surveyor, before deciding to try writing for a living. He entered Liverpool University, to read social studies rather than English, and began his new career writing gags for Mike and Bernie Winters. Contributing scripts for anodyne TV comedy shows such as Doctor in Charge and episodes of Z Cars did not fulfil him: the memory of the failed experiment that was his own education nagged in his mind. For two years from 1976, he hawked his idea for a series set in a comprehensive school around a dozen producers before it was picked up by Anna Home at the BBC. When it took off, he formed Mersey Television in 1981 to produce his future projects. It flourished and was sold to Lime Pictures in 2005, two years after Brookside ceased operations.
A lesser man might feel as if his life were winding down, but Redmond is both stoic and energetic in a recognisably Liverpudlian way. He is immensely proud of his home town, and regularly chews up London journalists who fail to appreciate its cultural bone fides. He will have his work cut out this year, as deputy chair of the Liverpool Culture Company, responsible for delivering the cultural programme for the European Capital of Culture. He will be responsible for matchmaking hundreds of cultural projects with potential business sponsors. He will also be responsible for bringing some esprit de corps to the LCC after a year of political infighting, resignations, and a budget shortfall of £20m.
Redmond's arrival on the scene, last September, was greeted with sighs of relief all round. One of his first acts was to announce that 70 per cent of the year's cultural events would be free to all, and that there would be much interaction between artists and communities all over the city.
Dealing in communities has, of course, been his life's work. Few other writers in any medium have contributed, or overseen the production of, so much drama based in the interaction, both benign and hostile, of people thrown together – in school, community college or council estate. In dragging so many taboo subjects to the surface and inspecting them on prime-time TV, Phil Redmond may have upset our moral guardians; but his long-term confrontation of his youthful demons has changed television history, and changed the way successive generations of children have come to view the world.
A Life in Brief
Born 1949, Liverpool.
Early life After leaving school, began to train as a quantity surveyor. Gave up to try to forge a career in writing. Returned to education, gaining a social studies degree from the University of Liverpool.
Career After early work writing for shows such as Z Cars, created the BBC's Grange Hill in 1978, writing for it for two years. Set up Merseyside Television in 1981, becoming its chairman, and developed soap opera Brookside, which first appeared on Channel 4 in 1982. Wrote Hollyoaks for Channel 4 in 1996. Became professor of media at Liverpool John Moores University in 1989. Made a CBE in 2004. Deputy chair of Liverpool Culture Company, 2008, as the city becomes the European Capital of Culture.
He says "Just like the end of Brookside I want to quote the late Beatle George Harrison ... 'all things must pass'."
They Say "Part of CBBC's reputation for reflecting contemporary Britain back to UK children has been built upon Phil Redmond's brilliantly realised idea."
CBBC controller Anne Gilchrist
| Hollyoaks |
In what Soap would you expect to find Miffield Hall later renamed to Home Farm Manor? | BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Brookside loses prime-time slot
Thursday, 10 October, 2002, 17:18 GMT 18:18 UK
Brookside loses prime-time slot
The trial of the Jordaches had viewers hooked in 1995
Long-running Channel 4 soap Brookside is to be axed from its prime-time evening slot, 20 years after it first appeared on TV screens.
Channel 4 announced it would be moved to a Saturday afternoon daytime slot, ending months of speculation about its future.
Peak-time has changed radically across British TV and is no longer an environment in which Brookside can thrive
Channel 4 chief executive Mark Thompson
Industry experts predict the Liverpool-based soap could go off air altogether next year when its contract comes up for renewal.
In a statement Channel 4 Chief Executive Mark Thompson said: "Brookside has been a brilliant programme for Channel 4 as well as the most ground-breaking and influential soap of the past two decades.
Contract obligations
"It remains a high quality drama, which is still enjoyed by many viewers."
But he added that peak-time has "changed radically" across British TV and is "no longer an environment in which Brookside can thrive".
"We want to explore new ideas in peak, while still giving Brookside regulars a chance to enjoy the show over the next year," he said.
The show helped launch Channel 4
From 30 November the soap, created by Phil Redmond, which currenty attracts an average of 1.5 million viewers, will be broadcast as a single, 90-minute special on Saturday afternoons.
Mr Thompson said: "Contractually we are committed to the programme until the end of 2003, but we have, of course, begun to discuss the future of the programme with Phil."
Channel 4's director of programmes Tim Gardam said it was time to take a "realistic view" of the soap's future.
He confirmed there would be no direct drama replacement for Brookside in Channel 4's peak-time schedule.
The soap's contract runs until 2003
But teen soap, Hollyoaks will be extended from four to five episodes a week in 2003.
Mr Redmond, who is also executive producer, said: "I accept that 2003 is likely to be the last year of Brookside in its present form.
"Mersey Television and Channel 4 will review the programme's future early next year."
Channel 4 is also increasing its budget for original UK drama, excluding soaps, by �7.5m in 2003 and will concentrate its extra investment on post-watershed series.
A Brookside spokesperson from Mersey Television said: "As I understand, Brookside is not being axed.
Audience share
"It is being re-positioned in the schedule."
The soap, which celebrates its 20th anniversary on 2 November, has launched the careers of stars including Anna Friel, Amanda Burton, Sue Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson.
And although its viewers have declined recently, during its peak it explored hard-hitting storylines of murder, drug addiction, a lesbian relationship and rape.
Claire Sweeney, who played Lindsey Corkhill in the soap, said she still "loved the show".
"Before leaving just over a year ago, I had six very happy years in Brookside.
"It opened many exciting opportunities for me that I have been able to fulfil in the last year.
"Phil Redmond, the man behind Brookside, was a great boss and friend. I still love the show and my friends still in it."
The move away from prime-time follows a general decline in Channel 4's viewing figures, with rival channel Five catching up and rivalling it in some key slots.
Ratings
Earlier this month, Five had a ratings success with the heavily-trailed Michael Jackson's Face.
The show generated an audience of 3.6 million, more than four times the number the number who tuned in to Channel 4's documentary College Girls about Oxford students.
And Channel 4's troubled breakfast show Rise is now being easily overhauled by Five's revamped Noddy cartoon Make Way For Noddy.
After coming very close to overtaking Channel 4's audience share last week, Five wants to make permanent gains.
Channel 4's share in the year to date is 10.1%, no change from last year, but Five's has risen from 5.7% a year ago to 6.3% now.
WATCH/LISTEN
| i don't know |
What Netflix exclusive programme chronicles the life of Piper Chapman and her experiences in an American State Prison? | BBC is launching Britflix as a rival to Netflix - Times of India
Times of India
Ssharad Malhotraa's love for cricket
BBC is launching Britflix as a rival to Netflix
The rise of subscription services Netflix and Amazon Prime has seen the distributors become leading forces in the area of film and television production
The Independent | May 17, 2016, 01.26 PM IST
The rise of subscription services Netflix and Amazon Prime has seen the distributors become leading forces in the area of film and television production.
Now, in a landmark move, the BBC has been given the green light to start its very own platform to rival those reputable US streaming giants.
Netflix launches service in India
Netflix's entry into the Indian market comes at a time when the high-speed 4G networks are coming up and prices of 4G mobile devices have been falling.
According to The Daily Telegraph, the project - named Britflix - could see the channel team up with its British rivals ITV as well as "a number of other production companies."
Culture secretary John Whittingdale suggested the paid-for medium - which is still in the early stages of development - would take over the existing iPlayer service following the Beeb's White Paper requesting "some form of additional subscription services" to provide British residents with a library of varied content.
Netflix overtakes HBO in exclusive content
Netflix is counting on a vast library of original programming to help keep subscribers on board as it faces tougher competition.
The planned service would act as a library comprised of old and new BBC content as well as a home for exclusive original series akin to Netflix's House of Cards or Amazon Prime's Transparent.
"We're moving into a different world where more and more content is going to be made available on demand," said Whittingdale.
Netflix working on its first German series
Video streaming giant Netflix said Wednesday it is making its first original German series, to debut in 2017.
"If they want to explore that kind of thing, we'd encourage them. There may come a moment in the future where all television is delivered online, and if you do that it becomes a more realistic practical possibility if you wanted to move towards an element of voluntary subscription."
There is currently no word on when the channel - home to such dramas as Peaky Blinders and Line of Duty - will start work on Britflix.
WATCH: Netflix RAP
101 most popular English shows on television
1101
101 most popular English shows on television
Will and Grace (1998 TV series): Will and Grace is set in New York City and focuses on the relationship between Will Truman, a gay lawyer and his best friend Grace Adler, a Jewish woman who owns an interior design firm. Also featured are their friends Karen Walker, a rich socialite and Jack McFarland, a struggling gay actor/singer/dancer who has numerous other brief careers. The interplay of relationships features the trials and tribulations of dating, marriage, divorce and casual sex, as well as comical key stereotypes in Jewish culture.
101 most popular English shows on television
Will and Grace (1998 TV series): Will and Grace is set in New York City and focuses on the relationship between Will Truman, a gay lawyer and his best friend Grace Adler, a Jewish woman who owns an interior design firm. Also featured are their friends Karen Walker, a rich socialite and Jack McFarland, a struggling gay actor/singer/dancer who has numerous other brief careers. The interplay of relationships features the trials and tribulations of dating, marriage, divorce and casual sex, as well as comical key stereotypes in Jewish culture.
101 most popular English shows on television
Mike and Molly (2010 TV series): Mike, a Chicago police officer, meets fourth-grade teacher Molly at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting and they fall in love, thanks in part to their mutual love of pie and the desire to resist it. Both face challenges in their quest to lose weight – Molly from her slender sister and mother and Mike at the diner where he frequently eats. But having found each other, they still support each other as they try to achieve their goals, be it weight loss or Molly’s decision to quit teaching and pursue her dream as a writer.
101 most popular English shows on television
Mike and Molly (2010 TV series): Mike, a Chicago police officer, meets fourth-grade teacher Molly at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting and they fall in love, thanks in part to their mutual love of pie and the desire to resist it. Both face challenges in their quest to lose weight – Molly from her slender sister and mother and Mike at the diner where he frequently eats. But having found each other, they still support each other as they try to achieve their goals, be it weight loss or Molly’s decision to quit teaching and pursue her dream as a writer.
101 most popular English shows on television
Keeping up with the Kardashians (2007 TV series): This show focuses on the personal and professional lives of the Kardashian-Jenner family. Its premise originated with Ryan Seacrest, who additionally serves as an executive producer. The series focuses on sisters Kimm, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, It additionally places emphasis on their brother Rob Kardashian, their mother Kris Jenner, their step-father Caitlyn Jenner (then Bruce Jenner), half sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner and Kourtney’s boyfriend Scott Disick.
101 most popular English shows on television
Keeping up with the Kardashians (2007 TV series): This show focuses on the personal and professional lives of the Kardashian-Jenner family. Its premise originated with Ryan Seacrest, who additionally serves as an executive producer. The series focuses on sisters Kimm, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, It additionally places emphasis on their brother Rob Kardashian, their mother Kris Jenner, their step-father Caitlyn Jenner (then Bruce Jenner), half sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner and Kourtney’s boyfriend Scott Disick.
101 most popular English shows on television
2 Broke Girls (2011 TV series): The series chronicles the lives of 2 waitresses in their mid-20s: Max Black (Kat Dennings), the child of a poor working-class mother and an unknown father, and Caroline Channing (Beth Behrs), who was born rich but is now disgraced and penniless due to her father, Martin Channing, getting caught operating a Bernard Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme, The 2 work together at a Brooklyn diner, soon becoming roommates and friends while building towards their dream of opening a cupcake shop. Among those working with them at the restaurant are their boss, Han Lee (Matthew Moy); Oleg (Jonathan Kite), an upbeat but perverted Ukrainian cook; and Earl (Garrett Morris), a 75-year old cashier.
101 most popular English shows on television
2 Broke Girls (2011 TV series): The series chronicles the lives of 2 waitresses in their mid-20s: Max Black (Kat Dennings), the child of a poor working-class mother and an unknown father, and Caroline Channing (Beth Behrs), who was born rich but is now disgraced and penniless due to her father, Martin Channing, getting caught operating a Bernard Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme, The 2 work together at a Brooklyn diner, soon becoming roommates and friends while building towards their dream of opening a cupcake shop. Among those working with them at the restaurant are their boss, Han Lee (Matthew Moy); Oleg (Jonathan Kite), an upbeat but perverted Ukrainian cook; and Earl (Garrett Morris), a 75-year old cashier.
101 most popular English shows on television
Heartland (2007 TV series): The series is based on the Heartland book series by Lauren Brooke. The show changes the settings from Virginia, USA (in the original novels) to the Alberta Rockies in Alberta, Canada. Heartland follows Sister Amy and Lou Fleming, Ty Borden and their grandfather Jack Bartlett through the highs and lows of life on a horse ranch in cattle country. The story details how, although Amy and Lou’s mother was killed in a car accident, they continue to keep their mother’s dream alive by healing abused and neglected horses through their family business. Amy (Amber Marshall) faces adversity, but she overcomes every obstacle that stands in front of her.
101 most popular English shows on television
Heartland (2007 TV series): The series is based on the Heartland book series by Lauren Brooke. The show changes the settings from Virginia, USA (in the original novels) to the Alberta Rockies in Alberta, Canada. Heartland follows Sister Amy and Lou Fleming, Ty Borden and their grandfather Jack Bartlett through the highs and lows of life on a horse ranch in cattle country. The story details how, although Amy and Lou’s mother was killed in a car accident, they continue to keep their mother’s dream alive by healing abused and neglected horses through their family business. Amy (Amber Marshall) faces adversity, but she overcomes every obstacle that stands in front of her.
101 most popular English shows on television
Desperate Housewives (2004 TV series): The main setting of the show was Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional American town of ‘Fairview’ in the fictional ‘Eagle State’. The show followed the lives of a group of women as seen through the eyes of a dead neighbor who committed suicide in the very first episode. The storyline covers 13 years of the women’s lives over 8 seasons. They worked through domestic struggles and family life while facing the secrets, crimes and mysteries hidden behind the doors of their surface – beautiful and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood. The show featured an ensemble cast headed by Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer, Felicity Huffman as Lynette Scavo, Marcia Cross as Bree Van de Kamp and Eva Longoria as Gabrielle Solis. Brenda Strong narrated the show as the deceased Mary Alice Young, appearing sporadically in flashbacks or dream sequences.
101 most popular English shows on television
Desperate Housewives (2004 TV series): The main setting of the show was Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional American town of ‘Fairview’ in the fictional ‘Eagle State’. The show followed the lives of a group of women as seen through the eyes of a dead neighbor who committed suicide in the very first episode. The storyline covers 13 years of the women’s lives over 8 seasons. They worked through domestic struggles and family life while facing the secrets, crimes and mysteries hidden behind the doors of their surface – beautiful and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood. The show featured an ensemble cast headed by Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer, Felicity Huffman as Lynette Scavo, Marcia Cross as Bree Van de Kamp and Eva Longoria as Gabrielle Solis. Brenda Strong narrated the show as the deceased Mary Alice Young, appearing sporadically in flashbacks or dream sequences.
101 most popular English shows on television
Ugly Betty (2006 TV series): The series focuses on the life of wannabe writer Betty Suarez, a plain girl from Queens, New York City, who is sorely lacking in fashion sense. She is known to be bold, good-hearted, and naïve. She is abruptly thrust into a different world when she lands a job at Mode, a trendy, high fashion magazine based in Manhattan that is part of the publishing empire of the wealthy Bradford Meade. Bradford hires the inexperienced Betty as his womanizing son’s newest personal assistant to curb his habit of sleeping with his assistants. As time goes by, Betty and Daniel become friends and help each other navigate their individual professional and personal lives.
101 most popular English shows on television
Ugly Betty (2006 TV series): The series focuses on the life of wannabe writer Betty Suarez, a plain girl from Queens, New York City, who is sorely lacking in fashion sense. She is known to be bold, good-hearted, and naïve. She is abruptly thrust into a different world when she lands a job at Mode, a trendy, high fashion magazine based in Manhattan that is part of the publishing empire of the wealthy Bradford Meade. Bradford hires the inexperienced Betty as his womanizing son’s newest personal assistant to curb his habit of sleeping with his assistants. As time goes by, Betty and Daniel become friends and help each other navigate their individual professional and personal lives.
101 most popular English shows on television
Sex and the City (1998 TV series): Set and filmed in New York City and based on the book of the same name by Candace Bushnell, the show follows the lives of a group of 4 women – three in their mid-30s and one in her 40s, who despite their different natures and ever-changing sex lives, remain inseparable and confide in each other. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker (as Carrie Bradshaw), Kim Cattrall (as Samantha Jones), Kristin Davis (as Charlotte York) and Cynthia Nixon (as Miranda Hobbes), this quirky TV show has multiple continuing storylines that tackled relevant and modern social issues such as sexuality, safe sex, promiscuity and femininity while exploring the difference between friendships and romantic relationships.
101 most popular English shows on television
Sex and the City (1998 TV series): Set and filmed in New York City and based on the book of the same name by Candace Bushnell, the show follows the lives of a group of 4 women – three in their mid-30s and one in her 40s, who despite their different natures and ever-changing sex lives, remain inseparable and confide in each other. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker (as Carrie Bradshaw), Kim Cattrall (as Samantha Jones), Kristin Davis (as Charlotte York) and Cynthia Nixon (as Miranda Hobbes), this quirky TV show has multiple continuing storylines that tackled relevant and modern social issues such as sexuality, safe sex, promiscuity and femininity while exploring the difference between friendships and romantic relationships.
101 most popular English shows on television
Full House (1987 TV series): After news reporter Danny Tanner’s wife Pam is killed in a car crash by a drunk driver, he recruits his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis (an exterminator turned rock musician) and quirky best friend Joey Gladstone (who works as a stand-up comedian) to help raise his 3 daughters: D.J, Stephanie and Michelle in his San Francisco home. Over time, the 3 men as well as the children bond and become close to one another. In season 2, Danny is reassigned from his duties as sports anchor by his television station to become co-host of a local morning TV show ‘Wake Up, San Francisco’ and is teamed up with Nebraska native Rebecca Donaldson. Jesse and Rebecca eventually fall in love and get married in season 4. In season 5, Rebecca gives birth to twin sons, Nicky and Alex.
101 most popular English shows on television
Full House (1987 TV series): After news reporter Danny Tanner’s wife Pam is killed in a car crash by a drunk driver, he recruits his brother-in-law Jesse Katsopolis (an exterminator turned rock musician) and quirky best friend Joey Gladstone (who works as a stand-up comedian) to help raise his 3 daughters: D.J, Stephanie and Michelle in his San Francisco home. Over time, the 3 men as well as the children bond and become close to one another. In season 2, Danny is reassigned from his duties as sports anchor by his television station to become co-host of a local morning TV show ‘Wake Up, San Francisco’ and is teamed up with Nebraska native Rebecca Donaldson. Jesse and Rebecca eventually fall in love and get married in season 4. In season 5, Rebecca gives birth to twin sons, Nicky and Alex.
101 most popular English shows on television
South Park (1997 TV series): South Park is an American adult animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central. The show follows the exploits of 4 boys: Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick. The boys live in the fictional small town of South Park, central Colorado. The town is also home to an assortment of frequent characters such as students, families, elementary school staff and various other residents who tend to regard South Park as a bland and quiet place to live. Stan is portrayed as the everyman of the group; Kyle is the lone Jew among the group, and his portrayal in this role is often dealt with satirically. Stan is modeled after Parker, while Kyle is modeled after Stone. Stone and Kyle are best friends. Eric is a loud, obnoxious, manipulative, racist and obese literal psychopath and is portrayed as an antagonist and Kenny comes from a poor family, wears his parka hood so tightly that it covers most of his face and muffles his speech.
101 most popular English shows on television
South Park (1997 TV series): South Park is an American adult animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central. The show follows the exploits of 4 boys: Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman and Kenny McCormick. The boys live in the fictional small town of South Park, central Colorado. The town is also home to an assortment of frequent characters such as students, families, elementary school staff and various other residents who tend to regard South Park as a bland and quiet place to live. Stan is portrayed as the everyman of the group; Kyle is the lone Jew among the group, and his portrayal in this role is often dealt with satirically. Stan is modeled after Parker, while Kyle is modeled after Stone. Stone and Kyle are best friends. Eric is a loud, obnoxious, manipulative, racist and obese literal psychopath and is portrayed as an antagonist and Kenny comes from a poor family, wears his parka hood so tightly that it covers most of his face and muffles his speech.
101 most popular English shows on television
Two and a Half Men (2003 TV series): Chiropractor and single father Alan Harper lives in a beachfront house with divorced Internet billionaire Waden Schmidt, who bought the house following the untimely death of Alan’s brother, Charlie. As they acclimate to their living arrangement, the tightly wound Alan finds himself taking on a mentor role with Walden, whose lifelong dependence on being taken care of has left him a bit naïve. Despite his unsuccessful romantic history, Alan also tries to help Walden overcome his limited experiences with dating. Berta, a sharp-tongued, unapologetic housekeeper, is also featured in the series.
101 most popular English shows on television
Two and a Half Men (2003 TV series): Chiropractor and single father Alan Harper lives in a beachfront house with divorced Internet billionaire Waden Schmidt, who bought the house following the untimely death of Alan’s brother, Charlie. As they acclimate to their living arrangement, the tightly wound Alan finds himself taking on a mentor role with Walden, whose lifelong dependence on being taken care of has left him a bit naïve. Despite his unsuccessful romantic history, Alan also tries to help Walden overcome his limited experiences with dating. Berta, a sharp-tongued, unapologetic housekeeper, is also featured in the series.
101 most popular English shows on television
Family Guy (1999 TV series): Family Guy is an American adult animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane. The show revolves around the adventures of the Griffin family, consisting of father Peter Griffin, a bumbling yet well-intentioned blue collar worker; Lois, a stay-at-home mother and piano teacher who is a member of the wealthy Pewterscmidt family; Meg, their awkward teenage daughter who is constantly ridiculed and ignored by the family; Chris, their teenage son, who is overweight, unintelligent and a younger version of his father in many respects and Stewie, their diabolical infant son of ambiguous sexual orientation who has adult mannerisms and uses stereotypical archvillain phrases. Living with their family is their witty, sarcastic, anthropomorphic dog Brian, who drinks Martinis and engages in human conversation, though he is still considered a pet in many respects.
101 most popular English shows on television
Family Guy (1999 TV series): Family Guy is an American adult animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane. The show revolves around the adventures of the Griffin family, consisting of father Peter Griffin, a bumbling yet well-intentioned blue collar worker; Lois, a stay-at-home mother and piano teacher who is a member of the wealthy Pewterscmidt family; Meg, their awkward teenage daughter who is constantly ridiculed and ignored by the family; Chris, their teenage son, who is overweight, unintelligent and a younger version of his father in many respects and Stewie, their diabolical infant son of ambiguous sexual orientation who has adult mannerisms and uses stereotypical archvillain phrases. Living with their family is their witty, sarcastic, anthropomorphic dog Brian, who drinks Martinis and engages in human conversation, though he is still considered a pet in many respects.
101 most popular English shows on television
F.R.I.E.N.D.S (1994 TV series): This epic American TV sitcom has been created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman. Rachel Green flees her wedding day and seeks out childhood friend Monica Geller, a New York City chef. They become roommates, and Rachel joins Monica’s social circle of single people in the mid-20s: struggling actor Joey Tribbiani, business professional Chandler Bing, masseuse and musician Phoebe Buffay and newly divorced palentoloist Ross Geller, Monica’s older brother. To support herself, Rachel becomes a waitress at Central Park, a Manhattan coffee house where the group often hangs out, and when not there, the 6 are usually at Monica and Rachel’s nearby West Village apartment, or Joey and Chandler’s across the hall. The show depict the friend’s comedic and romantic adventures and career issues such as Joey auditioning for roles or Rachel seeking jobs in the fashion industry. The 6 characters each have many dates and serious relationships such as Monica with Richard Burke and Ross with Emily Waltham. Ross and Rachel’s intermittent relationship is the most often-recurring storyline: during the 10 seasons of the show they repeatedly date and break-up, even while Ross briefly marries Emily, he and Rachel have a child, Chandler and Monica date and marry each other, and Phoebe marries Mike Hannigan. Other frequently recurring characters include Ross and Monica’s parents in Long Island, Ross’ ex-wife and their son, Central Perk barista Gunther, Chandler’s ex-girlfriend Janice and Phoebe’s twin sister Ursule.
101 most popular English shows on television
F.R.I.E.N.D.S (1994 TV series): This epic American TV sitcom has been created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman. Rachel Green flees her wedding day and seeks out childhood friend Monica Geller, a New York City chef. They become roommates, and Rachel joins Monica’s social circle of single people in the mid-20s: struggling actor Joey Tribbiani, business professional Chandler Bing, masseuse and musician Phoebe Buffay and newly divorced palentoloist Ross Geller, Monica’s older brother. To support herself, Rachel becomes a waitress at Central Park, a Manhattan coffee house where the group often hangs out, and when not there, the 6 are usually at Monica and Rachel’s nearby West Village apartment, or Joey and Chandler’s across the hall. The show depict the friend’s comedic and romantic adventures and career issues such as Joey auditioning for roles or Rachel seeking jobs in the fashion industry. The 6 characters each have many dates and serious relationships such as Monica with Richard Burke and Ross with Emily Waltham. Ross and Rachel’s intermittent relationship is the most often-recurring storyline: during the 10 seasons of the show they repeatedly date and break-up, even while Ross briefly marries Emily, he and Rachel have a child, Chandler and Monica date and marry each other, and Phoebe marries Mike Hannigan. Other frequently recurring characters include Ross and Monica’s parents in Long Island, Ross’ ex-wife and their son, Central Perk barista Gunther, Chandler’s ex-girlfriend Janice and Phoebe’s twin sister Ursule.
101 most popular English shows on television
Glee (2009 TV series): This show focuses on the fictitious William McKinley High school glee club, New Directions, which competes on the show choir competition circuit while its disparate members deal with social issues, especially regarding sexuality and race, relationships, and learning to become an effective team. The initial 12-member cast included club director and Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), cheerleading coach Sur Sylvester (Jane Lynch), guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), Will’s wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig). As the students find themselves, they also enjoy a respite from the harsh realities of life. Mr Schuester hopes to help the kids in every way he can, and also dreams of taking the group to nationals. As Schuester and the glee club pursue their goal, they face opposition from a conniving cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, who tries to sabotage the group at every turn.
101 most popular English shows on television
Glee (2009 TV series): This show focuses on the fictitious William McKinley High school glee club, New Directions, which competes on the show choir competition circuit while its disparate members deal with social issues, especially regarding sexuality and race, relationships, and learning to become an effective team. The initial 12-member cast included club director and Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison), cheerleading coach Sur Sylvester (Jane Lynch), guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays), Will’s wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig). As the students find themselves, they also enjoy a respite from the harsh realities of life. Mr Schuester hopes to help the kids in every way he can, and also dreams of taking the group to nationals. As Schuester and the glee club pursue their goal, they face opposition from a conniving cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, who tries to sabotage the group at every turn.
101 most popular English shows on television
Grey’s Anatomy (2005 TV series): Grey’s Anatomy is an American romantic medical TV drama series that focuses on a group of doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in Seattle, including several who began their careers at the facility as interns. One of the doctors and the show’s namesake, Meredith Grey, is the daughter of a famous surgeon. She struggles to maintain relationships with her colleagues, particularly the hospital’s one-time chief of surgery, Richard Webber, due to a pre-existing relationship between them – Webber and Meredith’s mother had a personal relationship when Meredith was young.
101 most popular English shows on television
Grey’s Anatomy (2005 TV series): Grey’s Anatomy is an American romantic medical TV drama series that focuses on a group of doctors at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in Seattle, including several who began their careers at the facility as interns. One of the doctors and the show’s namesake, Meredith Grey, is the daughter of a famous surgeon. She struggles to maintain relationships with her colleagues, particularly the hospital’s one-time chief of surgery, Richard Webber, due to a pre-existing relationship between them – Webber and Meredith’s mother had a personal relationship when Meredith was young.
101 most popular English shows on television
Bones (2005 TV series): The show focuses on the alliance between forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. Brennan is the central character and team leader of the fictional Jeffersonian Institute Medico-Legal Lab, a federal institution that collaborates with the FBI, mirroring the real life relationships between the FBI and the Smithsonian Institution. Set in Washington D.C, the show revolves around solving Federal legal cases by examining the remains of humans of murder victims. In addition to the murder cases featured in each episode, the series explores the backgrounds and relationships of its characters. An important ongoing dynamic between Brennan and Booth is their disagreement about science and faith. The series is also known for its dark comic undertones to lighten the gravity of the show’s intense subject.
101 most popular English shows on television
Bones (2005 TV series): The show focuses on the alliance between forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan and FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. Brennan is the central character and team leader of the fictional Jeffersonian Institute Medico-Legal Lab, a federal institution that collaborates with the FBI, mirroring the real life relationships between the FBI and the Smithsonian Institution. Set in Washington D.C, the show revolves around solving Federal legal cases by examining the remains of humans of murder victims. In addition to the murder cases featured in each episode, the series explores the backgrounds and relationships of its characters. An important ongoing dynamic between Brennan and Booth is their disagreement about science and faith. The series is also known for its dark comic undertones to lighten the gravity of the show’s intense subject.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Vampire Diaries (2009 TV series): This TV series is developed by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec based on the popular book series of the same name written by L.J.Smith. The series follows the life of Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev), a teenage girl who falls deeply in love with a 162-year old vampire named Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley). Their relationship becomes increasingly complicated as Stefan’s vicious, malevolent and mysterious older brother Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) returns with a plan to wreack havoc on the town, seeking revenge against his younger brother for turning him into a vampire against his will. Because Elena resembles their past love Katherine Pierce, Damon also falls in love with Elena. The series is set in the fictional town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, a town charged with supernatural history since its settlement of migrants from New England in the late 19th century. Additional story lines revolve around the other inhabitants of the town, most notably Elena’s younger brother Jeremy Gilbert (Steven R.McQueen), her best friends Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham) and Caroline Forbes (Candice Accola), and their mutual friends Tyler Lockwood (Michael Trevino) and Matt Donovan (Zach Roerig). The town’s politics are orchestrated by descendants of the original founding families, all comprising a ‘Founder’s Council’. They guard the town from vampires, warewolves, witches and ghosts.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Vampire Diaries (2009 TV series): This TV series is developed by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec based on the popular book series of the same name written by L.J.Smith. The series follows the life of Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev), a teenage girl who falls deeply in love with a 162-year old vampire named Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley). Their relationship becomes increasingly complicated as Stefan’s vicious, malevolent and mysterious older brother Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) returns with a plan to wreack havoc on the town, seeking revenge against his younger brother for turning him into a vampire against his will. Because Elena resembles their past love Katherine Pierce, Damon also falls in love with Elena. The series is set in the fictional town of Mystic Falls, Virginia, a town charged with supernatural history since its settlement of migrants from New England in the late 19th century. Additional story lines revolve around the other inhabitants of the town, most notably Elena’s younger brother Jeremy Gilbert (Steven R.McQueen), her best friends Bonnie Bennett (Kat Graham) and Caroline Forbes (Candice Accola), and their mutual friends Tyler Lockwood (Michael Trevino) and Matt Donovan (Zach Roerig). The town’s politics are orchestrated by descendants of the original founding families, all comprising a ‘Founder’s Council’. They guard the town from vampires, warewolves, witches and ghosts.
101 most popular English shows on television
Orange is the new Black (2013 TV series): This TV series is created by Jenji Kohan. The story revolves around Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), a woman living in New York City, who is sentenced to 15 months in a women’s federal prison called Litchfield Penitentiary. She has been convicted of transporting a suitcase full of drug money to her now former girlfriend Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), an international drug smuggler. The offence had occurred 10 years prior to the start of the series, and in that time Piper had moved on to a quiet, law-abiding life and so her sudden and unexpected arrest disrupts her relationships with her fiancé and family. In prison, Piper is reunited with Alex (who named Piper in her trial, resulting in her arrest) and they re-examine their relationship and deal with their fellow prisoners. The show often shows flashbacks of significant events from various inmates’ pasts. As the story continues, the focus on Piper lessens, so that many inmates form an ensemble cast with many concurrent plot themes.
101 most popular English shows on television
Orange is the new Black (2013 TV series): This TV series is created by Jenji Kohan. The story revolves around Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling), a woman living in New York City, who is sentenced to 15 months in a women’s federal prison called Litchfield Penitentiary. She has been convicted of transporting a suitcase full of drug money to her now former girlfriend Alex Vause (Laura Prepon), an international drug smuggler. The offence had occurred 10 years prior to the start of the series, and in that time Piper had moved on to a quiet, law-abiding life and so her sudden and unexpected arrest disrupts her relationships with her fiancé and family. In prison, Piper is reunited with Alex (who named Piper in her trial, resulting in her arrest) and they re-examine their relationship and deal with their fellow prisoners. The show often shows flashbacks of significant events from various inmates’ pasts. As the story continues, the focus on Piper lessens, so that many inmates form an ensemble cast with many concurrent plot themes.
101 most popular English shows on television
Seinfeld (1989 TV series): This popular American TV sitcom ran for 9 seasons on NBC from 1989 to 1998. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself. Set predominantly in an apartment in Manhattan, New York, features Jerry’s friends and acquaintances, best friend George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and neighbor across the hall Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) and how this bunch deal with the absurdities of everyday life.
101 most popular English shows on television
Seinfeld (1989 TV series): This popular American TV sitcom ran for 9 seasons on NBC from 1989 to 1998. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself. Set predominantly in an apartment in Manhattan, New York, features Jerry’s friends and acquaintances, best friend George Costanza (Jason Alexander), former girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and neighbor across the hall Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) and how this bunch deal with the absurdities of everyday life.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Big Bang Theory (2007 TV series): This American sitcom is created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show along with Steven Molaro. The show is primarily centered on 5 characters living in Pasadena, California: Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper both are physicists at Caltech and share an apartment; Penny, a waitress and an aspiring actress who later becomes a pharmaceutical representative and lives across the hall. Leonard and Sheldon’s similarly geeky and socially awkward friends and co-workers-aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali. Geekiness and intellect of the 4 guys is contrasted for comic effect with Penny’s social skills and common sense. Over time, supporting characters have been promoted to starring roles: Bernadette Rostenkowski, Howard’s girlfriend (later his wife), a microbiologist and former part-time waitress alongside Penny.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Big Bang Theory (2007 TV series): This American sitcom is created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show along with Steven Molaro. The show is primarily centered on 5 characters living in Pasadena, California: Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper both are physicists at Caltech and share an apartment; Penny, a waitress and an aspiring actress who later becomes a pharmaceutical representative and lives across the hall. Leonard and Sheldon’s similarly geeky and socially awkward friends and co-workers-aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali. Geekiness and intellect of the 4 guys is contrasted for comic effect with Penny’s social skills and common sense. Over time, supporting characters have been promoted to starring roles: Bernadette Rostenkowski, Howard’s girlfriend (later his wife), a microbiologist and former part-time waitress alongside Penny.
101 most popular English shows on television
Lost (2004 TV series): Lost is a drama series containing elements of science, fiction and the supernatural. It follows the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on a lush, mysterious island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean. The story is told in a heavily serialized manner where each person possesses a shocking secret. Episodes typically feature a primary story line set on the island augmented by flashback or flash forward sequences, providing insights of the involved characters. The survivors have got nothing on the island, which harbors a monstrous security system, a series of underground bunkers and a group of violent survivalists hidden in the shadows.
101 most popular English shows on television
Lost (2004 TV series): Lost is a drama series containing elements of science, fiction and the supernatural. It follows the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on a lush, mysterious island somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean. The story is told in a heavily serialized manner where each person possesses a shocking secret. Episodes typically feature a primary story line set on the island augmented by flashback or flash forward sequences, providing insights of the involved characters. The survivors have got nothing on the island, which harbors a monstrous security system, a series of underground bunkers and a group of violent survivalists hidden in the shadows.
101 most popular English shows on television
24 (2001 TV series): This American TV series is created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran and stars Kiefer Sutherland as Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) agent Jack Bauer. Each 24-episode season covers 24 hours in the life of Bauer, using the real time method of narration. To emphasize the real-world flow of events, a clock is prominently displayed on-screen during the show and there is a regular use of split screens, a technique used to depict multiple scenes occurring at the same time. A typical plot has Bauer racing against the clock as he attempts to thwart multiple terrorist plots, including presidential assassination attempts, weapons of mass destruction, bio-terrorism, cyber attacks as well as conspiracies which deal with government and corporate corruption.
101 most popular English shows on television
24 (2001 TV series): This American TV series is created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran and stars Kiefer Sutherland as Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) agent Jack Bauer. Each 24-episode season covers 24 hours in the life of Bauer, using the real time method of narration. To emphasize the real-world flow of events, a clock is prominently displayed on-screen during the show and there is a regular use of split screens, a technique used to depict multiple scenes occurring at the same time. A typical plot has Bauer racing against the clock as he attempts to thwart multiple terrorist plots, including presidential assassination attempts, weapons of mass destruction, bio-terrorism, cyber attacks as well as conspiracies which deal with government and corporate corruption.
101 most popular English shows on television
Arrow (2012 TV series): Arrow is an American TV series developed by writer Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg. It is based on the DC Comics character ‘Green Arrow’, a costumed crime-fighter created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp. The series follows billionaire playboy, Oliver Queen played by Stephen Amell who five years after being stranded on a hostile island, returns home to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilant whose weapon of choice is bow and arrow. Unlike in the comic books, Queen does not go by the alias ‘Green Arrow’. Arrow focuses on the humanity of Oliver Queen and how he was changed by time spent shipwrecked on an island. Most episodes have flashback scenes to the 5 years in which he was missing.
101 most popular English shows on television
Arrow (2012 TV series): Arrow is an American TV series developed by writer Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg. It is based on the DC Comics character ‘Green Arrow’, a costumed crime-fighter created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp. The series follows billionaire playboy, Oliver Queen played by Stephen Amell who five years after being stranded on a hostile island, returns home to fight crime and corruption as a secret vigilant whose weapon of choice is bow and arrow. Unlike in the comic books, Queen does not go by the alias ‘Green Arrow’. Arrow focuses on the humanity of Oliver Queen and how he was changed by time spent shipwrecked on an island. Most episodes have flashback scenes to the 5 years in which he was missing.
101 most popular English shows on television
Modern Family (2009 TV series): This super-hit TV series revolves around 3 families living in Los Angeles who are interrelated through Jay Pritchett and his children, Claire and Mitchell. Patriarch Jay (Ed O’Neill) is remarried to a much younger woman, Gloria (Sofia Vergara), a passionate Colombian with whom he has a baby son, Fulgencio (Joe) Pritchett and a son from Gloria’s previous marriage, Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Jay’s daughter Claire (Julie Bowen) is a homemaker married to Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell), a real-estate agent and self-professed ‘cool dad’. They have 3 children: Haley (Sarah Hyland), the stereotypical teenage girl, Alex (Ariel Winter), a nerdy smart middle child and Luke (Nolan Gould), the offbeat only son. Jay’s lawyer son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and his husband Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) have adopted Vietnamese daughter Lily (Ella and Jaden Hiller). Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan conceived the series while sharing stories of their own ‘modern famililes’. The series is presented in mockumentary style, with the fictional characters talking into the camera.
101 most popular English shows on television
Modern Family (2009 TV series): This super-hit TV series revolves around 3 families living in Los Angeles who are interrelated through Jay Pritchett and his children, Claire and Mitchell. Patriarch Jay (Ed O’Neill) is remarried to a much younger woman, Gloria (Sofia Vergara), a passionate Colombian with whom he has a baby son, Fulgencio (Joe) Pritchett and a son from Gloria’s previous marriage, Manny (Rico Rodriguez). Jay’s daughter Claire (Julie Bowen) is a homemaker married to Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell), a real-estate agent and self-professed ‘cool dad’. They have 3 children: Haley (Sarah Hyland), the stereotypical teenage girl, Alex (Ariel Winter), a nerdy smart middle child and Luke (Nolan Gould), the offbeat only son. Jay’s lawyer son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and his husband Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) have adopted Vietnamese daughter Lily (Ella and Jaden Hiller). Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan conceived the series while sharing stories of their own ‘modern famililes’. The series is presented in mockumentary style, with the fictional characters talking into the camera.
101 most popular English shows on television
Criminal Minds (2005 TV series): is an American procedural TV series created by Jeff Davis starring Mandy Patinkin and Joe Mantegna. Criminal Minds is set primarily at the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) based in Quantico, Virginia. In accordance with the show’s plot, Criminal Minds differs from many procedural dramas by focusing on profiling the criminal, called the unsub or ‘unknown subject’ rather than the actual crime itself. The focal point of the series revolves around a talented group of FBI profilers who set about catching various criminals through behavioral profiling. The plot focuses on the working cases and the personal lives of the characters, depicting the hardened life and statutory requirements of an FBI profiler.
101 most popular English shows on television
Criminal Minds (2005 TV series): is an American procedural TV series created by Jeff Davis starring Mandy Patinkin and Joe Mantegna. Criminal Minds is set primarily at the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) based in Quantico, Virginia. In accordance with the show’s plot, Criminal Minds differs from many procedural dramas by focusing on profiling the criminal, called the unsub or ‘unknown subject’ rather than the actual crime itself. The focal point of the series revolves around a talented group of FBI profilers who set about catching various criminals through behavioral profiling. The plot focuses on the working cases and the personal lives of the characters, depicting the hardened life and statutory requirements of an FBI profiler.
101 most popular English shows on television
How I Met Your Mother (2005 TV series): This cult TV series is created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, who also served as the show’s executive producers and writers. The show follows the adventures of Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) and how me the mother of his children. As a framing device, Ted in the year 2030, recounts to his son and daughter the events that led him to meeting their mother. The story starts with the younger Mosby living in New York and working as an architect. The narrative deals with his best friends including the long-lasting couple Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel) and Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), the eccentric, womanizing playboy Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) and the Canadian news anchor Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). The series explores many storylines, from relationships to career to love to break-ups. The show focuses on Ted’s prior relationships and his dissatisfaction with those women, and how his friends got involved, thus setting the stage for his eventual happiness with Tracy. The show does not introduce Ted’s wife (Cristin Milioti) until its final season.
101 most popular English shows on television
How I Met Your Mother (2005 TV series): This cult TV series is created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, who also served as the show’s executive producers and writers. The show follows the adventures of Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) and how me the mother of his children. As a framing device, Ted in the year 2030, recounts to his son and daughter the events that led him to meeting their mother. The story starts with the younger Mosby living in New York and working as an architect. The narrative deals with his best friends including the long-lasting couple Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel) and Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), the eccentric, womanizing playboy Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) and the Canadian news anchor Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). The series explores many storylines, from relationships to career to love to break-ups. The show focuses on Ted’s prior relationships and his dissatisfaction with those women, and how his friends got involved, thus setting the stage for his eventual happiness with Tracy. The show does not introduce Ted’s wife (Cristin Milioti) until its final season.
101 most popular English shows on television
Prison Break (2005 TV series): This American TV drama was created by Paul Scheuring. The series revolve around 2 brothers: one who has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit and the other plots an elaborate plan to help his brother escape prison and clear his name. Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is a desperate man in a desperate situation. His brother Lincold Burrows (Dominic Purcell) convicted for a crime is put on Death Row. Michael holds up a bank to get him incarcerated alongside his brother in Fox River State Penitentiary, and then sets in motion a series of plans to break Lincoln out and prove his innocence. Once out of jail, the brothers flee to escape recapture and battle an intricate political conspiracy that puts everyone’s life at risk.
101 most popular English shows on television
Prison Break (2005 TV series): This American TV drama was created by Paul Scheuring. The series revolve around 2 brothers: one who has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit and the other plots an elaborate plan to help his brother escape prison and clear his name. Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is a desperate man in a desperate situation. His brother Lincold Burrows (Dominic Purcell) convicted for a crime is put on Death Row. Michael holds up a bank to get him incarcerated alongside his brother in Fox River State Penitentiary, and then sets in motion a series of plans to break Lincoln out and prove his innocence. Once out of jail, the brothers flee to escape recapture and battle an intricate political conspiracy that puts everyone’s life at risk.
101 most popular English shows on television
Castle (2009 TV series): Created by Andrew W.Marlowe, Castle follows Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle, a famous mystery novelist who has killed off the main character in his book series and has writer’s block. He is brought in by the New York Police Department for questioning regarding a copy-cat murder based on one of his novels. He is intrigued by this new window into murder and uses his connection with the mayor to charm his way into shadowing Detective Kate Beckett played by Stana Katic. Castle decides to use Beckett as the model for Nikki Heat, the main character of his next book series. Beckett, an avid reader of Castle’s books, initially disapproves of having Castle shadow her work but later warms up and recognizes Castle as a useful resource in her investigations. The overarching plot of the series focuses on the romance between the two lead characters and the murder of Beckett’s mother.
101 most popular English shows on television
Castle (2009 TV series): Created by Andrew W.Marlowe, Castle follows Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle, a famous mystery novelist who has killed off the main character in his book series and has writer’s block. He is brought in by the New York Police Department for questioning regarding a copy-cat murder based on one of his novels. He is intrigued by this new window into murder and uses his connection with the mayor to charm his way into shadowing Detective Kate Beckett played by Stana Katic. Castle decides to use Beckett as the model for Nikki Heat, the main character of his next book series. Beckett, an avid reader of Castle’s books, initially disapproves of having Castle shadow her work but later warms up and recognizes Castle as a useful resource in her investigations. The overarching plot of the series focuses on the romance between the two lead characters and the murder of Beckett’s mother.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Mentalist (2008 TV series): The show was created by Bruno Heller who is also the show’s executive producer. The show follows Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), who is an independent consultant for the CBI based in California. Although not an officer of the law, he uses skills to read people’s minds. The real reason for Patrick Jane’s involvement with law enforcement is to track down the serial killer Red John who was responsible for the brutal murders of his wife and daughter. He admits to faking the supernatural aspects of his skills, often asserting that there is no such thing as psychics, yet he has finely honed skills in cold reading, hypnosis and picking pockets as well as powerful observational skill and deep insight into the human psyche and behavior.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Mentalist (2008 TV series): The show was created by Bruno Heller who is also the show’s executive producer. The show follows Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), who is an independent consultant for the CBI based in California. Although not an officer of the law, he uses skills to read people’s minds. The real reason for Patrick Jane’s involvement with law enforcement is to track down the serial killer Red John who was responsible for the brutal murders of his wife and daughter. He admits to faking the supernatural aspects of his skills, often asserting that there is no such thing as psychics, yet he has finely honed skills in cold reading, hypnosis and picking pockets as well as powerful observational skill and deep insight into the human psyche and behavior.
101 most popular English shows on television
Dexter (2006 TV series): Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C.Hall), a blood spatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Deparment who also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down the murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system. The show’s first season was derived from the novel ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ (2004), the first of the Dexter series novel by Jeff Lindsay. Orphaned at the age of 3 due to the brutal murder of his mother in a shipping container and harboring a traumatic secret, Dexter was adopted by Miami policeman Harry Morgan (James Remar) who recognized his homicidal tendencies and taught him to channel his gruesome passion for human dissection in a ‘constructive’ way – by killing only heinous criminals (child molesters, mob assassins, rapists, serial killers, etc). Although his drive to kill is unflinching, he is able to affect normal emotions and keep up his appearance as a socially responsible human being.
101 most popular English shows on television
Dexter (2006 TV series): Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C.Hall), a blood spatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Deparment who also leads a secret life as a serial killer, hunting down the murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system. The show’s first season was derived from the novel ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ (2004), the first of the Dexter series novel by Jeff Lindsay. Orphaned at the age of 3 due to the brutal murder of his mother in a shipping container and harboring a traumatic secret, Dexter was adopted by Miami policeman Harry Morgan (James Remar) who recognized his homicidal tendencies and taught him to channel his gruesome passion for human dissection in a ‘constructive’ way – by killing only heinous criminals (child molesters, mob assassins, rapists, serial killers, etc). Although his drive to kill is unflinching, he is able to affect normal emotions and keep up his appearance as a socially responsible human being.
101 most popular English shows on television
Sherlock (2010 TV series): Sherlock is a crime drama series and a contemporary adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes detective series. Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the show stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Doctor John Watson. Sherlock depicts ‘consulting detective’ Sherlock Holmes solving various mysteries in London. Holmes is assisted by his flatmate and friend Dr John who has returned from military service in Afghanistan with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Although the series depicts a variety of crimes and perpetrators, Holme’s conflict with Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) is a recurring feature. Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey), a pathologist at St Bart’s Hospital occasionally assists Holmes in his cases. Other recurring roles include Una Stubbs as Mrs Hudson, Holmes and Watson’s landlady and series co-creator Mark Gatiss as Holmes’ elder brother Mycroft.
101 most popular English shows on television
Sherlock (2010 TV series): Sherlock is a crime drama series and a contemporary adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes detective series. Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the show stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Doctor John Watson. Sherlock depicts ‘consulting detective’ Sherlock Holmes solving various mysteries in London. Holmes is assisted by his flatmate and friend Dr John who has returned from military service in Afghanistan with the Royal Army Medical Corps. Although the series depicts a variety of crimes and perpetrators, Holme’s conflict with Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) is a recurring feature. Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey), a pathologist at St Bart’s Hospital occasionally assists Holmes in his cases. Other recurring roles include Una Stubbs as Mrs Hudson, Holmes and Watson’s landlady and series co-creator Mark Gatiss as Holmes’ elder brother Mycroft.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Sopranos (1999 TV series): The Sopranos is a crime drama TV series created by David Chase. Revolving around the fictional character and family of New Jersey based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), the show portrays the difficulties he faces while balancing the conflicting requirements of his home and his criminal organization. These are highlighted during his therapy sessions with psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi (Lorrain Bracco). The series features Tony’s family members and Mafia colleagues and rivals. He deals with personal and professional power struggles, affairs, violence, threat of exposure and betrayal and a whole bunch of people being whacked.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Sopranos (1999 TV series): The Sopranos is a crime drama TV series created by David Chase. Revolving around the fictional character and family of New Jersey based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), the show portrays the difficulties he faces while balancing the conflicting requirements of his home and his criminal organization. These are highlighted during his therapy sessions with psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi (Lorrain Bracco). The series features Tony’s family members and Mafia colleagues and rivals. He deals with personal and professional power struggles, affairs, violence, threat of exposure and betrayal and a whole bunch of people being whacked.
101 most popular English shows on television
Game of Thrones (2011 TV series): This American fantasy drama series created by David Benioff and D.B.Weiss, is an adaptation of ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ which is George R.R.Martin’s series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled ‘A Game of Thrones’. The series is filmed in a Belfast studio and on location elsewhere in Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland, Morocco, Spain, Malta, Scotland and US. Set in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, the series chronicles the violent dynastic struggles among the realm’s noble families for control of the Iron Throne. The first season was a faithful adaptation of the novel, but later seasons, began to diverge with significant changes. According to David Benioff, the show is about adapting the series as a whole and following the map George laid out hitting the major milestones, but not necessarily each of the stops along the way.
101 most popular English shows on television
Game of Thrones (2011 TV series): This American fantasy drama series created by David Benioff and D.B.Weiss, is an adaptation of ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ which is George R.R.Martin’s series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled ‘A Game of Thrones’. The series is filmed in a Belfast studio and on location elsewhere in Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland, Morocco, Spain, Malta, Scotland and US. Set in the fictional Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, the series chronicles the violent dynastic struggles among the realm’s noble families for control of the Iron Throne. The first season was a faithful adaptation of the novel, but later seasons, began to diverge with significant changes. According to David Benioff, the show is about adapting the series as a whole and following the map George laid out hitting the major milestones, but not necessarily each of the stops along the way.
101 most popular English shows on television
Better Call Saul (2014 TV series): ‘Better Call Saul’ is created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. It is a prequel of the TV show ‘Breaking Bad’ which was also created by Gilligan in 2008. Set in 2002, ‘Better Call Saul’ follows the story of a small-time lawyer James Morgan ‘Jimmy’ McGill (Bob Odenkirk), 6 years before his appearance on ‘Breaking Bad’ as Saul Goodman when he became Walter White’s attorney. From parking tickets to mass murder, from slip-and-fall to bond fraud, Saul handles it all. In July 2012, ‘Breaking Bad’ creator Vince Gilligan hinted at a possible spin-off about Saul Goodman.
101 most popular English shows on television
Better Call Saul (2014 TV series): ‘Better Call Saul’ is created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. It is a prequel of the TV show ‘Breaking Bad’ which was also created by Gilligan in 2008. Set in 2002, ‘Better Call Saul’ follows the story of a small-time lawyer James Morgan ‘Jimmy’ McGill (Bob Odenkirk), 6 years before his appearance on ‘Breaking Bad’ as Saul Goodman when he became Walter White’s attorney. From parking tickets to mass murder, from slip-and-fall to bond fraud, Saul handles it all. In July 2012, ‘Breaking Bad’ creator Vince Gilligan hinted at a possible spin-off about Saul Goodman.
101 most popular English shows on television
Breaking Bad (2008 TV series): This American crime drama TV show was created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show told the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, who with his ex-student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) turns into a crime scene by producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family’s finances before he dies. The name of the show ‘Breaking Bad’ is from a southern colloquialism which means ‘raise hell’. Breaking Bad was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This TV series has been considered as one of the greatest and intriguing TV series of all time. By the time the series finale aired, the series was among the most-watched shows on American television. Also in 2013, ‘Breaking Bad’ entered the Guinness World Records as the highest rated show of all time.
101 most popular English shows on television
Breaking Bad (2008 TV series): This American crime drama TV show was created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show told the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, who with his ex-student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) turns into a crime scene by producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family’s finances before he dies. The name of the show ‘Breaking Bad’ is from a southern colloquialism which means ‘raise hell’. Breaking Bad was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This TV series has been considered as one of the greatest and intriguing TV series of all time. By the time the series finale aired, the series was among the most-watched shows on American television. Also in 2013, ‘Breaking Bad’ entered the Guinness World Records as the highest rated show of all time.
101 most popular English shows on television
Mr Robot (2015 TV series): Mr Robot is an American cyberpunk thriller TV series created by Sam Esmail. The show revolves around Elliot Anderson, a young cyber-security engineer living in New York City who assumes the role of a vigilant hacker by night. Elliot meets a mysterious anarchist ‘Mr Robot’ who recruits Elliot to join his team of hackers called ‘fsociety’. Elliot has a social anxiety disorder but connects to people by hacking them. The series follows Mr Robot’s attempts to engage Elliot in his mission to destroy the corporation Elliot is paid to protect. Compelled by his beliefs, Elliot struggles to resist the chance to take down the MNC CEOs that are running and ruining the world.
101 most popular English shows on television
Mr Robot (2015 TV series): Mr Robot is an American cyberpunk thriller TV series created by Sam Esmail. The show revolves around Elliot Anderson, a young cyber-security engineer living in New York City who assumes the role of a vigilant hacker by night. Elliot meets a mysterious anarchist ‘Mr Robot’ who recruits Elliot to join his team of hackers called ‘fsociety’. Elliot has a social anxiety disorder but connects to people by hacking them. The series follows Mr Robot’s attempts to engage Elliot in his mission to destroy the corporation Elliot is paid to protect. Compelled by his beliefs, Elliot struggles to resist the chance to take down the MNC CEOs that are running and ruining the world.
101 most popular English shows on television
True Detective (2014 TV series): This crime drama TV series is created and written by Nic Pizzolatto. Pizzolatto initially conceived the series as a novel but as it began taking definite form, it was decided to be a TV show. Engineered as an anthology, each season of ‘True Detective’ introduces new cast, characters and self-contained narratives. The show’s first season is based in Louisiana and follows a pair of Louisiana State Police homicide detectives (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) and their pursuit of a serial killer over the course of 17 years. The second season takes place in California and follows the interweaving stories of officers from 3 cooperating police departments (Farrell, McAdams and Kitsch) and a criminal-turned businessman (Vaughn) after the body of a corrupt city manager is found on the highway. This show has been highly acclaimed by critics and has been rated as one of the strongest programs on American TV.
101 most popular English shows on television
True Detective (2014 TV series): This crime drama TV series is created and written by Nic Pizzolatto. Pizzolatto initially conceived the series as a novel but as it began taking definite form, it was decided to be a TV show. Engineered as an anthology, each season of ‘True Detective’ introduces new cast, characters and self-contained narratives. The show’s first season is based in Louisiana and follows a pair of Louisiana State Police homicide detectives (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) and their pursuit of a serial killer over the course of 17 years. The second season takes place in California and follows the interweaving stories of officers from 3 cooperating police departments (Farrell, McAdams and Kitsch) and a criminal-turned businessman (Vaughn) after the body of a corrupt city manager is found on the highway. This show has been highly acclaimed by critics and has been rated as one of the strongest programs on American TV.
101 most popular English shows on television
Fargo (2014 TV series): Fargo is an American black comedy-crime drama written and created by Noah Hawley. The show is inspired by the 1996 film of the same name directed by Coen brothers. The story is about Lorne Malvo played by Billy Bob Thornton, who is a manipulative man, who meets a small town insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) and changes his life forever, by convincing Lester to get involved in search of a killer. The future seasons will follow an anthology format with each season being set in a different era along with different story, cast and characters.
101 most popular English shows on television
Fargo (2014 TV series): Fargo is an American black comedy-crime drama written and created by Noah Hawley. The show is inspired by the 1996 film of the same name directed by Coen brothers. The story is about Lorne Malvo played by Billy Bob Thornton, who is a manipulative man, who meets a small town insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) and changes his life forever, by convincing Lester to get involved in search of a killer. The future seasons will follow an anthology format with each season being set in a different era along with different story, cast and characters.
101 most popular English shows on television
Six Feet Under (2001 TV series): Laced with irony and dark humor, the show was created and produced by Alan Ball. The show spans for 5 seasons and 63 episodes. The show stars Peter Krause as Nathaniel Samuel ‘Nate’ Fisher Jr whose funeral director father (Richard Jenkins) dies and bequeaths to him and his brother David (Michael C.Hall) co-ownership of the family funeral business. On one level, the show is a conventional family drama, dealing with issues such as interpersonal relationships, infidelity and religion. At the same time, the show is distinguished by its unblinking focus on death, which it explores on multiple levels. Each episode begins with a death – anything from heart attack or murder to sudden infant death syndrome and that death usually sets the tone for each episode, allowing the characters to reflect on their current fortunes and misfortunes in a way that is illuminated by death and its aftermath.
101 most popular English shows on television
Six Feet Under (2001 TV series): Laced with irony and dark humor, the show was created and produced by Alan Ball. The show spans for 5 seasons and 63 episodes. The show stars Peter Krause as Nathaniel Samuel ‘Nate’ Fisher Jr whose funeral director father (Richard Jenkins) dies and bequeaths to him and his brother David (Michael C.Hall) co-ownership of the family funeral business. On one level, the show is a conventional family drama, dealing with issues such as interpersonal relationships, infidelity and religion. At the same time, the show is distinguished by its unblinking focus on death, which it explores on multiple levels. Each episode begins with a death – anything from heart attack or murder to sudden infant death syndrome and that death usually sets the tone for each episode, allowing the characters to reflect on their current fortunes and misfortunes in a way that is illuminated by death and its aftermath.
101 most popular English shows on television
Sons of Anarchy (2008 TV series): This American crime drama TV series was created by Kurt Sutter. The show revolved around the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in California’s Central Valley. The show centers on protagonist Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller (Charlie Hunnam), initially the vice president of the club, who begins questioning the club and himself. Each season involves 2 parallel plotlines that intertwine and overlap. The first season centers on the personal life of Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller and his immediate family while the second season deals with SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, RedwoodOriginal). SAMCRO is involved with gun-running throughout the western United States and deals with many rival gangs and local politicians. As Vice-president and then president of the motorcycle club, Jax struggles with the dealings of SAMCRO and the legacy of his father, the founder of the club.
101 most popular English shows on television
Sons of Anarchy (2008 TV series): This American crime drama TV series was created by Kurt Sutter. The show revolved around the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in California’s Central Valley. The show centers on protagonist Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller (Charlie Hunnam), initially the vice president of the club, who begins questioning the club and himself. Each season involves 2 parallel plotlines that intertwine and overlap. The first season centers on the personal life of Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller and his immediate family while the second season deals with SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, RedwoodOriginal). SAMCRO is involved with gun-running throughout the western United States and deals with many rival gangs and local politicians. As Vice-president and then president of the motorcycle club, Jax struggles with the dealings of SAMCRO and the legacy of his father, the founder of the club.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Wire (2002 TV series): The Wire is a crime drama TV series set in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Created and initially written by author and former police reporter David Simon. Each season of ‘The Wire’ introduced a different institution in the city of Baltimore and its relationship with law enforcement – illegal drug trade, the seaport system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media, while continuing on the characters from previous season. The large cast consists of character actors who are little known for their roles as well as numerous guests and recurring appearances by real-life Baltimore and Maryland figures. The show is about the American city and how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are compromised and must contend with whatever institution to which they are committed. The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, its literally thematic and its uncommonly deep exploration of social and political themes.
101 most popular English shows on television
The Wire (2002 TV series): The Wire is a crime drama TV series set in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Created and initially written by author and former police reporter David Simon. Each season of ‘The Wire’ introduced a different institution in the city of Baltimore and its relationship with law enforcement – illegal drug trade, the seaport system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media, while continuing on the characters from previous season. The large cast consists of character actors who are little known for their roles as well as numerous guests and recurring appearances by real-life Baltimore and Maryland figures. The show is about the American city and how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are compromised and must contend with whatever institution to which they are committed. The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, its literally thematic and its uncommonly deep exploration of social and political themes.
101 most popular English shows on television
House of Cards (2013 TV series): House of Cards is an American political drama written and produced by Beau Willimon. It is an adaptation of BBC’s mini- series of the same name and is based on the novel by Michael Dobbs. Set in present-day Washington D.C., House of Cards is the story of Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), a democrat from South Carolina’s 5th congressional district and House Majority Whip, who after being passed over for appointment as Secretary of State, initiates an elaborate plan to get him into a position of greater power, aided by his wife Claire Underwood (Robin Wright). The show deals with themes of ruthless pragmatism, manipulation and power.
101 most popular English shows on television
House of Cards (2013 TV series): House of Cards is an American political drama written and produced by Beau Willimon. It is an adaptation of BBC’s mini- series of the same name and is based on the novel by Michael Dobbs. Set in present-day Washington D.C., House of Cards is the story of Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), a democrat from South Carolina’s 5th congressional district and House Majority Whip, who after being passed over for appointment as Secretary of State, initiates an elaborate plan to get him into a position of greater power, aided by his wife Claire Underwood (Robin Wright). The show deals with themes of ruthless pragmatism, manipulation and power.
101 most popular English shows on television
Deadwood (2004 TV series): The show is created, produced and written by David Milch. The show is set in the 1870s in Deadwood, South Dakota, before and after the area’s annexation by the Dakota Territory. The series shows Deadwood’growth from camp to town, incorporating themes ranging from the formation of communities to western capitalism. The show features a large cast and many historical figures such as Seth Bullock, Al Swearengen, Wild Bill Hickok, Sol Star, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp, George Crook, E.B.Farnum, Charlie Utter, Jack McCall and George Hearst. Milch used actual diaries and newspapers from 1870s Deadwood residents as reference points for characters, events and the feel of the show.
101 most popular English shows on television
Deadwood (2004 TV series): The show is created, produced and written by David Milch. The show is set in the 1870s in Deadwood, South Dakota, before and after the area’s annexation by the Dakota Territory. The series shows Deadwood’growth from camp to town, incorporating themes ranging from the formation of communities to western capitalism. The show features a large cast and many historical figures such as Seth Bullock, Al Swearengen, Wild Bill Hickok, Sol Star, Calamity Jane, Wyatt Earp, George Crook, E.B.Farnum, Charlie Utter, Jack McCall and George Hearst. Milch used actual diaries and newspapers from 1870s Deadwood residents as reference points for characters, events and the feel of the show.
101 most popular English shows on television
Mad Men (2007 TV series): Man Men is an American period drama created by Matthew Weiner. Mad Men is set primarily in the 1960s, initially at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue, New York City and later at the newly created firm, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. According to the plot of the show, the phrase ‘Mad Men’ was a slang term coined in the 1950s by advertisers working on Madison Avenue to refer to themselves. The focal point of the series is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), initially the talented creative director at Sterling Cooper and later a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The plot revolves on the business of the agencies and the personal lives of the characters, regularly depicting changing moods and social mores of the US across the 1960s. This TV show got wide critical acclaim for its writing, acting and historical authenticity.
101 most popular English shows on television
Mad Men (2007 TV series): Man Men is an American period drama created by Matthew Weiner. Mad Men is set primarily in the 1960s, initially at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue, New York City and later at the newly created firm, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. According to the plot of the show, the phrase ‘Mad Men’ was a slang term coined in the 1950s by advertisers working on Madison Avenue to refer to themselves. The focal point of the series is Don Draper (Jon Hamm), initially the talented creative director at Sterling Cooper and later a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The plot revolves on the business of the agencies and the personal lives of the characters, regularly depicting changing moods and social mores of the US across the 1960s. This TV show got wide critical acclaim for its writing, acting and historical authenticity.
101 most popular English shows on television
Homeland (2011 TV series): Homeland is a political thriller developed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa based on the Israeli series Hatufim (English title: Prisoners of War) created by Gideon Raff. The series stars Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA officer with bipolar disorder and from Season 1 to 3, Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody, a US Marine Corps Scout Sniper. Mathison comes to believe that Brody, who was held captive by Al-Qaeda as prisoner of war, was ‘turned’ by the enemy and posed a threat to the United States. Carrie is assigned to one of the CIA’s most volatile and dangerous stations in the Middle East, where she is in the heart of battle in the war of terror.
101 most popular English shows on television
Homeland (2011 TV series): Homeland is a political thriller developed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa based on the Israeli series Hatufim (English title: Prisoners of War) created by Gideon Raff. The series stars Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA officer with bipolar disorder and from Season 1 to 3, Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody, a US Marine Corps Scout Sniper. Mathison comes to believe that Brody, who was held captive by Al-Qaeda as prisoner of war, was ‘turned’ by the enemy and posed a threat to the United States. Carrie is assigned to one of the CIA’s most volatile and dangerous stations in the Middle East, where she is in the heart of battle in the war of terror.
101 most popular English shows on television
Vikings (2013 TV series): An Irish-Canadian historical drama, Vikings is written and created by Michael Hirst. Vikings is inspired by the sagas of Viking Ragnar Lothbrok, one of the best-known legendary Norse heroes and notorious as the scourge of England and France. It portrays Ragnar as a former farmer who rises to fame by successful raids into England and eventually becomes the King of Denmark, with the support of his family and fellow warriors: his brother Rollo, his son Bjorn Ironside and wives – Shieldmaiden Lagertha and princess Aslaug. Ranar wants to head West, across the ocean to discover new civilizations. Through the years Ragnar, who claims to be a direct descendant of the god Odin, continues to struggle with Earl until two face each other in a final battle for supremacy.
101 most popular English shows on television
Vikings (2013 TV series): An Irish-Canadian historical drama, Vikings is written and created by Michael Hirst. Vikings is inspired by the sagas of Viking Ragnar Lothbrok, one of the best-known legendary Norse heroes and notorious as the scourge of England and France. It portrays Ragnar as a former farmer who rises to fame by successful raids into England and eventually becomes the King of Denmark, with the support of his family and fellow warriors: his brother Rollo, his son Bjorn Ironside and wives – Shieldmaiden Lagertha and princess Aslaug. Ranar wants to head West, across the ocean to discover new civilizations. Through the years Ragnar, who claims to be a direct descendant of the god Odin, continues to struggle with Earl until two face each other in a final battle for supremacy.
101 most popular English shows on television
House M.D (2004 TV series): House is an American TV medical drama that originally ran on FOX for eight seasons. At fictional Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jerssey, prickly genius Dr Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) tackles health mysteries as would a medical Sherlock Holmes, all while playing mind games with colleague that include his best friend, Oncologist James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard). House, an acerbic infectious disease specialist, solves medical puzzles with the help of a team of young diagnosticians. House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own team because many of his hypotheses about patients’ illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. Flawless instincts and unconventional thinking help earn House great respect, despite his brutal honesty and antisocial tendencies.
101 most popular English shows on television
House M.D (2004 TV series): House is an American TV medical drama that originally ran on FOX for eight seasons. At fictional Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jerssey, prickly genius Dr Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) tackles health mysteries as would a medical Sherlock Holmes, all while playing mind games with colleague that include his best friend, Oncologist James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard). House, an acerbic infectious disease specialist, solves medical puzzles with the help of a team of young diagnosticians. House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own team because many of his hypotheses about patients’ illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights. Flawless instincts and unconventional thinking help earn House great respect, despite his brutal honesty and antisocial tendencies.
101 most popular English shows on television
Supernatural (2005 TV series): Supernatural is an American fantasy horror television created by Eric Kripke. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters and other supernatural beings in the world. After losing their mother to a supernatural force, the brothers were raised by their father as soldiers who track mysterious and demonic creatures. Violent memories and relationship-threatening secrets add additional burdens on Sam and Dean as they investigate all things that go bump in the night. As old tricks and tools are rendered useless, the brothers rely on each other as they encounter new enemies.
101 most popular English shows on television
Supernatural (2005 TV series): Supernatural is an American fantasy horror television created by Eric Kripke. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters and other supernatural beings in the world. After losing their mother to a supernatural force, the brothers were raised by their father as soldiers who track mysterious and demonic creatures. Violent memories and relationship-threatening secrets add additional burdens on Sam and Dean as they investigate all things that go bump in the night. As old tricks and tools are rendered useless, the brothers rely on each other as they encounter new enemies.
101 most popular English shows on television
Misfits (2009 TV series): Misfits is a British science fiction comedy drama about a group of 5 juvenile offenders working together on a community service program. Shortly thereafter, they find that they are developing superpowers after a strange electrical storm hits the town. Paranoid Kelly can hear the thoughts of others, while Simon who has always been overlooked can make himself invisible. Curtis can turn back time while Alisha finds that anyone who touches her will lust after her. Nathan suffers no after effects of the storm. The show observes the characters’ development throughout the series and how they grow from self-obsessed young offenders into responsible adults.
101 most popular English shows on television
Misfits (2009 TV series): Misfits is a British science fiction comedy drama about a group of 5 juvenile offenders working together on a community service program. Shortly thereafter, they find that they are developing superpowers after a strange electrical storm hits the town. Paranoid Kelly can hear the thoughts of others, while Simon who has always been overlooked can make himself invisible. Curtis can turn back time while Alisha finds that anyone who touches her will lust after her. Nathan suffers no after effects of the storm. The show observes the characters’ development throughout the series and how they grow from self-obsessed young offenders into responsible adults.
101 most popular English shows on television
Entourage (2004 TV series): Entourage is an American comedy-drama created and written by Doug Ellin and chronicles the acting career of Vincent Chase, a young A-list movie star, and his childhood friends from Queens, New York, as they navigate the unfamiliar terrains of Los Angeles. The series deals with the themes of male friendship and real-life situations in modern day Hollywood. The show is still known for its array of famous guests, having features several actors, athletes and other celebrities in cameo roles, often playing fictionalized versions of themselves.
101 most popular English shows on television
Entourage (2004 TV series): Entourage is an American comedy-drama created and written by Doug Ellin and chronicles the acting career of Vincent Chase, a young A-list movie star, and his childhood friends from Queens, New York, as they navigate the unfamiliar terrains of Los Angeles. The series deals with the themes of male friendship and real-life situations in modern day Hollywood. The show is still known for its array of famous guests, having features several actors, athletes and other celebrities in cameo roles, often playing fictionalized versions of themselves.
| Orange Is the New Black |
Neighbours is set Melbourne in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough but what is the name of the road in which it is set? | TV Review: Orange Is the New Black -- Vulture
Print
Share
What a rewarding TV year this is turning out to be. The latest new series worth finding time to watch is Weeds creator Jenji Kohan’s Orange Is the New Black. Like many of my recent favorites, including FX’s The Bridge, this might seem skip-able if you skim a synopsis, and maybe even while you’re watching the pilot, but the deeper you get into it, the more unusual it seems.
Based on Piper Kernan’s 2010 memoir , it’s a comedy-drama about a clueless yuppie named Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) who gets sent to a women’s prison in Litchfield, Connecticut, for her long-ago and one-time-only participation in drug smuggling. She learns that her old sense of self means nothing there, if it was even solid to begin with. If, like me, you found Kohan’s Showtime drug comedy Weeds entertaining and well-acted but at times insufferably wacky and cute, given the subject matter, the show’s opening scene may prove off-putting: a flash-forward to the willowy white heroine already in prison, stepping out of a prison shower and getting intimidated by a big African-American woman who checks out and rates her breasts. There’ve been so many prison tales throughout pop-culture history, and a good many of them were Tarzan fantasies about white folks learning to be badder than the people of color they were stuck behind bars with.
Fortunately, Orange isn’t about that. It’s about a lot of subjects, all fascinating. One is the privileged worldview that white folks and anyone in the upper middle class eventually take for granted (Piper admits that in her thirties, she became “the nice blond lady that I was supposed to be”) and how this same worldview crumbles once you’re deprived of all your psychic anchor points. Another subject is power, as exercised by the prison officials and guards over the inmates and by the inmates over each other. Related to power are the intricacies of social interaction, and how it’s possible to doom yourself to being perceived a certain way based on a single mistake, as Piper learns the hard way when she unknowingly makes a casually snotty comment in the presence of the one person who’d take offense. Yet another subject is how the past continues to live inside you, even when you think you’ve separated from it and evolved, or moved on.
The show juggles all these concerns via a flashback structure that dips into the pasts of various characters. We start out in the most predictable and obvious point of view, that of Piper, who’s an everywoman character mainly by virtue of being white and middle class, like so many TV characters. We meet her on the cusp of her prison stint and learn that she’s a bisexual woman who had an intense post-college affair with the woman who roped her into drug smuggling (Laura Prepon’s Alex Vause), and that she eventually settled down with a barely employed writer named Larry Bloom (Jason Biggs) and started a small business selling artisanal bath products.
The first couple of episodes are mainly a fish-out-of-water comedy about the terrified, emotionally fragile Piper slowly learning the ropes from more experienced white inmates. (Like most real prisons, this one’s self-segregated on racial and ethnic lines.) Her sort-of-allies include smart-alecky drug addict Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne); a sinewy hippie lady named Erica “Yoga” Jones (Constance Shulman); Big Boo (Lea DeLaria), a cancer patient who tells Piper how to clean a shared cell in a way that’ll pass inspection (maxi pads make great scrubbing brushes, as it turns out); and Anita DeMarco (Lynn Tucci), who is happy to explain the rules of the joint at the lunch table but won’t waste a second sympathizing with the heroine’s discomfort.
Schilling proves herself a superb listener and reactor. When she witnesses a sex act in a prison shower or sees a fellow inmate get brutally slapped in a hallway, seemingly at random, the actress’s face mixes fear, incredulity, and a kind of dissociation, as if Piper is momentarily unsure that any of this is really happening. Some of the exchanges have a marvelous deadpan snap, such as when Nicky asks Piper what she’s in for, and Piper replies, “I read that you aren’t supposed to ask that.” “You read that?” Nicky shoots back, smirking. “What, you studied for prison?”
But this show isn’t just a bunch of scenes in which Piper sees something horrible and acts horrified. Indeed, it’s not just about her; if anything, it’s about her learning that life is not about what happens to her — that she has to get outside of herself and learn to see the world through other people’s eyes. The show’s opening credits are a montage of women’s faces — young, old, black, white, Hispanic, thin, plump, smooth, scarred. As Orange eases more deeply into the world of the prison, it often steps away from Piper and tells other inmates’ stories, including ones that a less compassionate prison tale would leave undefined.
As we get further away from Piper, it becomes obvious that the show is neither endorsing nor condemning her point of view, but rather presenting it as one in a multiplicity of women’s life experiences — probably the lightest one, because compared to the other inmates, she hasn’t suffered all that much. Its treatment of sexuality is unusually complex and open-hearted: There are no binaries here; orientation is treated as more of a spectrum, or as something mysterious and ultimately undefinable. The heroine is bisexual, and at no point does the series suggest that she didn’t really love the woman who got her into this mess, or that she doesn’t really love her fiancé. There’s also a transgender character, Sophia Burset (played by African-American transsexual actress Laverne Cox), who enters the story with the eccentric definition of every other character and is never once presented as inherently comical or strange.
The show even goes to the trouble of giving actual characters to the actors playing the prison staff; their ranks include Weeds alumni Michael Harney, Matt Peters, and Pablo Schreiber (whose swaggering mansplainer character is billed only as “Pornstache,” for reasons that are obvious the instant you see him). An early scene involving Harney’s character, a prison counselor named Sam Healy, hints at yet another of the show’s agendas: to give American TV viewers a sense of the surreal inequities in the criminal justice system. “I’ve got a crack dealer who’s doing nine months, and then I’ve got a lady who accidentally backed into a mailman who’s doing four years,” he tells Piper. There’s no useful yardstick with which to measure any of this.
The flashbacks are employed here in much the same way as the flashbacks in the brilliant and still-underrated fourth season of Arrested Development, which embraced the Netflix built-for-binge-watching format and gave itself the freedom to cut up a linear story into a mosaic of moments. Arrested seemed to understand that if people watched the whole fourth season in nice, big doses, they’d be able to follow the complicated story and would grow accustomed to the storytelling rhythms and view the time-jumps not as interruptions, but as additional information — the TV storytelling version of clicking on a hypertext link in an online piece and being taken to related story that deepens one’s understanding of the first.
Orange’s own version of that technique is quite satisfying. My favorite example is the tale of the prison cafeteria boss Galina "Red" Reznikov. She’s played with great imagination and tenderness by Voyager’s Kate Mulgrew, sporting a Russian accent and a burn-a-hole-through-you stare. The pilot seems to set Red up as a heavy whose sole purpose on Earth is to terrorize the heroine over an unthinking and ultimately minor insult. Suffice it to say that she’s not the person you think she is, and the story behind her prison stint is as darkly comic as Piper’s, and echoes it in some ways, in that it feels like an example of somebody enduring great pain long ago and then paying it forward by inflicting a version of that pain on somebody else. For all its comedy, this is a serious show, one that’s keenly attuned to the damage that women do to other women, and that men and women do to one another, and that the state does to its people before, during and after they go to prison. If there’s any kind of overriding message to Orange Is the New Black, it’s that we are all prisoners of something, dreaming of escape.
* Corrections: Jason Biggs' character is named Larry Bloom, not Larry Stone; also Yoga Jones was not the character who had chained herself to a nuclear plant fence, as this review previously stated.
Tags:
| i don't know |
In which reality show would you expect to find siblings Kim, Khloe, Kortney, Kendell, Kylie and Rob? | Keeping Up With Kendall & Kylie? Is Another Kardashian Spinoff In The Works? | Access Hollywood
Keeping Up With Kendall & Kylie? Is Another Kardashian Spinoff In The Works?
February 27, 2015 7:33 AM PST
Can't get enough Kardashians? Well, you might be in luck because Kendall and Kylie Jenner may be getting their own reality show spinoff.
According to Variety , a show insider says that a series revolving around the family's youngest sister duo is possibly in discussions at E! and Ryan Seacrest Productions.
However, the magazine's sources add that formal negotiations with the girls have not taken place. Further, a spokesperson for E! has denied claims that a spinoff is in the works in a comment to Access Hollywood.
PHOTOS: Reality Sisters Kylie & Kendall Jenner
Kendall and Kylie grew up right before our very eyes as the daughters of Bruce and Kris Jenner and half-siblings of Kourtney, Kim, Khloe and Rob on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."
Kendall has since skyrocketed to success in the modeling world. She's the new face of Estee Lauder and can be seen strutting down the runway in fashion shows worldwide, most recently at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City and currently at Milan Fashion Week in Italy.
WATCH: Kendall Jenner Faces Fashion Week Criticism
Meanwhile, Kylie has made a name for herself with a hair extension line and other business endeavors.
The two have teamed up in the past as co-authors of the novel "Rebels: City of Indra: The Story of Lex and Livia" and on fashion collections at Topshop and PacSun.
The sisters also have quite the social media presence. Kendall has reached over 20 million followers on Instagram and over 9 million followers on Twitter. Kylie isn't far behind with 18 million Instagram followers and over 8 million Twitter followers.
"Keeping Up With the Kardashians," which premiered in 2007, has had several spinoff series in the past – "Kourtney & Khloe Take Miami" (2009-2010), "Khloe & Lamar" (2011-2012), "Kourtney & Kim Take New York" (2011-2012), "Kourtney & Kim Take Miami" (2013), and most recently, "Kourtney & Khloe Take The Hamptons" (2014). There has also been speculation of a rumored spinoff focusing on the employees of Kourtney, Kim and Khloe's DASH clothing store, with the potential titles "Dash Dolls" or "Dash Divas."
WATCH: Kardashians’ $100 Million Deal?
Bruce Jenner is also said to be starring in a rumored upcoming docu-series that will follow his journey as he goes through a reported transition.
Contrary to a report earlier this week that the Kardashian family had secured a $100 million deal with E!, which the network called "grossly inaccurate," Variety is now saying the contract is estimated to be about $20 million for three more seasons of the mothership show. Plus, the stars will reportedly get a $75,000 clothing budget per season.
Season 10 of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" premieres on March 15 on E!
-- Paige Feigenbaum
| Keeping Up with the Kardashians |
Faulty Towers ran for a total of four years, but how many episodes were produced and released? | Popular Kardashian Quizzes & Stories
Secrets ~Alucard X Reader~
102 pages Fan Fiction Romance
(Name) has lost her mother, now she must call a family she's never met. Now she's stuck in the UK version of Keeping Up With The Kardashians just you know with vampires, werewolves, Nazi's, oh and Dracula of all people.
"New Neighbors?" - Keeping Up with Kelsey Jenner
Kelsey's Point of View
My alarm clock goes off and I'm immediately up. I check my phone to make sure I wasn't imagining it and there, in bold letters it read: 'LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!' Finally! I can't wait till summer!
"Last day of school!" Kendall and Kylie sang cheerfully as they barged into my room and jumped onto my king sized bed.
"Finally! Can you guys believe it! I feel like this school year went the longest," I replied just as cheerfully.
"We've been waiting for this day since the third day of school!" Kylie shouts as she threw her arms
Keeping Up with Kelsey Jenner
77 pages Fan Fiction Justin Bieber Romance
Amazing teen-heartthrob, Justin Bieber moves into Calabasas and immediately gets acquainted with the Jenners and Kardashians. With his rocky relationship with the lovely Selena Gomez on the verge and his public image becomes scrutinized by the paparazzi and tabloids, his life couldn't seem any m...
Info:Karmella Kardashian Evans - Keeping Up With Karmella Kardashian Evans(Chris Evans Love Story)
Name:Karmella Rebecca Kardashian
Resides:Los Angeles, California
Height:5'10"
Family:Kristen Mary"Kris"Jenner(née Houghton, formerly Kardashian)(Mother),Robert George Kardashian(Father),Caitlyn Jenner(Born William Bruce"Bruce"Jenner)(former step-parent),Kourtney Mary Kardashian(Older Sister),Kimberly"Kim"Kardashian West(Kimberly Noel Kardashian)(Older Sister),Khloé Kardashian Odom(Khloé Alexandra Kardashian)(Younger Twin Sister),Robert Arthur"Rob"Ka
Keeping Up With Karmella Kardashian Evans(Chris Evans Love Story)
85 pages Completed Romance Fan Fiction
Karmella Rebecca Kardashian or she is know as Karmella Kardashian Evans,Is the 3rd oldest in the kardashian family with having 2 older sisters and 1 younger twin sister and a younger brother,she has two younger hald sisters. Karmella is the wife of actor Chris Evans since 2009.
She so Beautiful - You and me forever
Right now I am at the house with my best buddy and band mate Jesse Valentine. Ann and I broke up about a month ago and to say the least I am kinda over her. To be honest I thought she was the one, I guess not. I was so bored so I asked Jesse to come and have a few drinks with me. We were drinking when Jesse spoke up.
"So man I now your kinda over her, but you got to tell me what happened?"
"Forget it man"
"No way dude, you got to tell me" insisted Jesse
"Fine. while both us were dating she was seeing another guy and when I found out I dumped her. Now I am ready to m
You and me forever
18 pages Romance Fan Fiction
He is Adam Levine, the lead singer of Maroon5 and a coach on The Voice. She is Kassidy Kardashian a Victoria Secret Angel, a Supermodel and member to one of the famous and craziest families. How can two people from different backgrounds and industries come together?
Info:Kaia Kardashian Evans Stan - Keeping Up With Kaia Kardashian (Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan Love Story)
Name:Kaitlynn Dominique Kardashian
New York City, New York, U.S.
Height:5'0"
Family:Kristen Mary"Kris"Jenner(née Houghton, formerly Kardashian)(Mother),Robert George Kardashian(Father),Caitlyn Jenner(Born William Bruce"Bruce"Jenner)(former step-parent),Kourtney Mary Kardashian(Older Sister),Kimberly"Kim"Kardashian West(Kimberly Noel Kardashian)(Older Sister),Khloé Alexandra Kardashian(Younger Sister),Robert Arthur"Rob
Keeping Up With Kaia Kardashian (Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan Love Story)
77 pages Completed Romance Fan Fiction
(this is a Polygamy relationship between m/oc/m,don't like don't read it). Kaia Kardashian or is is know as Kaia Kardashian Evans Stan is the 3rd oldest Kardashian having an two older sisters and having one younger sister and brother,and add two half sisters to that mix. She is part of the f...
Kailah (Ki-Lah) - Stay Strong
"Kai-Kai!" My 3-year old niece, North, runs into my bedroom with the cutest giggle ever. As she struggles to get on my bed, I sit up and scare her by saying boo. She giggles when I lift her up and tickle her on my bed. She slides off and runs into another room before telling me she loved me. I smiled at that and got up, preparing to change into something and go out to lunch with my sisters, Kourtney and Khloe. I choose a white body con dress that accentuates my curves and hips perfectly with nude heels (www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=20248...) and light make up. I grab my tan sunglasses o
Stay Strong
20 pages Fan Fiction
Kailah Kardashian-Jenner, the younger sister of Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Rob and the older sister of Kylie and Kendall. She tries to stay out of the lime light, but with sisters that are constantly in the tabloids and brother in laws causing controversy it's hard to do. But, when she is put in a vu...
I Know What I Am - Light Of The Morning -Drake-
/Mona Binasco\
Life could be so strange. I never really knew what would happen next. Never had a goddamn clue. "Is he alive?!" "N-n-no, baby you're here. No, you're not dead!" My mother's voice was encompassed by my emotions. Her scent lingered though my fourth sense.
I held a picture of her near my heart. What more was there to do on my day off? Definitely not kicking it back with the friends I don't have. Just sulking in self-loathing, and pity for myself. Burying my soul in THC; never wanting the high to wear off. When it does, I'm depressed again.
Light Of The Morning -Drake-
10 pages Fan Fiction Justin Bieber Romance
"Sometimes you just gotta trust," he said. "You can't drink it all away!" It all hit me hard, but I knew the effect wouldn't be very effective when this was over. All I could do was stare into his angelic brown eyes, and hold onto his hand. "Promise not to leave me," ...
1 - A Model Life *Jenner/Kardashian
Perfection. According to Webster's Dictionary, perfection is defined as "The condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects."
Society expects this. Hollywood in particular demands this. My name is Nikki Jenner. I am a nineteen year old model for Victoria's Secret where being perfect without a single flaw is the only thing that lets me keep my job. I have two brothers, Brandon and Brody, and two sisters, Kendall and Kylie. I'm older than Kendall by a year and Kylie by three, but Brandon and Brody are older than me and will forever
A Model Life *Jenner/Kardashian
2 pages Fan Fiction
Nikki Jenner is a Victoria's Secret angel and the sister of the Jenners and Kardashians. She is a 20 year old living on her own always traveling for her job. She's really close with her family but also with the Kardashians however she rarely ever sees them. Nikki receives a surprise vacation...
1 Where the hell have you been?? - On HOLD-You were just [Rob Kardashian]
The night was unusually cold for a night in Hawai’i. I tried snuggling more into my fluffy blanket, but that didn’t help me any. It’s been 4 months since I had a good nights sleep and 4 months since I left my home, family, friends and most importantly HIM. Three years of being in a dream relationship with my dream guy- gone, because of one HUGE bump in the road. It’s been 6 months since I got life changing news and 4 months since that life changing news literally died overnight. I got pregnant at 25 and my then boyfriend claimed he was nowhere near ready for a baby, and insisted I get
On HOLD-You were just [Rob Kardashian]
14 pages Fan Fiction
Raquel "Rocky" Tiara Jean Hernandez got pregnant by her now ex-boyfriend- who was so set against having the baby, he might as well have gotten rid of it himself- got into a crash a big accident losing the baby. She then packs up and heads home telling no one except her best friend, Khloe Kar...
Info:Kat Kardashian - Keeping Up With Kat Kardashian (Ben Barnes Love Story)
Name:Katerina Natasha Kardashian
Birthplace:Los Angeles, California, United States
Resides:Hidden Hills, California, U.S.
Height:5'10"
Family:Kristen Mary"Kris"Jenner(née Houghton, formerly Kardashian)(Mother),Robert George Kardashian(Father),Caitlyn Jenner(Born William Bruce"Bruce"Jenner)(former step-parent),Kourtney Mary Kardashian(Younger Sister),Kimberly"Kim"Kardashian West(Kimberly Noel Kardashian)(Younger Sister),Khloé Alexandra Kardashian(Younger Sister),Robert Arthur"Rob"Kardashian(Yo
Keeping Up With Kayley Kardashian Szmanda (Eric Szmanda Love Story)
36 pages Romance Fan Fiction
Kayley Claire Kardashain or she is know as Kayley Kardashian Szmanda. Is the oldest Kardashian,she havs three younger sisters Kourtney and Kim and Khloe and a younger brother Rob. Her parents are Kris Jenner and the later Robert Kardashian. She is know as playing Lillian"Lilly"Sanders (née ...
What Love Is All About - Deadly Matrimony (Justin Bieber)
The first time that I had met Justin; it was a special one. The type of meeting that you wouldn't expect to have with someone who was famous---and probably forget your face. He was everything I wanted, everything I craved, and everything that I needed in my life at this point.
I was a year older than Justin, but I knew that I loved him from the first time I met him. My name is Jasmine Pennington, and this is the story of how my love was taken for granted by none other than Justin Bieber, an what I was forced to do in order to pay him back for all the hurt he had put me through.
I wasn'
Deadly Matrimony (Justin Bieber)
39 pages Justin Bieber One Direction Horror
When Justins Biebers wife shows up missing and possibly murdered Justin is taken in as a suspect. All the evidence points to him, but he says he is innocent. Did Justin commit cold blooded murder, or is there something much more sinister at play? Did Jazz stage her own death...and if so, will he be ...
Chapter One - The Bradley's [ Harry Styles Fan Fic ]
Lily's POV
"So Lily, anything interesting that we'll be seeing on the show soon?" I moved my brown hair to the side and laughed, nodding before looking up to face Ellen. "Yeah, a lot of interesting things will come up on this upcoming season, I can't wait." After saying my goodbyes to everyone, I got into the car and sighed, inhaling and exhaling. I was exhausted and the fact that there was a charity dinner tonight, made me just want to crawl in a hole and sleep. I groaned as the car pulled up to my parents driveway, looking outside and seeing everyone's cars,
The Bradley's [ Harry Styles Fan Fic ]
4 pages One Direction Romance Fan Fiction
Lillian Bradley or Lily as she likes to go by, comes from a rather large family. She has thirteen siblings, believe it or not, they star in a reality television series named "The Bradley's" following the family and their interesting lives. Who cares about the Kardashians, the Bradley'...
Kilani - If Loving You Is Wrong
My phone wakes me out of a deep sleep and I groan in annoyance. I literally was up all night, working on my new album and first single I was going to release soon. "What?" I answer, showing my annoyance. "Hey! Sorry to disturb you, but you need to Cedars-Sinai, like, now." My Mom spoke up. "What? Why? What's going on?" I ask, quickly jumping up and dressing (www.polyvore.com/untitled_232/set...). "Kim is in labor. We are all headed up there now." Mom spoke to me. We hang up quickly and I get into my dark tinted Cadillac. Paparazzi surrounded my car and I'
If Loving You Is Wrong
6 pages Fan Fiction
Kilani Kardashian is a famous singer known simply as Kilani. She tries to not use her surname as it shadows her true talent. She's never been on Keeping Up with the Kardashians for that simple reason. But what happens when her Mom signs her up to appear on an episode and she is forced to follow ...
My First Video - My First
"Abrakadash! Boom! Ash here! So this is my youtube channel introduction!" I did a pretend drumming motion.
"I'm super excited for the future of this channel. I have tons of inspiration here on youtube and I hope someday I'll be able to meet and collab with them. 5 of my all time favourites have to be, Zoella, of course. Tyler Oakley, duh. Connor Franta, Marcus Butler, and Joey Graceffa. So yea." I smiled widely at the lens.
"I'm excited to see where this takes me and what opportunities I'll be offered. Abrakadash! Boom! Ash out!" I saluted the camera and
My First
13 pages Romance Fan Fiction
One drunk tweet and suddenly, Ash is hanging with Kim Kardashian. But someone else played the part of getting her there. It's a possible whirlwind of love.
| i don't know |
What is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant called? | Batman (military) | Military Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
French orderly during the Napoleonic Wars .
In the French Army the term for batman was ordonnance. Batmen were abolished after World War II . In the sixties there were still "batmen" in the French Army.
Germany
Edit
In the German Army the batman was known as Ordonnanz ("orderly") from the French "ordonnance", or colloquially as Putzer ("cleaner") or as Bursche ("boy" or "valet").
The main character Švejk of the antimilitarist, satirical novel The Good Soldier Švejk by the Czech author J. Hašek is the most famous portrayal of a batman drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War . (The 1967 German song " Ich war der Putzer vom Kaiser " is actually based on the British instrumental hit " I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman " of the same year, with original German lyrics.) [1] [2]
India
Edit
The old British term "orderly" continued into the post-independence Indian Army . It has now, however, been replaced with the Hindi word sahayak, which translates as "assistant" or "helper". There have been suggestions to do away with the practice, as the Indian Navy and Indian Air Force already have. [3]
Italy
In the Italian Army the term for batman was attendente, from the Italian verb attendere (same meaning of the English verb to attend). Attendenti were eventually abolished in 1971.
Pakistan
The term Batman, introduced by the British, is still used in the Pakistan Army. Senior officers are provided with batmen, considered general household help.
Russia and the Soviet Union
Edit
The Imperial Russian Army used the term denshchik (Russian: Денщик) for a batman. In the Russian Empire higher-ranking cavalry officers often chose Cossacks for these roles as they could be reasonably depended on to survive combat , and were also known for resourcefulness on campaign . However, they were hired help, and had to be provided with a horse also. The lower-ranking officers from serf-owning families brought a servant from home they were familiar with, particularly the infantry and artillery officers that did not require additional protection in combat, and tended to leave the servants with the unit baggage train . After abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire (1861), many officers went on campaign without servants.
Although the positions were abolished in the post-Revolutionary Soviet Union, the recognition that higher-ranking officers required assistance soon fostered an unofficial reintroduction of the role through secondment of an NCO to the officer's staff, usually also as the driver, which also at one stage became their unofficial role and title as many officers often "lived" out of their vehicles. The term was borrowed from the French, but adopted to Russian pronunciation as ordinarets (Russian: Ординарец).
Several ordirnartsy of the marshals and generals commanding Fronts and armies during the Second World War wrote memoirs about their service. For example Zhukov 's "driver" was a semi-professional racing car driver Aleksandr Nikolaevich Buchin who met Zhukov by accident literally on the first day of the war when Zhukov's previous elderly driver failed to get the vehicle he was in out of the rut. Buchin drove Zhukov throughout the war and although he begun the war as a private, he ended the war in the rank of a captain. Buchin wrote his memoirs called One hundred and seventy thousand kilometres with Zhukov, at the suggestion of the marshal in the 1970s.
Turkey
The term "posta" is informally used to apply to a soldier that attends an officer.
United Kingdom
Edit
The official term used by the British Army in the First World War was Soldier-Servant. Every officer was assigned a servant, usually chosen by himself from among his men. The term batman replaced this in the inter-war years. By the Second World War, only senior officers of the Army and Royal Air Force were officially assigned their own batmen, with junior officers usually having the services of one batman between several officers. Batwomen also served in the women's services.
Batman was usually seen as a desirable position. The soldier was exempted from more onerous duties and often got better rations and other favours from his officer. Senior officers' batmen usually received fast promotion to lance-corporal rank, with many becoming corporals and even sergeants . The position was generally phased out after the war. Officers of the Household Division still have orderlies.[ citation needed ]
In the Royal Navy the stewards performed many of the duties of batmen in the other services. Aboard ship, only captains and admirals were assigned personal stewards, with the other officers being served by a pool of officers' stewards. Most vessels carried at least two stewards, with larger vessels carrying considerably more.
The term "orderly" was often used instead of "batman" in the colonial forces , especially in the British Indian Army . The orderly was frequently a civilian instead of a soldier.
In the British Armed Forces , the term "batman" or "batwoman" was formerly also applied to a civilian who cleaned officers' messes or married quarters. In the Royal Air Force, free married quarters cleaning services were phased out for all officers except Squadron Leaders or above in command appointments as of 1 April 1972.
One famous example of officer and batman during the Second World War was British actor David Niven and fellow actor Peter Ustinov . [4] Niven and Ustinov were working on the film The Way Ahead , as actor and writer respectively, but the difference in their ranks - Niven was a Lieutenant-Colonel and Ustinov a private - made their regular association militarily impossible; to solve the problem, Ustinov was appointed as Niven's batman.
In 1967, the pseudonymous Whistling Jack Smith (actually a session vocalist) recorded an all-whistling number called " I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman ", which went Top 5 in the UK. Despite a title that baffled most Americans (who no doubt were thinking of the other Batman ), the tune hit #20 on the Billboard charts. [5]
In the musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , Caractacus Potts 's father was Lord Scrumptious's batman.
In the television series Downton Abbey , Lord Grantham's valet, Mr Bates, was his batman in the Boer War ; it also appears that William Mason was assigned to be Matthew Crawley's batman in the First World War.
United States
Edit
In the United States Army the term "dog robber" (from the peacetime occupation of the title character of The Good Soldier Švejk , a fictional batman) was unofficially used, although that could also be applied to a junior officer who acted as a gofer to somebody with high rank. The position was made famous by James Garner in the movie The Americanization of Emily .
Aides are available to support some of the needs of general officers who serve in command positions in the rank of Brigadier General and above, and their equivalent naval ranks . These aides "perform tasks and details that, if performed by general or flag officers, would be at the expense of the officer’s primary military and official duties." [7] However, their assistance is restricted to only those tasks which are directly related to an officer's official duties. According to the policy, "No officer may use an enlisted member as a servant for duties that contribute only to the officer's personal benefit and that have no reasonable connection with the officer's official responsibilities. [8]
Fiction
In the novel " Cold Days " by author Jim Butcher the lead character, Harry Dresden is assigned a Batman, and initially both Harry and Cat Sith are very unhappy with this assignment.
See also
| Batman |
According to the poet Dante, for whom were the tortures of the sixth Circle of Hell reserved? | Valet Diving :: A Unique Belize Diving Experience - The Island Life - Belize - St.George's Caye Resort - Belize - St.George's Caye Resort - Belize
Valet Diving :: A Unique Belize Diving Experience
Thursday, 24 July 2014
What exactly does Valet Diving mean, you might be wondering.
At St. George's Caye Resort we pride ourselves on having one of the BEST dive teams in Belize, and perhaps even the world. Not only is the team experienced (over 7000 dives) but they are kind and helpful. If you have dove with us in the past you surely know either Freddy or Jose, our two main dive instructors, and the amazing finesse they demonstrate in their craft.
Freddy and Jose introduced us to what we now call "Valet Diving". Valet, by the way, is a French word referring to a man's personal servant.** Now while Freddy and Jose cannot be your personal servants for your entire stay at St. George's, they will be your personal dive assistants for your entire stay! Our dedicated dive team will rinse, carry to and from the boat, and safely store all of your gear. Every morning each diver's gear will be organized, clean and on the boat ready to go. All YOU need to do is show up ready to get wet! It is that easy. Clean your own mask, or have it done for you. Need fresh water on board to rinse your camera equipment? No problem! And underneath your seat on the boat will be a plastic tub for your shoes, sunglasses, phones or whatever small things you brought along. No more looking through each other's stuff wondering where your sunglasses ran off to or why you only have one shoe. You will also find plenty of water to hydrate and, my personal favorite, cookies and fruit for a light snack between and after dives.
Traveling to Lighthouse Reef or Blue Hole? Our Valet Dive Team also coordinates with our kitchen staff to prepare and bring along breakfast and lunch! Special drink requests while on your dive trip? Simply let the team know what you want.
How can we provide such a high level of quality service to our divers? You might ask. This too is simple. We cater to divers, on average 6 per dive, and dive groups of no more than about 25. Keeping the numbers small ensures quality of care for you, your dive equipment, and your dive experience.
**{SIDE NOTE: Did you know a "batman" is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant?}
___________________________________________________________________________
Do you have a dive experience you would like to share with us? We are looking to feature dive stories on our website and would love your input!
You can contact us on FACEBOOK , comment on this post, or you can email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
.
| i don't know |
What is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet? | Greek alphabet - definition of Greek alphabet by The Free Dictionary
Greek alphabet - definition of Greek alphabet by The Free Dictionary
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Greek+alphabet
Also found in: Thesaurus , Medical , Wikipedia .
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Greek alphabet - the alphabet used by ancient Greeks
alphabet - a character set that includes letters and is used to write a language
alpha - the 1st letter of the Greek alphabet
beta - the 2nd letter of the Greek alphabet
gamma - the 3rd letter of the Greek alphabet
delta - the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet
epsilon - the 5th letter of the Greek alphabet
zeta - the 6th letter of the Greek alphabet
eta - the 7th letter of the Greek alphabet
theta - the 8th letter of the Greek alphabet
iota - the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet
kappa - the 10th letter of the Greek alphabet
lambda - the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet
mu - the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet
nu - the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet
xi - the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet
omicron - the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet
pi - the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet
rho - the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet
sigma - the 18th letter of the Greek alphabet
tau - the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet
upsilon - the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet
phi - the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet
khi , chi - the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet
psi - the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet
omega - the last (24th) letter of the Greek alphabet
Translations
| Zeta |
What is the sixth planet in our Solar System? | Greek alphabet sixth letter
Greek alphabet sixth letter
Greek outline. Printable greek alphabet for coloring. Lower-case letter Zeta."Omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet. And the Greeks took up the letters from. Another meaning of Zeta is "The sixth letter of the alphabet". Its origin is "Greek". This reminds me of singing the greek alphabet in sixth grade. Save Learn more at tattoostime.com ·. Below are possible answers for the crossword clue Sixth Greek letter. ZETA. the 6th letter of the G. Learn Greek letter by letter with this easy introduction and handy chart listing all the letters of. Sep 2, 2013 . The Greek letters are not only handy in word games and puzzles, but also very usefu. The sixth letter of the modern Greek alphabet (Ζ (Z), ζ (z)) preceded by epsilon (Ε (E), ε.. The sixth letter of the modern Greek alphabet (Ζ (Z), ζ (z)) preceded by epsilon (Ε (E), ε. Greek outline. Printable greek alphabet for coloring. Lower-case letter Zeta."Omega" is the last letter in the Greek alphabet. And the Greeks took up the letters from. Another meaning of Zeta is "The sixth letter of the alphabet". Its origin is "Greek". This reminds me of singing the greek alphabet in sixth grade. Save Learn more at tattoostime.com ·. Below are possible answers for the crossword clue Sixth Greek letter. ZETA. the 6th letter of the G. Learn Greek letter by letter with this easy introduction and handy chart listing all the letters of. Sep 2, 2013 . The Greek letters are not only handy in word games and puzzles, but also very usefu..
The Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Chart shows: 1) the 22 Ancient Hebrew picture-letters (pictographs). 2) the following aspects of each pictograph, its: written desc. Z definition, the 26th letter of the English alphabet, a consonant. See more. The Greek alphabet contains 24 letters. A major contribution of Greek culture was the addition of vowels to the development of our alphabet. Greek is written from. Welcome to Wycombe Abbey. At Wycombe Abbey learning and living together are fundamental to our community life. Digamma, waw, or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: �, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound /w/ but it has. Phoenician Alphabet, Mother of Modern Writing. According to the Egyptians language is attributed to Taautos who was the father of tautology or imitation. Here is an explanation of a change in the ancient Latin alphabet from the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet (Hebrew: �ָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, Alefbet Ivri), known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script and block script. The Y is the twenty-sixth letter of the Spanish alphabet. It comes from the Greek letter upsilon (υ). In Spanish it is called i griega. Meaning letter Y. The Greek alphabet is about 2,700 years old. Nevertheless, there are many letters in the ancient Greek alphabet that you and your students will immediately recognize.. Digamma, waw, or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: �, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound /w/ but it has. The Y is the twenty-sixth letter of the Spanish alphabet. It comes from the Greek letter upsilon (υ). In Spanish it is called i griega. Meaning letter Y. The Greek alphabet is about 2,700 years old. Nevertheless, there are many letters in the ancient Greek alphabet that you and your students will immediately recognize. Here is an explanation of a change in the ancient Latin alphabet from the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet (Hebrew: �ָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, Alefbet Ivri), known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script and block script. Z definition, the 26th letter of the English alphabet, a consonant. See more. The Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Chart shows: 1) the 22 Ancient Hebrew picture-letters (pictographs). 2) the following aspects of each pictograph, its: written desc. Phoenician Alphabet, Mother of Modern Writing. According to the Egyptians language is attributed to Taautos who was the father of tautology or imitation. The Greek alphabet contains 24 letters. A major contribution of Greek culture was the addition of vowels to the development of our alphabet. Greek is written from. Welcome to Wycombe Abbey. At Wycombe Abbey learning and living together are fundamental to our community life..
| i don't know |
What is the name of the visit attraction in Bodelva, Cornwall, where biodomes house plants from around the world? | The biodomes - Picture of Eden Project, Bodelva - TripAdvisor
Want the lowest hotel prices? You're in the right place. We check 200+ sites for you.
The biodomes - Picture of Eden Project, Bodelva
Recommended length of visit: More than 3 hours
Description:
Trek through the world's largest indoor rainforest, take in the sights...
read more
Trek through the world's largest indoor rainforest, take in the sights and smells of our Mediterranean Biome, and explore our huge outdoor gardens. At the Eden Project you'll discover the fascinating relationships between plants and people. You'll also find a full calendar of family events throughout the year and music festivals in the summer. As an educational charity we run transformational social and environmental projects locally and internationally.
Other Recent Reviews
| Eden Project |
What was the name for the Zimbabwean Capital 'Harare' before 1982? | Cornwall Local Attractions | Hannafore Point Hotel Looe
Local Attractions
Antony House & Gardens
Antony Estate, Torpoint, Cornwall PL11 2QA 01752 812191Faced in silver-grey Pentewan stone and flanked by colonnaded wings of mellow brick, this classically beautiful house is a beguiling mixture of the formal and informal. Still the home of the Carew Pole family, it contains fine collections of paintings, furniture and textiles. The grounds bordering the Lynher estuary, landscaped by Repton, include a formal garden with topiary, a knot garden, modern sculptures and the National Collection of Daylilies. The Woodland Garden, owned and run by the Carew Pole Garden Trust, has outstanding rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and camellias. Antony was used as the film set for Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton.
Bodmin & Wenford Railway General Station
Bodmin, Cornwall, PL31 1AQ 01208 73555, our headquarters and principal station, beautifully restored to reflect the 1950s, centrally situated - short walk to the town centre. Historic Cornish town, featuring the Shire Hall, Town Museum, Jail and nearby DCLI Military Museum – see www.bodmin.gov.uk, Free car park. Souvenir Shop and Refreshment Room (open on all train operating days), Exhibition Coach, featuring displays, artefacts etc about the railway and its history, Picnic area. Workshop viewing area, with locomotives and rolling stock on display (occasionally closed for Health & Safety reasons)
Carnglaze Caverns & The Rum Store
St Neot, Liskeard, Cornwall, Pl14 6HQ, 01579 320251. Open All Year for self-guided tours underground, 3 Gigantic Caverns with stunning, Subterranean Lake, 6.5 Acres of Ancient Woodland with an exceptional walk. An Enchanted Dell starts a children's Counting Game, Concerts Underground ~ classical to Rock, Weddings in 4 locations.
Charlestown Shipwreck Centre & Heritage Centre
Quay Road, Charlestown, St Austell, Cornwall .PL25 3NJ 01726 69897. The many and varied exhibitions reflect village life in Charlestown, it's history, shipwrecks and the once thriving China Clay industry. The exhibition shows a tremendous range of maritime history dating back to 1715 and one of the largest underwater diving equipment collections in the country, including various suits used for treasure seeking and naval purposes.
Cotehele House & Gardens
St Dominnick, Saltash, Cornwall, PL12 6TA 01579 351346. A Tudor house with many stories and legends, festooned with tapestries and adorned with textiles, arms and armour, pewter, brass and old oak furniture; a magical experience as little has changed over the years. Outside, explore the formally planted terraces, or lose yourself in the Valley Garden, which includes a medieval stewpond and dovecote. Seek tranquillity in the Upper Garden or visit the two orchards planted with local apples and cherries. Cotehele Quay is the home of the restored Tamar sailing barge 'Shamrock' and gateway to a wider estate. The Discovery Centre tells the story of the Tamar Valley.
Cotehele Mill
St Dominnick, Saltash, Cornwall, PL12 6TA 01579 351346. Cotehele Mill is a working mill with an atmospheric reminder of the recent past when corn was ground here for the local community. A range of outbuildings includes workshops for a traditional furniture-maker and a potter. There are also displays of other traditional crafts such as blacksmith, saddler and wheelwright. The mill can be seen grinding grain on Tuesdays and Thursdays and daily tours are offered every day at 3pm.Jump on the shuttle bus to Cotehele House and Quay.
Cornwalls Crealy Great Adventure Park
Tredinnick, St Issey, Nr Wadebridge, Cornwall, PL27 7RA 01841 540276 Special events at Crealy Great Adventure Park really are just that – totally Special! We have a wide range of special events that run throughout the year that make our Park the place to be for the best family day out in the Southwest! We make your entrance fee go further on special event days too. Look out for our character events where your usual entrance fee includes the chance to meet or watch your favorite TV character in the Park!
Eden Project
Bodelva, St Austell, Cornwall, PL24 2SG 01726 811911. The Eden Project does much more than offer a memorable day out in Cornwall. Eden is also a charity and social enterprise. As well as creating stunning gardens and laying on fantastic arts and music events, much of our energy goes into: running transformational social and environmental projects on our doorstep and around the world creating unforgettable learning experiences for students doing valuable research into plants and conservation making sure we run our operations in the greenest possible way.
Kartworld
Menheniot, Liskeard, Cornwall PL14 3PJ 01579 347229 Huge 800m track. Plenty of opportunities for overtaking, long fast straight sections. Race up to 40mph, exceptional safety record & take home a print out of all your lap times!
Kidzworld Indoor Play
Stadium Retail Park, Par, Moor Road, St Austell, Cornwall PL25 3LP 01726 815553. Welcome to Cornwall's award winning play centre. Providing over 54,000 sq ft of family fun, Kidzworld has plenty for everyone, which includes adults too, and with the majority of our areas undercover, a visit here is a great day out, come rain or shine. All the activities are included in the admission price and you can stay as long as you like. Now there is even more to do at Kidzworld following the introduction of Skytrail*, standing 12 metres high, Skytrail is not for the fainthearted! Secured at all times by safety harnesses, all the climbers are totally safe. The climbing frame consisting of more than 20 obstacles is a test for all ages.
Lanhydrock House & Gardens
Bodmin, Cornwall, PL30 5AD 01208 265950 Lanhydrock is essentially a very grand Victorian house that evolved from much earlier beginnings around 1650. The name Lanhydrock comes from St Hydroc, believed to have been an Irish missionary to Cornwall. The estate was owned by the Priory of St Petroc in Bodmin until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530's by King Henry VIII. After a number of owners, it was purchased by Sir Richard Robartes, a powerful local merchant, the son of a very successful Cornish moneylender, in 1620. Sir Robert and his son John, completed the construction of a new house on the site, a traditional four-sided house around a central courtyard.
Lost Gardens of Heligan
Pentewan, St Austell, Cornwall, PL26 6EN 01726 845100 At the end of the nineteenth century its thousand acres were at their zenith, but only a few years’ later bramble and ivy were already drawing a green veil over this “Sleeping Beauty”. After decades of neglect, the devastating hurricane of 1990 should have consigned the Lost Gardens of Heligan to a footnote in history. Instead, events conspired to bring us here and the romance of their decay took a hold on our imaginations. Our discovery of a tiny room, buried under fallen masonry in the corner of one of the walled gardens, was to unlock the secret of their demise. A motto etched into the limestone walls in barely legible pencil still reads “Don’t come here to sleep or slumber” with the names of those who worked there signed under the date – August 1914. We were fired by a magnificent obsession to bring these once glorious gardens back to life in every sense and to tell, for the first time, not tales of lords and ladies but of those “ordinary” people who had made these gardens great, before departing for the Great War.
Monkey Sanctuary
Murrayton House, St Martin, Looe, Cornwall PL13 1NZ 01503 262532. The Monkey Sanctuary is home to 36 individuals; each one with their distinct characters and personalities. As we are an active rescue centre dealing with individuals that have often not had a very happy start to life, the needs of the monkeys always take priority. As a result of this, some areas of the rescue centre are not accessible by our visitors so as to give the monkeys the time they need to recover and progress physically, emotionally and socially. Of course you will have the opportunity to meet some of our residents on your visit to us and we have experienced keepers on hand all day to explain all there is to know about these beautiful and fascinating animals and the work that goes into caring for them on a daily basis.
Morwellham Quay and Tamar Valley Trust
Tavistock, Devon, PL19 8JL. 01822 832766. Morwellham Quay is an award-winning World Heritage site, featuring hitoric port, copper mine, working Victorian farm, railway, heavy horses and museums of costume and mining. Just four miles west of Tavistock and bordering the beautiful River Tamar, amidst towering cliffs and gently rolling farmland, discover this lost world with the help of our Living History team.For many, a highlight of the visit is the narrow-gauge Mine Railway. Travel by train along the banks of the River Tamar before venturing deep underground in the George & Charlotte copper mine. Here, in their real abandoned workplaces, displays illustrate the harsh working conditions of Victorian miners and our train drivers offer an expert commentary on the technical aspects of hard rock mining.
Mount Edgcumbe House and Gardens
Cremyll, Torpoint, Cornwall, PL10 1HZ 01752 822236. Mount Edgcumbe House was first built in the 1500s and was restored after World War Two. It is jointly owned by Cornwall Council and Plymouth City Council and is one of the regions most popular historic tourist destinations.
National Marine Aquarium
Rope Walk, Coxside, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 0LF 0844 8937938. For a fun family day out in Plymouth with a splash of learning, visit one of the finest Devon attractions - perfect in all weathers. New for 2011 - Eddystone and Saving Seahorses.
Old Guildhall Museum & Gaol
Higher Market Strret, East Looe, Cornwall, PL13 1AA 01503 263709. The collection charts the Heritage and Development of Looe as an important port servicing both fishing and mining industry. Also the transformation of the town into a major tourist centre. One of our most popular displays is that of Looe Island. Recently featured on Time Team, the island Chapel site, combined with a nearby mainland monastic site excites a lot of interest. The subsequent history of the Island from smugglers to the Atkins sisters is well documented.
Polperro Model Village
The Old Forge, Mill Hill, Polperro, Cornwall, PL13 2RP. 01506 272378. Come and meet Merlin the Lizard, see the model railway and model village.
Porfell Wildlife Park & Sanctuary
Trecangate, Near Lanreath, Liskeard, Cornwall, PL14 4RE 01503 2202211. Porfell Wildlife Park is a wild family attraction only a few miles from Looe in South East Cornwall. It offers sanctuary to more than 250 animals from around the world. They might be neglected, injured, imported illegally or simply no longer wanted. For whatever reason they come to us, they’re always welcome.
Tamar Valley Donkey Park
St Annes Chapel, Gunnislake, Cornwall. PL18 9HW 01822 834072. Come and meet the donkeys and other animals also let the children play in the indoor area.
Wingz Bird & Animal Sanctuary
Moorlands Farm, Treesmill, Par, Cornwall, PL24 2TX 01726 825222. Wingz can be found nestled in rural Treesmill which is situated between Tywardreath and Penpillick hill. Brown signs can be followed from the A390 just outside St Blazey, a friendly welcome awaits you at Wingz by owners Grenville & Anita.Wingz Bird and Animal Sanctuary was the brain child of Grenville Allen built using his own private collection of birds and animals. With the help of his wife Anita and Son Kian who was born in 2006 and brought up on the building site of Wingz they acheived a zoo licence.
The Zip Adrenalin Quarry
Lower Clicker Road, Menheniot, Near Liskeard, Cornwall, PL14 3PJ. 01579 308204. Experience the UK's Biggest Zip Wire at Adrenalin Quarry in Cornwall. The Zip is 490m long, 50m high and reaches speeds of 40mph over a disused quarry near Liskeard. It takes a leap of faith to go over the edge on The Zip. But once you do you will experience a rush of adrenalin unrivalled in this country. You will fly high above the lake-filled quarry as sheer cliffs flash past. This is the closest you get to the freedom of flying while attached to a wire. There are two Zips side-by-side, so you can fly with a friend, challenge Dad or race your mates all the way down.
| i don't know |
What was the surname of the lead character in the 'Dirty Harry' series of movies? | Dirty Harry (film series) | DirtyHarry Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
Dirty Harry (film series)
Share
Dirty Harry is the name of a series of films and novels starring fictional San Francisco Police Department Homicide Division Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan , portrayed by Clint Eastwood . Eastwood's character also helped popularize the .44 Magnum , as Harry Callahan is famously shown wielding his Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver. The film series spanned 17 years.
Contents
Main article: Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry ( 1971 ), directed by Don Siegel . In this film Harry tracks serial killer Scorpio. Eastwood's iconic portrayal of the blunt-speaking, unorthodox detective set the style for a number of his subsequent roles, and the box-office success of the film led to the production of four equally successful sequels . The "alienated cop" motif was one subsequently imitated by a number of other films. This film features Eastwood intoning, "You've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" (The line is often misquoted as "Do you feel lucky, punk?")
This movie became iconic, mirrored by other movies, especially the rest of the Dirty Harry films, because it was a portrayal of social protests, pointing out that it was easier for the justice system to protect potential suspects ahead of enforcing the rights of victims while ignoring citizens who were in danger or who had been murdered. It was the sixth-highest grossing film of 1971 after Fiddler on the Roof , Billy Jack , The French Connection , Summer of '42 , and Diamonds Are Forever .
Magnum Force (1973)
Main article: Magnum Force
Magnum Force ( 1973 ), directed by Ted Post . The main theme of this film is vigilante justice , and the plot revolves around a group of renegade traffic cops who are executing criminals who have avoided conviction in court. Despite Harry's penchant for strong-arm methods, he does not tolerate coldblooded murder of the accused and resolves to stop the killers. In this film Harry's catch-phrase is "A man's got to know his limitations."
The Enforcer (1976)
Main article: The Enforcer (1976 film)
The Enforcer ( 1976 ), directed by James Fargo . In this film, Harry is teamed up with an inexperienced female partner Kate Moore ( Tyne Daly ), and takes on a terrorist ring calling themselves The People's Revolutionary Strike Force . The film contains feminist themes and is generally considered more " politically correct " than its predecessor Template:Citation needed . Harry opposes introducing inexperienced inspectors to the dangers of police work, whether male or female, and sees the homicide department as too dangerous for his new partner, who worked until recently in Records. He has nothing against female police officers; he simply feels that Moore is too green. However, "by the book" Inspector Moore, though starting out overenthusiastic, proves herself valuable, and matures quickly, earning Harry's respect in the process.
Sudden Impact (1983)
Main article: Sudden Impact
Sudden Impact ( 1983 ), directed by Clint Eastwood . The film's plot revolves around an aging, but still bitter "Dirty" Harry Callahan being sent to a small town to follow up a lead in a murder case, which leads him directly to a rape victim who is out to avenge herself and her catatonic sister by killing the people who sexually assaulted them. It is best known for the phrase "Go ahead, make my day," which is often incorrectly attributed to the first film.
The Dead Pool (1988)
Main article: The Dead Pool
The Dead Pool ( 1988 ), directed by Buddy Van Horn . In the final film of the series, Harry finds out about a game called Dead Pool, in which people bet on which celebrity will die next. Eventually, someone tries to rig the game by killing certain celebrities. The film was not a commercial success, and it remains the final entry in the series due to Eastwood's refusal to reprise the character, feeling his age would make Harry a parody.
Dirty Harry inspired films
Edit
Frank Miller , creator of the Sin City graphic novels , revealed in an interview that he created the Sin City story That Yellow Bastard out of his dislike of The Dead Pool. Miller said: "When I went to see the last Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool, I was disgusted. I went out and said, this is not a Dirty Harry movie, this is nothing, this is a pale sequel." and I also said, "that's not the last Dirty Harry story, I will show you the last Dirty Harry story." [1]
Bruce Willis played Hartigan, the Dirty Harry of the story, when That Yellow Bastard was included in the film version of Sin City released in 2005. Another character in That Yellow Bastard is Nancy , who had no surname in the four previous comic books, but in That Yellow Bastard she is given the surname Callahan. Hartigan's character is more of a pastiche or caricature with Miller's own elements of characterization and development.
The Protector
Main article: The Protector (1985 film)
This 1985 film featuring Jackie Chan , was Chan's second American movie. It is similar to the Dirty Harry series and the director, James Glickenhaus had tried to make Chan's character as similar to Dirty Harry as possible. It ended up being a commercial failure, and Chan largely regretted ever making this film.
The Rookie
The film, also directed by Eastwood, stars Clint Eastwood as Nick Pulovski, an aging, tough cop who partners with a younger cop, played by Charlie Sheen . Reviewers noted the similarities between Eastwood's characters Callahan and Pulovski. [2]
Dirty Harry DVDs and Blu-ray
Edit
Warner Home Video owns rights to the Dirty Harry series. The five films have been remastered for DVD three times — in 1998, 2001 and 2008. They have been packaged in several DVD box sets. The Dirty Harry films made their high-definition debuts with the 2008 Blu-ray discs. Warner's marketing plan calls for only the "Dirty Harry" film to be available as a separate Blu-ray, requiring fans who want the other four movies in high definition to buy the $130 box set. [3]
Dirty Harry video games
The War Against Drugs (1990), a video game based on Dirty Harry film series. Although it is non-canon to the Dirty Harry film series and novels, it incorporates several references to the film series.
Dirty Harry novel series
Edit
In the early 1980s, writer Dane Hartman wrote a total of twelve novels that further the adventures of Dirty Harry. Although they are not officially canon , it's speculated that the novels fill in the seven-year gap in time between The Enforcer to Sudden Impact . In the novels, Dirty Harry is portrayed more as an epic hero than he was in the films, although he remains somewhat of the self-centered person he was in the movies.
Duel for Cannons
Edit
"Dirty Harry" Callahan blasts his way from the mean streets of San Francisco to the blazing byways of San Antonio . His target — a crime boss who's got the whole town, including the cops, under his thumb. Harry's all alone now, with nothing but a .44 Magnum and a bagful of dirty tricks between him and instant death! (Published September 1981)
Death on the Docks
Edit
There are some guys in this world even dirtier than Harry Callahan — like union czar Matt Braxton, the biggest deal on the docks. He's corrupt enough to be cozy with the Mob, rich enough to afford friends in the highest places, and ruthless enough to kill anything that stands in his way. Dirty Harry's standing there all right, and he doesn't intend to give an inch. (Published September 1982)
The Long Death
Edit
Someone is grabbing young women from the bars, campuses, and streets of San Francisco and doing unspeakable things to their minds and bodies. Someone is setting up cops against black nationalists in a violent inter-city war, playing both sides for bloody fools. Someone is looking for deadly trouble when a gorgeous policewoman baits "Dirty Harry" Callahan into a showdown that can only be settled with bare fists and Magnum lead! (Published December 1981)
The Mexico Kill
Edit
Not even losing his badge can keep "Dirty Harry" Callahan away from Magnum-powered action. Now Harry's working for a millionaire, and battling dope-running sea pirates from San Francisco to Mexico's heroin-packed shores. Behind the scenes and the big guns is his old enemy Father Nick. An underworld kingpin and ex-con, Nick can't let the past die, and Harry won't let the mobsters live! (Published March 1982)
Family Skeletons
Edit
"Dirty Harry" Callahan stalks a mass murderer through Boston's infamous underworld where crooked cops are usually looking the other way. Once it was the Boston Strangler, now the killer has a knife and is carving up college girls. Dirty Harry will slice through the slime to find him. (Published April 1982)
City of Blood
Edit
Winos brutally slain on San Francisco's skid row. Beautiful young women butchered in the act of sex by a perverted killer. The acts of two men, or one? Not even Dirty Harry knows. But he's going to find out, if he has to break every law to do it. From `Frisco's sexual underground to the boardrooms in the city's sky, Harry plunges into a blood-streaked manhunt that will leave only one survivor. (Published April 1982)
Massacre at Russian River
Edit
A lot of grass — the illegal kind — grows in the hills of Northern California . Where there's marijuana, there's money. Where there's money, there's murder. And where there's murder, there's Dirty Harry. In a wilderness where even the local cops are criminal, Harry must live, and kill, by a law higher than the law of the land — his own. (Published July 1982)
Hatchet Men
Edit
From the hills of San Francisco to the towers of Chicago , a savage struggle for power rages between the Japanese and Chinese mobsters, expert killers with hand, sword, or gun. Then they kidnap Harry Callahan's beautiful, part-time lover. Enter the dragon, Dirty Harry, Magnum blazing! (Published August 1982)
The Killing Connection
Edit
Anything goes in San Francisco, but now it's gone too far! Somebody is carving up beautiful lesbians — and that somebody has the right friends. Only Harry can stop the slaughter, but now both the gays and the cops stand in his way. Will he have time? The answer is at the end of a barrel — a .44 Magnum barrel! (Published October 1982)
Blood of Strangers
Edit
Terrorists! Airports and public places are their stage. Civilians are their targets. The spread of chaos is their game. Now Dirty Harry wants to play — for keeps. On battlefields from Frisco to Beirut to El Salvador , in the company of a beautiful television newswoman, he leaves a trail of hot blood and bullets as he searches beyond the Libyan connection for the source of this savagery. Dirty Harry, breaking every law to get the criminals, making his law to fit the crime. (Published December 1982)
Death in the Air
Edit
The Magnum-powered action doesn't stop for Dirty Harry, not even on Christmas Eve . Now Harry's after a killer who celebrates the holiday season by shoving women beneath the wheels of speeding subway trains. But when he unmasks the killer as a hit-man for a renegade government scientist, Harry himself is marked for death. With the most powerful handgun ever made in his hands, Harry must blow that scientist to kingdom come or never live to see the New Year himself. (Published February 1983)
The Dealer of Death
Edit
That's what the papers are calling Dirty Harry. Someone who's no friend of Harry has stolen his prize Magnum revolver and is blasting some of his worst enemies out of this world. Harry wants to get his name clean, his gun back, and put an end to the "dead man" who's playing Harry's hand in a game of life and death. (Published April 1983)
This would be the last Dirty Harry novel, as no further novels were made after Sudden Impact opened in theaters eight months later.
| Harry Callahan |
What is the name of the home ground of Queen of the South Football Club in Dumfries, Scotland? | The Jason Callahan Band · 2017 Tour Dates and Concert Tickets
A move in Ultimate Frisbee named after Henry Callahan.
Fictional characters
Father Callahan, in Stephen King novels
Harry Callahan (character), in Dirty Harry movies
Mike Callahan, of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon in the novel series
Nancy Callahan, from the Sin City graphic novel series
Thomas R. "Tommy" Callahan III in film Tommy Boy
Veronica Callahan in Mercy (TV series)
Professor Callahan, in the movie Legally Blonde
Peggy Callahan in the TV series The Bionic Woman
See also
| i don't know |
What is the name of the clerical detective created by G.K. Chesterton? | The Mystery of the Clerical Detective
The Mystery of the Clerical Detective
It�s no mystery why priests and religious are natural choices to be the protagonists of mystery fiction.
What is a mystery, after all, but the story of a confrontation between good and evil, an attempt to restore justice to creation, and to shed light into the darkness? This is what ministry is about, as well, so calling the ordained or vowed forces of good to the scene of a crime makes perfect literary sense.
When we consider the question of clerics and mysteries, the first figure most of us think of is G.K. Chesterton�s Father Brown. The first Father Brown story was published in 1910 in the Saturday Evening Post, years before
Chesterton had even converted to Roman Catholicism. Forty-eight Father Brown stories were published before Chesterton�s death, and for many, the unassuming Catholic priest, who solved mysteries through close observation and intuition, remains the model clerical detective, unmatched by any subsequent efforts by other authors.
Not that these authors haven�t tried. Their success depends on the same factors by which we judge any piece of fiction in general and mystery fiction in particular: is the writing evocative or flat and cliched? Are the characters three-dimensional, or are they just types who do little but lie flat on the page? Do the situations in the narrative arise organically and naturally, or are they obvious constructs?
And what does the religious identity of the detective add to the story? Is it relevant to the tale, or is it merely a gimmick in a narrative that could it have just as well have been told with a gas station attendant searching for clues instead?
Let�s see how this works: Kate Gallison has penned a series featuring an female Episcopal priest named Mother Lavinia Grey. In Grave Misgivings ,
Mother Grey must figure out why the grave of a young woman�s grandfather isn�t where it�s supposed to be, and then who could have murdered an old enemy of the same grandfather. The plot isn�t much to begin with, and it�s not helped by simplistic writing or enhanced by the fact that the sleuth at hand is a priest. There�s nothing distinctively spiritual about her perspective, her job doesn�t impact the case at all, nor does she bring any particular moral weight to the resolution.
Just a little better, which means still not very good, is the series featuring Sister Mary Helen, written by a real religious sister, Carol Ann O'Marie. I read Death of an Angel , in which the intrepid older Sister Mary Helen solves the mystery of a local murder-rapist, and tries to help a sad young woman with
problems of her own. Granted, here the protagonist acts out of her vocation - she's compassionate, and one of the victims of the murderer was an acquaintance of hers. But the mystery itself is amazingly clumsy, and the characters are flatter than my floor. Not exactly a good read.
Jesuit priest and novelist Fr. Brad Reynolds is worlds beyond either Gallison�s or O'Marie's attempts in at least one of the volumes of his series featuring Father Mark Townsend, solving mysteries up in Washington state. Cruel Sanctuary is a surprisingly gripping book, rich with detail, psychological truth , a plot in which events are consistent and reasonable, rather than randomly picked from the Red Herring Basket, and a protagonist
whose spiritual life actually impacts his actions as he gets involved in trying to figure out why street kids are getting murdered in Seattle. He's concerned about the street kids, but what gets him engaged in the mystery is that a note from him to one of the kids that he'd attached to some money is found on the dead body of the boy, implicating the priest, if not in his murder, at least in some people's minds, an inappropriate relationship with the boy. He's got to find out who's really responsible, not only out of compassion for the boy and his family, but to clear his own name as well. It makes sense. His attempts to knit the clues together ring true.
A lot of people like the mysteries of Notre Dame Thomistic scholar Ralph McInerny. He's writes about Father Dowling under his own name, Sister Mary Teresa Dempsy under the pseudonym of Monica Quill, and has a series of
mysteries set at Notre Dame University as well. I've never read a Father Dowling, I'll admit, but I have read one each of the others, and I have to admit, I wasn't terribly impressed. No, we're not looking for great literature when we read mysteries, but we are looking for something a bit more than a not-to-hard to solve puzzle with a jabs at Church politics thrown in the mix.
Over the past months, new books featuring two of the more popular clerical sleuths have been published: The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain by Andrew Greeley, featuring Bishop Blackie Ryan traveling to France to help find a popular priest who�s gone missing, and The Sacrifice by William Kienzle (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $22.95), in which Father Rober Koesler, first seen in The Rosary Murders back in 1979, again sets to work, solving a church-related mystery in the rectories and pews of Detroit.
We won�t be reviewing the Greeley book here, simply because I only had fifteen minutes to read it in the bookstore, and it would have taken at least twenty-five. But The Sacrifice did come into my life, and, after a thorough reading within the inescapable confines of a long car trip, I�m here to reveal that it�s an astonishingly dreadful book.
The mystery is this: who planted the bomb that blew up in a church just about the time the entrance procession for the liturgy to re-ordain Episcopal priest George Wheatly into the Catholic Church should have made it to ground zero in the sanctuary, but for a delay from a mysterious phone call to Father Wheatly himself?
The problems with this book are many. First, there�s the matter of
plot. The crime at the center of the novel is simply implausible. Even if the entrance of former Episcopal priests into Roman Catholic ministry has evoked some tensions on both sides, no one, to my knowledge, has attempted to blow anyone up over the matter, nor would they.
Then there�s character. Most of them in The Sacrifice are drawn directly from the Writer�s Stereotype Grab Bag: The saintly, popular Episcopal priest; his son the priest and his status-hungry wife; his daughter the lesbian Episcopal seminarian, and the grumpy disaffected conservative Romans. Actually, those in the last category, two priests who make their appearances at
the beginning and end of the book grumbling about heretics and scandal, aren�t from the Grab Bag: they�re no one but Statler and Waldorf, the two old guys who heckled from the balcony on The Muppet Show, in clerics. But I digress.
Not as badly as Kienzle digresses in his novel, though. The book is actually less of a mystery than a string of expository chapters strung together for the dual purpose of presenting us with a series of red herrings as well as boring us with long, incredible conversations about church matters at what would be the oddest, most improbable times in reality. Somehow, in the minutes before the ceremony is to begin, Father Koesler manages to have two pages-long conversation with three priests (including Statler and Waldorf), in which they all offer their views, in the most stilted agitprop-type language imaginable, on the consequences of ordaining a married Episcopal. You get the idea.
Clerical mysteries can be entertaining, and they can be educational as well, as the inner workings of church both past and present and the minds of religious are revealed to the interested reader. It�s clear, however, that at this point in his long career, Kienzle is less interested in either authentic mystery fiction or opening a reader�s eyes to a different world than he is in simple and simplistic griping about church matters. It makes for a tendentious piece of work, and one that doesn�t even come close to meeting Chesterton�s explanation of what the �Ideal Detective Novel�, starring clerics or laity, should be about:
�The inconsistencies of human nature are indeed terrible and heart-shaking things, to be named with the same note of crisis as the hour of death and the Day of Judgment. They are not all fine shades, but some of them very fearful shadows, made by the primal contrast of darkness and light. Both the crimes and the confessions can be as catastrophic as lightning. Indeed, The Ideal Detective Story might do some good if it brought men back to understand that the world is not all curves, but that there are some things that are as jagged as the lightning-flash or as straight as the sword.�
Clerical or vowed religious characters are popular detectives in mystery fiction. Here are a few who star in their own series of books, which are, of course, of varying quality:
Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton�s �little Essex priest�
Brother Cadfael, the medieval monastic apothecary created by Ellis Peters.
Sister Frevisse, a member of a medieval English religious community, created by Margaret Fraser. I enjoyed this one.
Sister Fidelma , Peter Tremayne�s seventh-century Celtic nun. These, too, are good reads, although one has to doubt that life for women in 7th century Ireland was really this idyllic.
Thomistic scholar Ralph McInerny pens mysteries featuring Father Dowling and Sister Mary Teresa , the latter under the penname of Monica Quill
Sr. Mary Helen is featured in a series of books written by a real religious sister, Carol Anne O�Marie, CSJ.
Father Mark Townsend solves mysteries in the Pacific Northwest, home of his author, Fr. Brad Reynolds, S.J.
Sister Joan confronts crime that touches her community, the Daughters of Compassion in Cornwall, England, in books written by Veronica Black.
Once Father, now Bishop Blackie Ryan is the creation of Father Andrew Greeley.
There are series featuring non-Catholic clerical sleuths as well, from almost every denomination, one of the most memorable being Harry Kemelman�s books featuring Rabbi David Small � Friday the Rabbi Slept Late being the first. I also like the mysteries of Faye Kellerman , set in the world of Orthodox Judaism.
Here are a couple of websites with more information:
| Father Brown |
What is the real name of Actor/Comedian Robbie Coltrane? | Some of the most celebrated and notorious G.K. Chesterton quotations. Share them. All of them.
Topics
Timeless Truths | Free Advice | The Cult of Progress | War and Politics | Government and Politics | Society and Culture | Love, Marriage, and the Sexes | Religion and Faith | Christmas | Morality and Truth | Economic Theory and Distributism | Art and Literature | Past Words on Today’s Dilemmas | Islam | Atheism | Islam | Courage | Friendship | Liberty | The Skeptic | Today’s World
Timeless Truths
“Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.” – Tremendous Trifles
“A change of opinions is almost unknown in an elderly military man.” – A Utopia of Usurers , CW, V, p396
“The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice.” – A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant , 1901
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” – The Everlasting Man , 1925
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” – ILN, 4/19/30
“Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.” – The Speaker, 12/15/00
“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” – On Running After Ones Hat, All Things Considered, 1908
“What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.” – Sidelights on New London and Newer New York
“He is a [sane] man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head.” – Tremendous Trifles , 1909
“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.” – A Miscellany of Men
“Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.” – The Man Who was Thursday , 1908
“The simplification of anything is always sensational.” – Varied Types
“Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.” – ILN 1-11-08
“I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.” – ILN, 6-3-22
“The center of every man’s existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.” – Sir Walter Scott, Twelve Types
“The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade other people how good they are.” – Introduction to The Defendant
“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.” – A Short History of England, Ch.10
“All the exaggerations are right, if they exaggerate the right thing.” – “On Gargoyles,” Alarms and Discursions
“The comedy of man survives the tragedy of man.” – ILN , 2-10-06
“We have had no good comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any possible opera.” – The Quotable Chesterton
“When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven’t got any.” – ILN , 11-7-08
“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” – Broadcast talk 6-11-35
“Aesthetes never do anything but what they are told.” – The Love of Lead, Lunacy and Letters
“The aesthete aims at harmony rather than beauty. If his hair does not match the mauve sunset against which he is standing, he hurriedly dyes his hair another shade of mauve. If his wife does not go with the wall-paper, he gets a divorce.” – ILN , 12/25/09
“The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.” – ILN, 10-28-22
“Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” – Charles II, Twelve Types
“Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkeness – or so good as drink.” – Wine When it is Red, All Things Considered
“When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy-tale.” – Heretics , CW, I, p.143
“A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish.” – Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox
Back to Top
“Do not enjoy yourself. Enjoy dances and theaters and joy-rides and champagne and oysters; enjoy jazz and cocktails and night-clubs if you can enjoy nothing better; enjoy bigamy and burglary and any crime in the calendar, in preference to the other alternative; but never learn to enjoy yourself.” – The Common Man
“Do not look at the faces in the illustrated papers. Look at the faces in the street.” – ILN, 11/16/07
“When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them.” – The Chesterton Review, February, 1984
“I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event.” – ILN, 10/7/16
Back to Top
“Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.” – Chapter 2, Heretics , 1905
“Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.” – Orthodoxy , 1908
“My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.” – New York Times Magazine, 2/11/23
“Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.” – What’s Wrong With The World , 1910
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.” – Orthodoxy , 1908
“The modern world is a crowd of very rapid racing cars all brought to a standstill and stuck in a block of traffic.” – ILN, 5/29/26
“Comforts that were rare among our forefathers are now multiplied in factories and handed out wholesale; and indeed, nobody nowadays, so long as he is content to go without air, space, quiet, decency and good manners, need be without anything whatever that he wants; or at least a reasonably cheap imitation of it.” – Commonwealth, 1933
“A detective story generally describes six living men discussing how it is that a man is dead. A modern philosophic story generally describes six dead men discussing how any man can possibly be alive.” – A Miscellany of Men
“None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.” – Daily News, 7-21-06
“I still hold. . .that the suburbs ought to be either glorified by romance and religion or else destroyed by fire from heaven, or even by firebrands from the earth.” – The Coloured Lands
“The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings.” – The New House, Alarms and Discursions
“To hurry through one’s leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions.” – “A Somewhat Improbable Story.” Tremendous Trifles
“This is the age in which thin and theoretic minorities can cover and conquer unconscious and untheoretic majorities.” – ILN, 12/20/19
“The past is not what it was.” – A Short History of England
Back to Top
“[Marxism will] in a generation or so [go] into the limbo of most heresies, but meanwhile it will have poisoned the Russian Revolution.” – ILN, 7/19/19
“War is not ‘the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.” – ILN, 7/24/15
“There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting.” – The Everlasting Man , 1925
“The only defensible war is a war of defense.” – Autobiography , 1937
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” – ILN, 1/14/11
“How quickly revolutions grow old; and, worse still, respectable.” – The Listener, 3-6-35
“Once abolish the God, and the government becomes the God.” – Christendom in Dublin, 1933
“America is the only country ever founded on a creed.” – What I Saw In America , 1922
“The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.” – Chapter 19, What I Saw In America , 1922
“The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed.” – What I Saw In America , 1922
“When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.” – Daily News, 7/29/05
“Men are ruled, at this minute by the clock, by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who cannot govern.” – The New Name, Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays, 1917
“If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence.” – Chapter 3, What’s Wrong With The World , 1910
“He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative.” – Varied Types
“You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution. – Tremendous Trifles , 1909
“For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.” – All Things Considered, 1908
“When a politician is in opposition he is an expert on the means to some end; and when he is in office he is an expert on the obstacles to it.” – ILN, 4/6/18
“It is the mark of our whole modern history that the masses are kept quiet with a fight. They are kept quiet by the fight because it is a sham-fight; thus most of us know by this time that the Party System has been popular only in the sense that a football match is popular.” – A Short History of England, p.156
“I have formed a very clear conception of patriotism. I have generally found it thrust into the foreground by some fellow who has something to hide in the background. I have seen a great deal of patriotism; and I have generally found it the last refuge of the scoundrel.” – The Judgement of Dr. Johnson, Act III
“It is terrible to contemplete how few politicians are hanged.” – The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21
“There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.” – The Outline of Sanity , Collected Works Vol. V. 192
“All government is an ugly necessity.” – A Short History of England, p.63
“It is hard to make government representative when it is also remote.” – ILN, 8/17/18
“It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on.” – Patriotism and Sport, All Things Considered
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” – ILN, 4/19/24
Back to Top
“I never could see anything wrong in sensationalism; and I am sure our society is suffering more from secrecy than from flamboyant revelations.” – ILN, 10/4/19
“With all that we hear of American hustle and hurry, it is rather strange that Americans seem to like to linger on longer words.” – What I Saw in America
“It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.” – The Judgement of Dr. Johnson, Act III
“I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they are always talking about things as problems, they have hardly any notion of what a real problem is.” – Uses of Diversity
“There have been household gods and household saints and household fairies. I am not sure that there have yet been any factory gods or factory saints or factory fairies. I may be wrong, as I am no commericial expert, but I have not heard of them as yet.” – ILN, Dec 18, 1926
“Over-civilization and barbarism are within an inch of each other. And a mark of both is the power of medicine-men.” – ILN, 9-11-09
“By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men.” – ILN, 3/25/11
“The modern city is ugly not because it is a city but because it is not enough of a city, because it is a jungle, because it is confused and anarchic, and surging with selfish and materialistic energies.” – The Way to the Stars, Lunacy and Letters
“Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government.” – The Field of Blood, Alarms and Discursions
Back to Top
“Love means loving the unlovable – or it is no virtue at all.” – Heretics , 1905
“A man imagines a happy marriage as a marriage of love; even if he makes fun of marriages that are without love, or feels sorry for lovers who are without marriage.” – Chaucer
“Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men.” – A Handful of Authors
“The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis.” – David Copperfield, Chesterton on Dickens, 1911
“A good man’s work is effected by doing what he does, a woman’s by being what she is.” – Robert Browning
“Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue.” – Chesterton on Dickens
“Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline.” – Manalive
“The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.” – ILN, 1/9/09
“I have little doubt that when St. George had killed the dragon he was heartily afraid of the princess.” – The Victorian Age in Literature
Back to Top
“One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created.” – The Boston Sunday Post, 1/16/21
“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.” – ILN, 7/16/10
“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.” – Where All Roads Lead , 1922
“There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions.” – ILN, 1/13/06
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” – Chapter 5, What’s Wrong With The World , 1910
“The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.” – Introduction to the Book of Job, 1907
“It has been often said, very truely, that religion is the thing that makes the ordinary man feel extraordinary; it is an equally important truth that religion is the thing that makes the extraordinary man feel ordinary.” – Charles Dickens
“Theology is only thought applied to religion.” – The New Jerusalem
“The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.” – ILN 1-3-20
“These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own.” – ILN 8-11-28
“Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.” – Blake
Back to Top
“What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business.” – Christmas, All Things Considered
“If a man called Christmas Day a mere hypocritical excuse for drunkeness and gluttony, that would be false, but it would have a fact hidden in it somewhere. But when Bernard Shaw says that Christmas Day is only a conspiracy kept up by Poulterers and wine merchants from strictly business motives, then he says something which is not so much false as startling and arrestingly foolish. He might as well say that the two sexes were invented by jewellers who wanted to sell wedding rings.” – George Bernard Shaw , Ch. 6
“Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.” – The New Jerusalem , Ch. 5
“The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.” – Christendom in Dublin, Ch.3
“The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.” – On Christmas, Generally Speaking
Back to Top
“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” – ILN, 10/23/09
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.” – ILN, 3/14/08
“There is a case for telling the truth; there is a case for avoiding the scandal; but there is no possible defense for the man who tells the scandal, but does not tell the truth.” – ILN, 7/18/08
“The whole truth is generally the ally of virtue; a half-truth is always the ally of some vice.” – ILN, 6/11/10
“Truth is sacred; and if you tell the truth too often nobody will believe it.” – ILN, 2/24/06
“Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks.” – Daily News, 2/21/02
“It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.” – The Catholic Church and Conversion
“There’d be a lot less scandal if people didn’t idealize sin and pose as sinners.” – The Father Brown Omnibus
“All men thirst to confess their crimes more than tired beasts thirst for water; but they naturally object to confessing them while other people, who have also committed the same crimes, sit by and laugh at them.” – ILN, 3/14/08
“Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.” – ILN, 9/11/09
“I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.” – ILN 8/4/06
“To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea.” – Heretics , CW I, p128
“Great truths can only be forgotten and can never be falsified.” – ILN, 9-30-33
“The voice of the special rebels and prophets, recommending discontent, should, as I have said, sound now and then suddenly, like a trumpet. But the voices of the saints and sages, recommending contentment, should sound unceasingly, like the sea.” – T.P.’s Weekly, 1910
“All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive.” – The Thing, CW. III 191
“Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.” – What’s Wrong With the World
“If we want to give poor people soap we must set out deliberately to give them luxuries. If we will not make them rich enough to be clean, then empathically we must do what we did with the saints. We must reverence them for being dirty.” – What’s Wrong with the World
“The world will very soon be divided, unless I am mistaken, into those who still go on explaining our success, and those somewhat more intelligent who are trying to explain our failure.” – Speech to Anglo-Catholic Congress 6-29-20
“What we call emancipation is always and of necessity simply the free choice of the soul between one set of limitations and another.” – Daily News, 12-21-05
“There are some desires that are not desirable.” – Orthodoxy
“In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.” – The Speaker, 2-2-01
“Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else.” – The Church of the Servile State, Utopia of Usurers
“It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can.” – The Coloured Lands
Back to Top
“Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.” – G.K.’s Weekly, 4/10/26
“[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them.” – The Debate with Bertrand Russell, BBC Magazine, 11/27/35
“A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that the fine is generally much lighter.” – ILN, 5/25/31
“Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.” – The Uses of Diversity, 1921
“Price is a crazy and incalculable thing, while Value is an intrinsic and indestructible thing.” – Reflections on a Rotten Apple, The Well and the Shallows , 1935
“Business, especially big business, is now organized like an army. It is, as some would say, a sort of mild militarism without bloodshed; as I say, a militarism without the military virtues.” – The Thing
“All but the hard hearted man must be torn with pity for this pathetic dilemma of the rich man, who has to keep the poor man just stout enough to do the work and just thin enough to have to do it.” – Utopia of Usurers , 1917
“From the standpoint of any sane person, the present problem of capitalist concentration is not only a question of law, but of criminal law, not to mention criminal lunacy.” – A Case In Point, The Outline of Sanity
“Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be a usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution.” – What’s Wrong with the World
“There is only one thing that stands in our midst, attenuated and threatened, but enthroned in some power like a ghost of the Middle Ages: the Trade Unions.” – A Short History of England
“[Capitalism is] that commercial system in which supply immediately answers to demand, and in which everybody seems to be thoroughly dissatisfied and unable to get anything he wants.” – How to Write a Detective Story, The Spice of Life
“Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people’s property.” – Commonwealth, 10-12-32
“The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work.” – NY Sun 11-3-18
“Making the landlord and the tenant the same person has certain advantages, as that the tenant pays no rent, while the landlord does a little work.” – Hudge and Gudge, What’s Wrong with the World
“You can’t have the family farm without the family.” – Tales of the Long Bow
“I would give a woman not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free.” – What’s Wrong World
Back to Top
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.” – ILN, 5/5/28
“The decay of society is praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms.” – Shaw , 1909
“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.” – Chapter 16, Heretics , 1905
“Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder.” – ILN, 11/25/05
“The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.” – ILN, 9-18-09
“By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.” – On Detective Novels, Generally Speaking
“And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads.” – Charles Dickens
“The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.” – Daily News, 4-22-05
Back to Top
Absentee Fathers – “What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.” – The Everlasting Man , p.186
Back To Nature – “Properly speaking, of course, there is no such thing as a return to nature, because there is no such thing as a departure from it. The phrase reminds one of the slightly intoxicated gentleman who gets up in his own dining room and declares firmly that he must be getting home.” – The Chesterton Review, August, 1993
Bigotry –“Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.” – Lunacy and Letters
Capital Punishment –“For my part, I would have no executions except by the mob; or, at least, by the people acting quite exceptionally. I would make capital punishment impossible except by act of attainder. Then there would be some chance of a few of our real oppressors getting hanged. – ILN, 2/13/09
Condom Distribution –“Our materialistic masters could, and probably will, put Birth Control into an immediate practical programme while we are all discussing the dreadful danger of somebody else putting it into a distant Utopia.” – GK’s Weekly, 1/17/31
Credibility of the Media –“Modern man is staggering and losing his balance because he is being pelted with little pieces of alleged fact which are native to the newspapers; and, if they turn out not to be facts, that is still more native to newspapers.” – ILN, 4/7/23
The Cult of Fame – “America has a genius for the encouragement of fame.” – The Father Brown Omnibus
The Education System
“The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.” – ILN, 9/7/29
“Though the academic authorities are actually proud of conducting everything by means of Examinations, they seldom indulge in what religious people used to descibe as Self-Examination. The consequence is that the modern State has educated its citizens in a series of ephemeral fads.” – Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, April, 1935
Cloning – “We are learning to do a great many clever things…The next great task will be to learn not to do them.- Queen Victoria, Varied Types
A Litigious Society – “The position we have now reached is this: starting from the State, we try to remedy the failures of all the families, all the nurseries, all the schools, all the workshops, all the secondary institutions that once had some authority of their own. Everything is ultimately brought into the Law Courts. We are trying to stop the leak at the other end.” – ILN, 3/24/23
September 11 – “The architecture of New York chiefly consists of buildings being destroyed.” – G.K.’s Weekly, 1/16/26
Police Authority – “Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed.” – What I Saw In America , 1922
Psychoanlysis – “Psychoanalysis is a science conducted by lunatics for lunatics. They are generally concerned with proving that people are irresponsible; and they certainly succeed in proving that some people are.” – ILN, 6/23/28
Reproductive Rights – “Let all the babies be born. Then let us drown those we do not like.” – Babies and Distributism, GK’s Weekly, 11/12/32
Separation of Church and State – “Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.” – Autobiography , 1937
Urban Planning – “The whole structural system of the suburban civilization is based on the case for having bathrooms and the case against having babies.” –G.K.’s Weekly, 7-6-29
Vegetarianism – “A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through excessive devotion to a vegetable diet.” – William blake
Z.Z. Top – “You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.” – How I Met the President, Tremendous Trifles
Back to Top
“A good Moslem king was one who was strict in religion, valiant in battle, just in giving judgment among his people, but not one who had the slightest objection in international matters to removing his neighbour’s landmark.” – ILN , Nov. 4, 1911
“I do not know much about Mohammed or Mohammedanism. I do not take the Koran to bed with me every night. But, if I did on some one particular night, there is one sense at least in which I know what I should not find there. I apprehend that I should not find the work abounding in strong encouragements to the worship of idols; that the praises of polytheism would not be loudly sung; that the character of Mohammed would not be subjected to anything resembling hatred and derision; and that the great modern doctrine of the unimportance of religion would not be needlessly emphasised.” – ILN , Nov. 15, 1913
“A man making the confession of any creed worth ten minutes’ intelligent talk, is always a man who gains something and gives up something. So long as he does both he can create; for he is making an outline and a shape. Mohamet created, when he forbade wine but allowed five wives: he created a very big thing, which we have still to deal with.” – The Victorian Compromise and Its Enemies, The Victorian Age in Literature
“To do Mohammed justice, his main attack was against the idolatries of Asia. Only he thought, just as the Arians did and just as the Unitarians do, that he could attack them better with a greater approximation to plain theism. What distinguishes his heresy from anything like an Arian or Albigensian heresy is that, as it sprang up on the borders of Christendom, it could spread outwards to a barbaric world.” – A Note on Comparative Religion, Where All Roads Lead
“When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded.” The Way of the Desert, The New Jerusalem
“The effort of the Crusades was sufficient to stop the advance of Islam, but not sufficient to exhaust it. A few centuries after, the Moslem attacked once more, with modern weapons and in a more indifferent age; and, amid the disputes of diplomatists and the dying debates of the Reformation, he succeeded in sailing up the Danube and nearly becoming a central European Power like Poland or Austria. From this position, after prodigious efforts, he was slowly and painfully dislodged. But Austria, though rescued, was exhausted and reluctant to pursue, and the Turk was left in possession of the countries he had devoured in his advance.” – ILN, Oct. 10, 1914
“Islam was something like a Christian heresy. The early heresies had been full of mad reversals and evasions of the Incarnation, rescuing their Jesus from the reality of his body even at the expense of the sincerity of his soul.” – The Age of the Crusades, A Short History of England
“Now a man preaching what he thinks is a platitude is far more intolerant than a man preaching what he admits is a paradox. It was exactly because it seemed self-evident, to Moslems as to Bolshevists, that their simple creed was suited to everybody, that they wished in that particular sweeping fashion to impose it on everybody. It was because Islam was broad that Moslems were narrow. And because it was not a hard religion it was a heavy rule. Because it was without a self-correcting complexity, it allowed of those simple and masculine but mostly rather dangerous appetites that show themselves in a chieftain or a lord. As it had the simplest sort of religion, monotheism, so it had the simplest sort of government, monarchy. There was exactly the same direct spirit in its despotism as in its deism. The Code, the Common Law, the give and take of charters and chivalric vows, did not grow in that golden desert. The great sun was in the sky and the great Saladin was in his tent, and he must be obeyed unless he were assassinated. Those who complain of our creeds as elaborate often forget that the elaborate Western creeds have produced the elaborate Western constitutions; and that they are elaborate because they are emancipated.” – The Fall of Chivalry, The New Jerusalem
“There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation…” – Lord Kitchener
“…but out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone.” – The Romance of Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy
“Somehow one can never manage to be an atheist.” – The Ball and the Cross
“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.” – Where All Roads Lead
Back to Top
“There are two kinds of peacemakers in the modern world; and they are both, though in various ways, a nuisance. The first peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that he agrees with everybody. He confuses everybody. The second peacemaker is the man who goes about saying that everybody agrees with him. He enrages everybody. Between the two of them they produce a hundred times more disputes and distractions than we poor pugnacious people would ever have thought of in our lives.” – ILN, 3-3-06
“There are in this world of ours only two kinds of speakers. The first is the man who is making a good speech and won’t finish. The second is the man who is making a bad speech and can’t finish. The latter is the longer.” – ILN, 2-24-06
“There are two kinds of charlatan: the man who is called a charlatan, and the man who really is one. The first is the quack who cures you; the second is the highly qualified person who doesn’t.” – ILN, 2-15-08
“There are two kinds of revolutionists, as of most things – a good kind and a bad. The bad revolutionists destroy conventions by appealing to fads – fashions that are newer than conventions. The good do it by appealing to facts that are older than conventions.” ILN, 4-30-10
“There are only two kinds of social structure conceivable – personal government and impersonal government. If my anarchic friends will not have rules – they will have rulers. Preferring personal government, with its tact and flexibility, is called Royalism. Preferring impersonal government, with its dogmas and definitions, is called Republicanism. Objecting broadmindedly both to kings and creeds is called Bosh.” – Imperialism, What’s Wrong with the World
“There are two kinds of paradoxes. They are not so much the good and the bad, nor even the true and the false. Rather they are the fruitful and the barren; the paradoxes which produce life and the paradoxes that merely announce death. Nearly all modern paradoxes merely announce death.” ILN, 3-11-11
“There are two kinds of fires. the Bad Fire and the Good Fire. And the paradox is that the Good Fire is made of bad things, of things that we do not want; but the Bad Fire is made of good things, of things that we do want.” – The Wrong Incendiary, A Miscellany of Men
“There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don’t know it.” – The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett, Fancies vs. Fads
“There are two kinds of rebellion. The first is one in which the slave demands something that the tyrant has got. The second is one in which he demands something that the tyrant has not got.”- ILN, 8-16-24
“There are only two kinds of ballads. There are sad ballads about broken hearts and cheerful ballads about broken heads.” – The Voice of Shelley, Apostle and the Wild Ducks
Back to Top
“It is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways (in any special sense) of succeeding. One is by doing very good work, the other is by cheating.” – The Fallacy of Success, All Things Considered
“There are only two ways of governing: by a rule and by a ruler.” – The Queen and the Suffragettes, What’s Wrong with the World
“There are two ways of being bloodless – by the avoidance of blood without, and by the absence of blood within.” – ILN, 8-3-18
“There are two ways of dealing with nonsense in this world. One way is to put nonsense in the right place; as when people put nonsense into nursery rhymes. The other is to put nonsense in the wrong place; as when they put it into educational addresses, psychological criticisms, and complaints against nursery rhymes.” ILN, 10-15-21
“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.” – Introduction. The Everlasting Man
“There are two ways of dealing with the dignity, the pain, the prejudice or the rooted humour of the poor; especially of the rural poor. One of them is to see in their tragedy only a stark simplicity, like the outline of a rock; the other is to see in it an unfathomable though a savage complexity, like the labyrinthine complexity of a living forest.” – A Shropshire Lass, GKC as MC
“There are two ways of renouncing the devil,” said Father Brown; “and the difference is perhaps the deepest chasm in modern religion. One is to have a horror of him because he is so far off; and the other to have it because he is so near. And no virtue and vice are so much divided as those two virtues.” – The Secret of Flambeau
“There are two ways in which a man may vanish – through being thoroughly conquered or through being thoroughly the Conqueror. . . For a man may vanish as Chaos vanished in the face of creation, or he may vanish as God vanished in filling all things with that created life.” – Tennyson, A Handful of Authors
Back to Top
“Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.” – Orthodoxy
“The new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity, and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies, as if it required any courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that it requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.” – G.F.Watts , 1904
“The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community declines.” – Heretics , 1905
“It is the first law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school.” – Heretics
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.” – Orthodoxy
“There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past.” – What’s Wrong with the World
“I would rather a boy learnt in the roughest school the courage to hit a politician, or gained in the hardest school the learning to refute him – rather than that he should gain in the most enlightened school the cunning to copy him.” – ILN, 8-31-12
“There should be a burnished tablet let into the ground on the spot where some courageous man first ate Stilton cheese, and survived.” – The Poet and the Cheese, A Miscellany of Men
Back to Top
“Comradeship is quite a different thing from friendship. . .” – ILN, May 19, 1906
“. . . For friendship implies individuality; whereas comradeship really implies the temporary subordination, if not the temporary swamping of individuality. Friends are the better for being two; but comrades are the better for being two million.” – A Case of Comrades, The Apostle and the Wild Ducks
“Only friendliness produces friendship. And we must look far deeper into the soul of man for the thing that produces friendliness.” – What I Saw In America
“It is not merely true that a creed unites men. Nay, a difference of creed unites men – so long as it is a clear difference. A boundary unites. Many a magnanimous Moslem and chivalrous Crusader must have been nearer to each other, because they were both dogmatists, than any two agnostics. “I say God is One,” and “I say God is One but also Three,” that is the beginning of a good quarrelsome, manly friendship.” – The New Hypocrite, What’s Wrong with the World
“A queer and almost mad notion seems to have got into the modern head that, if you mix up everybody and everything more or less anyhow, the mixture may be called unity, and the unity may be called peace. It is supposed that, if you break down all doors and walls so that there is no domesticity, there will then be nothing but friendship. Surely somebody must have noticed by this time that the men living in a hotel quarrel at least as often as the men living in a street.” – ILN, September 8, 1917
“These are the things which might conceivably and truly make men forgive their enemies. We can only turn hate to love by understanding what are the things that men have loved; nor is it necessary to ask men to hate their loves in order to love one another. Just as two grocers are most likely to be reconciled when they remember for a moment that they are two fathers, so two nationals are most likely to be reconciled when they remember (if only for a moment) that they are two patriots.” – ILN, June 4, 1921
“Because our expression is imperfect we need friendship to fill up the imperfections.” – Illustrated London News, June 6, 1931
“The only object of liberty is life.” – Irish Impressions p. 219
“The eagle has no liberty; he only has loneliness.” – The Free Man, A Miscellany of Men
“Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police.” – Illustrated London News, June 5, 1920
“Every sane man recognises that unlimited liberty is anarchy, or rather is nonentity. The civic idea of liberty is to give the citizen a province of liberty; a limitation within which a citizen is a king.” – The Story of the Family, The Superstition of Divorce
“Religious unity can look like a carnival and religious liberty can look like a funeral.” – ILN, December 28, 1929
“Without authority there is no liberty. Freedom is doomed to destruction at every turn, unless there is a recognized right to freedom. And if there are rights, there is an authority to which we appeal for them.” – G.K.’s Weekly, April 28, 1928
“The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.” – G.K.’s Weekly, August 18, 1928
Back to Top
“It is assumed that the sceptic has no bias; whereas he has a very obvious bias in favour of scepticism.” – ILN, 5-4-07
“Pride consists in a man making his personality the only test, instead of making truth the test. The sceptic feels himself too large to measure life by the largest things; and ends by measuring it by the smallest thing of all.” – The Common Man
“It is the decisive people who have become civilised; it is the indecisive, otherwise called the higher sceptics, or the idealistic doubters, who have remained barbarians.” – ILN, 11-30-12
“Latter-day scepticism is fond of calling itself progressive; but scepticism is really reactionary. Scepticism goes back; it attempts to unsettle what has already been settled. Instead of trying to break up new fields with its plough, it simply tries to break up the plough.” – ILN, 2-6-09
“No sceptical philosopher can ask any questions that may not equally be asked by a tired child on a hot afternoon.” – George Bernard Shaw
“The sceptics, like bees, give their one sting and die.” – Alarms and Discursions
“It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removes the motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere restraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint.” – Heretics
“It is ludicrous to suppose that the more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything. It is clear that the more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see good in everything.” – Heretics
“Liberty has produced scepticism, and scepticism has destroyed liberty. The lovers of liberty thought they were leaving it unlimited, when they were only leaving it undefined. They thought they were only leaving it undefined, when they were really leaving it undefended.” – Eugenics and Other Evils
“The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights.” – ILN , 1-13-12
“The average businessman began to be agnostic, not so much because he did not know where he was, as because he wanted to forget. Many of the rich took to scepticism exactly as the poor took to drink; because it was a way out.” – Eugenics and Other Evils
| i don't know |
What was the real name of author George Orwell? | George Orwell (Author of 1984)
Fiction , Politics , Journalism
Influences
edit data
Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.
In addition to his literary career Orwell served as a a police officer with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922-1927 and fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1937. Orwell was severely wounded when he was shot through his throat. Later the organization that he had joined when he joined the Republican cause,The Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), was painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotsk Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism.
In addition to his literary career Orwell served as a a police officer with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma from 1922-1927 and fought with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1937. Orwell was severely wounded when he was shot through his throat. Later the organization that he had joined when he joined the Republican cause,The Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), was painted by the pro-Soviet Communists as a Trotskyist organization (Trotsky was Joseph Stalin's enemy) and disbanded. Orwell and his wife were accused of "rabid Trotskyism" and tried in absentia in Barcelona, along with other leaders of the POUM, in 1938. However by then they had escaped from Spain and returned to England.
Between 1941 and 1943, Orwell worked on propaganda for the BBC. In 1943, he became literary editor of the Tribune, a weekly left-wing magazine. He was a prolific polemical journalist, article writer, literary critic, reviewer, poet and writer of fiction, and, considered perhaps the twentieth century's best chronicler of English culture.
Orwell is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the satirical novella Animal Farm (1945) — they have together sold more copies than any two books by any other twentieth-century author. His 1938 book Homage to Catalonia, an account of his experiences as a volunteer on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, together with numerous essays on politics, literature, language, and culture, are widely acclaimed.
Orwell's influence on contemporary culture, popular and political, continues decades after his death. Several of his neologisms, along with the term "Orwellian" — now a byword for any oppressive or manipulative social phenomenon opposed to a free society — have entered the vernacular. ...more
| George Orwell |
What links Gerry Rafferty to Sherlock Holmes? | George Orwell Day begins annual commemoration | Books | The Guardian
George Orwell Day begins annual commemoration
Celebration of author's enduring influence marked with radio season and essay giveaway
George Orwell: 'In the air'. Photograph: BBC
Monday 21 January 2013 05.40 EST
First published on Monday 21 January 2013 05.40 EST
Share on Messenger
Close
A major celebration of George Orwell kicks off today with the inaugural "Orwell Day", to be followed by a month-long Orwell season on Radio 4 and a mass giveaway of one of his most famous essays, Politics and the English Language .
The author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm died on 21 January 1950, and 2013 also marks the 110th anniversary of his birth on 25 June 1903. The Orwell Estate, The Orwell Prize and the author's publisher Penguin has decided to launch an annual event, "Orwell Day", on 21 January in "recognition of one of Britain's greatest and most influential writers of the 20th century", and to "celebrate his writing in all its forms and explore the profound influence he has had on the media and discourse of the modern world", it said.
Orwell's 1946 essay Politics and the English Language is being given away for free from the Orwell prize's website , as well as published in a 99p edition by Penguin. "We're aiming to get everyone reading it – in schools, everywhere. It's just one essay, and it's such a radical essay, with the message that language is corrupt, but you can do something about it," said Jean Seaton, chair of the Orwell prize judges, professor of media history at the University of Westminster and the official historian of the BBC.
"Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from conservatives to anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind," wrote Orwell in the essay, and Seaton said "we are now in a battle for the kind of nation we will live in just as much as he was".
Today also marks the launch of new-look editions of four Orwell books, Animal Farm, Down and Out in Paris and London , Homage to Catalonia and Nineteen Eighty-Four, from Penguin Classics, with the latter sporting a new jacket with the book's title almost entirely blacked out , in recognition of the novel's topic of censorship.
On 26 January, BBC Radio 4 begins a major Orwell season , including adaptions of Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia and Nineteen Eighty-Four, a reading of Down and Out in Paris and London as the station's "Book at Bedtime", and glimpses of Orwell's own life through looks at his time as a young policeman in Burma, his relationships and his last days on Jura writing Animal Farm. "Of course there is no real George Orwell – it was the pen name of Eric Blair – but he was a writer and political commentator who is very hard to pin down," said the BBC. "Through dramatisations of the key books, through four newly commissioned plays that explore the disjuncture between the man who was Eric Blair and the writer who was George Orwell, and through factual programming and readings, Radio 4 will take the listener on a journey from Burma via Catalonia, Wigan, Jura and Manor Farm along the road that led eventually to Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of the most influential novels of the 20th century."
The Orwell prize is also taking part in the first ever international literary festival in Burma, in honour of the author, taking out thousands of pounds' worth of Orwell books to give away. Attending authors at the Irrawaddy literary festival include Timothy Garton Ash, William Dalrymple, Jung Chang, and the festival's patron Aung Sang Suu Kyi.
"Orwell is in the air," said Seaton. "I think he is very relevant today. He puts truth before self. Very few of us can bear to do that. It's a vocation. But nonetheless, we need people to do that, and he reminds us of that. It's that bleak realism, expressed beautifully – it is what will keep us decent … Both his writing and in an odd kind of way his personal life stand for integrity. If there was one value that politicians, bankers and journalists, and in a curious way our society as a whole, needs, it's no jargon, and more integrity."
| i don't know |
Whose grave in Winchelsea bears the epitaph "I told you I was ill"? | BBC NEWS | UK | England | Southern Counties | Milligan gets last laugh on grave
Milligan gets last laugh on grave
Spike Milligan decided on his epitaph before he died in 2002
Comedy legend Spike Milligan has finally got the last laugh, more than two years after his death.
It follows an agreement with the local diocese over the wording on the headstone of his grave at St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, East Sussex.
Relatives of the former Goon have now decided that it can bear the star's epitaph: "I told you I was ill."
However, the inscription had to be written in Gaelic in order for it to be approved by the Chichester Diocese.
Milligan, who was an Irish passport holder, was buried close to his home in Udimore after he died, aged 83, from liver failure in February 2002.
But fans visiting his grave found it was only marked by some plants and a small statue because his family had been unable to agree on the headstone.
We're very pleased it's been resolved and with such a classic Spike line
Bill Horsman, of the Goon Show Preservation Society
It now bears the words "Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite", or "I told you I was ill", and the English words "Love, light, peace". Bill Horsman, chairman of the Goon Show Preservation Society, said: "News of the headstone going up on Spike's grave is marvellous.
"We had been very concerned for some time about the situation.
"It was very sad that the grave was in such a state, but it was down to very sensitive family problems and we simply could not get involved.
"We're very pleased it's been resolved and with such a classic Spike line.
"We all fell about laughing when we heard it."
Milligan formed the Goons with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine and was widely regarded as one of the greatest influences on British comedy.
| Spike Milligan |
Where is there a barber showing photographs of every head he's had the pleasure to know? | Tombstone Sayings including famous last words and death bed sayings
Tell your story
Tombstone Sayings
Welcome to Tombstone Sayings, the webpage that brings you a host of phrases, quotations and messages used as epitaphs both sad, thoughtful and funny. These are all free for you to use for non commercial purpose. Our collection also include famous last words
From the immortal words of Porky Pig, “That’s all folks”.
Mel Blanc (May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989)
**
She always said her feet were killingHer but nobody believed her.
Margaret Daniels, Hollywood Cemetery,Richmond, Virginia
**
He was most known for his standup comedy and for his colorful language: sometimes crude, but hilarious musings.
His tombstone reads, very fittingly,
“#$%& @!&% #?!$% @?*&!@^#!* @*$! &!%?”.
George Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008)
"I told you I was sick!"
In a Georgia cemetery
There are many other examples, including English humorist Spike Milligan. On Spike's headstone at St Thomas' Church in Winchelsea, East Sussex, England is his full name, Terence Alan Patrick Seán Milligan KBE. Unfortunately, the church would not permit the phrase Spike requested for his headstone namely, 'I told you I was ill'. However, they did allow the sentiment expressed in Gaelic, 'Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite',
That's all folks so far as Tombstone Sayings are concerned but now for something completely different
Famous Last Words
"Why yes, a bullet-proof vest!"
(Last request before the firing squad.)
Rodgers, James W. ( -1960) [American criminal]
**
"Go away... I'm all right."
Wells, Herbert George (1866-1946)
"That was a great game of golf, fellers."
Crosby, Bing (1903-1977)
"Die, my dear Doctor? That's the last thing I shall do!"
Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount (1784-1865)
**
"I am just going outside and may be some time."
(Before vanishing into the blizzard on the ill fated Antarctic expedition.)
Oates, Lawrence (1880-1912)
"This is no time to make new enemies."
(Asked on his deathbed to forswear Satan)
Voltaire (1694-1778)
"That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted." Costello, Lou (1906-1959)
**
| i don't know |
What fictional character lives at 32 Windsor Gardens? | List of the addresses of fictional characters
Donate to Wikibin
List of the addresses of fictional characters
This is a list of the addresses of fictional characters, from various media such as television, literature, or film.
1
*13 Rue del Percebe (comic of same name by Francisco Ibanez)
A
* Abbott family (Bless This House) - Birch Avenue, Putney, UK
* The Addams Family - Cemetery Ridge, USA
* Alexander, Susan (Citizen Kane) - 185 West 74th Street, New York, New York
* Anderson family (Father Knows Best) - 607 South Maple Street, USA
* Larry Appleton and his cousin Balki Bartokomous (Perfect Strangers) - 711 Calhoun Street, Chicago, Illinois
* Jon Arbuckle and his pets (Garfield) - alternately 711 Maple Street, USA (comic strip) or 357 Shady Grove Lane, USA (TV series)
* Lew Archer's office (series of novels) - 8411 1/2 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, California
* Avengers Mansion Headquarters of the Avengers - 890 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City
B
* Barone family (Everybody Loves Raymond) - 320 Fowler Street, Lynbrook, New York (Long Island)
* Batman - Wayne Manor, Gotham City, USA
* Baxter family (Hazel) - 123 Marshall Road, Hydsberg, New York
* Mr. Bear & others (comic strip Achewood) - 62 Achewood Court
* Mr Benn - 52 Festive Road, Putney, London, UK
* Frank Black and Family (Millennium) - 1910 Ezekiel Drive, Seattle, WA
* Sirius Black (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) - 12 Grimmauld Place, London, UK
* Leopold Bloom - 7 Eccles St.
* Elwood Blues (The Blues Brothers) - 1060 West Addison Street, Chicago, Illinois (Wrigley Field) (according to his driver's license)
* Charlie Bone and family (Children of the Red King) - Number 9 Filbert Street
* Ed and Christopher Boone (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) - 36 Randolph Street, Swindon
* Boswell family (Bread) - 30 Kelsall Street, Liverpool
* The Bower Agency (Who's the Boss?) - 323 East 57th Street, New York, New York
* Bower family (Who's the Boss?) - 3344 Oak Hills Drive, Fairfield, Connecticut
* The Brady Bunch - 4222 Clinton Way, Los Angeles, California
* Emmett Brown (Back to the Future) - 1640 Riverside Drive, Hill Valley, California
* Hyacinth Bucket (Keeping Up Appearances) - Blossom Avenue, UK
* Bueller family (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) - 164 North Dutton Street, Santa Monica, CA (This is in the 1990 NBC sitcom. In the original film, the Buellers lived in Shermer, Illinois, also the setting for The Breakfast Club and, possibly, the homes of Neal Page from Planes, Trains and Automobiles and the McAllister family from Home Alone, all films directed by John Hughes.)
* Phoebe Buffay (Friends) - 5 Morton St. Apt. 14. New York City New York (Manhattan) USA
* Bundy family (Married... with Children) - 9764 Jeopardy Lane, Chicago, Illinois
* Bunker family (All in the Family) - 704 Hauser Street, New York City, New York (Astoria, Queens)
* Burber family - 9 Chickweed Lane (daily comic strip of the same name)
* Bureau de l'Invisible (French novel series) - 28 Crawford Street, a corner away from Baker Street in London
* Montgomery Burns (The Simpsons) - 1000 Mammon Lane, Springfield, USA
C
* Minnie Caldwell (Coronation Street) - 15 Jubilee Terrace until 1962, then 5 Coronation Street, Weatherfield, Greater Manchester, UK
* Carey, Drew (The Drew Carey Show) - 720 Sedgewick, Cleveland, Ohio
* Blake Carrington (Dynasty) - 173 Essex Drive, Denver, CO
* Cheers - 112 1/2 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts. (This is the address given on the show, though the Bull & Finch Pub, the real-life basis for the bar, is at 84 Beacon Street. This may have been an attempt to keep fan letters from going to the real-life counterpart.)
* Clampett family (Beverly Hillbillies) - 518 Crestview Drive, Beverly Hills, California
* Joan Clayton (Girlfriends) - 700 block of North Wilton Place, Los Angeles, California
* Cleaver family (Leave it to Beaver) - 485 Maple Street (later 211 Pine Street), Mayfield, USA
* The Colbys - Belvedere Mansion, Los Angeles, California
* Conner family (Roseanne) - 714 Delaware, Lanford IL
* Dr. Frasier Crane and Martin Crane - Apartment 1901, Elliott Bay Towers, Seattle, Washington
* Cunningham family (Happy Days) - 565 North Clinton Drive, Milwaukee, WI
D
* Darcy, Fitzwilliam (Pride and Prejudice) - Pemberley, Derbyshire, England
* Dethklok (Metalocalypse) - Mordhaus, exact location unknown
* Blanche Devereaux, who owns the house and rents rooms to Dorothy Zbornak, Rose Nylund, and Sophia Petrillo, (The Golden Girls) - 6151 Richmond Street, Miami, Florida
*The Doctor, (Doctor Who comic strip and Virgin New Adventures) - Smithwood Manor, Allen Road, Kent, England
* Dolittle, Dr. John (Doctor Dolittle series of books) - Oxenthorpe Road, Puddleby-on-the-Marsh, Slopshire, England
* Donald Duck - 1313 Webfoot Walk, Duckburg, Calisota
* Dursley family (Harry Potter books) - 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, UK
*Durden, Tyler (Fight Club) - 420 Paper St. Wilmington, DE 19886
E
* Lord Emsworth (novels of P. G. Wodehouse) - Blandings Castle, Shropshire
*The Evans family (Good Times) -321 North Gilbert, Chicago, IL
* Ewing family (Dallas) - Southfork Ranch, Braddock County, Texas, USA
F
* The Fantastic Four - The Baxter Building, New York, New York.
* Basil Fawlty (Fawlty Towers) - Fawlty Towers Hotel, Torquay, Torbay, UK
* The Flanders family (The Simpsons) - 740 Evergreen Terrace
* Jessica Fletcher (Murder, She Wrote) - 698 Candlewood Lane, Cabot Cove, ME
* Phileas Fogg - 7 Savile Row, Burlington Gardens, London, UK
* The Funnies (Doug) - 21 Jumbo Street, Bluffington, USA
G
* Monica Geller, first with Phoebe Buffay, then Rachel Green, finally with Chandler Bing (Friends) - 425 Grove Street, Apartment 20, New York, New York (Chandler and Joey Tribbiani, later Joey and Rachel, lived in Apartment 19; the actual building is at 90 Bedford Street, on the corner of Grove)
* Griffin family (Family Guy) - 31 Spooner Street, Quahog, Rhode Island
* From the Goon comic book series - Lonely Street, home to the Priest and his hordes of zombies
H
* The Halliwell Manor (Charmed) - 1329 Prescott Street, San Francisco, California (The actual manor is located at 1329 Carroll Ave, Los Angeles, California, in the famous Echo Park neighborhood.)
* Tony Hancock (Hancock's Half Hour) - 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam
* Major-General Sir Richard Hannay, KCB, DSO (novels of John Buchan) - Fosse Manor, Oxfordshire
* Harper family (Mama's Family) - 1 Old Decatur Road, Raytown, USA
* Hatcher family (Judy Blume's "Fudge" books) - 25 West 68th Street, New York, New York
* Doug and Carrie Heffernan; Arthur Spooner (The King of Queens) - 3223 Aberdeen Avenue, Rego Park, New York
* Earl and Randy Hickey - Room 231, The Palms Motel, 9005 Lincoln Blvd, Camden, USA
* Hank and Peggy Hill (King of the Hill) - 84 Rainey Street, Arlen, TX, 78054 (The zip code is actually for Beeville, TX)
* Sherlock Holmes - 221B Baker Street, London, UK
* Huxtable family (The Cosby Show) - 10 Stigwood Avenue, New York City (Brooklyn)
I
* Uncle Fred, The Earl of Ickenham (novels of P. G. Wodehouse) - Ickenham Hall, Ickenham, Hants, UK
J
*Justice Inc. and the Avenger - No. 1 Bleek Street
K
* Clark Kent (Superman) - 344 Clinton St., Apt. 3B, Metropolis, USA (later 1938 Sullivan Lane, Metropolis)
* Eugene Krabs (SpongeBob SquarePants) - 3541 Anchor Way, Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean
* Kramden family (The Honeymooners) - 328 1/2 Chauncey Street, Brooklyn, New York
L
* Lane family (The Patty Duke Show) - 8 Remsen Drive, Brooklyn Heights New York City, New York, USA
* Laverne & Shirley - 730 Knapp Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
* Lawrence family (Gidget) - 803 N. Dutton Drive, California, USA
* Leopold Bloom (Ulysses) - 7 Eccles St., Dublin 7, Ireland
M
* Magnum, P.I., Robin's Nest - 11435 18th Avenue, Oahu, HI
* Miss Marple - Danemead, High Street, St Mary Mead
* Victor Meldrew, 19 Riverbank, UK
* Mindy McConnell and Mork (Mork and Mindy) - 1619 Pine Street, Boulder, Colorado
* Fibber McGee and Molly (his wife) - 79 Wistful Vista, USA.
* Travis McGee - Slip F-18 at Bahia Mar Marina - docking place of houseboat; this was a real address, although it has since been demolished according to Spider Robinson: a photo of him sitting at the base of the dedication plaque to McGee at the slip (as described in Robinson's novel Callahan's Key) may be found on this page )
* Daria Morgendorffer (Daria) - 1111 Glen Oaks Lane, Lawndale USA
* Fox Mulder (The X-Files) - 2630 Hegal Place, Apt. 42, Alexandria, Virginia, 23242
* The Munsters - 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Mockingbird Heights, USA. There is however a Mockingbird Lane in South Pasadena, California.
N
* Nelson family (I Dream of Jeannie) - 1020 Palm Drive, Cocoa Beach, FL
* Navidson Family (House of Leaves) - Succoth and Ash Tree Lane
* Newman (Seinfeld) - Apartment 5E, 129 West 81st Street, New York, New York
O
* Stan & Hilda Ogden (Coronation Street) - 13 Coronation Street, Weatherfield, Greater Manchester, UK
* Oscar and Felix (The Odd Couple) - 1049 Park Avenue, New York, New York
* Owens family (Mr. Belvedere) - 200 Spring Valley Road, Beaver Falls, PA
P
* Paddington Bear - 32 Windsor Gardens, London
* The Partridge Family - 698 Sycamore Road, San Pueblo, CA
* Reginald Iolanthe Perrin (The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin) - 12 Coleridge Close, Climthorpe, London, UK
* Adrianna Pennino (Rocky) - 1818 Tusculum St, Philadelphia, PA 19134-3416
* Petrie family (The Dick Van Dyke Show) - 448 Bonnie Meadow Road, New Rochelle, New York. Their next-door neighbors are Dr. Jerry Helper (a dentist), his wife Millie and their children.
* Petrillo family (The Golden Girls) - 6151 Richmond Street, Miami Beach, Florida
* Phil's Bar & Grill (Murphy Brown) - 1595 I Street NW, Washington, D.C. (Usually written as "EYE Street" to differentiate it from 1st Street, listed as "FIRST" on street signs)
* Pickle and Lamb families (Cloudstreet) - 1 Cloud Street, West Leederville, Perth, Western Australia
* Hercule Poirot - Apt. 56B, Whitehaven Mansions, Sandhurst Square, London W1, UK.
* Solar Pons - 71B Praed Street, London, UK
* Post family (Mr. Ed) - 17230 Valley Road, USA
* Harry Potter - The cupboard under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey (later moved to normal bedroom, as Dursley family, above)
* Screech Powers (Saved by the Bell) - 88 Edgemont, Palisades, California
R
* Ricardo family (I Love Lucy) - Apartment 4A (later 3D), 623 East 68th Street, New York, New York
* Mary Richards (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) - Apartment D, 119 North Weatherly Avenue, Minneapolis, MN
* Jim Rockford (The Rockford Files) - 2354 Pacific Coast Highway, California, USA
* Rush family (Keep it in the Family) - Highgate Avenue, Highgate
S
* Fred G. and Lamont Sanford (Sanford and Son) - 9114 S. Central Ave., Watts, Los Angeles, California.
* Doc Savage - 86th floor of "the skyscraper" (implicitly the Empire State Building), New York, New York. He also resided in a Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole ... presumably sharing this space with Superman and Santa Claus!
* Dana Scully (The X-Files) - 3170 W. 53 Rd. #35, Annapolis, Maryland
* Lynette Scavo and her family (Desperate Housewives) - 4355 Wisteria Lane, Fairview, Eagle State
* Seaver family (Growing Pains) - 15 Robin Hood Lane, USA (later specified as Huntington, Long Island, New York)
* Jerry Seinfeld - Apartment 5A, 129 West 81st Street, New York, New York (The actual address of that apartment is 757 S. New Hampshire Ave. in Los Angeles, 1 block south of Wilshire Bl.)
*Angelica Serralde (Blue Demon Jr., el Legado) - Heriberto Frias 15, Mexico City.
* Sethe (main character of Toni Morrison's Beloved) - 124 Bluestone Road, Cincinnati, OH
* Ena Sharples (Coronation Street) - Glad Tidings Mission, 16 Coronation Street, Weatherfield, Greater Manchester, UK
* The Simpsons - 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, USA
**15201 Maple Systems Road, Cypress Creek, USA (You Only Move Twice )
* Soprano family (The Sopranos); 633 Stag Trail Road in North Caldwell, New Jersey, USA
* SpongeBob SquarePants - 124 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean
* Sabrina Spellman (Sabrina, the Teenage Witch) - 133 Collins Road, in the fictional town of Westbridge, USA
* Patrick Star (SpongeBob SquarePants) - 120 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean
* Steadman family (Thirtysomething) - 1710 Bryn Mawr Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
* Stephens family (Bewitched) - 1164 Morning Glory Circle, Westport, CT
* Harold and Albert Steptoe (Steptoe and Son) - 24 Oil Drum Lane, Shepherd's Bush, UK.
* Stone family (The Donna Reed Show) - 4-3926 Hillsdale
*Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum -177A Bleecker Street in New York's Greenwich Village
* Sugarbaker Design Firm (Designing Women) - 1521 Sycamore, Atlanta, GA
* Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale, CA
* Superman and Lois Lane - 1938 Sulivan Lane, Metropolis, USA (in recent/current comics; 1938 being a tribute to the year of the character's comic book debut)
T
* Tanner family (ALF) - 167 Hemdale Street, Los Angeles, California
* Tanner family (Full House) - 1882 Gerard Street, San Francisco, California
* Albert Tatlock (Coronation Street) - 1 Coronation Street, Weatherfield, Greater Manchester, UK
* Taylor family (The Andy Griffith Show) - 322 Maple, Mayberry, North Carolina
* Taylor family (Home Improvement) - 510 Glenview, Detroit, Michigan
* Tenenbaum family (The Royal Tenenbaums) - 111 Archer Avenue, New York City, New York
* Squidward Tentacles (SpongeBob SquarePants) - 122 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean
* Eric Thursley (Faust Eric) - 13 Midden Lane, Pseudopolis, Sto Plains, The Discworld, On top of Great A'tuin, The Univers, Space. nr. More Space
* Aunt Dahlia, Mrs Travers (Jeeves and Wooster) - 47 Charles Street, Mayfair, London; Brinkley Court, Brinkley-cum-Snodsfield-in-the-Marsh, near Market Snodsbury, Worcs
* Tripper, Jack (Three's Company) - 834 Ocean Vista Avenue #201, Santa Monica, California, USA
* Trotter family (Only Fools and Horses) - Nelson Mandela House, Peckham, London
* Joy and Darnell Turner (My Name Is Earl) - Pimmit Hills Trailer Park, Space C-13, Camden, USA
* Jackie and Rose Tyler (Doctor Who) - Flat 48, Bucknall House, Powell Estate, London
V
* Vimes family (Discworld novels) - Ramkin Manor, Scoone Avenue, Ankh-Morpork
W
* Wallace and Gromit - 62 West Wallaby Street, Wigan, Lancs
* Walsh family (Beverly Hills 90210) - 933 Hillcrest Drive, Beverly Hills, California
* Waluigi (Mario Power Tennis) - 12 Grimace Lane, Mushroom Kingdom
* Bruce Wayne (Batman) - Wayne Manor, outside Gotham City (exact location unknown)
* Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, home and business of Fred and George Weasley - 93 Diagon Alley, London
* Wilkerson family ( Malcolm in the Middle ) - 12334 Maple Blvd.
* Lord Peter Wimsey - 110a Piccadilly, London
* Charles Emerson Winchester III (') - 16 Briarcliff Lane, Boston. "Yes, yes, Massachusetts." (Though a remark by Colonel Flagg suggests the Winchester family actually lives in suburban Wellesley.)
* Sandy Winfield II and Kenny Madison - Surfside 6, Miami Beach address of detective agency set on a houseboat.
* Winslow family (Family Matters) - 263 Pinehurst, Chicago, Illinois
* Nero Wolfe - 454 West 35th Street, New York, New York ; also described in some of the novels as simply West 35th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, that location is the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.
X
* Xavier Institute for Higher Learning (X-Men) - 1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, New York
Z
| Paddington Bear |
What is the only London station to span the Thames, with entrances on both sides of the river? | 1000+ images about Paddington Bear Love on Pinterest | Peru, Fictional characters and Paddington bear
This was T favorite bear and cartoon as a little guy. Paddington Bear, Michael Bond
See More
| i don't know |
Which city connects the headquarters of OPEC, the burial place of Beethoven, and Rigsby's cat in Rising Damp? | vienna.pdf | Vienna | Berlin
vienna.pdf
You're Reading a Free Preview
Pages 4 to 35 are not shown in this preview.
Sign up to vote on this title
UsefulNot useful
This action might not be possible to undo. Are you sure you want to continue?
CANCEL
We've moved you to where you read on your other device.
Get the full title to continue
Get the full title to continue reading from where you left off, or restart the preview.
Restart preview
| Vienna |
Which skier spectacularly summersaulted through 2 barriers, landing on his head, in the downhill race at the winter Olympics in Nagano. Then went on to win 2 gold medals a few days later? | QUARTERLY OF THE INSTITUTE OF JAMAICA
DECEMBER 1973 VOL. 7-NO. 4
HISTORY
Concerning Jamaica's 1760 Slave Rebellions . . . . .Carl A. Lane 2
Das Licht auf dem Galgen
A German Marxist Author on Jamaican History . . Eckhard Breitinger 5
Jack Mansong, Bloodshed or Brotherhood .. . . . L. Alan Eyre 9
SCIENCE
Politics, Pollution and Power . . . . . . Dr. TrevorA. Byer 15
A Saga of Frogs . . .. . . . . . George R. Proctor 29
The Church and Urbanization in the Caribbean . . . W. Kane, S. J. 32
ART LITERATURE MUSIC
The Entertainers- 1973 .... . . . . . . .BariJonson 38
Ikebana. . . . . .. . . . Aimee Webster 47
Festival '73 Junior Poetry . .. . .. . . . . 50
Boxer Exhibition. . . . . . . . Basil McFarlane 51
The Gonzales Kayiga Exhibition .. . . . . John Maxwell 54
Front Cover: "Ethiopian Orthodox Church celebrating Feast of Epiphany".
Colour Transparency by Tony Russell
Inside Cover: "Tembe Muntslad"
Back Cover: "The King Must Die"
Sculpture by Roy V.S. Lawrence
Correction : The picture identified as "Boats" by Vivian Morrison on Page
65 of March-June '73 issue actually should have been credited
as "FISHERMEN" by Leeford Capleton.
History
"Did he have a moral and emotional invest-
ment in the certainty of the slave system's
essential justice?"
Jamaica's servile insurrections of 1760 constitute a heroic
chapter in the history of black people's efforts to resist western
slavery. Within a seven month period slaves in St. Mary,
Westmoreland, Portland, and Kingston, as well as in several
places along the north coast and in the interior, boldly attempt-
ed to destroy the men and institutions which held them in
bondage. As was true of many aspects of black history, until
recently these uprisings received little if any scholarly atten-
tion. Nevertheless, despite the current interest in such matters
there still exists a degree of misunderstanding regarding the
causes and nature of the 1760 rebellions. A recent article in
the Jamaica Journal, for example, maintained that all the
revolts were the product of a single conspiracy organized and
executed by" aslave named Tacky.1 To dramatize the unique-
ness and significance of the events of 1760 the same article
distinguished between slave riots and revolts, defining the
former as spontaneous, undirected disorder and the latter as
premeditated violence aimed at tearing down the slave system.2
By this reasoning what happened in 1760 was different from
all previous and subsequent slave uprisings because it was
planned and purposeful.
Several problems inhere in the conspiracy interpretation of
the 1760 insurrections and derive from the nature and use of
the only contemporary source to maintain such a view,
Edward Long's History of Jamaica.3 According to Long,
... in the year 1760 a conspiracy was projected and
conducted with such profound secrecy, that almost
all the coromantin slaves throughout the island were
privy to it, without any suspicion from the whites.4
Long also believed that
... whether we consider the extent and secrecy of [the
conspiracy's] plan, the multitude of the conspirators,
and the difficulty of opposing its eruptions in such a
variety of different places at once, [it] will appear to
have been the more formidable than any hitherto known
in the West Indies.5
The conspiracy explanation of the revolts hinges on the credi-
bility of these assertions and others Long made in his narration
of the events of 1760. The all important question is, then, of
what worth is the evidence?
Determining the quality of historical evidence is a hazard-
ous business, particularly when the evidence is personal testi-
mony, be it in the form of a diary, a letter, an old man's
memoirs, or even several lengthy volumes of learned exposi-
tion. Critical analysis of such source material involves more
than just a hearty draught of scepticism and a healthy measure
of detachment on the part of the historian: it requires the kind
of research that allows him to get inside the mind of his wit-
ness, to gauge the commentator's interests, biases, beliefs,
hopes, and fears; it demands the sort of thorough investigating
that enables him to weigh that testimony against contrary
evidence. Put simply, all such evidence needs verification, and
all doors must be opened in its pursuit. Enlightened common
sense ultimately judges the credibility of personal testimony.
Accordingly, Edward Long's analysis of the 1760 rebellions
must be evaluated in light of what is known about Long him-
self, weighed against conflicting evidence, and, finally, put to
the test of common sense.
It must be kept in mind at the outset that Long published
his History fourteen years after the outbreak of the insurrect-
ions. Without knowing what sources he used to freshen his
memory, it must be assumed that the passage of time diluted
somewhat his power of recall. Nevertheless, the inaccuracies
resulting from a blurred recollection would most likely pertain
to details rather than to general impressions regarding the
course of events, and, consequently, more important to this
inquiry than the "time lag" is Long's position in and view of
Jamaica's colonial society.
Edward Long was a wealthy plantation owner and slave-
holder from St. Ann. He moved about in the highest echelon
of Jamaican society, counting among his closest friends, his
brother-in-law, Lieutenant Governor Henry Moore. Recogniz-
ed and respected as a leader, for many years Long held a seat
in the Jamaica Assembly and, indeed, was one of its most
important members. In 1760, the year of the rebellions, Long
sat as Judge on Jamaica's Vice Admiralty Court. In short, he
was a pillar of eighteenth century Jamaican colonial life and
institutions.
Unlike most of his fellow islanders Long was a man of no
mean education. He was not only a thinker but a writer of
considerable skill. But his thought, like most men's, was
shaped by the culture in which he lived. Slavery, of course,
was the foundation of that culture. It was the backbone of
Jamaica's economy and the most striking feature of the island's
social order. Black bondage made a man like Long a master,
and it provided him not simply his livelihood but also the
leisure to devote time to public service, to study, or to the
simple enjoyment of life. In his writings Long defended Jamai-
ca's slave system against hostile criticism from North America
and England and, in fact, hovered about and nearly embraced
the doctrine, long before it was fashionable, that slavery was a
positive good which conferred blessings on both master and
slave.6
Keeping these things in mind, is it reasonable to accept
unquestioningly Long's assertion that the 1760 rebellions were
the product of a single conspiracy? Might not the conspiracy
be an invention of Long's own mind? After all, to Edward
Long, who saw the slave system as the benign, natural order of
things, providentially defined, the uprisings came as a shock,
a bewilderment: how to explain bloody revolt when commit-
tedto the belief that all is well? Long obviously could not deny
that revolts had occurred, but was he capable of recognizing
that all was not well? Did he have a moral and emotional
investment in the certainty of the slave system's essential
justice? If so, then quite possibly he resolved the contradict-
ion by what might be called the "rotten apple" explanation.
One incorrigible slave, Tacky, spoiled all the rest and unleash-
ed the bloody 1760 rebellions.
Thinking of this sort is not uncommon. Recent American
history provides an interesting parallel. In 1967 angry black
Americans, frustrated in their hope of securing genuine equal-
ity, put city after city to the torch. Many white Americans
then maintained that the only reasonable explanation for such
furious outbursts of violence was that "militant" conspirators
travelled the country sparking ghetto dwellers to riot. This
reasoning was most typical of those who believed that there
was nothing essentially wrong with urban America and that
whatever problems blacks faced were self-induced. In other
words, those who refused to acknowledge that problems
existed in the first place attributed the 1967 urban disorders
to unidentified villains who acted secretly and in concert. Yet
the thorough and searching investigation of what happened in
1967 revealed that "the urban disorders of the summer of
1967 were not caused by, nor were they the consequence of,
*any organized plan or 'conspiracy.'-"7
Belief in great conspiracies often cloaks an inability or an
unwillingness to approach unpleasant or disturbing evidence
with an open mind. What exactly conditions this inability or
unwillingness lies beyond the discipline of history. More pre-
cisely, it falls within the realm of psychology. Although the
academic disciplines which probe the human experience over-
lap at the edges, a great debate rages these days within histori-
cal circles concerning the merits of applying the principles of
modern psychology to historical personages. The difficulty is,
of course, that the "patient," in this case Edward Long, cannot
be placed upon a couch and psychoanalyzed. Nonetheless,
Stanley M. Elkins' pioneering work, Slavery: A Problem in
American Institutional and Intellectual Life, has shed consider-
able light on the psychological traumas of servitude and their
effects on black personality.8 There is, unfortunately, little
material of a comparable nature dealing with the master class,
and, in that absence, any further pursuit of this line of thought
must necessarily involve speculation. It is time, therefore, to
approach the matter from another angle.
To suggest reasons why Edward Long believed what he
believed may raise doubts about his credibility but does not
shatter it. His testimony must yet be weighed against that of
other witnesses and sources. These, however, do not corrobor-
ate the planter from St. Ann's view that a great slave conspir-
acy was afoot in 1760. Samuel Cleland of the Irwin Estate in
Westmoreland, although acknowledging that among the slaves
generally "there is a turbulent and rebellious spirit," wrote of
each revolt as a separate entity.9 So did Cleland's colleague,
James Barclay. This plantation manager, without referring to
simultaneous events in St. Mary and elsewhere, described the
Westmoreland uprising as "the greatest rebellion that ever was
known."10 The Jamaica Assembly also recognized that it had
not one but many insurrections on its hands. The slave code
enacted in December, 1760, as a result of the crisis, described
the disturbances in the plural. "Whereas," the law began,
"there hath lately been very dangerous rebellions and rebel-
lious conspiracies amongst the slaves of this island ..."11
Finally, unlike the inquiry made following Blackwall's revolt in
1765, no contemporary investigation of the events of 1760
revealed a widespread network of revolutionary conspiracy.12
The single conspiracy view of the 1760 rebellions flies in
the face of common sense. By definition conspiracy involves
clandestine planning and organization. Any slave or group of
slaves conspiring to incite an islandwide rebellion would necess-
arily encounter an insuperable chain of obstacles. First of all,
the plantation system and its code of discipline restricted the
mobility of slaves by imposing a close perimeter on their com-
ings and goings. Secondly, the island's poor roads,, rugged
mountains, dense vegetation, and innumerable rivers and
streams made all communication and transportation slow. The
difficult experiences of the white militia, often unable to must-
er effectively in an emergency, demonstrate the problems of a
group attempting coordinated activity, and the militia, keep
in mind, was not burdened by the demands of secrecy.13
Was it really possible, in other words, for a slave conspiracy
to have embraced the entire island? If not, then the causes of
the rebellions must be sought elsewhere.
Jamaica's 1760 insurrections had their origins in the pecul-
iar horrors of the island's slavery and the wide disproportion
between the black and white populations. The great majority
of slaves lived and worked under miserable conditions. Sugar
cane production demanded backbreaking work the year round
without respite, and food, shelter, and medicine were both
substandard and insufficient. A high incidence of absenteeism
among landlords depersonalized what was by nature a cruel,
exploitative institution, and the gang system further diminish-
ed whatever sense of responsibility the master class might have
felt for its labourers. For many years plantation owners and.
managers found it cheaper to work slaves to death and replace
them by purchase than to provide even the most basic human
needs. This practice resulted in a steady stream of newcomers
from Africa, making the degrading "seasoning" period an
enduring aspect of Jamaican slavery until late in the eighteenth
century.14 The poet Philip Freneau once described Jamaica's
slavery as "hell." 15
A small minority of Jamaica's total population imposed
these miseries on the labouring class. Governor William Henry
Lyttleton reported that in 1762 there were about 16,000
whites on the island as compared to 146,500 slaves.16 During
a tour of Jamaica in 1764 Lord Adam Gordon estimated that
there were 160,000 slaves and 25,000 whites. 17 Whatever the
precise numbers might have been, it was Edward Long's belief
that the ratio "nearest to exactness" was 100 blacks to every
nine whites. 18
The wretchedness of their condition as well as their super-
iority in numbers encouraged Jamaica's slaves to rebel. The
explosion occurred in 1760. Each uprising was a local pheno-
menon, although an atmosphere of hysteria among the whites
and rumour and hearsay among the blacks may have fanned
the flames and helped the rebellions to spread. While there is
no doubt that Tacky was responsible for the initial outburst in
St. Mary, he had nothing to do with the more serious revolt in
Westmoreland, nor with the insurrections at Tryall, Windsor,
Manchioneal, and Kingston. In other words, more than one
black hero and leader fought and died in 1760. Just as history
remembers Tacky, let it remember the others too.
FOOTNOTE
IC. Roy Reynolds, "Tacky and the Great Slave rebellion of 1760,"
Jamaica Journal, VI (June, 1972), 5-8.
2. Ibid., 8.
3. Edward Long, History of Jamaica (London: 1774).
4. Ibid., II, 447.
7. Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders
(New York: 1968), 202.
8. Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional
and Intellectual Life (Chicago: 1959).
9. Samuel Cleland to Thomas Hall, June 10, 1760. See also C!e-
land's letters to Hall of June 21 and 31, 1760. Mss., West India
Reference Library, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston.
10. James Barclay to Thomas Hall, June 18, 1760. Ms., West India
Reference Library, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston.
11. "An Act to Remedy the Evils Arising from the Irregular Assem-
blies of Slaves," December 18, 1760. Ms., West India Reference
Library, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston.
12. Under Edward Long's chairmanship, a committee of the Jamaica
Assembly investigated Blackwall's 1765 uprising in St. Mary.
The result revealed that slaves from seventeen plantations in the
parish were involved in the abortive revolt. No similar investiga-
tion was made in 1760. Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica
(Spanish Town: 1829), V, 592.
13. Consisting of all white males over fifteen years of age, Jamaica's
citizen soldiery amounted to about 5,000 men. The plantation
economy spread these men over wide distances, and, as a result
of the limitations nature imposed on communication and trans-
portation, the muster was often ineffective. As a consequence,
militia units often made a poor showing against rebel slaves
whose ranks, thereupon, swelled. William Henry Lyttleton,
"Description of Jamaica, 1764," 8, ms., West India Reference
Library, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston; Long, History, II, 452-
54.
14. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom (3rd ed., New
York: 1969), 60-66; Clinton Black, History of Jamaica (3rd ed.,
London: 1965), 97-110; Richard B. Sheridan, "Africa and the
Caribbean in the Atlantic Slave Trade," American Historical
Review, 77 (February, 1972), 15-35. One should also consult
Orlando Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery: An Analysis of the
Origins, Development, and Structure of Negro Slave Society in
Jamaica (London: 1967).
15. Fred Lewis Pattee, ed., The Poems of Philip Freneau (Princeton:
1902-07), II, 258.
16. Lyttleton, "Description of Jamaica, 1764," 7.
17. Lord Adam Gordon, "Journal of an Officer in the West Indies
who travelled over a part of the West Indies, and of North
America, in the Course of 1764 and 1765" Newton D. Mereness,
ed., Travels in the American Colonies (New York: 1916), 379.
18. Long, History, II, 318.
A German Marxist Author
i Anna Seghers' Novel qim
"Das Licht auf dem Gal
by Eckhard Breitinger
Few German authors have ever concerned themselves with
West Indian topics. During the eighteenth century, in imitation
of Defoe's Robinson, the so-called "Robinsonaden" came
into fashion; they were, however, set in an idealized, undefin-
ed no-man's land. In the first decade of the nineteenth century
the Prussian officer and writer, Heinrich von Kleist, spent some
time as a French prisoner of war at Fort Joux, where Tous-
saint L'Ouverture had been imprisoned for life. This experience
induced him to change the scene of one of his tales from
revolutionary France to the no less revolutionary Haiti.1 By
the middle of the century Theodor Storm, living in the very
north of Germany under Danish rule, wrote a rather sentiment-
al novel which is partly set in the then Danish Virgin Islands.
Anna Seghers, the most prominent East-German writer, drew
on the impact of the French Revolution in the Caribbean area
for her short novels Marriage in Haiti, Restitution of Slavery
in Guadeloupe and The Light on the Gallows. Quite under-
standably, she clad the historical facts in a plot that illustrates
Marxist theories of revolution and de-colonization.
Anna Seghers, descended from a well-established middle
class family, won literary reputation with her tale The Revolt
of the Fishermen of St. Barbara (1928), which describes the
unsuccessful attempt of Atlantic coast fishermen to reduce
exploitation by shipowners. In 1928, Anna Seghers joined the
Communist Party. Together with Berthold Brecht and Johannes
Becher she formed a circle of "Proletarian authors"; she
engaged in a long theoretical debate on the nature of socialist
realism with the Hungarian Marxist philosopher and critic
Georg Lukacs.
In 1933 she fled to Paris, and, just in time to escape the
invading German troops, she moved on to Mexico, which was
then a centre for socialist intellectuals exiled from the fascist
countries in Europe. During those years in exile she first touch-
ed upon Mexican and Caribbean themes, though her literary
output at the time concentrated on the intellectual campaign
against German Fascism. Her anti-fascist novels won her
world-wide recognition with the critics, independent of politi-
cal outlook. The Caribbean themes, however, only found
literary expression after Anna Seghers had settled in East
Germany in 1947.
As late as 1961, Anna Seghers published the third of her
Caribbean Stories "Das Licht auf dem Galgen" (The Light on
the Gallows) which deals with the case of two French secret
agents, Sasportas and Dubuisson, who were caught in Jamaica
in 1799. Anna Seghers herself cites a German translation of
R.C. Dallas' History of the Maroons as her main source of
information.2 Scant as Dallas' information is on the Sasportas-
Dubuisson-affair proper, the author amplified her material
1. Siegfried Streller, Geschichte und Aktualitat in Anna Seghers
Erziihlung "Das Licht aufdem Galgen," in Weimarer Beitr'dge IV (1962),
p 740.
2. Siegfried Streller, op. cit., p. 746.
with details from the two Maroon wars and, for the rest, she
handled historical facts rather freely. Here she deviates from
her normal documentary technique which she based on a
thorough investigation of the factual background. For a num-
ber of her novels she actually went to the place of action to
study social conditions on the spot. This personal experience
combined with her sense for detail and visual effect after all,
she was an historian of art by profession lend her novels the
lively quality and realistic richness that was so much appreciat-
ed by the critics.3 Here, however, she had to rely on a rather
shaky knowledge of historical facts and she had no personal
conception of the Jamaican setting, which necessarily entailed
a thinning-out of the narration on the one hand, and more
space dedicated to ideological and theoretical speculation on
the other.
The most fundamental deviation from the historical back-
ground is that Anna Seghers sets her heroes to the task of
instigating an island-wide slave uprising and thus install general
emancipation of the slaves solely from humanitarian and ideol-
ogical motives. She presents us with missionaries of the equal-
ity ideal of the French Revolution, while the report of the
British agent to the governor of Jamaica, which eventually led
to the detection of the two agents, makes it quite clear that
the aim of Sasportas' and Dubuisson's mission was primarily
to prepare the ground for a French invasion of Jamaica.
Another important alteration is the roles of the two protag-
onists.
Anna Seghers' Debuisson (the documents give the spelling
Dubuisson) is of mixed Jamaican-English and French descent;
having spent his early life in Jamaica, he deserted to the French
in Guadeloupe, and, an enthusiastic supporter of the French
Revolution, he became a secret agent in the service of the
Republic. In him she focuses all the conspiratorial activities;
he only turns traitor later on, when he finds that the political
situation in France and his personal interests have changed.
Sasportas, on the other hand, is described as the young idealist
revolutionary, who, without reservations, devotes his life to
the cause of the emancipation of the slaves. In consequence of
this devotion he has to die for his conviction. According to the
British agent Douglas, Sasportas was the hard-boiled head of
the conspiracy, while Debuisson seemed to have been pressed
by the French to serve as an agent. Anna Seghers even takes
over the character of Douglas who informed the authorities
about the two agents. But her Douglas is not the British agent
who detected the conspiracy by counter-espionage; he is a
house slave who occasionally carries letters for the two agents.
He informs the police from a childish urge to show off what
he knows and with what terrible secrets he has been entrusted.
To provide wider scope for conspiratorial activities, Anna
Seghers brings into the story a certain Cuffee, a run-away-
3. Jirg Bernhard Bilke, Anna Seghers: Vom Klassenkampf zur
StaatslReratur, in Deutsche Studien 32 (1970), p. 359.
slave, wb- had collected a gang of supporters, mainly to pillage
the planters. That Cuffee and his men should become an in-
strument for the emancipation of the slaves is rather what
Sasportas hopes for than what Cuffee himself conceives as
convenient. He becomes quite uncooperative as soon as a white
person appears on the scene. The author here had recourse to
events of the first Maroon war, when Quao and Cuffee were in
command of the Windward maroons. She even reports that
Cuffee and his men were wiped out by regular troops, who
had clandestinely placed swivel guns high up in the mountains.4
This is obviously based on Captain Stoddard's attack on
Nanny Town in 1734.5 Cuffee, described as short and hunch-
backed, is modelled after the historic Cudjoe.
Anna Seghers had never been to Jamaica and therefore very
wisely avoids revealing her lack of familiarity with local condi-
tions in long descriptive passages. She concentrates in her
narrative on the actions and the motives of the various charact-
ers. Scenery plays a quite subordinate role. The few, but
indispensable, geographical data she gives, however, are suffi-
cient to show that she is not particularly knowledgeable about
Jamaica. Nor did she absorb the full context of the Maroons'
relations to Spanish Town or the slave population. Here,
Marxist revolutionary ideology did not allow for a psychologi-
cally-based hatred between the slave population and the black
Maroons, who supported and profitted from the plantocracy
by hunting down run-away slaves. The ideology of revolution
demanded a unity of action and a complete identification of
all blacks, or even all non-whites, against the imperialist white
planter caste and their exploitative economic system.
Anna Seghers tale is meant as a didactic tale. She gives the
reasons why revolution failed under the historical circumstanc-
es described, she deduces the necessity of a revolution for nat-
ions under colonial rule and induces her readers to learn from
the mistakes of the past. In this she follows the rules of Social-
ist Realism, which prescribes the analysis of the historical facts
from a socialist point of view, and the deduction of political
relevance for the present as well as consequences for the future,
according to the theory of the dialectic development of
history. The stylistic means adopted, such as interior mono-
logue, association techniques, shifting of point of view, point
beyond strict Socialist Realism in the direction of "bourgeois
formalism and aestheticism"; in her dispute with Georg Lukacs
on the nature of Socialist Realism, she had defended the
necessity of experimenting with various artistic forms.7
Anna Seghers narrates her story as a tale within a tale,
starting off in the Paris of 1802. After Napoleon's take-over,
Antoine, a Jacobite, has been dismissed from his post with the
republican secret service, which sponsored under-ground move-
ments in enemy territory. Now, he himself is forced to live in
the underground. In this opening chapter Anna Seghers ex-
ploits one of her favourite fields, which she had so impressive-
ly described in her anti-fascist novels: the depressive milieu of
enemies of the regime, living in constant fear of being traced,
imprisoned or killed, and yet hoping and contributing to the
overthrow of the present regime by conspiratorial activities.
Malbec, a sailor, has sought out Antoine, to hand over the
report of his friend Galloudec, who was one of the party sent
to Jamaica with Debuisson and Sasportas. Galloudec's letter,
delayed for more than two years, informs Antoine that their
mission had failed: Debuisson had turned traitor, he was de-
ported to England, Sasportas was sentenced to death and
hanged. Galloudec had died of yellow fever.
4. Anna Seghers, Das Licht auf dem Galgen, in Erzahlungen II,
(Neuwied, 1964), p. 274.
5. Clinton Black, History of Jamaica (London, 31965), 82pp.
6. Fritz J. Raddatz (ed), Marxismus und Literatur I, (Reinbeck,
1969), 10 pp.
Wolfgang Joho, Vertrauen in die Entscheidung, in Neue Deutsche
Literatur, (Berlin, 1969), p. 160.
7. Fritz J. Raddatz (ed), Briefwechsel von Anna Seghers mit
Georg Lukacs, in Marxismus und Literatur II, (Reinbeck, 1969),
p. 110 138.
Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Deutsche Literatur in West und Ost
(Minchen, 1963), p. 363.
Anna Seghers deliberately begins with this double dis-
illusionment. She sets the scene at a time when the revolution
in France, the motherland of revolutions up to 1917, had
failed; when the revolutionary ideals liberty, equality, fra-
ternity were put aside; when the reactionaries had gained
the upper hand: the bourgeois had won the day over the
citoyen.8 In that depressive situation the defeated learn
that their missionary zeal to spread the achievements of their
revolution to other nations has failed as well. The capitalist
bourgeoisie had won on the national and international level,
and, in Marxist theory, bourgeois rule on the international
level means colonialism, imperialism, and, nowadays, neo-col-
onialism. However hopeless the revolutionists' situation may
appear at the moment, it still harbours hope. For Antoine and
Malbec, the exemplary struggle and the martyrdom of some-
one like Sasportas proves that the idea of the revolution still
lives on, even when the person of the revolutionary is put to
death. This is exactly what Fidel Castro meant, when, in the
trial after his abortive attempt to capture the arsenal at
Moncada in 1953, he said that "people follow ideas, not
persons."9 Thus the sacrifice of the revolutionary Sasportas
is rather meant to teach sympathisers to take courage than to
despair. His martyrdom promotes on a purely emotional level
a strong belief, even the absolute certainty in the ultimate
victory of the revolutionary cause. But what Antoine and
Malbec grasp only intuitively in quasi metaphysical terms can
easily be rationalized to the dialectic development of history,
namely that a reactionary regime with its mechanism of sup-
pression will only enhance the development-revolutionary
consciousness and thus accelerate the emergence of a genuine
revolutionary situation.10 This, as Anna Seghers sees it, is the
light that shines from the gallows on Saportas' life and on the
future revolutionary movement.
It should be mentioned that socialist writers have always
shown a strong interest in themes of the French Revolution
for two reasons. On the one hand the French Revolution
proved to be an unsuspected topic to glory in the highlights
of revolutionary's struggle. On the other hand it also conveyed
the warning not to overestimate bourgeois revolutions. The
French Revolution, seen in the light of socialist theory, was
an incomplete revolution, because it only strove for legal
equality, while it left the economic and social inequality
untouched. The revolution of 1789-99 was, therefore, bound
to entail a reaction by the economically powerful bourgeoisie,
which aspired to the position formerly held by the aristocracy.
In this ambiguous atmosphere, hovering between hope and
despair, the actual story begins. Debuisson, Sasportas, and the
sailor Galloudec set out for the West Indies. During their
passage and their short stay in Haiti, they tell us a lot about
the revolution in Haiti, the merits of Toussaint L'Ouverture
and the possible consequences for the slave societies in the
English and Spanish territories. The revolution in Haiti assumes
the character of a model within the geographical and historical
context. We hear, however, nothing of the slave rebellions in
St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent, organized by the French agent
Victor Hugues, which embarrassed the Jamaican planters
considerably. 11
In Haiti Debuisson, posing as a French prisoner of war,
manages to return to Jamaica with the rest of the British ex-
pedition forces, together with Sasportas as his assistant in his
medical profession and Galloudec as a servant. On board the
British man-of-war they get a good foretaste of what they are
to expect in Jamaica: crew and passengers are neatly separated
according to rank and colour. Aboard ship they also learn that
8. Siegfried Streller, Geschichte und Aktualitft . . Weimarer
Beitrige IV (1962), p. 243.
9. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Deutsche Literarur m West und Ost
(Miinchen, 1963)
10. A.E. Furness, The Maroon War of 1795, in The Jamaican
HistoricalReview V (1965), p. 34.
Cf. also Extracts from A. D. Dridzo, transl. by A. Gradussov,
Jamaican Maroons, (Moscow, 1971), in Jamaica Journal VI (1972),
pp. 121 125.
11. Anna Seghers, Das Licht auf dem Galgen, p. 235
the Maroons with whom they hoped to come into contact,
have been deported to Nova Scotia. On arrival in Kingston,
Debuisson and Sasportas are accommodated at Debuisson's
grandfather's plantation, and Galloudec with a mulatto carpent-.
er. Three short scenes strike the keynote of the situation of
Jamaican society: a run-away slave is left to die of heat and
starvation in a cage hung up in the market place; in the bust-
ling market, the slaves sell for their masters the products of
the plantations; the planters collect the cash and spend it in
the "Admiral Penn" which epitomizes the boisterous milieu
of the planter class.
In the following chapter, contact is established with the
local sympathisers, with the mulatto Crocroft, a ship's carpent-
er in Annotto Bay; with the blacksmith Bedford, a slave on a
neighboring estate; with Swaby, a tenant of Irish descent,
and, though indirectly, with Cuffee, the leader of a gang of
run-away slaves. Meanwhile Galloudec keeps in touch with
headquarters in Haiti. Preparations for an island-wide con-
spiracy, comprising mulattoes, slaves, run-aways, and under-
priviledged whites are well on the way when the decisive crisis
arises in the personality of the ringleader, Debuisson.
The first part of the novel deals mainly with the building
up of a revolutionary movement, in that it conveys a conspira-
torial atmosphere and links up nicely with the identical atmos-
phere of the opening chapter. The narrative technique is
straightforward, following the chronological series of events.
Only occasionally do we find flash-backs into Debuisson's
childhood in Jamaica or interior monologues commenting on
social or political conditions.
In the very middle of the novel the revolutionary movement
enters a critical stage when the news of Napoleon's coup d'etat
becomes known. The change in the political situation in France
provokes an objective crisis of the undertaking to which is
added the subjective crisis arising from Debuisson's reaction
to that event. Here, Anna Seghers shows how the individual is
affected by the political and social setting on the national as
well as the international level. With this crisis the emphasis of
the narration switches over from the external events to the
motives and inner struggles of the characters themselves. The
narrative technique is adapted to the new situation. In the
second part of the novel Anna Seghers operates mainly with
parallel montages. Apart from Debuisson's reflections on how
to adjust'to the new situation, more space is given to the
interior monologues and dialogues of Sasportas, Galloudec,
Bedford and others, illuminating simultaneously Debuisson's
motives from a different point of view. The planter society
was prepared without hesitation to reabsorb Debuisson among
their number, particularly since he functioned as a medical
doctor in lieu of his grandfather. Debuisson himself, though
unconsciously, arrived at an ever increasing identification with
the conceptions and interests of this class, for whose overthrow
he had returned to Jamaica.12 Debuisson, realizing that he
now lacks political backing from France, decides to leave the
entire project and he informs Sasportas to that effect.
Sasportas reacts violently. He argues that they have now
managed to build up a powerful underground movement which
cannot simply be left to itself. They would carry on even with-
out French aid. But Sasportas is also aware that the revolu-
tionary's chief virtues are discipline and obedience, and he
therefore advises Bedford to abstain from any rash actions,
though to no effect. Sasportas' sudden reserve arouses Bed-
ford's suspicions as to the loyalty of the whites, and Cuffee,
with his anti-white prejudice, confirms these suspicions. They
decide to strike on their own. Bedford and his men set fire to
the canefields and the greathouses of various estates. Cuffee
attacks a military post to capture weapons and ammunition.
Their actions, however, were incompetently planned, they were
not coordinated; and, most important of all, they failed to
spark off the island-wide slave-revolt they had hoped for. The
troops have no difficulty in finishing them off separately.
12. Paul Rilla, Die Erzihlerin Anna Seghers, in Vom biirgerlichen
zum sozialistischen Realismus, (Leipzig, 1967), p. 140.
Jirg Bernhard Bilke, Anna Seghers: Vom Klassenkampf zur
Staatsliteratur, in Deutsche Studien 32 (1970), p. 364.
Debuisson and Sasportas are arrested; Debuisson gives a full
confession while Sasportas refuses to reveal the names of his
associates. Galloudec escapes to Cuba to tell his tale, Crocroft
flees to the mountains, Swaby and others remain undetected.
There lies a certain irony in the fact that the tale achieves its
aim when the revolutionaries fail to attain their aims. The
story speaks for itself, and thus, the main interest lies with the
characters. And here lies one of the main weaknesses of the
literature of Socialist Realism. The didactic purpose together
with the certainty about the "ultimate victory of the cause of
the proletariat" create a literature that has much in common
with the medieval Moralities, particularly as far as characters
are concerned. So many of the characters never really come to
life as human beings they can in no case come to life as indi-
viduals, since, for the socialist author, every individual repre-
sents, above all, his class.13 This should, however, not prevent
characters being more than flat personifications of ideas or
prejudices impersonate, drawn from an oversimplified concep-
tion of the class structure of society. At an East-German
writers' conference, Anna Seghers had warned against reducing
characters to one-dimensional types that can be classified by
labels like "renegade", "popular hero" etc., though in her
earlier critical writings she stressed that characters can only
be understood as representatives of their class and the econo-
mic structure underlying the class hierarchy.14 This becomes
evident with the planters as they are described in our tale. The
little informaiton we get about the Swettenhams, the Raleighs,
the Dudleys information drawn from dialogue, behaviour, opin-
ions expressed reveal the hollowness, the greed, the conceit-
edness of the planter class. Particular stress is laid on the
inhumanity of the planter-slave relations.
The planters show excessive cruelty in punishing their
slaves for the slightest offence; the most cruel of these prac-
tices is to hang up slaves in the market place in a cage to die of
hunger, thirst and heat. We find this practice mentioned in
two passages that carry special weight because they are placed
prominently within the structure of the tale, at the beginning
and at the end. Anna Seghers illustrates the planters' utter
disrespect for human dignity in describing how they consider
their slaves not as human beings, but as means of production,
as capital investment, even as objects for speculation. Rumours
about the abolition of the slave trade induce planters to buy
slaves on stock to re-sell them again when prices have gone up.
They handle the Negroes like any other commodity. The
planters' daughters show no more humanity than their fathers;
they, too, dispose of their slaves at will.
The reader will accept this as a particularly severe piece of
criticism, for the general opinion will not allow for the same
amount of inhumanity in the females as in the males.
This inhumanity, on which any slave society is based, ex-
tends to the rest of society with its brutalizing effects, in parti-
cular to those on the fringes of society, the poor whites and
the Maroons. Anna Seghers insists on this point, time and again,
by denouncing the suppression of the Maroons with the aid of
bloodhounds. Of the entire planter class it is only Debuisson's
grandfather, Dr. Bering, who receives much of the author's
attention. Even so, he never becomes more than a mere type.
His career discloses the perfidious methods of the planters.
He came to Jamaica as a man of limited means, he married a
fortune and, usurping his daughter's and his grandchild's pro-
perty, engaging in fraudulent transactions, he amassed a huge
fortune. Bitter as Anna Seghers' criticism is, she never touches
on the most dubious phenomenon of the plantation system;
absenteeism.
At the opposite end of the scale we find the popular heroes
from the ranks of the underprivileged. Again, we do not come
across any differentiated personality. Cuffee is modelled on
the lines of the "noble outlaw". Ann, a house slave with the
Raleighs, takes the side of the revolution for love of Sasportas,
but not on rational grounds. Swaby, the white tenant, is an
interesting figure, as he epitomizes the exploitative character
13. JSrg Bernhard Bilke, op. cit., p. 361.
14. Anna Seghers, Das Licht auf dem Galgen, p. 215.
of the protocapitalistic plantation system, right to its founda-
tion in religion. Descended from a family of Irish indentured
labourers that is, a victim of the Puritan profit-orientated
mentality he became a small tenant. As such, he is hardly less
exposed to the caprice of the land-owners than the slaves.
Swaby fully realizes his situation, develops a marked class
consciousness and consequently takes sides with his black
fellow sufferers.
Bedford, the blacksmith, figures prominently among the
slaves. He is one of the masses; he is not the professional revol-
utionary with an intelligentsia background, but he has develop-
ed a keen awareness of the disgrace of his present situation.
His father and grandfather told him about the freedom they
enjoyed in Africa; Bedford himself never conceives slavery
other than as a temporary affair.15 Unlike heroes in bourgeois
novels of social criticism, he does not leave it to history to
right his wrongs; he decides to take his fate into his own hands.
He takes action to right his own wrongs and those of his fellow
sufferers. He unites all the properties of the "socialist popular
hero."16 Bedford instinctively feels that Sasportas-Debuisson
hesitate to strike, so he decides to strike on his own account.
Though he excels in zeal and prowess, he fails because of lack
of discipline. He kills an overseer in a fit of anger but he has
not sufficiently prepared the grounds for a general uprising,
which he hoped to spark off with his deed.
Local slave unrest crystallizes in the person of Bedford and
Cuffee. They stand for the mass movement. The professional
revolutionaries, Sasportas and Debuisson, succeeded in trigger-
ing off the movement, they could even channel it for a while,
but they failed to communicate openly with the popular
revolutionaries, with the result that the popular movement
overtook the professionals who were supposed to remain at
the head of it.
Sasportas represents the ideal revolutionary hero. Through-
out the novel we never hear that he concerned himself with
anything else except his mission. Compared with the cause of
the slaves he values his own life very little; on the other hand,
he does not irresponsibly put the lives of his helpers at stake.
If, however, the common cause demands that he risk his life,
he is prepared to do so, and he does not hesitate to ask the
same from his comrades. He subordinates individual interest
to general interests. This still involves a deep respect for human
dignity, as is shown in his way of dealing with the slaves as his
equals.
In the first half of the tale Sasportas functions as second in
command to Debuisson. He does not question Debuisson's
authority, and only when Debuisson steps down, for tactical
reasons, does he carry on on his own. This decisive change is
presented in a scene of symbolic value. On a ride to one of
their patients, Debuisson and Sasportas argue about the impact
of Napoleon's coup d'etat on their mission. When Debuisson
pleads that they should leave the slaves to themselves, Sasportas
suddenly gallops ahead, while Debuisson is left behind to con-
template the beauty of the scenery and the yield of the harvest.
Anna Seghers attempts to monopolize the reader's sympath-
ies for Sasportas. The analysis of her technique of characterisa-
tion makes this quite clear. While most of the information on
Debuisson comes to us through the critical reflections of Sas-
portas, Galloudec and, indirectly, Bedford, or through Debuis-
son's own thoughts, which are immediately contrasted with
views of others on the same topic, our information about
Sasportas remains strictly one-sided, not to say biased. He is
presented to us in his own interior monologues, which place
him in an advantageous contrast to Debuisson; in his actions -
notable are his demonstrations of the equality ideal when
dealing with slaves; and in a long monologue of Galloudec, who
looks back on his earlier suspicions of Sasportas' calibre as a
revolutionary, only to make his light shine even brighter by
his certain conviction of Sasportas' trustworthiness.
15. llinz Neugebauer, Anna Seghers, Schriftsteller der Gegenwart
(Berlin, 1971), p. 17.
Certainly, Sasportas' character is also to be seen against
the background of Nazi anti-semitism. While the Nazis de-
nounced the Jews as being profit-orientated, unsociable and
cowardly, Anna Seghers describes a Jew who is not only
entirely unconscious of personal interests, always placing the
general welfare first, but also heroic and courageous to the
extreme. 17
All this adds up to making Sasportas an absolutely faultless
hero. He becomes a Symbol, a martyr and saint of the revolu-
tionary creed, although he is never put to the test of internal
conflicts; he never doubts his mission, he knows no fear for
his life. He sacrifices his life on the altar of the revolution as
if this were the most natural thing a man would do. He is the
revolutionary superman. As such he adds to the internal logic
of the tale, but he also helps to make the end appear to happen
mechanically that is, he helps to strip the story of its tragic
potential.
There is only one situation where a real conflict could have
arisen; when the police arrest him and seek to press a confess-
ion from him. In this one crucial situation he is told right at
the beginning that Debuisson has turned traitor. While the
police officer hoped to make it easier for him to confess, he
only made it easier for him to summon up his courage not to
betray the revolutionary cause. With the example of the rene-
gade before him, Sasportas can more easily assume the stature
of the revolutionary hero that counterpoints the bourgeois
Debuisson; he sums up his antagonistic position in the words
"I am not Debuisson!"l8
It may appear as if the conflict in the novel were evolved
as a personal conflict between the protagonists. If, however,
the characters are considered as representatives of their class,
the personal conflict widens to a class conflict. As such, it
enforces the theory of the incompleteness of the bourgeois
revolution.
In the first half of the novel the conflict between the
planters' profit interests and the humane cause of emancipa-
tion is vested in the personality of Debuisson. In contrast to
the unbelievable super-hero Sasportas, Debuisson is the only
character that comes anywhere near to life. Debuisson's char-
acter even seems to develop in the course of the novel. Closer
examination, however, shows that differences in Debuisson's
behaviour are not due to a development of his character, but
rather to Anna Seghers' technique of drawing on different
aspects of Debuisson's personality in the first and the second
half of the novel.
The first part shows the bourgeois who turned revolution-
ary. It appears significant that his commitment for the revolu-
tion, in particular for emancipation, is grounded on humanitar-
ian reasons. In the second part, the revolutionary has turned
bourgeois again after realizing that the political, social and
economic consequences of emancipation would interfere with
his personal interests. Humanitarianism has to give way to
profiteering.
Both aspects are present in Debuisson's character all
through the novel. It is only that Anna Seghers abruptly
switches over from one to the other with the news of Napol-
eon's coup d'etat.
From the very beginning, Anna Seghers furnishes him with
such properties as are most likely to enhance his ambiguity.
While Sasportas as an orphaned Jew i.e. he is ethnically and
socially homeless can only be one of the "dammed of the
earth," Debuisson descends from a well-to-do family. His
mixed ancestry forshadows his role within the novel; the
French part stands for revolutionary zeal, the English for the
16. Heinz Neugebauer, op. cit., p. 6.
17. Anna Seghers, Das Licht aufdem Galgen, p. 284.
18. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Literatur in West und Ost (Miinchen,
1963)
Jgrg Bernhard Bilke, Anna Seghers: Vom klassenkampf zur
Staatsliteratur, in Deutsche Studien 32 (1970), pp. 357 375.
A bi-lingual edition of the Caribbean Tales was edited by W.F.
Tulasiewicz and published by Macmillan, St. Martin's Press.
Continued on page 31
ALL nations have their folk hero-villians. A classic stereotype
is the noble outlaw, a brave guerrilla who is ruthless with un-
just oppressors, generous to the common people, chivalrous
to women and children, and a champion of universal human
rights against an entrenched system of privilege. If, like
Robin Hood, Jomo Kenyatta or Che Guevara, they achieve
any measure of success, a mystique soon surrounds them.
Viewed as criminals by the authority in power, and as
heroes by highly dissident elements, it becomes very diffi-
cult, in assessing their influence, to separate fact from
folklore.
Almost two hundred years ago, Jamaica had just such a folk
hero-villian in the person of Jack Mansong. It comes as some-
thing of a surprise now to realize that for more than fifty
years after his horrible death in the Blue Mountains his name
was held in a strange combination of fear and awe not only
in Jamaica but in Britain too. It is a fact that more "bio-
graphies" of Jack have seen published than of any West
Indian before or since somewhere approaching twenty
in all, almost all written in Britain and almost all anony-
mous!
Depending on which of these "lives" of Jack Mansong we
pick up, he was the "Terror of Jamaica", a "famous negro
robber", "a bold and daring defender of the rights of man",
a "gallant hero". To the colonial administration he was
"that daring rebel" and leader of a "very desperate gang of
negro slaves."
Considering that Jamaica had many runaways and rebels in
slavery times and that Jack's provable career lasted only a
matter of months, during 1780 and 1781, the later effects
and influence of both facts and legends are really quite
astonishing. Not only did books about him become popular
and one or two are known to have been best sellers in Britain,
but a pantomime on his life had the rare distinction of being
a sensation at Covent Garden, Haymarket and Victoria
theatres in London. This musical Obi or Three Fingered
Jack had a run of at least nine years! Even in the nineteenth
century Jack's hideout was still being prominently displayed
on maps of Jamaica, including the first official detailed
survey of the island in 1802. There are important reasons
for this notoriety, which will be considered later. First, we
must determine who he was and what he really did.
As with all folk hero-villians, this is easier said than done.
However, an exhaustive search of sources has not only
clarified many facts but illustrated some interesting aspects
in the growth of folklore.
Who was Jack Mansong? Despite the library catalogues, it is
virtually certain that if Jack ever had a surname in his life-
time, it was not Mansong. This name does not appear in
print until nineteen years after Jack's death and was pro-
bably the brainchild of an enthusiastic theatre-goer in
London who saw the pantomime. It caught on and was
adopted by some subsequent "biographies". In his rebel
days in the hills Jack was known and feared by the name
"Three-finger Jack."
Where was Jack born and where did he spend his life prior to
becoming Jamaica's most notorious guerrilla? To the forces
of law and order Jack was a common felon at large and the
question of his origins was immaterial. Also being a run-
away slave he was property, not a person, so that again his
early life was of no consequence. There grew up after his
death two traditions, circulating at the same time. An anony-
mous biography sold by the publisher. A. Neil in 1800 claims
to have "cited historians of veracity" and represents Jack
Mansong as the warrior son of Onowauhee, a Moslem from
Simbing in the inland delta region of the Niger somewhere
south of Timbuktoo in modern Mali.
From there he was carried to the Gambia and then sold as a
slave to Jamaica. But it is almost certain from internal evi-
dence that the only "historians" he consulted were a William
Bnrdett and the anonymous author of a book published by
Brown of London in 1800. Both of these were however,
propagandists who could tell a good yarn, not historians of
veracity. This tradition is also followed in accounts of Jack's
life published by Catnach, Clarke, Marks, Oliver and Boyd
(a best-seller) and Walker.
We may dismiss as a fairy tale this whole story that Jack was
from Mali. There are two puzzling features, however. One
is the extraordinary mass of detail as to Jack Mansong's
exploits as a young warrior, so lengthy as to be tedious and
completely irrelevant to his later activities. In fact, in some
cases where this tradition is followed, details of his early life
in Mali take up more space than the account of his rebellion.
.In some accounts Jack is betrothed to Zaldwna, the daugh-
ter of a chief, and the loss of her through being enslaved was
a prime motive for later revenge. Moreover, there are details
about the Bambara of Mali which are strangely accurate
considering that this interior area of Africa was virtually
unknown to Europeans in 1800. Even if the authors were
writing historical romances, where they derived their geo-
graphical and historical information is an interesting pro-
blem. It is incredible that such detailed knowledge of events
in Mali half a century before should have been known in
the London of 1800.
There is, however, a totally different tradition which places
Jack's birthplace as the Jamaican property of a Mr. Morn-
ton near Scott's Hall in St. Mary. In this account he is pre-
sented as the posthumous son of Makro who died on the
"middle passage" and Amri who was purchased by Mornton.
The birth would thus be about 1763, either two or four
months after his mother's arrival in Jamaica. Jack's parents
were stated to be from the banks of the Gambia. This story
first appears in 1800 in pseudoepistles by a W. Earle, Jr. and
is found as late as 1829 in one of the most detailed "lives".
"The Wonderful Life and Adventures of Three finger Jack,
the terror of Jamaica."
The main feature of Earle's story and others which followed
it is that Jack's parents were enslaved by a Captain Harrop,
a white planter from St. Mary turned slave trafficker. Harrop
was shipwrecked on the Gambian coast, nursed back to
health by Jack's parents but then abused their hospitality.
Possessed by a bigoted conviction that their future would
be better in civilized Jamaica than heathen Africa, Harrop
contrived to carry them in one of his ships as slaves to Jam-
aica. Jack's rebellious activities are interpreted as hatred and
revenge inspired in him by his widowed mother.
There are many fanciful elements in this story too, and many
geographical absurdities. The geography of Gambia is naive,
and it is not possible to run down for supper from Mt.
Lebanus in the Blue Mountains to Scott's Hall in St. Mary!
There are improbable events in improbable places, the most
fantastic being described by Petrus Borel, the Frenich Story-
teller, who has Jack saving a girl called Abigail from drown-
ing and from pirates in St. Ann's Bay. Nevertheless, whether
to give veri-similitude or because there was a grain of truth
somewhere, Earle gives us a biography of Harrop, who is
stated to have been born in Britain in 1738, taken to Jama-
ica at the age of one, and to have inherited a plantation in
1760.
The name Harrop is almost certainly a pseudonym, even if the
man ever existed, so there is no way of verifying the details.
A search has revealed neither Harrop, nor Mornton among
eighteenth century Jamaican planters, and certainly no trace
of the Jewish landowner at St. Ann's Bay by the name of
Hatsarmaveth Abraham Westmacot who was Abigail's master!
In the eighteenth century, details of runaway slaves were regu-
larly advertised in the Jamaica press to aid in their capture.
An advertisement was run' for several weeks early in 1780
reporting an escapee by the name of Jack from an estate in
St. Mary. It seems that he had run away to sea, gone to
Honduras, then been seen in Kingston and finally taken to
the hills. This Jack was apparently not from the Gambia, but
was described as a Portuguese slave. But there must have
been very many slaves named Jack, so this may be mere
coincidence.
Was Jack born in Jamaica? Perhaps, but we have no certain
way of knowing now. We have no idea where Earle got his
information and most of it may have been simply out of his
own head. He would not be the first to write fiction under
the guise of sober history! One thing is certain: by early in
1780 Jack had decided that the life of a guerrilla was better
than that of a slave, and he began his private war.
The Guerilla War
Governor Dalling's proclamation of 12 December 1780 makes
it clear that Jack was no ordinary runaway slave trying to
survive by crime. He is described as "a daring rebel" who had
"eluded every attempt to capture him." His earliest base was
near the head of the Cane River in St. Andrew from which
he could observe and venture out to attack traffic on the
on the Windward Road. But it was soon necessary to retreat
to a more remote locality, and it was on Mt. Lebanus that
he made his principal hideaway. It was with Mt. Lebanus
that he became principally associated in popular repute, and
many people in Britain had heard of Mt. Lebanus in this way
who knew nothing else about Jamaica.
As a matter of fact, there is slight disagreement as to its exact
location. One description places it "at the top end of
Newington up one of the gullys to the east of the bridle
path up Kenmure Ridge (of Blue Mountain Peak)". But
the surveyor Robertson, who was the most careful and
accurate map-maker of the early nineteenth century in
Jamaica, marks "Three Finger Jack's Huts" very clearly
and prominently in Queensbury Ridge at the 5,000 foot
level about two miles south of the Peak.
There appear to have been several reasons why Jack chose the
upper slopes of the Blue Mountain Peak besides inaccessibi-
lity. For one thing, it seems that the Mt. Lebanus property
was in receivership and was being advertised for sale during
most of 1780. Its backlands may thus have afforded a safer
haven than neighboring estates. But more important was
the fact that a certain obeah-man lived in a cave on the
Portion of
slopes of the Peak. The anonymous account published by
Brown, which is detailed and bravely entitles itself "a faith-
ful narrative collected from the best authorities" (it does
in fact contain some unique material) indicate that this
cave provided a regular refuge for guerillas and desperadoes.
This obeah-man is named Amalkir in one account and
Bashra in another: both names are undoubtedly fictional,
but this transported African witch-doctor must have been
real and provided powerful inspiration for Jack and his
colleagues.
Jack set up headquarters near Bashra (alias Amalkir) and plot-
ted with others various guerrilla stratagems. There are some
amazingly fanciful descriptions of this mountain retreat.
Most writers describe a cave of varying depths, down to a
hundred feet, and there are even utterly ridiculous refer-
ences to rooms in it with doors, tables and chairs! In fact,
the thick fabric of fairytale hangs over this aspect of the
story.
The bushy section of the Windward Road where it negotiates
the hills between Bull Bay and Grant's Pen was chosen as
the principal scene of banditry. At Four Mile Wood, near
the present layby and viewpoint east of Eleven Miles on the
St. Thomas Road, were staged many daring hold-ups, violent
robberies, kidnapping and shootouts. Government officials
and members of the plantocracy were priority victims.
Other aims were theft of firearms and guerrilla recruitment-
interpreted as freeing of slaves or carrying them off accord-
ing to one's point of view! There were casualties both of
direct murder and by killing of pursuers. Earle waxes elo-
quent: "numbers of innocents fell beneath his rapacious
sword, and black men alone were spared."
In the early part of 1780 the movement showed signs of grow-
ing into a threatening revolt very similar indeed to the
Mau Mau of Kenya. There was solemn oath-taking and
African magical rites. The best source outside Government
documents, Dr. Benjamin Moseley, surgeon-general to the
Jamaica militia, assistant judge for St. Andrew and a renown-
ed world authority on the growing of sugar, mentions a cere-
mony in which the contents of Jack's obeah-horn were
smeared on the foreheads of his band to bind them to
absolute secrecy.
The account published in Brown includes an episode of some
significance in Jamaican history. Early in 1780, we are told,
Above, Four Mile Wood on the Kingston to Morant Bay Road, between
Bull Bay and Grants Pen. Here were staged most of the daring guerilla
raids on government officials and other travellers, and although the
number of fatalities is not known, it is certain that shootouts were
fairly frequent for some months.
Right, The Queensbury Ridge of Blue Mountain Peak. Jack's hideaway
is reputed to have been close to the small peak in the rear centre. His
secret track led down the centre of picture, by-passed Cedar Valley to
left of foreground and eventually to Four Mile Wood.
plans were prepared for an island-wide massacre (the partly
successful one of 1760, the so-called Conference Uprising,
was still a vivid memory). At the firing of a signal gun at
midnight on 10th February 1780 the grisly work was to
begin. The location chosen to initiate the revolt was Craw-
ford Town, a settlement situated between Silver Hill and
Tranquility on the slopes of Haycock Hill in Western Port-
land. The attack on Crawford Town was made in the early
hours of the morning and it was set afire, amidst, so the
story goes, "screams of the defenceless and groans of the
dying." A detachment of five hundred Maroon irregulars
was quickly dispatched and they soon dispersed Jack's men.
A general uprising, as usual, never materialized. A free par-
don was offered to the insurgents and all accepted except
Jack. From then on he fought alone.
The burning down of Crawford Town certainly did take place,
but there is no other evidence that Jack took part in it. If
he did, then the statements that he spared Negroes in his
attack is nonsense, since there were many Maroons and few
Whites in the population of Crawford Town. Free Maroons
were encouraged to capture and return runaway slaves to
'justice' and thus there was little love lost between Maroons
and fugitives bands living in the hills. This may explain the
choice of target. Many of the maps of the late eighteenth
century show that the settlement was later rebuilt on the
other side of Haycock Hill and known as New Crawford
Town. It does not exist today.
The Legend
Legends of Jack's character and prowess circulated wide-
ly. His obeah was heard as much as his musket. He was
blamed for marital unhappiness, sickness and other mis-
fortunes among both whites and blacks. On the other hand,
he was "never known to hurt a child or abuse a woman."
There was a persistent story about a soldier's wife who, travel--
ing over the hills to the garrison at Moore Town to visit her
husband, was way-laid by Jack. Not knowing him, she sought
his protection against the notorious bandit. She offered him
money which was returned.
Another episode was that of the birthday party. Jumping
suddenly from behind a tree as the revelries were proceed-
ing in the garden, Jack shot dead the master of ceremonies
and in the ensuing pandemonium retired with an ample
supply of loot.
Jack is said to have lost two of his fingers after waylaying
and demanding money from a Maroon of Scott's Hall called
Quashee, both being wounded in the affray. This is supposed
to have made Quashee determined to revenge the injury and
finally led to Jack's death.
More in realm of fancy than fact, herculean feats were ascribed
to him, such as forcing apart iron bars after capture, jump-
ing thirty feet and killing two warders to escape. As a
matter of fact, he was never captured alive. But during the
harrowing few months when travellers were thankful to
reach Bull Bay in safety, the wildest rumours circulated. He
was alleged to be a giant in stature and even able to absorb
bullets into his body without harm.
Jack had a private trackway from Mt. Lebanus to Four Mile
Wood. It was known to locals and for long afterwards it was
shown to curious visitors. Its general course can still be
traced.
Fawcett, the author of the pantomime to which we have
previously referred, wove a fanciful love story around a Cap-
tain Orford of the British garrison and a coy maiden called
Rosa Chapman. Orford was carried off by Jack, and Rosa,
dressed as a sailor boy, gallantly went off to his lair to carry
out a dramatic but comic-opera rescue operation. This be-
came later the most popular feature of the whole cycle of
legend and occurs in several varying versions, usually presen-
ted as sober truth. However, despite its popularity, it is
without question pure fiction.
By the end of 1780 the colonial administration was getting
tired of the pathetic failure of law enforcement to effect
Jack's capture. There is no doubt he was viewed as a very
serious threat to the established order. Rewards were offered
by both the British government and the Jamaican House of
Assembly. As these were initially ineffective, an additional
motion in the House offered freedom to any slave accom-
plishing his apprehension, dead or alive.
Almost the only part of Jack's life in which there is near unani-
mity among writers is in its ending. The manner of his death
is always described-and frequently illustrated-in great and
gory detail. It occurred on Saturday January 27, 1781, and
a short account appears in a supplement to the Royal
Gazette (Kingston) of February 3. It state; that Jack was
surprised by a Maroon negro named John Reeder and six
others. Jack was alone and armed with a cutlass and two
muskets. He only had time to seize the cutlass before being
shot three times in the body. Mortally wounded, he threw
himself down a forty foot precipice. Reederfollowed andin
the ensuing scuffle Reeder and another Maroon were woun-
ded. Finally Jack's arm and head were severed and brought
to Kingston.
Dr. Moseley was closely associated with the event and took
something of a professional interest in the whole affair. His
account is substantially similar to the official one, although
more details are given. John Reeder appears as James Reeder,
but this was only a name adopted at a christianizing cere-
mony before setting out on the fateful expedition. Before
that he had been Quashee the unconverted Maroon. The
significance especially of this will be considered later.
Moseley mentions that Quashee (alias Reeder) was accompan-
ied in the final attempt by a small boy ("a good Shot") and
by Sam Davy. Described as a Maroon by the Government,
Moseley more specifically identifies him as the half-caste
son of a Captain Davy who shot the captain of a London
ship in Old Harbour, obviously a well-known incident. Both
Quashee and Davy lived at Scott's Hall in St. Mary.
The Final Struggle no doubt retold many times, was a
hand to hand affair. The precipice down which the wounded
Jack threw himself is forty feet in the gazette account; in
others it is ninety feet. Actually there was a ledge part way
down and the slippery descent was made in two stages.
The final struggle was without weapons in macca bush at
the bottom. Although mortally wounded, Jack got Reeder
by the throat and Jack was only put out of action where
Right, Jack attacked by Quashie and Sam. Photo Institute of Jamaica
Below, Four illustrations from Fairburn's edition (fly-leaf).
Photo Institute of Jamaica
Sam bashed his head in with a rock. Then Jack's three-
fingered hand was cut off and his head stuck on a bamboo
pole.
The victorious party carried these gory trophies to Morant Bay
where they were deposited in a bucket of rum for the
triumphant journey to Spanish Town. There the reward of
vt -.-' ,....-^v .dta6. .j< aBa Am.'tfIByy,
(ai .a~Iii'o t~i 1 0 eal x I L (w
0ACK co"(plerva 1!y wil't'llev A- ;-.111A
three hundred pounds was claimed. This was a sum large
enough at the time to buy about fifty acres of agricultural
land or fifteen fat steers. And neither Reeder nor Davy were
slaves, the Assembly's allurement of freedom was irrelevant.
The procession to Spanish Town must have been quite an affair,
considering that the distance was more than forty miles. A
"vast concourse of negroes" blew shells and horns and fired
off guns, while chairing the pair along the way. Dr. Moseley
shrewdly comments that it was Jack's obeah that they were
happy to get rid of rather than Jack himself.
Borel's romance describes the Spanish Town procession in
colourful detail and with poetic justice has Reeder stabbed
to the heart by Abigail the girl Jack once had saved from
pirates. In actual fact, there is evidence that Reeder and
Davy not only lived to enjoy their gains but used them in
typical Jamaican fashion to celebrate annually.
As for the trophies of victory, twenty years later the head and
three-fingered hand were still preserved in spirit "for the
satisfaction of the curious" in Spanish Town.
Actual descriptions of Jack are mostly special pleading. It
is remarkable that a British writer of a hundred and seventy
years ago should call him "the bravest, strongest man in the
world!" Another lauds him for his "persevering courage and
gallant heroism," yet another patronizingly says that "he was
not without his virtues."
More significant were appraisals of his role by the long parade
of anonymous British "biographers." William Earle Jr. calls
Jack "a bold and daring defender of the Rights of Man,"
and concludes that "thus died as great a man as ever graced
the annals of history, basely murdered by hirelings of
Government." No wonder writers published anonymously!
Why all the interest in Jack and his short lived rebellion? Why
should packed houses in London theatres give "unbounded
applause"to a dramatized version of this affair and romantic
elaborations of it sell like hot cakes?
The answer is complex but not without its relevances for today.
First, there was the appeal of the story in Europe. between
1799 and 1832. The idea of a gallant and chivalrous ex-
slave fighting the whole colonial-slavery system single hand-
ed had great appeal to the anti-slavery movement. Its poten-
tial for propaganda was utilized to the full. Jack's "bio-
graphers" were principally advocates of social protest and
change. Real or imaginary episodes were invoked to demon-
strate the brutality and degradation of slavery and in parti-
cular the African slave trade.
In Africa, Jack or his parents were presented as noble savages,
European traders epitomized by Harrop as misguided, bigo-
ted, vicious, yet unwitting tools of the system. Africa's
inter-tribal problems were viewed as serious enough without
the intervention of the European slave trade. We meet
William, himself a white bond-servant to Harrop, vainly
protesting the evil traffic, and later himself becoming a
hippie type fugitive in the St. Thomas hills, "wild and
living in the woods."
Several of the books about Jack Mansong were published by
evangelical and missionary minded non-conformist advo-
cates of human dignity for both West Indian and African
blacks. The desire to make the story relevant to both Africa
and the Caribbean may have been the reason why Earle has
Jack conceived in Africa, carried in the womb across the
notorious Middle Passage and born in Jamaica. The anti-
slavery slogan and imprint. "Am I not a Man and a Brother"
appears prominently on two of the books on Jack. In one of
the psuedo-letters of Earle, purporting to be from a resident
in Jamaica to a friend in Britain, is a typical passage advoca-
ting the irrelevance of the whole criterion of race:
"Jack is a negro," say they. "Jack is a man," say I.
The tremendous interest shown in the pantomime "Obi -
or Three-finger Jack" the writer has copies of both the
script and of an original Haymarket playbill was due to
the fact that, farce though it was, it pressed on the very
nerve of the British dilemma. This dilemma was political,
economic, social and religious.
In this farce, the resident whites are awfully goody-goody, and
Jack is supposed to be representative of the ignorant savage
who will not be civilized by the tender mercies of the slavery
system, and who can only be tamed by the resolute forces
of imperial Britannia. The fatuous doggerel of the finale,
set to music (now lost) by Dr. Arnold, no doubt quickened
the pulses of the patriotic British audiences:
"Here we see villainy
Brought, by law, to short duration:
And may all traitors fall
By British proclamation.
Chorus: Then let us sing
God save the King, etc., etc., etc."
Villain or Hero
And yet the musical left nagging doubts whether Jack really
was a villain, or hero, or both, or neither. Among the packed
audiences there were several who felt that a basic human
and international problem was being exposed, for most of
the anonymous writers set about their "biographies" after
seeing the caricature of Jack in the pantomime.
More important even than the fundamental issue of whether
Jack was criminal, man or merely lost property, was the
conflict of cultural and spiritual values. As with the Mau
Mau of Kenya it was Jack's obeah which sent shivers down
the spines of Jamaican whites, the fear of something little
understood and unpredictable.
The contest between Quashee (alias Reeder) and Jack was a
confrontation not so much of strength and weapons as
between different sets of supernatural powers, African and
Christian. As long as he was Quashee, Jack's obeah was an
impregnable protection; as Reeder, victory could be expec-
ted since Jack's obeah was powerless against the Christians'
God. He acquired superior protection by the ceremony of
becoming a Christian with a new name.
Jack was not just a political guerrilla, he was fighting a rear-
guard action for a system of superstitious magic against
western religion and culture, supposedly rational and civil-
ized. To every writer, what brought Jack down was not
Sam's rock but the failure of Jack's African magic.
Jack lost support among the slaves and his revolt failed (if
indeed it ever seriously started) because his gods were dying
The throngs of cheering blacks lining the route from Morant
Bay had their counterpart in the thousands of loyal Kikuyu
in the 1950's and early '60's who would have no part with
the Mau Mau whatever the cost.
Dr. Moseley took a grim interest in the goat's horn of obeah
which Jack always carried, and he personally claimed to
have analysed its contents. Certainly it was given to him
after Jack's death. He listed these as grave dirt, ashes, the
blood of a black cat, and human fat mixed into a paste. In
a bag at his waist were a dried toad, a pig's tail, a cat's foot
and some kid skin.
There was one other aspect of the whole affair of Jack Mansong
which some writers were at pains to emphasize. Moseley
says Jack had a "mortal hatred to white man" but "would
not disturb one lady's happiness" though how these two
could be effectively reconciled seems to have escaped him.
This implacable hatred for whites is seen as a warning of
worse to come if slavery, colonialism and racial injustice
were perpetuated.
The ultimate influence of the Jack Mansong stories upon the
British social and religious climate of the early nineteenth
century will never be known. However, it is interesting to
know that "Three-finger Jack's little guerrilla war" in the
Blue Mountains nearly two hundred years ago was widely
seen as a warning that in human, racial, national and inter-
national relations there is only one choice: bloodshed or
brotherhood.
At the outset I wish to thank the Union for the invitation
to deliver a talk on "Energy, Politics and Pollution" at this
Seminar. This is a topic which to-day is being specially high-
lighted by both the international press and statesmen, and
hence it is a highly germane subject not only in view of the
international debate, but particularly with respect to Jamaica's
present and future energy development. I should clearly state
at the outset that the orientation of this talk is specifically
international in context. There are two simple reasons for this,
the first being that it is impossible to examine present and
future energy development in a country such as Jamaica,
which is a net importer of energy products, unless one
thoroughly comprehends the international energy scene and
the implications of actions on the international front for
Jamaica's position regarding energy. The second reason is
more simplistic since this is due to the fact that over the past
six years I have been working in the international arena with
special emphasis on nuclear energy. Having only recently
returned to Jamaica I am therefore best equipped, at present,
to review energy from the international standpoint.
Regarding the other two aspects of mytalk, "Politics and
Pollution," it should be evident that to evaluate the world's
energy situation and not assess the political environment with-
in which the "oil game" is being enacted would be an exercise
in what I term "theoretical logic performed in a vacuum." In
addition, to discuss energy and its politics without addressing
oneself to pollution is non-scientific. The three elements of
this triad are intricately linked, indeed, they are so linked and
interwoven that they can only be examined in toto lest one
performs a sterile task.
Having explained the context and objectives of the talk, I
should briefly outline the scope of the lecture. Due to limita-
tions in time, I have restricted myself somewhat in that I do
not propose to discuss in detail, the role of tidal, hydraulic,
geothermal or solar energy essentially because they are not at
the centre of the international energy stage, at present. This
therefore means that I shall devote myself to discussing the
history and role of oil, gas, coal and nuclear fuels as the
primary energy resources. Finally, I shall not to-day discuss
energy development in Jamaica, as I view it over the time
horizon up to the early 1990s. This is primarily due to the
time limitations and the factors I have outlined above.
1. WORLD ENERGY RESOURCES
The first and most critical point which I wish to emphasise
The views expressed in this Paper are those of the Author and should
not be construed as reflecting, directly, or indirectly, those of the
Government of Jamaica.
Dr. Byer is Energy Adviser in Ministry of Mining and Natural
Resources.
is that despite the fact that today the world is being engulfed
by statements to the effect that we are experiencing and will
continue to experience an acute energy crisis, this is a total
miscomprehension of what is really happening on the energy
horizon. The world is neither experiencing nor about to
experience an energy crisis, what is being experienced at pre-
sent is a major institutional crisis in certain sectors of the
energy industry. A real energy crisis would mean that the world
was running short of energy resources even resources at astro-
nomical prices and that the only way the thirst for energy
could be satisfied was by the development of totally new
technology which did not exist at present. This is not what the
present situation is, for what we are witnessing is merely the
restructuring of certain sectors of the energy industry. This
distinction is important if we are to avoid the process of
freezing the mind around a core of dead rhetoric, for it places
the entire question of world energy into its proper perspective.
In assessing the world's energy resources, two time scales
must be borne in mind; the first being a geological time-scale
during which the earth's most significant stores of energy were
accumulated and, the second a human time-scale during which
those accumulations are dissipated. The world's energy resourc-
es theoretically available for power production are of two
classes:- First, various channels of the continuous energy
flux from extra-terrestrial sources, and from the earth's inter-
ior; and second, the chemical, thermal and nuclear energy
stored in the outer part of the earth's crust and in the oceans.
The energy flux shown in Fig. I. is an approximate steady
state where the energy inputs into the earth's surface environ-
ment from these various sources, undergo a series of thermody-
namically irreversible degradations, the end product of which
is heat at the lowest temperature of the environment. This
then leaves the earth by long wavelength thermal radiation.
Associated with this energy flux, the material constituents of
the earth's surface undergo intermittent or continuous circula-
tion. A small fraction of the matter on the earth comprises the
biomass of the earth's plant and animal kingdoms, and a
minute fraction of the incident solar radiation is captured by
the plant leaves and is stored chemically by photosynthesis
whereby inorganic materials such as H20, C 02 and mineral
salts are synthesized into complex inorganic compounds. This
provides the energy to sustain the entire plant and animal
kingdoms. A small fraction of the remains of plants and
animals accumulated over the past 700 million years in oxygen
free environments, such as swamps, and became buried over
by muds and sands. These remains have gradually metamor-
phosed into the earth's present stores of the fossil fuels, coal,
petroleum, gas and related substances.
-Any estimate of world's energy resources is a hazardous
venture and one may easily arrive at estimates which differ by
Science
a factor of 2 or 3. In particular, the amount of energy resourc-
es is a function of the price which can be sustained to exploit
these resources. Furthermore, reserves are normally classified
into three groups proven, probable and possible and this
further complicates any analysis.
Since coal occurs in sedimentary basins in strata that
are of large areal extent which tend to rise to the earth's
surface, reasonably reliable estimates can be formed of total
reserves in beds of more than 0.35 metres in thickness, and to
depths of up to 2 kilometres. According to recent estimates,
the initial world supply of mineable coal amounted to
7.64 x 1012 metric tons, of which 65% occurs in Asia (includ-
ing European USSR), 27% in North America, 5% in Western
Europe and only 2.4% in the three continents of Africa,
South America and Australia. Of this quantity only 135 x 109
metric tons, or 1.8% had been mined by the end of 1969.
B. Crude Oil
Unlike coal, petroleum fuels are mobile and therefore
in accumulating underground can migrate to different sub-
regions about a proven deposit. Estimates of oil and gas are
therefore much more hazardous than for coal. Present world
production of crude oil is somewhere in the region of 50
million barrels/day and the proven reserves of crude oil world-
wide amount to about 642 billion barrels according to 1971
estimates. Table I. gives a breakdown of where these proven
reserves are located from which it is evident that the Middle
East accounts for about 58% of the total. Table II. gives an
estimate of the total reserves of crude oil worldwide (proven,
probable and. possible) and the regions in which these occur.
These data indicate that at present consumption rates of some
18 billion barrels a year of crude oil, the proven reserves will
last for another 35 odd years.
C. Natural Gas, Tar and Oil Shales
The quantities of natural gas for large productive
areas are roughly proportional to those of crude oil and the
LONG WAVE-LENGTH
U.S. Gallons/ton 10-100 5-10 10-25 25-100
Oil Content
Africa 10 Small Small 90
Asia 20 14 70
New Zealand Small 1 Small
Europe 30 6 40
North America 80 2200 1600 520
South America 50 750 Small
Totals 190 2200 2400 720
* U.S.A. Geological Survey, Circular. 523 (1965)
TABLE IV
Energy Contents of the World's Estimated Total
Supply of Recoverable Fossil Fuels
Fuel Quantity Energy Content Percent
1021 Thermal joules 1015 Thermal KWh
Coal and Lignite 7.6 x 1012 tons 201 55.9 88.8%
Petroleum
Liquids 2000 x 10 barrels 11.7 3.25 5.2%
Natural Gas 10000 x 1012 cubic feet 10.6 2.94 4.7%
Tar-Sand Oil 300 x 10 9 barrels 1.8 0.51 0.8%
Shale Oil 190 x 10 9 barrels 1.2 0.32 0.5%
Totals 226.3 62.9 100%
sands are sands containing oil that is too viscous to permit
recovery by natural flow into wells. No world inventory of
their occurency exist since such sands are as yet mostly un-
exploited. The largest known deposits are in Alberta (Canada)
and are estimated as being capable of producing some 300
billion barrels of oil. Oil shales differ from tar sands in that
their contents of hydrocarbons consist of the solid kerogen
rather than of viscous liquids. This solid however distills out
as a vapour upon heating and then condenses to a liquid. The
best known and possibly largest of such deposits exist in the
Western USA. The total oil content of these shales has been
estimated to be about 1430 billion barrels based on a medium
range of 10 25 gallons per ton. Of this, however, only some
80 billion barrels of oil is claimed to be "recoverable under
present conditions." Table III shows the known shale oil de-
posits in the world along with the amounts of recoverable oil
from these reserves. Table IV summarizes the above data and
gives the total quantity and energy content of the world's
fossil fuel reserves. The most significant feature of this Table
is that of the total energy of 226 x 1021 thermal joules of
energy (or 63 x 1015 KWh (thermal)) of all fossil fuels, some
89% is represented by coal and lignite, and only 11% by the
entire petroleum group of fuels. In addition, as noted earlier,
some 1.8% of these coal reserves has been consumed by 1969.
In the case of crude oil and natural gas the picture is radically
different. At present consumption the world's presently proven
reserves of crude oil will be depleted in 35 years. This is what
people have termed an "ENERGY CRISIS," but only from
examining the fossil fuels it is evident that there is really no
such crisis. The crisis is really an INSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
restricted to the oil sector of the total energy sector. This
crisis has been brought about by several factors. Oil, because
of its convenience and formerly low cost, has penetrated
heavily into the electricity generation sector; it is the dominant
fuel in the transport sector; its use in the petrochemical sector
as a feedstock has risen drastically and the environmental
pressures in the industrial states associated with the use of
de-leaded gasolene in cars and the burning of only low sulphur
fuel oils for energy generation have placed demands of a new
nature on refinery capacity. When these factors are combined
with the limited proven reserves of crude oil, the continued
increasing consumption rate of crude oil and the rise of OPEC,
it is evident that a "crisis" had to ensue in that part of the
energy sector.
When one turns to the other sources of energy avail-
able for power production one may return attention to Fig.I.
again. The thermal power influx from solar radiation of
178,000 x 1012 watts dwarfs the inputs of 32 x 1012 and
3 x 1012 watts from the other two principal sources, geother-
mal energy and tidal energy respectively. Despite the magni-
tude of solar power, its low areal density makes the direct use
of solar power impractical and prohibitive in cost, at present,
for other than small-scale special purpose uses. This may be
seen from the following example of a solar-electric power
88-8%
plant 3-00 MWe capacity. If one takes a conversion factor
of 10% from solar to electrical energy such a plant will require
about 5 x 109 watts of solar power input. The solar energy
incident on the earth's surface amounts to about 500 calories/
sq. cm/day or 2.4 x 10- 2 watts/sq. cms. To collect 5 x 109
watts of solar power input would therefore require an area of
about 20.8 sq. kilometres i.e. a square of about 4.55 kilometres
per side (or around 5000 acres). Such an area could be covered
with energy-collecting devices, to collect, store and transform
the solar energy into conventional electric power. However,
the complexity of the processes, its cost and maintenance in
comparison with thermal or hydraulic power sources render
this undertaking somewhat impractical, at present. Research
and development effort in this area is beginning to gain
momentum in the metropolitan states to-day. However, for
the short and medium term solar projects will continue to be
limited to small scale highly specialised purposes (such as hot
water heating). The major effort in present R and D for large-
scale utilization must be to seek to decrease the surface area
requirements, since for example by 1975 the total world
installed capacity of nuclear power will be around 100,000
MWe, but to produce this amount of energy by solar power
based on present technology rather than nuclear or conven-
tional thermal energy would require a land area of some
4,200 square kilometres (or around 1 million acres) which is
about 40% of the total land area of Jamaica.
E. Water Power
The potential water power of any given site is pro-
portional both to the magnitude of the river discharge and to
the height of fall and hence the world's best water-power
sites are concentrated in regions of heavy rainfall and of large
topographic relief. In Table V. the potential water-power
capacities of various regions of the world are given, along
with the approximate amounts of developed water-power
capacities in these regions in 1967. These data indicate that
the world's total potential water-power capacity is about
3 x 1012 watts which is of the same order as the world's
present rate of industrial energy consumption. However, only
8.5% is developed at present and this is mainly in the industrial-
ised states. Africa and Latin America possess the largest poten-
tial capacities of about 780,000 and 577,000 megawatts
respectively; these are also the least developed of all of those
of the world's major hydro areas. It may well be that with the
industrialized states experiencing rapidly rising energy costs
for energy based on fossil fuels, due to both environmental
restrictions and the prices of fossil fuels, that there may be
mild trends to develop and exploit some of these water-power
resources of Africa and Latin America. This is however, a com-
plex issue since it necessarily implies that several large scale
energy intensive industries would have to be sited around such
major hydro projects and this clearly introduces totally differ-
ent parameters (such as available mineral resources and the
size of the domestic markets in the recipient countries and, of
course, the political environment,) in assessing the possibility
of any such trend gaining significant momentum.
One of the major advantages of hydro projects is
that though the capital costs are very high, once completed
these are fixed, so that large scale energy consumers have got
virtually fixed energy costs over a significant time horizon
since there are no fuel costs involved.
Over the past few years one "new" aspect of water-
power which is being introduced in significant amounts both
in Europe and the U.S.A. is that based on pumped-storage
hydro. Pumped-storage hydro plants are used for peak load
duty and frequency regulation in an inter-connected electrical
system and are based on the concept of having two reservoirs
with water being pumped to the top reservoir during off-peak
periods (when rates are lower) and then during peak periods
the plant is used in the normal generation mode. Present
pumped-storage reversible turbines are capable of changing
from the pumping to generation mode within seconds and the
overall efficiency of these plants is normally around 70%, i.e.
70% of the energy used in pumping is available for generation.
Pumped-storage plants are important in growing electrical
TABLE V
World Potential and Developed Water Power Capacity*
Developed
systems for two major reasons. The first is that it reduces the
required "spinning reserve" in the system and thereby reduces
the overall fuel costs of the system. This is very important as a
system increases in absolute size and the sizes of the largest
units in the system increases, since this necessarily leads to an
increase in the thermal "spinning reserve" if there is little or
no pure hydro in the system. Secondly, pumped-storage plants
are able to regulate frequency changes in the total system in
the event of large units being suddenly lost.
F. Tidal Energy
Tidal power is similar to water power except that it
is derived from the alternate filling and emptying of a bay or
estuary that can be enclosed by a dam. This filling and empty-
ing of the tidal basin takes place twice a day. When a tidal
basin is enclosed the maximum power obtainable would be by
a flow cycle that permitted the basin to fill and empty during
brief periods at high and low tide. Two of the most important
parameters in assessing the potential power available from tidal
energy, are the tidal range and the area of the enclosed basin.
The available power depends on the square of the tidal range
so that unless this is significant, power generation by this
means is generally unattractive. Table VI. gives a summary of
the average potential tidal power that could be obtained from
the world's most favourable tidal-power sites.
The total potential power capacity of all these sites
is 64000 megawatts. This represents 2% of the total tidal
energy dissipated of 3 x 1012 watts. It is furthermore only 2%
of the world's potential water-power capacity. The first major
tidal power installation began operation in 1966 and is in the
La Rance estuary in France. This had an initial capacity of
240 megawatts and is being increased to 320 MWe.
G. GeothermalPower
In contrast to tidal and hydro-power which depend
on continuing sources of energy, geothermal energy depends
essentially upon the "mining" and eventual depletion of
volcanic heat stored within the earth. The "conventional"
sources of geothermal energy are normally associated with the
volcanic regions of the world. In Table VII the developed and
planned geothermal-electric power plants in the world in
1969, as well as those which will be installed in the early
1970s are given.
One important development in the geothermal energy
field which is -till at the early research and development stage,
is that related to the use of the so-called "dry" geothermal
sources in contrast to the conventional "wet" geothermal
sources. This R and D work is being pursued at Los Almos
Scientific Laboratory (USA) and seeks to produce power from
the hot rock which is available nearly everywhere beneath the
earth's surface. The importance of "dry" geothermal systems is
that one would not have to rely upon the fortuitous set of
circumstances (i.e. hot rock not too far beneath the earth's
surface and a natural source of hot water and steam) associated
with "wet" geothermal systems. The essence of the "dry"
geothermal system for electric power generation is that two
bore holes are drilled, using conventional oil exploration tech-
niques, intd beds of hot rock whose temperature may be up to
570 OF at depths of 12000 to 15000 feet or less dependent on
the temperature gradients. Water is then forced down one of
the boreholes under pressure and emerges from the other bore
hole at high temperature and may then be used to drive conven-
tional turbines. It is however clear that at best a further 3-5
years of R and D effort are required to first establish the tech-
nical feasibility before one can seriously begin assessing the
commercial feasibility of such systems.
H. Nuclear Energy Resources
When one turns to examining the world's energy
resources for nuclear based power, two types of nuclear power
generation must be considered. The first is the so-called
nuclear fission power, by which energy is produced by the
fissioning or splitting of heavy nucleii, such as uranium and
plutonium. All of the existing commercial nuclear power
stations are based on this fission process. The second type of
nuclear power is known as fusion power in which energy is
released during the fusion of light nucleii, such as deuterium,
tritium and lithium. These two sources of nuclear energy are
those on which nuclear fission weapons ("A-bombs") and ther-
monuclear weapons ("H-bombs") are based respectively. At
present fusion energy can only be harnessed in weapon type
explosions and indeed a tremendous amount of financial and
manpower resources is being expended in the industrialized
States towards developing fusion reactors for the generation
of electricity. That is harnessing the power of the H-bomb
for peaceful purposes. It is expected that within the next de-
cade the major scientific breakthrough will occur in the fusion
power field and then the first prototype fusion reactor will be
constructed. Of course, it will then require a further decade
to achieve the economic breakthrough. This therefore implies
that towards the end of the 1990s we shall be witnessing fusion
reactors operating economically in the power grids of the
metropolitan States. The problems of achieving the scientific
breakthrough are enormous; for example, one has to be able
to maintain the hot fusion gases (or plasma) at temperatures
in excess of 50 million oC for "significant" periods of time.
However, in many ways when the breakthrough is achieved
one would have an almost ideal power source, since there
would be few environmental problems and an almost inex-
haustible fuel supply because the deuterium fuel can be
extracted from the sea.
In the case of fission power the basic fuels required
are uranium, plutonium or thorium, of which only uranium
and thorium occur naturally. Plutonium is produced artificially
TABLE VII
Developed and Planned Geothermal Electric
Power Installation
when uranium is irradiated in a reactor. To comprehend the
significance of the world's nuclear energy resources one must
appreciate a few of the general principles on which nuclear
fission reactors operate.
When uranium is mined it consists essentially of two
constituents, uranium 235 (U-235) and uranium 238
(U-238), of which only the U-235 component will readily
undergo fission and release energy to produce electricity.
However, naturally mined uranium only contains 0. 7% of
U-235, that is every 1000 grams of natural uranium contains
7 gramms of the crucial U-235. The percentage of U-235
can however be increased, by the process known as enrichment,
from the 0.7% up to about 95%. In fabricating nuclear weapons
it is the 90-95% uranium enriched in U-235 that has to be
used, whereas power reactors normally operate either on
natural uranium or uranium enriched to about 3% in U-235.
The technology to enrich uranium is the most secret technology
that still exists to-day and it is also the most energy intensive
technology. For example, the three U.S.A. enrichment plants
which were built for that country's weapons programme require
about 8000 MWe of installed electrical capacity to provide
power for these facilities.
When natural uranium is introduced into the reactor
the U-235 component undergoes fission and produces energy,
however only 0. 7% of the fuel is actually being "usefully"
used to generate electricity. The U-238 component on the
other hand which makes up 99.3% of the fuel, is then convert-
ed to a new element plutonium which like uranium has com-
ponents plutonium 239 (Pu -239) and plutonium 241
(Pu-241) possessing very similar properties to U-235. In
other words, as the U 235 is consumed, Pu-239 is created
which can be recycled back into the reactor in place of U-235
as fuel. When a reactor such as a fast breeder reactor, achieves
this conversion to plutonium at a rate faster than it consumes
plutonium to produce energy it is said to "breed" plutonium
and hence one is effectively using all of the uranium and not
only 0. 7% of it to produce energy.
This phenomenon clearly has a critical effect on the
utilization of uranium resources since it means that whereas
present non-breeding reactors can economically operate on
uranium costing about US$10 per pound of natural uranium,
breeding reactors, since they use all the uranium and not only
0. 7% of the resource, can economically operate on uranium
costing up to US$1000 per pound. In short, breeder reactors
extend by a factor of about 100 the lifetime of the world's
uranium resources at a given price.
Geologists normally define two categories of uranium
ore reasonably assured reserves and the estimated additional
__ __ __
Estimated Resources of Uranium: Mid 1971
(103 Tonnes Uranium)
$10/lb U308 $10- 15 $/lb U308
Reasonably
United States of America 192 390 108 230
United States of America 70 70 -
(by product)
Canada 178 177 100 130
South Africa
(by-product) 154 11 50 27
Australia 17 5 7 5
Australia (recent
France 35 19 7 12
Niger 20 29 10 10
Others* 49 45 296 67
Approximate Totals 815 745 580 480
* Other include Gabon, Spain, Central African Republic, Argentine,
Mexico, Yugoslavia and Brazil.
reserves as well as two price ranges in which such material
could be recovered: up to US$10/lb. and between US$10-15/lb.
In 1964 the known reasonably assured reserves of uranium,
outside of the socialist countries, which were recoverable at a
cost of less than US$10/lb. were about 450,000 tons of uran-
ium metal. However, following extensive uranium exploration,
by 1971 estimated reasonably assured reserves at under
US$10/lb. had risen to 815,000 tons of uranium metal (or
1.06 million tons of uranium oxide, U308), including 224,000
tons of by-product uranium. Table VIII summarizes the uran-
ium reserve position in the world excluding the centrally
planned economies. From this it is evident that the reasonably
assured reserves below US$15/lb. are estimated at about 1.4
million tons uranium metal or 1.8 million tons of uranium
oxide, U308. Table IX shows the actual production of U308
in 1970, as well as the production capability in 1973 and 1975
excluding again the centrally planned economies for which
data are not readily available. From this Table it is evident
that by 1975 about 40,000 tons a year of U30g'would be
produced at a cost of under US$10/lb. These requirements
for uranium will increase rapidly in the late-1970s and early
1980s as the metropolitan States install nuclear reactors more
quickly into their grids to offset rising crude oil prices. Indeed,
if these uranium resources were only to be used in the present
day low plutonium converter reactors then shortages of uran-
ium at low prices could quickly emerge in the mid 1980s.
However, increased installation of fast breeder reactors, high
plutonium converter thermal reactors and use of depleted
uranium in fast breeder reactors, will extend the life of these
low cost uranium reserves by about a factor of 100 as noted
earlier. This is the major incentive for developing the higher
performance fission reactors.
One of the important features of the nuclear fuel
cycle in contrast to a crude oil fuel cycle, is that if the price of
uranium doubles, from say US$8 to US$16 per lb., the nuclear
fuel cycle cost to a utility company will only increase by about
15%. This is totally unlike the oil case where a doubling of
Portugal, Japan, Turkey, Italy,
World Uranium Production (Below US $10/lb U308)
In metric tons of uranium
Production Production
Actual 1970 Planne for Attainable
Country Production 1973 by 1975
U.S.A.
of the nuclear fuel cycle which makes the nuclear fuel cost
component of the total power generation cost much more
stable, than in the case of petroleum based fuels.
As I have pointed out earlier, fusion reactors are still
not technologically feasible; however, in Table X the critical
characteristics of certain thermonuclear reactions are shown.
From this table it is clear that the fusion reactions between
hydrogen nucleii (H) and tritium (T) delivers the most energy,
but that between deuterium (D) and tritium (T) is "ignited"
in the shortest time (0.000003 seconds) and therefore the
easiest to harness. This DT reaction is the one on which most
work is presently being expended. Deuterium exists in sea
water and the entire oceans contain about 1.5 x 1043 deuter-
ium atoms, a large fraction of which could be extracted by
existing methods at reasonably low cost. Tritium is produced
primarily by the nuclear irradiation of lithium. Lithium
deposits occur in the U.S.A., Canada and Africa, and from
these proven deposits about 107 tons of lithium can be extract-
ed at low costs. The African deposits have been the subject of
much "silent activity" in the past since these occur in Rhodesia
and lithium is a strategic resource as it is used, in the form of
lithium deuteride, as the prime raw material for thermonuclear
weapon fabrication.
Having briefly summarized the primary energy re-
sources that exist in the world it should be self-evident that
energy resources are in abundance and there is no possibility
of the world "running short of energy resources" in the near
future. The rhetorical cries of a world energy crisis which
have been bombarding the press in the metropolitan States
cannot be taken seriously when one examines the world
energy resource situation. What has happened is that the power
structure in the oil sector has changed and the metropolitan
countries dislike what they see for it does not conform to the
pattern that they and they alone shall always be the masters
and the developing countries a mass of serfs to be restrained
and subdued by "economics" since after all, even the chains
of slaves have become unfashionable to-day.
II. OIL ITS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Having briefly examined the estimated world energy resourc-
es in an effort to put the concept of an Energy Crisis in
its proper perspective and underline that it is an Institu-
tional Crisis in the oil sector that we are presently exper-
iencing throughout the world, I now wish to turn to a fuller
examination of the four principal fuels, namely: oil, coal,
natural gas and nuclear, which will bear the main burden of
fulfilling the world's energy demands up to the mid 1990s.
In dealing first with oil, since it is the most internationally
topical subject at present, I shall briefly discuss the history of
the oil industry, for I am a member of the school of thought
who believes that no event or sequence of events can be even
partially comprehended without some familiarity of the his-
torical circumstances that surround the events in question.
A. The Pre-OPECEra
The "posting" of oil prices began in the late 19th
century in the U.S.A. This arose largely because the conven-
tional commodity exchange methods applied to copper etc.
could not be applied to oil because of its liquid state, storage
problems and the large range of products (destined for totally
different types of markets) that a single barrel of crude oil
yields after processing in a refinery. Furthermore it was diffi-
cult to determine the "market price" of crude oil since the
control of most of the oil industry was limited to a few
multinational corporations (i.e. multinational in their activities
but not in their policies) which controlled production, refining,
distribution and marketing of petroleum through their verti-
cally integrated structure. Clearly then the task of "posting"
always falls on the side with the smaller number of operators,
i.e. at the production end.
In general, because of their higher yield of the more
valuable gasolenes and lighter products and the lesser yield of
the lower-valued residual fuel oil, the lighter crudes have a
TABLE X
Characteristics of Certain Thermonuclear Reactions*
Duration of
(1) Energy delivered by 1 kilogramme of matter participating in the
Reaction in kilocalories.
Translations of a document published by the Military Publishers
of the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Defense. (1958)
higher "posted" price. Lighter crudes have a higher API
(American Petroleum Institute) gravity. Sour crudes, i.e. those
with a greater sulphur content (and usually also a higher con-
tent of metals such as vanadium and nickel), are somewhat
discounted to allow for the refiner's extra cost of corrosion-
prevention in the refinery and the cost of desulphurization
units. The most important historical aspect of "posting"
which is still the present policy, is that the "posted" price of
crude oil will have to be competitive with a "posted" price of
other crude oils at the least favourably placed refinery whose
business must be secured in order to meet the output target
for the particular crude with the main producing region serving
as the reference point.
In the 1920s when both Mexico and the USA were
the leading petroleum exporters, the Gulf of Mexico served as
reference point for "posted prices" and prices all over the
world were calculated as if the oil had originated from the
Gulf. That is, purchasers of crude oil paid the Gulf of Mexico
price and the freight cost from the Gulf to the delivery point.
This therefore meant that when a purchaser in Karachi
(Pakistan) bought crude oil from Abadan (Persian Gulf), he
would pay the Gulf of Mexico price plus freight charges from
the Gulf of Mexico to Karachi, this freight charge was natural-
ly much higher than the real freight rate from Abadan to
Karachi. Using the Gulf of Mexico reference point, "posted"
prices increased geographically outward from the Gulf until
they reached their maximum on the opposite side of the world,
this maximum price line being known as the price-shed.
During World War II shipments of crude oil from the
Middle East began to increase and as a result of the concern
expressed by one of the colonialist powers over the "phantom"
freight rates being charged (that power began experiencing the
Abadan-Karachi problem alluded to above), the Persian Gulf
was established in 1945 as a new basing point with prices
almost identical to those in the Mexican Gulf. Soon after, oil
discoveries began to increase in the Middle East whilst Europe's
fuel needs began to grow and this therefore made it expedient
for the oil companies to lower the relative price of Middle
Eastern Crudes. For example, in 1945 1947 when the Mexi-
can Gulf prices rose by US$1.35/barrel (to US$2.68/barrel
for 34 oAPI crude), Persian Gulf prices rose by only US$1.17/
barrel (to US$2.18/barrel). By March 1948, a uniform Persian
Gulf price of US$2.18/barrel prevailed for all Gulf producers
for 34 oAPI crude. Later that year this price was however
lowered by 15 U.S. Cents/barrel to US$2.03/barrel. This
weakening in oil prices continued and indeed gathered momen-
tum, for in 1949 due to pressures from the Economic Co-
operation Administration (i.e. the Marshall Plan for Europe),
which was financing the supply of crude oil to Europe, Middle
Eastern crude oil prices were reduced by the oil companies
by a further 15 US Cents/barrel to US$1.88/barrel for
34 OAPI crude. A further 13 cents reduction then took place
later in 1949, so that 34 oAPI Persian Gulf crude was priced,
in the Gulf, at US$1.75/barrel. As such Middle East crude
could compete with Venezuelan crude on the U.S.A. eastern
seaboard equalizing prices in New York at existing freight rates.
In 1950 Saudi Arabia introduced the "50/50" profit
sharing arrangements whereby a 50% income tax was imposed
on the net operating income of companies engaged in the
petroleum production in that country. By 1952 this profit
sharing formula has been adopted throughout the Persian Gulf
and it enabled the producing countries to increase their oil
income. However, in order to safeguard against the possibility
that the concession-holding companies might sell crude oil to
their own affiliates at depressed prices and thereby reduce the
host countries' "take," the calculation of the "50/50" profit
sharing split was based on the "posted"price. The "posted"
price of crude oil therefore became purely the tax reference
price since any potential buyer always obtains a discount on
this price.
1951 saw the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company by Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran. The Iranians did
not recognize how difficult it would be to sell Persian crude
without their own tanker fleet and marketing system, as well
as when faced with a highly successful boycott organized by
the home-country Government of the leading company in the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. As a result, Iranian crude exports
fell from about 1 million barrels/day in the 2 years prior to
nationalization to about 2600 barrels/day in the 2 years post
nationalization. This practically strangled the Persian economy.
However, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company immediately made
up its losses in Iran since it owned 50% of the Kuwaiti Com-
pany and 23-1/3% of the Iraq Petroleum Company, Kuwaiti
production rose from about 310,000 barrels/day in 1950 to
some 770,000 barrels/day in 1953, and Iraqi production rose
from 150,000 barrels/day to 500,000 barrels/day over the
same period. Mossadegh was ousted in 1953 in a coup d'etat
and a consortium of multinational oil companies (led by B P)
was established in 1954 to replace the Anglo-Iranian Company.
The new consortium produced oil for the State owned National
Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), since the oil was owned by the
latter through the nationalization decree, which then sold it to
the different consortium members.
During the mid 1950s the market prices of crude
continued to fall, though the "posted" prices were not adjust-
ed as this would have reduced the host Government's revenue.
However, in 1959 a critical event occurred which had far-
reaching political and energy implications not only then but
also today. This was the action of the U.S.A. Government to
introduce the U.S.A. Oil Import Quota System which was only
abolished in 1973 by President Nixon. This system was enact-
ed to protect the U.S.A. indigenous oil industry and in effect
it did achieve. its objective. Crude oil prices in the U.S.A.
were maintained sufficiently high to stimulate domestic pro-
duction and it has beenestimated*that between 1/3 and of
domestic U.S.A. production would have been shut down but
for the quota restrictions prohibiting the import of cheap
foreign crude oil. However, this legislation put considerable
pressure on U.S.A. natural gas supplies. In the international
context, the implications of this legislation really lay outside
of the U.S.A. since it affected foreign producers and consum-
The Anglo-Iranian Co. (AIC) was dominantly BP and the point here
is that since the AIC owned shares in the Iraqi and Kuwaiti Cos., they
could easily off-set any decrease in Iranian production. This is evidence
of the strength and manner in which multinational Cos. operate. This
playing off of one country against another could only exist prior
to the formation of OPEC.
*("The Implications of National Energy Policies on World Energy,"
by P.C. Ward (1973)
ers to a large degree.
With the quota system, foreign producers in Venezue-
la and the Middle East found themselves with production
capability well in excess of demand since the largest consumer
had effectively withdrawn. This therefore contributed to a
further weakening in the market prices for crude oil outside
the U.S.A. and indeed, West Europe and Japan (as the second
and third largest consumers in the non-socialist world) really
experienced, as a result of this U.S.A. action, a massive amount
of inadvertent benevolence since these very low oil prices in
the 1960s gave tremendous impetus to post-war development
in Japan and Western Europe. Some authorities have observed
that "the importance of this event to the economies of West-
ern Europe has been as great as the Marshall Plan in European
recovery." These are some of the major reasons why energy
development and planning in any country, be it an industrial-
ized state or a developing country such as Jamaica, must be
viewed in the wider international context, lest one discovers
too late that, because of actions elsewhere, one is pursuing a
non-optimum path which, in the energy sector, it is difficult
for corrective measures, such as introducing other fuels into
the system, to have quick results.
In view of this development in 1959 and the associat-
ed price deterioration, the multinational oil companies decided
to lower the "posted" prices of crude oil unilaterally without
consulting the host governments. This was disastrous for the
companies, since the feelings of the producer governments
ran high. The Government of Iraq under General Kassam called
a conference of oil producing countries on 6th September
1960 in Bagdad and OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries)* was established. Though its first 10
years of existence were not accompanied by spectacular
achievements, the formation of OPEC marked the end of an
era. It marked the turning point in the dynamic process of
historical evolution, for it heralded the beginning of a gradual
change in the power structure within which the "oil game"
was performed, for those States and companies who had pre-
viously weilded autocratic, hegemonic and oligarchic power
were slowly shunted onto the path of relative impotence -
the sufferers slowly began to rise as if from a sleep of centuries.
B. The Post-OPEC Era
The first action of OPEC was to seek to restore prices
to the 1958 level prior to the introduction of the U.S.A. oil
import quota system in 1959. They however did not succeed
in doing this since the world oil surplus continued and the
OPEC States were unable to arrive at a formula for proration-
ing in order to limit production. Disunity amongst these States
over this formula was very much in evidence Kuwait thought
production should be based on proven reserves (they at that
time believed that their reserves were very sizeable), Iran fav-
oured population as the indicator (they are one of the largest
OPEC States in terms of population), etc. As a result of this
OPEC was considered to be a joke by the then oligarchic and
powerful interests in the oil industry. What OPEC however,
immediately achieved was the fact that the companies never
again lowered the "posted" prices of crude oil.
The surplus of crude production and the weakening
market for oil continued well into the 1960s. The average
market (and not "posted") prices for crude oil exported from
Venezuela declined from US$2.07/barrel to US$1.88/barrel
over the 1950 to 1966 period. In the Middle East the same
situation prevailed as actual (not "posted") FOB crude prices
continued to decline to such an extent that in the early 1960s
considerable volumes of oil were sold at actual prices of be-
tween US$1.25 to US$1.50 per barrel FOB the Persian Gulf.
In fact, in 1968, Kuwaiti crude was offered for as little as
US$1.18/barrel FOB the Gulf. Even as late as 1968, one year
after the 1967 Arab Israeli War, there was still little recogni-
tion by the multinational oil companies that this state of
* (OPEC has its Secretariat Headquarters in Vienna and comprises of
11 members four of which are non-Arab States. Iran, Venezuela,
Indonesia, Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Abu Dhabi, Qatar,
Libya and Algeria).
"THE OIL AND GAS JOURNAL", SEPT. 1973
affairs could not prevail indefinitely. Evidence of this is obtain-
ed from a case which I personally know of in which Kuwaiti
30 oAPI crude was offered to a Latin American country for
4 5 years at an apparently fixed price of US$1.24/barrel FOB
Mina al Ahmadi. This contract ended early this year and upon
renewal the FOB price for the same crude oil was increased by
about 80%.
During this period of exceedingly low oil prices
extending from about 1959 to 1969 electric utilities in West-
ern Europe and Japan had rapidly increased the fraction of oil
fuelled power stations making up their total electrical systems
at the expense of coal fired ones and this was justified on the
basis of short-term cost/benefit grounds. However by 1970,
OPEC began to assert itself some ten years after its establish-
ment and this heralded the beginning of another new era the
era of OPEC "activism," unlike the proceeding 10 years of
OPEC passivismm." It is important to recognize that there
were three somewhat fortuitous events which changed the tide
in OPEC's favour and made the world recognize what "unity
and solidarity in plurality" really can mean.
The first of these events was the Arab-Israeli War
of 1967 which closed the Suez Canal. This meant that tankers
had to go around the Cape of Good Hope which took about
nearly three times as long for the delivery of a given amount
of crude oil to Western Europe from the Persian Gulf. This
therefore caused tanker freight rates to rise rapidly and an
apparent shortage of tankers occurred. Fig. II. shows the
changes that occurred between 1953 and 1970 in the main
crude oil movement by sea.
By 1970 over 5 million barrels/day of crude oil were
being transported around the Cape. As a result of the Suez
closure the so-called "short-haul" crudes became very import-
ant for the West European markets and this meant a significant
increase in Libyan production to the extent that by 1970
Libya was supplying up to 30% of West Europe's crude oil
imports.
The second event which occurred was the closure of
the TAP pipeline from Saudi Arabia to Sidon in Lebanon.
This pipeline has a capacity of about 500,000 barrels/day.
This meant that this crude also had to be moved around the
Cape.
The third and most significant event however was
the overthrow of King Idris of Libya in September 1969 by
the young dynamic colonels led by Colonel Gaddafi. Libya's
hand was the strongest it could ever be. Immediately, Gaddafi
moved to cut back production for "conservation" reasons.
The Libyans then demanded in the spring of 1970, drastic
increases in the "posted" prices of Libyan crude as well as a
new tax rate of 55% of the "posted" price. The companies
were forced to yield one by one. Immediately upon conclusion
of these first new agreements, the Persian Gulf States demand-
ed similar treatment and got it particularly since these demands,
like those of the Libyans, were solidly backed by OPEC. At
the end of 1970 the Libyans then started a second wave of
demands to "leap-frog" the Persian Gulf agreement. OPEC
passed a resolution in December giving a 15-day time limit
for the companies to accept these new demands and called
for "concerted and simultaneous action by all similar count-
ries" if the negotiation failed an oil cut-off was threatened.
Faced with solidarity, the companies once more succumbed
and in February and April 1971, the Teheran and Tripoli
agreements were established and will be re-negotiated in 1975
so that from 1 January 1976 a new regime of "posted" prices
will evolve. These agreements are complex instruments but in
order to indicate one aspect of the Teheran agreement, I have
depicted in Fig. III. the rise in the "posted" price of 34 oAPI
Arabian crude FOB the Persian Gulf up to December 1975.
The abrupt rise in 1973 by about 10% is due to the 10% U.S.
devaluation. Beyond 1975 I have projected these prices using
the most conservative assumption that OPEC will not negotiate
a worse agreement than that concluded in 1971. From Fig.
III it is evident that, assuming no further U.S. dollar devalua-
tions, the "posted" price of 34 OAPI Arabian crude will be
just over US$4.00 per barrel FOB the Persian Gulf. This takes
no account of inflation between today and 1980.
In order to grasp what these agreements mean in
terms of the producer governments' "take," I have outlined in
the Table below the tax payment to Saudi Arabia in 1975 for
34 oAPI Arabian crude.
Saudia Arabian Royalty and Tax Payment
Posted Price of 34 oAPI Arabian crude, 1975 US$3.10/bbl.
Production cost .................. .... US$0.10/bbl.
-/PROJECTIONS BASED ON A NEW
/= 1975 TEHERAN- TRIPOLI AGREEMENT
INCREASE UP TO 1975 ACCORDING
-TO EXISTING TEHERAN-TRIPOLI AGREEMENT
I I IA -I I I 17-1 1 1 1
1970 72 '74 '76 '78 '80 '82 '84....
YEAR
"These prices are purely of historical significance today since the Teheran-
Tripoli Agreement was torn up by the Persian Gulf States on 16th October
1973 and all prices increased 70%"
By 1975 Saudi Arabia will be producing about
8 million barrels per day of crude which means revenue of
over US$14 million per day or over US$5.0 billion per year.
In view of these drastic increases in crude oil "posted" prices,
it is clear that the import bills of net-importers of crude will
undergo tremendous increases and indeed projections indicate
that the USA by 1980 could have an oil import bill in excess
of US$20 billion per annum. Though the international press
has focused most attention on the balance-of-payments prob-
lems the industrialized States will face, the position of the
developing countries is infinitely more serious. As a result of
their sizeable oil revenues the OPEC States can be expected to
be massive importers of capital goods and services which only
the metropolitan States can supply hence it is likely that most,
if not all, of the payments in-balance* between OPEC and the
industrialized States will vanish with time or at least be signi-
ficantly reduced.
The recent announcement that the USA and U.K.
will be supplying Saudi Arabia and Iran with conventional
armaments worth over US$1 billion is another manifestation
of correcting the in-balances. The petroleum importing devel-
oping countries are however in no such position and their
plight is indeed a grim one, particularly since they are unfor-
tunately not in the sophisticated arms manufacturing business
and therefore are unable to off-set their oil import bills with
* Lack of balance in the balance of payments between countries.
major armament exports to the OPEC States. India, for
example, has been forced to cut back petroleum purchases.
Proposals have been made in OPEC's Vienna Headquarters that
some sort of lower or differential tax rate, other than the 55%
at present, should be granted by the OPEC States to at least
certain developing countries. I personally have never support-
ed such an approach to the developing country problem since
first, it would establish a "two-tier" oil price structure which
is in my view bad policy, since the major thrust of "OPEC-ism"
is higher prices for, increased revenue from, and increased
control over, their main natural resources and this is indeed
the objective of all "conscious" developing countries regarding
their natural resources be they members of OPEC or not.
Second, such a "two-tier" preferential approach would be
difficult to "police" because circumvention and resale of such
"cheaper" crude may be carried out by some parties. Third,
the OPEC States are themselves developing countries and
should therefore be supported by all non-oil exporting develop-
ing countries in their struggle for higher prices for crude oil
and greater control over the exploitation of their major
resources.
This however does not mean that some formula should
not be sought to ease the plight of the oil importing develop-
ing countries. One such proposal which achieves the same
objectives as the differential tax rate one outlined above is that
put forward in OAPEC (the Organization of Arab Petroleum
Exporting Countries) the wholly Arab off-shoot of OPEC.
This proposal is that a Petroleum Bank should be established
such that a fraction of each producer governments' "take" is
channeled into the Bank. Oil importing developing countries
could then have access to borrow from the Bank, at special
rates, for some 'of their major development projects. This
proposal is infinitely more attractive for it maintains a solid
front of high prices but above all, allows a "feed-back" to the
developing countries who are net importers of oil.
One of the important points illustrated in Table XI.
is that the production cost of a barrel of crude (which com-
prises the development and extraction costs) is very lpw,
indeed only some 3% of the "posted" price in 1975 of
34 OAPI Arabian crude. This is especially the case for the
Middle East fields. Generally the production costs in the Middle
East range from about US 10 Cents to US 25 Cents per barrel
at the most. Venezualan production costs are however higher
and rise up to US 50 Cents per barrel. On the basis of this
Table one can see the relationship between "posted" prices
and the tax paid prices. The table below (Table XII) illustrates
the "minimum FOB selling price" in the Persian Gulf for
34 oAPI Arabian crude, which, using a 1975 "posted" price of
US$3.10/barrel would be around US$2.21/barrel with the oil
,company profits being about 28 US Cents/barrel against the
host governments' "take" of US$1.83/barrel. The transport
'cost for such crude from the Gulf to say Rotterdam in a
130,000 ton tanker would be in 1975 about 83 US Cents/
barrel so that a "floor" price for such crude in Rotterdam, in
1975, would be around US$3.04/barrel.
TABLE XII
Breakdown of FOB Price for 34 OAPI Arabian Crude
"Posted" Price (1975) US$3.10/bbl.
Royalties and Taxes to Host Government
Oil Company Profit
Transport to Rotterdam from Persian Gulf
Total
Table XIII goes on to illustrate the average cost structure of
oil products obtained from one barrel of the same 34 OAPI
Arabian crude in a typical Western European country. This
table* reveals a fact which is seldom recognized -
namely that taxes levied in the industrialized countries (parti-
cularly on gasolenes) represent nearly 50% of the costs of the
ultimate product and are indeed nearly three times the amount
of "take" by the OPEC producer countries. Furthermore, the
cost of production of crude oil bears almost no relation to the
revenues derived from one barrel of crude by the producer
and consumer countries. In fact, crude production costs are
less than 2% of the combined revenue to both consumer and
producer countries. This has an important bearing on difficult
off-shore oil exploration activities (such as the North Sea)
which are associated with "much higher" production costs
than on-shore Middle Eastern wells, for it means that even if
production costs of crude rose ten times the consumer in the
industrialized States would only experience about 10% rise in
the costs of the final products. The net result being that higher
off-shore production costs will not prove a serious limiting
factor in the exploration of off-shore oil fields.
Before leaving the political aspects of the oil sector I
* This table is purely illustrative and not a precise breakdown.
It is based on analyses of data performed by R. Krymn and
co-workers in Vienna).
FIG. 4. PERSIAN GULF PARTICIPATION AGREEMENTS*-
S173 '74 '7S '7 7 '* '1 *7 '1 'l '0 2 8 84 85 IM '87 '81 N N 'n
Petroleum Press Service February 1973
*These agreements have now (Dec. 1973) been effectively cancelled and
replaced by ones more favourable to the Producers.
must comment on the recent participation agreement between
the Perlian Gulf OPEC States (except Iran) and the multi-
national oil companies, for these agreements go far beyond
any "simplistic" arrangements merely to increase "posted"
prices such as the 1971 Teheran-Tripoli agreements. The
participation agreements seek to tackle the core of the prob-
lem from the producer country stand-point for they do not
solely aim to enhance the host governments' revenue, but
attempt to establish host government control over the oil
companies activities in the producer countries, as well as to
strive for increased participation in the "downstream" activities
of the industry both within and outside of the producer count-
ries. Fig. IV. depicts the manner in which the latest participa-
tion agreements, between the oil companies and Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and eventually Iraq, will operate.
If these Governments so wish they may have a 51% controlling
interest in the operations of their concessionaires within a
minimum of 9 years. The agreements are complex and were
designed to maintain non-interruptable oil supplies during the
transition period whilst the countries decide whether to mar-
ket their own share of crude (equal to their level of participa-
tion) or to sell all or part of it back to the companies.
The Gulf States will acquire an interest in all crude
oil arid natural gas producing facilities within their borders,
including exploration, development, production, gathering
pipelines, storage, delivery and export facilities, but not for
the moment other operations such as transportation and refin-
eries. The initial level of participation is 25% and will be
maintained until 1 January 1978. On that date, if the govern-
ments have fulfilled their obligations regarding compensation
and have previously decided to opt for "more participation,"
they may do so with their degree of participation rising to
30% in 1978; to 35% in 1979, 40% in 1980, 45% in 1981 and
finally 51% on 1 January 1982. Compensation for the initial
25% may be paid as a lump sum or over a period of three
years and it has been estimated that these payments amount to
about $500 million, $152 million, $150 million and $71
million for Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar
respectively. At least 4 years notice must be given of any
intention to increase the initial level of participation and 1
year's notice for each succeeding increment, furthermore, no
more than one increment can be achieved in any one year. The
Governments therefore have a minimum time schedule of 9
years in which to acquire a 51% interest, but they may take
longer if they so desire or even decide not to buy the full 51%.
As each country increases the level of its participation
it will have to fulfill its obligation to provide finance for
exploration and development to maintain or expand production
capacity. This raises the issue as to the degree to which the
producer governments in their own long-term vested interests,
should participate in the oil industry. These countries are al-
ready overdependent on oil and it may not be in their long-
term interests to increase their over-dependence to an even
greater extent. It is clear that a certain level of participation
is crucial, be it 25 or 40%, however, too much participation
could result in putting all their eggs into the oil basket. This
is an important question since it is significant to observe to-day
that several of the multinational oil companies are seeking to
take positions in the nuclear industry thereby enhancing their
positions as "total energy companies." As of to-day, Gulf is
perhaps the only company which can already claim to be in
this position, however, the recent agreements between Shell/
Royal Dutch and Gulf, and Exxon and General Electric in the
nuclear area, give further evidence of this trend. Indeed, I have
maintained for some time that the OPEC State oil companies
should be seeking even in a small way initially, to participate
in some of the industrial activities that go to make up the
nuclear fuel cycle, so that they too would be pursuing a
"total energy" strategy rather than purely an "oil" strategy.
One of the novel features of the participation agree-
ments coinerns the roles of "overlift, bridging and phase-in"
crude oil, particularly as these aspects of the agreements fur-
ther increase the price of crude oil over and above that shown
in Fig. III. due to the Teheran-Tripoli Agreements. At the
end of each year, if either party has lifted more than its basic
entitlement of crude (equal to its degree of participation) this
is known as "overlift" oil for which the party pays a premium
to the other party. This "overlift" price is based on the tax-
paid cost plus a margin of 25% of the difference between the
"posted" price and the tax-paid cost this is called the Quarter
Way Price and is illustrated in the Table below:
TABLE XIV
This means that instead of paying the tax-paid cost of
US$1.77/barrel, the party having "overlift" crude in any year
will pay US$2.04/barrel or 27 US Cents per barrel extra to the
other party. In contrast to "overlift" crude, the arrangements
about "bridging and phase-in" crude enable the State Oil
Companies time to learn and gain access to new markets for
their own crude as well as ensuring continuity of crude supply
during the transition period. These aspects of "phase-in and
bridging" are outlined in Fig. IV. The idea of "bridging" crude
is that the Governments are obliged from January 1, 1973 to
1976 to sell back to the companies certain amounts of the
State's crude so that the companies are able to "bridge" their
supply commitments during this 3 year period. Price for this
"bridging" for 34 OAPI Arabian crude is about US 19 Cents
per barrel above the Quarter Way Price. When the companies
spread this increased cost for "bridging" crude over their
entire production this increases crude costs by about US 6
Cents/barrel for Arabian light. I do not wish to penetrate into
further details of these agreements however, one last point
should be made. This is that in view of the 1971 Teheran-
Tripoli agreements and their re-negotiation in 1975; the latest
Geneva agreements whereby the "posted" prices of crude oil
are increased for any devaluation of the U.S. dollar; the 1973
Participation Agreements, and the present power of OPEC, it
is clear that the National Oil Companies of the OPEC States
will be emerging as THE FORCE in the late 1970s and early
1980s. Names such as NIOC (National Iranian Oil Co.) and
PETROMIN (Saudi Arabian National Oil Co.) will be house-
hold names in the 1980s.
To-day, NIOC is the most experienced of the State
Oil Companies in the OPEC countries. It was the first such
company to take over the internal (i.e. in Iran) marketing and
distribution of oil products; the first to sell oil overseas; and
the first to set up its own tanker fleet. In its agreements with
the major oil companies for joint exploration and participation
in Iran it asserted the right to national participation which is
now accepted worldwide and it broke the established 50/50
pattern of profit sharing and formulated the first effective
75/25 division of profits. In short, NIOC has always led the
way amongst the State Oil Companies.
Unlike the Persian Gulf States, Iran did not opt for
the sliding participation outlined earlier. Though NIOC has
been the recognized owner of the oil companies' consortium's
assets since the 1954 agreement settling the nationalization
issue in practise its role in operations was very limited. How-
ever, after 20 odd years of experience both in Iran and abroad
under the new agreement NIOC takes over control of the entire
oil industry in Iran and can enter the international field as a
fully integrated company. The consortium of oil majors will
become effectively a service company in Iran, carrying out
operations under NIOC's management, but with the long-term
right to buy guaranteed supplies of oil.
All of these developments mean that crude oil prices
will continue to rise sharply until at least about 1982. There is
however, a "ceiling" price at least as far as energy uses for
power production are concerned. This "ceiling" price may be
about US$8. 0/barrel landed cost in the main consuming areas,
in to-day's dollars, for around this price synthetic oil produced
from coal, shale oil and tar sands will begin to become competi-
tive. In my view it is only a question of when we shall reach
these prices not if At that time the direct products of crude
oil will largely be used for propulsion and petrochemical feed-
stocks but not for electricity generation other fuels would
then be cheaper than the usual No. 6 residual fuel oil (bunker
C) used to fire power stations.
One aspect of the participation agreements which
must be carefully watched will be the behaviour of the OPEC
State Oil Companies. Up to the present, OPEC has faced a com-
mon opponent, and therefore solidarity has not been difficult
to achieve. However, the OPEC State Oil Companies will now
have an increasing share of crude oil to market or re-sell to
their concessionaires. The markets for oil, like all other miner-
al and energy resources lie in the metropolitan States, and
hence as each OPEC country views its own national interests,
one could have a situation emerging in which the State Oil
Companies seek to offer "attractive" prices to enhance the
penetration of their own participation crude in given markets.
Competitive pricing amongst the State Oil Companies could
therefore emerge in which case the participation agreements
would have become the trojan horse in the OPEC camp. I
think this is a possible development, for it could occur if
narrow national interests, in the short-term, were allowed to
prevail over the larger issues of "unity and solidarity in plural-
ity." If this does emerge during the late 1970s then it will
once more prove that national economics is more important
than international political solidarity.
In concluding my comments on the fossil-fuel energy
sector it would be inappropriate for me not to gaze into the
crystal-ball somewhat further and give you my views as to
what role I see the fossil-fuels playing in energy production
over the next 15 20 years. Unfortunately, time does not
allow me to examine to-day the role of coal and natural gas in
any detail, however, certain trends are clearly emerging on the
basis of the developments I have reviewed up to this point in
this lecture.
First, crude oil prices will continue to rise sharply
until one of two events occur; these events being either the
advent of competitive price cutting by the OPEC State Oil
Companies seeking to market an increasing share of their own
participation crude as well as gaining an increasing control of
the distribution sector in the metropolitan States, or when the
landed price of Middle East medium crude (31 oAPI Arabian
crude) in the major consuming areas begins to reach about
US$8.00/bbl. in to-day's dollars. At this price synthetic crude
produced in the USA from oil shale and from the liquefaction
of coal will begin to become competitive. It must however be
recognized that production of oil from shale is not only fraught
with major technical problems but also vast environmental
problems. For example, the production of about 110,000 bbls/
day of oil from oil shale (Le. about 0.6% of present USA crude
oil consumption) will require the disposal of about 200,000
tons/day of solid shale waste this is the magnitude of the
shale oil substitution problem.
Second, in view of the steep climb in crude oil prices,
the uncertainty about secure supplies of crude oil, and the
environmental pressures in the metropolitan States regarding
sulphur dioxide pollution; the major power utilities will be
forced to continue introducing, at an accelerated rate, alterna-
tive fuels into their systems, such as low sulphur coal, nuclear
fuels and high sulphur coal accompanied by stack gas sulphur
removal systems in the stacks of power stations burning high
sulphur coal.
Third, the oil-importing developing countries unless
they are very imaginative in their political approach to the
OPEC States will face a grimmer situation than all other States.
These developing countries will be forced by the brute force of
economics to continue burning high sulphur residual fuel oil
in their power stations. Indeed, if these countries are over the
medium term (i.e. 15 20 years) to stabilize, or even marginal-
ly reduce their power costs so as to stimulate heavy industrial
activity, they will have to burn fuel oils of even higher sulphur
content than they presently do since such fuel oils would be
discounted in price. Within this context, I must clearly state
that I do not subscribe to the view that developing countries
must seek to introduce the types of energy pollution standards
that have been introduced in the metropolitan States. Our
circumstance is totally different from that of the industrialized
societies and exercises in imitation of their energy pollution
standards will stultify industrial growth in the developing
world. I would go so far as to say that, when the entire popu-
lation of the developing world has begun to reach the levels
presently attained by the metropolitan societies, then and only
then, must we begin thinking about only burning 0.3 0.5%
sulphur residual fuel oil in our power stations. It is the indust-
rialised States which are generating the world's pollution and
therefore the onus must be on them to effect corrective
measures.
These factors imply that energy-importing develop-
ing countries had better recognize quickly that they must
avoid, at all costs, getting caught-up in the "tail-spin" of the
brinkmanship struggle between the OPEC States and the
industrialized States. They, the developing countries, are not
the object of this struggle, and hence, unless such States formu-
late imaginative political approaches to the OPEC States no
one, least of all the metropolitan States, will give a damn
about their serious economic predicament due to the vast
increases in oil prices. Secure crude oil supplies at even bene-
ficial prices can only be achieved through political action
to-day; this is what is meant by saying that oil is a non-substi-
tutible strategic resource.
Fourth, the developing countries must take steps
simultaneously to seek to relieve the total dependence of their
power systems on petroleum products. This is however a long-
term (i.e. 20 25 years) action. As such those developing
countries with indigenous coal resources will have to increase
the rate of utilization of these resources in their total electrical
energy programme. For those developing countries without
significant indigenous coal or hydro-resources, alternative
energy fuels, such as nuclear fuels, will have to be seriously
examined over the long-term if these countries are to avoid
the vagaries of a single-fuel energy policy. Presently nuclear
power reactors are only truly competitive in large sizes (i.e.
about 300MWe), however, with each escalation in crude oil
prices the "break-even" point for nuclear systems is marginally
reduced. In several developing countries, the interconnected
electrical grids are still too small even by 1985, to albsorb
300 500 MWe nuclear or conventional units. Special cases
do however exist. For example, there is one country in Africa
to-day in which their electricity generation costs are so high
that even a 60 MWe nuclear station with a unit capital cost of
about US$900/KWe would generate cheaper electricity than
the alternative methods used at present in that country.
Energy-importing developing countries must however
be very cautious in their plans for embarking on nuclear power
programmes to relieve their oil dependence. The reasons are
again dominantly political. To-day, there are two major types
of proven non-breeder power reactors, those based on enriched
uranium and those on natural uranium. However, enriched
uranium fuel will only be produced, at least up to the mid
1990s, by the nuclear-weapon States and a few of their choose
allies. The U.S.A., U.S.S.R. and two separate West European
groups of countries (France, Italy, Spain and a few others on
the one hand, and the U.K., Federal Republic of Germany and
Holland on the other) will be the only commercial suppliers of
enriched uranium over this time period. This would represent
an even smaller clique of producers (4 in all) than OPEC at
present. Hence if developing countries move too quickly to in-
troduce too large a fraction of enriched uranium reactors into
their electrical systems to relieve their oil dependence, they
could be opening themselves to even greater economic and
political dependence than they were subjected to when their
electrical systems were dominantly dependent on oil and the
actions of the OPEC States. Natural uranium reactors do not
___ __ ~_ __ __
suffer from these limitations since the source of supplies of
natural uranium fuel is much larger. It is interesting to note
that India, Pakistan and Argentina (of the developing countries)
have all decided to pursue a natural uranium path in their civil-
ian nuclear programmes. These arethe types of complex non-
technical issues that the authorities in energy importing
developing countries will have to face in the late 1970s and
early 1980s.
NEXT ISSUE Jamaica's Positionin the LanesofOil Pollution.
FOOTNOTES
1. Abbreviations used in text
1. MWe = megawatts electrical = 106 watts = 103 kilowatts.
2. KWe = kilowatts electrical = 103 watts.
3. R+D = Research + Development
3. bbl. = barrel. 1 barrel of oil = 42 US gallons.
4. Metric ton
= 2204.6 pounds = 0.98421 English or long tons.
5. KWh = kilowatt hour
6. 107 = to the power seven = 10 million = 10,000,000 1012
= million million = 1,000,000,000,000.
7. 1 mill = 1/10 of 1 cent.
8. A rem means roentgen equivalent man and is a unit of measure
of the average radiation absorbed per gramme of human tissue.
A milli-rem is one thousandth of 1 rem.
THE AIR WE
This is a story of two kinds of frogs.
Once upon a time the only frogs in Jamaica were the kinds
that live in wild pines or hollow trees, or little been ones that
hop about among the damp bushes and whistles at night or
when it rains. Being frogs, naturally they were (and are) known
in Jamaican language as toads. Then some time during the
1840's the big South American toad (Bufo marinus) was
brought to Jamaica from Barbados, in the belief that it would
eat young cane-piece rats. Jamaicans promptly called it a
"bullfrog", and "bullfrog" it remains to this day, though not
really a frog at all, and certainly not edible. It is necessary to
mention this fact (though nothing to do with our story), be-
cause real bullfrogs have come to join us, and from now on
there will be a charming confusion of names. This will prob-
ably not really matter unless someone tries to eat the wrong
kind!
The first part of our story begins early in 1967, when a
high Government official decided that Jamaica needed another
source of protein food. He therefore arranged for the importa-
tion of 25 breeding pairs of American bullfrogs (Rana
catesbyana), sometimes called "spring chickens", from a frog
farm in Texas. These were to be received, then distributed in
suitable habitats, by the Youth Development Agency, under
the supervision of staff at Cobbla Youth Camp. In fact, when
the frogs arrived at Palisadoes Airport on Wednesday, March
15, 1967, in insulated boxes packed with ice, they met with a
warm reception.
Instructions had been left at the airport to notify the Youth
Development Agency, but when the Y.D.A. was called, all the
staff was out travelling that day. Someone in the office decid-
ed in desperation to call the Institute for help, and the call
reached Mr. Bernard Lewis, the Director. Mr. Lewis, being
between two committee meetings himself, called on the
Botanist to deal with' the little problem of escorting the frogs
through Customs.
Meanwhile, the ice was melting.
Crapaud as illustrated on stamps from Dominica.
The Botanist drove out to the airport, inspired with frog-
rescuing zeal, and then spent most of the afternoon trying to
persuade Customs that frogs could legitimately land in Jamaica.
The problem appeared to lie in how they were to be classified,
as by some oversight frogs had been omitted from the schedule
of Customs categories.
Meanwhile, the ice had melted.
Eventually, a category of remnants or "unclassified objects"
was found that might conceivably include frogs, so they were
passed through, just in the nick of time before they passed out.
They were rushed back to the air-conditioned sanctuary of
the Institute's Botany section, and were revived with the
addition of more ice. It should not be supposed that these
frogs would always be dependent on ice, but for the occasion
they responded to cool refreshment like any other hot,weary
travellers.
The next day the Botanisttook three pairs of these frogs to
the Institute's Mason River Field Station and placed them in a
reedy pond. These particular frogs have never been heard from
since. Whether they migrated and have survived in some
secret place, or perished, is not known.
The following day was Friday, the 17th of March, and at
this point the Botanist resigned from the frog business, as
Saturday was to be his wedding day; he decided very firmly
that frogs and weddings (especially his own) do not mix.
Therefore Dr. Thomas Farr, the Institute's Entomologist,
transported the remaining 22 pairs of frogs to a district called
Frenchman, which is near Slipe in the Parish of St. Elizabeth.
They all were released into a small tributary of the Black River.
Within a very few nights the people of Frenchman began to
hear strange sounds from the direction of the river sounds
never before heard in Jamaica. People were alarmed; some
came from as far away as the town of Black River just to listen.
Rumours of duppies and rolling calves floated about in fact
the sounds were said to resemble the voices of cows. Oddly
enough, the American transliteration of the bullfrog's call,
"jug 'o rum" or "more rum", never occurred to anyone!
The frogs sang this, their courting song, for about two weeks
and then stopped. They resumed again a year or two later,
but by that time most people in the area had learned about
the frogs (through me), so the excitement more or less died
down. A few were killed when caught in crayfish-pots.
Young American Bullfrog posing apprehensively on
tn1po-tnn at In.tititut nf .amaica 1973.
- 5
From time to time questions about the welfare of these
frogs were asked by the Ministry of Finance and Planning.
Memoranda were requested. Staff members from Cobbla Camp
and others made investigations. Were the frogs surviving? Were
they multiplying? As a matter of fact, no one needed to have
worried. The frogs were indeed multiplying! (A female bull-
frog can lay up to 5,000 eggs at a sitting).From all accounts
there are now probably thousands of descendants of those 22
pairs, and they have spread all over the Black River Morass.
The question of whether people can be persuaded to eat
frogs' legs has not yet been answered in Jamaica. The usual
reaction is, "Who, me? no sir!" Jamaicans tend to be rather
conservative in their eating habits, but I predict that attitudes
will gradually change in this case. After all, "spring chicken"
really does taste good!
Another question is the impact of these frogs on the local
ecology. They are voracious eaters, and will gulp down any-
thing alive and moving that they can trap with their big mouths.
Probably their chief catch is insects, but under some circum-
stances they will eat crayfish and other aquatic life, lizards,
and (I am told) even small birds. We shall see. One thing seems
sure the American bullfrog has taken up permanent Jamai-
can residence.
The second part of our story begins, also in 1967, on the
verdant island of Dominica, where there occurs a large, edible
frog known locally as "crapaud" or "mountain chicken"
(Leptodactylus fallax). These frogs are a favourite article of
food in Dominica.
In 1955 a young lady from Jamaica named Miss Wendy
Pierce had been living in Dominica for about eighteen months,
and during this time she had learned to eat and enjoy the crap-
and. In fact, where she lived they had a sort of pen or cage in
which live ones were kept and fattened up, to be quickly
available for a meal when wanted. In 1967, Miss Pierce visited
her parents in Barbados, travelling by ship, and on the return
voyage to Jamaica, she stopped briefly in Dominica to visit
her former home there. As she was leaving, her faithful Domin-
ican cook presented her with a neatly tied-up box as a going-
away gift, saying it was "something she had learned to like in
Dominica." Miss Pierce assumed that what she had was a tasty
dish of cooked frogs' legs to enjoy during her voyage back to
Jamaica on the "Federal Palm."She boarded the ship with her
present, and stowed the box under the lower bunk in the
double cabin she was to share with another young lady. The
two girls then went off to have dinner, and eventually retired
for the night. Some time in the wee hours Miss Pierce was
wakened by her frightened cabin-mate (who had the lower
bunk), who anxiously demanded to know the cause of strange
sounds coming from the box. It didn't take Miss Pierce many
seconds to realize what had happened the cook had given
her live frogs! In fact, there was a pair, one male and one
female, and they were singing to each other.
Miss Pierce had not intended to carry "mountain chickens"
to Jamaica, but decided, since she had them, to see what she
could do.
The tale of her adventures on this voyage makes quite
interesting hearing as she tells it. In the first place, she had to
find food for the frogs, so she kept begging bits of raw liver
from the galley, explaining that she was "on a special diet."
Pretty soon the steward got suspicious, because he knew all
about what she was really eating, and could not see that she
was having any kind of special diet. He also noticed the frog-
box with its air-holes, and soon the secret was out. The next
thing Miss Pierce knew, the steward was operating a sort of
tour for the other passengers; she would come back to her
cabin to find a line of people outside, waiting to be shown the
frogs by the steward. She got rather annoyed by this, and of
course one day the inevitable happened one of the frogs
escaped.
Now I should explain that the Dominican crapaud is prob-
ably the world's champion jumping frog. I myself have seen
one leap a distance of over twenty feet, and this is by no means
a record. So you can imagine the pandemonium on the
"Federal Palm" when this understandably agitated frog began
leaping about the passageways. Miss Pierce was afraid it would
make the fatal mistake of jumping overboard, but in fact it
ended up in the bar, the customers there scrambling up onto
the counter in consternation. The escaped frog was eventually
caught behind the refrigerator, and from then on Miss Pierce
took a much firmer line as to how her web-footed charges
were handled.
At one of the ports she bought a little woven straw basket,
which she lined with mosses and other soft herbage, and in this
cozy nest the frogs safely rode out the voyage until at last they
reached the dock in Kingston. The date was September 5,
1967.
Miss Pierce's next problem was how to deal with Customs,
being uncertain of such matters. I gather that her luggage in-
cluded certain objects that puzzled the Customs officials. For
example, she had a much-used lawnmower motor originally
bought in Mandeville, which after several years of hard service
in Barbados was being brought "home". In view of its condi-
tion, the question exercising official minds was, why bother?
At any rate, they had already begun to have just a slight doubt
of Miss Pierce's sanity, when one of her fellow-passengers tact-
lessly shouted, "How are the frogs?" Miss Pierce had not
declared her live frogs, so with great presence of mind she
she fished a stuffed one out of her suitcase and shouted back,
"See here, just fine!" Much merriment all around. This finally
convinced the harassed Customs officers as to the state of her
sanity, and without further ado they told her to go.
Miss Pierce then took her two Dominican "mountain chick-
ens" to her home at Middle Quarters in St. Elizabeth, where
she deposited them in a tank for about three weeks. Retrieving
them after this, she removed them to Reading, near Montego
Bay in the Parish of St. James, where she spent the next two
years. She had some friends there who owned a little stream
that plunged in a series of pools down a wooded hillside. She
built a pen along this stream to keep her frogs. There they
lived, bred, and multiplied. Eventually the male died (alleged-
ly from over-eating), and as an act of mercy the female was
released. Their descendants have become well-established in
that part of St. James.
After two years, she returned to Middle Quarters, to find
Dominican frogs hopping about there also. It seems that her
original pair had laid eggs in the tank during their three-weeks'
sojourn there in 1967, and these had successfully hatched. To
this day an extremely agile crapaud she has named Jimmy
lives by a small lily-pool in back of her house. I have seen this
frog; we have tried to catch it, but it is evident that living in
Jamaica has not diminished the crapaud's ability to leap.
To sum up, we now have in Jamaica, apparently well
naturalized and thoroughly at home, two large species of
edible frogs. You have read a true account of how they came
here. They can be distinguished by the fact that the American
bullfrog is olive-green in colour, with or without darker spots,
while the Dominican crapaud is light brown, the male with a
white line around his chin. Both can weigh well over a pound,
when fully mature. Both have stout hind legs that are good to
eat. Try one some time if you can catch it!
When meatkind in such scarce supply,
The price control, but just can't buy,
Is good that in Black River now
Dem find dis frog that sound like cow.
Is said in France the people eat
this frog-leg as a special treat.
So now we join the E.E.C,
Frog-leg must good enough for we;
Come mek, we to Black River now,
An' nyam dis frog that sound like cow.
By Thomas Wright
"DAS LICHT auf dem GALGEN"
Continued from Page 8
reactionary forces that continue to practise colonialism. At
first, Debuisson sees no difficulties in deserting the interest of
his class and embracing the cause of the revolution. Debuisson
shows no less revolutionary qualities than Sasportas, but he
realizes that to carry out his mission means destroying his
personal property a large part of his grandfather's estate
belongs rightfully to him, the property of his future wife -
his marriage with the eldest Raleigh daughter is practically
agreed upon it even means risking the lives of his future
wife, his grandfather, his friends. Here lies the main difference
between Debuisson and Sasportas. For Sasportas there is no
personal property, no family at stake. So it is easy for him to
sacrifice all what is dear to others on the altar of the
revolution.
Critics' opinions on Anna Seghers West Indian novel vary.
The West-Germans Reich-Ranicki and Bilkel9 see them in
connection with her other literary productions, particularly
with her trilogy on the history of the German Democratic
Republic, in which she glories in the socialist achievements,
celebrates socialist every day life and promulgates the official
verdicts on the "counterrevolutionary insurrections" in East
Germany in 1953 and Hungary in 1956. Artistically the trilogy
was a failure, and, to follow the argument of Reich-Ranicki
and Bilke, the author realized that an ideologically affirmative
literature is liable to fail. She therefore tried to escape to
topics in distant times and countries. They understand the
West Indian stories as an escape from the trite East German
reality, implying that evading reality is the arch sin for a
Marxist author.
Although this proposition may be correct as far as the
author's motives are concerned, it is certainly misleading in its
implication that the exotic theme evades reality principally.
East German critics, on the other hand, emphasized the
actuality of the theme. They see the historic events as a para-
ble for the decolonization movement.
THE
BY A. W. Kane, S. J., Director
Social Action Centre
Ironic as it may seem, I believe that any approach to urban-
ization and the problems which it presents in the Caribbean
today must give first priority to rural or agricultural develop-
ment. After rural development, priority needs to be given to
planning new urban centres away from existing capitals and
other large urban areas.
It is generally accepted that in countries like England and
the United States the migration of people from the land to the
cities was caused by the "pull" of the cities after these count-
ries began their industrialization processes. The cities offered
better economic opportunities.
In developing countries like Jamaica today, rapid urban
-" I I I rn" r wq-" I
growth is more the result of economic "push" factors from
rural countryside than from "pull" factors in the cities. The
"pull" from the cities tends to be social in these countries
rather than economic, and this social "pull" of the cities is
what Mr. Rupert Lake, in his background paper for this
Consultation,l refers to as the pull of the "bright lights".
However, whether considered as a "push" or a "pull" factor,
the fact is that the rural people have more and more been
excluded from the cash economies of the more modern sectors
and this has very much contributed to this urban migration.
Because the social amenities of urban life will continue to
attract persons from the rural sector, this being the dominant
* Presented at The Caribbean Consultation on Urbanization held in Guyana in April 1973.
A shortened version of this paper was previously published in JUSTICE.
trend all over the world, we cannot realistically expect to wit-
ness any significant return to the land by those who have left
it. The most we can hope to see is a slowing down of the rate
of migration to the major urban areas through greater rural
development and the building up of new urban centres.
Using Jamaica as a prime example, let us consider the
challenge of rural development and the decentralization of
urban population centres.
The declining contribution of agriculture to the Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) in Jamaica explains greatly the
"push" factor demonstrated by the migration of the popula-
tion to urban centres. Granted that mining, manufacturing,
and tourism have all received greater capital investment in re-
cent years, the contribution to the GDP of these sectors, when
compared to agriculture, show the low productivity and returns
in the agricultural sector.
here includes only those actually
b) Estimate based on percentages for 1943 (45.1%) and
1960 (39.2%).
(Source: Economic Survey of Jamaica 1971, Central
Planning Unit, pp. 13, 22, 117).
Is it any wonder that the population of towns in Jamaica
rose by 43% between 1960 and 1970 while the rural popula-
tion rose by only 4%? Note that included in the towns were
the Corporate area of Kingston, all the parish capitals and
Ocho Rios. Certain other established towns were excluded
which, if they had been included, would have made the increase
in town population even higher than 43%. Another interesting
fact is that the migration to towns outside Kingston was higher
in 1970 than the migration to Kingston.
Another factor to consider is that the rural population has
a higher proportion of persons over 60 years2 and under 14
years than the urban areas.3 This means that those most out-
side the cash economy have to support a larger proportion of
both the older and the younger population.
JAMAICA CENSUS FIGURES SHOWING
Total Population 1,861,300 1,609,800 251,500 15.6%
Town Population 690,200 483,400 206,800 43%
Rural Population 1,171,100 1,126,400 44,700 4%
(Source: Daily Gleaner, 24th April, 1972, p.2)
Finally, the Jamaican Census for 1970 showed a total
population of 1.86 million, nearly 90,000 less than had been
expected. This indicated principally that emigration from
Jamaica between 1960 and 1970 was much higher than had
been previously known. Since most of these people emigrated
from the urban areas, especially from Kingston, it can be seen
that internal migration to urban areas was high to effect this
net increase of 43%.
Against these demographic facts, we can measure the
challenges of rural development. Although there has been a
small increase in the dollar value of agriculture's contribution
to the national economy between 1960 and 1970, this increase
is erased when allowance is made for inflation of the Jamaican
dollar. As we have already seen, the percentage contribution
of agriculture declined from 13.2% of the GDP in 1960 to
8.3% in 1971.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the
United Nations prepared a plan for agriculture during the
"Second Development Decade." The plan is called the "Indica-
tive World Plan for Agricultural Development." With a mini-
mum target of 5% to 6% in yearly overall economic growth,
this plan calls for agriculture to contribute between 2.9% and
3.3% of this growth. In countries where the population growth
exceeds 2.9%, agriculture must contribute more than this just
to feed the nation.
In Jamaica, where the annual population increase was 2.1%
in 1971 according to UN population figures and 2.7% accord-
ing to the Jamaican Government, the percentage increase of
agriculture must exceed the minimum 2.9% in order to reverse
the serious decline of agriculture over the last 10 years. In
1971, for example, the value of Jamaica's food imports actual-
ly exceeded total agricultural exports (J$56.4 million) for the
first time. Previously, though the gap was narrowing, agricul-
tural exports always exceeded food imports.
The disappointing record of agriculture in Jamaica and
other Caribbean countries, when taken together with the
vagaries of world market prices for primary products and the
costly and complicated task of developing rural infrastructures,
led many countries like Jamaica to attempt a short-cut to
economic growth through industrialization. Occasionally econ-
omic gains were realized, particularly when the industrial pro-
ducts did not end in high-cost, low-quality alternatives to
imports. But this policy proved deceptive when the importance
of .agriculture was forgotten in the enthusiasm for industrial-
ization. Industries were introduced which seldom formed
linkages with agriculture that could have stimulated agricul-
tural production.
Agriculture, and therefore rural development, is important
for several reasons. Firstly, where resources are diverted to
industry at the expense of agriculture, the dollar value of
industrial production is generally obvious, but there is a
weakening of the purchasing power of the bulk of the popula-
tion for industrial goods. While agriculture is thus neglected,
industry usually turns out to be too capital-intensive to gener-
ate the employment hoped for, particularly when the depress-
ed state of agriculture "pushes" ever more people into the
industrial areas.
Secondly, agriculture should provide necessary flow of raw
materials to industry. The policy of developing countries in
their rush to industrialize has led to the introduction of indus-
trieswhich import their raw materials rather than industries
which can use and encourage the increased production of
local raw materials.
Thirdly, where agriculture is neglected, foreign exchange
suffers. We have already seen how true this is in Jamaica where
food imports cost more than the total earnings of agricultural
exports and where the emphasis in agriculture is on export
crops. Recall that the 1971 contribution of Jamaican agricul-
ture to the GDP was J$86.1 million compared to J$60.2
million spent on food imports to feed the people. A healthy
agriculture is capable of producing savings to meet not only
agriculture's capital needs but, in part, those of industry as well.
If I have spent too much time and given too many statistics
(which I had intended to avoid) in describing the decline of
agriculture and its effects, I can only repeat that the neglect
of agriculture and rural development greatly explains the
"push" factors which have created serious pressures in urban
areas. If agriculture is made the most important sector of
national economic planning in the Caribbean, the rate of
migration to the cities can be slowed and improved linkages
with the industrial sector can be brought about.
Decentralized Urban Centres
The second area of effort to decrease urban pressures is to
plan new and smaller urban centres in other parts of the
country. Theoretically, this ought not to be as difficult or as
costly as agricultural development programmes. By providing
or improving social services and by creating new job opportun-
ities for surplus rural labour, these new urban areas can be
made attractive.
The advantages of these new urban centres are many:
cheaper land, lower costs, better living and environmental
conditions, proximity of farmers to markets, and opportuni-
ties for development planning of these small cities. These new
urban centres will very much complement emphasis on rural
development and ought to facilitate the introduction of infra-
structures, such as communication and transport which will
benefit rural development at the same time.
In 1971 the Jamaican Government produced a 20-year
plan for the island's development. Part of this plan is the creat-
ion of new urban centres in various parts of the island. In
many instances, these population centres already exist and only
require an upgrading of social services. In fact the 1970
Census showed that the rate of migration to these smaller
population centres was much higher than to the Kingston
Corporate Area over the previous ten years. The trend towards
more and smaller cities is already there, and simply requires
proper planning to ensure that it continues.
Compared to the large developing countries of Africa, such
as Tanzania, the islands of the Caribbean have a much more
manageable task in decentralizing urban centres. Tanzania,
which has given top priority to rural development, is concen-
trating on building Ujamaa villages to bring peasants who are
presently scattered all about the land into village communities
where they can be educated and given technical assistance to
improve their's and the nation's production of agricultural
goods. In Tanzania, where the population is much more scat-
tered than on the islands of the Caribbean, one measure of
their difficulty in providing social services and rural infra-
structures is the fact that only about one in every five children
between 5 and 15 years attends school in Tanzania -- and this
figure represents a vast improvement over the last ten years.
Contrast the difficulties of a dispersed population with
densely-populated Barbados; where educational and other
social services have for long been available to all the people.
Although the small size of Barbados allows easy access from
every part of the island to the capital, the rural areas are dev-
eloped adequately enough so that the rural people are not
pushed into the big city, as they are in Jamaica and elsewhere.
Recently in Mauritius, an island four times the size of
Barbados with about three times the population, I observed
several population centres outside the capital and all of these
had electricity, good roads and transport, and adequate educa-
tional, commercial and other social services. Mauritius produces
twice as much sugar annually as Jamaica, which is six times
larger than Mauritius, and having agriculture at the centre of
the national economy is obviously related to the high degree
of rural development. In fact, it is only very recently that
some new light industries have been introduced into the
island and, unlike Barbados, tourism has up to now played
only a very small part in the nation's economy.
In short, then, rural development and the planning of new
urban centres ought to receive top priority in any long-term
planning to change the present patterns of urban development
and problems. I believe that Mr. Rupert Lake's Survey Report
agrees with this emphasis.
Turning now to the problems which have arisen with
urbanization patterns over the last 20 years, I would first like
to identify the major problems as follows: increasing urban
unemployment rates, cramped slums and inadequate low-cost
housing, unsuited educational programmes and goals, unstable
family life, crime, inadequate health and other social services,
and a growing gap between those inside and those outside the
industrial or market economy.
Puerto Rico often served as a model for developing coun-
tries seeking economic growth through industrialization and
it should also have provided an indication of the social plan-
ning that would be required to meet the new pressures on urban
facilities and services. Not everyone had the escape hatch of
free entry into the United States for those abandoning agricul-
ture and unable to find places in the new industries -- and
many who pointed to Puerto Rico as a model for economic
growth overlooked this fact. Jamaica has tried in recent years
to have new industries located outside the Corporate Area of
Kingston in order to provide work for surplus labour where
they are, rather than in Kingston alone. The effort has met
with some success, particularly in the sub-urban plains, areas
to the east and west of Kingston. But it is also a frequent
phenomenon that the more skilled workers in these industries
commute daily from Kingston out to their jobs.
The economic policy begun in the developing countries
during the 1950's and based on industrialization and import
substitution has plainly resulted in unbalanced economic
growth and has failed to produce enough jobs for those push-
ed off the land. Economic growth rates were often impressive,
as I said earlier, but they did not bring real development by
transforming social and economic structures. One major reason
for this has been that industrialization policies have depended
primarily on foreign capital and imported raw materials, with
the result that many of these industries have been capital-
intensive and of a type Jamaicans call "screwdriver" industries.
Developing countries are now realizing that real develop-
ment benefitting all the people can only come by creating
growth from within, by building industries around natural
resources, and in general by following a policy of self-reliance.
Foreign capital and industrialization without linkages to other
sectors of the economy have provided tall buildings and a rich
minority, but they have also given birth to false hopes, further
economic dependence and unreal economic priorities.4
The pitfalls of industrialization policies are not our concern
here beyond the fact that they have contributed to the neglect
of agriculture and thereby intensified urban problems. Let us
consider now some of the problems which rapid urbanization
has presented us and which I mentioned earlier.
Because our goal in this Consultation must be to propose
areas for action rather than simply further discussion and
analysis of problems, I am choosing to concentrate on those
particular urban problems on which the Caribbean churches
can take some positive action. Although the problems listed
earlier are more or less interrelated, there are certain areas in
which the churches can more effectively point their efforts.
To this end I am choosing to specify the problems of housing,
family life and population, education, and consumer values
and attitudes.
Several months ago, the Minister of Housing in Jamaica
requested a meeting with the Council of Churches at which he
asked the heads of churches to consider using some of their
church lands for lower-income housing. He requested that the
churches also arrange the financing of this housing. As it turn-
ed out, he was not necessarily looking for large tracts of lands,
of which the churches actually have very little, but for lands
of even one or two acres. The Minister even suggested carving
off one lot from property housing a church and a rectory in
order to build even one house for a needy family.
The church heads did express a willingness to comply with
the Minister's request, but I only know of one concrete offer
of land to date, and that very recently made. Admittedly most
churches have a complicated procedure for making decisions
about property or finance. There is now to be another meeting
in May between the Minister and the heads of the churches
who will this time be accompanied by their financial represen-
tatives.' I hope and expect that this will lead to more concrete
offers of land by all the denominations.
Even if, as in Jamaica, the Government owns more urban
land than all the churches combined, the churches can afid
should assist with the building and financing of lower-income
housing which will be in addition to what the Government
alone can do. Furthermore, by building small numbers of
lower-income units in various parts of the city, the people in
these new houses can more easily be incorporated into existing
social services and community life than if they are housed in
large groupings of lower-income housing where these form sep-
arate neighborhoods by themselves. Thus, the churches can
assist in preventing other social problems which often grow
out of people being housed in large and often impersonal lower-
income neighborhoods.
Family Life and Population Growth
These two problems are so interrelated that I have decided
to treat them together. For in spite of consistent preaching by
the churches concerning Christian family life' and practices,
Jamaica continues to witness an increasing illegitimacy rate
(about 75%) and fragmented family structures. Contributing
to this situation is the migration of young people to urban
areas away from all parental restraints. These teenagers then,
perhaps in a search for acceptance and often out of just plain
ignorance, beget children which they are not prepared to care
for. When these young mothers are working or after they have
two or more children, their children are sent back to the coun-
try for older relatives to care.
On the basis of my own personal experience after six years
of counselling in Western Kingston, I have found that after 3
or 4 children and having reached her mid-twenties, the woman
would be willing to marry her present partner if they had a
house or some economic security ---- things which they
generally lack. On the other hand, the teenage mother does
not think in terms of a stable or long term relationship. Her
level of motivation, ambition and future prospects are just too
minimal to point her toward a more responsible attitude toward
family or sexual relationships.
I believe that the National Family Planning Programme in
Jamaica, despite an annual expenditure of J$2 million, has not
really been successful because of this same lack of motivation
among the urban poor. The dropout rate among family plan-
ning acceptors is very high. And because the churches have
never really addressed themselves to the problems of unstable
family life and the irresponsible procreation of children, save
to be condemnatory, and they have also failed to have any
positive influence with regard to family planning and responsi-
ble parenthood. And now because family planning is not
succeeding, the churches are faced with the spectre of an
increasing acceptance of abortion as a means of limiting births.
About two years ago, the Methodist Church in Jamaica
during its annual Synod adopted a resolution'which called for
the establishment of a special apostolate to those living
common-law or faithful concubinage relationships. Though
this might exclude the large number of principally younger
people who are following less permanent or "visiting" relation-
ships, the resolution still marks the only positive step by a
Christian denomination in this area. It is worth noting, too,
that in the view of many the Methodist Church in Jamaica
conducts the most active and imaginative youth programme of
all the Christian churches.
In short, the Christian churches must initiate positive pro-
grammes of education in responsible parenthood through the
use of their members and the mass media. One way to set
about such a programme would be to participate in and make
use of a survey being planned for later this year in which the
attitudes of grassroots people towards family life and the
1 In a subsequent development all of the churches made concrete
offers of land either in Kingston or in the rural areas.
Church are to be compiled.2 This survey hopefully will pro-
vide insights and guidelines for action for adapting our aposto-
lates among the majority of Caribbean people who endure
unstable family structures for most, if not all, of their lives.
On the question of family planning or the larger issue of
population, we need to be mindful of their bearing on respon-
sible parenthood and healthy family attitudes. Overpopulation
is not just a question of high or low population density in a
country, It is much more a question of individual parents being
able to provide psychologically, economically and otherwise for
their offspring. And with due respect for the persons who feel
otherwise, it is a head-in-the-sand and untheological view to
maintain that persons should have all the children God sends
them or to rely on God's Providence to care for all the children
that are being born --- particularly into unstable family
situations.
I recently published an article elsewhere (JUSTICE, #7,
Dec. 1972) on the subject of the Church's role in the popula-
tion question and I do not intend to include here all the points
or suggested measures outlined in that paper. Yet I would like
to stress certain steps which I believe the churches can take.
Firstly, the churches must be aware that lower birth rates
only come about'when there are rising hopes for a better life
for the majority of a nation's people and press Governments
to accompany their family planning programmes with serious
efforts at community development programmes. Secondly, the
churches can offer counselling and family education services
to complement clinical family planning programmes. And
thirdly, in order to achieve the first two steps and to develop
educational approaches to responsible parenthood, the church-
es, individually or collectively, can hold discussions for their
clergy on the subject of family planning and population.
By way of an illustration, I can tell you that the Family
Counselling Centre which I direct in Kingston includes family
planning as part of its overall programme of family life educa-
tion. Because of the high dropout rate among family planning
acceptors, and because the economic and social factors contri-
buting to unstable family structures will not easily or soon be
changed, we recently decided to expand our Centre into a
Multi-Service Centre by inviting critical Government social
services and other voluntary agencies to take offices in this
Centre. Among the services this Centre will offer will be
counselling, family planning, an employment bureau, a housing
officer, emergency financial help, a child care and protection
officer, and a probation officer. We expect thereby to serve
more efficiently and completely family social needs of the
urban poor. And we hope that this coordinated delivery of
services will help to raise the level of hope and motivation of
our clients.
Those of you who know the David Rose Centre 3 right here
in Georgetown will be quite familiar with this concept. You can
hardly blame us if we in Jamaica or other Caribbean countries
choose to imitate your model.
Education
So much has been said about education goals in the Carib-
bean, as for example at the Trinidad Consultation4 in Novem-
ber 1971, that little more should need to be said. Perhaps the
Trinidad resolutions on the subject are already being imple-
mented. But I fear that however much has been said on the
subject, much still remains to be done. And thus, particularly
in the context of urban problems, I shall offer some brief ideas.
Caribbean curricula have best oriented graduates toward
urban life in emulation of more industrialized societies. Our
secondary schools especially, even if educating only 10% of
the population in Jamaica, have not been providing graduates
2 The survey was subsequently carried out under the sponsorship of
the Catholic Bishops of the Antilles. A report of the results was
presented in November 1973.
3 A multi-service social and health centre, including craft and
counselling.
4 Trinidad Ecumenical Consultation on Development, held at Chagu-
aramas, Trinidad.
with those skills their countries most need. Rarely have even
rural schools given attention to agriculture in their curricula,
except when introduced here or there by an alert and innova-
tive teacher.
In order to assist in building a spirit of self-reliance, the
Churches, through their many inputs to Caribbean educational
systems, can really effect necessary changes in curricula if they
put their minds to it. More vocational training ought to be part
of our regular school programmes and evening programmes for
adults. The Ministry of Education in Jamaica has introduced
many Caribbean text-books in recent years at the primary and
senior schools levels. But secondary curricula remain oriented
towards overseas examinations.
And the problem of teachers is also an acute one. In 1972
Jamaica graduated 1,000 new teachers, while 960 experienced
teachers left the profession. The dedication of teachers to their
crucial work can endure a certain degree of discrepancy in
salaries from the commercial sector, but not as much as the
difference which often exists with the rapidly rising costs of
living today. The Jamaican Government has recently announc-
ed significant salary increases for teachers and this is already
bringing an increase in persons applying for teaching posts.
When addressing ourselves to educational challenges and
needs, we must consider the opportunities offered by the mass
media which we have so far failed to use efficiently. One Jam-
aican delegate to the Trinidad Consultation has been conduct-
ing a weekly programme of discussion on important social
issues during prime television time. But the churches themselves
do not sponsor or conduct any television programmes. On the
two radio stations the churches sponsor 20 hours of religious
programming, and of this some 12% hours are bought by
specific religious denominations or groups and used for an
unvaried "church service" format. Of this 12% hours, only 3
hours' are locally produced programmes; the rest are foreign
programmes. The two religious newspapers in Jamaica are both
bland and do not really address themselves to education on
important local social issues.
The need to make better use of mass media opportunities
relates equally to our next problem area, that of the values and
attitudes which are influencing Caribbean youth and adults.
Values and Attitudes
An insidious result of emulating life in developed countries
is the consumer-oriented values which have become entrenched
in developing countries like Jamaica. The wants of the few for
luxury goods are being satisfied at the expense of hard-earned
foreign exchange which could be used to supply the basic needs
of the majority. I often used to cite theeexample that it cost
Jamaica 600 tons of sugar cane, which had to be grown,
reaped, transported to the factory, reduced to 60 tons of sugar,
transported to England, and then sold, to put one manbehind
the wheel of a Mercedes Benz. Such expenditure on material
goods and comforts also infects the poor with wants which can
only bring them false hopes and an unwillingness to work
when they cannot see themselves acquiring like material goals.
The established churches in the Caribbean have failed so far
to impress upon their large middle-class membership the social
costs of such material values. Is it because we are afraid to
criticise the life styles of our financial supporters? Or is it that
we are not convinced ourselves that such values and attitudes
are harmful?
I would suggest that every church at its assembly, synod, or
council meeting give priority to discussing values and life styles
of its clergy and members, with a view to establishing a policy
which will give an example to society at large and a stronger
witness, to our belief in Christian stewardship. The Prime
Minister of Jamaica in November 1972 told the Council of
Churches that he was going to give an example by dispensing
with his large, official automobile. Are we even here going to
leave it to the Government to set the example for national
values and attitudes?
Related to this question of unreal values and attitudes are
two other problem areas which I want to mention only briefly
since they both received considerable emphasis at the Trinidad
Consultation.
The first of these is the high speculative cost of urban land
which often confounds Governments' efforts to supply lower-
income housing and puts the land out of reach for the majority
of people. It should be seen as a responsibility of the churches
to avoid contributing to the spiralling increase in land costs
when selling their own lands. The churches should also re-
mind their members of the Christian responsibility which the
ownership of property places upon them. The Acts of the
Apostles provides a clear teaching on Christian stewardship.
We cannot ignore this teaching simply because it is difficult.
The second related area is the role of trade unions in the
Caribbean. Since, as we know, the unions are closely allied to
political parties, union leaders are often accused of using their
office and membership for political purposes rather than for
the advancement of all the workers. When unemployment is
as high as it is in Jamaica (25%), it is easy for the unions to
concern themselves principally with their political sympathizers
when there are not enough jobs for everyone. And at the same
time, by their concentration on capital-intensive industries
which can afford high wages, the unions have certainly contri-
buted to an elitism or two-class system in the labour movement
itself.
Difficult as it may appear, the churches can press the unions
to work for the economic progress of all workers, to assist in
acquiring job-training opportunities on their own or in union-
ized factories, and to assist in the overall effort of increasing
worker productivity for the good of the nation.
Conclusion
Before concluding, I would like to describe four programmes
which the Social Action Centre is engaged in and which we
feel are efforts directed at the rural and urban problems which
I have been speaking about.
1) The Multi-Service Centre: this was explained earlier
as an attempt to design a model for improving and
coordinating the delivery of social services to poorer
urban families.
2) Housing: one member of the Social Action staff has
been serving this past year as a full-time consultant
to the Minister of Housing and in this position he is
able to assist Government in planning how to provide
more lower-income housing in Jamaica.
3) Community Development Foundation: with an initial
push from the Pan American Development Founda-
tion in Washington, we hope to have this local
Community Development Foundation operating in
Jamaica by June of this year. Essentially, the Founda-
tion is an attempt to make credit available to grass-
roots communities (not individuals) for productive
purposes and when they do not otherwise have credit
available to them. The Foundation will have no cash
funds of its own but will have instead a pool of
guarantees made by individuals, companies, churches,
etc. The loans to the communities will be made by
regular banks against these guarantees. Some details
are yet to be worked out, but presently there are two
organizing committees at work: a financial committee
which is responsible for soliciting the guarantees, and
a committee composed of representatives from twelve
organizations with grassroots operations who are pro-
moting the idea of the Foundation at community
level.
4) Rural Development: after two years of planning, the
Centre is preparing to launch, with the help of a grant
from the German Government, a three-year pro-
gramme designed to establish self-help community
models in three separate and different kinds of rural
communities. The Centre has actually been working
in each of these communities for up to five years.
I have attempted in this paper to illustrate the important
relationship between rural development and the problems of
urbanization. And secondly, I have attempted to point out a
few of the critical areas where the churches should accept the
leadership for effecting a change of attitudes and structures
relating to urban problems and overall development. Little, if
anything, of what I have had to say is new or at all revolution-
ary. But I firmly hope that it has been clear and direct enough
to encourage some positive action by all of us.
I close with these words of Gustavo Gutierrez from his
book A Theology of Liberation:
"Without a real commitment against exploitation and
alienation and for a society of solidarity and justice, the
eucharistic celebration is an empty action, lacking any
.genuine endorsement by those who participate in it."
Footnotes:
1. Rupert E.H. Lake, Report on a Survey of Urbanization in the
Caribbean, CADEC, March 1973.
2. Daily Gleaner, Kingston, April 24, 1972.
3. Population Census 1970 Preliminary Report, Dept. of Statistics,
Kingston, Table 5.
4. A great deal has been written on the failures of industrialization
policies in developing countries. Here are only two recent articles
on the Caribbean scene: A.W. Kane, "The Problems of Industrial-
ization A Christian Perspective," JUSTICE, /6, Sept. 1972
Kingston. Steve DeCastro, "Tax Holidays for Industry: Why We
Have to Abolish Them and How to do It, New World Pamphlet #/8,
March 1973.
"Fertility Dancers" Sculpture by Roy V.S. Lawrence
The National Theatre Trust The Barn Theatre -
Jamaica Playhouse The Little Theatre African
Repertory Theatre Jamaica Amateur Operatic
Society Ed (Bim) Lewis The 8'O Clock Company -
The National Dance
These Entertainers are Entertainers in Drama, by word and dance.
Jamaica is experiencing a vibrant cultural growth in which all the
testing and work going back to the 1930s is now beginning to
bear fruit.
Theatre reflects life. If anyone doubts the relevance of Classical
Theatre to life today, they need only compare the blood lust
of Shakespeare to the slaughter of the "Godfather". Incestuous
love in Greek drama is as real as the young six-teen year old
girl writing to a local newspaper in desperation as her father is
insisting on having sexual intercourse with her. Yes drama and
tragedies are real.
Unfortunately, our drama is still a long way from reflecting
contemporary life. The reason is quite clear. The Theatre-going
percentage of Britain, the U. S. A., the West Indies, in other
words, the Eurocentric cultural sphere, is very small, and concen-
trated among the middle classes. They pay to see Good Theatre
and unless they are convinced that something 'new' is good,
will insist on the old standards, and the classics.Our Playwrights
by and large are, from the same cultural and social background,
and are just beginning to be socially aware of the need to identify
with Jamaica as a whole in order to record the vitality and
movement that is taking place at this most important and signifi-
cant time of our development.
So, all these years, who are the people who have been the
Chronicle of our life? Our songwriters, our musicians and our
dancers. To our crying shame, no record has been kept of
Jamaica's reaction to our very exciting history. The songs of the
Troubadours like "Slim & Sam" are not to be found with their
wit, their humour, and their inevitable double entendres. For
example their, at the time, famous song of the 1939 war:
Jamaica ready to go to war to ra ra ra.
We need no gas or 'man 'O War' a ra ra ra
For we have Koo-Koo-Macka stick,
We razor an' we half-a-brick
To rip to rip to ra ra ra.
Also this wail on the American base at Sandy Gully:
I went to Sandy Gully fe go get a bite
Dem se' down me name an' a feel wright
De very day a start fe work, de man dem strike.
Whay!
The Eddie Thomas Dancers The Jamaica Folk
Singers The Creative Arts Centre The Jamaica
Broadcasting Corporation Jamaica Information
Service Festival Radio Jamaica Rediffusion.
Theatre Company
Slim and Sam would sing their songs at the market and sell them
for a penny a sheet, and within a few days the whole island knew
what was happening. These were the days before ZQI brought
radio to Jamaica, and during ZQI, but Slim and Sam were of the
wrong social background to put on radio, and their material was
raw, and earthy, Jamaican. In other words, what is now being
hailed all over the world as 'Folk Music'. Until very recently the
middle classes insisted that the man who knew "Derriere" was
artistic, but the poor man who only knew to say "Batty" was not
only not artistic, but vulgar. So a whole volume of Jamaican life
has been lost to us.
National Hero Marcus Garvey used to have artists performing at
his meeting in places like Edelweiss Park. The"'Sagwa"shows took
entertainment around the island. These shows suffered constant
harassment by the authorities and were performed in backyards
and fields; and "Nice Children" were not allowed to go. It was at
these shows that artists of the calibre of "Cupidon" the great
comedian, and dancers like Berto Pasuka, who later became
famous in Europe, developed their technique. The night clubs and
cinemas like the Gaiety, Glass Bucket and Springfield, brought out
'Harold & Dudley'. Harold Holness and his dancers rehearsed in
the backyards of Kingston in the dirt, and ended up forming the
nucleus around with Dudley MacMillian built shows like 'Hot
Chocolate' at the Ward Theatre. This was in the early forties
when the underprivileged black man began to make his appear-
ance in the conventional Theatre.Vere Johns and Eric Coverleyare
names one immediately associates with this, "Opportunity Hours"
and "Christmas Morning Shows" at the Ward Theatre and Coke
Memorial Hall. It was in these shows that the Louise Bennetts
and the Ranny Williams made their names. The arts suffered a
great loss with the death of Harold Holness this year.
To Henry and Greta Fowler, also, are due a lot of credit with their
Pantomimes, which span a fantastic 30 years. These Pantomimes
still remain the only Theatrical venture where all the classes of the
society meet. Lousie Bennett and Ranny Williams, with their very
Jamaican appeal, are without doubt very responsible for a lot of
this. The National Dance Theatre Company, after many years of
hard work and through farming out its dancers to teach in the
schools, have harnessed, a fantastic audience, which cannot help
but increase as these youngsters spread the word, so to speak.
Many experiments are going on to put in some controllable
theatrical form the very vital experience the Rastafarians are
going through. One was the performances produced by Marina
Maxwell at the Inafca African Museum in Lady Musgrave Road
two years ago which featured Count Ossie and the Mystic
Revelations with various poems and dances. Another was the
establishment of the Harambee Theatre in Bull Bay. These groups
are learning the discipline of Theatre mainly though trial and
error, because the conventional approach to Theatre in Jamaica
does not appeal to them. When they have perfected themselves,
we should have a tremendous cultural awakening in Jamaica. These
are the signs. We will still see .......
A most encouraging, and at the same time upsetting aspect of the
development of Theatre in Jamaica at the moment is the
desperate shortage of theatre space for production. There are
more productions than theatres to go around. If this pressure
keeps up, more space will have to be found.
The Barn: In 1973, continued with the run of the most successful
'Smile Orange' This must, without doubt, be the most successful
play in Jamaican Theatre history. 1972 was a very significant year
for the company. They were invited to the 'O'Neill Playwrights'
Conference in Connecticut, U.S.A. and won great acclaim. The
play was revised again for Festival. 'Smile Orange' is set in an
hotel in the Tourist belt, and deals with the hazards facing both
the locals and the tourists in their bid to get what they can out of
'THE SLEEPER'. Divided stage shows aual dramas simultaneously enacted. Photo: Tony Russell
each other. Standard equipment for Tourists is money. Standard
equipment for waiters is knee pads, and great fun is had by all.
'See Mama': This play was presented by Munair Zacca at the
Barn Theatre earlier in the year and enabled us to see perhaps the
best performance of the year, Leonie Forbes Amiel as 'Mama'.
Or maybe its the part that's so tremendous, because people have
said how effective Claudia Robinson Jones was when she alter-
nated with Leonie. I didn't see Claudia.
'Comic Strip': Three girls share an apartment. Two are from the
right side of the tracks, the other is a 'Bouguyaga'. She and her
Rasta boyfriend pop singer are being cultivated. Its the "In"
thing. Everybody hates the "Trenton" they say, but the 'Bouguyaga'
girl has a white man on the side, and the other two think about it.
There were two versions played by different actors. Another Barn
success.
'Sleeper': Jamaican Middle-class family life as it is. Young husband
with mistress and strokes. Young wife frustrated and ready for
relief. Middle-aged father desperate not to go home which is only a
dustless house. Middle-aged mother desperate for love. Rich
middle-aged to old bachelor claiming to have a different girl each
night, but is never seen with one, and his niece who is having if off
with the young married man. The result spells "Loneliness".
All three Plays written by Trevor Rhone Directors: Dennis Scott,
Trevor Rhone, Melba Bennett.
'THE SLEEPER'. Father announces to wife and daughter
that he wants a divorce. Photo: Tony Russell
From: SON OF JOHN RAS I Coronation Scene. Photo: Tony Russell SON OF JOHN RAS I Court Room Scene: Jubilant supporters celebrate the
acquittal of their leader "Son of John Ras I". Photo: Tony Russell.
The Barn Th-2tre for Children: Presented two Plays 'Dorothy
Donkey' by Barbara Gloudon, and a mime play 'Anancy Story'.
These were delightfully produced by Belinda Durity.
The Jamaica National Theatre Trust: Had two plays in their
repertory season at the Ward Theatre. They were both interesting
and very well done, as one expects from this most outstanding
company. 'Pillars In The Mud'- This play takes place in Guyana in
1962, and shows the tragedy of racism. An African and an Indian
family live quite friendly together in a farming village until they
are caught up in the sudden emergence of the "Africans" and
"Indians". A Guianese friend of mine commented when the
Burnham and Jagan split first happened that: "When I left
Guyana there were Guyanese in Guyana. Now Jagan and
Burnham gone bring in dem "Indian and African". The young
African son, who is involved in the rioting in Georgetown,
returns to bring tragedy down on the families by eventually killing
the Indian father. The acting was excellent.
Play written by H. A. Naimatali, set designed by Colin Garland,
Director Lloyd Reckord.
'Macbeth' This Shakespeare classic tragedy was most interestingly
transferred to a Caribbean setting, and set in a place reminiscent
of Trujillo's Santo Domingo. The costuming and the set were
impressive, the acting mixed. A production of this kind, with such
an extensive cast, needs a dedicated bunch of professional actors,
and the director did not get this. I hope this will be done again.
Set & Costume by Richard & Sally Montgomery, Director Carrol
Dawes, The NTT also presented plays for children on Saturday
mornings.
Ed (Bim) Lewis: Presented two plays this year. 'The Bald Headed
Rooster' stretched over from last year, and was succeeded at the
end of the year by 'The son of John Ras-I'
Mr. Lewis is presenting a Theatrical fare which is the nearest thing
we have to traditional Folk Theatre. I suspect it goes back to the
"Sagwa" medicine show days. There is always the Court Scene
interrupted by variety acts. Thehumour is crude and earthy. It is
Folk Theatre. The people want it. "Bim" seems to be the only
man, apart from the Pantomime to fill the Ward Theatre. That's
what Theatre is about.
Jamaica Playhouse: Only had one production this year, but gave
us two plays. 'The Real Inspector Hound' by the British author
Tom Stoppard, and the delightful comedy by Jamaica's Easton
Lee, 'Tarshan Lace & Velvet'. A very good evening's Theatre. 'The
Real Inspector Hound' was directed by Reggie Carter, and
'Tarshan Lace & Velvet' by Keith Sasso. These were presented at
the Lecture Theatre at the University of the West Indies, Mona
Campus.
8 O'clock Players: Presented their revue'8 O'Clock Jamaican Time'
A very successful revue, in which no one was spared. Director
Tony Gambiill, presented at the Lecture Hall at the UWI.
The Little Theatre: The Pantomime this year was a lavish prod-
uction of 'Hail Columbus' by Barbara Gloudon. In a way it broke
with tradition, as it did not have "Miss Lou" this year. She took a
well deserved rest."Mass Ran"was still there and Eddie Thomas
designed some fabulous costumes, as well as writing the music and
doing the choreography. Tom Cross directed.
Veta Vincent and Chorus performing Mata Hari sequence in "Little Mary Sunshine" (Jamaica Amateur Operative Society).
Photo Wendy Hunt
Above: CELEBRATIONS-dynamic opening number by the NDTC. Choreography:
Rex Nettleford. Picture shows part of company (I-r) Joyce Campbell, Nettleford
himself, Barbara Requa, Sheila Barnett, Monica McGowan, Barry Moncrieffe, Mavis
Stoppi, Pansy Hassan. (Photo Maria LaYacona)
Left: MOUNTAIN WOMEN, the dance work by Sheila Barnett that tells of our
women and their mountains. In picture are Monica McGowan, Noelle Chutkan and
Jean Binns. The original musical score is composed by Marjorie Whylie the dance
company's musical director. (Photo Maria LaYacona)
Merry Wives of Windsor' was the Shakespearean production at
Paul Methuen's Garden Theatre. It was a good romp with Louise
Bennett, and Lois Kelly-Barrow. Paul Methuen directed.
The Jamaica School of Drama at the Little Theatre is well
established and now has a new director, Dr. Carrol Dawes. The
Lecturers at the school read almost like a Who's Who in Jamaican
Theatre.
Black on Black on Black: P. St. J. Hill presented black works
about black people performed by black people. Accompanied by
'The Truth' Band, songs were presented at the Little Theatre.
National Dance Theatre Company: Their annual season at the
Little Theatre this year was another outstanding one. Five new
ballets were presented in their Repertoire. 'Homage' 'Street
People' and 'In The Spirit' all choreographed by Rex Nettleford,
'Thursday's Child' choreographed by Bert Rose, and 'Windsong,
choreographed by John Jones. The company now has such a
large repertoire of good ballets to draw on, It moves from strength
to strength.
The company made a most successful trip to New York where
they performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Rex Nettle-
ford was presented with the Keys of the City.
Because of Public demand, a "mini season" is scheduled for the
Ward Theatre at the time of going to press.
,bove ... REGGAE TIME The name of the ballet is "Street People" and
: is done to some six classic reggae tunes. The street people are Fitzroy
lunt, Yvonne Ffrench and Jackie Guy. Choreography is by Rex Nettleford.
t was a popular hit of the last Season of rnnr- (ohoto Maria LaYacona)
ight ... MOTHER and Child from "Thursday's Child", a new work by
DTC's newest choreographer Bert Rose who is also one of its principal
incers. In picture are Noelle Chutkan as the Mother and Barry Moncrieffe
the perplexed son. (photo O. Minott)
Left ... POCOMANIA an old work
which is frequently revived for en-
thusiastic audiences. Choreography is
by Rex Nettleford is a staged version
of the religious ritual.
Left ... HOMAGE, the major work of
the 1973 Season here shows some of
the NDTC's top dancers (Barry
Moncrieffe, Patsy Ricketts and Bert
Rose in front) supported by Jackie
Guy and Tony Wilson (behind).
Choreography is by Rex Nettleford
who has presented since that time in
two churches St. Judges (Stony Hill)
and St. Lukes (Cross Roads).
(photo Maria LaYacona)
Eddie Thomas Dancers: The Little Theatre also saw the first
concert of the Eddie Thomas dancers. The programme, interlaced
with songs by the Jamaica Folk Singers, and Larry McDonald was
-highlighted by the ballet 'And It Came To Pass' in which Derrick
Williams, of the Harlem Dance Theatre, alternated with Eddie
I Thomas as "The King" the ballet was originally choreographed by
Eddie Thomas for The National Dance Theatre Company, with
Rex Nettleford dancing the King. The dancers also went to
Cayman Islands.
-The Trinidad Theatre Workshop: Derek Walcott cannot be
ordinary. He presented his workshop in two of his plays
S'Franklin' and 'The Charlatan' at the Little Theatre. Arguments
about the play centered around the comparison with his present-
ations last year, the now established 'Ti-Jean and his Brothers'
and 'Dream on a Morkey Mountain' So Walcott was being com-
pared with Walcott. That's distinction for you.
The Jamaica Folk Singers: Had a very successful year. Apart from
going around the island, Montego Bay, St. Elizabeth, Port Antonio,
they did an extensive tour of Europe. Enthusiastic reception was
reported everywhere, London, Cardiff, Berlin, Cologne, Hanover,
and in the United States, Chicago and Miami. I think it needs
stating here, that when this company, and the National Dance
Theatre Company go abroad, they are not Government-aided as
many people think. They rely very much on goodwill.
The Creative Arts & Centre: Had a busy year. There was an Easter
Course "The University Singers" did a production "The
Caribbean Thespians" did a very impressive production of
43
Ogilvie's 'Sudden Guest' which was directed by Ron Harrison.
The touring French Theatre Company presented a short season,
and the "University Drama Society" presented two productions,
'Ti-Jean 'Man Better Man' was one of the best productions seen
anywhere in Jamaica this year. This play, by Errol Hill, deals with
stick fight,.g, and under the direction of Carrol Dawes, Tony
Smith, and Rawle Gibbons, provided some of the best comedy
seen for a long time.
Jamaica Amateur Operatic Society: 'Songs For All Seasons' was
seen at the Creative Arts Centre, directed by Vela Vincent and
Joe Gregory. The society also presented the American musical
'Oklahoma' at the Little Theatre. This production was directed by
Reggie Carter.
The Uganda Drama Theatre: Gave us an example of what t
Theatre can mean. Lead by Robert Serumaga, they stopped
on their world tour to electrify us with their production 'Re
Moi' This was a dance drama in many Ugandan languages but
emotions created and communicated were so real that there
no difficulty in being immediately involved. A memory
theatrical event.
The African Repertory Theatre: Led by Desmond Stewart tl
group, for the last couple of years have been working and presel
ing plays at the Y.W.C.A. their production this year 'Freedc
Ritual' depicted slavery, degradation, death and oppressic
They specialise in Mime Drama. More will be heard of their
i
Scenes from "OKLAHAMA", Jamaica Amateur Operatic Society,
Photos Wendy Hunt
Festival: Under Enid Chevannes, the Speech and Drama of
Festival has reached a very high standard. It is necessary now for
a definite link up with the various Theatrical companies so that
the winning Festival offerings get produced. No matter how many
prizes a writer wins, he cannot judge his ability until his play is
produced; and the public cannot judge him either.
Joyce Campbell once more presented us with a fine crop of
dancing this Festival. These are two outstanding sections of
Festival.
David Carty, planter, strangles Mi-Jean, the intellectual (Teddy
Price), in the play Ti-Jean and His Brothers, U.W.I. Drama Society.
Photo Michael Morgan
Radio: Jamaica Information Service has started a Studio Theatre
in which they have been giving half-hour plays. A welcome start
which must be encouraged.
Radio Jamaica Rediffusion. is well ahead in the field with
locally written and produced 'Dulcimina' written and produced
by Elaine Perkins, and 'A Time to Remember' by Gloria
Lannaman, produced by Norman Rae. They also give us radio
drama from abroad, and short stories.
The Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation has also begun to give us
more drama. At the moment most of it is foreign, but plans are
afoot for Jamaica to triumph.
Television: The Jamaica Information Service began a regular
monthly series of plays in their 'J.LS. Workshop'. These have
Above, Left Richard Seruwagi is being chastened by drummers tor trying to
kill Nakazzi in Renga Moi, (The Uganda Drama Theatre).
emphasised what I have maintained for ages, that is that you
only get good television drama by doing it. You cannot sit do
and wait for the masterpiece, you have to work at it. The fi
productions were not effective, either the plays were not go
television, or the direction was not television. But the impro'
ment has been very marked. Good luck to the Jamaica Inf(
mation Service. The Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation is still
the starting line.
It can be seen from this review that Jamaica has not been exac
starved of Theatre over the past year. Or rather, Kingston has
been starved. We just need to spread it around some more, and i
may witness a real cultural renaissance in Jamaica.
Above, Right Richard Seruwagi as the carpenter, tries to resusitate t
supposedly dead Nakazzi (Jane Majoro) before he measures her for the coff
in Renga Moi, (The Uganda Drama Theatre).
A .
Mystic Revelation of Rastafari giving a free public concert on a Sunday after-
noon at Fort Charles in Port Royal sometime during 1973.
by Aimee Webster
In 1972 Jamaica was re-discovered by the Japanese. Their
Toyotas appeared on the streets of Kingston. Cable exchanges
and telephone talks were capped in both countries by a pair
of significant headlines the one-week visit to Jamaica of the
almost fabled prince of the Mistsubishi financial empire and
the establishment of diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level
between the two island nations.
The Jamaican Prime Minister, Mr. Michael Manley publicly
summarised "the Japanese have capital literally growing out of
their ears." That description was soon demonstrated. For the
Japanese celebrated their release from trade isolation with
Jamaica which the previous Jamaican administration imposed
by gilded re-entry:
J$14m was committed by a consortium of Japanese
bankers towards constructing a transhipment port in
Jamaica. Feasibility studies of this enterprise make the
17th century money-spinning asciento of which Jamaica
was the hub, look like chicken feed.
A diversity of Japanese investigators commenced examin-
ing Jamaica in real and potential terms: mineral desposits
were looked at in relation to those of Japan's newest
suitors, South Africa and Australia: assessment of Jama-
ican agriculture resulted in Tokyo's coffee merchants
replacing London blenders as recipients of Jamaica's
unique, too-small high quality mountain coffee crop.
Above all, the Japanese contemplated Jamaica's geo-
graphic placement. The island ` roughly equidistant
from the eastern Caribbean to which it is tied by a
Common Market and sentimental agreement, and from
the United States which, wobbly dollar notwithstanding,
remains the world's inarguably richest retail market.
So far as these relatively unnoticed activities by Japan's
free enterprisers were observed by the Jamaican people, they
saw a second Japanesd motor vehicle agency conferred on a
Jamaican dealer and they heard that their Government sought
for a Japanese textile expert to transform the white elephant
gift from Colombia's Coltejar of Ariguanabo Mills with book
value of J$6m into a profitable business.
In a single year, Jamaicans ceased to see Japan as the source
of pretty, cheap copies of Bavarian figurines. In 1972 Jamai-
cans commenced to recognize Japan as a source of massive
financial investment and incalculable know-how.
Japan is a miracle to oldtime Jamaicans. In their youth,
Japan was decried as an exploiter of cheap labour. In those
long-ago years, Japan provided many Jamaicans with their
first experience of wearing shoes. That footwear of canvas with
rubber soles, retailed at 2/6d per pair, was decried by Europhiles
on three counts, viz: the masses could afford to be shod, thus
tending to make them above themselves, the construction
fabrics of canvas and rubber created an unnatural climate for
the feet, sweating resulted that caused consumption of the
lungs. So earnest debates were held on the social and health
consequences arising from imports to Jamaica of Japanese-made
canvas and rubber shoes.
Merchants in their wisdom advised that these cheap shoes
inevitably would lead to whetting the Jamaican appetite for
leather shoes from Europe and North America. Thus until that
time came, there was nothing wrong with commissions and
profits earned from vending Japanese-made canvas and rubber
shoes to the bare-footed masses of Jamaica. Indeed, the trade
almost assumed a social welfare guise.
With their characteristic capacity for prejudice, Jamaicans
at no social level, ever described the Japanese footwear as
tennis shoes, although these were identical copies of this genre
of British-made footwear. The Jamaicans applied the names
"crepes" to the shoes from Japan in practical appreciation for
the non-slip construction of the soles. Because the tread was
silent, the word 'sneakers' came to popularity: perhaps with
prophetic justification.
Japanese conquest of Jamaica was so imperceptible as to
seem improbable. For the conquest moved from cheap shoes,
to crockery and plastic knick-knicks to the ancient Japanese
art of flower arrangement. The Japanese word is Ikebana.
How Ikebana, a 4-syllable word, came to exercise almost
magic lure for Jamaicans is not easily explained. For why should
a people surrounded by lush vegetation throughout the year
and themselves derived from many centuries of European and
impulse for mass decoration, be attracted by economy of line,
rigid rules of levels representing earth, man, heaven and sparse-
ness of leaf and bloom characteristic of Japanese flower arrange-
ment?
Ikebana embraces the thousand-odd schools of flower
arrangement in Japan whose entire population contemplates
vegetation with that singular awe affirmed in the simple state-
ment of the Book of Genesis, "God made a garden." But that
Hebrew history does not embrace Japan.
Precisely as Japanese garden design is economical in plant
material and depends upon suggested imagery rather than mass
to stimulate the beholder's eye, Japanese flower arrangement is
a strict discipline for placing stems with their leaves and flowers.
What is conveyed to the mental eye is the mood of the arranger.
By contrast, the western art of flower arrangement appeals to
the visual senses through interweaving textures and colours.
Ikebana then would seem to require intellectual compre-
hension as an essential pre-requisite of expression. Significantly,
this art had its rise among the priesthood. It is then an art of
contemplation, rather than of mindless search for prettiness.
In the passage of centuries of flower arrangement in Japan,
the art was dispersed among the population. Inevitably there
appeared diversions from the original, rigid expressions enun-
ciated and taught by Ikenobo, the first of Japan's flower
masters.
Rebellions and novelties, no less vigorous for all their per-
fume, proceeded. Today's figurines and geometrics and latterly
the appearances of female flower school masters might not be
the final of the heresies.
Although the essentially intellectual artistry of Ikebana de-
picts in a single piece of the season of year as well as an
event even so commonplace an event as the coming into the
house of a visitor what the western eye perceives in the com-
pleted piece is the meaningful placement of vegetation to
emphasise the infinite mysteries of space.
Because space until now is examined and categorised and
A. VERTICAL STYLE
Arranger: Pearl Wright, Master-Ohara School of
Ikebana
C. FREE STYLE GEOMETRIC (Modern Sogetsu)
Arranger: Joyce Shaw
D. "ADESTE FIDELIS" (Ichyo School)
Arranger: Veronica Robb
E. FREE STYLE (Sogetsu School)
"I hold the splendid daylight in my hands"
(From 'LITANY' by George Campbell)
Arranger: Gloria Lawrence
explored by men, a question is: Can women achieve outstand-
ing performance in Ikebana?
Proficiency in defining space is nowhere in the exposition
of the late and revered Mrs. Frank Allen Jr., the wife of a
United States military officer whose tour of duty in Japan his
wife employed in establishing Ikebana International with the
motto: Friendship through Flowers.
Now there are scores of Ikebana International chapters in
the world. Seminars are held, conventions beck vast audiences
and from time to time masters of flower schools in Japan foray
forth to lecture and teach in the principal cities of Asia, Africa,
Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. These workshops have
the fervour of religious convocations.
The cultural vehicle of Ikebana is recognized by the Japanese
government to an extent that even Jamaica, one of the smallest,
latest yet most ardent converts to the gentle art of Ikebana
was visited by an officially sponsored flower master, Mr.
Shibata and his assistant. That neither spoke English nor their
audience understood Japanese, in no way deflated enthusiasm.
During the tour of Miss Stella Coe, one of the few Western
women to win distinction in Ikebana to the extent of writing
textbooks, 500 persons swarmed her demonstration at Clare-
mont, a small rural village in Jamaica.
How much of the history, meaning, symbolism of Ikebana
is grasped by the mainly female zealots of this art cannot be
estimated. Thus Mrs. Edna Manley, the distinguished sculptor
who is patron of the Jamaica Chapter of Ikebana International,
might be entirely correct in her definition, Ikebana is the art
of the home. Or she might have described what Ikebana means
to the four schools of Ikebana which grew up in Kingston in as
many years. Yet what more exquisite introduction to the
world's foremost financial power and hardworking population
could there be than is expressed in the Jamaicans' zeal for the
Japanese art of flower arrangement?
The Future of Ikebana in Jamaica
Is the study of Japanese flower arrangement by Jamaicans
destined to be a craze, a fad embraced for its pretty economy
of plant material? Or will ikebana persist to so deeply engage
Jamaicans' imagination as to penetrate Jamaica's culture
throughthe use of local plants and containers,.that in Jamaica
Ikebana eventually demonstrates the fate of all colonisation?
For nothing is so true as that sooner or later the colony creates
its own peculiar systems which are the total combination of
what was imposed by the colonisers and engrafted upon that
which is original to the colonised.
The swift popularity of Ikebana among Jamaican flower
arrangers and public is a denial that trade follows the flag. The
truth is trade followed the flower arrangers, since it was after
4 years of intense Ikebana, including teaching tours by three
visiting masters, that the Japanese and Jamaican governments
established diplomatic relations. The balance of trade foresee-
ably will long continue to be in Japan's favour: flower arrangers
are tipping the cultural balance too in Japan's favour. To what
extent multi-racial Jamaicans could be led culturally by Ikebana
is an intriguing speculation.
A paradox with the large and increasing sale in Jamaica of
Ikebana textbooks is the infrequent sale of a book on Japanese
garden design. Also, not one public park, nor any of the thou-
sands of handsome private plantings in this Caribbean island are
influenced by the Japanese garden.
Zest for Ikebana along with oversight of the Japanese
garden's relationship with -Ikebana, perhaps indicates that sub-
consciously Jamaicans select the one art form from Japan
which apparently can evolve into what might become as dis-
tinctively Jamaican as say Jamaican dance and Jamaican speech
idiom.
Such a development could not be prevented by the four
ikebana schools Ichyo, Ikenobo, Ohara, Sogetsu conducted
in Jamaica by qualified instructors, or by St. Andrew Chapter
of Ikebana International of which these schools are menibers.
The Chapter, chartered in 1973, has no authority over schools
nor members-at-large: they are responsible to their individual
headquarters in Japan. Hence, as students progress through the
degrees to iemoto (master), what could prevent the bold from
imitating their Japanese mentors?
In Japan, scores of iemotos have introduced variations on
basic disciplines they acquired during years of dedicated study.
They founded schools of their own. So a possibility is that
definitions from the ikebana glossary such as morimono,
nagiere, moribana, rikka now tripping off Jamaican tongues,
might gain some novel additions from the engrossment of
Jamaicans in Ikebana.
The brake to nationalisation of ikebana is that technical
mastery of this art form in isolation cannot assure perfect
achievement because Ikebana is not interior decoration only.
For example, one explanation why evocative pieces are not
achieved by some students while they seem to flow effortlessly
from other fingers, is in the Japanese percept that "Flower
arrangement is not to arrange flowers, but to arrange the mind.
We should revere courtesy in each flower arrangement."
This rule of Shinso Soami who founded the Soami School
500 years ago dominates authentic Ikebana,. an art of the
priesthood which passed to the laiety, including the suamari.
The 8th Shogun Yoshimasa, as much impressed by the sword-
manship of Soami as by his scholarship and Ikebana, elevated
him to the post which today we call "cultural adviser." His
black ink drawings still may be seen in the Art Museum of
Kyoto and his eminence in his lifetime gave permanence to his
pronouncement: An iemoto should not only have Ikebana as
his occupation.
So there persists in authentic ikebana the tradition that the
flower master is accomplished in arts other than Ikebana. Thus
when Sofu Tashigara exhibited his stone sculpture and calli-
graphy in Paris last year that city of artists was agog, and the
primitive art collection of Huon Ohara is famous as his Ikebana
masterpieces.
The explosive creativity stimulated by the trilogy of Earth,
Man, Heaven,mathematical calculations in Ikebana express much
more than pretty harmony, hence the advice of the Japanese:
When you are angry or unhappy, make a flower arrangement.
Jamaicans advancement in Ikebana will be measured as much
for artistry and intellectualism as for adoption of the curious
humility of Japanese people. They, unlike admirers and imita-
tors of their unique flower arrangement art, even rate gardening
and contemplation as areas in which the student should excel
on the way to achievement in Ikebana.
Junior Poetry 14 16
Crawls into his inmost self
When he is made their sport.
He surveys his nemesis,
Reserves of assertion move forward,
But the wall offaces stops him
His heart hardens and hardens more
Against the voices he had learnt to hate.
The upraised hand ignored, wavers,
But it holds an invisible sword
Ready to descend on his cleancut neck.
Silence and intent gazes
But the voice of the child is sure,
And the spectators convinced,
Wait with the old excitement.
In their fortress they sing in triumph
At the feeble ultimate gesture,
A look, a shout, a whimper.
Once long ago he
He dreams in tune with
His mellow-wise guitar.
Junior Poetry 14 and under
QUIET MOMENTS
(Inspired by a painting by Albert Huie)
by Charmaine Mendez
Sitting under one of the huge willow trees
lam listening to silence.
lam speaking to no one,
Watching the clear blue water bubbling over.
Looking at the humble town of St. Peters,
Thinking how wonderful it is to be as free as the
blue water.
Staring at the peaceful and great mountains,
Wondering how such a great thing came into existence,
My mind full of thoughts,
Day dreaming along the bank,
I sink into a deep dream.
BoXEEXHIBITION
It may be that the effective way to attack Jamaican (or
other) philistinism is in the region of the prejudices; in which
event the David-Wayne Boxer exhibition at the Institute of
Jamaica in the first two weeks of July can be reckoned a
landmark of our recent cultural history.
In 20 or more years of reviewing art exhibitions, I can
recall occasions when an exhibition of itself would become
nothing less than an emotional experience: if you like, a turn-
ing-point in one's development as an individual. The Eugene
Hyde homecoming exhibition at the Institute art gallery in
1963 was one such. In a quite different style, an exhibition
of water-colours by Roger Mais, put on within a few weeks of
his death in 1955, was another.
The Boxer occasion is quite something else. In boldness
and virtuosity he resembles Eugene Hyde. Like Mais in those
last watercolours, he can achieve a poem in terms of colour
alone (see 'Figure Turning and Leaving' series, particularly
- 49 in Boxer catalogue). But he is more knowing than either.
And by 'knowing' one does not intend to refer to Boxer's
vaunted status as an art historian, whatever that is. His know-
ledge of other artists' work is, I would say, an essential
element in the attack before-mentioned; and often, where
his knowledge co-incides with that of the viewer, it can be
employed to produce a wry sort of frisson; especially since
the characteristic but by no means original Boxer approach is
that of the studied anti-climax.
What I will call his de-composition of Van Eyck is a case in
point. In the well-known painting by the Flemish master, the
burgher Arnolfini is shown in the midst of his family and
possessions: a figure reflecting the naivete of fleshly enjoy-
ments. While it seems evident that Boxer is an admirer of this
classic work, he has left us a commentary on it (18 and 19 in
catalogue) that is, to say the least, chilling.
ii
The early life of the Biblical David is, of course, nothing if
not an heroic tale; and, though I find David-Wayne Boxer's
work to be wholly without wit or humour (number 69,
'Buffo', after all, in spite of operatic implications in the title,
is quite literally toad-shaped), it is well within the spirit of his
exhibition's nearly exemplary showmanship to court allusions
based on nothing more than the common possession of a name.
Could it be from some such ploy that the resounding mani-
festos ('I allow private myths to nurture a universal purpose')
depend? And did not one of the more enthusiastic Boxer
promoters measure their hero against Michelangelo, himself
the greatest monumental painter of the Renaissance and
creator of a sculptural heroic David nearly as famous as the
scriptural model? And is not number 42 in the Boxer catalogue
epically titled thus: 'Standing Figure 72 also known as Figure
Walking and or Whistling, also affectionately known as Mao
Walking or Mao Whistling, most recently known as Goliath
Triumphant'?
... Goliath Triumphant'? But, among us, only those of
least wit will allow themselves to be side-tracked by the appar-
ent self-deprecation.
After further formal (and fashionable) self-immolation in
the shape of an 'Assault on Self Image' series and ancillary
self-portraits manque (to say nothing of a number of persona-
tions during which the artist is Jesus or Macbeth), Boxer
releases his taste for the grand in two creations, number 53,
'L. v. B. II (Homage to Beethoven)', but especially number 54,
'L. v. B. III'.
To those whose adolescence was exposed to his music, a
conception in which Beethoven is God may seem inevitable
and even just. Especially, as I say, in the later and larger work,
Boxer carries it off with aplomb and without the mawkish
note one might have feared. One of these days, this lad is going
to make a fine movie director.
iii
The question remains: if Boxer is David, then who can
Goliath be?
One of the exhibition's more effective pictures is number
58 in the catalogue: 'Self Image Assault IV', or a portrait of
the artist as corrupt young worldling. Like so many of its
ARNOLFINIS III 1971-1972
companion pieces, this has been conceived in an access of
purest fantasy and therefore, in accordance with the aesthetic
of self-mortification to which Boxer adheres at the moment,
bears neither moral nor matter-of-fact implications. Neverthe-
less it will provide an occasion (if you like, an excuse) for a
look at the exhibition in terms of its motivation.
I have already used the term, 'showmanship'; but then a
show is what it's all about. I have also implied that the show
may be historic in its possibilities.
Surely, one of the Boxer exhibition's history-making aspects
is the number of distinguished names that, on sometimes quite
transparent pretexts, have been willy-nilly organized into its
conspectus. Looked at from one angle, the exhibition is noth-
ing if not a name-dropping festival; what with Mao Tse Tung,
Hortensio Felix Paravicino, Macbeth, Francis Bacon, Freud,
Stella, Gloria Lannaman, Goliath, Picasso (of course), Salome,
Edna Manley; and more, at least as many again as I have
mentioned.
Again, it would seem that for their proper appreciation
these pictures and objects require, apart from the convention-
al grounding in the History and Philosophy of Art (gleaned
from several years of study at prominent universities), skill in
two or maybe three European languages beside English; al-
TOD (DEATH) 1973
though where the, so to speak, native language of picture
or object happens to be other than English it is to the credit
of the show's organizers that they have been thoughtful
enough to provide translations.
Now, it is well known that this is the sort of thing that is
likely, if anything is, to impress the philistines: prestigious
humbug and sub-masonic obscurantism: and one cannot say,
indeed, just how far it has gone towards becoming an accepted
technique of salesmanship, an acknowledged method in some-
thing mystically referred to as 'presentation.'
The question is, just how much of the Boxer exhibition is
'presentation'?
I would say, quite a deal more than the average run of art
exhibition to which we are accustomed in Jamaica; and this
has little or nothing to do with whether we judge such exhibi-
tions, as individual exhibitions, 'good' exhibitions or 'bad'
exhibitions
Of Mr. Boxer's 76 pieces, I have discovered some eight or
nine for which I have experienced a clear liking; and this is a
good percentage for a single exhibition (in the context of a
one-man show, the implications are even more strongly com-
plimentary). Purely as a matter of interest, they are as follows:
Numbers 20 and 21, 'Nachtstuck' I and II, for their economy
and employment of colour (Boxer's sure colour sense is one of
the firmer elements in his claim on our attention); number 41,
'Three Figures (Triptych)'; number 44, 'Act I Scene I, 1972-
73', for its romanticism; number 46, 'Venere Volgare'; num-
ber 52, 'Das Wiedersehen (The Return) also known as Eroticon
V'; number 60, 'Self Image 72-73' (this I have sometimes
thought of as the best picture in the exhibition), for its very
effective use of-white; number 65, 'Portrait 73' number 68,
'Six Variations Interior'.
A substantial part of the Boxer subject-matter is ascribable
to pure fashion, a kind of cultural 'keeping up with the
Joneses', as he himself will be seen to admit when his mani-
festos have been read with attention:
'My work, at least the work represented in the current
exhibition must ultimately I think be viewed as a dia-
logue between abstract expressionism's painterly techni-
ques and freedoms, and the figurative constructs of the
"New Imagists"; Giacometti, Richier, Baskin, Golub,
Lebrun, Bacon et al.'
In other words, a kind of polemic; but a self-oriented,
self-concerned polemic: and, if anyone should be disturbed
at the notion of an artist who conducts dialogues with himself,
it should be understood that were this the only necessary
qualification it places Boxer in superior company, indeed.
But, to paraphrase the words of a famous man, there are
a few more things to be said; and they concern Goliath.
(v)
In the United States at the moment (and it is apparently
to the United States that Mr. Boxer has gone to be educated,
for the most part) it is considered a kind of chic for middle-
class people to have on their walls a variety of tokens of mor-
tality; and the cult of death, in common with other express-
ions of religiosity, is very much to the fore. It may be
concluded that this is a vague overspill of affluence, a world-
sadness very much akin to that necrophilia that was said to
haunt the resistless, all-accomplishing Victorians; but it could
also be looked at as the simple consequence of the accumula-
tion of wars, large and less large, with which the consciousness
of a generation has been bombarded:
'But Vietnam was the catalyst for these "damaged man"
themes. I was at Cornell, an undergraduate and very
impressionable, and night after night on television I was
bombarded with the pictorial evidence of the atrocities
raging in Vietnam ... I remember, too, the numerous
pamphlets put out by anti-war groups. Many had photo-
graphs of children with their flesh incredibly transform-
ed by napalm and sulphur. I, of course, drew obvious
parallels with Nazi Germany and the treatment of the
Jews.'
"L.V.B. III" (HOMAGE TO BEETHOVEN) 1972
VENERE VOLGARE 1972
Bearing in mind their intention, it is incredible that these
necessarily brief and schematic 'programme notes' offer an
over-riding impression not of commitment but withdrawal
(Mr. Boxer was not in Vietnam; he was patently not a member
of an anti-war group; what is more, you feel he would have
been lost without his T-V: one questions the right of anyone,
but more specifically someone in the authoritative context of
a work of art, to make a statement about human suffering after
such slight and perfunctory identification). And withdrawal
sums up the basic emotional content in the exhibition.
What we are left with, then, is rhetoric; and the exploit-
atory self-interested connotations of rhetoric. In fact, one
shouldn't be surprised to learn when the smoke has cleared
that what Mr. Boxer is doing is making -an old-fashioned plea
in some such terms as 'art for art's sake', which is really a suing
for mercy at the hands of the philistines; and not the least bit
heroic.
Goliath triumphant? Only too likely.
(vi)
Let it be noted that one does not write at such length about
valueless work. In the ordinary course of exhibitions by Jam-
aican artists, one does not often come across work that so
profoundly reflects the modern spirit: which I interpret as
based in the conviction that the real subject of a work of art
is the artist's temperament.
As such, Boxer's exhibition has the weakness of its strengths:
the implication that behind each disparate work lies a theory
or philosophy capable of articulation: and beyond that the
weaknesses which honest men may be persuaded to confess,
narcissism, escapism, self-pity.
I have always wondered why artists got people to declare
their exhibitions open and I have over several years not been
able to come to any real conclusion. At one point my theory
was that the people who opened exhibitions were expected to
lend some air of importance to the occasion, but I have come
to realise that this cannot be so because most of the people
who declare other people's exhibitions open are clearly much
less important than the artist.
At another time I thought it was perhaps that the artists
wanted some sort of blessing, shall we say, from the establish-
ment perhaps, an insurance against the show being closed for
offences against public morality, but then I realized that the
blessings, such as they might be, must be in the works of art
themselves; and those, like good wine, need no bush.
So I still do not understand why people like myself, and
unlike me, very often; are selected to be the centrepieces of
these occasions.
Particularly do I not understand it in the case of today's
exhibition, because the artists whose work is on show here
today are formidably articulate not only in their paintings and
other artistic contrivances, but in the written and spoken
word.
So, instead of telling you what I think about these men at
any length, I shall attempt to tell you in their own words what
they think they are doing. Before I do this I will tell you some
of the bare facts about their lives, facts which are not only
relevant but interesting.
First of all, Kofi Ricardo Wilkins Kayiga.
by Kayiga
Kofi is in the process of legally changing his name to en-
compass his own tribute to his African origins. He is thirty
and is a graduate of the Jamaica School of Art and a former
teacher there. He gained a scholarship to the Royal College
from which he graduated two years ago and has since done
post graduate work in research into traditional African reli-
gions at Makerere University in East Africa. He taught at
Makerere and has exhibited in tie West Indies, Canada, the
U.K. Europe and East Africa.
Kofi's present works were done over the last five years and
were painted in Kenya, Tanzania, Britain, Sweden and Jamaica.
He said to me that he doesn't confuse himself with the rules.
"If they work I will use them' I am experimenting to see how
much I can say in the way I want to say it."
In his thesis he says "it is most easy to fall out of harmony
and enter the house of confusion ........ It is even easier to live
in confusion and accept misery as a way of life, to live in self-
pity and in self-glorified martyrdom. It seems the order of the
day to have no direction, to be open to all influences that
direct one like a stringless kite but if there be a kite, there must
be a presence that is to say, there must be a connecting
source, there must be the cord linking it to its strength."
This paragraph in my opinion expresses powerfully the
mainstream of Kofi Kayiga's art, which is a religious art, an
attempt to plumb the fundamental mysteries of life as he sees
it, and to plumb his connections with all the other sources of
power in his life. I believe you will see it in his paintings even
more powerfully than in his words, and if like him, you are
Kayiga, a hunter, you may track down some of these elements
as you explore his work.
Christopher Gonzales is also thirty, and like Kofi, is a
graduate of the Jamaica School of Art. Like him, Christopher
will be joining the staff of the School this year. He also is
interested in tracking down his roots and identifying his sourc-
es of power. In his view, the industrialisation of the modem
world has shattered the unity between many aspects of the
society and the individual and he is striving like many others
to find ways to connect himself with the other, organic, more
ancient tradition. Gonzales works in several media, in wood
and stone, concrete, plaster and plastic, in paint and in ink.
Unfortunately most of his recent sculpture is not here on show,
simply because it is too heavy and too expensive to bring to
Jamaica on spec. Christopher's postgraduate thesis presented
to the California College of Arts and Crafts expresses some of
the ways in which he has lately been developing.
He speaks for himself: "I became less inhibited toward the
integration of animal forms and tree forms with the human
figure. My old ideals were disappearing like the changing of a
lizard's skin. I accepted the attitude of using whatever is
necessary to increase strength and composition in my work."
Gonzi is also a mystic explorer. He says, "My whole being
dances iith the passion of the spirits .... some things come
unconsciously right .... These I never touch, fearing I'll never
see them again. In the whole creative process every part of me
AFRICAN WOMAN
is in action and I do not separate the different parts of my
whole personality. The artist I think, ultimately depends on
his inner spirit to give the work its life and meaning ......"
Gonzales' sculpture also conveys the tribulations of what
he calls, "the whole black nation. The shattering of beliefs,
the death both physical and spiritual, the awakening of the
sun spirit, the black spirits. ....."
He believes that it would be wasteful to ignore the roots
of our culture and become immersed in what is alien ...
Christopher Gonzales is back in Jamaica and with Kofi
Kayiga we have two artists here of a commitment and of a
standard of craftsmanship which reassures me at least, that
when the old masters are no longer with us and even before
that, there will be powerful voices here to express our Jamaica,
a new Jamaica, unafraid, confident, and above all beautifully
adventurous.
| i don't know |
What is the significant total reached when all the numbers on a roulette wheel are added together? | Roulette - Free Play - Odds, Strategies & Betting Systems
Play for Real
American vs European
While a few betting options differ, the biggest difference between American and European roulette is this: the European wheel has 36 numbers and a zero (2.70% house edge), while the American wheel also adds a 00 (5.26% house edge).
Rules of Play
The first step in playing roulette is to convert your cash into chips. Once this has been done, look over the felt layout and decide what wagers you wish to make. When you’ve determined this, carefully place your chips on the area corresponding to your wager or ask the dealer to do it.
Once all wagers are made, the wheel begins to spin. Next, the roulette ball is set spinning in the opposite direction. Once the ball comes to rest in a pocket, winners are announced and receive their payouts. All losing wagers are collected by the house, and then the next round of betting begins.
Roulette Betting Options
The following are the types of bets that can be made in the game of roulette:
Odd or Even Bets
The player bets on whether the winning number is odd or even. A payout is issued if they guess correctly. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Black or Red Bets
Since all pockets on a roulette wheel are colored red or black, the player may wager on which color is going to turn up during the next spin. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Straight Up Bets
The player chooses a specific number and wagers on it being the winning pocket during the next spin. While the payout is respectable, this betting option offers the worst possible odds in the game. Odds of winning are 36 to 1 (French) and 37 to 1 (American).
Dozen Bets
The betting layout includes three groups, each comprised of a dozen numbers. These include 1-12, 13-24, and 25-36. Odds are 25 to 12 (French) and 2.167 to 1 (American).
Square Bets
Also referred to as a “corner” bet, this wager requires the player to select four numbers on the layout that form a square. An example would be 16, 17, 19, and 20. Odds are 33 to 4 (French) and 8.5 to 1 (American).
Column Bets
A wager on one of the three vertical rows of numbers on the layout. For example, a wager on the first row would commit the player to the following numbers: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, and 34. Odds are 25 to 12 (French) and 2.167 to 1 (American).
Top Line Bets
Player wagers on 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3. This is only available in the American version, and it offers odds of 6.6 to 1.
High Bets
A number from 19 to 36 wins this wager, as they are considered the high digits. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Row Bets
Player wins if the 0 or 00 turns up. Only offered on the American version at 18 to 1 odds.
Low Bets
The player wins if the ball lands on a number from 1 to 18, as these are considered the low numbers. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Street Bets
A wager on three numbers that are positioned together in a horizontal line. Odds are 34 to 3 (French) and 11.667 to 1 (American).
Split Bets
The player places their bet on two numbers, but the pair must be connected horizontally or vertically. Odds are 35 to 2 (French) and 18 to 1 (American).
Five Number Bets
This wager pays out if 1, 2, 3, 0, or 00 hit. It’s only available in the American version of the game.
Trio Bets
Only available in the European version of the game, players can wager on one of the following trios: 0, 1, 2 or 0, 2, 3.
Six Line Bets
Any six numbers taken from two of the horizontal lines on the layout. An example would be 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Odds are 31 to 6 (French) and 5.33 to 1 (American).
Basket Bets
Player wagers on one of three combinations: 0, 00, 2; 00, 2, 3; or 0, 1, 2. Odds are 34 to 3 (French) and 11.667 to 1 (American).
Roulette is impossible to master, but understanding the basics of the game can at least help you avoid making wagers with a high house edge. The most important tip I can provide is to concentrate on having fun instead of turning a profit.
Roulette Strategy
Finding a successful roulette strategy is akin to hunting a dangerous beast. While the prospect is thrilling and the potential reward is enough to make your pulse race, it’s just as likely that you (or your bankroll) end up torn and bloodied. That’s because roulette in one of the classic examples of a game of chance, and even the luckiest individual will fall behind with enough spins of the wheel.
Some people have to learn the hard way, however, which probably describes you since you’re still reading this article. Out of respect for your persistence, I’ve put together a collection of possible winning roulette strategies. But if the little white ball drives you to ruin, don’t come crying to me.
Basic Roulette Tips
The following wouldn’t be classified as “strategies,” but they remain useful for any would-be roulette player:
Play European Roulette
The American version of the game includes 36 numbered pockets, plus a zero and a double zero. The European version, meanwhile, only has the single zero. This one difference is significant, reducing the house edge from 5.26% (American) to 2.7% (European).
Find a Biased Wheel
In roulette, a biased wheel is one that’s either been altered by the casino or has some inherent flaw. In either case, it produces results that aren’t entirely random. If a player can pick up on this, they can make a fortune.
The downside is that biased roulette wheels are almost unheard of in the modern age, as the house edge is more than sufficient to guarantee the casino a profit. Games are also inspected on a regular basis, which means that any sort of flaw is going to be discovered.
If you want to check anyway, you’ll need to document a few thousand spins and look for biased patterns. If you find one, perhaps you’ll be the next Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo (who won over a million euros in the 1990s while playing on a biased wheel at a casino in Spain).
Know the Odds
Roulette offers a vast array of betting options, so it’s prudent to memorize what they are and how much they pay. Once this knowledge has been retained, you can concentrate on those bets that offer the best risk/reward.
The best options are the 50/50 wagers, as you can expect to win half the time. These include wagering on 1 to 18, 19 to 36, even or odd, and red or black. I’ve read about people risking their life savings on one of these bets, so they’re at least worth a try (at a less ambitious amount, of course).
Avoid Long Shot Bets
Once you’ve learned the odds of roulette, you’ll realize that some wagers are harder to hit than others. I suggest avoiding these, as their steep odds more than make up for the generous payouts.
The worst of the bunch is the single number wager, as the odds of winning are 37 to 1 (on an American table). The payout is an impressive 35 to 1, but even a blind optimist should only expect to hit this on occasion.
Roulette Betting Systems
If you’re desperate for a betting system, here are some of the most popular options for the game of roulette:
Labouchere System
The first step in the Labouchere is to determine the amount of money you want to win during the course of a gaming session. Next, write down a series of numbers that equal the sum of your desired winnings. When you wager, take the first and last numbers on your list and bet their sum. If you win, remove those numbers from your list. If you lose, add the amount lost to the end of your list. This system is also known by the names Cancellation and Split Martingale.
Martingale
This system is designed to compensate for losses by generating bigger wins. After a losing spin, double your next wager.
Grand Martingale
In addition to doubling their wager after a losing spin, the player also makes a single bet. This system is not advised for those who are playing for fun, as the wagers can become unmanageable for most.
Anti-Martingale
The opposite of the Martingale, this system requires the player to double their bet following a winning spin.
Betting Patterns
Instead of betting random numbers, some players prefer to wager on certain large sections of the wheel. The Full Orphans Bet, for example, covers the following numbers: 1, 6, 9, 14, 17, 20, 31, and 34.
Some players swear by their chosen roulette strategy, while others simply swear at having been naïve enough to think that they could beat the house. Of course, there’s no way to know which category you’ll fall into until you choose a system and give it a try.
The best piece of roulette advice I can offer is this: play for fun instead of profit. If you happen to win along the way, then it’s an added bonus to an already enjoyable evening.
Roulette Odds
The game of roulette offers players a wide selection of betting odds from which to choose. Some pay almost even money, while others offer as much as 35 to 1 on your bet. Which odds you decide to play is up to you, but it’s obvious that the closer to even odds you get, the better your chances of winning.
Each bet on the roulette table has a house edge. That edge on an American roulette table is 5.26% on every bet except one. If you bet on the First Five numbers, the house edge goes up to 7.89%, making the First Five bet the worst place to put your money on the table. The rest of the bets have an equal risk-versus-reward ratio, and how you play them is up to you.
Six Even Money Bets
There are six bets on the roulette table that will pay even money on your bet. Betting on Red, Black, Odd, Even, 1 to 18, and 19 to 36 will all pay you 1 to 1 on a bet, but they all have a 47.37% probability to win. That 2.63% amount shy of 50-50 is attributable to the two green spaces on the roulette wheel.
three 2 to 1 BETS
There are three bets on a roulette wheel that pay 2 to 1 on your bet. Betting on numbers 1 to 12, 13 to 24, and 25 to 36 pay out double your bet, and have a 31.58% probability to hit. Betting on a Sixline (six numbers) pays 5 to 1 with a 13.16% probability. The dreaded First Five bet pays out 6 to 1, and a four-number corner bet is worth 8 to 1 on your money.
Longshot Bets
The longshot bets on the roulette table are the Street bet, Split bet, and any one number. The Street bet is worth 11 to 1 and is a bet on three numbers, while a Split bet is on two numbers. The Split bet pays 17 to 1 but will only hit an average of 5.26% of the time. The big payout on the roulette table is the ‘any single number’ bet that’s worth 35 to 1 on your money, but it only hits an average of 2.63% of the time.
It’s worth a player’s time to seek out a European version of roulette. The house edge is lowered in this version of the game down to 2.70%. The reason for this is that European roulette has only one green 0 spot on the wheel compared to the two in American roulette. Always seek out the European variant if possible, most online casinos offer both versions.
Bankroll Management
Bankroll management is important when playing roulette. Some players like to make larger outside bets early in a session before betting longshots like single numbers. Set specific limits for winnings and losses and stick to them in order to maintain your bankroll for the next session.
One can get up in a hurry playing roulette, so know when to walk away with winnings. The game will take it back if you continue to play long enough, so get out if you find yourself up five times your buy-in or more. If you want to continue to play after a hot streak at least set aside your buy-in amount and some profit, then play with the rest. This approach won’t change the odds, but it can help with having more profitable sessions.
Some roulette games offer a surrender or en prison rule which will increase your chances of winning. This rule allows the player to recover half of their bet on even money bets like black/red, odd/even, or high/low if the ball lands on either the 0 or 00 spots. This will lower the house edge over you on these bets down to 2.63% in an American roulette version.
Strategy myths abound around the game of roulette. Many will claim that betting strategies like the Martingale System can produce a winning session at will. Most of these systems may sound good in theory, but table betting limits prevent them from being effective unless the player wins within a couple of spins.
Other roulette players think that they can beat the game by keeping track of the winning numbers over time. After keeping track of the numbers they bet on numbers that haven’t hit for a while, expecting them to come next because they’re due. This system has no value because each spin of the wheel is independent of any other.
Many forms of the game have surfaced over the last few years that offer even worse odds to the player. These games short pay on some bets. If a player hits a single number bet it may only pay 34 to 1 or worse. These roulette games give the house a much larger edge and should be avoided.
History of Roulette
Roulette history is as colorful as the game’s betting layout, filled with gambling-obsessed royals, cagey Frenchmen, and at least one deal with Satan. While our overview of its origin and development won’t increase your odds once the wheel starts spinning, I hope it manages to entertain and provide an interesting look at the game.
Early Inspiration
There are several games that are credited with helping to inspire roulette. These include the following:
Unnamed Tibetan Game – The object was to take 37 small animal statues and arrange them into a specific configuration, which some claim was the mystical number 666.
Hoka – An Italian game where a ball was rolled into one of 40 numbered holes. The player won if he could pick the correct hole.
Even/Odd – A wheel game with spaces marked “even” and “odd.” Certain spots were also designated for the house. While there’s no mention of the game prior to the appearance of roulette, several gaming scholars have wondered if it went by a different name.
Early Years of Roulette
Most experts attribute the games invention to Blaise Pascal, a 17th century scientist who invented the core technology for the roulette wheel while conducting experiments on perpetual motion. Others argue that French monks were responsible, creating the simple game as a way to pass the tedium of monastic life.
Legal documents in 1745 (England) and 1758 (Canada) mention the game as being outlawed, and it was almost certainly popular among French royalty by this time. At the start of the 1800’s, the game seemed lose favor in certain parts of Europe to Even/Odd. This trend would change over time, however, and the published rules of Hoyle no longer mentioned the competing game after 1875.
The Blanc Brothers
Luis and Francois Blanc were enterprising siblings who made millions in various business ventures throughout Europe. They also played the largest historical role is helping roulette achieve its status as a popular casino option.
After amassing a fortune through various investments that sometimes got them into legal jeopardy, the pair transitioned into the casino business within their homeland. While successful, they were eventually forced to leave thanks to increasingly restrictive government regulations.
During their travels across Europe, a rumor began to circulate that Francois had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the secrets to roulette. This was supposedly verified by the fact that the numbers on a roulette wheel add up to 666. The French entrepreneur likely started the stories himself, and it managed to create an air of mystery and danger around the game.
The brothers arrived in Germany in 1843 and opened a series of gambling establishments. They once again met with success, and Francois earned the nickname of “The Magician of Homburg.” Gambling was banned in the nation later in the century, and this prompted another series of moves.
As they moved throughout Europe, they spread the popularity of roulette. Each time, however, they were forced to relocate as local laws changed to prohibit gambling. Eventually, they moved to one of the last remaining sites for legal European gaming, the struggling resort city of Monte Carlo.
The pair once again worked their magic, transforming the area into a mecca of high-class tourism. The gaming industry thrived, with the single zero roulette wheel becoming one of the main attractions. Thanks to his efforts, Francois earned another nickname: “The Magician of Monte Carlo.”
While it’s unlikely that Francois ever sold his immortal soul, he certainly knew what he was doing when it came to financial management and business promotion. When he died in Switzerland in 1877, he left behind a fortune that was estimated to be worth 450,000,000 euros (or $478,091,250).
Roulette in America
The double-zero wheel was brought to America by French immigrants in the 19th century. From there, it spread up the Mississippi River and across the rest of the country. The betting layout was eventually simplified for players, and the wheel was moved on top of the table to counter cheating by both the house and clever players.
For much of the 20th century, Las Vegs and Monte Carlo were the only major casino destinations. This began to change in the 1970s, as an increasing number of gaming establishments opened around the globe. The double-zero table maintained its popularity in the United States, Canada, and throughout South America, while the single-zero table continued its reign in France and other parts of Europe.
Online Roulette
Roulette history took another surprising turn in the last decade of the 20th century. That’s when the Internet became available to the public, and online casinos started offering customers virtual versions of popular land-based games. You’d be hard-pressed to find casino software that doesn’t offer the game of roulette, and some have even upped the ante by including a live option that allows customers to watch a real person spin the wheel and accept wagers.
| six hundred and sixty six |
Who is the only player to have played in both a football and cricket world cup? | Roulette - Free Play - Odds, Strategies & Betting Systems
Play for Real
American vs European
While a few betting options differ, the biggest difference between American and European roulette is this: the European wheel has 36 numbers and a zero (2.70% house edge), while the American wheel also adds a 00 (5.26% house edge).
Rules of Play
The first step in playing roulette is to convert your cash into chips. Once this has been done, look over the felt layout and decide what wagers you wish to make. When you’ve determined this, carefully place your chips on the area corresponding to your wager or ask the dealer to do it.
Once all wagers are made, the wheel begins to spin. Next, the roulette ball is set spinning in the opposite direction. Once the ball comes to rest in a pocket, winners are announced and receive their payouts. All losing wagers are collected by the house, and then the next round of betting begins.
Roulette Betting Options
The following are the types of bets that can be made in the game of roulette:
Odd or Even Bets
The player bets on whether the winning number is odd or even. A payout is issued if they guess correctly. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Black or Red Bets
Since all pockets on a roulette wheel are colored red or black, the player may wager on which color is going to turn up during the next spin. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Straight Up Bets
The player chooses a specific number and wagers on it being the winning pocket during the next spin. While the payout is respectable, this betting option offers the worst possible odds in the game. Odds of winning are 36 to 1 (French) and 37 to 1 (American).
Dozen Bets
The betting layout includes three groups, each comprised of a dozen numbers. These include 1-12, 13-24, and 25-36. Odds are 25 to 12 (French) and 2.167 to 1 (American).
Square Bets
Also referred to as a “corner” bet, this wager requires the player to select four numbers on the layout that form a square. An example would be 16, 17, 19, and 20. Odds are 33 to 4 (French) and 8.5 to 1 (American).
Column Bets
A wager on one of the three vertical rows of numbers on the layout. For example, a wager on the first row would commit the player to the following numbers: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, and 34. Odds are 25 to 12 (French) and 2.167 to 1 (American).
Top Line Bets
Player wagers on 0, 00, 1, 2, and 3. This is only available in the American version, and it offers odds of 6.6 to 1.
High Bets
A number from 19 to 36 wins this wager, as they are considered the high digits. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Row Bets
Player wins if the 0 or 00 turns up. Only offered on the American version at 18 to 1 odds.
Low Bets
The player wins if the ball lands on a number from 1 to 18, as these are considered the low numbers. Odds are 19 to 18 (French) and 1.111 to 1 (American).
Street Bets
A wager on three numbers that are positioned together in a horizontal line. Odds are 34 to 3 (French) and 11.667 to 1 (American).
Split Bets
The player places their bet on two numbers, but the pair must be connected horizontally or vertically. Odds are 35 to 2 (French) and 18 to 1 (American).
Five Number Bets
This wager pays out if 1, 2, 3, 0, or 00 hit. It’s only available in the American version of the game.
Trio Bets
Only available in the European version of the game, players can wager on one of the following trios: 0, 1, 2 or 0, 2, 3.
Six Line Bets
Any six numbers taken from two of the horizontal lines on the layout. An example would be 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Odds are 31 to 6 (French) and 5.33 to 1 (American).
Basket Bets
Player wagers on one of three combinations: 0, 00, 2; 00, 2, 3; or 0, 1, 2. Odds are 34 to 3 (French) and 11.667 to 1 (American).
Roulette is impossible to master, but understanding the basics of the game can at least help you avoid making wagers with a high house edge. The most important tip I can provide is to concentrate on having fun instead of turning a profit.
Roulette Strategy
Finding a successful roulette strategy is akin to hunting a dangerous beast. While the prospect is thrilling and the potential reward is enough to make your pulse race, it’s just as likely that you (or your bankroll) end up torn and bloodied. That’s because roulette in one of the classic examples of a game of chance, and even the luckiest individual will fall behind with enough spins of the wheel.
Some people have to learn the hard way, however, which probably describes you since you’re still reading this article. Out of respect for your persistence, I’ve put together a collection of possible winning roulette strategies. But if the little white ball drives you to ruin, don’t come crying to me.
Basic Roulette Tips
The following wouldn’t be classified as “strategies,” but they remain useful for any would-be roulette player:
Play European Roulette
The American version of the game includes 36 numbered pockets, plus a zero and a double zero. The European version, meanwhile, only has the single zero. This one difference is significant, reducing the house edge from 5.26% (American) to 2.7% (European).
Find a Biased Wheel
In roulette, a biased wheel is one that’s either been altered by the casino or has some inherent flaw. In either case, it produces results that aren’t entirely random. If a player can pick up on this, they can make a fortune.
The downside is that biased roulette wheels are almost unheard of in the modern age, as the house edge is more than sufficient to guarantee the casino a profit. Games are also inspected on a regular basis, which means that any sort of flaw is going to be discovered.
If you want to check anyway, you’ll need to document a few thousand spins and look for biased patterns. If you find one, perhaps you’ll be the next Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo (who won over a million euros in the 1990s while playing on a biased wheel at a casino in Spain).
Know the Odds
Roulette offers a vast array of betting options, so it’s prudent to memorize what they are and how much they pay. Once this knowledge has been retained, you can concentrate on those bets that offer the best risk/reward.
The best options are the 50/50 wagers, as you can expect to win half the time. These include wagering on 1 to 18, 19 to 36, even or odd, and red or black. I’ve read about people risking their life savings on one of these bets, so they’re at least worth a try (at a less ambitious amount, of course).
Avoid Long Shot Bets
Once you’ve learned the odds of roulette, you’ll realize that some wagers are harder to hit than others. I suggest avoiding these, as their steep odds more than make up for the generous payouts.
The worst of the bunch is the single number wager, as the odds of winning are 37 to 1 (on an American table). The payout is an impressive 35 to 1, but even a blind optimist should only expect to hit this on occasion.
Roulette Betting Systems
If you’re desperate for a betting system, here are some of the most popular options for the game of roulette:
Labouchere System
The first step in the Labouchere is to determine the amount of money you want to win during the course of a gaming session. Next, write down a series of numbers that equal the sum of your desired winnings. When you wager, take the first and last numbers on your list and bet their sum. If you win, remove those numbers from your list. If you lose, add the amount lost to the end of your list. This system is also known by the names Cancellation and Split Martingale.
Martingale
This system is designed to compensate for losses by generating bigger wins. After a losing spin, double your next wager.
Grand Martingale
In addition to doubling their wager after a losing spin, the player also makes a single bet. This system is not advised for those who are playing for fun, as the wagers can become unmanageable for most.
Anti-Martingale
The opposite of the Martingale, this system requires the player to double their bet following a winning spin.
Betting Patterns
Instead of betting random numbers, some players prefer to wager on certain large sections of the wheel. The Full Orphans Bet, for example, covers the following numbers: 1, 6, 9, 14, 17, 20, 31, and 34.
Some players swear by their chosen roulette strategy, while others simply swear at having been naïve enough to think that they could beat the house. Of course, there’s no way to know which category you’ll fall into until you choose a system and give it a try.
The best piece of roulette advice I can offer is this: play for fun instead of profit. If you happen to win along the way, then it’s an added bonus to an already enjoyable evening.
Roulette Odds
The game of roulette offers players a wide selection of betting odds from which to choose. Some pay almost even money, while others offer as much as 35 to 1 on your bet. Which odds you decide to play is up to you, but it’s obvious that the closer to even odds you get, the better your chances of winning.
Each bet on the roulette table has a house edge. That edge on an American roulette table is 5.26% on every bet except one. If you bet on the First Five numbers, the house edge goes up to 7.89%, making the First Five bet the worst place to put your money on the table. The rest of the bets have an equal risk-versus-reward ratio, and how you play them is up to you.
Six Even Money Bets
There are six bets on the roulette table that will pay even money on your bet. Betting on Red, Black, Odd, Even, 1 to 18, and 19 to 36 will all pay you 1 to 1 on a bet, but they all have a 47.37% probability to win. That 2.63% amount shy of 50-50 is attributable to the two green spaces on the roulette wheel.
three 2 to 1 BETS
There are three bets on a roulette wheel that pay 2 to 1 on your bet. Betting on numbers 1 to 12, 13 to 24, and 25 to 36 pay out double your bet, and have a 31.58% probability to hit. Betting on a Sixline (six numbers) pays 5 to 1 with a 13.16% probability. The dreaded First Five bet pays out 6 to 1, and a four-number corner bet is worth 8 to 1 on your money.
Longshot Bets
The longshot bets on the roulette table are the Street bet, Split bet, and any one number. The Street bet is worth 11 to 1 and is a bet on three numbers, while a Split bet is on two numbers. The Split bet pays 17 to 1 but will only hit an average of 5.26% of the time. The big payout on the roulette table is the ‘any single number’ bet that’s worth 35 to 1 on your money, but it only hits an average of 2.63% of the time.
It’s worth a player’s time to seek out a European version of roulette. The house edge is lowered in this version of the game down to 2.70%. The reason for this is that European roulette has only one green 0 spot on the wheel compared to the two in American roulette. Always seek out the European variant if possible, most online casinos offer both versions.
Bankroll Management
Bankroll management is important when playing roulette. Some players like to make larger outside bets early in a session before betting longshots like single numbers. Set specific limits for winnings and losses and stick to them in order to maintain your bankroll for the next session.
One can get up in a hurry playing roulette, so know when to walk away with winnings. The game will take it back if you continue to play long enough, so get out if you find yourself up five times your buy-in or more. If you want to continue to play after a hot streak at least set aside your buy-in amount and some profit, then play with the rest. This approach won’t change the odds, but it can help with having more profitable sessions.
Some roulette games offer a surrender or en prison rule which will increase your chances of winning. This rule allows the player to recover half of their bet on even money bets like black/red, odd/even, or high/low if the ball lands on either the 0 or 00 spots. This will lower the house edge over you on these bets down to 2.63% in an American roulette version.
Strategy myths abound around the game of roulette. Many will claim that betting strategies like the Martingale System can produce a winning session at will. Most of these systems may sound good in theory, but table betting limits prevent them from being effective unless the player wins within a couple of spins.
Other roulette players think that they can beat the game by keeping track of the winning numbers over time. After keeping track of the numbers they bet on numbers that haven’t hit for a while, expecting them to come next because they’re due. This system has no value because each spin of the wheel is independent of any other.
Many forms of the game have surfaced over the last few years that offer even worse odds to the player. These games short pay on some bets. If a player hits a single number bet it may only pay 34 to 1 or worse. These roulette games give the house a much larger edge and should be avoided.
History of Roulette
Roulette history is as colorful as the game’s betting layout, filled with gambling-obsessed royals, cagey Frenchmen, and at least one deal with Satan. While our overview of its origin and development won’t increase your odds once the wheel starts spinning, I hope it manages to entertain and provide an interesting look at the game.
Early Inspiration
There are several games that are credited with helping to inspire roulette. These include the following:
Unnamed Tibetan Game – The object was to take 37 small animal statues and arrange them into a specific configuration, which some claim was the mystical number 666.
Hoka – An Italian game where a ball was rolled into one of 40 numbered holes. The player won if he could pick the correct hole.
Even/Odd – A wheel game with spaces marked “even” and “odd.” Certain spots were also designated for the house. While there’s no mention of the game prior to the appearance of roulette, several gaming scholars have wondered if it went by a different name.
Early Years of Roulette
Most experts attribute the games invention to Blaise Pascal, a 17th century scientist who invented the core technology for the roulette wheel while conducting experiments on perpetual motion. Others argue that French monks were responsible, creating the simple game as a way to pass the tedium of monastic life.
Legal documents in 1745 (England) and 1758 (Canada) mention the game as being outlawed, and it was almost certainly popular among French royalty by this time. At the start of the 1800’s, the game seemed lose favor in certain parts of Europe to Even/Odd. This trend would change over time, however, and the published rules of Hoyle no longer mentioned the competing game after 1875.
The Blanc Brothers
Luis and Francois Blanc were enterprising siblings who made millions in various business ventures throughout Europe. They also played the largest historical role is helping roulette achieve its status as a popular casino option.
After amassing a fortune through various investments that sometimes got them into legal jeopardy, the pair transitioned into the casino business within their homeland. While successful, they were eventually forced to leave thanks to increasingly restrictive government regulations.
During their travels across Europe, a rumor began to circulate that Francois had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the secrets to roulette. This was supposedly verified by the fact that the numbers on a roulette wheel add up to 666. The French entrepreneur likely started the stories himself, and it managed to create an air of mystery and danger around the game.
The brothers arrived in Germany in 1843 and opened a series of gambling establishments. They once again met with success, and Francois earned the nickname of “The Magician of Homburg.” Gambling was banned in the nation later in the century, and this prompted another series of moves.
As they moved throughout Europe, they spread the popularity of roulette. Each time, however, they were forced to relocate as local laws changed to prohibit gambling. Eventually, they moved to one of the last remaining sites for legal European gaming, the struggling resort city of Monte Carlo.
The pair once again worked their magic, transforming the area into a mecca of high-class tourism. The gaming industry thrived, with the single zero roulette wheel becoming one of the main attractions. Thanks to his efforts, Francois earned another nickname: “The Magician of Monte Carlo.”
While it’s unlikely that Francois ever sold his immortal soul, he certainly knew what he was doing when it came to financial management and business promotion. When he died in Switzerland in 1877, he left behind a fortune that was estimated to be worth 450,000,000 euros (or $478,091,250).
Roulette in America
The double-zero wheel was brought to America by French immigrants in the 19th century. From there, it spread up the Mississippi River and across the rest of the country. The betting layout was eventually simplified for players, and the wheel was moved on top of the table to counter cheating by both the house and clever players.
For much of the 20th century, Las Vegs and Monte Carlo were the only major casino destinations. This began to change in the 1970s, as an increasing number of gaming establishments opened around the globe. The double-zero table maintained its popularity in the United States, Canada, and throughout South America, while the single-zero table continued its reign in France and other parts of Europe.
Online Roulette
Roulette history took another surprising turn in the last decade of the 20th century. That’s when the Internet became available to the public, and online casinos started offering customers virtual versions of popular land-based games. You’d be hard-pressed to find casino software that doesn’t offer the game of roulette, and some have even upped the ante by including a live option that allows customers to watch a real person spin the wheel and accept wagers.
| i don't know |
Which sport features the terms cow corner, a featherbed, dibbly dobbly and a sticky dog? | A glossary of cricket terms | Cricket | ESPN Cricinfo
A glossary of cricket terms
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Cricket, more than most sports, is full of expressions and terms designed to bewilder the newcomer (and often even the more seasoned follower). In an attempt to unravel some of the stranger terminology, we have put together a cricket glossary. If we are missing anything - and cricket commentators have an annoying habit of inventing new words and phrases - please email us and we will see if we can help.
Arm Ball A ball bowled by a slow bowler which has no spin on it and so does not turn as expected but which stays on a straight line ("goes on with the arm")
The Ashes Series between England and Australia are played for The Ashes (click here for more information)
Asking rate - The runs required per over for a team to win - mostly relevant in a one-dayer
Ball Red for first-class and most club cricket, white for one-day matches (and, experimentally, women once used blue balls and men orange ones). It weighs 5.5 ounces ( 5 ounces for women's cricket and 4.75 ounces for junior cricket)
Ball Tampering The illegal action of changing the condition of the ball by artificial means, usually scuffing the surface, picking or lifting the seam of the ball, or applying substances other than sweat or saliva
Bat-Pad A fielding position close to the batsman designed to catch balls which pop up off the bat, often via the batsman's pads
Batter Another word for batsman, first used as long ago as 1773. Also something you fry fish in
Beamer A ball that does not bounce (usually accidently) and passes the batsman at or about head height. If aimed straight at the batsman by a fast bowler, this is a very dangerous delivery (and generally frowned on)
Bend your back - The term used to signify the extra effort put in by a fast bowler to obtain some assistance from a flat pitch
Belter A pitch which offers little help to bowlers and so heavily favours batsmen
Blob A score of 0 (see duck )
Bodyline (also known as leg theory ) A tactic most infamously used by England in 1932-33, although one which had been around for some time before that, in which the bowler aimed at the batsman rather than the wicket with the aim of making him give a catch while attempting to defend himself. The fielding side were packed on the leg side to take catches which resulted. This is now illegal. Click here for more .
Bosie An Australian term for a googly , now rarely used. Originated from the inventor of the delivery, BJT Bosanquet
Bouncer A short-pitched ball which passes the batsman at chest or head height
Boundary The perimeter of a cricket field, or the act of the batsman scoring a four or a six (eg "Tendulkar hammered three boundaries")
Box An abdominal protector worn by batsmen and wicketkeepers. It is also an old term for a fielder in the gully region.
Bump Ball A ball which is played off the bat almost instantly into the ground and is caught by a fielder. Often this has the appearance of being a clean catch
Bumper See Bouncer .
Bunny Also known as Rabbit . A member of the side who cannot bat and is selected as a specialist bowler or wicketkeeper, and who almost always bats at No. 11. It can also be used to describe a player who often gets out to one bowler - "Atherton was McGrath's bunny"
Bunsen A term used by commentators to describe a pitch heavily favouring slow bowlers. From Cockney rhyming slang (Bunsen Burner = turner).
Bye A run scored when the batsman does not touch the ball with either his bat or body. First recorded in the 1770s.
Carry your bat an opening batsman who remains not out at the end of a completed innings (ie when all his team-mates are out)
Charge, giving the When a batsman leaves his crease to attack the ball, usually against a slow bowler. By doing this he can convert a good-length ball into a half-volley
Chest-on Used to describe a bowler who delivers the ball with his chest facing the batsman, as opposed to being side on
Chinaman A ball bowled by a left-arm slow bowler that turns into the right-hand batsman, in effect a left-arm legspinner. Named after Puss Achong
Chin music Fast bowlers aiming the ball at the batsman's head. The term originated in the Caribbean
Chucker Another term for a bowler who throws the ball
Closing the face Turning the face of the bat inwards and, in doing so, hitting the ball to the leg side
Corridor of uncertainty A term beloved by commentators which describes an area just outside the batsman's off stump where he is unsure whether he has to leave or play the ball
Cow corner An unconventional fielding position, more commonly found in the lower reaches of the game, on the midwicket/long-on boundary. The term is thought to have originated at Dulwich College where there was the corner of a field containing livestock on that edge of the playing area. Fielders were dispatched to the "cow corner"
Cricket Max A shortened version of the game with unconventional scoring systems pioneered by Martin Crowe in New Zealand in the late 1990s.
Cross bat A cross-batted shot is where the batsman holds his bat horizontally when striking the ball. Examples of cross-batted shots include hooks, pulls and cuts
Dead ball A ball from which no runs can be scored or wickets taken. First referred to in 1798
Declaration When the batting side ends their innings before all of their players are out
Dibbly-dobbly bowlers - Bowlers who are of medium pace, and are effective in the one-day scenario in choking the runs. New Zealand had a famous quartet - Rod Latham, Gavin Larsen, Chris Harris and Nathan Astle - during the 1992 World Cup
Dolly An easy catch
Doosra A Hindi/Urdu word which means "second" or "other", the doosra is the offspinner's version of the googly , delivered out of the back of the hand and turning away from the right-hand batsman
Drifter/ Floater - A delivery bowled by an offspinner which curves away from a right-hander, and then carries straight on instead of turning
Duck A score of 0 (also known as Blob )
Duckworth Lewis Named after Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis, two mathematicians who devised a system to help decide one-day cricket matches when rain interrupts play. Click here for more information.
Economy rate The average number of runs a bowler concedes per over
Extras Runs not scored by batsmen. There are four common extras - byes, leg byes, wides and no-balls. In Australia these are known as sundries
Featherbed A batsmen-friendly pitch with little life for the bowlers. Often found in Antigua
Flipper A variation for the legspinner that appears to be pitching short but the ball skids on quickly and often results in bowled or lbw. It is a delivery that is used sparingly
Full toss A ball that reaches the batsmen without bouncing. Above waist height it becomes a beamer
Gardening - The act of the batsman repairing indentations in the pitch, made by the ball or studs, with his bat. More likely to happen when a ball has just whistled past his nose or scooted by his ankle
Good length - The ideal length that the bowler aims for, getting the batsman in two minds as whether to play forwards or back
Googly - The legspinner's variation that turns into the right-hander and away from the left-hander
Grubber - A ball that hardly bounces - see also shooter
Half volley - A ball that is the perfect length for driving, fuller than a good length but not a full-toss
Handled the ball - If the batsmen deliberately touches the ball with his hands he can be given out. Michael Vaughan fell victim to this in India on 2002-03 tour in Bangalore
Hawk-Eye - A tracking technology which helps to explain the intricacies of the sport, Hawk-Eye can be helpful in judging LBWs. At the moment it is used mainly for arm-chair umpiring, although one day it may be used in an official capacity
Heavy ball - When a delivery is quicker than it looks and hits the bat harder or higher than is expected
Hit the ball twice - If a batsmen deliberately strikes the ball twice to gain runs he can be given out. However, the batsman can knock the ball away from his stumps with the bat
Hit the deck - The bowler's ability to deliver the ball from height and extract extra bounce from the pitch
Hoick - Same as slog , but most used for on-side shots
In-ducker - An inswinging delivery that moves into the batsman very late. Wasim Akram produced deadly versions with the older ball
Inside out, turning the batsman - A batsman aims to leg but the ball goes past the off and he is forced to play the ball open-chested
Inside-out shot - A stroke where the batsman moves towards the leg side and hits a ball around leg stump into the off side
Jaffa - A delivery that is too good for the batsman, and leaves him groping hopelessly at thin air or (as the bowler will hope) dismisses him
King pair - Hardly worth turning up if you get one of these ... out first ball for zero in both innings
Kolpak An EU ruling which has led to English county cricket being flooded with players ineligible for England but not classified as overseas players. Click here for a more detailed explanation .
Leading edge - When the batsman mis-hits the ball and edges it forward in the opposite direction to which he was attempting to play
Leg-Before Wicket (LBW) - One of the game's more complex rules, but at its simplest ... you cannot be out if the ball pitched outside the line of leg stump; you cannot be out if the ball hits you outside the line of off stump unless you are offering no stroke. Aside from that, if it hits you in line, the only decision the umpire has to make is whether the ball is going on to hit the stumps.
Leg-bye - When the ball deflects off the pad and the batsmen run. A shot must be offered to the ball. Leg-byes do not count against the bowler
Leg-break/spin - When the ball pitches and turns from leg to off for a right-hander
Leg-cutter - A ball which cuts and moves away from the batsman towards the offside (if he is a righthander)
Leg-side - The area of the pitch behind the batsman's legs
Length Where the ball pitches down the wicket. Lengths can be generally short, full or good
Lifter - A ball that rises unexpectedly
Line - The line of attack the bowler employs when he is bowling
Lollipop - A really easy ball to hit - a 'gift'
Long hop - a ball which pitches short, sits up and 'begs' to be hit
Loop - The flight of the ball
Maiden - An over where no runs that are attributable to the bowler are scored (byes or leg-byes may be scored in this over, though, as these don't count against the bowler)
Manhattan A bar graph of runs scored per over which resembles the Manhattan skyscrapers skyline
Mankad - A term popular mainly in indoor cricket - but also fairly popular in Australia for outdoor cricket. Mankad is when the bowler brings his arm round and, instead of releasing the ball, runs out the non-striker by whipping off the bails. This type of dismissal is rare - and usually a warning is given to the batsman beforehand. Named after Vinoo Mankad, who twice dismissed the Australian Bill Brown this way
MCC - The Marylebone Cricket Club, the spiritual home of cricket at Lord's in St Johns Wood in London. For the greater period of cricket's formal history, the MCC which was founded in 1787, was the autocratic arbiter in cricket matters. No law could be changed without its approval. And while the administration of the game world-wide has moved to the International Cricket Council, and to the England and Wales Cricket Board in Britain, the MCC is still regarded as the ultimate defender of the laws of the game, a type of Privy Council of cricket. For many years, English touring teams were known officially as the MCC but as the 'great' has ebbed away from Britain and its colonies, so the influence of the MCC has diminished. Also the initials of the Melbourne Cricket Club in Victoria.
Middle - To hit the ball from the meat of the bat, "to middle it" is to connect really well. Middle is also the centre of the field, where the bulk of the action takes place
Military Medium - A slightly derogative term for a bowler who has no real pace
Minefield - A difficult batting track. The pitch is in such a state of disrepair that it is almost impossible to play "proper" shots as the ball is popping up everywhere
Nelson - The English superstition that 111 and its multiples are unlucky. The sticks resemble 111, and is loosely connected with Lord Nelson's physical attributes. Double Nelson is 222
Nervous nineties - The psychological pressure on the batsman knowing he is approaching a century
Net Run Rate - A system for separating sides who finish on level points in multi-team tournaments. Click here for more details .
New ball - Can usually be taken every 80 overs. The advantage is to quick bowlers who have a shiny and bouncy ball, but conversely it can result in an increase in scoring rate as the ball comes off the bat faster
Nick - A faint edge off the bat
Nightwatchman A non-batsman promoted up the order towards the end of a day's play with the idea of shielding a recognised batsman in the final overs
No-ball - An illegitimate delivery, usually when the bowler has overstepped on the front crease
Nurdle - The batsman nudging the ball around and into gaps
Obstruction - When the batsman wilfully blocks or distracts a fielder to prevent a catch being made or a run-out being effected
Occupy the crease - When a batsman stays at the wicket but scores slowly, often with the intention of playing out for a draw
Off-break/spin - A ball turning into the right hander- from off to leg (from left to right)
Off-cutter - An offbreak delivered at speed
Off the mark When the batsman scores his first run
Off-side The side of the pitch which is to batsman's right (if right-handed), or left (if left-handed)
On-side The same as the leg-side.
On the up - Making contact with the ball before it reaches the top of the bounce - hitting it on the rise. Viv Richards was a prominent exponent.
Out - There are ten possible ways of being out: bowled, caught, hit wicket, lbw, stumped, timed out, handled the ball , obstruction , hit the ball twice , and run out. To be out "retired out" is gaining in currency and popularity and counts as a dismissal, unlike "retired hurt"
Outside edge - When the ball hits the edge of the bat which is furthest away from his body.
Outswing - When the ball swings away from the batsman and towards the slips.
Paddle - A sweep shot.
Pair - When a batsman gets a duck in both innings.
Pinch-hitters - Lower-order batsmen promoted in the line-up to try and hit up a few quick runs. Used mostly when a team is chasing a huge total in a one-dayer - the thinking being that a few quick runs will reduce the asking rate; and if the pinch-hitter gets out, the specialist batsmen are still around
Pitch - The bounce of the ball - "it pitches on a good length". Also, the cut strip in the centre of the field of play.
Play on - When a batsman hits the ball but it goes on to hit the stumps and he is bowled.
Plumb - When the batsman is clearly LBW, even at full speed, he is said to be plumb in front.
Powerplay This was introduced by the ICC in 2005 to try to spruce up the middle overs of one-day internationals by enforcing the bowling side to take three blocks of overs in which they have to have extra fielders within the 30-yard circle. The first Powerplay is mandatory through the first ten overs of the innings, the second and third ones, of five overs each, can be taken at any other time. In rain-reduced matches the duration of the second and third Powerplays is reduced in proportion to the overall reduction.
Pudding - A slow, stodgy pitch which will be difficult to score quickly on.
Pull - a back-foot leg-side shot, distinct from the hook because the pull is played to a ball that hasn't risen as high.
Rabbit See Bunny
Return Crease Parallel white lines pointing down the pitch, either side of the stumps. A bowler's back foot must land inside this area or else a no-ball will be called.
Retire To postpone or end one's innings, either voluntarily through boredom when you're simply too good for the opposition, or involuntarily and in agony, when a nasty fast bowler has taken his pound of flesh
Reverse Sweep The epitome of the type of shot you will not find in the MCC coaching manual. This stroke is played by dropping to one knee and reversing one's hands, so that you can swing the ball from leg to off, rather than the more natural off to leg. It is a handy stroke for beating conventional fields in a one-day game, but it has its drawbacks as well - just ask Mike Gatting
Reverse Swing When the ball is 50 overs old and the pitch is as flat as a pancake, this phenomenon is often a bowling side's saving grace. First mastered by the Pakistani quicks of the 1980s and 1990s, it involves sideways movement of the ball through the air that is contrary to your average everyday laws of physics. If it sounds like rocket science, that is because it is
Rip Big turn for a spin bowler, especially a legspinner, who can use the whole action of the wrist to impart maximum revolutions on the ball. Shane Warne, consequently, bowls a lot of "rippers"
Ring Field A standard fielding arrangement, with men positioned in a circle all around the bat saving the single
Rock Colloquial term for cricket ball
Roll To flatten the playing surface with a heavy rolling device. At the end of an innings, the side about to start their innings will be offered the choice of a heavy or light roller
Roller A heavy rolling device designed to flatten the surface of the pitch
Rope Used to mark the perimeter of the field. If the ball crosses or hits the rope, a boundary will be signalled
Rough The area of a pitch that is scuffed up and loosened by the action of a bowler running through in his follow-through. Usually, this will be situated a foot or so outside leg stump, and consequently it becomes a tasty target for spin bowlers, who can exploit the extra turn to make life a misery for the batsmen
Run-chase Generally the fourth innings of a first-class or Test match, and the latter stages of a one-day game, when the match situation has been reduced to a set figure for victory, in a set time or maximum number of overs
Run-rate Of particular importance in a one-day game, this is the average number of runs scored per over, and is used as a guide to a team's progress (see Duckworth Lewis )
Run-up The preparatory strides taken by a bowler as they steady themselves for delivery. Also the area in which they perform said action
Runner A player who is called upon by a batsman who might otherwise need to retire hurt . He is required to wear the same padding and stands at square leg or the non-striker's end to perform the duty of running between the wickets. Often the cause of endless confusion and inevitable run-outs
Sandshoe crusher Colloquial term for Yorker , a full-pitched delivery that is aimed at the batsman's toes and usually hits them aswell
Seam The ridge of stitching that holds the two halves of a ball together, and causes deviation off the pitch when the ball lands. Seam bowlers, as opposed to swing bowlers, rely on movement off the pitch, rather than through the air
Shoulder arms The description of when a batsman decides that rather than risk being dismissed from a ball he lifts the bat high above his shoulder to attempt to keep his bat and hands out of harm's way.
Shirtfront A flat, lifeless, soul-destroying wicket that is beloved of batsmen the world over, and loathed by bowlers of all varieties. For a prime example, see the Antigua Recreation Ground
Side on
Sitter The easiest, most innocuous and undroppable catch that a fielder can ever receive. To drop one of these is to invite a whole world of pain from the crowd and constant embarrassment from the giant replay screen (see dolly ).
Sledging Not the act of travelling downhill at speed on a toboggan, but the act of verbally abusing or unsettling a batsman, in an attempt to make him lose concentration and give his wicket away. Often offensive, occasionally amusing, always a topic of conversation
Slog - Used to describe a shot which is not in the coaching book
Slogger - Exponent of the slog
Slog-sweep - A heave to the leg side, played like the sweep, but a lofted shot
Slower ball Like naff plastic wristbands, these are the must-have accessory of the modern international bowler. The idea is to deliver a pace of significantly reduced pace, while at the same time turning your arm over at the same speed so as to deceive the batsman. This change of pace can be achieved by a change of grip, or a late tweak of the wrist. The best exponents - Courtney Walsh, Chris Cairns - are lethal. The worst - no names mentioned - tend to be smacked clean over cow corner for six
Standing back/standing up Where a wicketkeeper positions himself for a particular bowler. He stands back for fast bowlers, and stands up for spinners
Stock ball A bowler's regular delivery, minimum risk, little chance of runs or wickets. To get away with a slower ball , they need a stock ball to lull the batsman into a false sense of security
Stonewall To protect one's wicket at all costs, putting defence above all other virtues. See Jacques Kallis . Also a gay pride organisation
Strike rate The number of runs a batsman scores per 100 balls; the number of deliveries a bowler needs to take his wickets
Sundries Australian word for extras
Supersub A short-lived experminent in 2005 by the ICC to try to spruce up one-day internationals. It allowed teams to replace on player during a game, but the reality was it heavily favoured the side batting first and was quickly dropped.
Swing A ball that curves through the air, as opposed to off the seam . See also, reverse swing
Tailender Players who come in towards the end of an innings, generally Nos. 8, 9, 10 and 11, who are not noted for their batting prowess (although ideally they can bowl a bit by way of compensation)
Teapot (or double-teapot) A gesticulation beloved of fast bowlers, particularly the grumpier sort, such as Glenn McGrath and Angus Fraser. Involves having both hands on hips at the same time, usually in reaction to a dropped catch, edged boundary or general misfield
Throwing To deliver the ball with a arm that flexes at the elbow at point of delivery, thereby enabling extra spin to be imparted for a slow bowler, or extra pace for a quick bowler. A topic of endless debate
Ton A century (100 runs by a single batsman in one innings)
Tonk To give the ball a good wallop, onomatopoeically named after the sound a good hit makes. See also twat, biff, thwack, belt, spank and leather
Track The pitch
Trundler Slow, laborious type of bowler who thinks he's quick, once was quick, or is simply old, fat and unfit and needs to be put out to pasture. See military medium
Twelfth man A substitute fielder (and drinks waiter) for the chosen eleven. If called upon to play, he is permitted to field wherever he is needed, but can neither bat nor bowl
Two-paced A wicket that is beginning to break up, usually after three or four days of a Test match, and so produces some deliveries that leap off a length, and others that sneak through at shin-height
Uncovered pitches Pitches that were left open to the elements for the duration of a match, and so developed a variety of characteristics. The failings of a generation of English batsmen were attributed to the decision, in the 1970s, to bring on the covers at the slightest hint of rain
V - in the The arc between mid-off and mid-on in which batsmen who play straight (in accordance with the MCC Coaching Manual) tend to score the majority of their runs. Modern aggressive players, such as Virender Sehwag, tend to prefer the V between point and third man
Wagon-wheel A circular graph or line-drawing depicting the region in which a batsman has scored his runs
Walk (To) The improbable act of a batsman giving himself out, without waiting for an umpire's decision. Adam Gilchrist, famously, did this against Sri Lanka in the semi-final of the 2003 World Cup. Mike Atherton, equally famously, did not at Trent Bridge in 1998, en route to a matchwinning 98 not out against South Africa
Wicket One of those ubiquitous words that is central to the game of cricket. The word can be used to describe the 22 yards between the stumps, the stumps collectively (bails included), the act of hitting these stumps and so dismissing the batsman, and perversely, the act of not being out (Gayle and Sarwan added 257 for the second wicket). Plus any other use you care to think of
Wide A delivery that pitches too far away from the batsman and so proves impossible to score off. The umpire will single this by stretching his arms out horizontally, an extra will be added to the total and the ball will be bowled again
Wrist spin The version of spin bowling in which the revolutions on the ball are imparted via a flick of the wrist, rather than a tweak of the fingers. As a general rule, a right-arm wristspinner's action turns the ball from leg to off (legspin) while a left-armer turns it from off to leg (see chinaman )
Wrong 'un Australian term for a googly - a legspinner's delivery that turns in the opposite direction, ie from off to leg
Yips A mental affliction that affects many sportsmen, particularly golfers and spin bowlers. It is a mindblock that can cause a player to forget the basics of his game, and in the most serious cases can force that player into early retirement
Yorker A full-pitched delivery that is aimed at the batsman's toes and/or the base of the stumps. If the ball is swinging, these can be the most lethal delivery in the game, as perfected by Waqar Younis in his pomp
Zooter A spin bowling variation, first devised by Shane Warne . This is a delivery that snakes out of the hand with little or no spin imparted, and so deceives through its very ordinariness. Some question whether the delivery has ever existed, for it could be another of Warne's mindgames to keep his opponents on their toes
Martin Williamson is executive editor of Cricinfo
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
| Cricket |
What will be the first city to host the summer and winter Olympics, after being chosen to stage the 2022 Winter Games? | The London Times Newspaper - July 14 2014 UK | Unmanned Aerial Vehicle | Credit Rating
The London Times Newspaper - July 14 2014 UK
Specialforcesboost
The power of the SAS andSBS to fight terrorism and freehostages is to receive asurprise boost in a plan toinvest more than £1 billion inhi-tech equipment.
Page 2
Assisteddyingclaim
Legalising assisted dying couldresult in thousands of peopleending their lives because theyfear burdening their families,leading parliamentarians warntoday.
Page 4 &letters, page 21
Churchvotetight
The leader of the Church of England’s house of laity saidthat he would not bet an “oldha’penny” on the outcome of today’s vote on the ordinationof women bishops.
Page 8
Clarkeexpectedtogo
David Cameron hopes thatKen Clarke will tender hisresignation before tomorrow’sreshuffle, sparing the primeminister the task of sackingthe Tory veteran, 74.
Page 14
Palestiniansflee
Thousands of Palestiniansfled their homes in northernGaza after Israel warnedthem that it was launching anoffensive against suspectedHamas rocket sites.
Page 22
IN THE NEWS
They think it’s all over German fans watching an outdoor screening near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin celebrate their team’s winning goal in the World Cup final
Prison imams linked to radicals
Imams working in jails have links withextremist Muslim preachers and Isla-mistgroupsandmaybehelpingtoradi-calise inmates,
The Times
can reveal.Among the groups is one which believes that adulterers should bekilled, while a preacher connected toMuslim chaplains condones beating women to “bring them to goodness”.ThePrisonOfficers’Associationsaidsome imams with radical views had“slipped through the net”, adding thattherewasa“realproblem”withinmates being radicalised. Experts claimed lastnight that the prison chaplaincy pro-gramme was a “total shambles” andcalledforanimmediateoverhaulofthe way imams serving in jail were vetted.With about 12,000 Muslim inmatesin the prison population, the govern-ment has sought to use imams as apossible counter to jail radicalisation.Critics of the scheme have suggested,however, that some Muslim chaplainsmay be “part of the problem”.ProfessorAnthonyGlees,headofthecentre for security and intelligencestudies at the University of Bucking-ham, attacked the prison service’s“totally inadequate” screening of pris-on imams. “Our prisons have turnedintoastate-fundedbreedinggroundforextremism. It is completely unaccept-able that imams with extremist viewsare allowed to preach in prisons.”Ghaffar Hussain, managing directorof the counter-extremism think-tankQuilliam,said:“Weareawareofseveralindividualsemployedbytheprisonser- vicewhohavelinkstoextremistgroups.Prisons are incubators of extremism.Youngmenaregoinginpettycriminalsand coming out extremists.”One of the imams with extremistlinks is Azadul Hussain, who works with prisoners in Bedford. He spokerecently at an event organised byCAGE, which campaigns against the war on terror, and was joined on theplatform by Suliman Gani, an imam who preaches extremist homophobicand anti-abortion views. On his Face- book page, Mr Hussain has sharedmaterial published by MPAC, an anti-Semitic Islamist group banned fromcampuses by the National Union of Students, and the Islamic Educationand Research Academy, a Salafiextremist group whose officials believeadulterers should be put to death. TwoofitsadvisersarebannedfromtheUK.Shaykh Yusuf Az Zahaby, an imamand Deobandi scholar, is a mentor andprison chaplain from West Bromwich.HeisalsoaleadingmemberoftheIsla-mist organisation Al Hikma Media.Al Hikma is run by preachers, someof whom have extremist views, includ-ing Shady Suleiman, who promotes
Continued on page 9, col 4
Matthew Syed
This was a very good World Cup,nearly the greatest. It had 64matches, 171 goals (a record), and aglobal audience of more than a billion. Even the United States warmed to the event with 25 milliontuning in to their clash with Portugal.The football was at timesmagnificent. Robin Van Persie’sheader for the Netherlands againstSpain redefined man’s relationship with gravity. There was ugliness, too, with Luis Suárez biting an opponentand receiving a 4-month ban.England departed without gettingout of the group, sparing us a penaltyshoot-out. Brazil were marvelloushosts, but their dismantling by aforensic Germany seemed less like afootball match, more like a post-mortem examination. Braziliantaxpayers began to feel even moreaggrieved at the $11.6billion cost of the hosting the party. And then there was the final, a rather less thrillingaffair than many had anticipated, butdecided by a single goal in extra time by Germany’s Mario Götze.There were riots in the build-up tothese finals, a ticketing scandal in themiddle, but by the end, football camethrough its reputation enhanced. The beautiful game? At times, it was.
News, page 3Reports and analysis, Sport
Katie Gibbons
LARS BARON / FIFA VIA GETTY
British jails are ‘state-funded breeding grounds for extremism’
Insidetoday
Religion should be apositive force in prison
Leadingarticle,page20
Ugliness gaveway, in theend, to beauty
OF LONDON
monday july 14 2014 | thetimes.co.uk | no 71248
Pages38,39
Buying The Times overseas:
Austria €4.80;Belgium €4.00; Bulgaria BGN 7.50; Cyprus €4.00; northern Cyprus YTL 8.00; DenmarkDKK 30; France €4.00; Germany €4.00;Gibraltar £2.00; Greece €4.00; Italy € 4.00;Luxembourg €4.00; Malta €4.00; MoroccoMAD 36; Netherlands €4.00; Norway NOK42;Oman OMR1.50; Portugal €4.00 (cont.); Spain €4.00; Sweden SEK35; Switzerland CHF6.80;Turkey YTL6.50; UAE AED11
The untouchable status of theNHS is at the heart of its moraland financial crisis
Opinion,page18
The making of the Post OfficeTower, once thetallest buildingin the capital
Page13
Actor who became a doyen of the Hollywood cricket scene
Obituary,page43
Mermaids revel at the world’swettest musicfestival in theFlorida Keys
Page27
Please note, some sections of The Times are available only in the United Kingdom and Ireland
© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2014. Published and licensed for distribution in electronic and all other derivative forms by Times Newspapers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London,SE1 9GF, telephone 020-7782 5000. Printed by Newsprinters (Broxbourne) Limited, Great Cambridge Road, Waltham Cross, EN8 8DY and also at Newsprinters (Knowsley) Limited,Kitling Road, Prescot, Merseyside, L34 9HN; Newsprinters (Eurocentral) Limited, Byramsmuir Road, Holytown, Motherwell, ML1 1NP; Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd, 124 RoyalAvenue, Belfast, BT1 1EB; Smurfit Kappa NewsPress Ltd, Kells Industrial Estate, Kells, County Meath, Ireland; Irish Times Print Facility,4080 Kingswood Road, Citywest BusinessCampus,Dublin24,Ireland;ArabMediaGroup,MasarPrintingandPublishingPOBox485100,Dubai,UAE;Europrinter,AvJ.Mermoz,ZoneAeropole,6041Gosselies,Belgium;BermontS.A, Av./Portugal, 4 (Centro de Transportes de Coslada), 28820 Coslada, Madrid; MOP, Zone Industrielle, Avenue De L’Europe, 13127 Vitrolles, Marseilles; Estetik Ltd, Kuscuburnumevkii bati beton yolu no: 4 yazibasi torbali, Izmir, Turkey; and Miller Newsprint Ltd, Miller House, Tarxien Road, Malta Airport, LQA 05 Luqa, Malta; Hellenic Miller Newsprint Ltd,Ioanni Kranidioti Avenue 206, 2235 Latsia, PO Box 24508, 1300 Lefkosia, Cyprus; Milkro Hellas Publisher Services Ltd, 2nd Kilometer Peanias – Markopoullo Ave, Position Nisiza 19400Koropi, Greece; Omniprint SA, Poligono Industrial Estate, Nave Omniprint, Santa Maria Dell Cami, 7320 Mallorca.ForpermissiontocopyarticlesorheadlinesforinternalinformationpurposescontactNewspaperLicensingAgencyatPOBox101,TunbridgeWells,TN11WX,tel01892525274,[email protected]. For all other reproduction and licensing inquiries contact Syndication Department, 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020-7782 5400, e-mail [email protected]
CoolCatsHotProperties
Terms and conditions: Offer subject to availability. £1 for 30 days trial to new customers (18+) of the Digital Pack only. TNL reserves the right to exclude this offer incertain territories. See timespacks.com/london for full terms and conditions.
TheBestPlacestoLive
inLondon
Find out which areas have made itin our review of the capital city’sprime locations.Join today for £1 for 30 days at
thesundaytimes.co.uk/bestplaces
Cameron signals £1bn defenceshift towards special forces
Deborah Haynes
Defence Editor
ThepoweroftheSASandSpecialBoatService(SBS)tofightterrorismandfreehostages will receive a surprise boosttoday in a plan to invest more than£1billioninhi-techmilitaryequipment.Bucking the trend of defence cuts,David Cameron will stress the import-anceofdronesandspecialforceswhenhe unveils the investment at the Farn- borough Airshow.“Having modern, technologically-advanced and flexible armed forces toprotectusandourinterestsisvital,”theprime minister will say.Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Willi-ams, a former SAScommander, wel-comed the announcement, whichcomes as British officials grow increas-ingly concerned about the rise of Isla-mist extremism under Isis and al-Qae-da. He said the investment made sense becausesurveillanceandspecialopera-tions countered global threats betterthan the conventional military.Mr Cameron has highlighted thegrowing threat to Britain of al-Qaeda-linkedterrorismandthemilitantgroupIsis,whichisattemptingtocarveoutitsown caliphate (Islamic state) in Iraqand Syria. The prime minister sent aBritish spy plane to Nigeria earlier thisyear along with military and securityexperts to help forces to find hundredsofschoolgirlskidnappedbythemilitantgroup, Boko Haram. An SAS team hasalsogonetoBaghdadfollowingamajoradvance by Isis.British security officials are worriedabout the threat posed by hundreds of British jihadists who have travelled toSyriaandintoIraqtofightwithIsis,butcouldreturntotheUKskilledininsur-gency warfare. Colonel Williams saidthat a defence review due next year would focus ever more on Britain’s in-telligence-gathering and special forcescapabilities at the expense of the regu-lar Army, Royal Navy and Royal AirForce. “What it might signal is in thenextdefencereviewthistrendwillcon-tinue and the equipment programmesfor the three traditional services willsuffer,” he said.The money was freed by heavy cost-cuttingandimprovedhandlingofbud-gets at the Ministry of Defence, whichhas shed tens of thousands of jobs andrewritten contracts over the past fouryears. “Because of the difficult deci-sionswehavetakentotacklethedeficit we are able to make these vital invest-ments in our defence capabilities,” MrCameron will say.Undertheplan,anextra£800million will be invested in surveillance, armeddronesandotherequipment.Somewill buy new gear and some will be used to bringkitbackthathadalreadybeenre-tired,aspokeswomanfortheMoDsaid.ItcouldenableBritain’selitetroopstocontinue using the Shadow surveil-lance aircraft for covert operations.The plane was bought because it wasurgently needed during the Afghan war,buttheMoDdidnothavethelong-term funding to keep it flying. ArmedReaperdroneswerealsoboughtasaso-calledurgentoperationalrequirement.Afurther£300millionwillbeinvest-ed in a new E-Scan radar for the Ty-phoon fighter plane and the purchaseof HMS
Protector
, an ice patrol ship.MrCameronwillalsosetoutaniniti-ative to boost the UK defence sector, which has suffered contractions in line withBritain’sshrinkingdefencebudget.The prime minister will be hopingthathisgoodnewswillovershadowtheembarrassment over Britain’s newestfighterjet,theF35BLightningII,which was supposed to make its internationaldebut at Farnborough but has beengrounded in the United States after afire aboard one of the models.
Drones tipped for role in disaster relief
Deborah Haynes
Defence Editor
Drones could soon be used instead of people to carry emergency food andmedical supplies to victims of atyphoon,tsunamiorothermajordisas-terascompaniesrushtofindinnovative ways to use the technology.ABritish-Dutchcompanyisdevelop-ing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)that can be fitted with defibrillators,first-aid kit and rations and flown tohard-to-reach areas during a crisis.Steve Roest, chief executive of Sky-cap, said organisations such as the RedCrosscouldphonehisteamandrequesta 24-hour turnaround to somewherelikethePhilippinestosetupcommuni-cations and do search and recovery.The company is already operatingfixed-wing and helicopter drones tohelp non-governmental organisationsstop rhinoceros hunters and otherpoachers in Africa.Fitted with cameras, the craft aremuch simpler than the powerful, large,long-endurance drones used by milita-ries,buthaveprovedtobeeffectiveoverthe past three years that Mr Roest has been operating them in places such asSouth Africa and Namibia.Thermal cameras track hunters,feeding images to a ground-controlstationthatcanbeusedbysecurityper-sonnel. The drones can hover silentlyabove rhinoceroses or other endan-gered species, keeping a watchful eyeand raising the alarm if a poacher ap-pears.“Afewweeksagoalivepoachinginci-dent took place and they did an inter-ception,” Mr Roest said. “That was us-ing thermal [images] from our UAV. Ithink we are the first people in the world to ever be able to do that.”Working with the League AgainstCruelSports,adroneoperatedlastyear by Mr Roest’s team filmed illegal harecoursing in Britain.The rules for flying drones in Britainaremuchstricterthaninlessdevelopedpartsoftheworld,butitisnotaproblemprovided the aircraft is flown at under400ft, kept at least 50m from any per-son and is not in controlled air space.Skycapseekstocashinontherapidly
Take more Syrian refugees, says UN diplomat
Britain is being urged to considertaking more refugees from Syria.Rolland Schilling, who represents theUN refugee agency in Britain, arguedthat while there was public concernaboutmigration,therewasalsoadeep-lyheldbeliefthatthepersecutedshould be protected. “I think that is a majority view. They go in parallel,” he said.Theresa May, the home secretary,announced in January that Britain would accept “several hundred” of themost vulnerable Syrians after monthsofresistingcallstodoso.Sofaronly50have arrived under the scheme.Germany has agreed to take 25,000people, while the United States haspledgedtotakeanopen-endednumberon the UN’s resettlement scheme. MrSchilling said he believed that DavidCameron’s promise to reduce netmigration to below 100,000 by nextyear played a role in the government’sreluctancetomatchgenerouscommit-ments made by other countries.The prime minister has made it oneof his priorities to convey a toughmessage on migration in an attempt tostem the flow of voters to Ukip, but helooks almost certain to miss the target.Mr Schilling said that the UNHighCommissioner for Refugees under-stoodthatministersmustconsiderpol-itical constraints. “We are aware of thegovernment’s policy commitment toreducenetmigrationandweseehowitmayreflectontheirdecisionsregardingresettlement of refugees,” he said. He would not comment on whether it wasright for the target to include refugeesandasylumseekers.MrSchillingaddedthat the UN was “extremely pleased”about the UK’s commitment to Syria.particularly as one of the most genera-tions providers of aid money.He warned that there was enormouspressure on Turkey, Jordan and Leba-non, which have accepted the majorityof 2.8 million people who have floodedout of Syria since the start of the con-flict three years ago.A spokesman for the Home Officesaid: “The vulnerable persons reloca-tionschemeismakingarealdifferencetothelivesofsomeofthemostvulnera- bleSyrians.Theschemeisbasedontheneeds of individuals, rather than beingdesigned to meet a quota.”
Laura Pitel
Political Correspondent
growing demand for UAVs for a rangeofoperations,fromsurveillancetopro- viding information on land for agricul-tural use. Mr Roest hopes to develop adrone that runs on solar power, givingaid organisations the ability to operateanaircraftforlonger,whichisusefulinthe aftermath of a natural disaster.Another use would be to help aid workers deliver food and medicine to arefugee camp if security is poor. The workers could stop a mile away andsend up a drone carrying the supplies.Mr Roest plans demonstrations atthe Farnborough Airshow, whichopens today and runs for a week. Theyinclude Shadow Rotor, a quad copter with the ability to fly for up to an hour— much longer than most UAV heli-copters,whichrunoutofpowerafter15minutes.UAVswithrotatingbladesare vital in areas containing jungle.Another model is Shadow Ranger, whichisafixed-wingaircraftlaunched by hand. Flying time for fixed-wingdrones vary from two to six hours.The price tags for the drones rangefrom about £9,000 to £30,000.
Inside today
Progress stalls on$160m fighter jet
Business,page35
World of glamour turns out for the big final
Stars and models wereamong VIPsupporters, but Jagger the ‘jinx’kept a low profile,reports
David Brown
World leaders, pop stars, actors andmodels guaranteed a glamorous finaleto the World Cup tournament, asGermany won the tightly-contestedfinal against Argentina last night.Mario Götze’s brilliantly-taken goalin extra time gave Germany the WorldCup, but left Argentinian players andfans inconsolable.In the crowd at the Maracanã sta-dium, David Beckham, who neverplayed beyond the quarter-final stage withEngland,wassupportingArgenti-na in a final expected to surpass a tele- vision audience of one billion for thefirst time.While many England fans were lefthopingthatsomehowbothteamscouldlose, thousands of Germans andArgentians packed into London’s barsandrestaurantstocheerontheirteams.Brazil’s television cameramen haveproved themselves masters at captur-ing footage of bouncing breasts andrunning mascara to show the contrast-ing fortunes of beautiful spectatorsduring the month-long competition.The host nation’s and finalists’ women political leaders were at the75,000-capacity stadium, but over-shadowed by VIP female celebrities.After the World Cup trophy wasunveiledbythemodelGiseleBünd-chen, Shakira, the Colombian popstar, bounded on stage to sing
La lala (Brazil 2014)
at her third WorldCup, alongside Brazil’s CarlinhosBrown.CarlosSantana,theMexicangui-tarist, and the glamorous Braziliansinger Ivete Sangalo also appeared,along with the Haitian hip-hop starWyclef Jean and the Brazilian singerAlexandre Pires, who sang the tourna-ment’s theme tune,
Dar um Jeito (WeWill Find A Way)
.The actors Kellan Lutz, AshtonKutcher and Gerard Butler were pic-tured in Rio over the weekend.Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president,presentedtheWorldCupalongsidetheFifa president Sepp Blatter. VladimirPutin, the Russian president, was alsoin Rio to take part in the handover toRussia, which is due to stage the tour-nament in 2018.ApotentialforaschismintheRomanCatholicChurch—PopeFrancisbeingArgentine and his predecessor Bene-dict German — was skilfully avoidedafter Pope Francis said that he would“pray for anyone” and an appeal fromthe Brazilian president for neutrality.The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was keeping a low profile in thestadium after being accused of jinxingthe home side after their humiliating7-1 defeating the semi-final. The singerhas a son with the Brazilian formermodel Luciana Gimenez.Beckham had said that he would bethrilledtoseeLionelMessileadArgen-tina to victory but Ladbrokes said that95 per cent of the British gamblers had backed a German win.
Security fearsover football’sdeepest rivalry
James Hider
Sao Paulo
SecurityforcesfloodedtheareaaroundtheMaracanastadium,inRiodeJanei-ro, for the World Cup final betweenGermany and Argentina last night.There was less fear of fighting between fans of the two competingteams than of clashes between Braziland Argentina supporters, who nurseoneofthedeepestrivalriesinthegame.Sporadic street brawls took place between Brazilians and Argentinians,especially as the visitors – estimated tonumber as many as 100,000 – have re-peatedly taunted their hosts followingthe crushing defeat by Germany last week.Some Argentina fans even mockedthevertebrainjuryofBrazil’sstarstrik-er Neymar, which almost left him wheelchair-bound, holding up a medi-calmodelchanting“Neymar,we’vegotyourspine”.”Theanimosityissuchthatmany Brazilians said that they weresupportingGermany,theteamthatde-livered their worst ever defeat withseven goals to one on Tuesday.The 26,000 police, soldiers andsecurityguardswerealsoprotectingvi-siting heads of state, including AngelaMerkel, the German chancellor, whocleared her schedule and booked aflightassoonashercountryhadquali-fied.Vladimir Putin, the Russian presi-dent, whose country hosts the 2018orldCup,wasthereforthehandoverfrom Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, but Ukraine’s president Petro Porosh-enkoappearedtohavecancelledatthelast minute as his troops clashed again with pro-Russian militias.Police in Rio de Janeiro crackeddown on potential protesters, worriedthat Brazil’s two defeats could reignite widespread street protests againstWorld Cup spending that preceded thegames.Critics have pointed out that Brazilscored 11 goals for the $11 billion(£6.4billion)spentonstadiumsandin-frastructure, or a billion dollars pergoal. Brazilians were also smartingfrombeingrelegatedtofourthplacebyHollandinthecapitalBrasiliaonSatur-day, where one placard read:“Bring back Pele.”Police arrested 19 people for vandal-ism, accusing anarchists of plotting tocause renewed violence during thefinal. A pistol and an explosive device were confiscated.
Clockwise frommain picture:Pelé talks toDavid Beckham;Gisele Bündchenunveiled thetrophy; AngelaMerkel was thereto support hercountry’s team;Shakira, with herson, sang beforethe match
ALAMY LIVE NEWS
| i don't know |
Who was the first unseeded player to win the Men's Wimbledon Singles Title? | BBC ON THIS DAY | 7 | 1985: Boris Becker wins Wimbledon at 17
1985: Boris Becker wins Wimbledon at 17
A West German teenager has become the youngest ever player to win the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
Boris Becker, a 17-year-old unseeded outsider before the tournament began, raised the coveted silver trophy above his head to rapturous applause on centre court.
Becker is also the first German ever to win the title, and the first unseeded player.
He had dominated the match from the start, taking just three hours and 18 minutes to overpower eighth-seeded Kevin Curren, a South-African-born American.
Flamboyant
The match was a dramatic clash in the brilliant sunshine, made more spectacular by Becker's flamboyant style.
His massive serve sent balls scorching across the net. He scored 21 aces to Curren's 19.
Becker also has a habit of flinging himself around the court, diving headlong for volleys and baseline shots.
For half a set he played with his shirt caked in dirt after one particularly spectacular fall.
The final result was 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4.
'Idol' for Germany
"This is going to change tennis in Germany," he said after the match. "I am the first Wimbledon winner and now they have an idol."
After his defeat, Kevin Curren said he thought the game would see an increase in the number of successful young players, and predicted they would have more intense, but shorter, careers.
There was some speculation that Curren had been unnerved by Becker's openly aggressive style.
The young player sent a hostile stare to his opponent before and after points, and in the final caught Curren's shoulder as they passed when changing ends.
But Becker defended his tactics, saying "I'm going on court to win, to fight, to do what I can."
Child prodigy
Becker has had a brief but brilliant career. He began playing tennis aged eight, and by 12 years old was concentrating almost wholly on the game.
He won the West German junior championship aged 15 and was runner-up in the US junior championship.
Last January he took the Young Masters tournament in Birmingham, and won his first Grand Prix tournament at Queen's just three weeks ago.
He has won 28 of his 39 matches this year, and is expected to lead West Germany in the Davis Cup against the United States next month.
| Boris Becker |
Who played Gary's flatmate in the first series of Men Behaving Badly? | The Championships, Wimbledon: winners, fun facts, and record holders
by Mike Morrison
2008 Wimbledon Women's Singles Champion Venus Williams (Source/AP)
So you think you know Wimbledon ? Tennis's most prestigious grand slam event gets underway on June 27, 2015, and finishes up on July 10. You probably already know that it is the only grand slam event played on grass, and that last year's singles champions were Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Czech Republic's Petra Kvitovà.
Below is some history, as well as some little-known facts about the tourney.
If you're feeling especially adventurous, try your luck at Infoplease's Wimbledon Quiz .
The first Wimbledon took place in 1877 solely as an amateur competition. Men's singles was the only event that took place. There were 22 competitors and the championship was won by Spencer Gore. A few hundred spectators were in attendance.
Women's singles and men's doubles events began seven years later, in 1884.
May Sutton of the United States became the first non-European champion in 1905 when she captured the women's singles title.
Charlotte (Lottie) Dod became the youngest player ever to win a Wimbledon singles event when, in 1887, she won at the age of 15 years, 285 days. In 1996 Martina Hingis became a Wimbledon doubles champion at 15 years, 282 days. And by the way, Dod was also a silver medalist in archery at the 1908 Olympics, a member of the British national field hockey team in 1899, and the British Amateur golf champ in 1904.
During World War II , a bomb ripped through Centre Court at the All England Club and 1,200 seats were lost. Fortunately, they weren't filled at the time. Play finally resumed in 1946 but it wasn't until 1949 that the area was back in top shape.
American Althea Gibson became the first black player to win a Wimbledon singles championship when she captured the title in 1957. She successfully defended her title a year later. She was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in both years.
In 1985, Boris Becker accomplished three feats: he became the youngest male singles champ (17 years, 227 days old), the first German champ, and the first unseeded champ.
There are currently 20 grass courts available for play at the Wimbledon complex. The Number 1 Court now comes complete with large fans at either end to dry out the court in case of rain. There are also five red shale courts, four clay courts, and five indoor courts for club members.
The last married woman to win the women's singles championship was Chris Evert Lloyd in 1981.
A wooden racket was last used at Wimbledon in 1987.
The 2014 prize purse for the men's and women's singles winners is £1,760,000, an increase of £160,000 (10%) over 2013. In 1968, the year of the first "open" championships, the prize money was £2,000 for the male champion and £750 for the female champion.
Aside from cash, the women's champ also receives a silver gilt salver (a round, disk-like platter) that was made in 1864. The men's winner receives a silver gilt cup from 1887. Both are actually displayed at the Wimbledon museum for most of the year.
Keep your eyes on the ball! The records for fastest serve are Taylor Dent, clocked at 148 mph (2010) and Venus Williams with 129 mph (2008)
Keeping track of all those fast-moving balls are approximately 250 ball boys and girls at The Championships each year.
The top-selling item in the Wimbledon gift shop in 2010: 18,000 yellow mini tennis ball keyrings. in 2013, it was Championship towels (28,600).
In 2013, the top-selling drink was tea/coffee, with 300,000 sold.
Advertisement
Advertisement
| i don't know |
In which sitcom did Nicolas Lindhurst first gain national recognition? | Nicholas Lyndhurst - TV Celebrities - ShareTV
Nicholas Lyndhurst
Nicholas Lyndhurst's Main TV Roles
Show
[Complete List]
BIOGRAPHY:
Nicholas was a child student at Corona Theatre School. He appeared in a succession of television commercials and children's films in the late 1970s, and first gained national recognition at the age of seventeen in the sitcom Butterflies written by Carla Lane, in which he played the character Adam Parkinson. He then played the teenage son of Norman Stanley 'Fletch' Fletcher played by Ronnie Barker in Going Straight before achieving stardom in the series Only Fools and Horses in which he played Rodney Trotter, the younger brother of the main character Derek "Del Boy" Trotter. In Only Fools and Horses Nicholas was immortalised by the catchphrase aimed at his character 'Rodney, you plonker'.
This programme started as a small comedy in 1981 and rapidly grew in popularity until it reached its peak in 1996 with its Christmas Day show in the UK. Lyndhurst has appeared in the show since the very start, right up to its most recent airing at Christmas 2003. Only Fools and Horses reached No.1 British sitcom ever in the BBC poll in 2003/04.
During the 1990s, Lyndhurst also appeared in ITV's The Two of Us with Janet Dibley and The Piglet Files, as well as in a number of stage performances.
Between 1993 and 1999, he played the complex lead character of Gary Sparrow in the fantasy sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart. At around the same time, he was the face and voice on the TV and radio commercials for the telecommunications chain People's Phone. In 1995, he was offered the role in The Full Monty playing lead role Gary but declined.
Between 1997 and 1999, Nicholas Lyndhurst was the public face of the stationery chain store WH Smith, starring in their adverts as all four members of one family. He won a BAFTA for his acting in the adverts.
In 2006, he appeared as Cruella de Vil's chauffeur, Reg Farnsworth, at the Children's Party at the Palace.
In 2007, Lyndhurst returned to the BBC with his first new sitcom in thirteen years, After You've Gone, in which he plays a divorced dad moving back into the marital home to look after his daughter (Dani Harmer) and son (Ryan Sampson) together with his mother in law, played by Celia Imrie, after his ex wife goes to work as a recovery nurse on a third world disaster relief mission.
Lyndhurst played Freddie Robdal, the 1960s gangster father of Rodney Trotter in the prequel to Only Fools and Horses - Rock & Chips. The show centres around Del Boy, Robdal and Joan Trotter in early 1960s Peckham. It was first broadcast on 24 January 2010, with another special transmitted on 29 December 2010, and the final episode in Easter 2011.
He lives in West Sussex with his wife Lucy, a former ballet dancer (married in Chichester, West Sussex, 1999), and their son, Archie Bjorn Lyndhurst (born Westminster, London, 2000) and daughter, April Fjoord Lyndhurst (born Westminster, London, 1989). Lyndhurst has a passion for outdoor activities, including flying aeroplanes, surfing and deep sea diving. He is also a keen beekeeper.
TRIVIA:
Is left handed.
Attended the Corona Stage Academy.
When he did a series of adverts for WH Smith a few years ago in which he played an entire family of four, he admitted to enjoying playing the mum best.
He is the result of an affair his mother had with a married man. He admits that he used to be shy of marriage as his father treated his mother very badly but took the plunge with his long-term girlfriend, Lucy
Filmed an advert for Sealy (a bed company) in 1982.
He has no interest in the showbiz scene, avoiding parties and social events in favour of diving which his life-long passion.
Related sites for this celeb
| Butterfly |
Which company was founded in a draper's shop in Glasgow in 1849? | Nicholas Lyndhurst - TV Celebrities - ShareTV
Nicholas Lyndhurst
Nicholas Lyndhurst's Main TV Roles
Show
[Complete List]
BIOGRAPHY:
Nicholas was a child student at Corona Theatre School. He appeared in a succession of television commercials and children's films in the late 1970s, and first gained national recognition at the age of seventeen in the sitcom Butterflies written by Carla Lane, in which he played the character Adam Parkinson. He then played the teenage son of Norman Stanley 'Fletch' Fletcher played by Ronnie Barker in Going Straight before achieving stardom in the series Only Fools and Horses in which he played Rodney Trotter, the younger brother of the main character Derek "Del Boy" Trotter. In Only Fools and Horses Nicholas was immortalised by the catchphrase aimed at his character 'Rodney, you plonker'.
This programme started as a small comedy in 1981 and rapidly grew in popularity until it reached its peak in 1996 with its Christmas Day show in the UK. Lyndhurst has appeared in the show since the very start, right up to its most recent airing at Christmas 2003. Only Fools and Horses reached No.1 British sitcom ever in the BBC poll in 2003/04.
During the 1990s, Lyndhurst also appeared in ITV's The Two of Us with Janet Dibley and The Piglet Files, as well as in a number of stage performances.
Between 1993 and 1999, he played the complex lead character of Gary Sparrow in the fantasy sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart. At around the same time, he was the face and voice on the TV and radio commercials for the telecommunications chain People's Phone. In 1995, he was offered the role in The Full Monty playing lead role Gary but declined.
Between 1997 and 1999, Nicholas Lyndhurst was the public face of the stationery chain store WH Smith, starring in their adverts as all four members of one family. He won a BAFTA for his acting in the adverts.
In 2006, he appeared as Cruella de Vil's chauffeur, Reg Farnsworth, at the Children's Party at the Palace.
In 2007, Lyndhurst returned to the BBC with his first new sitcom in thirteen years, After You've Gone, in which he plays a divorced dad moving back into the marital home to look after his daughter (Dani Harmer) and son (Ryan Sampson) together with his mother in law, played by Celia Imrie, after his ex wife goes to work as a recovery nurse on a third world disaster relief mission.
Lyndhurst played Freddie Robdal, the 1960s gangster father of Rodney Trotter in the prequel to Only Fools and Horses - Rock & Chips. The show centres around Del Boy, Robdal and Joan Trotter in early 1960s Peckham. It was first broadcast on 24 January 2010, with another special transmitted on 29 December 2010, and the final episode in Easter 2011.
He lives in West Sussex with his wife Lucy, a former ballet dancer (married in Chichester, West Sussex, 1999), and their son, Archie Bjorn Lyndhurst (born Westminster, London, 2000) and daughter, April Fjoord Lyndhurst (born Westminster, London, 1989). Lyndhurst has a passion for outdoor activities, including flying aeroplanes, surfing and deep sea diving. He is also a keen beekeeper.
TRIVIA:
Is left handed.
Attended the Corona Stage Academy.
When he did a series of adverts for WH Smith a few years ago in which he played an entire family of four, he admitted to enjoying playing the mum best.
He is the result of an affair his mother had with a married man. He admits that he used to be shy of marriage as his father treated his mother very badly but took the plunge with his long-term girlfriend, Lucy
Filmed an advert for Sealy (a bed company) in 1982.
He has no interest in the showbiz scene, avoiding parties and social events in favour of diving which his life-long passion.
Related sites for this celeb
| i don't know |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.