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Who invented the hovercraft in the 1950’s? | Christopher Cockerell and the History of the Hovercraft
By Mary Bellis
Updated August 17, 2016.
A hovercraft is a vehicle supported on a cushion of air supplied by a powered fan mounted on the craft.
The hovercraft was invented by Christopher Cockerell in 1956. The theory behind one of the most successful inventions of the 20th century, the Hovercraft, was originally tested in 1955 using an empty KiteKat cat food tin inside a coffee tin, an industrial air blower and a pair of kitchen scales. Sir Christopher Cockerell developed the first practical hovercraft designs, these led to the first hovercraft to be produced commercially, the SRN1.
Cockerell's idea was to build a vehicle that would move over the water's surface, floating on a layer of air. This would reduce friction between the water and vehicle. To test his hypothesis, he put one a smaller can inside a larger can and used a hairdryer to blow air into them. The downward thrust produced was greater when one can was inside the other rather than air just being blown into one can.
Background
Cockerell was born in 1910 in Cambridge, where his father, Sir Sydney Cockerell, was a museum curator. Christopher Cockerell went to the primary school of St. Faith's. He studied at Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk. He matriculated to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to read mechanical engineering and was tutored by William Dobson Womersley. He later returned to Cambridge to study radio and electronics.
Cockerell worked for the Radio Research Company until 1935 and then for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company from 1935 until 1951. During the war years, Cockerell worked with an elite team at Marconi to develop radar, a development which Churchill believed had a significant effect on the outcome of the Second World War, and Cockerell believed to be one of his greatest achievements. While at Marconi, Cockerell patented 36 of his ideas. Hel was knighted for his achievement in 1969.
The Hovercraft
It occurred to Cockerell that if the entire craft were lifted from the water, the craft would effectively have no drag. This, he hoped, would give the craft the ability to attain a much higher maximum speed than could be achieved by the boats of the time.
Cockerell's theory was that instead of just pumping air under the craft, as previous inventors had, if the air were to be instead channelled to form a narrow jet around the perimeter of the craft, the moving air would form a momentum curtain, a wall of moving air that would limit the amount of air that would leak out. This meant that the same cushion of high-pressure air could be maintained by a very much smaller engine; and for the first time, a craft could be lifted completely out of the water. He tested his theories using a vacuum cleaner and two tin cans. His hypothesis was found to have potential, but the idea took some years to develop, and he was forced to sell personal possessions to finance his research.
| Christopher Cockerell |
Richard Block and David Quayle founded which British-based DIY retailing company in 1969? | The Hover Craft
British inventor Christopher Cockerell carried out experiments during the early 1950s with a device that later became known as the hovercraft. The basic principle is that a vehicle can rest on a cushion of air and propellers can provide forward motion. He built a prototype in 1955 but the air force claimed it was a ship and the navy claimed it was a plane. Eventually the British Government became interested and classified it as top secret.
The British Government provided funding and in 1959 a prototype hovercraft was unveiled. A month later the prototype crossed the English Channel which showed the technical durability of early hovercrafts. Many people at the time referred to the hovercraft as like a flying saucer.
The basic operating principle can be seen in the animation. A propeller drives air down a hollow skin. The air inflates a rubber skirt with some air escaping through holes to produce a cushion of air underneath the hovercraft. The early prototypes did not have the rubber skirt and this meant they were difficult to direct and they could not get over obstacles greater than ten inches in height. The skirt greatly improved this situation with obstacles no longer being a problem.
The British military carried out extensive tests on the final design. It was tested under all types of conditions including crossing deserts, artic regions, rivers and seas. It proved to be successful.
THE PASSENGER SERVICE
The first passenger service began in 1962 between the English seaside resort of Wallasey and South Wales. At 70 mph, the 40 mile crossing took approximately twenty minutes and compared the a typical ferry of the time, the speed of the hovercraft was a vast improvement.
The largest passenger hovercraft in the world was used for the Dover to Calais crossing from the 1960s for nearly 40 years. The SRN4 was the largest passenger hovercraft in the world capable of carrying over 380 passengers and 40 cars. It was 91 feet wide and 185 feet in length and weighed 300 tons. The propellers were 20 feet in diameter and with its power it could cruise at 70 mph. It was the fastest ferry in the world.
| i don't know |
Which band released a 2007 album entitled ‘Minutes to Midnight’? | Linkin Park: Minutes to Midnight - Music on Google Play
Full Review
Bryan Counts July 22, 2014
Best lp album Seriously if you want Chester's throat shredding screams listen to bleed it out. This one is too good to hate on. I mean it has like 5 of my all time favorite songs on it. Personally I like the mainstream poppy sound better than the screamo rock sound. But this album is definitely a masterpiece in my book
Full Review
Dustin Shook May 12, 2014
Love it I like every song on the album if i had to pick the least favorites would be: wake, in between and valentines day. Alot of LP fans whine about them changing. I think that is what makes them great is their ability to play all kinds of music.
Full Review
Scott Wood February 18, 2014
Lost Their Way With This One People call A Thousand Suns their 'Kid A Moment' but I think this album would be better suited to that description. For me LP are first and for most an electronic rock band, and this album took most of those synthetic elements out of the equation. Don't get me wrong, I like pure rock music, nothing but guitar bass and drums etc, but LP's forte is their ability to create unique and original electronic music and unfortunaltey it does not translate well in to this more organic effort.
Full Review
Chris Martin January 9, 2016
WTH? Five good tracks, one OK track and six bad ones. That's how I rate Minutes to Midnight. I guess everybody's side projects and other distractions caused Linkin Park to lose their signature sound of their first two albums. In my opinion, they should have stayed with it. They should have stayed with the mix of Rap and Nu Metal that made them popular.
Full Review
J. Matthew May 31, 2014
The mature side of Linkin Park. Personally, this is my favorite album from them. Rock is branching into new sub-genres, and at this generation rock is getting more irrelevant, especially to younger audiences. What makes LP special is its ability to evolve and adapt to new things.
Full Review
I'm Normal July 29, 2016
Incredible Captivating and innovative. They have the guts to change their sound. Not many bands would change what works. And I appreciate that they had the guts to do what they love. I just wish that No Roads Left and Across The Line made the cut instead of just being a deluxe version song since Google Play never has the deluxe versions of albums. Which sucks come on Google get it together and give us what we really want.
Full Review
joseph stalin April 6, 2014
I like how This album has both hard rock and soft rock. From given up to leave out all the rest, this album is like meteora mixed with a thousand suns.
Full Review
September 9, 2013
AWESOME This was a really great album! I bought it the week it came out, listened to it once, let someone borrow it and then I never saw it again... :( Hahaha ; seriously
Full Review
Victor Ramirez April 10, 2014
Linkin Park This album really reminds me of life and its gifts it has to offer. Though life may bring you down sometimes, you just got to get back up and hit harder.
Full Review
Zachary Cisco March 27, 2016
Showes they have range A solid effort by the band here as they show they can still bring the raw anger whith tracks like Given up, the rock rap that made them famous with Bleed it Out, and even slow contemplative with tracks like shadow of the day. If you passed this up back then I recommend giving it another listen, I'm sure any fan will find something to love.
Full Review
Christian Medina October 28, 2014
LP Ever since I heard In The End I fell in love with LP. Even with the daring changes to their sound I still like their music. I hope they continue to bring us good music for years to come.
Full Review
Katrina Nash March 28, 2015
Best band in the world Lp is epic I have not bought it on phone yet but have bought the disc they are awesome I highly reccomend them my favourite song is what I've done.if u diss them ur my worst enemy/s
Full Review
Ryan Ogden April 4, 2014
Another masterpiece by my favorite band While not fully as heavy as the first two albums, it alternates from subdued rock songs and heavy hitting metal. Easily one of my favorite albums
Full Review
Aurora Nemesis April 25, 2014
The more mature side of Linkin Park Leave out all the rest is a beautiful song. The album breaks away from the sound which defined them, but this album is excellent.
Full Review
Fuck United September 26, 2014
Best one yet Their is a difference with This album and Hybrid Theory, but it still rocks.Songs like Given Up and Bleed It Out are quite catchy for modern rock
Full Review
tyler grogan May 26, 2016
LP Awesome album. To save some time listen to leave out all the rest, bleed it out, shadow of the day, what I've done, hands held high, and no more sorrow.
Full Review
Jacob Silvia February 18, 2015
Screamy with a Driving Beat Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight presents more songs that have the familiar Linkin Park sound, only maybe turning up the angry-white-boy dial up a little. If you like Linkin Park, this is definitely a Linkin Park album.
Full Review
Dylan Burnett May 9, 2015
Not their best, but still awesome Kind of reminds me of Korn (idk why). That's a good thing though, since Korn is my favorite band
Full Review
Bobby Miller October 21, 2015
First album I heard Minutes to Midnight was the first album that I ever fully listened to and got into. The album is a great mix of harder and softer rock. Linkin Park still kept the nu metal sound in this one and has songs for every type of rock fan.
Full Review
Joseph Faccone March 11, 2016
No... more... sorrow... best super hero like sound. Makes me think of Superman coming to save the day, or even an army of Justice League heros coming to protect the world... just my input and what I imagine when listening. Great song on yet another good album.
Full Review
Huey Sullivan November 9, 2015
Not their best work..... I've been a long time LP fan since the begining but this newer stuff just dosent feel the same as the older albums......
Full Review
Dayz 3O6 January 13, 2016
MTM a change that will be for the better instead of sticking to the same style. I bet if they did another HT style, it will be 3 strikes and they will be OUT!
The Gaming Skittle February 16, 2014
Sick song Da best song on there is probly what ive done
Full Review
Michael Landstreet Jr December 16, 2014
Ugh Purchased a physical copy of it. Regretted the purchase after the first listen through. Given up is the only decent song.
Full Review
Jason Evans June 12, 2013
Best album ever definitly my favorite The band itself is awsome but I hope in the future it will become better they have a lot of potential in the future can't wait for new albums or remakes
Full Review
Joseph Patrick November 1, 2014
Pretty good The whole theme of it being like one person doing stuff and trying to stop it but just cant
Full Review
Evelyn Torres May 14, 2014
I"m In Love My favorite song on this album is "Leave Out All the Rest" this is me & my best friend's song F. T
Full Review
Rob Cortez December 16, 2014
Favorite LP Album I know there's a lot of debate over their best album and whether Minutes to Midnight is "true" LP, but this is by far my favorite album of theirs. Almost every track is solid. If you're only going to buy one of their albums, make it this one.
Full Review
Andrea Ratiu March 14, 2013
<3 LP You might as well buy all of it, I mean seriously. Best band ever. Linkin Park:)
Full Review
miranda perry June 18, 2014
XD Love this album! Great songs! Really cool! The best song for me on this album is "Bleed It Out", "What I've Done", or "Given Up"!
Full Review
Tom Payne December 28, 2013
I love this album This is a great fuckn album if u got bad thngs to say about this album . Yur the one that has fuckn problms .
Full Review
Somer Suarez June 25, 2013
A great album With a style different from the earliers Linkin Park's albums Minutes to Midnight is a great master piece.
Full Review
Susie parpana June 25, 2014
I love linkin park These songs are so awesome and amazing and when I feel bored I just listen to linkin park lol.some songs are calm and I like that too cx love ya linkin park
Full Review
Giovanni Sierra-Moeller November 8, 2015
Lp is beast Ive known this band for as long as i can remember and out of all are my favorite easily
Full Review
茶包 omo November 7, 2015
Bleed it out is a five, as with the last track. Then some fours, mostly threes and a few twos. I guess that averages to three point something.
Full Review
Mystical Chris November 28, 2015
Okay Iol I still remember someone made a amv for an anime and like they used linkin padk and it was hilariously bad,linkin park is like oh no here is linkin park know what that means ACTION
Full Review
Janel Jones December 20, 2014
Amazing I'm trying to figire out chester and the guy's figured out how to take so many words from my head without my knowledge lol, Every song on this album has such an unfortunate truth for me in one way or another. Thank's
Full Review
Nick Ramirez December 20, 2014
In my opinion, probably the last good album Linkin Park put out. Nonetheless, still my favorite alternative rock band
| Linkin Park |
Which English football club is nicknamed ‘The Toffees’? | linkinparkdiary
linkinparkdiary
Minutes to Midnight (2006–2008)
Linkin Park returned to the recording studios in 2006 to work on new material. To produce the album, the band chose producer Rick Rubin . Despite initially stating the album would debut sometime in 2006, the album was delayed until 2007. The band had recorded thirty to fifty songs in August 2006, when Shinoda stated the album was halfway completed. Bennington later added that the new album would stray away from their previous nu metal sound. Warner Bros. Records officially announced that the band’s third studio album, entitled Minutes to Midnight , would be released on May 15, 2007 in the United States.After spending fourteen months working on the album, the band opted to further refine their album by removing five of the original seventeen tracks. The album’s title, a reference to the Doomsday Clock , foreshadowed the band's new lyrical themes. Minutes to Midnight sold over 600,000 copies in its first week, making it one of the most successful debut week albums in recent years. The album also took the top spot on the Billboard Charts.
The album's first single, " What I've Done " was released on April 2, and premiered on MTV and Fuse within the same week. The single was acclaimed by listeners, becoming the top-ranked song on the Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts. Later in the year, the band won the "Favorite Alternative Artist" in the American Music Awards .The band also saw success with singles such as " Bleed It Out ", " Shadow of the Day ", " Given Up ", and " Leave Out All the Rest ", which were released throughout 2007 and early 2008. The band also collaborated with Busta Rhymes on his single " We Made It ", which was released on April 29.
Linkin Park's touring and live shows have, among other things, included a performance at Live Earth Japan on July 7, 2007. and headlining Download Festival in Donington Park, England and Edgefest in Downsview Park , Toronto , Canada. The band completed touring on their fourth Projekt Revolution tour before taking up an Arena tour around the United Kingdom, visiting Nottingham , Sheffield and Manchester , before finishing on a double night at the O2 arena in London . Bennington stated that Linkin Park plans to release a follow-up album to Minutes to Midnight.However, he stated the band will first embark on a United States tour to gather inspiration for the album. In an interview with Rolling Stone , Bennington said that the band had already begun writing new material for the album, and Shinoda too stated that the album could well be released in late 2009. Mike Shinoda also announced a live CD/DVD entitled " Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes ", which is a live video recording from the Projekt Revolution gig at the Milton Keynes Bowl the 29th June 2008, which was officially released on the 24th November, 2008.In October 2008 Shinoda revealed on his blog that he, Farrell and Hahn had began working on two song ideas at Hahn's home, with studio recording to begin in earnest soon.
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Meteora (2002–2004)
Following the success of Hybrid Theory and Reanimation, Linkin Park spent a significant amount of time touring around the United States. The band began to work on new material amidst their saturated schedule, spending a sliver of their free time in their tour bus' studio. The band officially announced the production of a new studio album in December 2002, revealing their new work was inspired by the rocky region of Meteora in Greece , where numerous monasteries have been built on top of the rocks. Meteora featured a mixture of the band's previous nu metal and rapcore styles with newer innovative effects, including the induction of a shakuhachi (a Japanese flute made of bamboo) and other instruments.Linkin Park's second album debuted on March 25, 2003 and instantly earned worldwide recognition,going to #1 in the US and UK, and #2 in Australia.
Meteora sold more than 800,000 copies during its first week, and it ranked as the best selling album on the Billboard charts at the time.Music videos for some of the album's singles, including " Somewhere I Belong ", " Breaking the Habit ", " Faint ", and " Numb ", received significant radio attention.By October 2003, Meteora sold nearly three million copies.The album's success allowed Linkin Park to form another Projekt Revolution , which featured other bands and artists including, Mudvayne , Blindside , and Xzibit . Additionally, Metallica invited Linkin Park to play at the Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003, which included well-known acts such as Limp Bizkit , Mudvayne and Deftones .The band released an album and DVD , entitled Live in Texas , which consisted of audio and video tracks of some of the band's performances in Texas during the tour. In early 2004, Linkin Park started a world tour titled the Meteora World Tour, supporting bands on the tour include Hoobastank , P.O.D. and Story of the Year .
Meteora earned the band multiple awards and honors. The band won MTV 's awards for Best Rock Video ("Somewhere I Belong") and the Viewer's Choice Award ("Breaking the Habit").[ Linkin Park also received significant recognition during the 2004 Radio Music Awards , winning the Artist of the Year and Song of the Year ("Numb") awards.Although Meteora was not nearly as successful as Hybrid Theory, it was the third best selling album in America during 2003. The band spent the first few months of 2004 touring around the world, first with the third Projekt Revolution tour, and later several European concerts.
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Hybrid Theory (2000–2002)
Linkin Park released Hybrid Theory on October 24, 2000.The album, which represented half a decade’s worth of the band’s work, was edited by music producer Don Gilmore . Hybrid Theory was well received by music fans; the band sold more than 4.8 million records during its debut year, earning it the status of best-selling album of 2001, while singles such as " Crawling " and " One Step Closer " established themselves as staples among alternative rock radio play lists during the year.Additionally, other singles from the album were featured in movies such as Dracula 2000 , Little Nicky , and Valentine . Hybrid Theory was also nominated for three Grammy Awards , including best new artist, best rock album, and best hard rock performance (for "Crawling"). MTV awarded the band their Best Rock Video and Best Direction awards for " In the End ".Through the winning of the Grammy for best hard rock performance, Hybrid Theory’s overall success had catapulted the band into the mainstream 's attention.
During this time, Linkin Park received many invitations to perform on many high-profile tours and concerts including Ozzfest , Family Values Tour and KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas .The band also formed their own tour, Projekt Revolution , which featured other notable artists such as, Cypress Hill , Adema , and Snoop Dogg .Within a year’s stretch, Linkin Park had performed at over 320 concerts. The experiences and performances of the precocious band were documented in their first DVD , Frat Party at the Pankake Festival , which debuted in November 2001. Now reunited with former bassist Dave Farrell, the band began work on a remix album, dubbed Reanimation , which would include works from Hybrid Theory and Hybrid Theory EP .Reanimation debuted on July 30, 2002, featuring the likes of Black Thought , Jonathan Davis , Aaron Lewis , and many others.Reanimation claimed the second spot on the Billboard 200 , and sold nearly 270,000 copies during its debut week.
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linkin park Early years (1996–1999)
Originally consisting of three high school friends, Linkin Park’s foundation was anchored by Mike Shinoda , Brad Delson , and Rob Bourdon .After graduating from high school, the California natives began to take their musical interests more seriously, recruiting Joe Hahn , Dave "Phoenix" Farrell , and Mark Wakefield to perform in their band, then known as Xero. Though limited in resources, the band began recording and producing songs within Shinoda’s make-shift bedroom studio in 1996. Tensions and frustration within the band grew after they failed to land a record deal. The lack of success and stalemate in progress prompted Wakefield, at that time the band's vocalist , to leave the band in search for other projects.Farrell would also leave the band to tour with Tasty Snax and other bands.
After spending a considerable time searching for Wakefield's replacement, Xero recruited Arizona vocalist Chester Bennington . Jeff Blue , the vice president of Zomba Music, had referred him to the band in March 1999Bennington, formerly of Grey Daze , became a standout among applicants because of his unique singing style. The band changed their name from Xero to Hybrid Theory.The newborn vocal chemistry between Shinoda and Bennington helped revive the band, inciting them to work on new material. The band’s renaissance culminated with a change in name; from Hybrid Theory, the band changed their name to Linkin Park, a play on and homage to Santa Monica ’s Lincoln Park. However, despite these changes, the band still struggled to sign a record deal. After facing numerous rejections from several major record labels , Linkin Park turned to Jeff Blue for additional help. After failing to catch Warner Bros. Records on three previous reviews, Jeff Blue, now the vice president of Warner Bros. Records, helped the band sign a deal with the company in 1999. The band released their breakthrough album, Hybrid Theory , the following year.
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| i don't know |
Singer Katy Perry married which British comedian in 2010? | Russell Brand, Katy Perry Married in India - News - The Ledger - Lakeland, FL
Russell Brand, Katy Perry Married in India
Saturday
Oct 23, 2010 at 10:55 AM
By PRAKASH BHANDARITHE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RANTHAMBHORE NATIONAL PARK, India | British comedian Russell Brand and American pop singer Katy Perry were married today in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony at a luxury resort in a tiger reserve in northwestern India.
A Hindu priest conducted the ceremony, which was attended by family and close friends of the celebrity couple, a hotel official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Security has been stringent with private security guards stationed at the resort and other nearby hotels where guests and the couple are staying for the six-day wedding celebration.
Photographers and media reporters were not allowed into the Aman-e-Khas wildlife retreat. The couple have given the exclusive coverage rights to a London magazine, and no other photographers or journalists will be allowed into the resort.
The wedding venue was lit up with lamps, colorful lights illuminated the trees and flower garlands festooned the luxury tents at the resort.
Both Brand and Perry wore traditional Indian clothes to the wedding. Perry donned a sari, as did a number of other female guests at the ceremony. On Friday, at a prenuptial celebration, Perry, like a typical Indian bride, had henna designs applied on her palms and hands.
Meanwhile, a four-member committee had been set up to check noise pollution from the wedding celebration and ensure that animals in the wildlife reserve in India’s Rajasthan state are not disturbed, said Ravi Kumar, a district official.
The Ranthambhore National Park, where the resort is located, is home to a host of wildlife species including tigers, leopards, wild boars, hyenas and sloth bears.
Press Trust of India news agency said 21 camels, elephants and horses formed part of Brand’s wedding procession from Sher Bagh, another nearby luxury resort, to the Aman-e-Khas. The procession was accompanied by traditional Indian dancers and musicians.
Brand proposed to Perry in the historic Indian city of Jaipur over New Year’s Eve, and the couple decided to get married in India.
About Us
| Russell Brand |
What was the name of the missionary who is the subject of the 1958 film ‘Inn of the Sixth Happiness’? | Katy Perry - Caters News Agency
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Katy Perry
Pop singer Katy Perry promotes here new fragrance “Purr” at Sears, Toronto, Canada on 30th June 2011. The singer, who married British comedian/actor Russell Brand in October 2010, broke into an impromptu dance on stage and signed autographs for waiting fans.
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Who was the only female competitor in the 1976 Montreal Olympics not to have been subjected to a sex test? | Montreal, 1976 Olympics
Montreal, 1976 Olympic Games
The 1976 Olympic Games were held in Montreal, Canada.
26 African countries boycotted the Games in response to New Zealand's inclusion. Earlier that year a New Zealand team had undertaken a three-month rugby tour of the racially segregated South Africa, but the IOC refused to ban them.
The Soviet Union lead the medal count, followed by the U.S. and East Germany. See the 1976 Medal Count .
Trivia
The original estimated cost of the Montreal Games had been $310 million, but labor problems, financial mismanagement, the addition of an extravagant stadium, and other expenses - plus increased security, clearly needed after the events of Munich - increased the price tag past $1.5 billion.
Canada barred the Republic of China (Taiwan) team from the country, then allowed them to enter if they agreed not to compete as "the Republic of China". The Taiwanese considered this unacceptable and withdraw.
Athletes
Five American boxers won gold medals, including three future world boxing champs: Ray Leonard, Michael Spinks, and Leon Spinks.
No gymnast had ever achieved a perfect score of 10, until 14 year old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored perfect 10's seven times at the 1976-Montreal games, also bagging three gold medals, plus a silver and a bronze on the way.
The only female competitor not to have to submit to a sex test at the 1976 Summer Olympics was Princess Anne of the UK, who was competing as a member of the UK equestrian team. As the daughter Queen Elizabeth II, such a test was seen as inappropriate.
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| Anne, Princess Royal |
Sororal relates to, or is like, which member of the family? | invitations-programs-etc
Royal Invitations, Ceremonial Programs, Orders of Service, Menus, Etc.
Letters from Ladies-In-Waiting-Secretaries-etc on behalf of member of the Royal Family
Names are crossed out (only on the website) to protect the privacy of sellers.
Cards will be in their original condition when purchased.
His Majesty King Edward VIII
Item 3094 A rare 77 year old letter from the private secretary to King Edward VIII regarding a message from a boy scout troop. Few items remain from the short reign of King Edward VIII who gave up the throne to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson. This was sent 5 months before the abdication in 1936. Written on Buckingham Palace stationery with original envelope. Sale $225.00 plus postage Order
The Private Secretary is commanded by The King to say how much His Majesty
appreciates the kind message from the Boy Scout of Troop #326. 31st July 1936
FRAMED INVITATION: WEDDING PRESENTS OF HRH THE DUKE OF YORK AND AND LADY ELIZABETH BOWES-LYON
Item 3095 - A 90 year old nicely framed (6" X 13") invitation to view the wedding gifts dated April 23, 1923. $1,800.00 plus postage Sale $395.00 Order
It reads Marriage of HRH The Duke of York with Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, To view some of the wedding presents, Buckingham Palace, Tuesday 24, April, 1923, 3 to 5:30 p.m.. Admit Mrs. Clarkson, Enter by Entree Entrance, Buckingham Gate, Cromer, Lord Chamberlain, This card to be shown at the entrance.
FRAMED INVITATION TO THE CORONATION OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II
SOLD - This is truly a piece of history. It is ticket number 008. 60 years old. It states: Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Westminster Abbey, Tuesday, 2nd June, 1953. Admit (no name) to the royal Box North, , Norfolk, Earl Marshal. It is framed under-non-glare glass. (9" X 11") The reverse shows the seating are for the Coronation. $295.00 SOLD
Prototype 1981 Wedding Invitation
SOLD 3097 -Here is the first sample of the invitation to the wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981. This sample came directly from the London printers who did the original wedding invitations. This sample was rejected for the one listed below. This invitation reads: ER, The Lord Chamberlain is commanded by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to notify --------- of the marriage of The Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer in St. Paul's Cathedral on Wednesday 29th July 1981 at 11:00 a.m. An answer is requested to the Lord chamberlain St. James Palace, L. W.I. As this invitation will not admit. Dress: Morning suit (or lounge suit) Serving Officers: Ceremonial day dress Ladies: Day dress with hat. This is the only sample invitation I have seen in the 27 years since the wedding took place. Nicely matted and framed. 9" X 11" $1,295.00 SOLD
FRAMED 13" X 17" MENU, PROGRAM AND BRITANNIA PHOTO
SOLD The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, were held in 1976 in Montreal, Quebec. The Games were opened by Queen Elizabeth II (as head of state of Canada) and the several members of the Canadian Royal Family attended the opening ceremonies. Princess Anne of the United Kingdom was the only female competitor not to have to submit to a sex test. She was a member of her country's equestrian team. Queen Elizabeth II was in Montreal from July 13th to July 25th. She was joined by the Prince of Wales, Prince's Andrew and Edward. The following is a menu for a dinner hosted for Her Majesty. It includes the menu and the evening's entertainment. The entertainment and menu cards are framed with a lovely print of Britannia. The Britannia was launched 16th April 1953 by HM Queen Elizabeth II. The Royal Yacht Britannia has helped to make The Queen the most traveled monarch the world has ever known. Not only has The Queen and her family traveled the world on Britannia, but the world - its statesmen and leaders - has visited them on board. From Sydney to Samoa, The Queen's guests have been entertained just as they would be at a royal palace on British soil. $595.00 plus postage Order
WEDDING INVITATION 1981-HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES WEDS LADY DIANA SPENCER
SOLD 3099 -Here is a 32 year old 1981 invitation to the GREATEST wedding of all time between HRH The Prince of Wales to The Lady Diana Spencer. This invitation was sent to Diana's two cousin's . The invitation although soiled can easily be cleaned with a children's white eraser. I purchased this invitation directly from Diana's cousin's husband, Peter Tufnell when he visited me in Los Angeles at the end of 1997. He was selling numerous items given to he and his wife (Joanna) by Charles and Diana. I bought a large quantity including this invitation. Lady Ruth Fermoy, Diana's grandmother had three children, Mary, Frances (Diana's mother) and Edmund. Mary had four children, Alexandra, Antonia, Joanna and Edward. This invitation was send to Joanna and Alexandra, Diana's first cousins. $1,995.00 plus postage Order
1953 Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Item 3100 60 year old thank you note from secretary to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Written on Buckingham Palace stationery with original envelope. $95.00 plus postage Order
The Private Secretary is commanded to convey The Queen's sincere thanks to Mr. & Mrs. R. Lowe
for their kind message on the occasion of her Majesty's Coronation.
25th June 1953
QUEEN MOTHER 100TH BIRTHDAY INVITATION
Item 3101. A 13 year old invitation to attend the 100th birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth , The Queen Mother, July 2000. $445.00 plus postage SALE $225.00 Order
Death of The duchess of Windsor
Item 3102 A 60 year old note from the secretary to Her Majesty upon the death of Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor.
Written on Buckingham Palace stationery with original envelope. $110.00 plus postage Order
15th May 1986
Dear Mr.Owen,
The Queen has commanded me to thank you for your kind message of sympathy on the death of the Duchess of Windsor
Yours sincerely,
(Robert Fellows is now Sir Robert Fellows married to Princess Diana's sister, Lady Jane Spencer)
HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
SOLD A 54 year old 8 page souvenir booklet of the visit of HRH Prince Philip to The Bahamas in 1959. A detailed day by day, hour by hour schedule of his visit. $149.00 plus postage Order
1979 GARDEN PARTY INVITATION, GREAT WINDSOR PARK-PRINCESS MARGARET
Item 3104. A 34 year old invitation to a garden party at The Chaplain's Lodge, Great Windsor Park July 1979. HRH The Princess Margaret will be in attendance.Comes with original envelope, instructions and a map. $150.00 plus postage SALE $95.00 Order
HRH Princess Margaret
Item 3105. A 64 year old letter from the private secretary to HRH Princess Margaret. Princess Margaret was 19 years old at the time.
Written on Buckingham Palace stationery with original envelope. $200.00 plus postage SALE $125.00 Order
May 23, 1949
Dear Sir,
AS Princess Margaret is in Italy, I as writing to acknowledge the arrival of the present you so kindly send to Her Royal Highness.
I will show Princess Margaret your scarf upon her return.
Your truly, Jennifer Bevan
Captain Gordon L. Canada C.M.P.
U.S.A. Sector Provost Marshal
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The 2011 film ‘The Hangover Part II’ is set in which country? | The Hangover Part II (2011) - IMDb
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The Hangover Part II ( 2011 )
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Two years after the bachelor party in Las Vegas, Phil, Stu, Alan, and Doug jet to Thailand for Stu's wedding. Stu's plan for a subdued pre-wedding brunch, however, goes seriously awry.
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When one of their own is kidnapped by an angry gangster, the Wolf Pack must track down Mr. Chow, who has escaped from prison and is on the lam.
Director: Todd Phillips
Three buddies wake up from a bachelor party in Las Vegas, with no memory of the previous night and the bachelor missing. They make their way around the city in order to find their friend before his wedding.
Director: Todd Phillips
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A pair of underachieving cops are sent back to a local high school to blend in and bring down a synthetic drug ring.
Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Stars: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube
Three friends conspire to murder their awful bosses when they realize they are standing in the way of their happiness.
Director: Seth Gordon
After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college.
Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Stars: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube
A veteran pot dealer creates a fake family as part of his plan to move a huge shipment of weed into the U.S. from Mexico.
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
High-strung father-to-be Peter Highman is forced to hitch a ride with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay on a road trip in order to make it to his child's birth on time.
Director: Todd Phillips
After they are forced to live next to a fraternity house, a couple with a newborn baby do whatever they can to take them down.
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Two co-dependent high school seniors are forced to deal with separation anxiety after their plan to stage a booze-soaked party goes awry.
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Goaded by his buddies, a nerdy guy who's never "done the deed" only finds the pressure mounting when he meets a single mother.
Director: Judd Apatow
Dale, Kurt and Nick decide to start their own business but things don't go as planned because of a slick investor, prompting the trio to pull off a harebrained and misguided kidnapping scheme.
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Storyline
Stu is getting married. Along with Doug, Phil, and his soon-to-be brother-in-law Teddy, he regretfully invites Alan to Thailand for the wedding. After a quiet night on the beach with a beer and toasting marshmallows by the camp fire, Stu, Alan and Phil wake up in a seedy apartment in Bangkok. Doug is back at the resort, but Teddy is missing, there's a monkey with a severed finger, Alan's head is shaved, Stu has a tattoo on his face, and they can't remember any of it. The wolf-pack retrace their steps through strip clubs, tattoo parlors and cocaine-dealing monkeys on the streets of Bangkok as they try and find Teddy before the wedding. Written by napierslogs
Bangkok Has Them Now See more »
Genres:
Comedy | Mystery
Motion Picture Rating ( MPAA )
Rated R for pervasive language, strong sexual content including graphic nudity, drug use and brief violent images | See all certifications »
Parents Guide:
26 May 2011 (USA) See more »
Also Known As:
¿Qué pasó ayer? Parte II See more »
Filming Locations:
£10,409,017 (UK) (27 May 2011)
Gross:
Bradley cooper and Andrew Howard previously starred in Limitless together. See more »
Goofs
When Alan reveals how he inadvertently drugged his friends again, there is absolutely no way that a combination of muscle relaxers (most commonly Baclofen, Soma, & Flexeril) and ADHD medication (most commonly Adderall, Dexedrin, Ritalin, & Vyvanse) would have an amnesiac effect. The muscle relaxers alone by have made them loopy and pass out early, but not cause amnesia. And the amphetamine-based ADHD medication would not only have prevented any amnesiac effect, but they would've been so hyper-stimulated that they would've been in control of their faculties. See more »
Quotes
Tracy : Where the hell are you?
Phil : /huh/ It happened again.
Tracy : Don't say that. Please.
Phil : No, this time we're really fucked up.
Tracy : Seriously, what's wrong with you three?
Phil : So much Trace, I don't even know where to begin."
Tracy : Oh God. How bad? Like no wedding bad?
See more »
Crazy Credits
One of the photos during the closing credits recreates the photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing Nguyen Van Lem. See more »
Connections
(United States) – See all my reviews
I felt used after paying to see this movie. Nearly everything about it was awful.
The first half hour was spent reminding us what happened in the first Hangover (as if we forgot) and running through the exact same jokes verbatim..
The next hour was tired, boring, predictable, and pathetic. I couldn't wait for it to end so I could do anything else.
Throughout the movie, the Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms characters were distorted into such idiotic caricatures of their roles from the original that it was insulting to watch.
Outside of a few funny moments and Ken Jeong's time on screen, this movie about as fun as getting a root canal.
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Which Japanese car manufacturer features a logo with three red diamonds arranged in the shape of a triangle? | The Hangover Part II - Trailer - YouTube
The Hangover Part II - Trailer
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In The Hangover Part II, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to exotic Thailand for Stu's wedding. After the unforgettable bachelor party in Las Vegas, Stu is taking no chances and has opted for a safe, subdued pre-wedding brunch. However, things don't always go as planned. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in Bangkok can't even be imagined.
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The Pushkin Prize, established in 1881, is awarded for the highest standard of literary excellence to authors from which country? | Pushkin Prize | Russian literary prize | Britannica.com
Russian literary prize
Büchner Prize
Pushkin Prize, Russian literary prize established in 1881 in honour of Aleksandr Pushkin , one of Russia’s greatest writers. The prize was awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences to Russian authors who achieved the highest standard of literary excellence, as exemplified by the prize’s namesake. Winners included Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin .
Learn More in these related articles:
Academy of Sciences (Russian organization)
highest scientific society and principal coordinating body for research in natural and social sciences, technology, and production in Russia. The organization was established in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 8 (January 28, Old Style), 1724. Membership in the academy is by election, and...
Anton Chekhov
January 29 [January 17, Old Style], 1860 Taganrog, Russia July 14/15 [July 1/2], 1904 Badenweiler, Germany Russian playwright and master of the modern short story. He was a literary artist of laconic precision who probed below the surface of life, laying bare the secret motives of his characters....
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‘Play the ball as it lies’ is one of the rules of which sport? | Mauricio Borrero Russia 2004 | Russia | Russian Empire
Mauricio Borrero Russia 2004
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Which make-up brand is advertised as ‘The make-up of make-up artists’? | Database of slogans | Makeup brand slogans | Slogan, makeup brand advertising
Database of slogans. Makeup brands.
Max Factor makeup brand
Advertising slogan: Max Factor. The make-up of make-up artists.
Maybelline makeup brand
Ad slogan: Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.
Bonne Bell brand, makeup for eyes, lips, face
Tagline: BonneBell. Beautiful. Colorful. You.
CoverGirl, line of products for face, lips, eyes and nails
Marketing slogan: Easy Breezy Beautiful CoverGirl.
Vital Radiance trademark
Ad slogan: Revitalizing beauty for your changing skin.
Barry M fashion cosmetics, UK
Motto: Barry M. The most colourful name in cosmetics.
Pupa brand, Italy, make up, make up sets
Advertising slogan: Pupa. Non Conventional Beauty.
| Max Factor |
How wide, in inches, is the width of a wicket in a game of cricket? | Database of slogans | Makeup brand slogans | Slogan, makeup brand advertising
Database of slogans. Makeup brands.
Max Factor makeup brand
Advertising slogan: Max Factor. The make-up of make-up artists.
Maybelline makeup brand
Ad slogan: Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.
Bonne Bell brand, makeup for eyes, lips, face
Tagline: BonneBell. Beautiful. Colorful. You.
CoverGirl, line of products for face, lips, eyes and nails
Marketing slogan: Easy Breezy Beautiful CoverGirl.
Vital Radiance trademark
Ad slogan: Revitalizing beauty for your changing skin.
Barry M fashion cosmetics, UK
Motto: Barry M. The most colourful name in cosmetics.
Pupa brand, Italy, make up, make up sets
Advertising slogan: Pupa. Non Conventional Beauty.
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Which martial art means ‘The way of the sword’? | FightingArts.com - Kendo: The Way of the Sword
Kendo: The Way of the Sword
By John J. Donohue, Ph.D.
Terminology
Definition
Kendo, the "way of the sword," is the most respected form of modern budo in Japan, and has perhaps the closest links to many aspects of the classical martial tradition. Although it may be broadly categorized as the ritualized, sportive version of Japanese fencing, kendo is neither a viable combat art nor is it a pure sport. The modern heir to the social, cultural, and philosophical heritage of the Japanese martial tradition, kendo is perceived by most experienced practitioners to be an essentially spiritual discipline (Draeger 1974:77).
Top
Kendo Principles & Concepts
Despite modern kendo's quasi-sport nature, it still retains a traditional Japanese outlook which links physical effort and spiritual development. For the Japanese, the discipline, consistency, and total commitment displayed in budo are keys to spiritual and moral development. All these qualities must be developed if one is to successfully tread the way of the sword.
What sets kendo and its practitioners apart from other arts, such as judo, aikido and karate-do is a certain cold determination, an almost religious sense of discipline, that conveyes the message that kendo is more a matter of mental and spiritual development than it is a system of physical technique.
All modern budo forms emphasize, to a greater or lesser extent, the development of a fighting spirit, the refinement of quasi-combat skills, and the cultivation of moral and spiritual maturity. In the kendo dojo, however, the trainee is placed in a true forge of the spirit, where mind and body are literally hammered into shape, where relentless training and endless effort are channelled into the re-creation of the individual along philosophical and cultural lines whose roots extend deep into Japan's past.
As a budo strongly shaped by the insights of the most profound of Japan's swordsmen, kendo today struggles to retain its moral and philosophical dimensions, all too aware of the erosion of these values among some judo practitioners. Since kendo is an art whose appeal lies mainly with martial artists in Japan or those of Japanese descent, it has been able to retain its classical orientation. The essence of kendo is still the improvement of character and the development of spiritual maturity through arduous training in its physical techniques. Like judo, kendo has an enthusiastic sport following. Unlike the gentle art, "kendo may be practiced, or one trains himself through kendo, but one must never just 'play' kendo" (Draeger 1974:105).
Passive, non-threatening stances and kneeling in such a way as to be always ready to draw a sword indicate the fact that, despite its ritualized nature, kendo is very much concerned with matters of life and death. The dojo is not just a training hall but a place where a certain awareness of the possibility of serious combat must constantly be maintained. This acute awareness of one's surroundings and the potential for danger is known as zanshin. Zanshin is the flip side of single-minded devotion to technique. A student of kendo must learn not to focus exclusively on his actions but rather to be attentive and receptive to all activities surrounding him.
This seems contradictory, but both the ideas of focusing entirely on technique and of maintaining zanshin have to do with the transcending of subject-object distinctions through martial training. Unity with the Void, to use Musashi's (the famous swordsman; See the History section) idiom, results in the execution of technique without any self-conscious awareness of doing so. By the same token, proper zanshin is indicative of the fact that the swordsman experiences no discontinuity between his surroundings and himself.
The spiritual aspect of kendo was initially impressed on me during my first visit to the dojo. The taiko (a large drum) boomed, calling the class to order. Fifty kendoka (kendo students) silently knelt in a long line which stretched down the length of the dojo. Only the dry rasp of calloused soles along the wood floor, the swish of hakama (devided pants) could be heard.
Quietly, zarei (a bow from a kneeling position) was performed. Muted commands rang out for suburi (practice of basic sword strokes). The basic exercises were performed efficiently, quietly. A type of reserve was exhibited at all times.
This feeling of reserve, of distance, was heightened when the class donned their armor. The uniform look of the bogu (protective armor) served to remove any sense of individual identity among the trainees. The men, or headpiece, obscured the facial expressions of the kendoka. Intent could not be easily read in the eyes. The effect was one of timelessness. As they donned their equipment, the kendoka also put on the tradition of kendo; its form, its purpose. They surrendered individuality and became one with the art of the sword.
The effect was an eerie one, but it in no way prepared me for what was to come. In the silence of that hall, the sensei signalled with the hollow tap of two blocks of wood that free practice was to begin. Before that sound had faded, each kendoka had joined in furious combat with an opponent. What was so striking, however, was not merely the fury with which these ostensibly mock combats were engaged in but the noise which accompanied these actions.
The clatter of shinai (practice sword made of bamboo strips) striking armor, in itself overwhelming, was overcome by the force of the cries emanating from the combatants. These kiai, a type of cry common to many martial art forms, had an incredible emotional impact. I had always understood kiai to be a symbolic sound used to express the martial artist's single-minded purpose, the unity of spirit and technique.
To hear the kiai in a kendo training hall, however, was to experience kiai as the unity of body and spirit. It was not merely a symbolic expression of that condition, it was a palpable expression of it. I was familiar with the contention of some Zen masters that the shout of a master could in some cases actually propel a student into satori (enlightenment). I had even had occasion to attend a lecture by a Zen monk where such a shout was demonstrated. The kiai of the kendoka that day had an equally striking impact on me which, as an analytical observer of budo, I was somewhat at a loss to explain.
There is an old adage used (and perhaps over-used) in the martial arts, to the effect that when you first see a mountain, it is just a mountain. Later, after training, you realize that the mountain is not just a mountain; it is something more. Finally, when you reach an enlightened state, you realize once more that the mountain is just a mountain. This saying hints at the fact that the Zen "beginner's mind" is often much closer to the proper perception of reality than is the mind of one who is actively seeking enlightenment. It also warns that an over-concern with the search itself often hinders perception.
I like to think that what I observed and felt that first day in the kendo dojo was, in some ways, an accurate insight into the nature of kendo. Through actual training, I would later experience part of the process of spiritual forging that could create such powerful kiai.
That initial experience with kendo, combined with and enriched by subsequent participation and observation, led me to a fuller understanding of the role of kendo in the lives of its adherents. The practice of kendo is an invitation to join in the experience of generations of Japanese swordsmen; to partake in a rich cultural heritage; to become part of a mental and physical discipline, a world outlook, a personal code of behavior.
The enduring image I have of kendo is not the flash of technique or the sweat of effort. Instead, I hear the boom of the drum; see the silent row of swordsmen bow; and with the dull summons of wood blocks, join together in a mysterious struggle whose real goal is the forging of the spirit.
Top
Kendo Techniques & Training Methods
For the beginning student of kendo, early training emphasizes the development of fundamentals. Unlike the judo dojo, where theory and form are often subsumed in the interest of efficacy, the development of a rigorously proper technique is stressed by kendo sensei (teacher). After being shown the characteristic kendo stance, the right foot forward, left foot with heel slightly raised; the method of movement, the shuffle step which propels the trainee forward without altering the stance and the proper two-handed grip and method of swinging the shinai (practice sword made of flexible bamboo strips), I was expected to participate fully in the rapid and exhausting pace of training.
Basic kendo training consists of the extremely fatiguing repetition of basic strokes with the mock sword while stationary and while advancing and retreating. This is known as suburi. As soon as one of the junior instructors showed me the basic form, I was given the command to perform one hundred and fifty suburi. Although the shinai is much lighter than a katana (sword), during kendo practice a student executes strikes literally thousands of times. The activity places a certain amount of strain on the muscles of the wrist, forearms and shoulders. By the time my first two-hour practice session was over, the physical and mental exertion of swinging the shinai properly left me exhausted.
The sliding action of the feet along the wooden floor can also raise blisters on the soles, and the leather-covered handle of the shinai often raises companion blisters on your red and sweaty hands. A noted kenshi's statement says that if you are enjoying kendo practice you are not doing it correctly.
In a broadly descriptive way, and cognizant of qualifications made in the following historical discussion, kendo may be characterized as the modern, ritualized version of Japanese swordsmanship.
Reflecting its highly ritualized nature, contest (jiyu-renshu, or free fighting) is of a limited type. There are consequently only eight striking targets in modern kendo: the center, right-, or left-hand side of the head (men, migi-men, or hidari-men respectively); the wrist of either hand (kote or hidari-kote), (Note 1) the left or right side of the torso protector (hidari-do or migi-do), and a thrust to the throat (tsuki). As the kendoka strikes one of these targets, he characteristically calls out its name. This kiai, or shout, is intended to symbolize and encourage the unification of intent, technique, and spirit into a potentially devastating strike (Sasamori and Warner 1964:77).
Practice in kendo (Note 2) consists of two types: basic and free practice. Basic practice consists of the repetition of basic patterns of footwork and of striking with the shinai. Kirikaeshi, or the repetition of strokes, is considered a fundamentally important aspect of kendo training, and reflects the enduring influence of swordsmen like Ittosai and Tesshu (See the History section).
For the beginning kendoka, kirikaeshi is one of the major physical and mental hurdles to be surmounted on the path to proficiency in the art. The monotonous practice of suburi and kirikaeshi were the dominant themes of early apprenticeship in the way of the sword. Although very tiring, such activity is also very boring and it is sometimes extremely difficult to stay focused on the task at hand.
In retrospect, what initially appeared to be a mindless, unpleasant chore is a fundamental lesson in the nature of kendo. As Tesshu maintained, kendo is more a thing of the mind than it is a thing of the sword. Instructors, who seem to passively observe a student's progress, are actually setting the student's feet along a path of self-discipline. It is not really difficult to swing a shinai. What is difficult is to concentrate fully on that subject, time after time, until external considerations fade from the mind. Kendo sensei understand that it is futile to attempt to show a student further physical kendo techniques until he or she can exhibit a mind and spirit totally focused on the task at hand.
What underscores the importance of kendo is the investment of time. Many kendoka at both my former dojos were mature adults. They had been training for a number of years and were not considering stopping in the near future. It was widely recognized that to even begin to attain any level of competence in the art, regular and dedicated training would have to be pursued for some three or four years. At the end of this time, the trainee has some grasp of merely the physical techniques of kendo. As such, the techniques themselves are of an abstract type. They have no practical utility in terms of self-defense. The implications of such a level of devotion to a budo which has no immediate, practical utility certainly points to an appreciation of the fuller, spiritual implications of the way of the sword.
As an individual struggling to learn something about the essence of the kendo, I remained oblivious to its deeper spiritual meaning for some time. For me, kendo was an essentially physical art and the extreme depth of kendo, and the level of commitment required to even begin to appreciate this art, was only brought home to me when I was finally permitted to engage in mock combat wearing full armor. At more advanced levels practice of this type, often designated "free practice," is theoretically identical to randori in judo. In Kataoka Sensei's dojo (The New York Kendo Club), I obtained some experience in such practice, in which the fundamentals of kendo are put to use in extremely fast-paced action. The emphasis in modern kendo on free practice and contest has led to the popularization of sport kendo in Japan, in which matches are decided when either one of two competitors scores two points by cleanly striking any of the eight legal targets. (Note 3)
The competition between two kendoka is tempered by the ability to combine and utilize basic skills such as the striking of all eight target areas, singly or in combination. In addition, footwork and balance must be mastered to enable the kendoka to enter and escape from striking range. Thus, the development of an awareness of what is known as ma-ai (combatative engagement distance), that point at which the opponent is close enough to be struck (or strike you) with the point of the shinai, is the mark of an able kendoka.
At first blush, free practice struck me as basically simple in theory. The kendoka merely united stance, movement, and technique in such a way as to successfully strike the opponent. Initially, the beginner beats only the air with his shinai, refining his form and gaining confidence. After an appropriate interval of training, however, the pupil is encouraged to strike a knocking dummy and then live opponents. My first attempt at controlled sparring with an opponent showed me how wrong my initial understanding of free practice was. After striking only the air, hitting a solid target is a new revelation. My first attempts at a men (head/face protector) strike revealed a fundamental error in my grip and execution which had not been made apparent before the introduction of a living target. Instead of a solid, concentrated strike, the kissaki, or point of my shinai, bounced off my partner's men. This underlined the lack of focus in my kendo technique.
Once an opponent begins to move and then to dodge your blows, the problems of stance and ma-ai (movement, distance) assume major proportions. It becomes an increasingly difficult proposition to execute correct technique. With an accomplished opponent, the practice of feints, deflections with the shinai (oji-waza), beating your shinai aside (uchi-otoshi waza), closing with you and immobilizing your shinai at the hand guard (tsuba-zerai) and a host of other techniques, reveals the infinite complexity of kendo. Kataoka Sensei at the New York Kendo Club was fond of demonstrating the limitless complexity of kendo to his students. After he had observed practice for some time, commenting on and correcting an individual student's technique, he would don his bogu (armor) and spar with students, bringing home in a dynamic, forceful (and often terrifying) manner gaps in the student's defenses. As my training progressed, I became more and more aware of the level of physical difficulty inherent in kendo training. In doing so, I fell prey to one of the fundamental errors of beginning kendoka: an inordinate concentration on the techniques themselves. I was thus studying kendo at the jutsu (technique) level. In many ways, the art remained a series of techniques to be learned and mastered. This perception of the way of the sword, I eventually came to understand, is an error.
The experience of training and reflection on my experience in the dojo eventually made it clear that kendo has absolutely nothing to do with the sword and the physical skills necessary to wield it properly. All physical technique is merely a means to an end, a prelude to a higher purpose. This purpose is seishin tanren, spiritual forging.
The ofttimes punishing physical ordeal of kendo training is designed not to focus the attention on the body but to help the trainee learn to transcend bodily cares and the duality of perception that inhibits performance. Kataoka Sensei would often chide me that I thought too much about the techniques I was to execute. My technique "stopped" at various points--an expression used by the famous swordmasters Takuan and Yagyu Munenori (see the History section) to describe the absence of mind-body integration in a swordsman. For proper execution of kendo techniques, the student must not concentrate either on physical mechanics or theory as isolated elements. They must be united, blended together by the spirit in the heat of training into a living whole.
The hundreds of thousands of repetitions of techniques are used to numb the mind, and, in a sense, to free it from self-absorption. Despite its heavy competitive emphasis, even thoughts of winning and losing are ultimately unimportant in kendo. An All-Japan champion who visited the dojo was asked by one of the senior students to explain what training techniques were responsible for his success. He stated that he never thought about winning or losing; he only concentrated on making his kendo beautiful. Since the conversation was being conducted half in English and half through an interpreter, the questioner thought an error had been made and pressed the champion further. The master kendoka was adamant in his reply: only by concentrating on its beauty can the student of kendo achieve greatness. This is a significant point, especially since it was expressed by an individual whose competitive involvement in kendo is great.
Notes:
1. The hidari-kote can only be struck when the opponent raises his shinai above the shoulder level. The right kote can be struck at will.
2. Keiko, or practice, originally had the meaning of meditating and studying the exceptional things of old (Sasamori and Warner 1964:133). Its frequent use in kendo underscores the fact that one trains, never plays, kendo.
3. For a discussion of general rules and organization of sport kendo, see Arlott (1975:568-574).
Top
Kendo Etiquette & Customs
Another basic tenet of proper kendo practice is the careful attention paid to etiquette within the confines of the dojo. Actions such as standing, walking, kneeling, and holding the shinai (even while not engaged in practice) are regulated by a host of rules.
When I was a new student and somewhat familiar with the basic factors of proper behavior within a dojo, I managed to enter the training hall and bow to the kamiza (a place of honor, often the front wall of a dojo were there is a Shinto alter, scroll or picture of a teacher or founder) without too much trouble. I was immediately informed by one of sensei's assistants, however, that I was to hold my shinai by the shaft and not the handle, with the tip pointing forward and down to the floor. This was, I subsequently learned, a passive, non-threatening posture suitable for entering the dojo. Since the shinai, symbolically representing a real sword, is normally held in the left hand at the hip (in the same position as a katana would be if worn in the sash), holding the shinai by the shaft in the right hand is indicative of non-hostile intentions.
In the same way, I quickly discovered that my method of kneeling and rising again was incorrect. A lifetime's training in the Catholic Church had taught me that you genuflected on your right knee; the logical extension of that practice was that, when kneeling, you first sunk to the right knee, and then the left. Without thinking, I reverted to this technique as the entire kendo class sank down to perform zarei, the seated bow, at the beginning of practice. As I began to stand up after bowing, one of sensei's assistants hissed that I should rise off my right knee first.
I was somewhat puzzled as to what significance this could possibly have in kendo training. Some reflection soon helped me to understand that, when you rise from the seiza position, if you leave your right knee on the floor and come off your left knee first, it is extremely awkward to draw your sword, which is held at your left side. By sinking into seiza left knee first, and by rising by lifting your right knee first, you are always in a position to quickly draw your sword.
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Kendo Practice Clothing/Uniforms
Hearkening back to its origins with the feudal warriors of Japan, kendoka today wear the most ritualistic and symbolic of practice uniforms, eschewing the modern jacket and pants of the judogi, instead wearing the hakama (a pleated, divided skirt) and a traditional top known as the keikogi. The color of the practice uniform for kendo is usually dark blue or black, although high-ranking kendoka may also choose to wear an all white outfit (Sasamori and Warner 1964:71). Junior kendoka traditionally wear a dark hakama and a white top with black stitching. At both kendo dojo I studied in, most students wore dark blue or black uniforms.
As an art whose primary aim is training, not combat, the mock sword known as the shinai is the primary training implement in kendo. Essentially a tube composed of bamboo strips bound with leather ties and covered with a leather handle, the shinai enables kendoka to strike their opponents without fear of causing serious injury. To further guarantee safety and to encourage practitioners to strike fully, forcefully, and without reservation, a type of body armor, developed during the same period as the shinai, is worn. Adopted from the lightweight armor worn by bushi in the field, kendo armor is similar in concept but much less elaborate.
Today, the kendoka is protected by protective equipment known as bogu. The men is an iron facemask, similar in appearance and concept to a baseball catcher's mask. The kote are mitts made of leather which are used to protect the hands and wrists. The do, a chest protector, is made of strips of bamboo covered with lacquered leather, and the tare is a hip protector made of thick cotton material.
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Kendo Ranking
Modern kendo utilizes the kyu/dan ranking system initiated by Kano Jigoro. Kendoka advance from the 6th through the 1st kyu, then up through ascending dan levels, to 10th dan. As in judo, it is generally believed that extreme competitive and physical skill is enough to advance a kendoka up through the 5th dan. After that point, however, spiritual development, contribution to the art, as well as some form of advanced research on the subject are all required for further advancement (Sasamori and Warner 1964:60).
Special titles are also given advanced kendoka to distinguish them from lower dan grades. Thus, fourth through sixth dan are called renshi (trainers), seventh and eighth dan are called kyoshi (instructors), and those few rare individuals holding dan grades above this are termed hanshi, or masters (Ratti and Westbrook 1973:287).
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Kendo Training Facilities
The boom of the taiko, the great drum of the dojo, often calls you to practice in the kendo training hall. It is an austere place, a hard place. Its high ceiling isolates the aspiring kendoka; the clean, cold, simple lines of a traditional Japanese dojo offer no clutter, no distraction--no place to hide. The polished wood floor mirrors movement and effort. No matter how crowded the practice floor, you remain alone with the art of the sword.
In my experience as a participant-observer in the various martial ways, no other dojo felt as strange, as foreign in the literal sense, as the training halls of kendo. The atmosphere of strangeness was more a function of attitude and spirit than it was one of organization or action. Structurally and symbolically the surroundings and activities, the environment and form of kendo were familiar ones, since kendo is perhaps the most orthodox of shin budo.
I received fundamental training in kendo at the Ken Zen Dojo. Despite the stress placed on this early training and the development of basics, the import of such valuable lessons was never verbalized in the training hall. The trainee was left to reflect on his training and the guidance of his seniors, and come to some conclusion concerning how these physical and implied conceptual messages fit in with the way of the sword. In the kendo dojo of Kan Sensei, more than any other budo dojo I studied in, the form of traditional Japanese training was strictly adhered to.
Everything about this dojo proclaimed its very classical roots. When I stepped through the sliding door to the dojo floor, I could as well have stepped into a dojo in Japan. A spacious rectangular room some thirty by one hundred feet, the training hall itself was modeled after an existing hall in Japan and followed the clean lines of classical Japanese architecture. The floors were of highly polished, natural wood. The walls were wood-panelled for half their height. The windows and doors were shoji--composed of rice-paper and wood laths that let a subdued light in from the street. The ceiling was a high one, to allow for the swinging of the three-and-a-half foot shinai overhead.
At the head of the dojo hung a large scroll of calligraphy. To one side stood the taiko, the drum of the dojo, which was beaten to signal the beginning and end of training sessions. To the other side of the kamiza (seat of honor, or deity seat, often a wall space with a Shinto shrine, calligraphy and photo of a teacher or founder) was a weapons rack, which held staffs, bokken, and naginata (a type of halberd). The entire effect of the room was of a cavernous, remote hall which overwhelmed you by the mere absence of inconsequential adornment. It was, you sensed, a place devoted to very serious training.
The bearing of Kan Sensei, the head instructor at the Ken Zen Dojo, reflected this severe fixity of purpose. A reflective, undemonstrative elderly man, Kan Sensei supervised training from the head of the dojo, giving few verbal instructions, content to let the experience of training serve to forge the kendoka under his tutelage. Indeed, even commands to line up and begin various types of practice were given not by Kan Sensei, but by one of his junior instructors. The drum called and dismissed us. During free fighting, Sensei began and ended contest periods by clapping two blocks of wood together.
The very Japanese atmosphere was reinforced by the make-up of the student body here. Unlike other dojo, many students were either Japanese or Japanese-Americans. This was especially true among the children who studied with Kan Sensei.
For the young kendoka, training was not so much something which was done because of their own interest or enthusiasm but was rather due to the encouragement of their parents. The Ken-Zen Dojo was a cultural center that sponsored kendo and iaido training, judo and karate as well as calligraphy and Japanese dance lessons. The young trainees, like their adult counterparts, were there to experience Japanese culture. Indeed, some of these children told me that, in addition to kendo training, they were also required to study the Japanese language. For these young Japanese-Americans, Saturdays were devoted to a crash course in traditional Japanese skills, the content of which was dictated by their parents. Saturday afternoon training sessions at the kendo hall took on some of the flavor of a family gathering, with a large audience of parents and grandparents closely monitoring their offspring's performance from the visitor's section of the dojo.
The New York Kendo Club was a training hall with a slightly different emphasis and personality. Kataoka Sensei was a younger man in his thirties, who had a successful competitive career in kendo while still in his twenties and who had raced through the dan grades to his current rank of sixth dan in record time. His dojo, while it did not lack the same serious attitude, placed considerably more emphasis on kendo as a competitive sport. The teaching methods of Kataoka Sensei included much more verbal explanation, which was combined with the traditional pattern of learning by imitation of the instructors.
Kataoka Sensei's dojo was not as elaborate as that of Kan Sensei. It was perhaps symbolic of the dual physical and spiritual nature of kendo, however, that it was located in the fifth floor gymnasium of a Manhattan church. The polished wooden floor was the same as in Kan Sensei's dojo. Finely brushed calligraphy hung on the wall and served to demarcate the kamiza. The equipment of kendo filled the nooks and crannies: men, do tare, kote, shinai in various stages of disrepair, bokken. Notices of upcoming tournaments were taped to the walls. In some ways, it was a shabbier dojo but one which was transformed with the onset of practice into a fierce arena where body and spirit were tested.
The ethnic mix at the New York Kendo Club was a bit more varied, although Japanese members still constituted a large segment of the student body. This was especially true among the junior kendo students, who were overwhelming Japanese. Once again, they seemed to be there at the insistence of their parents, many of whom came to observe training.
The adult kendoka at both dojo were, of course, there of their own volition. For them, kendo was a voluntary and emotionally rewarding experience. Although not as forthcoming verbally as the young students, the behavior and attitude of the adults indicated the important place kendo seemed to play in their lives.
The motivation of adult students was much more personal and intense. Many of these adult students were beyond the age where they would be attending school. They were, therefore, working full time and then attending kendo class in the evenings and on weekends, many of them four or more times weekly. They also paid a monthly fee for the privilege of training under the tutelage of respected kendo sensei and purchased the relatively expensive equipment necessary to do so. The expenses involved are not in themselves prohibitive. They do indicate, however, the more than casual interest of kendoka in pursuing this avocation. The level of financial commitment is much greater in an art like kendo than it is in judo.
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Kendo Styles
At base,, kendo is a syncretic art: sensei from various traditions came together to create a homogenized system. We see this most clearly in the Kendo no kata, which were selected and adapted from various kenjutsu ryu. There are stylistic variations from dojo to dojo today, but they are pretty much kept to a minimum due to the competition aspect of kendo, where a system of uniform rules and
expectations create conformity. It's analogous to the situation in Kodokan Judo. But there is some variation. There are some players who practice using two shinai, so they use the Nito style usually associated with Musashi (see the History section), but this designation as used by most kendoists today doesn't mean that the stylist has studied a unified system called Nito, just that they have adopted some of the techniques of using two shinai. If a sensei has studied some of the more traditional sword arts (Yagyu or Itto Ryu, for instance, this could bleed into the way they approach kendo.
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Kendo History
Since kendo is based on the use of the Japanese sword, it could not have begun to develop until the Nara Period (710-794). The earliest swords in Japan were of the Chinese variety, and the Japanese words for sword--ken and to--have their semantic roots in the Chinese terms ch'ien and tao (Ratti and Westbrook 1973:258). The oldest swords in Japan date from the second century B.C., but it was not until the eighth century A.D. that the distinctive prototype of the single-edged, curved Japanese sword known as the katana emerged (Draeger and Smith 1989:99).
Even with the emergence of the Japanese sword, no organized, defined style or form of swordsmanship developed immediately (Sasamori and Warner 1964:26). Techniques for the use of the sword developed along an ad hoc basis for some 600 years, and only began to be systematized during the Muromachi Period (1392-1573). Up to this point, the art of the sword was developed primarily only in its technical aspects in terms of the forging of sword blades. Great strides in the swordsmith's art were especially notable during the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), when swordsmiths benefited from the patronage of the Imperial House.
The period following the Onin War (1467-1477) witnessed both technical systemization and ideological elaboration concerning the arts of the sword. By the Tokugawa Period hundreds of martial arts styles had developed, although in a sense they can all be seen as developing from a few main traditions.
The watershed in Japanese history for the art of the sword is marked by the life of Izasa Choisai Ienao (1387-1488), the founder of the Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu of swordsmanship. A gifted swordsman and an organizational genius, Choisai founded his ryu after a period of fasting, meditation and training that lasted one thousand days (Reid and Croucher 1983:120). His style of kenjutsu was a precise, rigorous system which regulated all phases of swordplay, from physical preparation and technique to mental attitude (Ratti and Westbrook 1973:272). The oldest ryu of which we have historical documentation, Choisai's system set the style for subsequent schools of swordsmanship. Considering the turbulent nature of Japan's history during this time, which continued until the close of the sixteenth century and was marked by widespread war and civil unrest, there was ample opportunity and motivation for the evolution of other ryu of swordsmanship (Warner and Draeger 1984:34).
The structure of these schools or styles of swordsmanship was, of course, affected by the social and political organization of the time. Ryu, the Japanese term perhaps best glossed as martial traditions, were corporate entities perpetuated by ties of real or fictive kinship. Masters of ryu assumed their position based on lineal or collateral descent and were called shosei, although gifted students could rise to headship even though not related by kin ties, and were termed shodai (Draeger 1973b:21).
Since outsiders could be admitted to a ryu, various customs arose that served to bind students to their school. Initiates were required to take a blood oath of loyalty, or keppan, and swear not to divulge the secret techniques of the ryu to non-members. Initiates were also required to undergo a probationary period, known as te hodoki--"untying of hands"--during which they were required to perform menial tasks for the master and could not participate in actual training. This period gave the head of the ryu time to scrutinize and judge the initiate's character and test his devotion (Warner and Draeger 1984:43).
The establishment of ryu was frequently attributed to divine guidance, a flash of inspiration, bestowed on the founder. Due to this element of supernatural intervention, ryu were often associated with Shinto shrines and were considered to be protected by the power inherent in these locations (Draeger 1973b:21). The belief that these ryu were inspired in the theological sense led to the tradition of the transmission of the ryu's secrets from master to disciple, both directly and through the medium of makimono, or hand scrolls, which cryptically recorded the strategy, techniques, and insights of the ryu and were generally understandable only by initiates (Note 1) (Warner and Draeger 1984:43).
The Japanese refinement and propagation of sword arts would be no more noteworthy than that of European fencing masters were it not for the concomitant development of a philosophical and spiritual system that was considered to be an integral part of the swordsman's art. The growth of a philosophical rationalization for kenjutsu is most notable beginning in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when a number of skilled and profound kenshi (swordsmen) developed concepts that were to decisively affect the evolution of modern kendo.
Kagehisa Ittosai Ito, a shadowy figure from an historical viewpoint, since even his place and year of birth is unknown, nonetheless dominates the development of modern swordsmanship. A swordsman unique in history, he was not only an impeccable technician but also a deeply philosophical thinker. Heavily influenced by Buddhism and its interpretation of the physical world, Ittosai perceived an essential unity in sword techniques that was a reflection of the cosmic order. As all creatures are deductible to one origin, he believed, so all sword techniques come from one single technique, that of kiriotoshi. For Ittosai, this meant that the swordsman had but to train in the basics of kenjutsu while pondering the true nature of reality. His conviction in the validity of his philosophy--one Mind, one Sword, one technique--was reflected in his adoption of the name Ittosai, literally "One Sword Man." His stress on both basic techniques and philosophical introspection was perpetuated in the Itto Ryu he founded in the sixteenth century and was to have a significant impact on modern kendo (Sasamori and Warner 1964:45).
Kamiizumi Nobutsuna (b.1508) was trained in the tradition of the Kage (Shadow) Ryu, but made a number of changes which prompted him to change his system's name to Shin-Kage (New Shadow). His emphasis on the mind and mental control in the practice of swordsmanship, his approach to swordsmanship deeply affected one of his pupils, Yagyu Mitsuyoshi. Mitsuyoshi's son, Yagyu Munenori (1571-1646) was one in a line of capable swordsmen in this family who had a strong impact on the development of the theory and practice of kenjutsu. While stylistically guided by the precepts of Shin-Kage, Munenori was strongly influenced by the views of the Zen priest Takuan (1573-1645). It was to this Yagyu swordsman that Takuan wrote his famous philosophical treatise, the Fudo Shinmyo Roku (Lowry 1985:126).
Under Takuan's guidance, Munenori came to believe that righteousness is an essential part of the martial arts. Without this moral dimension, swordsmanship is merely the act of killing and avoiding being killed. Demonstrating the impact of Zen on his outlook, Munenori believed that swordsmen must aspire to a plane beyond life and death, must cast off petty distractions if they are to achieve real mastery.
Reflecting the fact that the Yagyu were official fencing instructors for the Tokugawa shogunate and so intimately involved in the social and political order of the day, Munenori also was convinced that kenjutsu could and should make a positive contribution to society. This concept had of course been implicit in kenjutsu, since it was the bushi as a class who developed the art. Munenori was convinced, however, that the proper study of swordsmanship led to a spiritual insight and moral maturity that could not fail to have a beneficial impact on society.
Munenori became increasingly convinced that his style of kenjutsu had nothing at all to do with swordsmanship, and everything to do with the spirit. He even remarked that if his style of swordplay had not already been titled the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu by his father, he would call it the Muto, or No-Sword, Ryu, to underscore this fact. Thus, "servants who attended to Munenori in his old age frequently caught sight of him in his garden, absolutely motionless, sword in hand, occupied not with the physical mechanics of posture and movement but with the abstruse precepts of Takuan's Zen that elevated the bujutsu from technique to a method of spiritual contemplation" (Lowry 1985:150). (Note 2)
Munenori wrote the Heiho Kadensho, or Chronicles of Strategy, to record his insights for future swordsmen. Like all makimono of the various ryu, this work is difficult to understand, and filled with obscure references which (it is to be assumed) are comprehensible only to initiates of the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu. Munenori's most enduring contribution to the practice of the Japanese sword arts is his stress on Zen concepts as a route to mastery and his insistence that true swordsmanship is a moral art. "Katsujinken Satsujinken" is a phrase which was written down and hung on the dojo of the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu and is also found on teaching licenses given to adepts. Literally "the sword that gives life, the sword that takes life," this motto of the Yagyu Ryu is an enduring reminder of the nature of Munenori's quest for perfection in the way of the sword.
The idea of swordsmanship as possessing a moral dimension was developed among other contemporaries of Yagyu Munenori. Odagiri Sekiei, founder of the Muji-Shin-Jen Ryu of swordsmanship, also perceived kenjutsu not as an art of killing but of disciplining the self as a moral being (Draeger and Smith 1989:101). His "Sword of No-Abiding Mind" style exhibited the strong influence of Zen as well as the distinctive colorings of Confucian and Shinto thought. For Odagiri, the student of the sword must act in accord with Heavenly Reason and closely observe the Law of Nature. Acting in accord with these principles would facilitate a mastery of the sword so complete that it would be unnecessary for the swordsman to slay his opponent (Suzuki 1959:173). (Note 3)
Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645) is perhaps the most renowned swordsman of this time period, and is familiar today as the author of the Go Rin No Sho, or Book of Five Rings. Originally penned as a treatise on swordsmanship, it has become popular in the United States because it was erroneously considered to be as a primer on Japanese business strategy (see Hurst 1982).
Musashi, the founder of the Niten Ichi Ryu, was a swordsman more interested in the impact mental training had on technique than he was in spiritual development. In this sense, he was a less well rounded kenshi than Munenori or Ittosai. (Note 4) He was, nonetheless, influenced by the Zen concept of no-mind. Musashi expressed this concept with the term Void and identified true attainment of the way of swordsmanship with the attainment of Void. In this state, the swordsman becomes a stable, focused, imperturbable entity; in Musashi's words, he attains the "body of a rock" (V. Harris 1974:82) in which he is able to go beyond merely seeing the opponent and can perceive his strengths and weaknesses and even anticipate his actions. The concept of the distinction between perception and sight in swordplay is one that has endured to this day.
One of the most interesting and influential of Japan's swordsmen was Yamaoka Tesshu (1836-1888), whose life and career spanned the interval during which Japan entered the modern world and also the period in which swordsmanship ceased to be a primarily functional military art and evolved into a true do form.
Tesshu was an accomplished calligrapher, a serious student of Zen, and an active public servant who served in both the Tokugawa bakufu and the government of the Emperor Meiji. Tesshu's study of the martial arts began early in his life. In addition to swordsmanship, he also studied sojutsu (the art of the spear) but was renowned primarily for his skill with the sword. He stood over six feet tall and was immensely strong. Tesshu's swordplay was so enthusiastic that he was nicknamed "Demon Tetsu," (Note 5) and several dojo in which he trained prohibited him from striking the wrists of opponents (a traditional target) for fear of broken arms (Stevens 1984b:15).
Tesshu studied in the Shinkage Ryu, Ono-ha Itto Ryu and Nakanishi-ha Itto Ryu, becoming one of the foremost swordsmen of the era. What marked Tesshu as a great swordsman, however, was not his physical training, but the emphasis he placed on the disciplining of the mind and spirit. When he was twenty eight years old, Tesshu was decisively defeated by Asari Gimei, master swordsman of the Nakanishi-ha Itto Ryu, a man half Tesshu's size and some twelve years his senior. So powerful a kenshi was Asari that Tesshu found all mental composure fleeing the moment he crossed swords with the master.
The solution to Tesshu's personal dilemma in swordsmanship turned out to be not merely more training under Asari's tutelage but also the rigorous pursuit of enlightenment through the study of Zen. After seventeen years in both Asari's and a Zen dojo, at age forty five, Tesshu experienced enlightenment: "For years I forged my spirit through the study of swordsmanship, confronting every challenge steadfastly. The walls surrounding me suddenly crumbled; like pure dew reflecting the world in crystal clarity, total Awakening has now come" (Stevens 1984b:18). With Tesshu's spiritual awakening, Asari designated him headmaster of his ryu. It is said Asari never picked up a sword again.
Tesshu was convinced, by reason of his very personal experience, that training in the way of the sword was an intensely spiritual thing. In his dojo, known as the Shumpukan, Tesshu initiated an onerous course of study calculated to exhaust the swordsman physically, and to develop an extremely clear, focused mind. So strongly did Tesshu believe that true swordsmanship was a thing of the mind and not of the sword, that he established his own ryu, the Itto Shoden Muto Ryu, "The No-Sword System of the Correct Transmission of Ito Ittosai."
At his dojo, there was little or no emphasis on explanation or analysis of technique. Novice swordsmen devoted their time to uchikomi (attack training) for at least three years, a fatiguing and extremely boring apprenticeship. Tesshu thought that such training served to both strengthen the body and focus the mind, imprinting the fundamental techniques on the minds of beginners. Critics of Tesshu's system saw little merit in what they termed "wood chopping" (Stevens 1984b:22).
Perhaps the most dramatic training technique Tesshu instituted was that of seigan (or vow) training. The first type of seigan was one in which the student completed one thousand days of successive training, followed by contests in which the trainee was required to stand and continuously face two hundred opponents. If this seigan was successfully completed, the student was eligible, after further training, to undergo a three day, six hundred match seigan. The next and highest level was that of the seven day, fourteen hundred match seigan (Stevens 1984b:24-25). (Note 6)
The motivation behind such a brutal training method was to truly consume all of a trainee's physical stamina, of wearing down his body and exhausting his technique, until the only thing that compels him to raise his training sword for yet another in a seemingly endless series of matches is the power of the spirit. In Tesshu's words, swordsmanship, and particularly seigan, "should lead to the heart of things, where one can directly confront life and death" (Stevens 1984b:25).
Today, there are perhaps only fifteen active swordsmen of the Muto Ryu. The present headmaster, Dr. Murakami Yasumasa, thinks its methods are too severe, its principle too deeply philosophical for widespread popularity (Stevens 1984b:41). While we may agree that Tesshu's way is one which demands high levels of devotion and discipline, and so has declined in popularity, we must also note that many elements traditionally found in the Muto Ryu have served to influence the practice of modern kendo. Tesshu's emphasis on basics, a devotion to almost monotonous training (Tesshu would say this was mindless training in its best sense), and an all-pervasive idea that swordsmanship is above all the training of the spirit, are the modern kendoka's inheritance from the master swordsman Yamaoka Tesshu.
Until the seventeenth century, the way of the sword could, at least theoretically, be described as one concerned with the development of viable combat skills with the live blade of the katana. As the military utility of the swordsman waned, (Note 7) however, practice in the art of swordsmanship, as already discussed, began to develop spiritual aspects. The need to reduce the chance of training injuries, which had earlier given rise to the use of the bokken (wooden sword), eventually resulted in the creation of the shinai (bamboo fencing foil) during the eighteenth century. With this development, the way of the sword began to bifurcate along two separate lines: kendo, which concentrated on training with the shinai in an active, competitive environment; and iaido, which focused on practicing with the live blade in the series of formal solo exercises known as kata.(Note 8) Although formally distinct in terms of technique, it is widely held by kendoka that no true understanding of the way of the sword is possible without some proficiency in iaido as well. Kan Sensei, at whose dojo I studied, made it a point to teach both kendo and iaido, which he considered "two wheels on the same cart."
The Abe Ryu was the first to formally designate its system as "kendo" during the eighteenth century (Draeger and Smith 1989:101). It was during this period also that fencing gloves and armor were introduced into practice, along with the widespread use of the shinai (Sasamori and Warner 1964:51-52). The increased margin of safety in practice encouraged training in kendo even by those who were not professional fighting men, and by the mid-nineteenth century, a substantial number of Japanese, samurai and commoners, were engaged in shinai-geiko, or the type of training in which students used the shinai and protective armor.
It was during this period, of course, that Japan entered the modern world with the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the restoration of the Emperor Meiji. At the same time that the government felt driven to modernize Japan's economy and government, however, there was also a concomitant feeling that much that was good in Japanese culture and society needed to be preserved. The particular qualities of courage, loyalty, and discipline that were believed to be encouraged by training in arts like kendo were considered vitally important by officials of the Meiji government. As a result, beginning in 1871, traditionalists urged the Japanese Ministry of Education to make kendo compulsory in all public and private schools in Japan (Sasamori and Warner 1964:55). Despite such encouragement, interest in budo began to wane in the late nineteenth century, and public kendo exhibitions became common during this period in the hopes of reviving interest.(Note 9) In 1895, the government established the Dai Nippon Butokukai (Greater Japan Martial Virtue Association) in Kyoto, which stressed the role of kendo and judo in the education of Japanese citizens (Draeger 1974:35).
Government sponsorship of these arts eventually served to revive interest. In 1905, Tokyo University became the first college in the nation to sponsor a kendo team, and other colleges soon followed. In 1928, the All Japan Kendo Federation was established as a governing body to regulate and standardize the art throughout Japan.
The close involvement of the government with the martial arts caused the Allied Powers to ban their practice after Japan's defeat in World War II. The aggressive, jingoistic flavor of militarism made an unsavory addition to the ideology of budo, and the attitude of the Allied Powers is understandable. The fundamentally positive aspect of Japanese budo soon impressed itself upon officials, however, and they came to understand that the excesses of Japanese expansionism could in no way be attributed to budo itself.
In 1950, the Butokukai was reopened, and judo and kendo were selected as the primary arts for the training of the newly organized Japanese police force. The rehabilitated image of budo gave rise to increased public participation in these arts. The early 50's saw the first extensive export of budo to the United States. In Japan, the increasing popularity of kendo and judo was encouraged by a heightened emphasis on sport competitions during the 1960's. The Nippon Budokan, a massive sports arena, was built in 1964 in Tokyo, and is used to host major tournaments in kendo and judo. In 1971, reflecting the spread of kendo throughout the world, the International Kendo Federation was established (Lewis 1985:114). Today, kendo has some eight million adherents throughout the world.
An excellent summary of the goals of kendo is provided by the All Japan Kendo Federation:
The concept of Kendo is to discipline the human character
through the application of the principles of the katana.
The purpose of practicing Kendo is:
To mold the mind and body,
To cultivate a vigorous spirit,
And through correct and rigid training,
To strive for improvement in the art of Kendo;
To hold in esteem human courtesy and honor,
To associate with others with sincerity,
And to forever pursue the cultivation of oneself.
Thus will one be able to love his country and society, to
contribute to the development of culture, and to promote
peace and prosperity among all peoples. (Note 10)
Despite a continuing emphasis on physical training as a road to spiritual mastery, the post-war sportive emphasis on budo places kendo in danger of assuming a character much like that of modern judo. The war-era perception of kendo and other budo forms as part and parcel of Japanese aggression has, of course, served to encourage a more "American", sportive interpretation of budo as part of the price paid for budo's rehabilitation in the post-war era. While there is still a certain dangerous possibility that kendo will assume some of the negative aspects of international judo, its classical interpretation is still relatively intact.
The limited appeal kendo holds for non-Japanese, as well as the strong emotional and cultural affinity the art holds for many Japanese and foreign nationals of Japanese descent, places kendo firmly within the Japanese martial tradition. As such, kendo is clearly a type of secondary social group concerned with the perpetuation of ethnic identity through the cultivation of Japanese attitudes and skills.
Notes:
1. Even those annotated translations of makimono available today are often obscure (see V. Harris 1974; H. Sato 1986).
2. Lowry's portrait of Munenori is perhaps too benign. Although not the one-dimensional political schemer often portrayed in Japanese literature, we must note that Munenori served as the head of the shogun's secret police. His interest in swordsmanship was certainly as practical as it was profound.
3. The application of such concepts came to fruition in the modern budo form of aikido developed by Ueshiba Morihei in the twentieth century.
4. This is perhaps a less than kind assessment of Musashi. A ronin (masterless samurai) for most of his career, he was a ruthless opponent in a duel simply because attaining renown as a swordsman was the only viable option he possessed for eventually securing a position as a vassal of some local lord. A less refined man than Munenori, he also lived a much harder life. Ultimately, he obtained a position as a minor vassal of a Kyushu daimyo. Musashi's quest for excellence in the way of the sword drove him, however, to live his last four years in a cave, pondering the philosophy of swordsmanship. It was here he penned the Go Rin No Sho.
5. Born Ono Tetsutaro, Tesshu was a yoshi, or one who married into a family with no male heirs to carry on the family name. Tesshu therefore adopted his wife's family name of Yamaoka as his own. Tesshu, literally "Iron Boat" was his pen name. As renowned a calligrapher as he was a martial artist, Ono Tetsutaro is thus known to history as Yamaoka Tesshu.
6. Tesshu's institution of the thousand day period of successive training is highly reminiscent of the similar period of training and mediation undertaken by Choisai before establishing the Tenshin Katori Shinto Ryu.
7. Munenori himself noted that nothing could beat the bow and the gun for fighting. Despite popular misconceptions fueled by works of historical fiction, the Japanese were willing and eager to adopt firearms into their military strategy, and began to do so before the end of the sixteenth century (H. Sato 1986:13).
8. Although long a subject of study within the classical ryu of swordsmanship, iaido was not formally established as an art until the 1920's. Currently, the All Japan Iaido Federation operates under the umbrella of its parent organization, the All Japan Kendo Federation.
9. These exhibitions were somewhat sensational in nature, since before the Meiji era commoners were forbidden to study or even watch training in the way of the sword, although it was not uncommon during the later years of the Tokugawa shogunate for commoners to study in urban dojo.
10. Courtesy of Mr. Gene Eto of the American Kendo Federation.
Draeger, Donn F. 1974. Modern Bujutsu and Budo. New York: John Weatherhill Inc.
Sasamori, Junzo and Gordon Warner. 1964. This is Kendo. Rutland, Vt.: Charles E.
Tuttle.
Ratti, Oscar and Adelle Westbrook. 1973. Secrets of the Samurai. Rutland: Chalres
E. Tuttle Co.
Draeger, Donn F. and Robert W. Smith. 1989. Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts.
New York: Kodansha.
Reid, Howard, and Michael Croucher. 1983. The Fighting Arts. New York: Simon and
Schuster.
Warner, Gordon and Donn F. Draeger. 1984. Japanese Swordsmanship: Technique and Practice. New York: John Weatherhill, Inc.
Draeger, Donn F. 1973. Classical Bujutsu. New York: John Weatherhill.
Hurst, G. Cameron. "Samurai on Wall Street: Miyamoto Musashi and the Search for
Success." UFSI Reports, no. 4
Lowry, Dave. 1985. Autumn Lightning. Boston: Shambhalla.
Suzuki, D.T. 1959. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Harris, Victor. 1974. Miyamoto Musashi: A Book of Five Rings. Woodstock, N.Y.:
Overlook Press.
Stevens, John. Sword of No-Sword: Life of the Master Warrior Tesshu. Boulder:
Shambhalla Press.
Lewis, Peter. 1985. Martial Arts of the Orient. New York: Gallery Books
Arlott, John (ed.). 1975. The oxford Companion to World Sports and Games. New
York: Oxford University Press
Sato, Hiroaki. 1986. The Sword and the Mind. Woodstock, N.Y.: The Overlook
Press.
| Kendo |
Batterhead, Flam and Rimshot are all terms associated with which musical instrument? | Martial art - definition of martial art by The Free Dictionary
Martial art - definition of martial art by The Free Dictionary
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/martial+art
martial art
n. often martial arts
Any of various arts of self-defense, such as aikido, karate, judo, or tae kwon do, usually practiced as sport.
martial art
n
1. (Martial Arts (other than Judo & Karate) & Combat Sports) any of various philosophies of self-defence and techniques of single combat, such as judo or karate, originating in the Far East
2. (Judo & Karate) any of various philosophies of self-defence and techniques of single combat, such as judo or karate, originating in the Far East
mar′tial art′
n.
Usu., martial arts. any of various forms of East Asian self-defense or combat utilizing physical skill and coordination, as karate or judo, often practiced as a sport.
mar′tial art′ist, n.
martial art
- So named for Japanese bu-jutsu (bu + jutsu), "art, technique, skill, craft."
See also related terms for technique .
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun
1.
martial art - any of several Oriental arts of weaponless self-defense; usually practiced as a sport; "he had a black belt in the martial arts"
self-defence , self-defense , self-protection - the act of defending yourself
aikido - a Japanese martial art employing principles similar to judo
judo - a sport adapted from jujitsu (using principles of not resisting) and similar to wrestling; developed in Japan
jiujitsu , jujitsu , jujutsu - a method of self-defense without weapons that was developed in China and Japan; holds and blows are supplemented by clever use of the attacker's own weight and strength
ninjitsu , ninjutsu - the traditional Japanese method of espionage; involves stealthy movements and the use of camouflage
karate - a traditional Japanese system of unarmed combat; sharp blows and kicks are given to pressure-sensitive points on the body of the opponent
tai chi , t'ai chi , tai chi chuan , t'ai chi chuan , taichi , taichichuan - a Chinese system of slow meditative physical exercise designed for relaxation and balance and health
martial art
Martial arts and terms
Martial arts aikido, capoeira, Crane style kung fu, Goju Kai karate, Goju Ryu karate, hapkido, Hung Gar or Tiger style kung fu, iai-do, iai-jutsu, Ishin Ryu karate, Jeet Kune Do, judo, ju jitsu, jiu jitsu or ju-jutsu, karate or karate-do, kendo, kick boxing, kung fu, Kyokushinkai karate, kyudo, naginata-do, ninjitsu or ninjutsu, Praying Mantis style kung fu, Sankukai karate, Shito Ryu karate, Shotokai karate, Shotokan karate, Shukokai karate, sumo or sumo wrestling, tae kwon-do, tai chi chuan, tai chi qi gong, Ta Sheng Men or Monkey style kung fu, Thai boxing or Muay Thai, Tomiki aikido, Tukido (trademark), Wado Ryu karate, Wing Chun or Wing Tsun kung fu, yari-jutsu
Martial arts terms
n the martial arts → die Kampfkunst ; the martial art of judo → der Kampfsport Judo
martial art
martial
(ˈmaːʃəl) adjective
1. warlike or fond of fighting. a martial nation. krygsagtig حَرْبي، عَسْكَري войнствен bélico válečnický, bojovný kriegerisch krigerisk φιλοπόλεμος , μαχητικός marcial sõjakas جنگی sotaisa guerrier אוֹהֵב מִלחָמָה युद्ध संबंधी ratni, bojni katonás, harcias suka berperang herskár, árásargjarn bellicoso 好戦的な 호전적인 karingas kareivīgs suka berperang krijgshaftig krigersk wojowniczy جنګى bélico războinic воинственный bojovný bojevit ratnički krigisk ชอบการต่อสู้ savaşcı, cengâver 好戰的 войовничий جنگی hiếu chiến 尚武的
2. belonging to or suitable for war. martial music. krygsagtig عَسْكري، حرْبي военен marcial válečný Militär-... krigs- πολεμικός marcial sõja- وابسته به جنگ sota- martial צבאי रण-विषयक, युद्ध संबंधी vojni harci perang stríðs- marziale 戦争の 군의 karinis, karo kara-; militārs sesuai untuk perang krijgshaftig krigs- , militær- wojskowa, wojenna اړوند په جګړى marcial de război военный vojenský borben vojnički krigs- แห่งสงคราม savaşa ait 軍事的 воєнний جنگ سے متعلق یا منسوب thuộc chiến tranh 军事的
martial ˈart noun
(usually martial arts) a traditional way of fighting in sports such as judo or karate. krygskuns الفُنون الحَربيه أو القِتاليَّه في الرياضَه бойни изкуства arte marcial bojová umění der Kampfsport kampsport πολεμική τέχνη artes marciales idamaised võitluskunstid هنر رزمی taistelulaji art martial אוֹמָנוּיוֹת לְחִימָה युद्ध विद्या borilačke vještine küzdősport seni bela diri arte marziale 格闘技 무술 kovos menai cīņas sporta veidi seni bela diri (Oosterse) gevechtskunst(en) kampsport sztuki walki جنګى مهارت боевые искусства bojové umenie, bojové športy borbene veščine borilačke veštine kampsport ศิลปะการป้องกันตัว เช่น ยูโด คาราเต้ yakın dövüş sporları 武術（如柔道、空手道） бойові мистецтва فوجی کرتب یا کھیل جیسے جوڈو کراٹے võ thuật 武术（指功夫、柔道、空手道等）
martial law
the ruling of a country by the army in time of war or great national emergency, when ordinary law does not apply. The country is now under martial law. krygswet القانون العَسْكَري، قانون الأحْكام العُرْفِيَّه военен закон lei marcial stanné právo das Kriegsrecht militær undtagelsestilstand στρατιωτικός νόμος ley marcial sõjaseisukord حکومت نظامی poikkeustila loi martiale מִשטָר צְבָאִי सैनिक कानून prijeki sud hadijog, statárium hukum darurat perang herlög legge marziale 戒厳令 계엄령 karo padėtis kara stāvoklis hukum darurat perang staat van beleg unntakstilstand stan wojenny نظامى حكومت lei marcial lege marţială военное положение stanné právo naglo sodišče ratno stanje militärt undantagstillstånd กฎอัยการศึก sıkıyönetim , askerî idare 戒嚴法 воєнний стан فوجی قانون tình trạng thiết quân luật 戒严法，戒严令
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What is the name of the famous London museum which houses the most famous collection of wax figures in the world? | Madame Tussaud's NY
Madame Tussaud's NY
42 St. btwn 7th and 8th Aves
New York, NY
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Madame Tussaud's NY
Get up close and personal with your favorite celebrities at the 85,000 square-foot, five-story Madame Tussaud's New York. Opened in November, the New York version of the famous London museum takes on "the face of the place" presenting New York's most famous and infamous personalities, as well as figures of international fame and acclaim.
Leave time to tour these six themed, interactive environments showcasing nearly 200 masterfully crafted, lifelike wax figures:
The Opening Night Party, set in an Italian baroque garden, features Woody Allen, Bette Midler, Nicolas Cage, Hugh Grant, Oprah Winfrey, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Donald Trump:
Madame Tussaud's Story, spanning 200 years of history, features Marie Antoinette and Napoleon's lover Josephine.
Behind the Scenes is a multimedia exhibit about the process of creating the incredibly life-like wax figures at the museum featuring Al Roker and others.
The Gallery, set in a meeting of the United Nations, features The Dalai Lama, Maya Angelou, John F. Kennedy, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Buffalo Bill and Diana, Princess of Wales:
Popular Culture, a whirlwind history of the trendsetters of the 20th century, features Mikhail Barishnikov, Babe Ruth, Janis Joplin, Charlie Chaplin, The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Bill Gates and Neil Armstrong:
It Happened in New York is an immersive midnight ride celebrating the city's illustrious history.
Madame Tussaud's New York joins the growing international family of museums with locations in London, Amsterdam, Las Vegas and Hong Kong. The tradition began in 18th century Paris, when Madame Tussaud was forces to create death masks for aristocrats executed in the French Revolution. In 1835, she established the London museum, which now welcomes more than 2.5 million guests each year.
- Reviews of Madame Tussaud's NY
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| Madame Tussauds |
Lithology is the study of which natural substance? | Big Ben
Big Ben is actually the nickname of the Great Bell inside Westminster’s iconic clock tower, but even locals think ‘Big Ben’ when they see the Elizabeth Tower. No matter, it looks great whatever you call it. You can’t get inside for a tour until 2020 due to maintenance work, but you’re a minute away from the river, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey here, so it’s an easy visit.
Don’t miss: The photo opportunity from Westminster Bridge – the best angle for your selfie.
London Eye
One of the city’s newest but most-loved icons, the slowly revolving wheel that stands by the Thames continues to be a tourist favourite. Each glass-walled pod is designed to allow everyone (who dares) views to the north, south, east and west, making this a brilliant way to get the measure of London. And each visit now starts with a fun, 4D short film before you board.
Don’t miss: The ‘Champagne Experience’ option if you fancy a romantic date gliding high at sunset.
BBC Broadcasting House tours
Go behind the scenes of one of the world’s biggest media operations. Just around the corner from the iconic, curved original doors to Broadcasting House you’ll find the glass and steel modern grandeur of the new entrance. On a tour of the offices and studios you get to hear about the Beeb’s long history, try your hand at sound effects and reading a radio play, and see what happens when the cameras are on.
Don’t miss: The chance to read a presenter’s autocue. It’s not as easy as Fiona Bruce makes it look.
Kew Palace
The favoured residence of George III and his family, Kew Palace is an often forgotten treasure that looks more like a massive, ornate biscuit tin than the glittering home of a royal, but in the gardens there is a wonderful little cottage built for Queen Charlotte that most definitely trumps any normal garden shed. You can only visit the Palace via Kew Gardens (it’s free with entry to Kew), from March to October, so grab your chance when you can.
Don’t miss: The wax bust of the head of George III, made by Madame Tussaud herself.
Hyde Park
Don’t just drive or take a bus round it, wander into Hyde Park’s green vastness and eventually you get to the Serpentine lake, where you can swim, go boating, board a solar-powered ferry (in summer) or sit and eat pizza whilst watching other people messing about on the water. It’s easy to take for granted this massive central London park, but life’s more fun if you stop for a stroll, a bike ride or a picnic.
Don’t miss: The Diana Memorial Fountain that looks less like a fountain and more like a circular, babbling brook.
London Zoo
This Regent’s Park landmark has come a long way since the days when zoos were full of homesick wildlife. ZSL does a lot of world-class animal welfare work and the carefully designed settings in which beautiful creatures from gorillas to lizards, penguins to tigers now reside give you a chance to experience nature on a happier day trip. There’s a dedicated area for small kids and daily shows for the curious of all ages.
Don’t miss: Land of the Lions – a stunning walk-through experience where you can see the kings of the jungle at close quarters.
South Bank
Once upon a time, London turned its back on the stinky river Thames. Nowadays the South Bank is a buzzing open space lined with some of the city’s most exciting galleries, theatres and attractions. Start at the Southbank Centre, for free art and live shows, lunch at one of the many restaurants and to watch the skateboarders. Then wander east past the artists’ enclave at Gabriel’s Wharf, and onto Tate Modern and the Globe, just beyond Blackfriars Bridge.
Don’t miss: Ernie’s Beach – the sandy foreshore by the Thames that’s accessible at low tide, via steps at Gabriel’s Wharf.
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An octadecagon has how many sides? | Polygons: How Many Sides?
Health and Science > Math and Money > Numbers and Formulas
Polygons: How Many Sides?
A geometrical figure with three or more sides is called a polygon or a polyhedron. Here are the names for some polygons.
3
icosagon
How Many Angles?
A polygon has as many angles as it has sides. For example, a triangle has 3 sides and 3 angles. A pentagon has 5 sides and 5 angles. An octadecagon has 18 sides and 18 angles!
| eighteen |
Sn is the symbol for which chemical element? | Octadecagon
Octadecagon
A octadecagon is a polygon with 18 sides and 18 vertices.
Regular Octadecagon
A regular octadecagon is a polygon with 18 equal sides and angles.
Angles of the Octadecagon
The sum of interior angles of an octadecagon = (18 − 2) · 180° = 2,880°
The value of an interior angle of a regular octadecagon is: 2,880º : 18 = 160º
The central angle of a regular octadecagon measures: 360º : 18 = 20º
Diagonals of the Octadecagon
The number of diagonals in a regular octadecagon = 18 · (18 − 3) : 2 = 135
Perimeter of a Regular Octadecagon
Perimeter = 18 · l
Area of a Regular Octadecagon
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Harris, Lewis and Donegal are all types of which fabric? | RECORDS - THE_DENIM_VAULT
RECORDS
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You've most likely heard of tweed, Harris Tweed, or Donegal Tweed; it's all the same type of unfinished woolen fabric. It has a soft, open, and flexible texture that resembles homespun (cheviot) styling but is most closely to woven. It can be made from plain or twill weave and can have a check or herringbone patter. Usually subdued and interesting color effects, or heather mixtures, are created by twisting together differently colored strands into two or three-ply yarn. There is a rich history associated with tweed garments as Harris and Donegal are the main ones.
They are an iconic tradition of the British Country Clothing because they are particularly desirable for informal outerwear and can be worn on a daily basis because the material is moisture resistant and durable. These types of cloths are created to withstand harsh climate and are worn for outdoor activities like shooting and hunting; these are popular in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Scottish tweed has a special color of green that is called "Lovat" but in Ireland it is associated with the County of Donegal.
Three types of tweed are Harris, Donegal, and Silk. Harris Tweed is handwoven by the islanders on the Isles of Harris, Lewis, Uist, and Barra in the outer areas of Scotland. They use local wool and is hand spun and hand dyed using local dyes. Donegal Tweed is handwoven by the inhabitants of County Donegal which is located in Ireland, just like Harris it's been produced for centuries in this are from local materials. The sheep thrive in the hills and bogs of Donegal and the indigenous plants like blackberries, fuchsia, gorse, and moss provide the dyes used. Silk Tweed is simply a fabric that is made of raw silk with flecks of color usually typical of woolen tweeds.
| Tweed |
Souchong is a black variety of what? | The Harris Tweed Authority
Contact
Who we are. What we do
The Harris Tweed Authority are the Guardians of The Orb, protecting the production and provenance of Harris Tweed on behalf of the islanders of the Outer Hebrides.
From the Land Exhibition - Stornoway
Anchoring Harris tweed in the landscape and culture that produces it, this extraordinary exhibition features sublime landscapes, portraits and photographic juxtapositions. Now showing at An Lanntair, Stornoway.
Wool connections
Harris Tweed is hand woven from 100% pure new Scottish wool, dyed and spun with the colours of nature right here in the Outer Hebrides. Natural, tactile and effortlessly stylish.
Croft to Catwalk
From crofts across our islands to the catwalks of international fashion shows, Harris Tweed shows its true colours in couture and the talented touch of creatives.
Find Tweed, Mills & Producers
From spinners to weavers, all Harris Tweed is made by the hands of artisans in the Outer Hebrides and nowhere else. It is an island industry to be proud of.
Furnishings & Accessories
Combining beauty with resilience, Harris Tweed is the natural choice for interiors and soft furnishings designed to stand the tests of time, bringing Hebridean warmth to any home.
From the Land Book
A photographer's journey of discovery celebrating an encounter with landscape and tweed. Discover this exquisitely embellished book graced with the timeless beauty of our Hebridean cloth.
Harris Tweed Archive
A textile with heritage, Harris Tweed has a long history to share. From humble beginnings to the bright lights of Hollywood, there is much to discover about our wonderful island story.
© Harris Tweed Authority 2017 | All Rights Reserved
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Who played Squadron Leader Peter Carter, who cheated death, in the 1946 film ‘A Matter of Life and Death’? | EUFS: A Matter of Life and Death
A Matter of Life and Death
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, UK, 1946, ? minutes
Squadron Leader Peter Carter isn't having much luck: flying back from a bombing raid on Germany, his planes shot to shreds, all but one of his crew have bailed out, and the one that's left is dead. Still, Carter (played with great enthusiasm and the stiffest of upper lips by David Niven) isn't too bothered, and is prepared to meet his maker. Talking to an American RAF radio operator called June, he outlines his precarious situation and tells her that he's going to jump -- which can only mean one thing, as his parachute is as broken as his plane is.
But it'd be a pretty short film if it all ended there. Due to a small administrative error in the 'other world' Carter doesn't meet his maker in the jump from the plane, and instead wakes up in the surf. By amazing coincidence he meets, and very rapidly falls in love with, June. But the 'other world' wants him to be 'conducted' from Earth, so they can sort their books out. Carter persuades them that since the error was entirely theirs, and that he's now involved with somebody on earth, they can't possibly 'conduct' him without a trial. Will he be allowed to remain on Earth?
Visually A Matter of Life and Death is stunning. The 'other world' is presented in black-and-white, and Earth is presented in vibrant Technicolor, shot by Jack Cardiff, who worked frequently with Powell and Pressburger, and there's some really imaginative work here. What other movie gives you a point-of-view shot from within somebody's eye? The production design also deserved a mention. The scenes set in the 'other world' are set on a grand scale, and still impress today. The route used to conduct people to the other world is a giant escalator, and they build one 20 feet wide and over 100 steps long for the film.
Although in places A Matter of Life and Death seems rather quaint, and it is certainly a film of it's time, it has such charm that it's impossible not to be swayed by it, and the manic enthusiasm of the leads. Definitely one to go and see.
Review by Jonathan Caryl
Written for th EUFS Programme Spring 2001
Please send your comments, suggestions or enquiries to [email protected] .
Edinburgh University Film Society is an Equal Opportunities organisation run by volunteers.
| David Niven |
What is the name of the python in Rudyard Kipling’s novel ‘The Jungle Book’? | Contemporary review of "A Matter of Life and Death"
From: Sunday Dispatch
3 November 1946
A picture chosen to be the subject of the first Royal Command Film Performance should, of necessity, be a good one. And here it is - A Matter of Life and Death (Empire).
Excellent imagination has been used in the making of this story of an airman, Squadron Leader Peter Carter (played by David Niven) who, having leapt from a battered bomber without his parchute, is under the impression he is dead. This because of certain hallucinations he has as a result of concussion.
An agent in the form of a Frenchman who was killed in the French Revolution is sent from the celestial regions to take the airman from earth, but the Frenchman loses his quarry in an English fog, and the rest of the film is devoted to the airman's trial in a celestial court to decide whether he shall go or remain on earth.
The trial is really a Matter-of-Life-and-Death operation. Watch for the shot of the patient's eye closing under the anaesthetic as he lies watching the ceiling of the operating theatre. You'll swear it's your own eye and that you are succumbing to that anaesthetic.
The technique used in this, and many other shots, are a real step forward in screen photography. Kim Hunter plays the opposite lead with quiet but telling effect.
This film was well worthy of their Majesties patronage; it is well worthy of yours.
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Who won the 1994 Men’s Singles Finals at Wimbledon? | Wimbledon Mens Players | Mens Singles Champions | Andy Murray | Roger Federer
Mens Players
Wimbledon Mens Singles
We take a look at the mens singles competition, providing background and chances of the players for the 2011 tournament at the All England Club.
Many Tennis fans would argue that Wimbledon is the toughest of the four majors to win as it is the only one played on a grass surface. The winner must therefore be versatile in handling the different challenges that playing on grass poses. Please check here for details of the 2010 Wimbledon mens seedings .
The 2011 Men’s singles at Wimbledon promises yet again to be as exciting as ever with Roger Federer favourite in the Wimbledon mens singles betting to win the crown once again afre beating Andy Roddick last year. Nadal’s victory in 2008 prevented Federer from becoming the first man in Wimbledon history to record six straight wins, he will be back at SW19 for the first time since and desperate to regain his crown.
In some media circles Federer was being written off last year, but he came back to the top when he won the US Open Tennis for the fifth straight year, defeating Britain's Andy Murray in the final. He then lost to Nadal in the Australian Open final in another five set epic, before achieving his greatest moment in tennis, when he won the French Open title for the first time. That win gave him a record equalling fourteen Grand Slams a record he shares with, Sampras and he also became the first man since Andre Agassi to win all four Grand Slam titles.
We think that Federer should win once more this year but the following players all have chances
Robin Soderling
Fred Perry - The last British Mens Single Champion
Fred Perry was the last British mens single champion at Wimbledon when he won the title for the third and final time in 1936. Perry, had won the previous two mens singles titles at the 1934 and 1935 Championship and despite being some years ago reports suggest that he was one of the greatest ever Wimbledon champions. Can Scot, Andy Murray emulate the great man this year? Murray has been in outstanding form this year and won the the title at Queens Club last week. He has shot up to number three in the world rankings and is third favourite to win in the mens singles betting. He reached the quarter finals last year where he was beaten by Rafa Nadal. Tim Henman remains the only British player to get to the semi finals in recent years, he achieved this four times in total.
Modern Era Mens Wimbledon Champions
In recent years, some of the biggest names in mens Tennis have lifted the famous Mens Singles trophy. Four times champion Rod Laver was the first male to claim the title in the open era in 1968 and 1969. Fellow Australian John Newcombe won back to back championships in 1970 and 1971 before Bjorn Borg won four consecutive titles between 1976 - 79.
During the 80s, the Wimbledon mens singles title was won by great names such as John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg, all who won the title on more than one occasion during the decade.
American great Pete Sampras dominated the title in the 90s winning the mens singles crown a total of seven times between 1993 and 2000, only Richard Krajicek stopped him from winning a Wimbledon record eight straight titles. In recent years, the mens singles game has been all about Roger Federer who has won the last four Wimbledon mens singles championships and the Swiss star shows no signs of slowing down his dominance of the mens game.
Past Wimbledon Mens Singles Winners
1980 B. Borg (Sweeden)
| Pete Sampras |
In British politics, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer from November 1990 to May 1993? | Wimbledon - Tennis Topics - ESPN
Past Winners
The Championships, Wimbledon, is an annual tennis tournament held each year in London. Wimbledon is the oldest tennis championship in the world and is considered by many the most prestigious, as well. It is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments -- the third in the calendar year -- and the only Grand Slam event held on grass.
Wimbledon takes place each summer in June and July at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London. The tournament has garnered fame both for its exceptional tennis and its well-known traditions, such as the serving of strawberries and cream and Pimm's and lemonade.
Wimbledon hosts championships for men's and women's singles and doubles, as well as mixed doubles. The tournament also has junior and invitational events during its two-week span.
The Wimbledon Championships began in 1877, when the All England Club, founded solely as a croquet club, embraced the fast-growing sport of lawn tennis. The club decided to host a championship and, before it could do so, put together a set of rules and regulations for the sport (which are very similar to those used today).
In 1877, the first year of the Lawn Tennis Championship, the club hosted only a gentlemen's singles competition. The first winner was Spencer Gore, who beat out a 22-man field. About 200 spectators attended the tournament. The tournament was considered a success, and it became an annual event. From the formation of the event until 1922, the previous year's champion received a bye into the final round, resulting in multiple repeat winners in the tournament's first few decades.
Seven years after the first tournament, women were invited to play for the first time. Maud Watson was the first champion of that 1884 ladies' singles competition, winning out of a field of 13. Gentlemen's doubles were introduced in the same year, after the Oxford University club ended its doubles championship in 1883.
Tennis was beginning to grow in popularity as a spectator sport. The growth of the sport and of the Wimbledon Championships was owed partly to the success of William and Ernest Renshaw, British twins who combined for 13 singles and doubles titles in eight years between 1881 and 1889. That period of surging interest among London spectators became known as the "Renshaw Rush."
By 1900, Wimbledon was of international interest. In 1905, the Championships had its first overseas titleholder: American May Sutton, who won the ladies' singles. Two years later (as Sutton won her second title), Australian Norman Brookes won the men's singles competition, becoming the first men's international winner. Since that year, only two British men have won the men's singles event.
After play was interrupted during World War I, the tournament moved into a new home when the club built much larger grounds on Church Road across town in Wimbledon. The centerpiece of that stadium, the current Centre Court, held 14,000 spectators and did wonders in expanding the tournament's prestige and popularity.
Wimbledon continued to thrive after its move and hosted some of the world's best tennis players until it was put on hold once again during World War II. Soldiers nearby used the grounds for training and military functions, and Centre Court was hit by a bomb and suffered huge losses of seats. Some tennis was hosted in 1945, on No. 1 Court, but the Championships did not return until 1946.
As Wimbledon became more and more international, the tournament was overrun by talented players from overseas: Rod Laver for the men, Maureen Connolly and Althea Gibson -- the first African-American winner -- for the women. But by the late 1950s, the amateurism of Wimbledon was failing the system. Amateur players were receiving far more money than was allowed by the ITF, and the Wimbledon board set out to reform the rules.
Chairman Herman David attempted in 1959 to "open" the Championships, allowing all players to compete. The ITF denied the move a year later, and the Wimbledon board members continued to push for open play for years. In 1967, Wimbledon hosted a professional tournament one month after the Championships that allowed players no longer eligible to play in July a chance to take a title at Wimbledon.
Later that year, the Lawn Tennis Association voted to admit all players to the Championships (and other tournaments in Britain). The ITF had little choice but to react, allowing all tournaments to decide whether to become "open." In the 1968 Championships, Rod Laver and Billie Jean King became the first Open champions.
Since the beginning of the Open era, Wimbledon has seen some truly great champions come through its grounds. In 1980, Bjorn Borg became the first man to win five titles at Wimbledon, a mark Pete Sampras (seven) and Roger Federer (six) later would beat. In 1987, Martina Navratilova became the first player to win six women's singles titles -- all in a row -- and she set the all-time mark with nine titles in 1990.
In 2010, a Wimbledon first-round match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut set a mark for the longest tennis match in history, spanning 11 hours and five minutes over three days. In the same year, Queen Elizabeth II made her first visit to Wimbledon in 33 years, watching Brit Andy Murray in the second round. Three years later, Murray ended a 77-year drought for a native Wimbledon champion, defeating Novak Djokovic in the final.
Wimbledon is held each year at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London. The club contains 19 tournament courts, 16 other grass courts and numerous shale or clay courts. It also hosts a museum on the grounds. The club's colors, purple and green, have become as well-known as its famous tournament and remain an important tradition, as is the club's all-white dress code. Centre Court houses a Royal Box for attendance by the royal family, a representative of which attends the Championships most years.
The All England Club was founded in 1868, solely as a croquet club. Seven years later, the club added lawn tennis -- having been developed only a year prior -- to its résumé, setting aside one lawn for tennis. The game was a success and, in 1877, the club changed its name to the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club.
The change in name brought about another first for the club, as it hosted the first Lawn Tennis Championship in 1877. That event was held by the club to raise money for a horse-drawn roller for its croquet lawns. By 1882, lawn tennis was by far the more popular sport at the club, and "Croquet" was dropped from its name (it was added back in 1899, mostly for sentimental reasons, forming the name it goes by today).
Wimbledon was a popular ground for tennis as the sport became more popular, and the court hosted the tennis events at the 1908 Olympic Summer Games. In 1922, the game had become so popular that Wimbledon was forced to move to bigger grounds, and the club chose its current site at Church Road, Wimbledon. The current Centre Court was built during the move. The club has been expanded several times, most notably in 1967, when it purchased 11 acres to add more courts.
Centre Court remains the largest court at the club and is used for the finals of each event at Wimbledon. It currently sits 15,000, expanded most recently in 2008, and is the fourth-largest court in the world. In 2009, a retractable roof was installed over Centre Court to help appease Wimbledon's famous rain delays. The other show court at All England is No. 1 Court, which holds 11,500, and a third large-scale court, No. 2 Court, was built for the 2009 competition. It holds 4,000.
The All England Club uses grass courts for its tournament, which are in use from May to September. The courts use 100 percent rye grass since 2001 and are cut to 8 mm. Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam event still played on grass.
The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum is housed on the club's grounds, having been built in 1977. It was renovated and expanded (it is the largest tennis museum in the world) in 2006 and now is open to the public year round, except during Wimbledon. One croquet lawn remains at the club (though it is too small for high-level competition).
Year-by-Year Wimbledon Singles Champions
Tom Anderson missing for Gary Caldwell's first game at Chesterfield
PA Sport, PA
Gary Caldwell will be without Tom Anderson for his first game as Chesterfield manager against AFC Wimbledon.Former Wigan boss Caldwell, appointed as D...
Pat Cash not keen on coaching Nick Kyrgios after Australian Open exit
AAP
Pat Cash almost coached the volatile Nick Kyrgios but says he has "too much self-respect" to go anywhere near the 21-year-old's players' box now.
Sutton stun AFC Wimbledon to secure meeting with Leeds
PA Sport, PA
Sutton wrote another chapter in their FA Cup history with a dramatic 3-1 win over 10-man AFC Wimbledon. Two goals at the death from Maxime Biamou and ...
No new worries for Dons ahead of FA Cup clash
PA Sport, PA
AFC Wimbledon have no fresh injury concerns ahead of their FA Cup third-round replay against local rivals Sutton.Manager Neal Ardley is likely to be s...
Andy Murray through at Australian Open but admits he feared he'd never win a Grand Slam
ESPN staff
Andy Murray has admitted that he briefly gave up hope of winning a Grand Slam after losing to Roger Federer in the 2012 Wimbledon final.
| i don't know |
Erica Roe, Michael O’Brien and Mark Roberts are all famous for doing what at sports venues? | h2g2 - Streakers and Streaking - Edited Entry
Streakers and Streaking Content from the guide to life, the universe and everything
Streakers and Streaking
It was hilarious. This streaker jumped the barriers and ran after John (Leslie). The security guards ran after her. It was like something out of Benny Hill .
- Match spectator.
Streaking dates back to the 1970s when American students bared all for maximum publicity during protests and demonstrations. Gradually the trend caught on in the UK, and dare-devil exhibitionists seized opportunities to cause disruption to sporting events or just grab their own 15 minutes of fame.
Fads come and fads go, but the impulsive nature and snap decision to dispense with your clothing and dodge your way across a venue in full view of hundreds of eye-witnesses and possibly millions of TV viewers with relatively low consequences, holds an appeal which can be likened to the ultimate buzz. Very few official complaints are made to the authorities due to the swiftness of the act, the kudos of having witnessed the streak creates a good talking point, and anyway, who wants to be regarded as a killjoy with no sense of humour? After all, streaking is just a bit of fun, it doesn't do any harm, it's a laugh, it brightens up a boring match - so say the streakers.
Of course the families with small children watching in the crowd or at home may strongly disagree. The ancient Greeks and Romans viewed a nude human body as one of the highest expressions of the perfection of nature, but to have someone else's nakedness flaunted in your face completely unexpectedly can be very offensive indeed and it's not just the puritans who are outraged.
Warning
Streaking is illegal in the UK, but that doesn't stop thrill-seekers from showing off their birthday suit and enjoying causing a spectacle, gaining publicity and possible notoriety. Probably the worst punishment you'll get is a fine although it depends on the magistrate in court if the police decide to prosecute. Technically you can be charged with trespass; outraging public decency and/or causing public disorder, so you might end up with a criminal record.
Invading a football pitch breaches the 1991 Football (Offences) Act. For example: Vanessa Richards (see below) was charged with invading a playing area and conditionally discharged for 12 months. Also, remember that employers don't look too kindly on their employees breaking the law: Civil servant Brynn Reed (see 'The Queen's Streaker' below), lost his job. Some streakers end up in jail (see the Prague streaker, below).
What Is A Streak?
The University of Maine held a meeting of the student senate in March 1974 to discuss how to handle streaking. The meeting broke up when a naked man burst in and did a lap of the hall.
There is a difference between streaking and being naked in public - streaking is often a spur-of-the-moment impulse to be naked combined with a need to run. It might well be representative of a subconscious desire to return to nature, celebrating your personal freedom, enthusiastic joie-de-vivre, or it could just be a case of showing off. That many streaks take place at sporting events might have something to do with the combination of good weather, adrenalin and the biggest available audience. Possibly alcohol is also a factor; though not all streakers are intoxicated, alcohol is well-known for lowering inhibitions.
Streaking
Don't look Ethel!
- 'The Streak' - Ray Stevens (number one record in May 1974).
The first female streaker to hit the headlines was 18-year-old Laura Barton. She streaked across the stage as the curtain fell at the end of a college performance of Shakespeare 's Measure for Measure. Her own measurements have not been preserved for posterity.
So what is it about removing your clothes in a public place 1 , cavorting naked, preferably in front of TV cameras, then trying to evade capture from pursuing law enforcement officers or security people? Is it a massive ego-trip? Some sort of kinky fetish? Getting one over the establishment? Drunken antics ? A bit of a laugh? A peaceful protest? Just a buzz? Attention-seeking? A form of exhibitionism?
It was the biggest buzz I've had in my entire life, it certainly beats sex !
- Vanessa Richards, who streaked at a Middlesbrough football match, and even managed to catch and hug her hero Paul Gascoigne .
The Downside
Three young men got a nasty surprise while they were running in their birthday suits through a restaurant in Washington, DC. They ended up being the victims of crime as a thief made off with their car (containing their clothes) during their performance. The streakers had left their car unattended and running for a quick getaway. Police later found the three men huddling naked in the restaurant car park in the freezing weather. No charges were brought against them. The attending police officer said:
It was just three kids who decided to fool around. We always tell people not to leave their car running. They learned a lesson.
Dreadlocked-streaker Danni Adey was fined £200 and ordered to pay £50 in court costs but she managed to avoid a ban on future game attendance at her local football ground by the skin of her teeth.
It is advisable to remember what happened to a 31-year old Canadian who, dressed in a blue tutu and white tights, jumped off the three-metre board during an Olympics diving event in Greece in 2004. He appealed against a five month jail sentence imposed by an Athens court, eventually paid a €2,000 fine, and claimed he was beaten up by police. The Greek authorities had spent over £1billion on security for the Games and were incensed by this cock-a-snoop which was witnessed by millions on TV.
German football club FC Hansa Rostock were fined €20,000 by the German Football Association for failing to maintain adequate security at their ground. Their game against Hertha BSC Berlin in 2003 had been disrupted by three streakers and FC Hansa then successfully sued the streakers to recoup their losses.
Of course it's not only your wallet that could get hammered. Bruce McCulley (25), a bare-cheeked runner (although a photograph of the incident reveals that he's definitely not totally naked, as he's wearing a large pair of headphones around his neck) at a cricket ground, was stopped by Australian batsman Greg Chappell who grabbed McCulley's hand and struck his backside a few times with his cricket bat. McCulley was charged with disorderly conduct and fined £45; he in turn bought an assault case against Chappell, who was cleared of the charge.
Jacob Swierc, 21, streaked onto the World Cup Rugby match between Romania and Namibia at Launceston, Tasmania in October 2003. He pleaded guilty to illegally entering a sports arena and was punished with a community service sentence. Swierc is now trying to have photos of his streak removed from a gay website.
Kiwi Aaron Bain got into trouble with his mother after his streak interrupted the Bledisloe Cup Rugby Union match between Australia and New Zealand. Mrs Bain was viewing the match at home, and was shocked to see him running around naked on the field. Bain, who had to pay a fine of $500, said that upsetting his mother, who had 'recognised that butt from about 20-odd years ago running around the loungeroom' hurt him more than the pain in his wallet.
British student Wayne Cleworth, 27, shocked the viewing public of the Czech Republic when he streaked during a televised soccer match in Prague. Cleworth was jailed for two days then deported, with the stipulation that he would not be welcome to return for at least two years.
On the pitch, I was like a man possessed. I heard the stadium go mad. There was this huge roar and flags waving. It was insane. I'll never forget that moment. It seems to me that my punishment was more severe than the crime. I didn't mean to offend anyone, it was all meant as fun.
- Wayne Cleworth - Prague streaker.
Remember
If you should escape and need to dress in a hurry, be careful how you re-dress .
Erica Roe
Streak? With my boobs? I wouldn't want to eclipse Erica...
- An h2g2 Researcher
Arguably the most famous female streaker is 40"-chested Erica Roe. Erica's name has become synonymous with streaking: 'Doing an Erica Roe' has become a slang term for someone who streaks. When she ran topless (she kept her jeans on) at half-time during a rugby match at Twickenham in January 1982, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but it ended up making her a household name. The crowd roared their approval at the unexpected sight of a young, well-endowed woman's breasts bouncing free .
The bookshop assistant's flight-of-fancy got more exposure in the national press than news of the Falklands War . Erica made a lot of money from TV and modelling appearances on the back of her impulsive streak, and she insured her natural assets for £100,000. When the media attention became too much, Erica married a Dutchman and moved from Britain, and for five years refused all press and TV interviews. There aren't many people of a certain age who have ever forgotten her.
I know someone who did a streak through [a fast-food restaurant]. Pity it wasn't Erica Roe though.
- An h2g2 Researcher.
Oh yes, they call him the streak
Fastest thing on two feet
He's just as proud as he can be
Of his anatomy
He's gonna give us a peek
The first public streak at a major event in the UK happened at Twickenham in April 1974 during the England versus France rugby match in front of 53,000 fans. Australian Michael O'Brien, 25, was escorted off the pitch by several policemen, one of whom sacrificed his helmet to spare the blushes of the crowd.
The first female streaker at a snooker match shocked everyone during a televised final of the 1997 Benson & Hedges Masters Championship. Lianne Crofts, 22, did three laps around the table because she thought the 'depressingly boring' game needed a boost. Six times world champion Steve 'Interesting' Davis (who eventually won the match against Ronnie O'Sullivan) later complained he only saw Lianne's back because he was concentrating so hard on the game, but he had enjoyed the rear-view.
In 1975 at Lords Cricket Ground during the Ashes test match, a Royal Navy cook called Michael Angelow leap-frogged over a set of stumps wearing just his socks and trainers.
Lords was also the place that streaker Sheila Nicholls chose in May 1989. Sheila, 19, performed cartwheels stark naked at the England v Australia cricket match.
Melissa Johnson, a 23-year-old student, became Wimbledon 's first streaker in July 1996 when she flounced across Centre Court during the Men's singles final. Topless in front of millions of TV viewers, she preserved a little modesty by holding a strategically-placed towel around her midriff.
Some streakers strike it lucky. Student Diane Phillips, 22, of Plymouth , wore just a red G-string for her streak at the British Open snooker tournament in October 2000. Not only did she get to kiss both finalists Jimmy White and Peter Ebdon before she was bundled away by security, but she also won a £100 bet from her friends.
A male streaker crossed the finish line at the London
Marathon in April 2001.
You'd think darts would be a sport safe from streakers. However, Emma Hughes, 24, decided to streak at the Embassy World Darts Championship at Frimley Green, Surrey, on 7 January, 2001. Apparently it was her ambition to be the first streaker at a major darts tournament.
It was the best double top we have ever seen.
- Embassy spokesman.
Even Indoor Bowls isn't safe. Waitress Tracy Seargeant, 22, streaked at the Indoor Bowls Championship in Norfolk in January 2000, running across the green to kiss the unprotesting eventual-winner, Scot David Gourlay .
Tiger Woods fever hit The Open for the first time at Royal Troon in 1997 with blonde G-string-wearing Nikki Moffat paying tribute to the talented young golfer in her own special way. With her face painted and tiger stripes all over her body, this was clearly a pre-meditated streak. A lady in her underwear made a bee-line for him in 1999 and got fined £100 for her impulsive urge.
Ex- Blue Peter presenter John Leslie was the target of a busty streaker during a charity football match at West Ham 's ground in May 2005 (see opening quote).
Charity Streakers
Justin Lansdell said he'd run down the street in his Union Jack boxer shorts if Australia beat England at football. He tried to back out of the bet and we decided that not only should he carry on the bet, but do it for Comic Relief.
- BBC News website contributor Tina Gibbons.
At a tribute cricket match to raise funds for the family of cancer victim Malcolm Marshall on 27 July, 2000, it was possibly the first time in the history of streaking where the public address announcer requested a female streaker. One brave young woman wearing just her spectacles duly appeared, boosting coffers for the worthy cause.
Billy Connolly
Scottish comedian Billy Connolly deserves a special mention. He streaked around the Shaftesbury Monument (popularly known as the statue of Eros) in Piccadilly Circus to garner publicity and raise funds for the BBC's Comic Relief (Red Nose Day). Apparently the switchboard was jammed with callers offering money for Connolly to put his clothes back on, and even more demands for Johnny Depp to take his place. Later in the show around 50 naked men wearing Connolly wigs danced a Highland Fling on stage behind Lenny Henry , prompting scores of complaints to the BBC switchboard.
Attention-seeker Streakers
Oh yes, they call him the streak
He likes to turn the other cheek
He's always making the news
Wearin' just his tennis shoes
Guess you could call him unique
Former model and dancer Protima Bedi (1949 - 98) streaked across the streets of Mumbai in 1974, but was unhappy with the resultant pictures so she repeated her streak on Juhu beach.
Advertising executive Robert Opel, 33, gave the 'V' for victory sign when he streaked behind a bemused David Niven at the 'OSCAR' ceremony in 1974.
You see, it's interesting...the only thing he will be remembered for are his short-comings!
- David Niven's opinion of streaker Opel.
In August 2001 singer Robbie Williams , fresh from his concert at the Popkomm festival in Cologne, had gone to a club to relax and let it all hang out after the show. He streaked across the floor of the trendy Rheinkassen nightclub and cut a clean pair of heels; so far there have been no objections to the resulting photos appearing on a gay website.
At the MTV Europe awards in 2002 a blonde girl in a G-string and high heels streaked while Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs AKA Puff Daddy was on stage.
The Protest Streakers
Gorgeous mum-of-three Andrea Hall , 29, streaked during lunch hour on three consecutive Fridays in the summer of 2005. Running down Tib Street in Manchester in just her trainers, she became quite a local celebrity. A crowd of 50 turned up to witness her last streak. When finally identified and tracked down for an interview, Andrea said:
I felt so helpless after the London bombings and I just wanted to bring a smile to people's faces. There has been nothing else in the papers or on TV recently. I'm a mother and I was thinking of all the mothers who might have lost someone and this was my way of expressing my freedom. I think I would only do it again if it was sponsored for charity.
A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said they had not received any complaints so they were prepared to 'turn a blind eye' and look the other way.
In December 2003, around 40 German students protested the state of higher education by streaking through the centre of Berlin. Wearing just running shoes and waving placards, the students shouted: 'We're here, we're naked, and cutting funds for education is stupid'. They sprinted through a Christmas market pointedly ignoring the freezing temperatures.
Joan Roney from New York upstaged George W Bush at his 2001 inauguration by streaking through the crowd, her body covered in written slogans of protest.
Half-a-dozen naked protesters who called themselves 'Streakers for the Wilderness' bared their bodies to draw attention to the Sterling Mining Company's plan to build a mine near the Clark Fork River, south of Missoula, USA. The streakers said they feared the mining company would allow water polluted with heavy metals and acids to seep into the river.
A man wearing the Emperor's new clothing ran around the square in China's Changchun city for five hours in November 2003 before he was finally arrested by police. The unknown streaker impressed onlookers by being fit enough to run barefoot around the city for a whole morning in sub-zero temperatures.
Geordie comedian Chris McGlade streaked at half-time during the Coca Cola Cup final in 1997. Wearing just a red suspender belt, black stockings and trainers, McGlade had daubed 'Save Redcar Baths' on his body. Unfortunately his protest didn't save the Baths, but some good did come from his stunt. Using his earnings from a TV appearance, McGlade treated a friend who had a disability to a fantastic holiday.
A 22-year-old USA Iraq war veteran celebrated returning home by running 'sans threads' onto the field at a Major League Baseball game in Houston, Texas. He now faces charges, and if he does it again, he will be labelled a sex offender. While most people found it amusing, there were some who complained because they thought witnessing the act would warp their children for life. Others would be of the opinion that the description '22-year-old war veteran' was the tragedy in that story.
Streaking As A Tradition
This is not a good idea, unless of course you like being naked, causing 'a ruckus', think the local police force have got nothing better to do, or are drunk and graduated. Or all of the above. Concentration is key, as drunk people have problems removing their clothes. Establish an audience, and make sure camera (or mobile phones with such a facility) are primed. This will provide essential evidence that you accomplished your feat of derring-do. Get someone else to start a countdown, which will build up the courage factor, as 'Streaking the Quad' (as it's commonly called on campus), takes balls. When you're done, expect cheers and many slaps on the back, and that best friend you trusted with your clothes? Well, you'll know his trustworthiness and can return the favour when it's his turn.
The BBC News website reports on a ritual of new rugby team players at Harper Adams University College. Following the first away game each season, initiates walk down the street naked except for a tie and shoes. Until someone calls the police, then they run. Two unlucky people who were caught were ordered to pay fixed-penalty fines of £80. The college said in a statement: 'We do not condone such behaviour, and regret the embarrassment caused to residents of Newport'; and 'The vast majority of our students contribute positively to the local community, for example with charitable work, and we are concerned that the actions of these few students will damage the hard work undertaken by many others.' In this instance there were about 40 streakers, normally there are only a few.
The Queen's Streaker
Geordie Brynn Reed, a civil servant, streaked in front of the Rolls Royce that the Queen was touring Newcastle in, during her Golden Jubilee visit in May 2002. He had the words 'RUDE BRITANNIA' written across his buttocks in thick marker pen.
I just wondered what it felt like really. It's also something to tell the grandchildren, and that appealed to me. I was planning to run alongside the Queen's car for the entire journey until I got arrested, but unfortunately I misjudged the timing. I knew I was going to get caught but it's just a practical joke at the end of the day. I was pretty sure that was the way it would be taken. I certainly wasn't out to upset the Queen. I thought I might have got a smirk or reaction out of her, but she was very professional and kept a straight face.
Sadly, Brynn's employers didn't think it was quite so funny, and he was fired from his month-old job. It's possible they didn't like the headline 'The Naked Civil Servant'.
The Serial Streaker
Oh yes, they call him the streak
He likes to show off his physique
If there's an audience to be found
He'll be streakin' around
Invitin' public critique
Not all spectating crowds are lucky or appreciative. Most streakers are men, and the British weather is inclement, so even the girls aren't impressed, but still they streak. There's Mark Roberts, a serial streaker who plans his streaks with meticulous care and attention to detail, and is now open for sponsorship, having become the first 'human billboard'. He calls what he does 'performance art' and runs his own streaking website , although beware, it's a little risqué for sensitive souls. He announces his streaks in advance and also informs the press to ensure maximum publicity.
Roberts has streaked on This Morning, invading Fred's weather map of all things, but Richard and Judy took it in good spirit even though he stole their thunder. They invited him on the show for an interview, giving him more of an airing than he'd ever got from streaking. Roberts also tried to evade security during the 2000 Wimbledon championships, and in 2002 he managed to invade the Men's final. In 2003 he leapt over the net stark naked during the final of the French Open Tennis championships. Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain went on to beat Martin Verkerk of the Netherlands 6-1 6-3 6-2 to win the title, but hardly anyone remembers it for the tennis. In Barcelona, Spain, at the World International Synchronised Swimming Championships, Roberts performed the first ever streak underwater wearing just a swimming cap and a tutu.
Trying his luck further afield (although where he keeps his passport is anybody's guess), Roberts did Superbowl XXXVIII in January 2004. He wore a G-string and his body was covered in daubed slogans, one of which was an advertisement for an online gaming casino. American TV viewers never saw him, because the cameras were kept at wide-angle (it was half-time). Interestingly this was the same Superbowl as Janet Jackson's famous 'wardrobe malfunction' which ended up costing the CBS network $550,000 in fines for showing indecent material. Roberts was tackled to the ground by both sets of players and hauled off in handcuffs. He was charged with trespass, found guilty and fined $1,000.
At the UEFA Cup Final in May 2004, in Gothenburg, Roberts ran around the pitch chased by Swedish police. In May 2005, wearing just a clown wig and trainers (and an advert for a radio station on his chest) Roberts streaked in the National Stadium in Oslo - taking the ball and bringing the game to a standstill.
So far Roberts has managed over 380 exposure-runs in a ten-year streak, seemingly oblivious to the ridicule he sets himself up for.
People come up to me in the street, even policemen and say 'I love what you're doing'. It's supposed to be illegal, but it's just a laugh and the police see it as a laugh. And the magistrates in court laugh.
- Mark Roberts.
Streak-y Bacon
When former Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon joined The Big Breakfast , the temptation to make a pun about his surname was too good an opportunity to miss. 'Streaky Bacon' was an occasional item where Richard would persuade a member of the public to run up and down their street while wearing a bathing suit made of rashers of (fake) bacon. On 1 March, 2002, a crowd including the town's Mayor gathered to watch St Helens fitness instructor Keiron Pickavance brave the morning frost and 'streak' (he was wearing a jockstrap) in front of the television cameras in an attempt to win some bacon. On the very last edition of The Big Breakfast, comedian Johnny Vegas performed a very special - and strangely hypnotic - 'Streaky Bacon' streak.
Gamblers Beware!
Over Christmas 2005, BBC Radio 4 serialised a book called Playing The Moldovans At Tennis 2 by TV and radio comedian and best-selling author Tony Hawks (one of the BBCs Grumpy Old Men ). What has this to do with streaking, you may ask? Well, Tony and his friend Arthur Smith were watching England's football team play against the little-known Eastern European state of Moldova's football team on TV. Arthur bet Tony (as friends do) that Tony couldn't beat all 11 Moldovan players at tennis, with the loser of the bet agreeing to strip naked on Balham High Road and sing the Moldovan national anthem. The moral of this tale is: Don't make bets which involve stripping in public, unless, of course, you're prepared to go through with it.
Don't Look, Ethel!
Let's look at the way broadcasters handle the issue of streaking from an editorial standpoint. Many years ago if a streaker appeared at say, a football match, then immediately the cameras would point to them and we'd see them in their full glory running across the pitch. Nowadays, possibly over the last decade of the twentieth century, the cameras point absolutely anywhere but at the streaker, and our only clue that something is going on comes from the commentators. Why deny a daring individual their moment on centre stage?
It was well publicised that CBS got fined over half-a-million dollars for broadcasting indecent material. (See 'The Serial Streaker' above.) Football clubs have been fined for 'allowing' their pitches to be invaded. There are the easily-offended types in the safety of their own living rooms, having their eyes assaulted by the objectionable sight of someone else's wobbly bits. All bad publicity for the broadcasting stations - so it's entirely possible that camera technicians have had their orders - no streakers.
So your chances of seeing a streaker in full flight are somewhat diminished, unless of course, you happen to be at the right football ground or golf course at the right time, then it'll be up to you whether you ogle, look away blushing, or optically research the entire details of the event so you can recount the story on a boring night in the pub.
Pardon Me Sir, Did You See What Happened?
Newspapers love to run stories about streakers with pictures. Of course the family ones will hide the naughty bits with balloons or their own logo. Eye-witnesses are in big demand by journalists for quotes and mobile phone snaps. So keep your eyes peeled and your phone charged for your chance of making the local press (or national if it's a slow news day). Streaker-spotting is also a good pub story and it'll be something amusing to tell the grandkids.
A streaker ran through a fast-food restaurant in St Ives, Sydney, Australia:
I just couldn't believe it. The guy was wearing only a gold hat. In fact he reminded me of a plucked chicken. He almost put me off my dinner.
- Customer Mr J Cleary
One H2G2 Researcher reports seeing six or seven independent streakers at the Middlesex Rugby 7s a few years ago. Of course, he didn't know where to look.
A number of years ago I was lucky enough to be present at the Australian soccer grand final. I was watching the game, when all of a sudden play stopped. I wondered what was happening, and then noticed something move near me. I turned to see, and about 2 or 3 metres away there was a very large lady wearing only big grey undies running on to the middle of the field. She got cheered loudly by the crowd, and was captured shortly after by the security guards.
- Another H2G2 eyewitness.
Almost Respectable
Today it's possible to buy toy 'streakers' for Subbuteo , the football game, to go alongside the football strikers. Streaking has become accepted - almost respectable, with few objections to the spectacle. With prosecutions being rare, no doubt we'll be spotting streakers at our sporting events and flashing across our television screens for many years to come.
Here he comes...look...who's that with him?
Ethel, is that you, Ethel?
What do you think you're doing?
You get your clothes on!
The Nitty-Gritty
The current world record for the most streakers at one time is held by the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, USA, with 1,200 persons (male and female) streaking simultaneously.
Interestingly, two women were cleared of indecent exposure after a double-streak in Maine, USA, in February 2002. The judge ruled that an offence is committed only when the genitals are knowingly exposed in public, and stated that since women's genitals are largely internal, they weren't exposed.
It's not only women who get away with it. A court in Canada has ruled that you are not naked if you are wearing shoes. Seven men were charged with 'being nude in a public place without a decent excuse' after taking part in a Gay Pride parade in Toronto. The men belong to a group called TNTMEN (Totally Naked Toronto Men Enjoying Nudity). Their defence lawyer, Peter Simm, argued that 'Nude means absolutely, utterly, completely bare without a single solitary scrap of clothing. If you have any scrap of apparel anywhere on your body, no matter where or how flimsy, then you are not 'nude in a public place' under the law'. Crown prosecutors dropped the charges, and the men walked free. Canadian streakers seemingly have the protection of the law, so long as they keep their running shoes on, and remember the name of that lawyer.
A streaker known only as Bare Rider has this to say about streaking:
I'm not sure why I streak. The fact is I love being naked and get high thinking that someone is going to see me disrobed. Going to a nude beach is just not the same - what's the fun in being what you're expected to be? There's no shock value. On the other hand when I streak, the anxiety is palpable - will they see me? What will they say? And this makes me want to do it again and again.
The Great Escape or The Best Excuse
A man was arrested for streaking down a Melbourne street. The man explained to the police officers that he was running away from the local mortuary, where a doctor had just pronounced him officially dead. The newly-revived man was released without charge, but the fate of the mistaken doctor and shocked mortician attendants is unknown.
And Finally..
In the words of Erica Roe: If you're thinking of streaking, get yourself an agent, go on a diet, and enjoy it.
1 Streakers should not be confused with nudists who are generally law-abiding citizens, for whom being naked is a way of life. 2 The book was shortlisted for both the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction writing and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize in 2000.
| Streaking |
English monarch Richard I is known by what nickname? | Streaking - Wikipedia
Streaking
A streaker at the 2006 Yale–Harvard game in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Streaking is the act of running naked through a public place as a prank , dare or an act of protest .
It is often associated with sporting events but can occur in more secluded areas. It usually involves running quickly which also reflects the original meaning of the word before it became associated with nudity. Streakers are often pursued by sporting officials or by the police.
Contents
History[ edit ]
Lady Godiva was an English noblewoman who, according to a legend dating at least to the 13th century, rode naked – covered only in her long hair – through the streets of Coventry to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation that her husband imposed on his tenants. The name " Peeping Tom " for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom watched her ride and was struck blind or dead.
At 7:00 PM on 5 July 1799, a man was arrested at the Mansion House, London , and sent to the Poultry Compter . He confirmed that he had accepted a wager of 10 guineas (equal to £930 today) to run naked from Cornhill to Cheapside . [1]
The first recorded incident of streaking by a college student in the United States occurred in 1804 at Washington College (now Washington and Lee University ) when senior George William Crump was arrested for running naked through Lexington, Virginia , where the university is located. [2] Robert E. Lee later sanctioned streaking as a rite of passage for young Washington and Lee gentlemen. Crump was suspended for the academic session, but later went on to become a U.S. Congressman . [3]
Streaking seems to have been well-established on some college campuses by the mid-1960s. The magazine of Carleton College described the phenomenon in negative terms associating it with rock culture, drinking and destruction. At that time, streaking was a tradition on the Minnesota campus during January and February when temperatures hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit. [4]
In 1973, what the press called a "streaking epidemic" hit Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas , with streakers being seen in residence halls, at football games and at various other on-campus locations and events, including Spring graduation. The trend continued until spring 1974, when Ralph W. Steen, University president, hoping to end the streaking fad, designated a day to streak the length of East College Street, a tradition that - with a few breaks - has continued to this day. The "epidemic" was covered by all of the major media outlets and became the first time streaking received concentrated national press coverage, including an article in Paris Match covering the phenomenon. [5]
Time magazine, in December 1973, called streaking "a growing Los Angeles-area fad" that was "catching on among college students and other groups." [6] A letter writer responded, "Let it be known that streakers have plagued the campus police at Notre Dame for the past decade", pointing out that a group of University of Notre Dame students sponsored a "Streakers' Olympics" in 1972. [7] There was also a streaker at the real Olympics in Montreal, Canada, in 1976.
Definitions and etymology[ edit ]
The word has been used in its modern sense only since the 1960s. Before that, to streak in English since 1768 meant "to go quickly, to rush, to run at full speed", and was a re-spelling of streek: "to go quickly" (c.1380); this in turn was originally a northern Middle English variant of stretch (c. 1250). [8]
The term "streaking" was popularized by a reporter for a local Washington, D.C. news station as he watched a "mass nude run" take place at the University of Maryland in 1973. That nude run had 533 participants. As the collected mass of nude students exited Bel Air dorm, the reporter, whose voice was broadcast live over the station via a pay phone connection exclaimed... "they are streaking past me right now. It's an incredible sight!" The next day it was out on the Associated Press wire as "streaking" and had nationwide coverage. [9]
Streaking is distinct from naturism or nudism in that streakers usually intend to be noticed and may choose a place with a large audience for their act, regardless of the risk of arrest (sometimes even intending to end up in police custody), whereas naturists and nudists generally prefer to be left in peace. It is also distinct from " flashing ", in that the intent is generally not to shock or traumatize a victim. Streakers may streak only once or a few times, possibly as a result of a dare, or may streak so often it can be considered a hobby.
The most public form of streaking is running naked before huge crowds at sporting events. However, many streakers seek quieter venues, such as a neighborhood at night after most people have gone to bed. Some have even found it especially satisfying to streak on rural highways in the very early hours of the morning, when there are not many commuters on the road. A number of streakers do not intend to expose themselves to others, but find it thrilling to do it in places that often have people present, but do not at the time of their streak. Streaking may be an individual or a group activity. It is not uncommon for videos of some of the more daring streaks to find popularity on the internet.
Of note is that since its heyday in the 1970s, being caught streaking in the United States now involves a risk of being charged with indecent exposure and consequently the title of " sex offender " upon conviction. Many jurisdictions have precedents (for example, in California, In re Dallas W. (2000)), establishing that public nudity , even if offensive, may not rise to the level of indecent exposure unless it is sexually motivated. However, that does not preclude attempts at prosecution. The prevalence of streaking (and, more generally, public nudity) greatly varies from place to place. It is reportedly quite common in San Francisco , where the police are prohibited by local authorities from making arrests for public nudity absent an outright lewd act. [10] [11]
Play media
Streaker at the WCE vs Collingwood AFL match 2014
In a game against the Melbourne Storm at Olympic Park in 2007, a Brisbane Broncos fan streaked across the field waving his supporter jersey over his head. He was apprehended at the other side of the field to large applause. [12]
During an NRL finals match between the Wests Tigers and the New Zealand Warriors at the Sydney Football Stadium on 16 September 2011, a streaker ran onto the playing field forcing the game to come to a halt as security guards attempted to apprehend the man. [13]
Michael O'Brien was the first known streaker at a major sporting event when on 20 April 1974, he ran out naked onto the ground of an England vs. France Rugby Union match at Twickenham . The 25-year-old Australian was captured by a policeman, PC Bruce Perry, who covered his genitals with his police helmet. [14] The photograph of O'Brien under arrest became one of the most reproduced photographs of a streaker. [15] O'Brien, long-haired, bearded and naked in front of a jeering and cheering crowd is surrounded and supported by bobbies as he is arrested. The policeman's helmet is on display in the museum at Twickenham. A later streaker at the same venue, although merely topless, was Erica Roe on 2 January 1982.
Streaker at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens in 1994
On 22 March 2009, a female streaker ran onto the pitch brandishing a green flag during the televised match between London Irish and Northampton Saints . It was in front of the season's largest crowd away from Twickenham , 21,000 fans bearing witness. [16]
In the sport of cricket , it is not uncommon for a male streaker to run out to the field purely for shock and entertainment value or political purposes. One example was in the First Test of the Australia versus the I.C.C. World XI, when a rather drunken man darted out toward the field naked, shocking the Australian and World XI players, halting play until he was spear tackled to the ground by field personnel. In one notable incident in 1977, Australian test cricketer Greg Chappell spanked an invading streaker named Bruce McCauley with his cricket bat ; McCauley then fell to the ground and was arrested by police. [17]
Former cricket streaker Sheila Nicholls went on to have a successful career in the American music business. In 1989 Nicholls ran onto Lord's cricket ground fully nude and did a cartwheel to the crowd. She was photographed and filmed full frontal on live TV.
"A Family Legacy", is a short film featuring Australian AFI award winning actor Nathaniel Dean . It is an example of streaking at large social & cultural gatherings. The freedom of self-expression is presented in the film with a sense of social satire.
Streaking became popular at Australian rules football matches in the 1980s, particularly Victorian Football League Grand Finals , with a trend started by Adelaide stripper Helen D'Amico in the 1982 VFL Grand Final between Carlton and Richmond , wearing only a Carlton scarf . [18]
In 2005, German football club FC Hansa Rostock successfully sued three streakers who disrupted their 2003 match against Hertha Berlin , to recoup the € 20,000 they were fined by the German Football Association for failing to maintain adequate security at their ground.[ citation needed ] During a 2007 exhibition match between Wellington Phoenix and Los Angeles Galaxy , a female streaker took to the pitch trying to unofficially promote a business run by New Zealand sporting personality Marc Ellis .[ citation needed ]
In the 2006 Winter Olympics , streaker Mark Roberts interrupted the men's bronze medal curling match between the U.S. team and the UK team, wearing nothing but a strategically placed rubber chicken . For the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, officials warned visitors against streaking, amongst other forms of "bad behaviour". [19]
The 1996 Wimbledon's Men's singles final between MaliVai Washington and Richard Krajicek was interrupted by a female streaker just before the toss. Melissa Johnson, a 23-year-old student, thereby became Wimbledon's first streaker. She ran onto the ground with an apron on, which she lifted to reveal her vulva to the players and crowd. In 2006 a quarter-final match between Elena Dementieva and Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon was interrupted by a male streaker, who was escorted off court by police. He was later identified as Dutch radio DJ Sander Lantinga , who was streaking for a TV show called Try Before You Die.
Despite the particularly close up nature of snooker , there have been a number of streakers in snooker tournaments. The first was Lianne Crofts in the final of the 1997 Benson & Hedges Masters between Steve Davis and Ronnie O'Sullivan . Since then there have been two streakers at the World Snooker Championship . The first was Andrew Slater, who appeared in a Sven-Göran Eriksson mask and socks during a match between Paul Hunter and Quinten Hann in 2002. Then, during the final in 2004 between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Graeme Dott , Mark Roberts ran down the stairs and tried to claim asylum under the table.
In Super Bowl XXXVIII , streaker Mark Roberts disrupted the game by running on to the field. He was eventually leveled by New England Patriots linebacker Matt Chatham , and was subsequently apprehended. Despite the worldwide audience, this event was largely unnoticed due to that game's infamous halftime show in which Janet Jackson 's nude breast was revealed due to what was called a "wardrobe malfunction". Roberts would return in 2007 during the first NFL regular season game held in England between the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants , streaking during the game at Wembley Stadium . [20]
During the 2007 Labour Day Classic match between the Calgary Stampeders and the Edmonton Eskimos , a total of four streakers and one partially clothed man disrupted the game.
In 1999, a female streaker named Yvonne Robb was arrested for kissing Tiger Woods on the 18th hole at Carnoustie. [21] In 2000, female streaker Jacqui Salmond streaked fully nude at The Open Championship at St Andrews . And in the 1970s, at the height of streaking's popularity, a male streaker who broke into the Augusta National golf course in Augusta, Georgia (albeit not while the Masters was in play) was actually shot with buckshot and slightly wounded.
In 1973, a female streaker (wearing tennis shoes to avoid falling) ran onto the ice at the Inglewood Forum before a Los Angeles Kings hockey game. Police officers followed her onto the ice but fell while pursuing her. She ran the full length of the ice and was taken into custody by other officers waiting at other end of the rink.
During the final minutes of the third and deciding game of the 2013 State of Origin series , a streaker, Wati Holmwood intruded naked upon the field, interrupting the play and possibly costing the Queensland team a try. He was tackled by security guards, escorted from the field and fined $5,500. [22]
In Bruce Weber's account of a bike ride across America "Life is a Wheel: Love, Death, Etc.," he prints a side picture of his 18 yr. old friend Billy, running naked at "a full & graceful sprint. Leaning forward, his arms pumping, he sped across campus...gleeful & mischievous...I don't know if I have ever seen a more joyous, animated, vibrant portrait of anyone, the embodiment of meaningless daring, an adrenaline rush, and happy rebellion."
In popular culture[ edit ]
The high point of streaking's pop culture significance was in 1974, when thousands of streaks took place around the world. A wide range of novelty products were produced to cash in on the fad, from buttons and patches to a wristwatch featuring a streaking Richard Nixon , to pink underwear that said "Too shy to streak." [23] The prominence of streaking in 1974 has been linked both to the sexual revolution and a conservative backlash against feminism and the campus protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s. [23]
Perhaps the most widely seen streaker in history was 34-year-old Robert Opel , who streaked across the stage of The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles flashing a peace sign on national US television at the 46th Academy Awards in 1974. Bemused host David Niven quipped, "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings." Later, evidence arose suggesting that Opel's appearance was facilitated as a publicity stunt by the show's producer Jack Haley, Jr. . Robert Metzler, the show's business manager, believed that the incident had been planned in some way; during the dress rehearsal Niven had asked Metzler's wife to borrow a pen so he could write down the famous line, which was thus not the ad-lib it appeared to be. [24] Niven's encounter with the streaker was voted the top Oscars moment by film fans in 2001.[ citation needed ]
Ray Stevens wrote and performed " The Streak ", a novelty song about a man who is "always making the news / wearing just his tennis shoes". The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1974. [25]
Russian project ChaveZZZ Reality released a single "Naked Runner" and a same-titled video-clip specifically dedicated to all streakers worldwide. [1]
Records[ edit ]
The current record for the largest group streak was established at the University of Georgia , with 1,543 simultaneous streakers on March 7, 1974. [26] The University of Colorado comes in second with 1,200 streakers, and the University of Maryland ranks third, with 553 naked students streaking three miles in March 1974.
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Who’s got ‘A Lovely Daughter’ in the 1965 hit by Herman’s Hermits? | HERMAN'S HERMITS - 1965 - "Mrs Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter" - YouTube
HERMAN'S HERMITS - 1965 - "Mrs Brown, You've Got A Lovely Daughter"
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Published on Mar 22, 2014
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| Mrs Brown |
A ‘Simoon’ is what type of weather condition? | HERMAN’S HERMITS’ RECORD HOT FOR ’65 . . . APRIL 17, 1965 – Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Herman’ Hermits “Look’s Who’s On First!” year-end trade publication ad for 1965. (Click on image for larger view).
NEW YORK — Herman’s Hermits, the hottest record-selling act today, have set a precedent by having their latest single release, “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter,” break into the Hot 100 chart at the No. 12 position this week. This is the highest jump of any record, thus far, that has ever hit the chart. The previous high was the Beatles’ release of their single “A Hard Day’s Night,” on Capitol Records, which vaulted at the No. 21 spot last year.
Herman’s Hermits currently have three singles ranked within the top 20 of the Hot 100 chart, with their “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat” at No. 6, “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” at No. 12 and “Silhouettes”“at No. 19 after only three weeks on the charts.
Herman (Peter Noone) with WKNR’s J. Michael Wilson, Bob Green and Paul Cannon along with Hermit Derek “Lek” Leckenby in 1965. (Click on photo for larger view; photo courtesy Scott Westerman and Keener13.com).
Just last month, WKNR , the number one top 40 radio station in Detroit, confirmed “Can’t You Heart My Heartbeat” as having been the most popular hit in record sales, through the station’s own influence with its listeners. “Heartbeat,” recently was the No. 1 song on WKNR for three consecutive weeks in the Motor City. The song hit the No. 13 position at the station on February 25 after debuting there ( at No. 28 ) the previous week. It jumped all the way to the No. 1 spot on WKNR the following week, beginning March 3 , and it stayed at the top there through March 24 , when it dropped down to the No. 4 spot on Keener 13.
Herman’s Hermit’s “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter,” was finally released as a single in the U.S. on MGM in late-April, 1965. (Click on image for larger view).
But the latest tune, from the British band’s latest LP, has received what is considered the heaviest airplay of any record not released as a single to date.
Disk jockeys were playing the track from the group’s smash LP, “Introducing Herman’s Hermits,” which is currently at No. 3 this week on the Top LP’s chart in Billboard.
While “Silhouettes” was just released three weeks ago, MGM were forced to release “Mrs. Brown” due to popularity and demand and to date has found there has been no effect in the sale of the other two singles by the same group.
The advanced airplay on this tune has obviously helped the sales of this LP tremendously, since demand has forced consumers to buy the package to obtain “Mrs. Brown.”
The group is scheduled to arrive in this country Monday, April 19, for a month of one-nighters with the Dick Clark tour starting April 30. Prior to that Herman’s Hermits will make several personal appearances upon their arrival here. They are slated to appear on ABC-TV’s “Shindig” on May 4. END.
Addendum: Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of April 17, 1965:
MCRFB note: “Mrs Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter,” eventually went on to become the nation’s No. 1 song for three consecutive weeks — May 1, May 8, May 15, before dropping down to No. 2 on May 22, 1965 — according to the Billboard charts for May 1965.
(Information and news source: Billboard; April 17, 1965).
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French, Butterfly, Spiderman and Eskimo are all types of what? | A Guide to the Different Types of Kisses
continue reading below our video
9 Steps to Drama Free Friendships
2. The Butterfly Kiss
To give someone a butterfly kiss, get close to them so the tips of your eyelashes are touching theirs. Then blink very fast so your eyelashes flutter together like butterfly wings. It's a fun, cute thing to do while you're catching your breath from more traditional kisses. You can also give someone a solo butterfly kiss by fluttering your eyelids against their cheek.
3. The Single-Lip Kiss
To give someone a single-lip kiss, take one of their lips between yours and gently suck or tug on it. It's an awfully romantic kiss, and if you do it right, you'll send tingles up and down your sweetie's spine.
4. The Spiderman Kiss
Based on the kiss in the 2002 movie Spider-Man, the Spiderman kiss involves kissing someone whose face is upside-down from yours, so your top lip kisses their bottom lip and vice versa.
5. The Earlobe Kiss
A great kiss to to perform while you're taking a break from lip kisses, the earlobe kiss involves taking someone's earlobe lightly between your lips and tugging gently downward. For a more intense earlobe kiss, add a little bit of tongue, or use a gentle sucking motion on their earlobe.
6. The Lip Gloss Kiss
This is a fun, flirty kiss for girlfriends to give their boyfriends. Put on a healthy amount of lip gloss or ChapStick, then rub your lips on your partners' lips until theirs are coated, too. For extra fun, surprise your partner with a sweet, fruity lip gloss flavor.
7. The Eskimo Kiss
In an Eskimo kiss, two people rub their noses back and forth against each other. It's based on real kisses that people in Eskimo cultures give their friends. Just like with lip kisses, Eskimo kisses are best executed with your eyes closed.
8. The Cheek Kiss
The cheek kiss is exactly what it sounds like - a closed-mouth kiss against someone's cheek. Cheek kisses can be used as friendly greetings, flirty thank-you's or cute, unexpected ways to say good-bye to your boyfriend or girlfriend.
9. The Hickey
A hickey technically isn't a kiss; it's a red mark (a bruise, really) left on the skin after someone sucks hard enough on it. Hickeys hurt a little to get, but some people think the sucking feels good, especially on the side of the neck. It can be embarrassing to walk around with a hickey, so before you start sucking, get permission first.
10. The Secret Message Kiss
In the middle of a French kiss, spell out a secret message with the tip of your tongue against their tongue. It might feel a little funny to the other person, but at least you'll be getting your message across.
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The ‘Palmer Method’, developed by Austin Palmer, is a system used in what? | How to kiss
How To Kiss
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Merlot is French for which bird? | Merlot Wine
Parentage: Offspring of Cabernet Franc
Aliases: Picard, Langon
Grape Color: Black
Regions: Bourdeaux, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Chilean Central Valley, Australia
The Occitanian word “merlot” translates to “young blackbird.” An accurate description for this popular, early-budding red wine grape, which also happens to be a close cousin to Cabernet Sauvignon. Used for both blending and as a varietal, this grape originates from France’s Bordeaux region, and is a primary grape in Bordeaux wine.
Two thirds of the world’s total planted Merlot grapes are grown in France. After that, it is Italy’s 5th most planted grape. Merlot surged to popularity in the United States in the 1990s.
Contrary to its Vitis Vinifera sibling, Pinot Noir, Merlot grows in loose bunches of berries. It’s a fragile grape, and its early ripening qualities make it vulnerable to risks such as frost and rotting. That being said, Merlot wines tend to be Read more »
Species: Vitis Vinifera
Parentage: Offspring of Cabernet Franc
Aliases: Picard, Langon
Grape Color: Black
Regions: Bourdeaux, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Chilean Central Valley, Australia
The Occitanian word “merlot” translates to “young blackbird.” An accurate description for this popular, early-budding red wine grape, which also happens to be a close cousin to Cabernet Sauvignon. Used for both blending and as a varietal, this grape originates from France’s Bordeaux region, and is a primary grape in Bordeaux wine.
Two thirds of the world’s total planted Merlot grapes are grown in France. After that, it is Italy’s 5th most planted grape. Merlot surged to popularity in the United States in the 1990s.
Contrary to its Vitis Vinifera sibling, Pinot Noir, Merlot grows in loose bunches of berries. It’s a fragile grape, and its early ripening qualities make it vulnerable to risks such as frost and rotting. That being said, Merlot wines tend to be incredibly soft, fruity, and smooth in texture. This softness, along with its medium body, is the very element it adds to traditional Bordeaux wines.
Merlot comprises of high sugar content and low acidity, which allows it to be paired with a large buffet of food options. The grape is best grown in a dry, warm climate. Its flavors fluctuate within the sweetness spectrum -- while cooler climates bring out hints of berries, plum, and even tobacco, Merlot grown in a hot climate will taste similar to fruitcake or chocolate.
Regardless of all these factors, you will know when a Merlot wine is at its best. Mature. Dry. Soft and silky, but rich in flavor. And always, smooth.
| young blackbird |
Who became English monarch in May 1660? | Merlot Wine
Parentage: Offspring of Cabernet Franc
Aliases: Picard, Langon
Grape Color: Black
Regions: Bourdeaux, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Chilean Central Valley, Australia
The Occitanian word “merlot” translates to “young blackbird.” An accurate description for this popular, early-budding red wine grape, which also happens to be a close cousin to Cabernet Sauvignon. Used for both blending and as a varietal, this grape originates from France’s Bordeaux region, and is a primary grape in Bordeaux wine.
Two thirds of the world’s total planted Merlot grapes are grown in France. After that, it is Italy’s 5th most planted grape. Merlot surged to popularity in the United States in the 1990s.
Contrary to its Vitis Vinifera sibling, Pinot Noir, Merlot grows in loose bunches of berries. It’s a fragile grape, and its early ripening qualities make it vulnerable to risks such as frost and rotting. That being said, Merlot wines tend to be Read more »
Species: Vitis Vinifera
Parentage: Offspring of Cabernet Franc
Aliases: Picard, Langon
Grape Color: Black
Regions: Bourdeaux, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Chilean Central Valley, Australia
The Occitanian word “merlot” translates to “young blackbird.” An accurate description for this popular, early-budding red wine grape, which also happens to be a close cousin to Cabernet Sauvignon. Used for both blending and as a varietal, this grape originates from France’s Bordeaux region, and is a primary grape in Bordeaux wine.
Two thirds of the world’s total planted Merlot grapes are grown in France. After that, it is Italy’s 5th most planted grape. Merlot surged to popularity in the United States in the 1990s.
Contrary to its Vitis Vinifera sibling, Pinot Noir, Merlot grows in loose bunches of berries. It’s a fragile grape, and its early ripening qualities make it vulnerable to risks such as frost and rotting. That being said, Merlot wines tend to be incredibly soft, fruity, and smooth in texture. This softness, along with its medium body, is the very element it adds to traditional Bordeaux wines.
Merlot comprises of high sugar content and low acidity, which allows it to be paired with a large buffet of food options. The grape is best grown in a dry, warm climate. Its flavors fluctuate within the sweetness spectrum -- while cooler climates bring out hints of berries, plum, and even tobacco, Merlot grown in a hot climate will taste similar to fruitcake or chocolate.
Regardless of all these factors, you will know when a Merlot wine is at its best. Mature. Dry. Soft and silky, but rich in flavor. And always, smooth.
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How do you address an Ambassador? | US Ambassador
FYI, here is what's come in to the Blog that relates to this office/rank.
For recent questions sent in, check out Robert Hickey's Blog .
For specific offices/ranks, check out Robert Hickey's On-Line Guide .
How to Address a Retired / Former
US Ambassador?
How do I address a retired American Ambassador? He was a member of the U.S. Foreign Service so he was a diplomat for a long time before he was an ambassador.
-- Carol Bentley
How do I address someone who served as an American Ambassador? He was a close personal friend of The President and served for four years.
-- Keith Inge
Dear Ms. Bentley & Mr. Inge:
Any retired or former ambassador is addressed on the envelope, or in the address block of the letter, in the standard style used for addressing high US officials:
The Honorable (Full name)
And, in the salutation or conversation he/she would be addressed as:
Dear Ambassador (Surname),
The difference between ambassadors will arise when you introduce them, describe them, give their title, or identify them in writing.
How to identify a political appointee who served as a Ambassador?
Those appointed to serve as a U.S. ambassador after a career in another field (typically they serve just one administration, more or less) are introduced as:
Ambassador of the United States to (Name of Country) from Year to Year
or
Former Ambassador of the United States to (Name of Country)
Who can be identified as a "Career Ambassador, Retired"?
There are certain individuals who can be identified as a Career Ambassador. They have been accorded the “Personal Rank of Career Ambassador” by the President. If you do a web search for "career-ambassador U.S. Department of State" you find the list. There aren't many. This small category of ambassadors is introduced or identified as:
Career Ambassador of the Foreign Service of the United States of America, Retired
Who can be identified as a "Ambassador, Retired"?
Career U.S. Foreign Service Officers who have served as a U.S. Ambassador at one or more U.S. embassies are introduced or identified as:
Ambassador of the United States of America, Retired
How to Address an Ambassador:
Your Excellency? or The Honorable?
I see some ambassador's names written as The Honorable (full name) and others as His Excellency (full name). Which is correct? The ambassador who is coming is the French Ambassador. How should I write his name?
~ The Diva of Diplomats
1) An ambassador of the United States is addressed by US citizens as:
The Honorable (full name)
The Ambassador of the United States of America
(Address)
The form -- the Honorable -- is used because US citizens formally address their own officials as the Honorable (Full Name).
2) Any foreign ambassador is addressed as:
His/Her Excellency (full name)
The Ambassador of (official name of country)
(Address)
Form #2 is standard around the world for addressing ambassadors. Even US ambassadors are addressed as His/Her/Your Excellency when they serve abroad by citizens of the countries in which they are serving.
Thus, the French Ambassador to the USA is addressed as:
His Excellency (full name)
The Ambassador of the French Republic
(Address)
How to Address Current Ambassadors
At-Post (In the Country where They Serve)
vs. Back Home (In the USA)?
We are doing an overview of usage of the title Your Excellency to the Ambassadors (of the State and accredited to the country) when accompanying their Heads of State or Government abroad. I would like to know -
1) Would you address your Ambassador (USA ambassador accredited in UK) with "Your Excellency" when taking part of the official visit by the President of the USA to UK?
2) Would you address UK Ambassador accredited in USA with "Your Excellency" when taking part of the official visit by the President of the USA to UK?
-- Tina
Dear Tina,
FYI, your questions are answered in my book in the chapter on Diplomats and International Officials.
1) Foreign ambassadors at-post
In the US we follow the standard international practice of addressing accredited current ambassadors ... from one head of state to another head of state ... as "His Excellency John Jones," "Her Excellency Mary Jones," "Your Excellency" or "Ambassador Jones" the last being the least formal.
2) Foreign ambassadors when back home in their own country
In the US, US citizens follow our standard practice of using "The Honorable" for everyone appointed by The President. So we address US ambassadors as "The Honorable Henry Smith" or "Mr. Ambassador" or "Ambassador Smith" ... the last being the least formal.
Your questions:
Would you address your Ambassador (USA ambassador accredited in UK) with Your Excellency when taking part of the official visit by the President of the USA to UK?
I would as a US citizen address a US Ambassador would "The Honorable Henry Smith" or "Mr. Ambassador" or "Ambassador Smith" I would not use the British spelling of "Honourable" just because we were in the UK ... since the nicest way to write a name is the way one sees it at home ... which would be "Honorable"
Would you address UK Ambassador accredited in USA with Your Excellency when taking part of the official visit by the President of the USA to UK?
I would as a US citizen always address a UK ambassador as "His Excellency John Jones" "Your Excellency" or "Ambassador Jones" the last being the least formal.
-- Robert Hickey
How a Should Non-US Citizen
Address an American Ambassador ?
I am writing an invitation letter to the ambassador of the United States to Japan. According to your book the ambassador should be addressed by US citizens as The Honorable John V. Roos. But I am a Japanese citizen. I will be writing to him in care of the US Embassy in Tokyo.
Should I address him as The Honorable (Full Name) as the U.S. citizens do? Or should I address him as His Excellency (Full Name)?
~ T. Suzuki
Dear T. Suzuki:
Using The Honorable (Full Name) would be honoring his US tradition -- would be how a US citizen would address him -- and how he would expect to be addressed in the USA (at home). It is not wrong for you to use it.
Using His/Her Excellency (Full Name) will follow the diplomatic custom -- and how he would expect to be addressed outside the USA and in Japan.
Both are correct, but use Excellency since you are in Japan and are a Japanese citizen.
-- Robert Hickey
Not Finding Your Question Answered?
Below are other topics covered in my blog and at right is a list of officials, Between the two I probably have what you are looking for.
After hunting around a bit, if you don't see your question answered send me an e-mail . I am pretty fast at sending a reply: usually the next day (unless I am traveling.)
If I think your question is of interest to others, I will post the question & answer – with your name and any personal specifics changed.
-- Robert Hickey
| Excellency |
In 1979, which nation was the first to give limited rights to same-sex couples in a scheme called ‘Unregistered Cohabitation’? | Official Forms of Address - The Emily Post Institute, Inc.
Official Forms of Address
The President of the United States (of America- when abroad)
The President
Dear Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name:
Spoken Greeting
Then: Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
The Honorable Full Name, the former President of the United States
The President’s Spouse
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Full Name
The White House
Dear Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name:
Spoken Greeting
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
The Vice President
Dear Mr. / Madam Vice President:
Spoken Greeting
First: Mr. / Madam Vice President
Then: Sir / Ma’am
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
The Vice President of the United States
The Vice President
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
The Honorable Full Name, The Secretary of _________ of the United States
The Secretary of ________
Dear Mr. / Ms. / Madam Attorney General:
Spoken Greeting
Mr. / Ms. / Madam Attorney General
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
The Honorable Full Name, The Chief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice
The Honorable Full Name, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Justice Last Name
Justice or Judge Last Name
Madam Justice or Judge Last Name
Formal Introduction
Mr. / Madam Justice Last Name
Judge Last Name
Then: Senator, Sir / Ma’am
Formal Introduction
The Honorable Senator Last Name, Senator from State
Senator Last Name
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name:
Spoken Greeting
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
The Honorable Last Name, Representative from State
Congressman / Congresswoman Last Name
Ambassador of the United States
American Embassy
The Honorable Full Name, Ambassador of the United States of America (at post)
(when not at post add: to County)
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Full Name, Ambassador of the United States of America
American Ambassador (when no foreign nationals are present, add: to Country)
Ambassador Last Name, United States of America
Foreign Ambassador
His / Her Excellency Full Name
The Ambassador of ________
His / Her Excellency, the Honorable Full Name, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of _______
The Ambassador of _______
The Honorable Full Name, Governor of the state of ______
Governor Last Name
Dear Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name:
Spoken Greeting
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Mayor
The Honorable Full Name, Mayor of City (or, of the city of _______)
Mayor Last Name
The Reverend Full Name, D.D.
Name of church
The Reverend Doctor Full Name
Episcopal Bishop
The Right Reverend Full Name (academic degrees)
Bishop of ______
The Right Reverend Full Name, The Bishop of ______
The Pope
His Holiness, Pope Papal Name
Vatican City, Italy
His Eminence, First Name Cardinal Last Name
Archbishop of _______
His Eminence, Cardinal Last Name
Roman Catholic Bishop
The Most Reverend Full Name
Bishop / Archbishop of ______
Dear Bishop / Archbishop Last Name:
Spoken Greeting
The Right Reverend Monsignor Full Name
Address
The Reverend Mother Full Name, initials of order
Address
Dear Reverend Mother (Last Name):
Spoken Greeting
Sister Full Name, initials of order if used
Address
Dear Sister Name / Last Name:
Spoken Greeting
Brother Given Name (Last Name), initials of order, if used
Address
Mr. Last Name, the President of ______ Temple
Imam
The Imam of the _______ Mosque / Islamic Center
Rabbi
Rabbi Full Name (academic degrees)
Address
Dr. Last Name (if holds a degree)
Rabbi
Rabbi Last Name, of Name of Temple / Congregation
Cantor
Cantor Last Name, of Name of Temple / Congregation
Other Professionals
Full Name, Esq. (or J.D., if held)
or Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Full Name
Address
Dear Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name:
Spoken Greeting
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
Formal Introduction
Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name
University Professor
or Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Full Name (or Dr., if held)
Address
Dear Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. Last Name: (or Dr., if held)
Spoken Greeting
Professor or Dr. Last Name
Formal Introduction
Professor or Dr. Last Name
Physician
Guide to Addressing Correspondence
Address book, cup of tea and stationery at the ready, you start addressing invitations for your husband’s fortieth birthday party. All of a sudden you realize you are in a potential etiquette minefield. Jane and John are married, but she does not want to be addressed as “and Mrs. John Kelly;” Sam and Sue are … Continued View more lifestyle advice
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Actresses Judi Dench, Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith all hold which title? | "Knights of Classic Drama at the BBC" Dames of Classic Drama (TV Episode 2015) - IMDb
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A companion piece to "Knights of Classic Drama," this documentary outlines some of the early career appearances of Britain's greatest actresses in the BBC Television archives.
Stars:
Title: Dames of Classic Drama (08 Nov 2015)
8/10
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Storyline
A companion piece to "Knights of Classic Drama," this documentary outlines some of the early career appearances of Britain's greatest actresses in the BBC Television archives.
8 November 2015 (UK) See more »
Company Credits
(United Kingdom) – See all my reviews
Dames of Classic Drama at the BBC is a companion piece to the Knights of Classic Drama at the BBC which is just an excuse to see old clips of some the nation's greatest actress when they were younger.
Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren and Vanessa Redgrave are featured. Hold on, Vanessa Redgrave is not a Dame (notably included on account that she allegedly turned down the title some years ago.) However they could had also included Glenda Jackson as well as I find it hard to believe that a two time Oscar winning actress has never been offered the title in the past.
Judi Dench and Maggie Smith have regularly appeared on the BBC throughout the decades. Less so with Helen Mirren who seems to have mixed films with television dramas on ITV since the early 1980s. Even her Oscar winning performance was co-produced by ITV. Diana Rigg came to prominence in the ITV series The Avengers.
Still it was good to see these actresses in their early performances. Redgrave playing Miss Jean Brodie on the stage and unsure whether to play her in the film version which Maggie Smith took and bagged an Oscar.
We see Helen Mirren starting out in the late 1960s, she was brash, had attitude and was willing to use sex appeal. She was also amassing the classical stage roles from an early age and we got to see clips from a rare BBC co-produced film where she was wearing a basque and in danger of popping out.
We also see Parkinson being a little chauvinistic towards her when he interviewed her in the 1970s. However he interviewed again in the early noughties when Helen Mirren pulled his leg for being intimidated by having an all woman lineup for that edition of his chat show.
Still at a time when the BBC are under attack from licence fee cuts in real terms it is good to see some of the nation's drama heritage being displayed.
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| Dame |
What is the middle name of cartoon character Donald Duck? | Judi Dench Photos, Gossip, Bio & Review - AskMen
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Judi Dench
Judi Dench
With over 50 credits to her name and almost a half-century spent in the business, Dame Judi Dench has firmly established herself as a screen legend in her own right. She’s worked alongside some of the best and brightest stars Hollywood has to offer, including Keira Knightley, Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow, and there’s little doubt that Judi deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as fellow stellar British imports Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith.
Appeal
Judi possesses a maternal vibe which, while not terribly sexy, is certainly appealing in its own right. She generally comes off as the sort of authority figure most of us wish we had in our lives; she’s firm without being cruel, and is compassionate without being overly lenient. And given that she pranced around in next to nothing in the 1968 adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Judi has clearly experienced the sort of wild days that one might not associate with her today.
Success
Since the mid-1990s, Judi has been nominated for a whopping five Oscars and seven Golden Globes. She’s won far too many awards to list, and has seemingly been a permanent fixture on various “best of” compilations. But Judi’s proudest moment came in 1988 when she became a Dame Commander of the British Empire, forever earning the right to label herself as Dame Judi.
Judi Dench Biography
Dame Judi Dench was born on December 9, 1934, in York, England. Her childhood was spent in the company of performers, as her father was the resident doctor for a nearby theater company. There were consequently actors coming and going in Judi’s house at all hours, and it was by watching them that the young girl found herself mesmerized by their easy-going, cavalier lifestyle. Judi knew early on that she wanted to pursue a career in the arts, though her initial inclination was toward either painting or dancing.
Following her high school years, Judi signed up for a stint at a nearby art school where she began learning some of the finer points of illustrating. She quickly came to the realization that painting wasn’t her forte, and decided to follow her brother to acting school (London’s Central School of Speech and Drama). It was there that Judi discovered her innate abilities as an actress, and by the time she graduated, she won a whole host of awards and kudos from professors and students alike (Judi was even named the student most likely to succeed).
judi dench in hilda lessways
Judi was quickly snapped up by London’s prestigious Old Vic Theatre Company, where she was soon appearing in a wide variety of productions. Her first stint with the company arrived in the form of a 1957 revival of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which she played Ophelia to John Neville’s Hamlet. The reviewers weren’t terribly kind to her, ensuring that, by the time the decision was made to take the production to the States, Judi would be unceremoniously replaced by another actress. Undeterred, Judi devoted herself entirely to the perfection of her craft and eventually proved her worth among both her costars and critics.
It was also around that time that Judi began exploring the possibility of a career in film, and the ambitious actress began stealing time whenever she could to audition for anything being shot locally. In 1959, Judi’s tenaciousness paid off as she was cast in the title role of a BBC miniseries called Hilda Lessways, which she soon followed up with a series of appearances in various made-for-television endeavors. Her primary focus, however, remained the stage, and in 1961, Judi was asked to help form the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was there that Judi firmly established herself as one of the most talented up-and-coming actresses of her generation, with her solid work ethic and astounding versatility opening doors that had previously been firmly shut.
judi dench in macbeth
In 1964, Judi made her cinematic debut with a small but pivotal role in The Third Secret. She consequently spent the next several years appearing in both movies and stage plays, though there was little doubt that Judi’s heart remained firmly entrenched within the world of theater. She appeared alongside some of Britain’s biggest names in a wide variety of productions, with a role opposite Ian McKellen in a late-‘70s adaptation of Macbeth -- easily the most high-profile of her many roles. It was also around that time that Judi married her longtime friend and lover Michael Williams, and the two remained happily married for exactly three decades until his death in 2001.
Judi essentially remained an anonymous figure throughout much of her first couple of decades within the business, which allowed her to take on roles of an increasingly challenging nature (she hadn’t yet been pigeon-holed as one particular type of actress). Judi’s level of fame began to rise in the 1980s, however, once she started appearing in high-profile films such as 1985’s best picture nominee A Room with a View and Kenneth Branagh’s acclaimed 1989 take on Shakespeare’s Henry V.
In 1988, she was also made Dame of Order of the British Empire, 18 years after she was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.
judi dench in james bond franchise
Judi’s notoriety increased exponentially in 1995, when she took on the role of M in GoldenEye, the first James Bond film in several years and Pierce Brosnan ’s debut as 007. Judi won raves for her take on the famed character, and soon found herself fending offers from world-renown directors and production companies. Judi earned her first Oscar nomination just two years later for her role in Mrs. Brown, and actually won a year later for her spellbinding performance as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love alongside Gwyneth Paltrow .
Around that time, Judi also signed on for a starring role in a British sitcom called As Time Goes By, which turned out to be popular enough to run for 10 years. She spent much of the late-‘90s and early 2000s working steadily, appearing in a myriad of different films, including 2000’s Chocolat (opposite Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche ), 2001’s The Shipping News (with Julianne Moore ), and the 2004 Vin Diesel vehicle The Chronicles of Riddick. 2006 proved to be one of her busiest years, as Judi lent her voice to the animated film Doogal, reprised her role of M in the smash Bond prequel Casino Royale starring Eva Green and Daniel Craig , and appeared opposite Cate Blanchett in the searing drama Notes on a Scandal.
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Which colour light indicates the port side of a ship? | Navigation Lights - BoatSafe.com
Check Your Navigation Lights
Will You Be Seen In Time?
Operating at night (or in reduced visibility) can present some special challenges. Not only is your depth perception lessened, bright lights on the shore can cast misleading reflections on the water and if you wear glasses, or worse yet bifocals, you simply don't see as well at night as you do during the day.
It is not only important that you be able to identify other vessels operating in your proximity, it is equally important that other vessels see you.Most recreational vessels are less than 30 feet in length and, according to the Rules of the Road, shall be equipped with navigation lights. These lights not only have a certain arc through which they can be seen but must be seen from a minimum distance. The following lighting requirements are for recreational vessels less than 12 meters in length. (approximately 39.4')
Light
White
2
The arc of the lights and color allows you to determine the direction a vessel is moving. How good are your lights? You should test them to see how visible you might be at night. Whether on a trailer or at the marina, switch on your lights and see how well they can be seen. Walk away from the boat or row away, if you are at anchor or at a mooring, and see how visible the lights are as you move further away. How easy are they to see against the background of lights on shore?
Does your stern light shine dead astern over the required 135º arc or does it shine to one side or up or down. Can it be seen from the required 2 miles and why is that important? As an example, let's say that your stern light for some reason can only be seen for 1/2 mile. You are underway at 8 knots and a large ship is approaching at 15 knots. The ship is only 4 minutes away from collision with you. By the time the ship "might" see you, identify the light and decide on the reaction that should be taken, it is too late. A ship traveling at 15 knots may take miles to stop.
Look at the stern light again, as you move from the stern toward the bow, does the stern light "disappear" as the sidelight "appears"? The stern light should disappear and sidelight appear at 22.5º abaft the beam. If you don't see the green starboard sidelight or the red port sidelight when the stern light disappears there is a problem with the arc of one or all these lights. This means that if another boat were approaching you at the angle where no lights are seen there is increase risk of collision.
If both the sternlight and sidelights are seen brightly at the same time you still have a problem. A vessel approaching won't know whether they are overtaking or crossing and whether they should give-way or stand-on.
You should also check to make sure that your masthead light disappears at the same time each sidelight disappears and they both disappear when the stern light appears.
Check your sidelights from dead ahead. You should see both red and green. However, by moving toward one side just 1-3º you should then see only one light. If you still see two lights, an approaching vessel won't be able to tell which direction your are going.
It is very important to be seen from a distance but also for an approaching vessel to be able to determine your direction of travel.
When boating at night remember the following: "When two lights you see ahead, turn your helm and show your red".
| Red |
How many players are on the field at one time in an American Football team? | Lights, buoys - aids to navigation.
Sailing vessels underway and vessels under oars
A sailing vessel underway shall exhibit:
sidelights;
a sternlight.
In a sailing vessel of less than 20 metres in length the lights may be combined in one lantern carried at or near the top of the mast where it can best be seen.
A sailing vessel underway may, in addition to the lights, exhibit at or near the top of the mast, where they can best be seen, two all-round lights in a vertical line, the upper being red and the lower green, but these lights shall not be exhibited in conjunction with the combined lantern.
A sailing vessel of less than 7 metres in length shall, if practicable, exhibit the lights prescribed above, but if she does not, she shall have ready at hand an electric torch or lighted lantern showing a white light which shall be exhibited in sufficient time to prevent collision.
A vessel under oars may exhibit the lights prescribed in this Rule for sailing vessels, but if she does not, she shall have ready at hand an electric torch or lighted lantern showing a white light which shall be exhibited in sufficient time to prevent collision.
Sailing vessel 1
Astern
Towing an inconspicuous, partly submerged object
An inconspicuous, partly submerged vessel or object, or combination of such vessels or objects being towed, shall exhibit:
if it is less than 25 metres in breadth, one all-round white light at or near the forward end and one at or near the after end except that dracones need not exhibit a light at or near the forward end;
if it is 25 metres or more in breadth, two additional all-round white lights at or near the extremities of its breadth;
if it exceeds 100 metres in length, additional all-round white lights between these lights so that the distance between the lights shall not exceed 100 metres;
a diamond shape at or near the aftermost extremity of the last vessel or object being towed and if the length of the tow exceeds 200 metres an additional diamond shape where it can best be seen and located as far forward as is practicable.
Tow shorter than 200 m, object shorter than 100 m
Abeam, port side
Tow longer than 200 m, any object size
Day sign, Abeam, port side
Pushing from ahead or towing alongside
When a pushing vessel and a vessel being pushed ahead are rigidly connected in a composite unit they shall be regarded as a power-driven vessel and exhibit the normal lights.
A power-driven vessel when pushing ahead or towing alongside, except in the case of a composite unit, shall exhibit:
two masthead lights in a vertical line;
sidelights;
A vessel or object being towed shall exhibit:
sidelights;
a sternlight;
when the length of the tow exceeds 200 metres, a diamond shape where it can best be seen.
Provided that any number of vessels being towed alongside or pushed in a group shall be lighted as one vessel,
a vessel being pushed ahead, not being part of a composite unit, shall exhibit at the forward end, sidelights;
a vessel being towed alongside shall exhibit a sternlight and at the forward end, sidelights.
Pushing from ahead
Astern
Fishing, Trawling
A vessel engaged in fishing, whether underway or at anchor, shall exhibit only the lights and shapes prescribed below.
A vessel when engaged in trawling, by which is meant the dragging through the water of a dredge net or other apparatus used as a fishing appliance, shall exhibit:
two all-round lights in a vertical line, the upper being green and the lower white, or a shape consisting of two cones with their apexes together in a vertical line one above the other;
a masthead light abaft of and higher than the all-round green light; a vessel of less than 50 metres in length shall not be obliged to exhibit such a light but may do so;
when making way through the water, in addition to the lights prescribed hereh, sidelights and a sternlight.
when shooting nets, white light over white light (Flag Z by day);
when hauling nets, white light over red light (Flag G by day);
When nets are caught on the bottom, red light over red light (Flag P by day)
Fishing vessel
Astern
Restricted in her ability to manoeuvre
A vessel restricted in her ability to manoeuvre, except a vessel engaged in mine clearance operations, shall exhibit:
three all-round lights in a vertical line where they can best be seen. The highest and lowest of these lights shall be red and the middle light shall be white;
three shapes in a vertical line where they can best be seen. The highest and lowest of these shapes shall be balls and the middle one a diamond;
when making way through the water, also a masthead light or lights, sidelights and a sternlight
Restricted in her ability to manoeuvre
,
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ZZ Tripp is a tribute band to which famous band? | | Authentic ZZ TOP Tribute Band | with real beards | sharp dressed clothes | ZZ's stage moves | and first class musicianship
ZZ Home
ZZ Tripp @ The Dixie in Cape Coral, Florida
A phenomenal 3 piece band with that Texas Boogie groove, authentic with real beards, sharp dressed clothes, ZZ’s stage moves, props, and first class musicianship. This stunning show delivers the magic of a live ZZ Top performance in their early years. The songs are structured like their studio work, but with some of ZZ Top’s signature live elements added in. A 2-hour spectacular of classic hits, spanning over 40 Years of ZZ Top’s greatest songs, as well as some of their obscure songs that should have been hits. ZZ Tripp is more than just a performance, it is an act, an illusion, a locomotive roaring down the track, a show that’s guaranteed to have everyone grooving, boogieing, singing and dancing in the isles – consisting of veteran musicians: Brad Alan playing Billy Gibbons on guitar, Dan Kress playing Dusty Hill on bass, and Tom Summerlin playing Frank Beard on drums.
| ZZ Top |
SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) is located in which European country? | La Grange The Tribute To ZZ Top - YouTube
La Grange The Tribute To ZZ Top
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Uploaded on Dec 10, 2007
La Grange "The Ultimate ZZ Top Experience" live at The House Of Blues Sunset Strip W.Hollywood, Ca. Cheap Sunglasses 08-29-07 Lead Vocals "The Rev" - Danny Mann, Lead Guitar "Willie Ribbons" - Jes Christensen, Bass & Vocals "Rusty Chill" - Doug Deringer. Drums "Hank Smeared" - Sam Aliano
Category
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The 1968 MCC tour of South Africa was cancelled when the South Africans refused to accept the presence of which England cricket player? | Test Cricket Tours - Cancelled Tours
England to South Africa 1890-91
Political tension in South Africa
A proposed tour of South Africa in 1889-90, which would have included Lancashire professional Johnny Briggs, had come to nothing. Then in February 1890 James Lillywhite and George Lohmann started to organise a team to tour South Africa during the next winter. Lillywhite assured the South Africans that the team 'will be much more powerful than Major Warton's'. He continued that tourists 'in all probability … will have been secured' before his letter arrived 'as possibly an attempt to get a team for Australia might be made'. Yet in September 1890 the proposed tour was abandoned due to the ongoing political tension in South Africa.
In January 1891 Cricket reported that George Lohmann was again making preparations to take a powerful side and the South African Cricket Association had voted in of such a tour. However, on 26 February it was announced that the project had been abandoned having 'passed out of the scope of practical politics'. From 'The Beau Ideal' (Ric Sissons). Rival W W Read took his own English side in 1891-92.
South Africa to England 1911
Australia to England 1913
The Triangular Tournament
To accommodate the Triangular Tournament, South Africa deferred its visit in 1911 to 1912 while Australia brought forward its visit to England from 1913 to 1912. The 1912-13 series between South Africa and Australia was dropped.
1915 South Africa to England
1915-16 England (M.C.C) to Australia
1916 Second triangular contest
1916-17 South Africa to Australia
1917 Australia to England
1917-18 England (M.C.C.) to South Africa
Australia to England 1920
In February 1919 the Australian Board of Control inquired whether the Marylebone Cricket Club (M.C.C.) would send an English team to Australia in 1920-21 if the Australians sent a team to England. M.C.C. considered the question of hosting an Australian team but decided it was unable to do so but might obtain the English counties’ agreement to a tour in 1920.
Postponed I.C.C. tours in the 1920s
Postponed
The Imperial Cricket Conference set down a programme of Test tours at its meeting on 6 June 1921:
1923 South Africa to England
1923-24 England to Australia
1925 Australia to England
All three tours were subsequently deferred for one year. At its meeting (at Lord’s) on 1 June 1926 it set down a further programme of Test tours, one of which (South Africa to England 1928) was subsequently deferred for one year to 1929 to allow new ICC member West Indies to tour England
South Africans to India 1929
Anthony De Mello (who became Indian Board secretary) and the Board’s first chairman R.E..Grant-Govan were in England in 1928 making plans for tours to India by South Africa in 1929 and by England in 1930-31. Meanwhile so little progress was made forming an Indian Board of Control that by the time it was done in 1929, the momentum had gone, and South Africa never went to India until 1992 (for a one-day series) or 1996 (for Test matches)
Rearranged I.C.C. tours in the 1930s
Postponed to accommodate a full Indian tour of England
The ICC meeting at The Oval in 1929 drew up a programme of tours
New Zealand and possibly India to England 1931 : the Indian tour was deferred to 1932
West Indians to England 1932 was deferred to 1933
South Africa to England 1933 was deferred to 1935
England (M.C.C) to India 1930-31
Civil disturbances
M.C.C. was forced to put off its visit to India in 1930-31 in the face of civil disturbances arising from the independence movement. The Maharajkumar (Prince) ‘Vizzy’ organised a replacement team, Vizianagram’s XI. “The cancellation of the M.C.C. tour gave the greatest disappointment to Indian cricketers,” he said. “I was fired with a passion to compensate India.” His team included Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, who had earlier declined a tour of India with Gilligan in 1926-27.
Indians to England 1931
Postponed
After cancelling its visit to India in 1930-31 because of civil disturbances, M.C.C. decided instead to invite an Indian team to England in 1931 but a postponement until 1932 to allow more time for arrangements to be made meant the tour was not confirmed until 31 August 1931.
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Outbreak of the Second World War
For what would have been England's second Test tour of India, three Test matches - at Bombay, Calcutta and Madras - were arranged, but Britain was moving closer to war with Germany
On 25 July 1939 M.C.C. said "While none of the arrangements for the tour of India this winter have been cancelled, views are being exchanged at present between M.C.C. and the Indian Cricket Board of Control to ascertain if a postponement of the tour of India to the winter of 1941 might be desirable."
On 2 August M.C.C. decided not to alter its plans at present, and announced the names of those invited to tour. But War was declared on 3 September 1939, and the tour was finally cancelled next day.
Australians to New Zealand 1939-40
Second World War
The Australian Cricket Board of Control was understood to be planning a full tour of New Zealand as soon as 1939-40 but the outbreak of the Second World War put paid to the proposal. A team was sent to New Zealand as soon as feasible after the War in 1945-46.
Eight other wartime series
Second World War
An Imperial Cricket Conference meeting at Lord’s on 14 June 1939 between representatives of all the six Test-playing nations had announced the following programme of future Test series:
1940 South Africa in England
1940-41 England ( M.C.C.) in Australia
1942 Australia in England
1942-43 England ( M C C) in West Indies
1943 India in England
1943-44 England ( M C C) in South Africa
1944-45 England ( M C C) in Australia
1945 South Africa in England
Postponed I.C.C. tours in the 1940s
Postponed
On 15 January 1946 the Imperial Cricket Conference met at Lord’s to draw up the programme for the next 8 years which happened except
1946-47 West Indies to India (deferred to 1948-49)
1949-50 England to India
1952 Australia to England (swopped with India 1953)
Australia to West Indies 1948-49
Australia did not accept an invitation from the West Indian Board to tour in the spring of 1949. Firstly, difficulties with obtaining return passages from England in 1948 compelled shifting domestic first-class matches to the second half of the 1948-49 Australian season, so that the cricketers who toured England could participate.
Secondly, it was known that the leading players would be absent for the whole 1949-50 season in South Africa, meaning the top players would not not have been seen playing in Australia for two years.
England (M.C.C.) to India 1949-50
To reduce player workload
In July 1948 M.C.C. cancelled their 1949-50 tour of India. This was a first step in reducing the number of tours made abroad by M.C.C. India arranged a replacement series of five unofficial Tests against a Commonwealth team made up largely of players from the league cricket (notably Frank Worrell, Bill Alley, skipper Jock Livingston and George Tribe).
India to Pakistan 1950-51
The first Asian Cricket Conference was held in Bombay on 6 March 1948. Delegates from India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Burma attended. The conference agreed a programme including an Indian visit to Pakistan in 1950-51 but this did not take place until January 1955. The Pakistanis’ first Test tour of India was arranged for 1951-52 but was later postponed by one year.
Australia to New Zealand 1951-52
At the Australian Board of Control annual meeting in September 1949, there was an offer to send an Australian side of Test staus to New Zealand in February 1952, in addition to the non-Test party being sent in 1949-50. There might also be a New Zealand visit to Australia in 1953-54 but neither of these tours materialised.
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Foreign exchange
The Indian Cricket Board was already questionning West Indies' financial demands for its forthcoming series but, fatally, on 3 June 1965 the Indian government rejected the Indian Board’s plan to invite them. The Finance Ministry gave a ruling that it was impossible to release $168,000 of foreign exchange. The Indian Board attempted to lower their costs by reducing the three-month programme to an eight-week tour beginning on 22 December 1965 but the West Indies Board rejected that idea. The tour was ultimately cancelled because of unsettled conditions
West Indians to Pakistan 1965-66
War
The government of Pakistan had also been unable to sanction foreign exchange for a tour by West Indies and that part of the visit had been cancelled on 31 August.
When the new Indian eight-week tour was rejected, West Indies’ Board then hoped to re-arrange a tour limited to Pakistan in 1965-66; but only two days later on 4 October it, too, had to be called off because of the India-Pakistan War.
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England team not accepted
Firstly, the customary two matches in Rhodesia were dropped from the tour itinerary on British government advice because of Rhodesia Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI).
On 17 September 1968 the South African Prime Minister, John Vorster, announced that he would not accept Basil d'Oliveira as a member of the M.C.C. team, and a week later the South African tour was called off.
The M.C.C had made it clear in public statements that the touring side would be picked on merit and there could be no restrictions on who would be selected but behind the scenes Lord Cobham and Alec Douglas-Home strived not to force the issue, which could cause South Africa’s isolation from sporting contact with the rest of the world. They hoped that, if D’Oliveira made himself unavailable by taking a coaching job, the tour could go ahead.
When the touring squad was announced and Basil D’Oliveira was omitted, despite scoring 158 for England in the Oval Test match, it was regarded as deeply suspicious. However, the tour would have gone ahead but for Tom Cartwright withdrawing and D’Oliveira receiving a call-up as his replacement.
Vorster’s response was that South Africa was not prepared to receive a team thrust upon it by people with political objectives, saying it was not the MCC team but that of the anti-apartheid movement.
England (M.C.C.) to India 1968-69
Foreign exchange
Replacing the South African tour, M.C.C. hoped to play one three-day match and three Tests against India in a four-week period, and then the same programme in Pakistan. This was agreed at the end of September but on 24 November the Indian section of the tour was cancelled. Guarantees of £6000 for each Test and £2.000 for the other match were needed and the Finance Ministry, responsible for granting the foreign exchange, would not release it.
West Indians to Pakistan 1969-70
Financial guarantees
The tour was agreed at the annual meeting of the International Cricket Conference at Lord’s on 12 July 1968 but on 27 March 1969 the West Indies Cricket Board of Control announced that its Pakistan tour plan had broken down. Peter Short, the Board secretary, said the Pakistan cricket authorities had failed to agree to the required financial guarantee.
The proposed return visit by Pakistan to West Indies in 1971 also fell through and instead India were invited to tour the Caribbean in 1970-71.
Australia to Pakistan 1969-70
Financial terms
The Australian Board was negotiating to take in India on its 1969-70 tour of Pakistan, but it was the Pakistan section that was cancelled. The Test matches against Pakistan which would have followed a Test series in India were called off in December 1968 because agreement could not be reached on financial terms. As soon as this was known, the Australian Cricket Board of Control wrote to the South African Cricket Association (SACA) about making a short tour of South Africa instead. Having lost their M.C.C tour a year ago, SACA readily agreed.
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Threatened disruption by anti-apartheid protesters
Despite the D’Oliveira affair a few months before, on 23 January 1969 the M.C.C. committee voted to invite South Africa to tour in 1970.
On 20 May the Cricket Council voted for the tour still to go ahead but pressure was maintained on them to abandon the tour until two days later on 22 May 1970 when the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, directed that the tour should be cancelled. John Vorster, South African Prime Minister, accused the British government of caving in to blackmail.
Amended I.C.C. tours programme in the 1970s
To bring more Test matches to India, Pakistan and the West Indies.
The annual meeting of the International Cricket Conference at Lord’s on 12 July 1968 authorised an increased programme of cricket tours to bring more Test matches to India, Pakistan and the West Indies.
These included :
1971: Pakistan to West Indies (subsequently cancelled).
1973-74: England (MCC) to West Indies (brought forward by two years)
1977-78: England (MCC) to India and Pakistan (brought forward by four years)
In the original schedule England would make a full tour of India and Pakistan every ten years, ie 1951-52, 1961-62, 1971-72, 1981-82. Thus the 1977-78 proposal brought the tour forward by 4 years, but was then advanced by a further year.
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Threatened disruption by anti-apartheid protesters
The New Zealand part of the tour was cancelled first, as leading South African players said they would not be available.
When it became clear that political groups, the church and trades unions would boycott the Australia visit or deprive the tourists of the use of facilities, the Australian Cricket Board decided on 8 September 1971 “with great regret” to cancel the forthcoming tour of Australia.The reasons given included that it would create internal bitterness and provoke vociferous disruption from minority groups, as well as place extreme demands upon the police force.
England to India & Pakistan 1971-72
State of emergency
In late July 1971 M.C.C. postponed the tour for a year until 1972-73 because of the political situation in Pakistan.
The annual meeting of the International Cricket Conference at Lord’s on 12 July 1968 authorised an increased programme of cricket tours and this tour was provisionally agreed but in the end India toured West Indies instead.
Australia to Pakistan 1973-74
Player allowances
Australia planned to make a tour of Pakistan in 1973-74 but it was cancelled on 6 March 1973 because of a disagreemant with the Pakistan Board over inadequate players' allowances. In its place the Australians made their first tour of New Zealand since 1946.
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South African team still chosen on racial grounds
Having cancelled the South African tour of England in May 1970, the Cricket Council said that England would no longer play Test matches against South Africa until multi-racial cricket was introduced. The 1975 tour was formally cancelled by the Cricket Council on 11 September 1973. The South African board was disappointed that what they regarded as progress in making cricket multi-racial was insufficient.
At its two-day meeting in July 1974, the International Cricket Conference approved a programme of tours including the next South African visit to England scheduled for 1980, but contingencies were already being made for its cancellation.
1976-77 (link)
(South African team still being chosen on racial grounds
The Cricket Council called off the M.C.C. (in reality England) tour visiting South Africa in 1976-77 after a meeting at Lord’s on 12 September 1975. It acknowledged the progress made towards multi-racial cricket but regretted that “our requirements for the resumption of Test cricket with South Africa have not yet been fully met”.
The ICC tours schedule drawn up in 1968 had England visiting India and Pakistan in 1977-78 so the Indian section of the tour was now brought forward by one year to 1976-77 and Tony Greig took a side there.
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Financial
The tour was planned for the Spring of 1980 with the Indians due to reach West Indies on 4 March and return on 5 May.
Financial difficulties put the tour into difficulty from the start. The Indian Board wanted guarantee money for each of the four Test matches planned, but the West Indies Board could afford to pay only expenses. The W.I. Board had suffered considerable losses over the Australian tour in 1978 and the Packer court case settlement. On 3 January Mr Harold Burnett, secretary of the W.I.Board announced that the tour had been cancelled.
Yet Ghulam Ahmed, on behalf of the Indian Board, denied this, saying that the tour plans would be complete in a week's time. The Indian Board approached the Government to release foreign exchange and and meet the expenses of the trip. But, to the general relief of those who considered the Test programme as already overcrowded (India had played 13 Test matches in the space of five months), the West Indian Board finally cancelled the tour on 6 February 1980.
Because tours have to be on a reciprocal basis, and the Indian Board wanted the West Indies to return soon to India where they were always a popular draw, it was planned to send a team out to the Caribbean as soon as possible, which turned out to be in Spring 1983.
New Zealanders to West Indies 1981-82
Springbok rugby tour
A planned New Zealand tour, of the West Indies in 1982 was cancelled as a result of the tour of New Zealand by the Springbok South African rugby union team in 1981.
Despite the New Zealand prime minister appealing to the NZ Rugby Union not to invite the Springboks, and the NZ Cricket Council dissociating themselves from the rugby tour, the West Indies Cricket Board of Control said it was was unable to host the New Zealanders
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Threat of terrorist activities in Sri Lanka.
This three week-long tour of Sri Lanka was to be made en route to the World Cup competition in India and Pakistan, but was cancelled on 14 August 1987. (Andrew Zesers had postponed his wedding, which was to be held on 20 September, before he learned that the tour was cancelled).
The tour was re-scheduled for April 1988 – provided the island was peaceful – and this arrangement was subsequently cancelled, too, by the Australian Cricket Board in February 1988.
Australians to West Indies 1987-88
(Assume) to avoid too much cricket against the West Indies with ten Test matches in one calendar year.
The tour was cancelled on 8 January 1987.
The chief executive of the Australian Cricket Board, Mr David Richards, said the West Indian Board had called it off but undisclosed sources said that West Indian officials were most disappointed the tour would not go ahead.
The sources suggested that, with the Windies scheduled to tour Australia in 1988-89, the Australian Cricket Board was reluctant to have Border's young side exposed to the West Indies in ten Test matches in one calendar year. Australia had won only one of the past 10 Tests against the West Indies.
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Sporting links with South Africa
Firstly, the proposed autumn tour of Sri Lanka was called off in June owing to political unrest on the island. There were already signs that the England team might not be acceptable in India owing to the South African connections of several English players.
Graham Gooch was appointed tour captain on 29 August during the home Test against Sri Lanka at Lord's. However, when Indian politicians learned that he needed to obtain release from a winter contract with Western Province, the Indian government accused him of misleading them at the time of the 1987 Reliance World Cup about his intentions of playing again in South Africa. Consequently, he was regarded as unacceptable as captain.
The tour was probably already doomed by then but the TCCB went ahead and chose a team. When the names were announced, eight of those selected including Gooch were on the United Nations 'blacklist' because of their sporting links with South Africa. While Chief Executive Alan Smith admitted he could not see how the tour could proceed because eight of the team would be refused entry visas, the TCCB delayed cancelling it for a further two weeks. The tour was finally cancelled on 7 October.
In due course an alternative tour to New Zealand to start in late February was substituted. The England party was to remain unchanged, although discussions had taken place about changing the composition of the original team which had been picked for Indian conditions.
The New Zealand tour itinerary included two Test matches and a one-day triangular series, for which the Pakistan Board soon announced it was refusing to let its players play against England. This rendered the whole tour financially unviable. On 22 December the New Zealand Cricket Council called it off. The Pakistanis then arranged their own separate tour of New Zealand.
The Sri Lankans agreed in principle at the Asian Cricket Conference in Dhaka to tour India in place of England but, with no word from the Indian Board (BCCI), most of the Sri Lankan players took up ccontracts to play club cricket in Australia, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and became unavailable
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Threat of terrorism
As the world was taking in the enormity of the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September 2001, a New Zealand team was already on its way to tour Pakistan. The New Zealand Cricket Board stopped its team from flying beyond Singapore until it could appraise the risks of touring Pakistan. Of particular concern was playing at Peshawar, venue for the first Test match, in the North-west Frontier Province which was adjacent to Afghanistan, now identified as Al Qaeda’s centre of operations.
Chief Executive Martin Snedden said the tour was ‘temporarily postponed’ and the team would go to Pakistan when the international situation eased but on 27 September, under advice from New Zealand’s Department of Foreign Affairs, New Zealand Cricket finally cancelled the tour.
This tour was planned to follow after the one-day series in South Africa.
On 20 March the Australian Cricket Board Chief Executive, James Sutherland, was cautious because of tensions in Zimbabwe following its presidential elections two weeks before. He said that the cricket tour of Zimbabwe would go ahead subject to concerns about safety.
A week later, once the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had issued travel advice warning Australian nationals against visiting Zimbabwe, the tour was cancelled on 27 March.
The Board felt there were unacceptable risks to the players and officials of encountering political violence, possibly stemming from the Australian government’s part in having Zimbabwe suspended from the Commonwealth.
The Zimbabwe Cricket Union would not consider rescheduling the tour in a neutral country as this would amount to admitting that it was unsafe to tour Zimbabwe - where World Cup fixtures were to be held in a year’s time - and no other countries were available to take Australia’s place.
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Players’ safety
Early in May 2004, accommodation, transport, training facilities and fixtures were all in place and Cricket Australia expressed its confidence that the tour would proceed. The selected players had been briefed on the human rights situation in the country, as well as the refusal by fifteen Zimbabwe Test players to participate because of their opposition to the selection system. Because of this the Test matches would inevitably be a huge mis-match.
Stuart MacGill was alone in deciding not to take part in the tour, saying that he didn't feel he could go with a clear conscience.
Cricket Australia said it would carry out its obligations to the ICC's Future Years Programme, though spokesman Peter Young dismissively described completing the tour as ‘ticking a box’.
Malcolm Speed, chief executive of the International Cricket Council, flew to Zimbabwe to urge that it would not be appropriate to afford Test status to the two scheduled matches. However, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union would not meet him in person. Meanwhile the ICC planned to hold a teleconference on 21 May between the cricket boards of the ten Test-playing nations, to decide whether to proceed with the Test matches or cancel them or downgrade them to tour matches. Cricket Australia chairman Bob Merriman arrived in Harare ready to brief the players after the teleconference.
When it was clear that the ICC was going to strip the matches of Test status, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union offered to call them off. The ZCU and Cricket Australia agreed to postpone the matches but they have never been played. The three one-dayers were rearranged, all to be played in Harare as soon as possible, and they went ahead in place of the Tests.
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I C C withdrew Test status
A one-sided mismatch against Sri Lanka in May 2004 brought pressure on the Zimbabwe Cricket Union to withdraw from Test status. On 10 June the International Cricket Council ruled that Zimbabwe would lose Test status for the rest of the year and Zimbabwe's visit to Pakistan was cancelled.
The Pakistan Cricket Board faced a financial crisis but Sri Lanka offered to fill the gap and play a three-Test series and a triangular tournament with Zimbabwe who were still allowed to take part in one-day internationals.
The I C C ruled that exisiting tour commitments had to be fulfilled and in November the ECB, facing a £1 million fine and suspension from the I C C, reluctantly went ahead with its ODI tour of Zimbabwe.
Concerns about the threat of terrorist activities
Australia were set to arrive in Pakistan on 29 March 2008 for three Test matches and five one-day internationals but the four-week tour was postponed (on 11 March) because of government advice that travelling to Pakistan was unsafe with recent outbreaks of violence. Rearranging it meant a split tour was necessary, because of the difficulty of finding a long enough run of free dates for the entire tour. Five ODIs and a Twenty20 would be played in April 2009 on the way back from South Africa; before returning to Pakistan in August 2010 for the Test matches. In the end the Test matches had to be played on neutral territory in England. The Pakistan Board had since 2002 opposed playing on neutral territory because of the loss of income from spectators and damage to development of the game in Pakistan but it became unavoidable. Australia had not played in Pakistan since 1998.
West Indians to Pakistan 2008-09
Security reasons / touring terms.
In September 2008 Pakistan invited the West Indians for a two-Test series in Pakistan in place of the cancelled Champions Trophy. Because of unwillingness by senior players to go to Pakistan for security reasons West Indies declined but it was hoped that the two matches might take place in Abu Dhabi following three ODIs there between Pakistan and West Indies. This plan, too, was scrapped on it 28 October, because the tour was not part of the official FTP and West Indies Board had insufficient time to negotiate touring terms with the players.
With Australia having cancelled their tour in March, there was no Test cricket in Pakistan in 2008.
Zimbabweans to England 2009
UK government would not issue visas to tourists
On 25 June 2008 the England & Wales Cricket Board severed bilateral ties with Zimbabwe Cricket in response to government advice. Gordon Brown’s government made clear that, if the I C C would not “reconsider its rules to allow teams to forfeit tours to countries, such as Zimbabwe, where serious human rights abuses are occurring”, it would not issue visas to touring cricketers from there, and so the April-May 2009 tour was cancelled.
Sri Lankans to England 2009
To accommodate the Indian Premier League
The Sri Lankans were lined up to take Zimbabwe’s place and a programme of fixtures had been agreed, but their board (SLC) had not obtained agreement from players who were expecting to participate in the IPL and could do so according to their contracts. The West Indians toured England in 2009 instead.
Arjuna Ranatunga voiced disapproval of SLC for withdrawing from the Test series He was part of a government-appointed body which ran cricket at the time, but could not influence the decision and later stepped down from his position.
West Indians to England 2010
Knock-on effect of the 2009 Zimbabwe tour cancellation
Brought forward to 2009. When the Sri Lankans withdrew from the tour of England in 2009 the West Indies Board filled the gap. The West Indians had thereby foregone touring England in the later, probably warmer part of the summer in 2010 in order to provide a Test team that would enable the ECB to fulfil their 2009 Sky TV contract. The tourists’ performances in 2009 in temperatures that at times fell as low as 7°C during the Chester-le-Street Test suggested they were far from comfortable with their Board’s decision and they lost the two Test matches heavily.
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Financial problems
India’s tour went ahead in July but Sri Lanka Cricket had cancelled the two Test matches against India. A series of three one-day internationals and a Twenty20 were substituted, later becoming five one-dayers and a T20, which would improve revenue further. SLC badly needed to boost income following the construction of new stadiums in Pallekele and Hambantota for the 2011 World Cup.
Indian players gained a five-week break after the IPL as a result of cancelling the Test matches.
Sri Lankans to West Indies 2012-13
To accommodate the Indian Premier League
Both boards agreed to scrap the two Test matches from Sri Lanka's programme in the West Indies in May 2013 and instead arranged to play a triangular ODI series involving India. Thus players from both Sri Lanka and West Indies would remain available to appear in the Indian Premier League.
South Africans to Sri Lanka 2013
To accommodate the Sri Lanka Premier League
Three Test matches were scheduled for July and August 2013 but Sri Lanka Cricket asked to postpone them in order to host a triangular one-day series with West Indies and India instead With the Sri Lanka Premier League starting in early August, the board decided that it would rather not host the Tests, and CSA agreed to postpone the Test series until 2015, this arrangement allowing them to manage players’ workload better. But in the end the SLPL was cancelled for lack of sponsors.
Scrapping three Test series in quick succession contrasted with the 1980s and ‘90s when for five years there were no Test matches on the island owing to the civil war because other countries would not visit.
| Basil D'Oliveira |
What is the name of the holiday camp in the UK television series ‘Hi De Hi’? | Basil D'Oliveira dead, aged 80 | Daily Mail Online
Tragedy: D'Oliveira has died at the age of 80
South Africa-born former England all-rounder Basil D'Oliveira has died at the age of 80.
D'Oliveira made headlines in 1968 when he was included in the England squad for the tour of South Africa which had to be called off as the South African government refused to accept his presence.
The incident marked the start of South Africa's cricketing isolation.
CSA chief executive Gerald Majola led the tributes to D'Oliveira, whose health had been deteriorating for some time leading up to his death in England.
'"Dolly", as he was known around the world by an audience that went far beyond the game of cricket, was a true legend and a son of whom all South Africans can be extremely proud,' Majola said.
'He was a man of true dignity and a wonderful role model as somebody who overcame the most extreme prejudices and circumstances to take his rightful place on the world stage.'
Take bat: D'Oliveira, seen here playing for Worcester in 1964, scored 2484 Test runs
D'Oliveira starred in Cape Town club cricket in his home country but found his path to the top of the game blocked in apartheid-era South Africa.
He moved to England at the urging of cricket commentator John Arlott and fought his way through the ranks to earn a place in the national side, where he went on to shine on the international stage after making his debut in 1966.
He scored 2484 runs at an average of 40, and took 47 wickets in 44 Tests. His most famous innings saw him score 158 against Australia at The Oval in the 1968 Ashes, a tally that should have sealed his place in the tour of South Africa that would never take place.
Legend of the game: D'Oliveira fought prejudices in his own country to play for England
He was initially left out of the side after pressure was exerted by the South African authorities, but after he was called in due to an injury to Tom Cartwright, the tour had to be cancelled.
Majola continued: 'The fact that he could have a Test career batting average of 40 in 44 Tests and an economy rate of less than two with the ball on his way to 47 wickets was remarkable considering he was past his prime when he made his debut for England in his mid-30s.
Line and length: D'Oliveira was in his mid-30s when he made his debut for England
'One can only imagine what he might have achieved had he made his debut as he should have done at the age of 20 on South Africa's tour of England in 1951.
'I would like to pay tribute also to all those people in England, notably John Arlott, one of the greatest cricket radio commentators of all time, for the roles they played in making it possible for Basil to achieve his dream of playing international cricket for his adopted country.
'The circumstances surrounding his being prevented from touring the country of his birth with England in 1968 led directly to the intensification of opposition to apartheid around the world and contributed materially to the sports boycott that turned out to be an achilles heel of the apartheid government.
'Throughout this shameful period in South Africa's sporting history, Basil displayed a human dignity that earned him worldwide respect and admiration.
On top of the world: The all-rounder was held in high esteem by his peers
'His memory and inspiration will live on among all of us.
'On a personal note I would like to thank him for the contribution he made to my own career at the Coca-Cola coaching clinics.
'On behalf of the CSA family I would like to convey our sympathies to his family and salute them on a life well lived.'
Over the wicket: The South African born cricketer took 47 wickets in 44 Tests
Former Worcestershire and England team-mate Tom Graveney paid tribute to his close friend on Sky Sports News.
'It's terrible news to me because Basil was one of the my best friends,' Graveney said.
'We met because we were on a tour of Pakistan together and I persuaded him to come to Worcester in 1962. He had to serve a year playing in the second XI and then came straight into the first class game and was an immediate success and a wonderful character as well.'
Graveney recalled that D'Oliveira had been in tears when he was initially left out of the team for the tour of his homeland.
'I can remember saying, "If he doesn't go, I'm not going" because we were such great friends and he'd done everything to go and get back into the team, so it was politics I'm afraid,' he said.
'It was very sad.'
Had politics not intervened, Graveney said D'Oliveira would be primarily remembered for his outstanding skill as a batsman.
'He was a very good all-rounder,' he said. 'He bowled medium pace, with a few off-spinners in amongst them. But his batting was the thing. He was tremendously strong. I can remember batting with him when the pitches were turning a bit because we played on wet wickets in those days and he was just terrific.'
| i don't know |
In 1966, in an interview with a London Evening Standard reporter, which Beatle stated that they had become ‘More popular than Jesus’? | John Lennon Interview: London Evening Standard 3/4/1966 - How Does A Beatle Live? Maureen Cleave - "We're More popular than Jesus Now" - Beatles Interviews Database
John Lennon Interview: London Evening Standard, "More Popular Than Jesus" 3/4/1966
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ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW:
Reporter Maureen Cleave, a good friend of John Lennon's, wrote a personality article about him that would be published in the March 4th 1966 edition of the London Evening Standard. Cleave's piece was intended to present a portrait of the behind-the-scenes Lennon, and was entitled 'How Does A Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This.' The article contained a number of Lennon musings, remarks and random thoughts from a recent conversation she had with him at his home in Weybridge, including John's personal view of the current state of religion: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
A separate article with different content, including portions of the Jesus quote out of context from the original article, was published in the American teen fanzine 'Datebook' just before the Beatles' 1966 American tour.
Word-of-mouth rumors in America about John Lennon's Jesus quote spread quickly among anti-Beatle factions, even further out of context, as the ridiculous egocentric headline: 'John says Beatles are bigger than Jesus.' The outrage and reaction mostly seemed to be coming from the 'bible belt' in America.
John would later remark during a press conference in Chicago on August 12th during the Beatles' 1966 North American tour, "We could've just sort of hidden in England and said, 'We're not going, we're not going!' You know, that occured to me when I heard it all. I couldn't remember saying it. I couldn't remember the article. I was panicking, saying, 'I'm not going at all,' you know. But if they sort of straighten it out, it will be worth it, and good."
Lennon continued, "When it came out in England it was a bit of a blab-mouthed saying anyway... A few people wrote into the papers, and a few wrote back saying, 'So what, he said that. Who is he anyway,' or they said, 'So, he can have his own opinion.' And then it just vanished. It was very small. But... you know, when it gets over here and then it's put into a kid's magazine, and just parts of it or whatever was put in, it just loses its meaning or its context immediately... and everybody starts making their own versions of it." John would be asked many times during the 1966 tour to clarify what he had intended to say. Lennon explained in Chicago: "My views are only from what I've read or observed of christianity and what it was, and what it has been, or what it could be. It just seems to me to be shrinking. I'm not knocking it or saying it's bad. I'm just saying it seems to be shrinking and losing contact."
In some cities, reporters would ask Lennon to explain the Jesus comment repeatedly -- even multple times within a single press conference -- baiting him to become upset or to say something even further inflammatory. Knowing their game, John kept his cool.
The public outcry against Lennon had been coming from a rather small minority of the population, but once the national media fanned the flames as much as they were able, reports of negative public reaction made it appear more widespread than it really was. For the minority of Americans who had been moved from religious outrage to action, the fallout did involve Beatle record burnings arranged by christian radio stations, Ku Klux Klan protests, and anonymous death threats. It also gave the older generation a sense of vindication that the Beatles were somehow bad role models for the youth of America.
With some hindsight perspective, John clarified the remark perhaps best during his December 1966 Look magazine interview: "I said we were more popular than Jesus, which is a fact. I believe Jesus was right, Buddha was right, and all of those people like that are right. They're all saying the same thing, and I believe it. I believe what Jesus actually said -- the basic things he laid down about love and goodness -- and not what people say he said."
John's then-wife Cynthia would state years later in her 1978 book, A Twist Of Lennon: "His views were totally misconstrued. John was very bewildered and frightened by the reaction that his words created in the States. Beatle albums were burnt in a mass orgy of self-righteous indignation. Letters arrived at the house full of threats, hate and venom."
The original London Evening Standard article is presented below in its entirety, featuring the quote in its original context.
The photographer for the article was Graeme Robertson.
- Jay Spangler, www.beatlesinterviews.org
Article Copyright � 1966 London Evening Standard
HOW DOES A BEATLE LIVE?
JOHN LENNON LIVES LIKE THIS
by Maureen Cleave
On a hill in Surrey... a young man famous, loaded and waiting for something
It was this time three years ago that The Beatles first grew famous. Ever since then, observers have anxiously tried to gauge whether their fame was on the wax or on the wane; they foretold the fall of the old Beatles, they searched diligently for the new Beatles (which was as pointless as looking for the new Big Ben).
At last they have given up; The Beatles' fame is beyond question. It has nothing to do with whether they are rude or polite, married or unmarried, 25 or 45; whether they appear on Top of the Pops or do not appear on Top of the Pops. They are well above any position even a Rolling Stone might jostle for. They are famous in the way the Queen is famous. When John Lennon's Rolls-Royce, with its black wheels and its black windows, goes past, people say: 'It's the Queen,' or 'It's The Beatles.' With her they share the security of a stable life at the top. They all tick over in the public esteem-she in Buckingham Palace, they in the Weybridge-Esher area. Only Paul remains in London.
The Weybridge community consists of the three married Beatles; they live there among the wooded hills and the stockbrokers. They have not worked since Christmas and their existence is secluded and curiously timeless. "What day is it?" John Lennon asks with interest when you ring up with news from outside. The fans are still at the gates but The Beatles see only each other. They are better friends than ever before.
Ringo and his wife, Maureen, may drop in on John and Cyn; John may drop in on Ringo; George and Pattie may drop in on John and Cyn and they might all go round to Ringo's, by car of course. Outdoors is for holidays.
They watch films, they play rowdy games of Buccaneer; they watch television till it goes off, often playing records at the same time. They while away the small hours of the morning making mad tapes. Bedtimes and mealtimes have no meaning as such. "We've never had time before to do anything but just be Beatles," John Lennon said.
He is much the same as he was before. He still peers down his nose, arrogant as an eagle, although contact lenses have righted the short sight that originally caused the expression. He looks more like Henry VIII than ever now that his face has filled out-he is just as imperious, just as unpredictable, indolent, disorganised, childish, vague, charming and quick-witted. He is still easy-going, still tough as hell. "You never asked after Fred Lennon," he said, disappointed. (Fred is his father; he emerged after they got famous.) "He was here a few weeks ago. It was only the second time in my life I'd seen him -- I showed him the door." He went on cheerfully: "I wasn't having him in the house."
His enthusiasm is undiminished and he insists on its being shared. George has put him on to this Indian music. "You're not listening, are you?" he shouts after 20 minutes of the record. "It's amazing this -- so cool. Don't the Indians appear cool to you? Are you listening? This music is thousands of years old; it makes me laugh, the British going over there and telling them what to do. Quite amazing." And he switched on the television set.
Experience has sown few seeds of doubt in him: not that his mind is closed, but it's closed round whatever he believes at the time. "Christianity will go," he said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." He is reading extensively about religion.
He shops in lightning swoops on Asprey's these days and there is some fine wine in his cellar, but he is still quite unselfconscious. He is far too lazy to keep up appearances, even if he had worked out what the appearances should be-which he has not.
He is now 25. He lives in a large, heavily panelled, heavily carpeted, mock Tudor house set on a hill with his wife Cynthia and his son Julian. There is a cat called after his aunt Mimi, and a purple dining room. Julian is three; he may be sent to the Lycde in London. "Seems the only place for him in his position," said his father, surveying him dispassionately. "I feel sorry for him, though. I couldn't stand ugly people even when I was five. Lots of the ugly ones are foreign, aren't they?"
We did a speedy tour of the house, Julian panting along behind, clutching a large porcelain Siamese cat. John swept past the objects in which he had lost interest: "That's Sidney" (a suit of armour); "That's a hobby I had for a week" (a room full of model racing cars); "Cyn won't let me get rid of that" (a fruit machine). In the sitting room are eight little green boxes with winking red lights; he bought them as Christmas presents but never got round to giving them away. They wink for a year; one imagines him sitting there till next Christmas, surrounded by the little winking boxes.
He paused over objects he still fancies; a huge altar crucifix of a Roman Catholic nature with IHS on it; a pair of crutches, a present from George; an enormous Bible he bought in Chester; his gorilla suit.
"I thought I might need a gorilla suit," he said; he seemed sad about it. "I've only worn it twice. I thought I might pop it on in the summer and drive round in the Ferrari. We were all going to get them and drive round in them but I was the only one who did. I've been thinking about it and if I didn't wear the head it would make an amazing fur coat-with legs, you see. I would like a fur coat but I've never run into any."
One feels that his possessions -- to which he adds daily-have got the upper hand; all the tape recorders, the five television sets, the cars, the telephones of which he knows not a single number. The moment he approaches a switch it fuses; six of the winking boxes, guaranteed to last till next Christmas, have gone funny already. His cars-the Rolls, the Mini-Cooper (black wheels, black windows), the Ferrari (being painted black) -- puzzle him. Then there's the swimming pool, the trees sloping away beneath it. "Nothing like what I ordered," he said resignedly. He wanted the bottom to be a mirror. "It's an amazing household," he said. "None of my gadgets really work except the gorilla suit -- that's the only suit that fits me."
He is very keen on books, will always ask what is good to read. He buys quantities of books and these are kept tidily in a special room. He has Swift, Tennyson, Huxley, Orwell, costly leather-bound editions of Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde. Then there's Little Women, all the William books from his childhood; and some unexpected volumes such as Forty-One Years In India, by Field Marshal Lord Roberts, and Curiosities of Natural History, by Francis T. Buckland. This last-with its chapter headings 'Ear-less Cats', 'Wooden-Legged People,' 'The Immortal Harvey's Mother' is right up his street.
He approaches reading with a lively interest untempered by too much formal education. "I've read millions of books," he said, "that's why I seem to know things." He is obsessed by Celts. "I have decided I am a Celt," he said. "I am on Boadicea's side -- all those bloody blue-eyed blondes chopping people up. I have an awful feeling wishing I was there -- not there with scabs and sores but there through reading about it. The books don't give you more than a paragraph about how they lived; I have to imagine that."
He can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England. "Physically lazy," he said. "I don't mind writing or reading or watching or speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with any more." Occasionally he is driven to London in the Rolls by an ex-Welsh guardsman called Anthony; Anthony has a moustache that intrigues him.
The day I visited him he had been invited to lunch in London, about which he was rather excited. "Do you know how long lunch lasts?" he asked. "I've never been to lunch before. I went to a Lyons the other day and had egg and chips and a cup of tea. The waiters kept looking and saying: 'No, it isn't him, it can't be him'."
He settled himself into the car and demonstrated the television, the folding bed, the refrigerator, the writing desk, the telephone. He has spent many fruitless hours on that telephone. "I only once got through to a person," he said, "and they were out."
Anthony had spent the weekend in Wales. John asked if they'd kept a welcome for him in the hillside and Anthony said they had. They discussed the possibility of an extension for the telephone. We had to call at the doctor's because John had a bit of sea urchin in his toe. "Don't want to be like Dorothy Dandridge," he said, "dying of a splinter 50 years later." He added reassuringly that he had washed the foot in question.
We bowled along in a costly fashion through the countryside. "Famous and loaded" is how he describes himself now. "They keep telling me I'm all right for money but then I think I may have spent it all by the time I'm 40 so I keep going. That's why I started selling my cars; then I changed my mind and got them all back and a new one too.
"I want the money just to be rich. The only other way of getting it is to be born rich. If you have money, that's power without having to be powerful. I often think that it's all a big conspiracy, that the winners are the Government and people like us who've got the money. That joke about keeping the workers ignorant is still true; that's what they said about the Tories and the landowners and that; then Labour were meant to educate the workers but they don't seem to be doing that any more."
He has a morbid horror of stupid people: "Famous and loaded as I am, I still have to meet soft people. It often comes into my mind that I'm not really rich. There are really rich people but I don't know where they are."
He finds being famous quite easy, confirming one's suspicion that The Beatles had been leading up to this all their lives. "Everybody thinks they would have been famous if only they'd had the Latin and that. So when it happens it comes naturally. You remember your old grannie saying soft things like: 'You'll make it with that voice.'" Not, he added, that he had any old grannies.
He got to the doctor 2 3/4 hours early and to lunch on time but in the wrong place. He bought a giant compendium of games from Asprey's but having opened it he could not, of course, shut it again. He wondered what else he should buy. He went to Brian Epstein's office. "Any presents?" he asked eagerly; he observed that there was nothing like getting things free. He tried on the attractive Miss Hanson's spectacles.
The rumour came through that a Beatle had been sighted walking down Oxford Street! He brightened. "One of the others must be out," he said, as though speaking of an escaped bear. "We only let them out one at a time," said the attractive Miss Hanson firmly.
He said that to live and have a laugh were the things to do; but was that enough for the restless spirit?
"Weybridge," he said, "won't do at all. I'm just stopping at it, like a bus stop. Bankers and stockbrokers live there; they can add figures and Weybridge is what they live in and they think it's the end, they really do. I think of it every day -- me in my Hansel and Gretel house. I'll take my time; I'll get my real house when I know what I want."
"You see, there's something else I'm going to do, something I must do -- only I don't know what it is. That's why I go round painting and taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one of them. All I know is, this isn't it for me."
Anthony got him and the compendium into the car and drove him home with the television flickering in the soothing darkness while the Londoners outside rushed home from work.
Source: Transcribed by www.beatlesinterviews.org from original magazine issue
| John Lennon |
What was the name of the Belfast shipyard in which RMS Titanic was built? | THE BEATLES MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS CONTROVERSY - Moïcani - L'Odéonie
Moïcani - L'Odéonie
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me. John Lennon to Maureen Cleeve (London Evening Standard) March 4th 1966.
Maureen Cleeve & The Beatles 1964
john lennon :"If I had said television is more
popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it,
but I just happened to be talking to a friend and I
used the words "Beatles" as a remote thing, not as
what I think - as Beatles, as those other Beatles like
other people see us. I just said "they" are having
more influence on kids and things than anything
else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way
which is the wrong way."...
Reporter: Some teenagers have repeated your
statements -
"I like the Beatles more than Jesus Christ."
What do you think about that?
JOHN LENNON :"Well, originally I pointed out that fact in
reference to England. That we meant more to
kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time.
I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was
just saying it as a fact and it's true more for
England than here. I'm not saying that we're
better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus
Christ as a person or God as a thing or
whatever it is. I just said what I said and
it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong.
And now it's all this."....
Reporter: But are you prepared to apologise?
JOHN LENNON :"I wasn't saying whatever they're
saying I was saying.
I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a
lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make
you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done.
I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you
want me to apologize, if that will make you happy,
then OK, I'm sorry."
Beatles Interview: Memphis, Tennessee 8/19/1966
On August 19th 1966, The Beatles flew to Memphis Tennessee
for two shows at Mid-South Coliseum, the 8th stop along
their 1966 North American tour.
John Lennon's misquoted remarks earlier in the year about
the current state of Christianity had caused tensions, especially in
the southern states: Protests, record burnings organized by christian
radio stations, and anonymous death threats, including a televised threat
against the Beatles from a local Memphis Ku Klux Klan member.
While there were no issues with the afternoon Memphis performance,
hearts stopped as someone threw an exploding firecracker on-stage
during the Beatles' evening concert. Reportedly, the noise sounded
at first like a gun shot, shocking everyone who heard it.
Beatles' Press Officer Tony Barrow would later recall: "Once we did get
down to that area, the southern states... a firecracker was let off during
the concert in Memphis and everybody, all of us at the side of the stage,
including the three Beatles on stage, all looked immediately at John
Lennon. We would not at that moment have been surprised to see that
guy go down. John had half-heartedly joked about the Memphis concert
in an earlier press conference, and when we got there everything seemed
to be controlled and calm, but underneath somehow, there was this nasty
atmosphere. It was a very tense and pressured kind of day."
News of the 'Jesus statement' controversy in America had reached home,
and ITV had flown from London to Memphis to interview the group backstage
at Mid-South Coliseum.
- Jay Spangler, www.beatlesinterviews.org
Q: "What difference has all this row made to this tour, do you think? Any at all?"
JOHN: (opens his mouth widely to speak, and comically freezes with his mouth open)
RINGO: (laughs)
PAUL: "I don't think it's made much. It's made it more hectic. It's made all the
press conferences mean a bit more. People said to us last time we came that
our answers were a bit flippant, and they said 'Why isn't it this time?' And the
thing is the questions are a bit more serious this time. It hasn't affected any
of the bookings. The people coming to the concerts have been the same,
except for the first show in Memphis which was a bit down, you know. But,
uhh, so what."
Q: "The disc jockey, Tommy Charles, who started this row off, has said that he won't
play your records until you've grown up a little. How do you feel about that?"
JOHN: "Well, I don't mind if he never plays them again, you know."
PAUL: "See, this is the thing. Everyone seems to think that when they hear us say
things like this that we're childish. You can't say things like that unless you're a
silly little child."
GEORGE: "And if he (Charles) was grown up, he wouldn't have done the thing
'cuz he only did it for a stunt, anyway. So I mean, who is he to say about
growing up? Who is he?"
PAUL: (jokingly to George) "Who is this guy?"
JOHN: (smiling) "Other than that, it's great."
PAUL: "Quite a swinging tour."
Q: "Do you feel that Americans are out to get you... that this is all developing into
something of a witch hunt?"
PAUL: "No. We thought it might be that kind of thing. I think a lot of people in
England did, because there's this thing about, you know, when America gets
violent and gets very hung-up on a thing, it tends to have this sort of 'Ku Klux Klan'
thing around it."
Q: "It seems to me that you've always been successful BECAUSE you've been
outspoken, direct, and forthright, and all this sort of thing. Does it seem a bit hard
to you that people are now knocking you for this very thing?"
JOHN & PAUL: (smiling, and exaggerated nodding) "Yes!"
JOHN: "It seems VERY hard."
PAUL: "It seems hard. You know, free speech."
Q: "But is it possible just to say what you think all the time? What about
14-year-old teenagers who think you're absolutely marvelous?"
PAUL: "See, we're not... When we say anything like that, we don't say it,
as other people seem to think, to be offensive. We mean it helpfully, you
know. And if it's wrong, what we say, okay it's wrong. And people can say,
you know, 'You're wrong about that one.' But in many cases we believe it's
right. We're quite serious about it."
Q: "But do you mind being asked questions, for example in America people
keep asking you questions about Vietnam. Does this seem useful?"
PAUL: "I dunno, you know. If you can say that war is no good, and a few
people believe you, then it may be good. I don't know. You can't say too
much, though. That's the trouble."
JOHN: "It seems a bit silly to be in America and for none of them to mention
Vietnam as if nothing was happening."
Q: "But why should they ask you about it? You're successful entertainers."
JOHN: "Because Americans always ask showbiz people what they think, and so
do the British. (comically) Showbiz... you know how it is!"
RINGO: (laughs)
JOHN: "But I mean you just gotta... You can't keep quiet about anything that's
going on in the world, unless you're a monk. (jokingly, with dramatic arm gestures)
Sorry, monks! I didn't mean it! I meant actually...."
(laughter)
JOHN: "It doesn't matter about people not liking our records, or not liking the
way we look, or what we say. You know, they're entitled to not like us. And we're
entitled not to have anything to do with them if we don't want to, or not to regard
them. We've all got our rights, you know, Harold."
Beatles Press Conference: Chicago 8/11/1966
ABOUT THIS PRESS CONFERENCE:
Reporter Maureen Cleave, a friend of John's, published an article about him in the March
4th 1966 edition of the London Evening Standard, entitled 'How Does A Beatle Live?'. The
article contained a small handful of quotes from a recent conversation she had with him,
including John's personal view of the current state of religion: "Christianity will go. It will
vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I am right and I will be proved right. We're
more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first-- rock and roll or christianity.
Jesus was alright, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins
it for me."
The quote was taken out of context in America, and spread as a ridiculous egocentric
headline: "John says Beatles bigger than Jesus." Reaction in the southern parts of the
United States ranged from Ku Klux Klan protests and Beatle record burnings arranged
by christian radio stations, to anonymous death threats.
Chicago was the first stop of their 1966 American tour. This was the Beatles' first
opportunity to answer questions personally for the American press regarding the Jesus
Statement controversy.
Following this August 11th meeting with the Chicago press at the Astor Towers hotel,
the Beatles would hold an additional press conference in Chicago the next day,
preceding their August 12th International Amphitheatre concert.
- Jay Spangler, www.beatlesinterviews.org
JOHN: "If I had said television is more popular than Jesus, I might have got
away with it.
You know, but as I just happened to be talking to a friend, I used the word 'Beatles' as
a remote thing-- not as what 'I' think as Beatles-- as those other Beatles like other
people see us. I just said 'they' are having more influence on kids and things than
anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way which is the wrong way.
Yap yap."
Q: "Some teenagers have repeated your statements-- 'I like the Beatles more than
Jesus Christ.' What do you think about that?"
JOHN: "Well, originally I was pointing out that fact in reference to England-- that
we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion, at that time. I wasn't knocking
it or putting it down, I was just saying it as a fact. And it's sort of... It is true,
'specially more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better, or greater,
or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is,
you know. I just said what I said and it was wrong, or was taken wrong. And
now it's all this."
Q: "There have been threats against your life, there have been record burnings,
you've been banned from some radio stations-- Does this bother you?"
JOHN: "Well, it worries me."
PAUL: "You know, it's bound to bother us."
Q: "Do you think you're being crucified?"
JOHN: (clearly and seriously) "No, I wouldn't say THAT at all!"
(laughter from reporters)
Q: "What do you think about the record burnings here in the United States?"
PAUL: "Well, I think it's a bit silly. It seems a bit like a publicity stunt on their
part, you know. I think they're not going to gain anything by doing that."
JOHN: "If they just didn't buy the records, or threw them away, but burning them is..."
GEORGE: "It's the same old wrong mess. They've just taken it the wrong way, and
that's just the pity that... It's this misunderstanding which shouldn't be."
Q: "Mister Starr, you haven't said a word."
RINGO: "Well, I just hope it's all over now, you know. I hope everyone's straightened
out, and it's finished."
Q: "Is this an attempt to raise your flagging popularity?"
JOHN: "I could think of a much easier way..."
Q: "Such as?"
JOHN: "...to raise flagging popularity. I don't know, if you think of stunts. But we
don't do stunts. I think we've done one in our lives that's been completely a stunt."
PAUL: "But anyway, that's not the kind of thing that's gonna..."
Q: "Are you sorry you said it?"
JOHN: "I am. Yes, you know. Even though I never meant what people think I
meant by it. I'm still sorry I opened my mouth."
Q: "Did you mean that the Beatles are more popular than Christ?"
JOHN: (sighs) "When I was talking about it, it was very close and intimate with
this person that I know who happens to be a reporter. And I was using expressions
on things that I'd just read and derived about christianity. Only, I was saying it in
the simplest form that I know, which is the natural way I talk. But she took 'em,
and people that know me took 'em exactly as it was-- because they know that's
how I talk, you know."
Q: "It was quoted, a recent statement by you, that the Beatles were anxious for
what they called the downfall-- that is, the time when they would no longer be on top.
Are you anxious for it?"
JOHN: "Well, I don't know what that is. No."
PAUL: "I don't think that we ever said that."
GEORGE: "If we were really anxious, we'd just do something to..."
PAUL: "We'd DO it, you know."
GEORGE: "...end it."
PAUL: "That's the thing. If we really wanted to get out..."
JOHN: "People say, 'Oh, they must've done it on purpose. They must have a reason,'
you know.
But I made a mistake, and I opened me mouth, but there was no alterior motive in it,
either way."
Q: "Are you concerned that your image may be changing and diminished in the
eyes of the kids?"
GEORGE: "We change all the time, really-- our style."
RINGO: "I mean, we look different every time we come to America, if you look at
the old photographs. We never keep to a strict fashion."
JOHN: "You can see how we've changed."
Q: "Do you do that on purpose?"
PAUL: "No."
JOHN: "No. (giggling) We're just growing old."
RINGO: "No, it's just that we don't control ourselves that much. We just look the
same for twelve months."
GEORGE: "If you look at a photograph of yourself last year, you probably changed..."
Q: "It hasn't been done by any design?"
PAUL AND RINGO: "No."
Q: "Does that mean your hair is longer?"
JOHN: "Probably, yeah."
RINGO: "It could be. I don't think mine is."
Q: "Do you chaps want to go into SHORT hair?"
RINGO: "No, I don't like short hair, you know."
JOHN: "We don't follow fashion anyway."
Q: "When are you gonna make another movie?"
RINGO: "Umm, maybe January, with any luck."
Q: "Do you have any idea what it's going to be about, or..."
RINGO: "It's just a small idea. There's no script yet."
Q: "What's the most enjoyable thing for you four about this adulation-- this almost
'Godhood on earth' that you've achieved?"
JOHN: (looks away distastefully) "Don't say that."
(laughter)
PAUL: (pointing to the reporter) "It was him. He said it."
JOHN: (to the other reporters) "Now, you all SAW that."
Q: "Can we talk about your music a little bit? You've gone a long ways from 'I Want To
Hold Your Hand' to 'Eleanor Rigby' and the raga and so on. What direction are you trying
to move your music?"
PAUL: "The thing is, we're just trying to move it in a forward direction. And this is
the point-- you know, this is why we're getting in all these messes with saying
things. Because, you know, we're just trying to move forwards. And people seem
to be trying to just sort of hold us back and not want us to say anything that's
vaguely sort of, you know, inflammatory. I mean, we won't if, really-- If people
don't want that, then we won't do it-- We'll sort of just do it privately. But I think
it's better for everyone if we're just honest about the whole thing."
Q: "How are you going to respond after tonight? Are you going to try and explain
yourselves every time somebody asks, or what?"
JOHN: "Well, I'll try if they keep asking me, you know."
Q: "It's very important to you?"
JOHN: "I'll try... I'll go on and on trying until they get it straight, you know,
because I just don't like to be sort of thought of as what I'm really not, you know.
It's nothing like me-- the thing they're putting 'round is nothing to do with me as a
person, you know."
Q: (to George) "What about you? What was your reaction to what he said, and the
reaction TO what he said?"
GEORGE: "Well, in the context that it was meant-- it was the fact that christianity is
declining, and everybody knows about that, and that was the fact that was trying
to be made."
Q: (to George) "Do you agree with it?"
GEORGE: "I do agree. I agree that it's on the wane."
Q: "What do you think about that fact that you believe that it's true?
What's your reaction to that truth?"
JOHN: "Well, my reaction is that I was deploring it, you know. I was pointing
it out. I mean, if somebody like us says it, people sort of do take notice, you
know-- even church people are trying to be 'with it' with pop groups and things.
They're still doing it the wrong way, and I was just stating a fact as I saw it.
And I wasn't trying to compare me or the group with Jesus or religion at all,
but just only in that way-- the way I'm trying to tell ya."
Q: "Can I have just one more question? I'd like to ask your reaction to the
fact that at London Airport this morning, some of the girls were crying,
'John, not Jesus.'"
JOHN: "Well you know, I don't take that seriously, either."
PAUL: "They're taking it the wrong way like everyone else, you know."
Q: "Are you unhappy about that?"
JOHN: "No, you know-- It'll get straightened out, because... I mean, I could have
stopped there and said, 'Now listen, that's wrong, what you're saying,' but I couldn't
do that-- I had to come over here anyway and do all this, and try and straighten
THIS out first. So, if it does get straightened out, it'll be straightened out for THEM."
M.C: "Okay, that you very much."
BEATLES: "Thank you."
Source: Transcribed by www.beatlesinterviews.org from video and audio recordings of the press conference
1966--London's Evening Standard publishes Maureen Cleeve's interview with
John Lennon that contains his soon-to-be-distorted "Beatles more
popular than Jesus" remarks. Lennon said: "Christianity will go. It will
vanish and shrink. I needn't argue that. I'm right and will be proved right.
We're more popular than Jesus right now. I don’t know which will go first,
rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were
thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me." Although
Lennon was making a comment about the irrelevance of organized
religion to many contemporary young people, most conservatives
interpret his statement as an arrogant insult. No one in the UK is
particularly shocked or offended, but when the remarks (quoted
out of context) reach the US, American conservatives (particularly those
in southern states) go off the deep end and start Beatles bonfires for the
burning of Beatles records, magazines, cards, books, posters, and other
paraphernalia. The hostile atmosphere surrounding The Beatles' final
concert tour of the US has much to do with their decision to quit touring
altogether. Although the most controversial part of the Lennon interview
was the “Jesus” remarks, he also made some rather prophetic statements
about his personal life: “Weybridge won’t do at all. I’m just stopping at it,
like a bus stop. I’ll take my time. I’ll get my real house when I know what
I want. You see, there’s something else I’m going to do, something I
must do...only I don’t know what it is. That’s why I go around painting
and taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one
of them. All I know is, this isn’t ‘it’ for me.”
| i don't know |
Which actor became the 38th Governor of California, USA in 2003? | Arnold Schwarzenegger: Biography
Arnold Schwarzenegger
3
This world-famous athlete and actor was born in Thal, Austria in 1947, and by the age of 20 was dominating the sport of competitive bodybuilding, becoming the youngest person ever to win the Mr. Universe title.
By generating a new international audience for bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger turned himself into a sports icon. With his sights set on Hollywood, he emigrated to America in 1968 and went on to win five Mr. Universe titles and seven Mr. Olympia titles before retiring to dedicate himself to acting. Later, he would go on to earn a college degree from the University of Wisconsin and proudly became a U.S. citizen.
Schwarzenegger, who worked under the pseudonym Arnold Strong in his first feature, Hercules in New York, quickly made a name for himself in Hollywood. In 1977, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognized him with a Golden Globe for New Male Star of the Year for his role in Stay Hungry opposite Sally Field. His big break came in 1982 when the sword and sorcery epic, Conan the Barbarian, hit box office gold.
In 1984, Schwarzenegger blew up the screen and catapulted himself into cinema history as the title character in Jim Cameron’s sci-fi thriller, Terminator.
He is the only actor to be in both categories of the American Film Institute’s “Hundred Years of Heroes and Villains” for roles he played in the Terminator series. Other memorable characters include roles in Commando, Predator, Twins, Total Recall, True Lies, Eraser, Collateral Damage, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines and a cameo in Sylvester Stallone’s homage to action films, The Expendables and an expanded role in The Expendables 2, among others. To date, his films have grossed over $3 billion worldwide.
He gratefully served the people of California as the state’s 38th governor from 2003 to 2010. First elected in California’s historic recall election, Governor Schwarzenegger ushered in an era of innovative leadership and extraordinary public service.
But it is Schwarzenegger’s commitment to giving something back to his state and to his country through public service that gives him the most satisfaction; donating his time, energy, and personal finances to serving others all over the world.
Schwarzenegger acts as Chairman of the After School All-Stars, a nationwide after-school program, and serves as coach and international torch-bearer for Special Olympics. He also served as Chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under George H. W. Bush and as Chair of the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports under Governor Pete Wilson.
Most notably, Schwarzenegger made California a world leader on renewable energy and combating climate change with the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, set a revolutionary political reform agenda, and became the first governor in decades to invest in rebuilding California’s critical infrastructure with his Strategic Growth Plan. He also dedicated himself to promoting physical education and after-school programs, and continues to commit his time, energy and personal finances to charitable organizations around the world.
Schwarzenegger is currently back in Hollywood making films and working on his autobiography, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, due out this fall.
TOTAL RECALL
My Unbelievably True Life Story
BUY THE BOOK
| Arnold Schwarzenegger |
Who was the second wife of US actor Tom Cruise? | Arnold Schwarzenegger - Biography - IMDb
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Biography
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Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (9) | Trivia (146) | Personal Quotes (550) | Salary (22)
Overview (4)
6' 2" (1.88 m)
Mini Bio (1)
With an almost unpronounceable surname and a thick Austrian accent, who would have ever believed that a brash, quick talking bodybuilder from a small European village would become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, marry into the prestigious Kennedy family, amass a fortune via shrewd investments and one day be the Governor of California!?
The amazing story of megastar Arnold Schwarzenegger is a true "rags to riches" tale of a penniless immigrant making it in the land of opportunity, the United States of America. Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born July 30, 1947, in the town of Thal, Styria, Austria, to Aurelia (Jadrny) and Gustav Schwarzenegger, the local police chief. From a young age, he took a keen interest in physical fitness and bodybuilding, going on to compete in several minor contests in Europe. However, it was when he emigrated to the United States in 1968 at the tender age of 21 that his star began to rise.
Up until the early 1970s, bodybuilding had been viewed as a rather oddball sport, or even a mis-understood "freak show" by the general public, however two entrepreneurial Canadian brothers Ben Weider and Joe Weider set about broadening the appeal of "pumping iron" and getting the sport respect, and what better poster boy could they have to lead the charge, then the incredible "Austrian Oak", Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over roughly the next decade, beginning in 1970, Schwarzenegger dominated the sport of competitive bodybuilding winning five Mr. Universe titles and seven Mr. Olympia titles and, with it, he made himself a major sports icon, he generated a new international audience for bodybuilding, gym memberships worldwide swelled by the tens of thousands and the Weider sports business empire flourished beyond belief and reached out to all corners of the globe. However, Schwarzenegger's horizons were bigger than just the landscape of bodybuilding and he debuted on screen as "Arnold Strong" in the low budget Hercules in New York (1970), then director Bob Rafelson cast Arnold in Stay Hungry (1976) alongside Jeff Bridges and Sally Field , for which Arnold won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture". The mesmerizing Pumping Iron (1977) covering the 1975 Mr Olympia contest in South Africa has since gone on to become one of the key sports documentaries of the 20th century, plus Arnold landed other acting roles in the comedy The Villain (1979) opposite Kirk Douglas , and he portrayed Mickey Hargitay in the well- received TV movie The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980).
What Arnold really needed was a super hero / warrior style role in a lavish production that utilized his chiseled physique, and gave him room to show off his growing acting talents and quirky humor. Conan the Barbarian (1982) was just that role. Inspired by the Robert E. Howard short stories of the "Hyborean Age" and directed by gung ho director John Milius , and with a largely unknown cast, save Max von Sydow and James Earl Jones , "Conan" was a smash hit worldwide and an inferior, although still enjoyable sequel titled Conan the Destroyer (1984) quickly followed. If "Conan" was the kick start to Arnold's movie career, then his next role was to put the pedal to the floor and accelerate his star status into overdrive. Director James Cameron had until that time only previously directed one earlier feature film titled Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981), which stank of rotten fish from start to finish. However, Cameron had penned a fast paced, science fiction themed film script that called for an actor to play an unstoppable, ruthless predator - The Terminator (1984). Made on a relatively modest budget, the high voltage action / science fiction thriller The Terminator (1984) was incredibly successful worldwide, and began one of the most profitable film franchises in history. The dead pan phrase "I'll be back" quickly became part of popular culture across the globe. Schwarzenegger was in vogue with action movie fans, and the next few years were to see Arnold reap box office gold in roles portraying tough, no-nonsense individuals who used their fists, guns and witty one-liners to get the job done. The testosterone laden Commando (1985), Raw Deal (1986), Predator (1987), The Running Man (1987) and Red Heat (1988) were all box office hits and Arnold could seemingly could no wrong when it came to picking winning scripts. The tongue-in-cheek comedy Twins (1988) with co-star Danny DeVito was a smash and won Arnold new fans who saw a more comedic side to the muscle- bound actor once described by Australian author / TV host Clive James as "a condom stuffed with walnuts". The spectacular Total Recall (1990) and "feel good" Kindergarten Cop (1990) were both solid box office performers for Arnold, plus he was about to return to familiar territory with director James Cameron in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The second time around for the futuristic robot, the production budget had grown from the initial film's $6.5 million to an alleged $100 million for the sequel, and it clearly showed as the stunning sequel bristled with amazing special effects, bone-crunching chases & stunt sequences, plus state of the art computer-generated imagery. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was arguably the zenith of Arnold's film career to date and he was voted "International Star of the Decade" by the National Association of Theatre Owners.
Remarkably, his next film Last Action Hero (1993) brought Arnold back to Earth with a hard thud as the self-satirizing, but confusing plot line of a young boy entering into a mythical Hollywood action film confused movie fans even more and they stayed away in droves making the film an initial financial disaster. Arnold turned back to good friend, director James Cameron and the chemistry was definitely still there as the "James Bond" style spy thriller True Lies (1994) co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Arnold was the surprise hit of 1994! Following the broad audience appeal of True Lies (1994), Schwarzenegger decided to lean towards more family-themed entertainment with Junior (1994) and Jingle All the Way (1996), but he still found time to satisfy his hard-core fan base with Eraser (1996), as the chilling "Mr. Freeze" in Batman & Robin (1997) and battling dark forces in the supernatural action of End of Days (1999). The science fiction / conspiracy tale The 6th Day (2000) played to only mediocre fan interest, and Collateral Damage (2002) had its theatrical release held over for nearly a year after the tragic events of Sept 11th 2001, but it still only received a lukewarm reception.
It was time again to resurrect Arnold's most successful franchise and, in 2003, Schwarzenegger pulled on the biker leathers for the third time for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Unfortunately, directorial duties passed from James Cameron to Jonathan Mostow and the deletion of the character of "Sarah Connor" aka Linda Hamilton and a change in the actor playing "John Connor" - Nick Stahl took over from Edward Furlong - making the third entry in the "Terminator" series the weakest to date.
Schwarzenegger married TV journalist Maria Shriver in April, 1986 and the couple have four children.
In October of 2003 Schwarzenegger, running as a Republican, was elected Governor of California in a special recall election of then governor Gray Davis. The "Governator," as Schwarzenegger came to be called, held the office until 2011. Upon leaving the Governor's mansion it was revealed that he had fathered a child with the family's live-in maid and Shriver filed for divorce.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: David Montgomery < [email protected]> and [email protected]
Spouse (1)
( 26 April 1986 - present) (filed for divorce) (4 children)
Trade Mark (9)
Frequent movie line: "I'll be back."
Often has his character say comedic one-liners that punctuate the action
Many of his films have his characters doing feats of strength to match his muscular look, e.g. Commando (1985) where he is first seen in the film carrying a whole tree trunk on his shoulder.
Films often have a chase sequence or action scene in a shopping mall. ( Commando (1985), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994) and Jingle All the Way (1996)).
His characters are often family men who are protecting their children and his other characters often smoke cigars.
Heavy Austrian accent
Very muscular physique
Trivia (146)
Ranked #20 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Children with Maria Shriver : Katherine Schwarzenegger (b. December 13, 1989), Christina Maria Aurelia Schwarzenegger (b. July 23, 1991), Patrick Schwarzenegger (b. September 18, 1993) and Christopher Sargent Shriver Schwarzenegger (b. September 27, 1997). He is also the father of Joseph Baena (b. October 2, 1997) with Mildred Patricia Baena who was housekeeper in the family until 2011.
Underwent heart surgery to correct a congenital heart valve condition. [April 1997]
Called by the Guinness Book of World Records, "the most perfectly developed man in the history of the world."
Noted fan of cigar smoking.
His voice in Hercules in New York (1970) was dubbed.
Was part-owner of Planet Hollywood and Schatzi restaurants.
Advocate for the Republican party.
He reprised his Terminator character for the theme park attraction T2 3-D: Battle Across Time (1996), a short film which uses an enhanced 3-D process that makes the film really appear to jump out at the audience.
His production company is Oak Productions.
1983: Became a US citizen.
His wife Maria Shriver is a niece of the late President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy .
Graduated from University of Wisconsin-Superior with a major in international marketing of fitness and business administration. [1979]
Sold off his Planet Hollywood stock and is no longer a part owner of the chain. [2000]
The soccer stadium in Graz, Austria (his home town) is named after him.
Was considered for the title role in the 1970s TV series The Incredible Hulk (1978), but was reportedly deemed not tall enough. His former bodybuilding competitor, Lou Ferrigno , ultimately won the part.
After leaving Austria for the first time, he came to England to work, earning under £30 a week.
Received an Honorary Doctorate from his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Superior, in recognition of his charitable works. [1996]
Son-in-law of Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver .
At his bodybuilding peak his chest was 57", waist 34", biceps 22", thighs 28½", calves 20", and his competition weight was 235 lbs (260 lbs off-season).
He and Warner Bros. agreed to postpone the release of Collateral Damage (2002) indefinitely in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks on America. The plot centers around a firefighter who lost his family in a terrorist bomb attack. [September 2001]
9/7/01: Sues International Game Technology for the unauthorized use of his voice and likeness in slot machine games. His lawyer told the press he was seeking $20 million in damages, which is the amount he believes he would have received had he approved the use.
Childhood friends stated that he often said his goals in life were to move to America, become an actor, and marry a Kennedy. He accomplished all three.
Underwent a genioplasty -- a procedure in which his jaw has been moved back so that it no longer juts out.
Was the first private citizen in the U.S. to own a Humvee (High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle).
Lobbied to promote anti-juvenile delinquency initiative on California ballot that would commit the state to allocate $400 million for extracurricular activities and tutoring for students, kindergarten through ninth grade. [May 2002]
Received an honorary doctorate from Chapman University in Orange, CA. [June 2002]
Franco Columbu was best man at Arnold's wedding.
1/29/03: Underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff as a result of an injury on the set of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Was in a sling for three to four weeks, but it was not expected to delay the completion of the movie.
Ranked #9 in Star TV's Top 10 Box Office Stars of the 1990s. [2003]
The character Rainier Wolfecastle in The Simpsons (1989) is based on him.
Won Mr. Olympia title seven times (1970-1975, 1980).
James Cameron originally wanted him for the role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator (1984), but after reading the script, Arnold asked Cameron to let him play the part of the Machine. Cameron replied "No, no! Reese is the star! He's the big hero! And the Terminator hardly has any lines!" but Arnold asked him to "trust me".
8/6/03: Announced his candidacy for the Governorship of California on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992).
Suffered a back injury (among other various assorted injuries) while filming Conan the Barbarian (1982) when the dogs who were chasing him jumped him from behind and he fell down the rock he was climbing to escape them.
In Demolition Man (1993), Sandra Bullock 's character Lenina Huxley is telling Sylvester Stallone 's character John Spartan about the Arnold Schwarzenegger Presidential Library, explaining that, based on the sheer popularity of Schwarzenegger's movies, a Constitutional amendment was passed in order for Schwarzenegger to run for President, which, according to Huxley, he did. In 2003, ten years after this film's release, Schwarzenegger ran for the office of Governor of California, and won the election on 7 October 2003. While Schwarzenegger is not eligible to run for the presidency by present laws (as a naturalized citizen, not a native-born citizen as required by the Constitution), most past presidents have been governors of their respective home states. Some members of Congress are currently considering an amendment to the Constitution to allow foreign-born US citizens to be allowed to run for the Presidency, specifically with Schwarzenegger in mind, although other members of Congress are strongly opposed to the idea.
Had one elder brother, Meinhard (1946-1971).
His mother was Aurelia Jadrny (2 July 1922 - 2 August 1998) and his father was Gustav Schwarzenegger (Graz, 17 August 1907 - 1 December 1972), married in Murzsteg, 20 October 1945. His mother's surname is Czech.
10/7/03: Was elected Governor of California as a Republican.
Turned down the role of John McClane in Die Hard (1988). The role went to Bruce Willis instead. Ironically, Willis has a line in the film where he says that the terrorists "have enough explosives to orbit Arnold Schwarzenegger".
TV Guide selected Arnold Schwarzenegger's announcement on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) to run for Governor of California as the greatest TV moment of 2003.
Said that filming the climatic fight at the end of Predator (1987) was made difficult by the fact that the late Kevin Peter Hall , who played the Predator, couldn't see through his mask.
Has the record for winning the most major bodybuilding events in history, 13 (1 Mr. Junior Western Europe, 7 Mr. Olympias, and 5 Mr. Universes).
After he had started lifting weights as a teenager, he noticed that his body was becoming disproportionate. His arms, shoulders and chest were developing nicely, but his calves and lower legs weren't coming along as he wanted. To motivate himself to work harder on his calves, he cut off all of his pants (trousers) at the knee. Walking around like that, people would look at (and maybe even laugh at) the big man with 'chicken' legs. It worked.
His father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, nicknamed him "Cinderella" as a child and his older brother, Meinhard, constantly picked on him growing up. Both men were killed while driving under the influence.
Only the second governor in California's history to be born in a foreign country. John Downey, the 7th Governor of California, was born in Ireland and served from 1860-1862.
Has his look-alike puppet in the French show Les guignols de l'info (1988).
Went AWOL from the Austrian army to enter his first bodybuilding contest.
Stumped for President George W. Bush the weekend before his re-election in Ohio, as Schwarzenegger has always had a strong relationship with Ohio.
He was voted the 53rd Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Has played a character who died in only five of his films: The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), End of Days (1999) Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and _Terminator: Genisys (2015)_ (the original T-800 who's chip was used to time travel to 2018. Arnold's primary T800 character, however, survived, being "upgraded" to T1000 status).
Was considered for the role of the gentle giant Fezzik in the 1970s when William Goldman 's book "The Princess Bride" was first proposed to be made into a film ( The Princess Bride (1987)).
Had his first romantic scene in a movie with actress Sandahl Bergman , in Conan the Barbarian (1982).
Is good friends with fellow bodybuilder Sven-Ole Thorsen who, ironically, portrayed "Thorgrim," one of his leading foes, in Conan the Barbarian (1982).
Turned down a request to reprise his Conan character in Kull the Conqueror (1997) (originally titled "Conan the Conqueror"). Also, he was supposed to play Conan in Red Sonja (1985), though ultimately, a new character was created who was essentially Conan in everything but name.
Is the only person to receive Razzie nominations for Worst Actor, Worst Supporting Actor and Worst Screen Couple (with himself cloned) in the same year. All for the same movie, The 6th Day (2000).
His life strangely mirrors the life of Conan from Conan the Barbarian (1982). Conan was born in a small village and grew up to be a physically powerful man, due to years of slavery. After winning great fame as a gladiator, he is given to wine and women, but later rejects this hedonistic lifestyle and goes on to perform great heroic feats and eventually is crowned king. Arnold was born in a small Austrian town and took up weightlifting as he got older. After achieving success as a bodybuilder, he indulged in drug abuse and womanizing, but he later rejected this and went on to become a vocal supporter of social causes, and was eventually elected governor of California.
Performed many of his own stunts in his films, owing largely to the fact that it was hard to find stunt doubles who matched his size. Billy D. Lucas , Joel Kramer and Peter Kent eventually became his personal stunt doubles and close friends.
His famous line "I'll be back", which originated from The Terminator (1984), was originally written as "I'll come back".
Initially refused to star in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) because James Cameron , who created the character and directed the first two films, would not be directing the third installment. Arnold tried to persuade Cameron to do the third film but Cameron declined and, feeling that the Terminator character was as much Arnold's as it was his own, Cameron advised Arnold to just do the third film and ask for a lot of money.
While filming the behind the scenes documentary for the special edition DVD of Conan the Barbarian (1982), the microphone hit him in the head at the end of the interview, to which he immediately joked "You see, I can't even do an interview about Conan without getting hurt".
Addressed the Republican National Convention. [2004]
The etymology for Arnold is "Eagle Power."
Grew up in a house that had no phone, no fridge and no toilet.
Was the spokesperson for Japanese DirecTV, a competitor to Quentin Tarantino 's endorsed local satellite TV operator SkyperfecTV.
Was considered for the title role in Flash Gordon (1980). The part eventually went to Sam J. Jones instead, because producer Dino De Laurentiis felt Schwarzenegger's German accent was ill-suited for this role. DeLaurentiis (in his heavy Italian accent) told Schwarzenegger, "You have an accent! I cannot use you for Flash Gordon! No! Flash Gordon has no accent! I cannot use you! No!" Ironically, Jones had to temporarily get rid of his own Texas accent for said role.
While filming Predator (1987) he became close friends with co- star Jesse Ventura , who was also later elected a state governor (Minnesota).
John Milius originally intended him to do the narration of Conan the Barbarian (1982) but the studio didn't trust his accent, so the narration was performed by Mako instead, who played the wizard.
Withdrew from the city of Graz the right to use his name in association with its soccer stadium and returned his "Ehrenring" (ring of honor) after some politicians in the town had started a campaign against Schwarzenegger due to his refusal to stop the execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams (20 December 2005).
The Green Party of Austria has resolved to strip Schwarzenegger of his Austrian citizenship due to his support for the death penalty.
12/12/05: As governor, he refused to grant clemency to convicted quadruple murderer and former gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams , who had been on Death Row for 24 years.
He was soundly defeated on all four propositions of his "special election", which cost the state of California an estimated $45 million. Schwarzenegger accepted personal responsibility for the defeat, and appointed a Democrat as his new Chief of Staff. [November 2005]
Second actor to be elected Governor of California. The first was Ronald Reagan .
Broke six ribs in a motorcycle crash. [December 2001]
He and his 11-year-old son Patrick were injured in a traffic accident when a car ran into Arnold's motorcycle. Patrick was in a sidecar. Arnold received 15 stitches. [February 2005]
He has been nominated for a Razzie Award as Worst Actor eight times during his career, and in 2004 received a special award for being the "Worst Razzie Loser of Our First 25 Years."
His performance as The Terminator in the "Terminator" films is ranked #40 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Was asked to reprise his "Dutch" character from the first Predator (1987) film for the sequel, but he declined because he didn't like the script. He chose to do Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) instead.
Children - Katherine Eunice (born December 13, 1989), Christina Maria Aurelia (born July 23, 1991), Patrick Arnold (born September 18, 1993) and Christopher Sargent Shriver (September 27, 1997).
Was asked to appear in a sequel to his 1985 film Commando (1985) but declined.
He keeps the sword he used in Conan the Barbarian (1982) in the Governor's office in California.
Is a huge fan of professional wrestling.
11/7/06: Easily re-elected as Governor of California.
He is the first member of the Kennedy family to become a state Governor.
12/23/06: Broke his right femur while skiing in Sun Valley, ID.
Although German is his native language, all his movies have been dubbed into German by Thomas Danneberg for the German-speaking market because his strong Austrian accent doesn't fit with the type of roles he plays.
He joined President George Bush in New Hampshire and asked voters to "send a message to Pat Buchanan : Hasta la vista, baby". [1992]
Related to actor George Wyner , who is also a close friend.
Early in his career he appeared as a contestant on The Dating Game (1965).
Was considered for the role of Judge Dredd in Judge Dredd (1995) in the early development stages. The part went to fellow Planet Hollywood founder Sylvester Stallone .
In his childhood considered John Wayne his idol and role model. As Governor of California, he issued a proclamation making 26 May 2007 "John Wayne Day" in the state.
Producer Joel Silver wanted Schwarzenegger to play "Doctor Manhattan" in a film adaptation of Alan Moore 's graphic novel Watchmen (2009) at one point.
Acted with another future governor, Jesse Ventura , of Minnesota, in Predator (1987) and The Running Man (1987).
Had stitches in his hand from the taking-off-airplane-to-tarmac stunt he performed for Commando (1985).
Late October 2007: Personally flew to Malibu, CA, to survey the damage done by wildfires before any other politician, including the President.
Was attached to do another film adaptation of the pulp hero Doc Savage (after the failed 1975 film) in the late 1990s, but the project never got off the ground.
Publicly endorsed his close friend Senator John McCain 's bid to win the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential election.
He ended his association with Planet Hollywood early in 2000, saying the investment had not had the level of success he had expected.
He saved a man's life while on vacation in Hawaii in 2004 by swimming into the sea to rescue him from drowning.
Considered for the role of "Robert Neville" in I Am Legend (2007) back in 1996, with Ridley Scott as the director.
As an environmentally conscious politician, always uses carbon credits when flying between his governor's office in Sacramento to his house in L.A., California.
Turned down the role of Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket (1987) and opted to do The Running Man (1987) instead.
Considered for the main role in Strange Days (1995) but the job went to Ralph Fiennes instead.
Was the original choice to play the title character in RoboCop (1987).
Attended the funeral of Ronald Reagan in 2004, whom he considered a great hero.
Due to the dismal failure of Conan the Destroyer (1984), Schwarzenegger rarely ever did sequels to his own movies. He's turned down sequels to Commando (1985), Predator (1987), Total Recall (1990) and True Lies (1994), as well as the third "Conan" film which became Kull the Conqueror (1997). The only exceptions that he has made are Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), The Expendables 2 (2012), The Expendables 3 (2014) and Terminator Genisys (2015).
Honored by the Congressional Award in Washington, DC on June 25, 2002 with the Horizon Award. The Horizon Award is a special recognition from the Joint Leadership of the United States Congress and the Congressional Award Board of Directors. The Horizon Award is presented to individuals from the private sectors who have contributed to expanding opportunities for all Americans through their own personal contributions, and who have set exceptional examples for young people through their successes in life.
Was good friends with WWE Hall of Famer André the Giant .
Other than Around the World in 80 Days (2004), in which he only appeared in a supporting role, has starred in three movies with the word "Day" in the title, and all three make a biblical reference: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), End of Days (1999) and The 6th Day (2000).
Has been crucified in two movies: Conan the Barbarian (1982) and End of Days (1999), where he was tied to a cross.
Was seriously considered for the role of "Dr. Manhattan/Jon Osterman" in one of the many failed attempts at adapting Alan Moore 's "Watchmen" into film. Ultimately, director Zack Snyder cast Billy Crudup for the 2009 adaptation.
The character "Arnold the Pitbull", featured on Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), voiced by Rob Paulsen , was a parody of him.
Was considered for the role of Harry Stamper in Armageddon (1998).
Was considered for the role of President James Mitchell in Air Force One (1997).
Lives in Los Angeles, California and Ketchum, Idaho.
Before he became a household name, Schwarzenegger appeared with bodybuilding buddies Franco Columbu and Frank Zane on the sleeve of Grand Funk Railroad 's 1974 album "All the Girls in the World Beware!!!" Band member faces were cleverly superimposed on their muscle-bound bodies.
Appeared on the cover of GQ magazine three times: July '86, May '90 and June '93.
Trophies won as athlete: 1965 Mr. Europe Jr.. Held in Germany. 1966 Best Builed Man of Europe/Mr. Europe/International Powerlifting-Championship/. All 3 events held in Germany. 1967 NABBA Mr. Universe Amateurs. Held in London. 1968 NABBA Mr. Universe Proffesional. Held in London. 1968 National Championship Weightlifting. Held in Germany. 1968 IFBB Mr. International. Held in Mexico. 1969 IFBB Mr. Universe Amateurs. Held in New York. 1969/1970 NABBA Mr. Universe Proffesional. Both times held in London. 1970 Mr. World. Held in Columbus, Ohio. 1970-1975 5 times in a row IFBB Mr. Olympia. Held in New York 1970/1973/1974, Paris 1971, Essen 1972, Pretoria 1975. 1980 For the 6th time IFBB Mr. Olympia. Held in Sydney, Australia.
In his body building days, he once bench pressed as much as 450 pounds.
While in office as governor, a Burger King promotion poster for the triple whopper stated "it's so big and beefy it just might run for governor".
Parents feared he was gay when he was a teenager because he worshipped bodybuilders. His mother Aurelia phoned a doctor because she thought her son was 'turning south' due to all the pictures of oiled up males on his bedroom walls.
In 1968 Joe Weider brought Schwarzenegger to Los Angeles and gave him $100 a week to write articles for his magazines that endorsed Weider products. Weider died at age 93 in March 2013.
Inducted into the National Fitness Hall of Fame in 2005 (inaugural class).
Is now the Republican Governor-elect of California [October 2003]
Sofia, Bulgaria: Filming The Expendables 2 (2012). [October 2011]
(around Christmas) Broke his leg when skiing with his family in Sun Valley, Idaho, USA. [December 2006]
Refused to take the salary for Governor of California. Uses private jet at his own expense. [December 2003]
Copenhagen, Denmark: Giving out the Sustainia Award, which recognizes outstanding performance within the area of sustainability. Also attended a book signing for his new autobiography. [October 2012]
(17 November 2003) Sworn in as Governor of California. [November 2003]
Reelected as Governor of California [November 2006]
Running for Governor of California on the Republican ticket. [August 2003]
Release of the book, "Fantastic: The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger" by Laurence Leamer. [2006]
First introduced to wife-to-be Maria Shriver by NBC's Tom Brokaw at a charity tennis tournament in 1977.
He passed on lead roles in The Rock (1996), The Saint (1997) Face/Off (1997) and The Count of Monte Cristo (2002). He later stated he regretted passing on the former role.
As of the release of The Last Stand (2013), he will have a total on-screen kill count of 509.
WWE Hall of Famer.
Personal favorite of his own films is Kindergarten Cop (1990).
Friend and Predator (1987) co-star Jesse Ventura each went on to become, coincidentally, the 38th Governors of California and Minnesota.
It was revealed in 2011 that he fathered an illegitimate son with the Schwarzenegger/Shriver family's housekeeper Mildred Patricia Baena. Schwarzenegger didn't know he fathered Baena's child until the child was a toddler and looked more and more like him. Joseph Baena was born only five days after Maria Shriver gave birth to her fourth child by Schwarzenegger, Christopher, therefore the children basically grew up alongside each other in the same home. Schwarzenegger revealed his illegitimate child to his wife during a marriage counseling sessions. The issue led to the couple's separation but as of 2016 they have yet to divorce.
Was considered to play Doctor Octopus in James Cameron 's canceled Spider-Man movie.
Unlike George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell , he does not regret taking the part of Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin (1997). Joel Schumacher threatened not to direct the movie, if he did not play Mr. Freeze.
(July 30, 2011) In his honor, the "Arnold Schwarzenegger's Birth House Museum" was officially opened in his hometown of Thal (Austria) in the actual house that had been home to him and his family. Some of the mementos on display include his childhood bed, motorcycle, replica of the desk he used as Governor of California, etc.
Induced into the International Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 (inaugural class).
When Schwarzenegger appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) in 1979, he had long hair. He was growing it out to prepare for his role in Conan the Barbarian (1982).
Former family friend Sondra Locke branded Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver as cowards for refusing to publicly side with her during litigious matters with Clint Eastwood .
Was mentioned in the song "Jump Around" by House of Payne.
Personal Quotes (550)
I was always interested in proportion and perfection. When I was 15 I took off my clothes and looked in the mirror. When I stared at myself naked, I realized that to be perfectly proportioned I would need 20-inch arms to match the rest of me.
[Interview in "Starlog" magazine in 1991, explaining his reluctance to do sequels to most of his successful films from the '80s] There's so little time to do all the things I want to do that I can't see any reason to get bogged down in sequels.
Everything I have ever done in my life has always stayed. I've just added to it . . . but I will not change. Because when you are successful and you change, you are an idiot.
I know that if you leave dishes in the sink, they get sticky and hard to wash the next day.
I would rather be Governor of California than own Austria.
I love the Hong Kong style of action movies, but that only looks good for small guys. The reason why the whole style was developed over there was because those guys were very puny guys - they're not powerful-looking guys, they're also not powerful guys. There's no weightlifting champion coming out of Hong Kong - maybe in the bantam division or the lightweight division or something like that, but normally you don't have really strong men coming out of there . . . they had to learn a technique that small people can do that are as effective as the big guy's strength. So that's where the martial arts came from.
In the beginning I was selfish. It was all about, "How do I build Arnold? How can I win the most Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympic contests? How can I get into the movies and get into business?" I was thinking about myself . . . As I've grown up, got older, maybe wiser, I think your life is judged not by how much you have taken but by how much you give back.
[during his campaign for California governor, about his history of "misbehavior"] Where I did make mistakes, or maybe go overboard sometimes . . . I regret that. This is a different Arnold.
[on his fight scenes with the female T-X in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)] How many times do you get away with this - to take a woman, grab her upside down and bury her face in a toilet bowl? The thing is you can do it, because, in the end, I didn't do it to a woman - she's a machine. We could get away with it without being crucified by who knows what group.
[on his decision to run for governor of California] It was the most difficult decision in my life - except the one in 1978 when I decided to get a bikini wax.
[after being pelted with an egg at a political rally] This guy owes me bacon now . . . you can't have egg without bacon.
[responding to criticism during a televised debate] I just realized I have the perfect part for you in "Terminator 4."
[victory speech after having won election as Governor of California] I will not fail, I will not disappoint you, I will not let you down.
The worst I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.
There's a lot of people who want me to get out of acting and want me to run for governor. I think it's mostly movie critics.
You have to remember something: Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.
I took more abuse in Predator (1987) than I did in Conan the Barbarian (1982). I fell down that waterfall [40 feet] and swam in this ice-cold water for days and for weeks was covered in mud. It was freezing in the Mexican jungle. They had these heat lamps on all the time, but they were no good. If you stayed in front of the lamps, the mud dried. Then, you had to take it off and put new mud on again. It was a no-win situation. The location was tough. Never on flat ground. Always on a hill. We stood all day long on a hill, one leg down, one leg up. It was terrible.
[referring to Democrats at a political rally in Ontario, California, in 2004] If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, "I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers" . . . if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men.
[at the 2004 Republican National Convention] Speaking of acting, one of my movies was called True Lies (1994). It's what the Democrats should have called their convention.
President [ George Bush ] knows you can't reason with people that are blinded by hate. But let me tell you something: Their hate is no match for our decency, their hate is no match for the leadership and the resolve of George Bush.
[Talking about his Conan the Barbarian (1982) director]: John Milius used to call himself the dog trainer. Guess who were the dogs?
[From an interview about his reaction to reading the original The Terminator (1984) screenplay] I have read a lot of action adventure scripts, and this definitely was one of the best. I knew that I wanted to play the part of the Terminator as soon as I started reading.
[About being taken seriously] I don't care. The important thing to me is that I'm doing work that people enjoy out there, that the movie makes good money, that the studio makes the money back, and that I'm having a great time at what I'm doing. I don't even consider myself serious. So how do I expect people to take me serious? I think this whole Hollywood thing has to be taken much looser . . . it's just entertainment.
"There were various stepping-stones in my career. One of them was Conan the Barbarian (1982), because it was the first time I did a film with that kind of budget and I had the title role. The next big stepping-stone was The Terminator (1984). With "The Terminator", I think people became aware of the fact that I didn't really have to take my shirt off or run around and expose my muscles in order to sell tickets. After I did "The Terminator" and we had seen it be more successful than the Conan films, people then sent me a variety of different kinds of scripts - all in the action-adventure genre, but they were not muscle movies or Viking movies or pirate movies or anything like that.
[Talking about playing the Terminator] I had to act like a cyborg, which meant I couldn't show any kind of human fear or reaction to the fire, explosions, or gunfire that was going off around me. That can be difficult when you're walking through a door with its frame on fire, trying to reload a gun, and at the same time thinking in the back of your mind that people have accidents doing these kinds of stunts and that it might be my turn.
[About more sequels to The Terminator (1984)] I don't necessarily want to leave the magic of the Terminator movies behind, and who says we have to? According to what we know about the future, there were hundreds of Terminators built. The story of the Terminator could go on forever.
[From an interview expressing concern over making Conan the Destroyer (1984) less brutal than its predecessor, Conan the Barbarian (1982)] I think it's a mistake. I know Sylvester Stallone made an extra $20 million because he got a PG rating for Rocky III (1982), but it's a matter of how much you want to stay within the character's reality. Can you slaughter people and never see blood? Is it possible? You must have battles. That's part of life, war, and the world of Conan.
[Talking about director Richard Fleischer ] The first day Fleischer came to see me work out, he told me, "Arnold, could you put on some more muscles?" I couldn't believe it! It turned out that Fleischer thought [ John Milius '] decision to keep Conan clothed throughout the first film was a mistake. Fleischer believes that people want to see my body much more often than they did the first time around, so they will. I spend most of my time in Conan the Destroyer (1984) fighting off people while I'm dressed in a loincloth.
[About the dog accident while making Conan the Barbarian (1982)] One of them hit me too soon. It caught me off guard and I went right over the ledge. I fell ten feet and landed on my back. I was covered with scratches and bruises. It was probably a pretty good beginning for this movie, though. It set the tone for the whole time we were there. This was going to be fun . . . but dangerous.
[Talking about director John Milius ] "There never would have been a Conan movie without him.
[on Warren Beatty ] There are some people who are close to him that say he is just starving for attention, and that's the way he gets attention. Other people said, "Look, he's not working and he just feels like he should maybe get involved in politics". Instead, I just think that maybe he is jealous that I did jump in. I find it silly, because I respect his work.
Well, I think because a lot of people don't know why I'm a Republican, I came first of all from a socialistic country which is Austria and when I came over here in 1968 with the presidential elections coming up in November, I came over in October, I heard a lot of the press conferences from both of the candidates, [ Hubert H. Humphrey ] and [ Richard Nixon ], and Humphrey was talking about more government is the solution, protectionism, and everything he said about government involvement sounded to me more like Austrian socialism. Then when I heard Nixon talk about it, he said open up the borders, the consumers should be represented there ultimately and strengthen the military and get the government off our backs. I said to myself, "What is this guy's party affiliation?" I didn't know anything at that point. So I asked my friend, "What is Nixon?" He's a Republican. And I said, "I am a Republican". That's how I became a Republican."
[on refusing to grant clemency to condemned killer Stanley Tookie Williams ] After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the arguments and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no justification for granting clemency. The facts do not justify overturning the jury's verdict, or the decisions of the courts in this case.
[After undergoing heart surgery in 1997] We made, actually, history, because it was the first time ever that doctors could prove that a lifelong Republican has a heart.
As a kid - as a kid I saw socialist - the socialist country that Austria became after the Soviets left. Now don't misunderstand me: I love Austria and I love the Austrian people. But I always knew that America was the place for me. In school, when the teacher would talk about America, I would daydream about coming here. I would daydream about living here. I would sit there and watch for hours American movies, transfixed by my heroes, like John Wayne . Everything about America seemed so big to me, so open, so possible.
I have no sexual standards in my head that say this is good or this is bad. Homosexual - that only means to me that he enjoys sex with a man and I enjoy sex with a woman. It's all legitimate to me.
I didn't think about money. I thought about the fame, about just being the greatest. I was dreaming about being some dictator of a country or some savior like Jesus.
I'm 6'2". I've heard rumors that I'm really much shorter in real life
like 5'6" or something like that - which is ridiculous. I can assure
you this is not the case. People look up to me, and not just because I do a lot of work in the community. I mean, most people really look up to me.
California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming. We won't wait for the federal government. We will move forward because we know it's the right thing to do. We will lead on this issue and we will get other western states involved. I think there's not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment.
Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.
[in a 1987 interview] I have to give the audiences what they enjoy seeing while I try to bring in a little something new, with different movies, different time periods and all those things. But what's important is to entertain the people -- everything else means nothing.
[on his late friend and role model, body builder Reg Park]: Reg was a dear friend, an extraordinary mentor and a personal hero. Other than my parents, there may be no single person who had more to do with me becoming the person I am today than Reg. He was like a second father to me. It was Reg who impressed upon me how hard I would have to work if I wanted to achieve my dreams. I'll always remember him making me do calf-raises with 1,000 pounds at 5 o'clock in the morning.
[on Terminator Salvation (2009)] I think it's cool to continue on with the franchise, in case I want to jump over again and get into the acting after I'm through here (as Governor of California).
There are such high standards and now there are always new standards being set for action. You see that with Iron Man (2008) and with The Dark Knight (2008) and that other film this summer, um, Wanted (2008). That was an excellent movie! There was this train coming down from a bridge, falling, and they're fighting inside the train car. Jesus, that is unbelievable that you can do that. To have the imagination to write it and the talent to shoot it and make it real on the screen. It's a whole new dimension.
With Batman and Terminator, those big movies, there's a certain expectation and if you don't live up to it, if the movie is not a 10, then the business will be soft. If Terminator Salvation (2009) is pushing it forward, it will be breaking records all the time. If director McG has the T4 and the kind of shots that has the audience thinking, 'Now how did he do that?' -- then it is 'Terminator' and you can blow everyone away and every record at the box office.
[on Terminator Salvation (2009)] I hope they do well, and I hope it is a huge hit. I do hope it creates a spectacle on the screen. That is what James Cameron created.
[on watching Will Ferrell movies] In those you howl for two hours and you feel like you get a six-pack of ab muscles from all the laughs!
[on Terminator Salvation (2009)] I wasn't sure who the Terminator was. I don't know if there is one or if he's the star or the hero. These are the things that determine the success and how strong the movie will be.
I know California is supposed to be a place where dreams come true, but my life has gone way beyond the dream. My dream was to come to America, become the greatest bodybuilder of all time and do what Reg Park had done by going into Hercules movies. And if that worked out, I was going to build a gym business and then live happily ever after. Then all of a sudden I shot right by my dream. I stopped doing the strong man stuff, did the Terminator movies and became the highest-paid actor in Hollywood. I got $30 million for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), you know.
[on the death of Michael Jackson ] Michael was a pop phenomenon who never stopped pushing the envelope of creativity. Though there were serious questions about his personal life, Michael was undoubtedly a great entertainer and his popularity spanned generations and the globe.
[on the death of Patrick Swayze ] Patrick Swayze was a talented and passionate artist who struck a memorable chord with audiences throughout the world. He played a wide range of characters both on stage and in movies and his celebrated performances made the hard work of acting look effortless - which I know from experience is not easy. As a fan and as an actor, I admired Patrick and I know that he will be dearly missed. On behalf of all Californians, Maria and I send our deepest condolences to Patrick's family, friends and fans.
I am here to spend. I love to spend Hollywood's money! (June 1993).
[on Sylvester Stallone in The Expendables (2010)] It is a great inspiration for people to see someone at his age still at the top of his game -- acting, writing, directing, doing his own stunts and fight scenes -- I mean, what an amazing talent. And for him to still be so athletic and be able to rip off his shirt and have a six-pack is just unbelievable.
[on the death of Tony Curtis ] Tony Curtis was a Hollywood icon, a great performer and artist and devoted family man. I saw his extraordinary talent and ability to inspire generations of Americans firsthand on the set of Christmas in Connecticut (1992)' and will always remember our times together.
[on a return to movies when his term as Governor of California ends] I have no idea. So it depends if someone comes with a great script or a great idea...you know, would I still have the patience to sit on the set and to do a movie for three months or six months? All of those things, I don't know, but I did have a meeting with James Cameron , we talked about some very important things.
The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
(On the power of visualizing your goals) When I was very young, I visualized myself being and having what it was that I wanted. The mind is really so incredible. Before I won my first Mr. Universe, I walked around the tournament like I owned it. The title was already mine. I had won it so many times in my mind that there was no doubt I would win it. Then, when I moved on to the movies, the same thing. I visualized myself being a successful actor and earning big money. I could feel and taste success. I just knew it would happen.
[on the passing of Elaine Kaufman] Elaine was an early supporter of my acting career and would often call to let me know when an influential writer or producer came in so I could stop and schmooze.
[on Terminator Salvation (2009)] The last one was awful. It tried hard, not that they didn't try, the acting and everything - it missed the boat.
[on visiting Venice, California] This place is insane. You never have to smoke a joint. You just go on a bicycle ride in the morning, inhale, and you live off everyone else.
[on Predator 2 (1990)] A predator in a city is a bad idea.
[on his career as a bodybuilder] I had a very clear vision of where I wanted to go. You realize you have to pay no attention to the naysayers. When you learn those lessons in sports, you can apply those lessons for the rest of your life.
[on his Governor's salary] I didn't take a penny of my salary during my terms. After all, it was petty cash compared to what you make in the movies.
You can't have a life full of successes. In bodybuilding, I tried bench-pressing 500lb many times and failed. That's how you get there. You have to be daring.
They're writing right now Terminator Genisys (2015). There have been some writers on it for the last year-and-a-half and they could not pull it off. We have told them over and over that they are going in the wrong direction, now they've finally got rid of those writers and they've got new really quality writers. Now they're going in the right direction. I think this year the script will be finished and we will be able to go into pre-production.
[on the death of his mentor Joe Weider ] He advised me on my training, on my business ventures, and once, bizarrely, claimed I was a German Shakespearean actor to get me my first acting role in -- Hercules in New York (1970) even though I barely spoke English. He was there for me constantly throughout my life, and I will miss him dearly.
[his father] A lot of sons would have been crippled by his demands, but instead the discipline rubbed off on me. I turned it into drive.
To this day, I'm more comfortable when there's someone to schmooze with until I fall asleep.
When you grow up in a harsh environment, you never forget how to withstand physical punishment, even long after the hard times end.
If you wanted a girl, you had to make an effort to have a conversation, not just drool like a horny dog.
I associate glasses with intellectuals.
I came to America, won Mr. Universe, and now I'm in the movies.
Most bodybuilders don't have very interesting insights or routines.
In America, unlike Europe, there weren't a million obstacles to starting a business.
After coming to California, I posed in the heights above Malibu. Bodybuilders like this spot because the ridges in the distance seem little and your muscles look bigger than the mountains.
The applause of a crowd made me stronger.
If you get muscles, you can go to the beach and pick up girls.
Americans love foreign names.
I wanted to be rich very quickly.
Monstrous, futuristic, what I envisioned America as all about.
Something that seems impossible at the start can be achieved.
[on sweat] It's a great way to lose body fat.
Nights without sleep don't mean you can't perform at a high level the next day and days without food don't mean you'll starve.
I aimed to be a leader someday.
If you let ego show through, you're put in your place.
[on journalists] They see everything from the outside.
Staying on top of the hill is harder than climbing it.
Its great to have someone to go home to.
When you have a relationship in a foreign language, you have to be extra careful not to miscommunicate.
I couldn't believe how difficult learning a new language could be. Pronunciations were especially dangerous.
[Mr. Universe, Mr. World and Mr. Olympia] Winning all three would be like unifying the heavyweight title in boxing: it would make me the undisputed world champion. Mr World was by far the biggest bodybuilding event I'd ever seen.
In bodybuilding I was king of the mountain, but in everyday LA I was just another immigrant struggling to learn English and make a life. I was glad to be away living my own life.
I always saw myself as a citizen of the world.
The more popular bodybuilding grew in prisons, the more guys would get the message to behave.
Winning narrowly didn't make me feel good; I wanted my dominance to be clear.
[after his father had a stroke] It was painful and upsetting to see a man who had been so smart and so strong lose his coordination and his ability to think. He died not long after.
[his nephew Patrick] He became my pride and joy.
Real estate was the place to invest. The math of real estate really spoke to me.
I like to always wander in like a puppy.
Bodybuilders look in the mirror as they train. You need to be your own trainer.
If millions of people came to see my movies someday, it was important that they know where the muscles came from.
I wanted to promote bodybuilding, both so that more people would take part and to benefit my career. If I wanted to promote bodybuilding to a new audience, I'd have to find my own way.
[on bodybuilding] It needed fresh blood.
I find joy in the gym because every rep and every set gets me one step closer to my goal.
I liked getting swept up into a cloud of celebs.
[on Jack Nicholson , 'Warren Beatty', and Roman Polanski ] They all had such enormous passion for their profession.
Having women in the gym made us train harder.
I had no idea that reading from a script means you're supposed to act out the role.
[personal motto] Presentation, presentation, presentation.
When somebody sets the bar so low, you can't go wrong.
[endorsing bodybuilding publicly] It was a boost for bodybuilding in America; suddenly the sport had a face and a personality.
In an entertainment interview, you could just make up stuff!
In bodybuilding, you try to suppress emotions and march forwards with determination; in acting its the opposite.
To live your life as an actor, you can't be afraid of someone stirring up your emotions.
Europe was always far less puritanical than the United States.
Sometimes its hard to explain to your toddler what you do at the office.
I've been retired from bodybuilding since 1980 but I'll always stay involved.
[during his open-heart surgery] Maria (Shriver) put a brave face on a scary situation.
I get goosebumps when Nelson Mandela talks about inclusion, tolerance and forgiveness.
[on Maria Shriver ] If I hadn't been her style and she hadn't been mine, we never would have ended up together. Maria meshed with everything that I was, what I stood for, and what I was doing. I got addicted to her. Maria was such a forceful personality that she would just run over guys. She wanted to be unique and different.
I was a self-made man.
In politics, when disputes arise and camps form, you have to grasp what's happening and move very quickly.
I could go on for hours about what draws me to Maria (Shriver) but still never fully explain the magic.
Love stories are built around people's idiosyncrasies.
[on Conan the Barbarian] There was no stunt double because it would have been difficult to find someone with a body like mine.
Dino (De Laurentiis) had a reputation for getting things done. He was very powerful in that way, and people in Hollywood knew it and didn't mess with him.
[on Conan the Barbarian (1982)] I'd never done a love scene on camera and found it really strange.
My character and his stolen Harley were a perfect combo of cyborg and machine in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
Our first major decision as a couple (he and Maria Shriver ) was to find a house and call it our place.
When people come to me with a movie concept or a script, I always ask "What is the poster? What is the image? What are we trying to sell here?"
Danny DeVito is a master of comedy, loves stogies, and cooks pasta on the set-no wonder he made such a great twin.
Ivan Reitman took a chance on me as a comic hero.
Sylvester Stallone , Bruce Willis and I had great fun opening Planet Hollywood restaurants around the world.
Total anonymity is almost impossible in Hollywood.
The outside world looked at our relationship (he and Maria Shriver) in a simple-minded way, as a juicy success story. According to this way of thinking, Maria becomes part of my trophy collection.
[on Maria Shriver ] She brought a great foundation of knowledge and was a great partner to work with because we both grew.
When you start out, its all about one to one contact.
I'd always advanced by starting with a clear vision and working as hard as possible to achieve it.
For Maria (Shriver) to go out and be in front of the camera was a real declaration of independence.
[on Maria Shriver ] She was the ideal woman for me.
Writing something is different from saying it.
I was Conan, and millions of dollars were being spent to make me shine. For the first time, I felt like the star.
[on Oprah Winfrey ] She was talented and aggressive, and you could tell she believed in herself.
An aspect of being a Kennedy cousin (Maria Shriver) was that you were never completely free. Since there were so many cousins, the number of command performances were high.
Every one of the killings in Conan (the Barbarian) was well shot and extraordinary.
[on Conan the Barbarian (1982)] A Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) set on Earth.
(John) Milius always pushed the envelope. Conan (the Barbarian) has stunts that have since been outlawed from movies. The bloodshed in Conan seems tame by today's standards. At the time, the film introduced a whole new dimension of violence on screen. Actors had five quarts of blood strapped to their chests, the same amount in the human body. Whenever it was spilled, Milius shot it against a light background to get the full carnage.
I was really annoyed by the way that powerful studio executives kowtowed to the members of the ratings board.
I saw myself as a businessman first.
[on Ronald Reagan] He was wonderful at painting ideas in ways that everyone could understand.
My definition of living is to have excitement always; that's the difference between living and existing.
If you want to fight prejudice you have to have tolerance centers everywhere.
I was amazed to see how negative most of the people in Hollywood remained toward Reagan during his presidency. He represented the values that had brought me to America. The US was the greatest country with the best opportunities and now that it was my home, I wanted to keep it that way and make it even better. After the turmoil and gloom of the 1970s, Americans voted for Reagan because he reminded them of their strength.
[the outrageous and conservative sides to his personality] I wanted to feel comfortable in both worlds.
There has to be investment in the public good.
I'd have made more money if Jimmy Carter still occupied the White House.
You do a movie or a book, you promote the hell out of it, you travel the world as if its your marketplace, and in the meantime, you work out and take care of business and explore even more.
When I learned about The Terminator (1984), I loved the idea that he was a machine that never had to sleep.
For me, the question was always how to fit in all the stuff I want to do. I seldom saw my life as hectic, the thought rarely crossed my mind.
I'm not a religious person.
I never like to cut things from my life; I only add.
I'd felt like an American from the time I was 10 years old.
[his first thought when he met James Cameron ] A skinny, intense guy.
I never went to a competition to compete; I went to win.
I wasn't sure I was free from prejudice; I'd made prejudiced comments.
When you promote a movie, you want to win over everybody. If you give political speeches, you are bound to turn off somebody.
I considered the US my permanent home.
I kept quiet about politics whenever I visited Austria. I never wanted to be perceived as some wise guy coming back and telling people what to do.
I always believed in shooting for the top, and to become an American is like becoming a member of the winning team.
[his first thought about The Terminator (1984)] Strange name.
Poses are the snapshots, and the routine is the movie.
Bodybuilding is a lot like politics; you go from town to town, hoping word will spread.
[on bodybuilding competitions] You can't just pose on stage like a robot and then walk off; people will never get to know your personality.
At the top of the ladder, there was always room for one more. The more people who stay on the bottom, the more crowded it becomes.
If I can see it and believe it, then I can achieve it.
[on James Cameron ] He seemed more real than the people I met from Hollywood.
[on The Terminator (1984)] No thinking, no blinking, no thought, just action.
[on restaurants] In Hollywood, the actor never pays.
Once I've locked in on a vision for myself, I always resist changing the plan.
I'm a big believer in hard work, grinding it out, and not stopping until it's done.
[on James Cameron ] The women he married, although a long list, were women you didn't want to mess with.
I never left the house without $1000 in cash and a no-limit credit card.
The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that playing a villain is career suicide.
I think more like a businessman than like a typical actor.
Compared to Conan the Barbarian (1982), Conan the Destroyer (1984) was a trip to Club Med.
[on James Cameron ] A control freak, he has eyes in the back of his head. He knows the name of everyone on the set and no screwup gets past him; if you screw up he'll make a scene publicly and embarrass you.
I always think the world of people who make a project their own and are on it 24 hours a day.
[the Golden Raspberry Awards] A kind of Oscar in reverse for bad movies.
You should marry when you're set financially and the toughest struggles of your career are behind you. Most marriages break up over financial issues.
I wasn't marrying her ( Maria Shriver ) because she came from wealth. What was Maria's was hers.
[ Maria Shriver 's portrait in his art collection] Among these beautiful images, Maria's was the gem.
[on Jacqueline Kennedy] She had an amazing ability to ask questions that would make you wonder "how did she know that"? She always made people feel welcome.
Gitte ( Brigitte Nielsen ) had a personality filled with laughter and fun mixed with a great hunger for attention.
When you make a movie, you can never really predict what will turn out to be the most repeated line.
[on The Terminator] The American public accepted me as both a hero and a villain.
In the mind of the public, the star is responsible for a movie's success.
[on marriage] Just let me stumble into it; I don't want to be forewarned.
You can over-think anything. There are always negatives. The more you know, the less you tend to do something.
[on marriage] I might not have done it if I'd known everything I'd have to go through.
I'm always comparing life to a climb, not just because there's a struggle but also because I find at least as much joy in the climbing as in reaching the top. I pictured marriage as a whole mountain range of fantastic challenges.
[on Grace Jones ] An interesting non-actor; talented and entertaining, she could not do anything low-key.
Have at least ten good laughs a day.
The makeup trailer is the place on the set where everyone talks. If anybody's worried about anything, that's where you see it. It's the mother of all beauty salons. The makeup trailer is all about a soothing atmosphere, because you're getting ready for a scene.
Actresses have more problems than the average housewife.
[on his wedding day] I loved watching Maria (Shriver) coming up the aisle. She looked so regal but at the same time, she radiated warmth and happiness.
I was riding the great wave of action movies. They became as important to the 1980s as Westerns were in the 1950s.
Action movies are always more of an ordeal than a pleasure to make.
[on John McTiernan ] If a director of his caliber had done the sequel to Predator (1987), the movie could have become a major franchise on a par with The Terminator (1984) or Die Hard (1988).
It's always easy to be smart in hindsight.
Stallone and I were the leading forces in the genre. We created work for up and coming action stars like Chuck Norris , Jean-Claude Van Damme , Dolph Lundgren and Bruce Willis . Clint Eastwood began to show more muscle as a result. The body was key. The era had arrived where muscular men were viewed as attractive. Looking physically heroic had become the aesthetic.
Early in my movie career, the hardest thing was giving up control. In bodybuilding, everything had been up to me. In movies, you depend on others right from the start.
[on the opening scene] You have one idea and then sit down and cook up the rest.
Whenever I finished filming a movie, my job was only half done. Every film had to be nurtured in the marketplace. Some of the greatest artists never sold much because they didn't know how. No matter what I did in life, I was aware that you had to sell it.
Listening made me a more effective promoter. You have to cultivate your audience and expand it with each new film. Nurturing a movie means paying attention to the distributors. You do the things they feel are important because they go all out in pushing the theatres.
When I had a good director, my movies went through the roof because I was directed well. If I had a director who was confused with no compelling vision for the movie, it would fizzle. I didn't make The Terminator the success that it was; it was James Cameron 's vision that made the movie great.
Everything in life has a funny side. I'd always been the perfect target for jokes; there was so much material to work from.
Meeting comedians helped me to understand comedy. I really liked being around people who are funny.
[on Total Recall (1990)] Working with Sharon Stone will always be a challenge. She was a sweetie off the set but needed tons of attention on-set. There are just some actors who need more attention. People just have their hang-ups and insecurities and acting definitely brings that out.
In acting you take criticism so much more personally. You get upset, but every job has its downside.
[on Paul Verhoeven and Total Recall (1990)] So many things he said were brilliant. He had a masterful vision. He had enthusiasm, and did a great job. I was proud my interest and passion helped to bring about the movie. But the experience also proves how important marketing is - how important it is to tell the people what this is about; really blow up their skirt and make them say, "I have to go see this movie."
A Special Achievement Oscar is how the Motion Picture Academy honors an accomplishment for which there is no set category.
I grew up in a culture where you respect the elders.
When I see a great performer, I always start to dream. Maybe its the Leo in me, the perpetual performer who always wants to be the center of attention.
Starting with something disarming and funny is a good way to stand out. You become more likable, and people receive your information much better. Whenever I watched a comedy, I always thought "I could have done that!" But if I was going to branch into comedies, I would need someone to be my cheerleader.
[on Total Recall (1990)] For me, it connected with the sense I had sometimes that my life was too good to be true.
It wouldn't matter if you watched Total Recall (1990) 20 years from now, you could still enjoy it. There's just something very appealing about futuristic movies if they have great action and believable characters.
A change in studio management can sink a movie.
Once you pick a director, you have to have total faith in him and go with his judgment.
[on The Running Man (1987)] It was totally screwed up by hiring a first-time director and not giving him time to prepare.
[his first impression of Paul Verhoeven on Total Recall (1990)] A skinny, intense-looking Dutch guy.
Every director wants to pee on the script and make his mark.
[on Danny DeVito ] He's the opposite of a crazy Hollywood personality and the Milton Berle of comic acting.
Compared to an action hero, it was easier being a comic star.
[his singing ability] I'm no Frank Sinatra . The only time I sing in real life is at the end of a party when I want the guests to leave.
[on George Bush ] He had tremendous strength of character and will. This was our next President, the real American hero. He had a casual approach to campaigning; not everything had to be perfect.
I belonged to the NRA because I believed in the constitutional right to bear arms.
I am a patriotic American. I saw Ronald Reagan and George Bush take an economy that looked like Pee-wee Herman and make it look like Superman.
Eisenhower and Kennedy championed fitness as a way for America to stand strong against the Soviets.
Fitness is important for all Americans, not just athletes. A lot of schools have great athletic programs but not great fitness programs.
I'd never seen a director fine-tune a movie as methodically as Ivan Reitman .
I was on a crusade around the world to promote health and fitness to young people.
Governments don't want to be told they're doing something wrong.
I'd always felt we lacked real men in movies.
[when his first child was born] Fuck! This is my first baby. You can be so overwhelmed by something that billions of people in history have done. And from that moment on, your life as a couple has changed. But as long as you love the baby, you'll figure it out, just like with everything you love doing. Caring for babies is hardwired into the brain.
I was addicted to public service.
Humour was what made me stand out from other action leads. It opened up the (action) movie and made it appealing to more people.
[on The Terminator (1984), Commando (1985), Predator (1987) and Total Recall (1990)] They all focused on the universal theme of good vs evil.
If the press sees you coming out of the Oval Office with the President, you'll win respect.
Fitness is fun. I felt very strongly that I had to carry to all 50 states the message that fitness was a national priority.
I love being on the road and meeting people. That's what I do best.
The Great American Workout was from 7 to 9 o'clock in the morning.
When in Austria, I often put on traditional clothes and do as the Austrians do.
Hiking in the Alps I'd sometimes wear loud obnoxious Hawaiian shorts just to get a rise out of the Lederhosen traditionalists.
[on James Cameron ] [He] is a big believer in surprising the audience. His knowledge of science and the world of the future went way beyond the ordinary.
[on Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)] It was typical James Cameron genius to have character development in a machine.
My friendship with the President (George Bush Sr) quickly became a very big part of my life. It was warm from the time we first met during the Reagan years.
[on the Gulfstream III jet] The perfect vehicle for visiting the States.
After being the fitness czar, running for Governor of California felt like deja vu.
My talent is fitness and this is something I can give back.
You can't have people just like your movie, you need them to be passionate. Word of mouth is what makes movies big, because while you can put in millions to promote the movie on the first weekend, you can't afford to do that every week.
Its embarrassing to fail at the box office.
When you feel embarrassed, you assume the whole world is focused on your failure.
[on George Bush ] If you had talent and did him a favour or he liked you, he would push you forward whether it made sense or not. He was a different breed, a sweetheart of a guy. The fact he put such trust in me had a powerful effect. I felt there would never, ever be a time, no matter what happened, when I would violate that trust or let the man down.
A person's muscles don't care where the resistance comes from.
America wouldn't be the land of the free if it wasn't the home of the brave. When you see the work they do and the risks they take, you realize what we owe our military.
1991 was golden for me.
[on Planet Hollywood] A glitzy new moneymaking machine. It was not just an event; it was the beginning of an empire.
I came to America because it's the greatest place in the world, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep it the greatest place.
I've always felt appreciative of the armed forces because I've benefited from the American dream, and their courage and determination is what safeguards it.
[during Conan the Destroyer (1984)] I'm finally getting paid a million dollars for a movie, but now Sylvester Stallone 's making 3 million, I feel like I'm standing still.
If I heard an idea or saw a script that was exceptionally good and triggered something in me, I wanted to make that movie.
I loved the idea of new challenges, along with new dangers of failure.
Clint (Eastwood) was one of the few Hollywood personalities who had his head screwed on straight.
(Richard) Nixon was very good at paying attention to you. We need more leaders like him.
Nobody in Hollywood wins all the time. At some point, you're bound to get a beating.
America can be powerful only if you have a strong military.
I figured that the idea of eventually ending up in politics was not that far fetched when someone like (Richard) Nixon suggested it.
I love factories, and whenever I'm passionate about a product, I want to see it being made.
Cubans are geniuses. They have the best climate, they have the best soil, and they have the tradition: generations of people who are passionate about rolling cigars and who are always looking for ways to make the cigars ever more perfect. When you look at a cigar and it has those thick veins in it, it's either a cheaper cigar or someone wasn't paying attention. As with everything, it's important to have a great-looking label. Cuban cigars truly are as good as people say. You can sniff out the fakes ones within seconds.
I always like to be called up for a speech without any prior notice.
No-one expects you to blow people up in a comedy.
When you feel good about someone and you know specifically why, it's not difficult at all to speak from the heart.
I'm like a little kid who loves to show off and share things that I have experienced.
I thought I was the poster boy for the American dream. I came to the US virtually broke, worked hard, kept focused on my goal, and made it. This really was the land of opportunity. If a kid like me could do it, anybody could. I had a fire inside of me to succeed. Anything is possible, but you have to do your end of the work. Making money was never my only goal, but money opened the door to interesting investments.
In the mid-1990s the Internet was just an odd new idea.
The most important thing was not how much you make, but how much you invest, how much you keep. I never wanted to join the long list of famous entertainers and athletes who wiped out financially. My goal was to get rich and stay rich.
I never like business relationships that are purely work.
[his personal motto] Take one dollar and turn it into two.
I wanted big investments that were interesting, creative and different. Conservative bets didn't interest me. I was proud to pay taxes on the money I earned. I could tolerate big risks in exchange for big returns, but I'm always open to new ideas.
Singapore Airlines had the best reputation in the airline business. The Boeing 747 was the ballsiest airliner.
Stan Winston 's special effects studio was torture; on The Terminator, it took 30 minutes for the cement to dry when designing the prosthetics to cover my face. The first time I went through it I got very anxious and thought of pleasant memories to endure it. My heart surgery reminded me of all that.
The more you promote yourself as the ultimate action hero, the more people form a larger than life perception of you.
[after heart surgery] I felt as vigorous as Hercules.
Planet Hollywood opened in Moscow, Sydney, Helsinki, London, San Antonio Texas (drawing 100,000 spectators) and Paris. Planet Hollywood was like The Beatles .
Sometimes when you look at a deal, you see less danger and you're too willing to take the plunge. The more risky things are, the more upside there is.
I'd hear guys bragging about their new Gulfstream IV or IV-SP and I'd get to say, "That's great guys. Let me talk about my 747..." It was a great conversation stopper.
God is the one who made the science possible.
[on heart surgery] Big risk, big reward.
[on Maria Shriver ] She had a tendency to blow things up into high drama, even things that weren't life and death, whereas I would play everything down. I'm a person who does not like to talk about things over and over. I make quick decisions, I don't ask opinions, and I don't think over the same things. I want to move on. She's an outward processor, while I keep things bottled up.
There's a moment going into surgery that I really hate. The moment when the anesthesia takes hold, when you know you're going out, losing consciousness and don't know if you'll ever wake up from it.
[after heart surgery] I got a second or third lease on life.
on [Planet Hollywood] I'd love to do it again, only to have it managed better. Whoopi (Goldberg), Bruce (Willis), Sly (Stallone) and all the other big-name participants would tell you that Planet Hollywood was fun. With the huge parties, openings, premieres, we met people all over the world and had the time of our lives.
She ( Maria Shriver ) is a very good writer, with an unbelievable vocabulary and grace with words.
Holidays become more meaningful when you have a family.
Talking to kids in your second language is never easy to do.
After I came to America, I learned to think a bit more about my family rather than just myself. With my mother I built a good relationship where she and I really communicated. I loved doing things for my mother. She deserved to be treated like a queen. She was buried next to my father because they were so connected.
You're just one person, and the country is much bigger, and it's what will live forever.
Big-time celebrities don't like flying commercial.
Promotion and merchandising were realms I truly understood.
[on California] America's golden state.
America is my true home.
I wasn't interested in symbols. I was interested in action.
Big cats have always fascinated me.
Independent producers are the saviours in Hollywood because they'll take risks that the big studios won't.
I love shooting at night because I have a lot of energy at night and I get lots of inspiration.
[on heart surgery] It gave me energy beyond belief. I feel like a totally new person. And I no longer had to convince people that I still had a pulse.
[on being governor] He can bring a vision to the state; you get blamed for everything and you get credit for everything. It's high risk, high reward. I felt tremendous loyalty and pride about California. I wanted America to stay the bastion of free enterprise and protect it from following Europe in the direction of bureaucracy and stagnation. You make a big mistake to lock in programs that require you to keep spending at boom-time levels.
The more I read up on California, the more it was like bad news piled on top of bad news. We can't continue this way. We need change.
I was fiscally conservative, pro-business, against raising taxes, pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-lesbian, pro-environment, pro-reasonable gun control, pro-reasonable social safety net.
We needed to avoid trying to win over the press and instead play to the people. I was all about leadership and major projects and reforms that could attract massive public support.
I pride myself on being able to juggle many tasks. I got a college education while bodybuilding, married Maria (Shriver) in the middle of filming Predator, and made Kindergarten Cop and Terminator 2 while launching Planet Hollywood.
Most juvenile crime is committed between 3 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon.
I would not go into a competition with a disadvantage.
If you don't get killed, you win.
I thought I would never die.
[winning the title of Mr Universe] It is my lifetime realized. I am very happy to be Mr Universe. I say it again, it sounds so good. I am very happy to be Mr Universe. My thanks to everyone in England who have helped me. They have been very kind to me. Thank you all.
Los Angeles stood out because it was the only big city that had after-school programs in every one of its 90 elementary schools. State officials and lawmakers just didn't see after-school programs as important. After-school programs not only help the kids but also reduce the strain on the teachers. Young kids relate better to young people, especially after a whole day of teachers and school. They want counsellors in jeans and with spiky hair, who can serve as parent figures but who don't look like them - not that many retired teachers want to go back to work.
The reason I wanted to be healthy was that I never wanted to ask anyone for money. It was so against my grain.
Raising cash from the set of a movie was a huge advantage.
I had a track record of organizing summits across fifty states. I loved seeing wounded veterans and entertaining them and thanking them for their great work.
I'd assumed that a recall would be just like a normal election.
I never argued with people who underestimated me. If the accent and the muscles and the movies made people think I was stupid, it worked to my advantage.
Our elected leaders will either act decisively, or we will act in their place.
[governorship] I would give up my movie career for that.
Californians love their cars.
Spend no more than the state is taking in.
Its hard for any governor to make the changes that were needed. I loved it when people say that something can't be done. That's when I really get motivated; I like to prove them wrong. And I liked the idea of working on something bigger than me.
[California] It is the place in the world where everyone wants to go. It was wrapped in problems, but it was also heaven.
There is a disconnect between the people of California and the politicians of California. We the people are doing our job: work hard, pay taxes, raise our families. The politicians are not doing their job. They fiddle, they fumble, and they fail. These words resonated more strongly than any movie script I'd read.
[Baghdad] The wild driving, the poverty, no money and a leadership vacuum - like California right now.
I was not the least bit intimidated by the thought of a campaign. It was like every other major decision I'd faced. I thought about winning. I knew it would happen. I was locked in automatic pilot.
As every spouse knows, you have to pick the right moment to bring up a loaded subject.
When I came here, California was a beacon.
[why he wanted to become governor of California] I'm tired of this acting stuff. I need a new challenge.
In politics everybody knows everything. You're totally exposed.
When I met Maria [Shriver], she was full of life, excitement, and hunger for the world. She wanted to be a rebel, not have a job on Capitol Hill.
Whatever she [Maria Shriver] wanted to do, I would help her get there.
One side of Maria [Shriver] was ballsy and brave and wanted to be a strong partner.
Making a career decision had always been an incredible high. Making a career decision as a husband and a father was a whole different deal.
Declaring a candidacy was so loaded.
California is more important than everyone's career.
Is firefighting a macho enough profession for an action hero? The real life heroism at Ground Zero laid that question to rest.
Elected officials usually hate ballot initiatives because they reduce their power and make the state harder to govern.
Republicans and unions usually don't mix.
I wanted to know what it really took to run for office, given that I wasn't a typical candidate.
I remember marvelling at how ordinary citizens could limit the state's power.
I took pride in my financial independence.
Leave no stone unturned.
I always paid close attention to focus groups and surveys and in politics, opinion research plays an even bigger role.
[being governor of California] This was the best job I ever had.
There is no contradiction in being both a Republican and an environmentalist
For me, talking convincingly about the future was easy: all I had to do was point to what we'd achieved since I came into office.
California politics was this big centrifuge that forced voters, policies and parties away from the center. I challenged Californians to stop yielding to the far left and the far right and return to the center. Centrist does not mean weak, or watered down or warmed over. It means well balanced and well grounded. The American people are instinctively centrist. So should be our government. America's political parties should return to the center, where the people are. The left and the right don't have a monopoly on conscience.
We are not waiting for politics, for our problems to get worse, or for the federal government. Because the future does not wait. Not only can we lead California into the future, we can show the nation and the world how to get there.
[politics] You get so immersed in the job there are side effects on the people you love. Even if you succeed in protecting your wife and kids from the public spotlight, they feel they're sharing and losing you.
Trying to reform health care had almost destroyed Bill Clinton 's presidency. I'd always thought it was a disgrace that the greatest country in the world didn't provide a health care system for all of its people, as many European countries do. Our health care reform became America's, and California led the way.
All the great ideas come from local governments.
I am of the Reagan view that we should not go off the cliff with flags flying.
The California Republican Party should be a right of center party that occupies the broad middle of California.
Even when acting in a movie, I would not shoot a stunt if I hadn't rehearsed it a minimum of ten times.
President Bush (Jr) was always available to talk. If I raised only one issue at a time, I would get a fair hearing.
If you need to do something that's not in the manual, throw the manual out.
Never bullshit.
The statistics in the wake of a disaster are always tragic.
When the federal government meddles in markets, the states pay the price.
When you're spending more money than you're taking in, you cut spending. Simple.
Ad-libbing can backfire when you're running for governor.
I'm not really the crying type.
It's painful to have just endorsed things that you now have no money for. I felt like a schmuck backing out on commitments I wanted to make but could no longer afford. The consequences of cuts are not just dollars, but people. We're all getting screwed. I was forced to make unpopular decisions that nobody, least of all me, was happy about.
[on his children] The drama of the presidential election interested them more than my job.
I believe in sprinting through to the finish line.
All great movements in history start out on a grassroots level, not in places like Washington or Paris or Moscow or Beijing.
I'm proud to say I found a way to cram 36 hours of work into a single day.
Budget negotiations are no different than grueling five hour weight lifting sessions in the gym. The joy of working out is that with each painful rep you get a step closer to achieving your goal. I was deeply frustrated with party leaders and the press for not making plain the budget history.
When I stepped up to the podium, I was overwhelmed to realize I was standing where John F. Kennedy , Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev had all addressed the UN before me.
Unlike regular politicians, I had nothing to lose.
Six years of ups and downs forged me as a governor. I had more forward momentum than ever before. I felt more like a hungry eagle rather than a lame duck.
The key to real permanent reform is being in sync with the hearts and minds of the people. We had rattled so many cages on the left and the right with our reforms.
Of all the things I've done with my life, nothing is seared in my memory more than looking into the eyes of someone who has just lost everything he loved in the world.
Being governor was more complex and challenging than I had imagined. That's the problem of presenting yourself as the Governator. You can do miracles but not the kind that require wearing a cape and being able to fly. As governor, you're neither a solitary champion nor a star. Compared to making a movie, when you accomplish something in government, the satisfaction is so much larger and long lasting. In a movie, you are entertaining people for a few hours in a dark theatre. In government, you are affecting entire lives; generations even.
Change takes big balls.
I've always idolized (Mikhail) Gorbachev because of the courage it took to dismantle the political system that he grew up under. For Gorbachev to have the guts to embrace change rather than further oppress his people or pick fights with the West has always amazed me.
Fitness promotes health and enhances the quality of life.
[lying to Maria Shriver about his infidelity] Instead of doing the right thing, I'd just put the truth in a mental compartment and locked it up where I didn't deal with it every day.
[on his illegitimate son] Politically, I didn't feel it was anybody's business because I hadn't campaigned on family values. If I was going to talk about bad behavior, I wanted to do it on my own timetable.
Although Maria (Shriver) and I remain separated, I still try to treat everyone as if we are together. Maria has a right to be bitterly disappointed and never look at me the same way again.
What had made my career fun for more than 30 years was sharing it with Maria (Shriver). We'd done everything together and now there was no one to come home to.
A green global economy is desirable, necessary, and within reach.
You start reading scripts and visualizing the scene and how to direct it, how to choreograph the stunt, and then you get into it and then you look forward to doing it.
Normally an action star keeps to himself on the set.
There's a difference between being 35 and almost 65.
[University of Southern California] It prides itself on being neither conservative nor liberal but open minded. It operates by promoting discussion to draw the best ideas from the brightest minds across the political spectrum.
The great leaders always talk about things that are much bigger than themselves. They say working for a cause that will outlive us is what brings meaning and joy. The more I'm able to accomplish in the world, the more I agree.
I always wanted to be an inspiration for people, but I never set out to be a role model in everything. It's never been my goal to set an example in everything I do.
I don't believe that violence on-screen creates violence on the street or in the home. Otherwise there would have been no murders before movies were invented, and the Bible is full of them.
I prefer being way out there, shocking people. Rebelliousness is part of what drove me from Austria. Being outrageous is a way to succeed. No one could put me in a mold. Being different was right up my alley.
Life is richer when we embrace the multitudes we all contain.
Impossible was a word I loved to ignore when I was governor. The only way to make the possible possible is to try the impossible. If you fail, so what? That's what everybody expects. But if you succeed, you make the world a much better place.
Never follow the crowd. Go where it's empty. It's easier to stand out when you aim straight for the top.
No matter what you do in life, selling is part of it.
You can do the finest work and if people don't know, you have nothing! The most important thing is to make people aware.
[on Muhammad Ali ] I always admired him because he was a champion, had a great personality, and he was generous and always thoughtful toward others. If all athletes could be like him, the world would be better off.
Don't overthink. If you think all the time, the mind cannot relax. Part of us needs to go through life instinctively. Turning off your mind is an art. Knowledge is extremely important for making decisions. The more knowledge you have, the more you're free to rely on your instincts. The more you know, the more you hesitate. When you are not confident of your decision-making process, it will slow you down. Overthinking is why people can't sleep at night: it cripples you.
Many movie deals are made under pressure, and if you freeze, you lose.
To test yourself and grow, you have to operate without a safety net. Forget Plan B. If there is no Plan B, then Plan A has to work.
You can use outrageous humour to settle a score.
What are the odds for an Austrian farm boy to come to America and become the greatest bodybuilding champion of all time, to get in the movie business, marry a Kennedy, and then get elected governor of the biggest state in the United States?
If government is not taking in enough revenue because of an economic slowdown, then everyone should chip in and sacrifice.
Writing out my goals became second nature, and so did the conviction that there are no shortcuts. It took hundreds and even thousands of repetitions for me to learn to hit a great three-quarter back pose, deliver a punchline, dance the tango in True Lies (1994), paint a beautiful birthday card, and say "I'll be back" just the right way.
I have come to feel great affection for the peoples of the world, because they have always been so welcoming to me, whether as a bodybuilder, a movie star, a private citizen, or as governor of the great state of California.
Don't blame your parents. They've done their best for you, and if they've left you with problems, those problems are now yours to solve. I could channel my upbringing in a positive way rather than complain. I could use it to have a vision, set goals, find joy. I don't have to lick my wounds. Sometimes you have to appreciate the very people and circumstances that traumatized you. Today I hail the strictness of my upbringing, and the fact I didn't have anything I wanted in Austria, because those were the very factors that made me hungry; it put fuel on the fire in my belly. It drove and motivated me.
There are a thousand keys to success.
[on his infidelity] It was one of those stupid things that I promised myself never to do. A lot of people, no matter how successful or unsuccessful in life, make stupid choices involving sex.
Secrecy is just part of me. I keep things to myself no matter what. I'm not a person who was brought up to talk.
Bodybuilders who are blind to themselves or deaf to others usually fall behind.
[on Mr. Universe] I wanted to win it so decisively that people would forget I'd ever lost.
Take care of your body and your mind. Focusing on the body was no problem for me. I realized that the mind is a muscle and we should train it too. If world leaders have time to work out, so do you.
[Gorbachev dismantling the USSR] I'm amazed by the courage it took to not go for immediate gratification but to look for the best direction for the country in the long run. To me Gorbachev is a hero, at the same level as Nelson Mandela, who overcame the anger and despair of 27 years in prison. When given the power to shake the world, both of them chose to build rather than destroy.
[on Pope John Paul II balancing his duties with an exercise regime] If that guy can do it, I've got to get up even earlier!
Be hungry for success, hungry to make your mark, hungry to be seen and to be heard and to have an effect. And as you move up and become successful, make sure also to be hungry for helping others. Don't rest on your laurels. Too many former athletes spend their lives talking about how great they were 20 years ago. So many accomplished people just coast. They wish they could still be somebody and not just talk about the past. There is much more to life than being the greatest at one thing. We learn so much when we're successful, so why not use what you've learned, use your connections and do more with them? If you have a talent or skill that makes you happy, use it to improve your neighborhood. And if you feel a desire to do more, then go all out. You'll have plenty of time to rest when you're in the grave. Live a risky and spicy life and like Eleanor Roosevelt said, "every day do something that scares you." We should all stay hungry!
Memoirs are about looking back, but I've lived my life by the opposite principle. At home I have a hundred photo albums starting with my childhood in Austria, and I never look at them. I'd rather do another project or make another movie and learn from looking forward!
[on his autobiography, Total Recall] Digging up and piecing together memories proved to be as difficult as I imagined, and yet what made the work unexpectedly enjoyable was the help I got from others. I found myself swapping stories with old friends from the worlds of bodybuilding, business, sports, Hollywood and politics - a large cast of characters. I'm grateful to all of them for helping me recreate the past and for making it immediate and friendly. Finally, I thank my family. They were generous in helping me make sure this memoir delivers on its name. And thanks especially to Maria (Shriver), for her patience with the project and for remaining as always the person I could go to whenever I got stuck.
If I accomplished and solidified my position in the bodybuilding world, from then on, I would be on a roll. Nobody would stop me.
There is no such thing as an Austrian Shakespearean actor. It doesn't exist.
You're not supposed to laugh on the (film) set.
When you're not on camera, stay in character, act your part, giving it everything you have in order to draw the best out of the actor who is being filmed.
It was very difficult for me in the beginning - I was told by agents and casting people that my body was 'too weird', that I had a funny accent, and that my name was too long. You name it, and they told me I had to change it. Basically, everywhere I turned, I was told that I had no chance.
A few months ago, I got rear-ended by this guy. He took off, and I chased him. I will admit I drove at a slightly excessive speed. I cut him off, and two guys jumped out of the car looking tough. But when they saw me, they just said, 'Oh shit! The Terminator!' They were nice, and gave me their information.
[on Terminator Genisys (2015)] It will be challenging because it will be a new director, and it will be a really action-packed movie. And sometimes it does get more difficult when you're 66 years old and doing this kind of action, versus when you're in your 30s or 40s!
[on his eighties rivalry with Sylvester Stallone ] We had a competition. And here's a perfect example of how competition is healthy, because he was trying to out-do me. But I was also trying to out-do him. So who benefited? The fans. I was training harder, he was training harder. It was a competition of who has more muscles, who has more cuts, who has the lower body fat, who uses the biggest guns, who kills the most people, who has the most creative killings, and this went on and on and on. So the movies became better and better because of it. And eventually, we grew up, right?" he said. We were doing Planet Hollywood together and we were laughing about it on the plane when we flew around. We've become very good friends, and I'm a big supporter of Sly, because I really always thought I admired him, even though there was competition. He's a great director, he's a great writer, a great actor, a great producer and also a fantastic artist. His paintings are great. And he's a great family man. He has it all.
I have a love interest in every one of my films: a gun.
I would never exchange my life with anybody else's.
If my life was a movie, no one would believe it.
No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people.
I went from being the Terminator to being the governator.
I know a lot of athletes and models are written off as just bodies. I never felt used for my body.
I just use my muscles as a conversation piece, like someone walking a cheetah down 42nd Street.
I was striving to be the most muscular man, and it got me into the movies. It got me everything that I have.
Failure is not an option. Everyone has to succeed.
I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria - when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.
Even with my divorce and with everything, I don't need money.
I don't suffer of anything that I've lost.
I think that people are interested seeing me on the screen.
You know, nothing is more important than education, because nowhere are our stakes higher; our future depends on the quality of education of our children today.
I have a private plane. But I fly commercial when I go to environmental conferences.
My friend James Cameron and I made three films together - True Lies (1994), The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Of course, that was during his early, low-budget, art-house period.
There is no place, no country, more compassionate more generous more accepting and more welcoming than the United States of America.
Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.
People need to be insured so when you have an accident out there, or when something catastrophic happens to you, that you're covered and there's not someone else has to pay for you. That is as simple as that.
The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.
To restore the trust of the people, we must reform the way the government operates.
The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.
I'm addicted to exercising and I have to do something every day.
Political courage is not political suicide.
I made my fair share of mistakes.
In our society, the women who break down barriers are those who ignore limits.
Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level, there were tremendous failures.
Start wide, expand further, and never look back.
Everything I have, my career, my success, my family, I owe to America.
When the people become involved in their government, government becomes more accountable, and our society is stronger, more compassionate, and better prepared for the challenges of the future.
I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.
One of my movies was called True Lies (1994). It's what the Democrats should have called their convention.
[He was being asked on what kind of Terminator he will be playing in Terminator Genisys (2015)] It's a character that has been programmed to protect them, to protect Sarah Connor, but I'm basically the same Terminator. I will destroy anything that's in front of me in order to save her.
The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That's what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they'll go through the pain no matter what happens.
Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America's servicemen and women.
As you know, I'm an immigrant. I came over here as an immigrant, and what gave me the opportunities, what made me to be here today, is the open arms of Americans. I have been received. I have been adopted by America.
Well, you know, I'm the forever optimist.
I have plenty of money, unlike other Hollywood celebrities or athletes that have not invested well.
As president, Reagan worked very well with Democrats to do big things. It is true that he worked to reduce the size of government and cut federal taxes and he eliminated many regulations, but he also raised taxes when necessary.
The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.
[on what is like getting back into The Terminator character for Terminator Genisys (2015)] It's like you've been doing it your whole life, because I'm very passionate about the character. I think it's a great, interesting character. I think it's a great story. The whole concept that Cameron had way back in the early '80s, of creating a world where machines take over and things becoming a reality that no one could even think of in those days. It's really been great, because the whole team is really into going all out. It is fun to be in a movie like that. The studio is very enthusiastic about the Terminator movie - the producers, the director, they're very talented and great visionaries. You can tell, the stages - everything is really big and exciting. It's been a great experience.
Well, I think that California has had a history of always spending more money than it takes in.
Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can't run a state.
What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn't think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.
I welcome and seek your ideas, but do not bring me small ideas; bring me big ideas to match our future.
I'm not perfect.
I believe with all my heart that America remains 'the great idea' that inspires the world. It is a privilege to be born here. It is an honor to become a citizen here. It is a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here.
If you work hard and play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything.
My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it. People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.
You can scream at me, call me for a shoot at midnight, keep me waiting for hours - as long as what ends up on the screen is perfect.
I was born in Europe... and I've traveled all over the world. I can tell you that there is no place, no country, that is more compassionate, more generous, more accepting, and more welcoming than the United States of America.
I am the most helpful and open up doors for everyone and I like to share.
[He was being asked how long it takes to put on the prosthetics for Terminator Genisys (2015)] I think it was two and a half hours. But it's not every day. It depends which stage we're in the story. So this is getting now towards the end. It gets more and more severe.
Women are the engine driving the growth in California's economy. Women make California's economy unique.
Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer.
I came to Hollywood and within a decade I was one of the biggest action stars of all time.
Government's first duty and highest obligation is public safety.
I feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people's trust in their government.
I do the same exercises I did 50 years ago and they still work. I eat the same food I ate 50 years ago and it still works.
Bodybuilding is much like any other sport. To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100% to your training, diet and mental approach.
My own dreams fortunately came true in this great state. I became Mr. Universe; I became a successful businessman. And even though some people say I still speak with a slight accent, I have reached the top of the acting profession.
Maria is the best reason to come home.
For 20 years, Simon & Schuster asked me, 'Why don't you write your autobiography?'
If it bleeds, we can kill it.
The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character.
Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tones the spirit just as exercise conditions the body.
The future is green energy, sustainability, renewable energy.
[on if he feels protective of The Terminator franchise] Oh, no, we had very open discussions. After I got the first script, I had a lot of questions. Some of the things didn't make sense. They were tweaked; they didn't make sense to other people either. So it was fine-tuned. It was a process. There was a period of I think a few months. There were very talented people who went off and - and the great thing is that everyone was in sync. It wasn't like I was going off in one direction and David Ellison was thinking differently and then Alan was thinking differently. There was none of that. I think this is a very unique project because I think everyone is very protective - not just because of the art's sake, but I think also because of the business' sake. The studio sees this as, "If we do well here, we can go with another few. We can entertain people. We can make money. We've done a good job bringing back the franchise." So everyone is in sync with that. That's why everyone is working around the clock here to make this a great movie.
I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.
Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter.
It's time to stop thinking of the Republican Party as an exclusive club where your ideological card is checked at the door, and start thinking about how we can attract more solution-based leaders like Nathan Fletcher and Anthony Adams.
People should make up their own mind about what they think of me.
I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with 'Guess' on it. I said, Thyroid problem?
My body is like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don't think about it, I just have it.
And now, of course this is another thing I didn't count on, that now as the governor of the state of California, I am selling California worldwide. You see that? Selling.
The success I have achieved in bodybuilding, motion pictures, and business would not have been possible without the generosity of the American people and the freedom here to pursue your dreams.
We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government.
As long as I live, I will never forget that day 21 years ago when I raised my hand and took the oath of citizenship. Do you know how proud I was? I was so proud that I walked around with an American flag around my shoulders all day long.
'I'll be back' always sounded a little girly to me.
I didn't leave bodybuilding until I felt that I had gone as far as I could go. It will be the same with my film career. When I feel the time is right, I will then consider public service. I feel that the highest honor comes from serving people and your country.
If it's hard to remember, it'll be difficult to forget.
What's fascinating is, people in Washington would rather spend time in Hollywood, and people in Hollywood would rather spend time in Washington.
I'll be back.
I think Americans are very patriotic.
I have inhaled, exhaled everything.
I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way - I hope it never will.
For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
It's simple, if it jiggles, it's fat.
Teddy Roosevelt is still a hero among environmentalists for his conservationist policies.
I told Warren if he mentions Prop. 13 one more time, he has to do 500 push-ups.
I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.
I'm not looking for sympathy at all.
The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression - all of that is very important.
(2012) The day is twenty-four hours. I sleep six hours. That leaves eighteen hours to do something.
(2012) I would always write down my New Year's resolutions and mark them off the way I mark off sets and reps... On New Year's Eve, you can just blabber out: I want to lose twenty pounds and I'm gonna read more. But what does that mean? There's too many variables there. If you're really serious about it, then write down when you're gonna lose the twenty pounds by. Is it March 1? Is it June 1? Make a commitment.
(2012) The power of influence is one of the most unique powers that you can have. It's not the power of controlling people. It's developing a certain skill of communicating what you want to accomplish so that people will follow you.
(2012) It was one of my early goals to be a millionaire. In the beginning, I wanted to have a gold Rolex, a Rolls-Royce, a cheetah - just stupid things that you think of when you're a kid. Then time goes by. The Rolls-Royce thing went out the window, because when you get to the level where you can afford one, all of a sudden you say, "It's a little bit over the top." A cheetah? I think in California they got rid of the law that says you can have wild animals. Having a cheetah is a stupid idea.
(2012) I didn't get it at first. I'll be back. What the fuck is I'll? I will be back sounded much stronger in my mind. So I argued with Jim Cameron. And he said, "Look, Arnold, I don't tell you how to act. Please don't tell me how to write." After I saw it in the movie, I was so thankful to Cameron. That was a good lesson to learn. If someone is a good writer, stick to the script.
95% of the time you never know if a movie will be a huge success or that it will even be a sequel.
I'm so happy I've been a part of some of the biggest and best action sequences.
[The Terminator] James Cameron did an extraordinary job creating that character and whole phenomenon. I never thought we would do a sequel, catchphrases like "I'll be back" or "Hasta la vista, baby" would catch on and be repeated or think that 30yrs later I would be asked to come back to a franchise like this playing The Terminator, unlike Batman or James Bond.
[The Terminator] It was a small movie. We really had to cut costs all the time. We shot it very quickly. We felt we had a good story and it would be successful. But we thought it would be for certain audiences only. No-one suspected it would be in Time magazine's top 10 movies of the year and that successful at the box-office and that people demanded a sequel that would be the highest grossing movie of that year.
[the storm drain chase in Terminator 2] That's a fantastic scene.
Most people are not comfortable with guns.
[being Governor of California] I had my hands full.
[James Cameron's movies] Extraordinary inspiration because it makes other directors online.
[California] The seventh largest economy in the world.
[James] Cameron has really stretched it beyond belief with visual effects in Judgment Day.
[on becoming President of the United States]If I'd been born in America, I would've run.[October 2016]
Salary (22)
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The ‘Squiddy Awards’ (or The Squiddies) are awarded for achievement in what type of publication? | 2000 Squiddy Winners--Full Results - Google Groups
2000 Squiddy Winners--Full Results
2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
Below are the full results of the 2000 Squiddies. These results were complied
from 144 eligible ballots, with votes covering a total of 1108 separate items.
Results are listed by category and number of votes received.
BEST WRITER
11: Christopher Priest, Kurt Busiek
7: Garth Ennis
3: Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Paul Jenkins
2: Chuck Dixon, Dave Sim, Eddie Campbell, Fabian Nicieza, Linda Medley, Mark
Waid, Mike Carey, Peter David, Terry Moore
1: Alex Robinson, Andi Watson, Batton Lash, Brian Azzarello, Chris Claremont,
David Mack, Eric Shanower, Grant Morrison, Howard Mackie, James Robinson, Joe
Sacco, John Kovalic, John Porcellino, John Wagner, Mike Mignola
BEST PENCILLER
14: Bryan Hitch, J.H. Williams III
9: John Cassaday
4: Alan Davis, Gary Frank
3: Carla Speed McNeil, Darick Robertson, Dave Sim, Eric Shanower, Frank
Quitely, Jeff Moy, Phil Jimenez
2: Andy Kubert, Brent Anderson, Jeff Smith, John Byrne, Mark Bagley, Peter
Snejbjerg, Stephen Sadowski
1: Adam Kubert, Andi Watson, Chris Ware, Dale Eaglesham, Damion Scott, Dave
Cooper, Eduardo Risso, Jackson Guice, Jae Lee, Joe Quesada, John Romita, Jr.,
Juan Gimenez, Michael Lark, Paul Chadwick, Paul Smith, Peter Gross, Rick
Veitch, Ryan Sook, Sal Velluto, Salvador Larocca, Sean Chen, Steve Conley,
Steve Dillon, Terry Moore, Ty Templeton, Walt Simonson, Zander Cannon
BEST INKER
13: Mick Gray, Paul Neary
8: Al Vey, Jimmy Palmiotti
7: Gerhard
6: Mark Farmer, Wade Von Grawbadger
5: Gene Ha
4: Stan Sakai, Zander Cannon
3: Al Milgrom, Andy Lanning, Bob Almond, Karl Story, Scott Hanna, Tom Palmer
2: Art Thibert, Cory Carani, Drew Geraci, Gilbert Hernandez, Kevin Nowlan,
Mike Allred, P. Craig Russell, Rachel Dodson, Terry Austin
1: Al Gordon, Bud Larosa, D-Tron, Don Hillsman, Eric Shanower, Guy Davis, Joe
Pimentel, John Costanza, John Floyd, Mark Heike, Mark Pennington, Michael
Bair, Rob Hunter, Robert Campanella, Robin Riggs, Rodney Ramos, Stephanie
Gladden, No Award
5: Andrew Robinson, Dan Brereton, Jose Ladronn
4: Greg Horn, Joe Jusko, Tony Harris
3: Phil Hale
2: Ariel Olivetti, Christopher Moeller, Eddie Campbell, Jose Villarrubia, Mark
Smylie, Sam Kieth
1: Brian Stelfreeze, Jill Thompson, John Byrne, Massimo Frezatto, Phil
Winslade, Scott Hampton, Steve Purcell, Yslaire, No Award
BEST LETTERER
9: Chris Eliopoulos, John Workman
5: Tom Orzechowski
4: John Costanza, Richard Starkings
3: Ken Bruzenak, Stan Sakai
2: David Mack, William Oakley
1: Bill O'Neill, Clem Robbins, Dreamer Design, John Byrne, Ken Lopez, Kitof,
No Award
4: Lynn Varley, Tom McCraw
3: Liquid! Graphics
2: Carla Feeny, Gregory Wright, Jeromy Cox, John Kalisz, Pamela Rambo, Pat
Garrahy, Richard Isanove
1: Alex Sinclair, Andrew Crossley, Dan Kemp, James Sinclair, Matt
Hollingsworth, Sherilyn von Valkenberg, Tom Luth, Tom Smith, No Award
3: Aragones/Evanier/Sakai/Luth (Groo, Space Circus)
Jenkins/Lee (Sentry)
Byrne/Palmer/Wright (X-Men: The Hidden Years)
Casey/Phillips (Wildcats)
10: Adam Hughes, Tim Bradstreet
9: Alex Ross
7: Dave Johnson, Glenn Fabry, Phil Jimenez
6: Alan Davis
4: Andrew Robinson, David Mack. Jae Lee
3: Andi Watson
2: J. Scott Campbell, Michael Kaluta, Rags Morales, Raven Mimura, Sean Chen,
Stan Sakai, Todd McFarlane
1: Ariel Olivetti, Arthur Adams, Carla Speed McNeil, Dave Dorman, Dave McKean,
Duncan Fegredo, Elizabeth Watasin, Erik Larsen, Gerhard, J.G. Jones, Jeff
Matsuda, John Byrne, John McCrea, Jose Ladronn, Juan Giminez, Leonardo Manco,
Mark Smylie, Mark Texeira, Mike Mignola, Mike Weiringo, Paul Grist, Phillip
Bond, Salvador Larocca, Terry Dodson, Yukito Koshiro, No Award
BEST EDITOR
4: Dan Raspler, Heidi MacDonald, No Award
3: Diana Schutz, Jamie S. Rich, Peter Tomasi
2: Denny O'Neil, Eddie Campbell, Gary Groth, Mark Alessi, Scott Allie, Stuart
Moore
1: Joey Cavalieri, Ralph Macchio, Renae Geerlings, Shelley Bond
BEST POLITICAL CARTOONIST
4: Joe Sacco, John Kovalic, No Award, Peter Kuper, Tom Toles
3: Garrick Tremain, Steve Bell
2: Jim Borgman, Mike Luckovitch
1: Aaron McGruder, Herbert Block, John Sherffius, Martin Rowson, Matt (Daily
Telegraph), Pat Oliphant, Terho Ovaska, Vance Rodewalt
BEST COMICS SHORT STORY
8: Promethea #10 "Sex, Stars & Serpents"
7: Rising Stars #4 "Masques"
Starman #73 "Grand Guignol Epilogue"
Transmetropolitan #40 "Business"
4: Black Panther #27 "An Epidemic Insanity"
Lucifer #4 "Born with the Dead"
Planetary #12 "Memory Cloud"
Powers #7 "Guest-starring Warren Ellis"
3: Expo 2000 "Trondheim in America"
Promethea #6 "The 5 Swell Guys in Firefight on 5th Avenue!"
Supreme: The Return #6 "New Jack City"
Top 10 #8 "The Overview"
2: "Last Day in Vietnam"
Astounding Space Thrills #2 "The Criminal Code"
Harley Quinn #3 "Welcome to the Party!"
Oni Press Summer Vacation Supercolor Fun Special "Sticks and Stones"
Peter Parker: Spider-Man #20 "The Best Medicine"
Peter Parker: Spider-Man #26 "Police Story"
Promethea #12 "Metaphore"
Promethea #8 "Guys and Dolls"
Sock Monkey V3 #2
Stray Bullets #21 "Little Love Tragedy"
1: 100 Bullets #11 "Heartbreak, Sunny Side Up"
Astounding Space Thrills #3 "The Craving of Consumorr!"
Authority #14 "The Nativity - Part 2 of 4"
Batman: Turning Points #5 "Old as the Stars"
Cable #88 "Earth Abides"
Detective Comics #747 "Happy Birthday Two You"
Dork Tower #11 "World of Dorkness"
Eddie Campbell's Bacchus #54 "The Move to Straight Street"
Elvira #88 "...That Old Get-Up and Glow"
Generation X #71 "Four Days 1 of 4"
Gotham Knights #11 "Batman's Son"
Hey Mister #7 "Eye on the Prize"
Marvel Boy #3 "Digital Koncentration Kamp One"
Nightwing #52 "Modern Romance"
Optic Nerve #7 "Summer Blonde"
Orion #5 "Day of Wrath"
Preacher #66 "A Hell of a Vision"
Promethea #7 "Rocks and Hard Places"
Red Sonja: Death In Scarlet #1
Sleeping Dragons #1
Star Wars Tales #6 "Thank the Maker"
Strapazin "Midori"
23: Superman & Batman: World's Funnest
12: JLA: Heaven's Ladder
8: Planetary/Authority: Ruling the World
5: Merv Pumpkinhead, Agent of DREAM, Rose #1, Shazam!: Power of Hope
4: Batman: Ego, No Award
3: Faith: A Fable, Realworlds: Wonder Woman, Superman/Green Lantern: Legend of
the Green Flame, XXXenophile Vol. 6
2: Astronauts in Trouble: One Shot, One Beer, Hulk 2000, Last Knight, X-Men
100
1: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire, From Cloud 99: Memories part1, JLA
80-Page Giant #3, Last Lonely Saturday, Maximum Security: Dangerous Planet,
Peanutbutter & Jeremy, Realworlds: Batman, Realworlds: JLA
BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC NOVEL
7: JLA: League of One
4: Minor Miracles, No Award
3: Last Day in Vietnam
2: Louis: Red Letter Day
1: Blockade, Monkey vs. Robot, Star Trek: Next Generation: Gorn Crisis
13: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #1-6
11: Powers #1-6 "Death of Retro Girl"
7: Age of Bronze #1-9
6: Authority #13-16 "Nativity"
5: Black Panther #13-25 "Killmonger Returns"
Castle Waiting (v2) #1-? "Origin of Sister Peace"
Preacher #59-66 "Alamo"
4: Black Panther #26-29 "Sturm Und Drung"
Planetary #1-12 "Who Is the Fourth Man?"
3: 100 Bullets #15-18 "Hang Up on the Hang Low"
Acme Novelty Library "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth"
JLA #36-41 "World War III"
JLA #43-46 "Tower of Babel"
Legends of the DC Universe #30-32 "The 18th Letter"
2: Batman: Dark Victory #1-13
Hitman #53-60 "Closing Time"
Red Star #1-4 "The Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate"
Swamp Thing #4-6 "Killing Time"
Top 10 #1-12
1: 100 Bullets #12-14 "Parlez Kung Vous"
Books of Magic #73-75 "The Closing"
Box Office Poison #1-21
Finder #15-18 "King of the Cats"
Fortune & Glory #1-3
Generation X #67-70 "Come On Die Young"
Hellblazer #145-150 "Hard Times"
Reign of Emperor Joker (Emperor Joker #1, Superman #161, Adventures
of Superman #583, Man of Steel #105, Action Comics #770)
Rising Stars #1-8 "Born in Fire"
Rising Stars #6-8 "Things Fall Apart"
Scary Godmother: Wild About Harry #1-3
Tellos #1-10
Usagi Yojimbo#39-45 "Grasscutter II"
Wildcats #14-19 "Serial Boxes"
X-Men: Hidden Years "In the Savage Land"
No Award
4: Age of Bronze, Finder, Rising Stars
3: Castle Waiting, Deadenders, Transmetropolitan
2: Astounding Space Thrills, Birds of Prey, Box Office Poison, Cerebus, Dork
Tower, Kane, Powers, Preacher, Starman, Strangers in Paradise, Metabarons, Tom
Strong, Usagi Yojimbo, Young Justice
1: Arsenic Lullaby, Artesia, Atomics, Black Hole, Blade of the Immortal,
Books of Magic (v2), Cable, Detective Comics, Femforce, Hitman, Invisibles ,
JSA, Kurt Busiek's Astro City, Nodwick, Orion, Ring of the Nibelung, Robin,
Supernatural Law, X-Men: The Hidden Years
BEST NEW SERIES
7: Harley Quinn, The Red Star
4: No Award
3: Batman: Gotham Knights, Powerpuff Girls, Swamp Thing, The Atomics
2: Deadenders, Section Zero, Ultimate X-Men
1: Astounding Space Thrills, Batgirl, Epoxy, Knights of the Dinner Table:
Hackmasters of Evernight, Nodwick, The First
27: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
13: Sentry
6: Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood
5: Marvel: The Lost Generation
4: Punisher
3: Blaze of Glory, Fortune & Glory, Jenny Sparks: The Secret History of the
Authority, Legion Lost, Proposition Player
2: Astronauts in Trouble: Space 1959, Blue Monday: The Kids Are Alright,
Daredevil: Ninja, Inhumans (vol. 3), Jet, Kin, Marvel Boy, Rose, Sins of Youth
1: Avengers Infinity, Battle Pope, Black Widow, Pablo's Inferno, Robin: Year
One, Space Circus, Zero Girl
BEST REPRINT BOOK/COLLECTION
10: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lone Wolf & Cub
9: Jimmy Corrigan
7: Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD
5: Little Nemo 1905-1914
4: Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius 2.0, Castle Waiting: The Lucky Road,
Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four #51-60
3: Essential Avengers #2, Fortune & Glory, Inhumans (Vol. 2), Planetary: All
Over the World, Spirit Archives Vol. 1, Tales of the Bizarro World
2: Astronauts in Trouble: Space 1959, Avengers Backpack #1, Dreadstar: The
Price, Green Lantern/Green Arrow HC, Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 10,
Little Annie Fanny, No Award, Sonovawitch! And Other Tales of Supernatural
Law, Thunderbolts #39 (Monster edition), Transmetropolitan: The New Scum
1: Bughouse, Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller, Dork Covenant , Essential
Captain America, Essential Conan, Essential Starchild, Gatecrasher: Ring of
Fire, Gon on Safari, Here Comes a Candle, Mirror, Window, Plastic Man Archives
2, Preacher: All Hell's A-Coming, Robert E. Howard's Horror, Spirit Archives
Vol. 3, The Authority: Under New Management, Wonder Woman Archives 2
BEST ANTHOLOGY
13: America's Best Comics Special #1
6: Drawn & Quarterly #3, No Award
5: Expo 2000, Flinch
4: Jingle Belle's All-Star Holiday Hullabaloo, Knights of the Dinner Table,
Super Manga Blast
3: Astounding Space Thrills, Eddie Campbell's Bacchus, Streetwise
2: Dark Horse Presents, Gangland, Lenore, Oni Press Summer Vacation Supercolor
Fun Special, Star Wars Tales
1: Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, Batman Chronicles, Batman: Gotham
Knights #2, Comix 2000, Dork Tower, Femforce #113, JLA Showcase 80-Page Giant
#2, Pulp, Simpsons Comics #50
BEST COMIC STRIP
8: For Better or For Worse, Liberty Meadows, Mutts
6: Doonesbury, Foxtrot
4: Boondocks, Get Fuzzy, Peanuts, This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow)
3: Robotman, Zits
2: Desperate Times, If..., Rose is Rose, Speed Bump, Zippy the Pinhead 1:
Alley Oop, Baby Blues, Dykes to Watch Out For, Family Circus, Funky
Winkerbean, Life in Hell, Maakies, Mister Boffo, Modesty Blaise, No Award, Pop
Vulture, Raising Duncan, Sherman's Lagoon, Sluggy Freelance, This City
BEST WEB COMIC
29: Zot! Hearts & Minds ( www.cbr.cc )
15: Astounding Space Thrills ( www.astoundingspacethrills.com )
5: Dork Tower ( www.kovalic.com )
4: Fantagraphics, Gorilla, Oni Press
3: Dark Horse Comics, Drawn & Quarterly, Image
2: AiT/PlaNETlar, Amaze Ink/Slave Labor Graphics, Dark Horse/Maverick,
Milestone, Top Shelf
1: AC Comics, Cartoon Books, Dancing Elephant Press, Dork Storm Press,
Humanoids Publishing, No Award, Pantheon Books, Shanda Fantasy Arts, Top Cow
BEST CHARACTER
6: Promethea, Everett K. Ross (Black Panther)
5: Batman, Jack Knight (Starman), Jenny Sparks (The Authority), Sentry, Spider
Jerusalem (Transmetropolitan), Tom Strong
3: Cerebus, Jimmy Corrigan, Wonder Woman
2: Brian Michael Bendis (Fortune & Glory), Elijah Snow (Planetary), Girl One
(Top 10), Hitman, Jack Hawksmoor (The Authority), Jennie 2.5 (Channel Zero),
Lucifer, Magical Witch Girl Bunny (Charm School), Midnighter (The Authority),
Nightwing, Oracle, Orion, Tefe Holland (Swamp Thing), Thor, No Award
1: Agent Graves (100 Bullets), Alec (Eddie Campbell), Argosy Smith (Astounding
Space Thrills), Arrowette (Young Justice), Artesia, Aunt May, Bleu (Blue
Monday), Cannonball, Captain Marvel (Billy Batson), Flash, Gilly the Perky
Goth (Dork Tower), Harley Quinn, Hawkeye, Hawley Griffin (League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen), Hellboy, Hexus, the Living Corporation (Marvel Boy),
Iron Man, Jesse Custer (Preacher), John Constantine, Mavis (Supernatural Law),
Nikopol (Nikopol Trilogy), Odysseus (Age of Bronze), Phantom Stranger, Poet
(Rising Stars), Queen Divine Justice (Black Panther), Rogue, Saturn Girl,
Spectre (Hal Jordan), Spider-Man, Spirit, Superboy, Superman, Ted Knight
(Starman), The Doctor (The Authority), Theremin (Astounding Space Thrills),
Usagi Yojimbo, Virginia (Electric Girl)
BEST CHARACTER TEAM
15: The Authority, Top Ten (cast of)
12: Avengers
8: JLA, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Planetary
6: Thunderbolts, Young Justice
4: Black Panther (cast of), Spider Jerusalem & "filthy assistants"
3: Box Office Poison (cast of), X-Men, No Award
2: Bone (cast of), Knights of the Dinner Table, Starman (cast of), Wolff &
Byrd/Supernatural Law (cast of)
1: The Atomics, Birds of Prey, Breakfast After Noon (cast of), Fantastic Four,
Femforce, Generation X, Hitman (cast of), Metabarons, Midnight Nation (cast
of), Quantum & Woody, Specials (from Rising Stars), Titans, Wildcats
4: Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
3: Witchblade, X-Men: Evolution
2: Sabrina the Teenage Witch
1: Batman Beyond "Out of the Past," Space Travelers
BEST TEXT ADAPTATION
15: Transmetropolitan: I Hate It Here
14: No Award
6: Batman: No Man's Land, Grendel: Past Prime
4: Gamma Quest Trilogy (X-Men/Avengers)
3: Akiko on the Planet Smoo, X-Men: Shadows of the Past
1: Sable
4: Promethea statue, Sandman mini-bookends
3: Bizarro watch, Death Row Marv, Green Lantern Power Battery,
Hawkman/Hawkwoman action figure set, Shazam! deluxe action figure set, Silent
Bob action figure
2: Black Widow statue, Delirium soft toy, Doctor Doom statue, Golden Age
Wonder Woman action figure, Wonder Woman statue
1: Bat-Mite soft toy, Batman Beyond Burger King toys, Batman Masterpiece
Collection action figure, Bottle City of Kandor, Death Ankh, Flash PVC set,
Gilly the Perky Goth's Perky Ankh, Golden Age Flash action figure, Golden Age
GL action figure, Hellblazer action figure, Ignatz statue, JSA PVC set, Kabuki
Scarab bust, Kaneda action figure, Mr. Miracle/Big Barda action figure set,
Rogue in X-Men Uniform action figure, Spawn V action figure, Vision bust,
Wonder Woman Barbie doll
11: Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Comic Book Artist
10: Comics International
3: Comic Shop News, Comics Retailer
2: Busted (CBLDF Newsletter)
1: Comics Scene 2000, Jack Kirby Collector, Reinventing Comics, Vertigo
Visions
14: Warren Ellis Forum ( www.delphi.com/ellis )
7: Marvel Chronology Project ( www.chronologyproject.com )
Warren Ellis site ( www.warrenellis.com )
3: Astounding Space Thrills ( www.astoundingspacethrills.com )
2: Andi Watson ( www.andiwatson.com )
Unoffical Green Arrow Compendium ( www.fgi.net/~grnarrow/ga.html )
BEST GENERAL COMICS WEBSITE
7: All the Rage ( www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/rage/index1.htm )
6: Comics Continuum ( www.comicscontinuum.com )
3: Comic Book Galaxy ( www.comicbookgalaxy.com )
2: 4-Color Review ( www.4colorreview.com )
3: Matt Brady, Johanna Draper Carlson, Randy Lander, Beau Yarbrough, Dave Van
Domelen, No Award
2: Michael Dean, Alan David Doane, Ed Mathews, Alex Tam, Maggie Thompson,
Larry Young
1: Rob Alstetter, Jason Baldwin, Bart Beaty, Brian Domingos, R.C. Harvey, Jim
"Spooon" Henry, Patrick Keller, John Morrow, Rob Nott, Mike Sangiacomo, J.
Michael Straczynski, Rick Veitch, Jonah Weiland, Douglas Wolk
FAVORITE RAC'ER (NON-CREATOR)
11: Carl Henderson, Elayne Riggs, Todd VerBeek
10: Michael Alan Chary
8: Bala Menon, Talon (Rick Sharer)
7: Loren Di Iorio, No Award
6: Owen Erasmus
5: Randy Lander, Kevin Maroney
4: Kate Hahn, Rob Hansen, Matt High, Ralph Mathieu, David W. Stepp
3: Carl Fink, Bennet H. Marks, Alan Travis, Sean Walsh
2: Jerry Boyajian, Adrian Brown, Brad Chamberlain, Chip, Alan David Doane,
Jacob T. Levy, Jess Nevins, T. Troy McNemar
1: Matt Adler, Joe Ankenbauer, John Bacon, Lia Brown, Consul de Designers,
Thad A Dora, Forge, Brian Fried, Jim "Spooon" Henry, Sean Kleefeld, Todd
Kogutt (Scavenger), Ali T. Kokmen, Soleil Lapierre, Laurent Lehmann, Todd
Luck, De Parker, Rutog, Katie Schwarz, Lee Seitz, Chris Small, Dezmo Steed,
Alan Stone, Nenad Vidovic, Ed Whitmore, Dwight Williams, Will/Squidly,
FAVORITE RAC'ER (CREATOR)
15: Peter David, Steve Lieber
14: Warren Ellis, Dwayne McDuffie, Fabian Nicieza
9: Mark Evanier
7: Rich Johnston, Joe Quesada
5: Brian Michael Bendis, Tony Isabella, Erik Larsen
4: Chris Claremont, D. Curtis Johnson, Walt Simonson, No Award
3: Terry Beatty, Paul Jenkins, Richard Pace, Larry Young
2: Ed Brubake, Jackie Estrada, Lea Hernandez, Scott McCloud, Heidi MacDonald,
Jeff Moy
1: Steve Conley, Steven Grant, John Kovalic, Richard Pini, Robin Riggs, Ted
Rall, Greg Rucka
On Thu, 08 Feb 2001 02:44:12 GMT, [email protected] (Carl Henderson)
wrote:
Thank you to the four people who voted for my site, whomever you are.
*Charles S. LePage www.comiclist.com *
>From: [email protected] (Carl Henderson)
>2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
Woo hoo! When you vote on the first day as I did, it then seems like ages to
finish.:)
You and Johanna did a great job on the awards, and I (and I'm sure others)
really appreciate it!
>11: Christopher Priest, Kurt Busiek
>7: Garth Ennis
Hmm must say I'm not that shocked by the first 5, Ennis is a little surprising
to me though.
Wow Geogre wins this every year it seems.:)
I'll be interested in seeing if George maintains the same popularity by this
time next year. (if he's still with CrossGen that is)
Of course since JLA/Avengers is possible by that time I'm sure he will be.
>7: P. Craig Russell
Hmm a new name to me anyway. What does he/she work on?
>BEST CREATIVE TEAM
Wow now that was one really tight race!
>BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC NOVEL
I'll have to give this a try I guess.
>16: Reinventing Comics
This too. Would this have also fit in the publication about comics category?
>BEST NEW SERIES
>18: Lucifer
I did not realize Lucifer was so popular, I've found it to be an interesting
series but didn't see much talk about it. I may have to start looking at the
vertigo group a bit more closely now.:)
>BEST LIMITED SERIES
>27: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Wow, is this finally finished yet?:)
>FAVORITE RAC'ER (NON-CREATOR)
Yep all 4 are people whose posts I specifically seek out on my visits here..
Congrats to all of the winners!
James
>2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
>FAVORITE RAC'ER (NON-CREATOR)
>11: Carl Henderson, Elayne Riggs, Todd VerBeek
Always the most difficult category for me to vote in, since there are
so many worthy candidates. While thanks to those who voted for me (I really
wasn't expecting to make top five this year), I have to say that I think
at least two of you were nuts in that Carl certainly deserved a higher
ranking than me this year (i.e. anyone who voted for me and not him) based
both on general posts and sheer service to r.a.c. for the combo of FAQkeeping,
net.copping for sale posts, and administering the Squiddies, a trifecta
I don't think anyone else has done.
>2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
>
>Below are the full results of the 2000 Squiddies. These results were complied
>from 144 eligible ballots, with votes covering a total of 1108 separate items.
>Results are listed by category and number of votes received.
Wow. Once again, thanks to both Carl and Johanna for the incredible amount of
work. Yes, the job is still yours! :)
>BEST WRITER
Great choice. If the true winner can't get it, this one fills in nicely.
>2: Dave Sim
True winner. Heh. Looks like this was me and Brandt?
>BEST PENCILLER
Oooh! An extra vote! OK, confess!
>BEST INKER
>13: Mick Gray, Paul Neary
Weak.
By far. Good to see the better support here.
And you know, Sim also inks his own pencils. :)
>BEST PAINTER
In a league of his own.
>BEST LETTERER
Hands down winner of this category.
>BEST CREATIVE TEAM
>8: Promethea #10 "Sex, Stars & Serpents"
>7: Rising Stars #4 "Masques"
Wow. Finally, a little reward. Very cool.
>BEST ONGOING SERIES
Great! Just in time for the current issue!
>2: Cerebus
Who could possibly be voting for this great title?!?!? :)
>BEST NEW SERIES
>27: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Well-deserved.
>29: Zot! Hearts & Minds ( www.cbr.cc )
Never a doubt.
OK, who's the other voter??? You are so correct.
>BEST DRAMATIC ADAPTATION
The only question was whether it would break 100.
>BEST COMICS PUBLICATION
>33: Comic Book Resources ( www.cbr.cc )
Congrats. This is where most people go.
>3: Comic Book Galaxy ( www.comicbookgalaxy.com )
Whoa! All that hype and only three votes?
>BEST COMICS JOURNALIST
Another hard worker gets a well-deserved award. Congrats.
>FAVORITE RAC'ER (NON-CREATOR)
Absolutely! The Darling of the Opera. :)
>15: Sidne Gail Ward
Does she still post here? ;)
>11: Carl Henderson
You deserved better, but congrats, you earned every vote.
>8: Talon (Rick Sharer)
Oh. This beats my previous high by two votes. God bless all of you, but next
time vote for Sim too, fer cryin' out loud!!!!!! :)
>FAVORITE RAC'ER (CREATOR)
The Battle of the Bands. Kurt, if Astro City came out monthly you might've
broken the century mark.
It's nice to be married!
Talon T M
> 2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
>
> Below are the full results of the 2000 Squiddies. These results were complied
> from 144 eligible ballots, with votes covering a total of 1108 separate items.
> Results are listed by category and number of votes received.
First of all thanks goes to the Carl and Johanna for organizing this
thing. Although there were some problems with my ballot, it turned out
that it didn't matter in the end.
Sometimes I feel like either I have bad taste or the world is turned
upside down.
Recently I visited Alan Moore fan site and the best work of Alan Moore
is 'Watchmen'. Hm...in opinion 'V for Vendetta' is far way ahead and 'A
Small Killing' is also better than 'Watchmen'. I haven't read any of the
'new' Alan Moore stuff (at some point I'll try it out), but it all seems
JASS.
What did I vote here? Let's see...ah,yes...
> 1: John Porcellino
I am starting to see a pattern here
> BEST PAINTER
Best damned painter - read 'From Clouds' to see why...
>
> 1: From Cloud 99: Memories part1
How many people have actually read this, I wonder?
>
> 2: Louis: Red Letter Day
Well, well...someone else gave a vote to this. How odd.
> BEST ONGOING SERIES
But of course back to the usual...
> BEST NEW SERIES
I can see that my vote for 'Metabarons' was not even included
here...Doesn't really matter - I was the only one, anyway.
>
Wow, 5 other people felt this deserved an award! I am thrilled...
>
Yes, of course...and a correction there - it is 'The City' by Derf.
Although quality varied from week to week it still keeps me enough
entertained to keep opening the 'Escort' section where this strip is
printed in eye magazine and that ain't a small thing.
>
this above is of course - just depresing...maybe the criteria was best
in terms of available market share or cash - well, it certainly isn't
quality of comics.
> 4: Fantagraphics, Gorilla, Oni Press
> 3: Dark Horse Comics, Drawn & Quarterly, Image
> 2: AiT/PlaNETlar, Amaze Ink/Slave Labor Graphics, Dark Horse/Maverick,
> Milestone, Top Shelf
> 1: AC Comics, Cartoon Books, Dancing Elephant Press, Dork Storm Press,
> Humanoids Publishing, No Award, Pantheon Books, Shanda Fantasy Arts, Top Cow
>
Ok, I didn't really know what to put here...oh yeah maybe Gabriel Marpa
:)
Wow, I have voted for this...but let me check...there isn't any other
comics magazine on market.
> 11: Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Comic Book Artist
> 10: Comics International
8 people thought that Wizard is the best comics publication..I think
Wizard deserves some kind of award...after all it is quite hard to make
a magazine that contains nothing on 100 pages!
> 7: Alter Ego
> 3: Comic Shop News, Comics Retailer
> 2: Busted (CBLDF Newsletter)
> 1: Comics Scene 2000, Jack Kirby Collector, Reinventing Comics, Vertigo
> Visions
I think Comicon beats the shit out of CBR and Newsarama combined!
No, silly...I didn't vote for myself. I do thank the soul who felt I
have somehow contributed to this newsgroup, though it is disputable how.
Regards,
Many thanks to those 4 of you who voted for X-Fan. I really do appreciate
the support!
Wow, thanks Ed for voting for Slush.
-brian
The Slush Factory: Your Home For Comics On The Web. Featuring interviews,
reviews, columns and more at Http://www.slushfactory.com . Visit us today!
In article < [email protected] >, [email protected] wrote:
>I can see that my vote for 'Metabarons' was not even included
>here...Doesn't really matter - I was the only one, anyway.
We got your vote, but METABARONS was ineligible for the "Best Limited Series"
award. I know that seems bizare, but Johanna and I felt constrained to go by
the defintion of that category as listed in the ballot:
:Best Limited Comic Series of 2000:
: A self-contained comic serial planned to run from 2 to 12 episodes that
: had at least one new episode published in 2000.
Since METABARONS is a 16 issue limited series, it was ineligible. We ran into
this same problem with P. Craig Russell's adaptation of RING OF THE NIBELUNGS,
which at 14 issues also was disqualified. Similarly, RISING STARS, scheduled
to run 24 issues was ineligible.
The "2 to 12 episodes" clause in the "Best Limited Series" defintion is
something that will very likely get reworked for the 2001 awards.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In article < [email protected] >, [email protected] (James Schee) wrote:
>>From: [email protected] (Carl Henderson)
>>2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
>>BEST PENCILLER
>>19: George Perez
>Wow Geogre wins this every year it seems.:)
Perez has won three years in a row now. But he's still way behind Alex Ross,
who has won "Best Painter" for the past EIGHT years...
>I'll be interested in seeing if George maintains the same popularity by this
>time next year. (if he's still with CrossGen that is)
>
>Of course since JLA/Avengers is possible by that time I'm sure he will be.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Perez do it again--even without a
JLA/Avengers book in 2000.
>Hmm a new name to me anyway. What does he/she work on?
He's been working in comic--on and off--for over twenty-five years, actually.
He's best known for his work on WAR OF THE WORLDS (with Don MacGregor) back in
the 70s, his adapatations of Moorecock's Elric novels, and--most recently--for
an adaptation of RING OF THE NIBELUNGS cycle.
>>BEST ORIGINAL GRAPHIC NOVEL
>>21: Safe Area Gorazde
>I'll have to give this a try I guess.
I am going to, as well. On thing I really like the Squiddies is finding out
about good comics I've never heard of. I'm probably going to finally break
down and by PEDRO AND ME, as well.
>>16: Reinventing Comics
>This too. Would this have also fit in the publication about comics category?
Technically, it was eligible in both.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Wow, thanks Ed for voting for Slush.
>
Yes, well... next time vote. :)
Ed Mathews
>>2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
>>FAVORITE RAC'ER (NON-CREATOR)
>>11: Carl Henderson, Elayne Riggs, Todd VerBeek
>Always the most difficult category for me to vote in, since there are
>so many worthy candidates. While thanks to those who voted for me (I really
>wasn't expecting to make top five this year), I have to say that I think
>at least two of you were nuts in that Carl certainly deserved a higher
>ranking than me this year (i.e. anyone who voted for me and not him) based
>both on general posts and sheer service to r.a.c. for the combo of FAQkeeping,
>net.copping for sale posts, and administering the Squiddies, a trifecta
>I don't think anyone else has done.
I really do appreciate the kind words. But eleven votes is more than cool with
me. Ultimately, I do stuff like the Squiddies, the FAQ, the Top 300 lists
because I enjoy doing it. As Mike Chary wisely pointed out to me, expecting
Usenet to love you back is kind of dumb. Nevertheless, many thanks to all
eleven of you who voted for me!
But if you want to talk about someone who deserved more votes than they got,
I'd like to point out Kate Hahn (aka Kate the Short). Not only is she the
keepers of several RAC.xbooks FAQs, she also maintains the RAC FAQ
archive--which is an invaluable service to RAC*, in particular, and to comics
fans online, in general.
During the voting, I was very tempted to make "Vote for Kate" posts. The
only thing that stopped me was the feeling that it really would have been
improper for one of the Squiddy admins to campaign for someone during the
voting. However--there's always next year. So remember: "Kate Hahn for
Favorite RAC'er in 2001."
Carl Henderson < [email protected] > wrote in message
> Below are the full results of the 2000 Squiddies. These results were
complied
> from 144 eligible ballots, with votes covering a total of 1108 separate
items.
And thanks for all the hard work...
> Results are listed by category and number of votes received.
> BEST CREATIVE TEAM
Oh well, at least I enjoyed the series...
> BEST POLITICAL CARTOONIST
Now *that* is a surprise. Wonder who the other two were...
> BEST COMIC STRIP
I honestly thought Sluggy Freelance was a web comic. Or
are web comic strips eligible in the above category as well?
> FAVORITE RAC'ER (CREATOR)
(Resisting - but only just - the temptation to utter any
questionable-taste "Superstar" references...)
In article < [email protected] >, [email protected] (Talon The
Merciful) wrote:
>Wow. Once again, thanks to both Carl and Johanna for the incredible amount
>of work. Yes, the job is still yours! :)
In article < [email protected] >,
[email protected] (James Schee) wrote:
>You and Johanna did a great job on the awards, and I (and I'm sure others)
>really appreciate it!
In article < [email protected] >, [email protected] wrote:
Results are listed by category and number of votes received.
>First of all thanks goes to the Carl and Johanna for organizing this
>thing.
And a sincere "you're welcome" to all of you. For myself, I'll be glad of ten
or so Squiddy-free months, but I'm also looking forward to the 2001 awards.
Johanna and I have beem keeping notes of problems to fix, and improvements to
make so--hopefully--next year's Squiddies will be even better.
And while we are thanking people, I'd like to again recognize Todd VerBeek's
contribution in administering/maintaining the Squiddies.org website and mail
server. It has become a bit of a cliche to say "without ____, this never would
have been possible," but in Todd's case, it is the unexaggerated truth.
He kept us up and running in during a week-long nameserver outage that hit
right in the middle of voting--and the Squiddies website looks better than
ever.
>During the voting, I was very tempted to make "Vote for Kate" posts. The
>only thing that stopped me was the feeling that it really would have been
>improper for one of the Squiddy admins to campaign for someone during the
>voting. However--there's always next year. So remember: "Kate Hahn for
>Favorite RAC'er in 2001."
To be really honest (and this is not a slam at either Kate or Sidne [the
two people I can think of who had/have "campaigns" being run for 'em by
someone else]), while I like the posting of prelim "who's gotten a vote"
Squiddies postings, I really dislike campaigns being done for items.
Especially in the Favorite r.a.c.er categories. It's a combination of
thinking that, particularly in the r.a.c.er categories, people should be
familiar with who/what they like already and shouldn't be "campaigned"
into voting one way or another, as well as it bringing back memories of
the Sluggy Freelance incident (for newcomers, a couple of years ago the
voting for the Squiddies was done on the web, intended as a convenience
for voters. Which it was. But there was an unfortunate side effect that
the web ballot, combined with the notification of the Squiddies being
promoted by many websites, resulted in large numbers of people who were
unfamiliar with r.a.c. voting and skewing the results from representing
what readers of r.a.c. thought. In particular, the web comic Sluggy
Freelance urged its readers to vote for it, and a few hundred votes came
in. To his considerable credit, Pete Abrams, the creator of Sluggy,
declined the award when it was explained what'd happened and what the
problem was. But we still ended up with things like Mark Waid placing
high in the Favorite r.a.c.er despite making fewer than ten posts all
that year based just on his name recognition to non-r.a.c.ers).
Anyway, I really hope there aren't any "campaigns" for folks next year.
Just feels wrong, in a way giving me more the feeling that such turn
the category into a "X vs. Y" scenario than a way of recognizing folk.
>Since METABARONS is a 16 issue limited series, it was ineligible. We ran into
>this same problem with P. Craig Russell's adaptation of RING OF THE NIBELUNGS,
>which at 14 issues also was disqualified. Similarly, RISING STARS, scheduled
>to run 24 issues was ineligible.
>
>The "2 to 12 episodes" clause in the "Best Limited Series" defintion is
>something that will very likely get reworked for the 2001 awards.
I hope not. Unless you want to count Cerebus as a limited series, you have
to pick some number between 2 and 300 as a stopping point, and 12 has been
the industry standard for the upper bound on a limited series. And with
a number of "ongoing" series being cancelled before or shortly after the
12 issue mark, it'd sure seem odd for a series running considerably longer
than that to be counted as "limited".
I think the real problem is that RING ended up as an unusual number of
issues (quick, name another 14 issue limited series...) that's also
very close to the 12 issue limit. To paraphrase from discussion about
Hugo Award categories, sometimes you just have to live with the fact
that something unusual comes down the pike that doesn't fit existing
categories well and so won't win an award; we don't have to give awards
to everything/category.
The three categories I think need tweaking for next year are the
Comic Strip/Web Comic combo and Publication About Comics. For the
former two, comic strip should be limited to something like "syndicated or
primary appearance in a non-electonic form" (the second in case someone
wants to nominate something like a strip appearing in a college newspaper
which is also in that paper's web version) and web comic to something
like "first appearance on the web with a significant time difference
before appearing on paper" (i.e. just because you can read For Better Or
For Worse on the Houston Chronicle website at 0100 Eastern time each day
but not in a printed newspaper until 0300 or so Eastern time doesn't make
it a web comic).
For Publication About Comics, the intent has always been "Periodical
Publication About Comics"; Kavalier and Clay and Reinventing Comics never
should have been eligible in the category as its a serious apples and
oranges situation to do so.
On 7 Feb 2001 20:47:20 -0800, [email protected] (Talon The Merciful)
wrote:
>>3: Comic Book Galaxy ( www.comicbookgalaxy.com )
>Whoa! All that hype and only three votes?
Three more than your web site got, Talon.
Thanks to the three voters, it's nice to be noticed. I would have
voted if I could have figured out how to.
: )
Thomas Galloway < [email protected] > wrote in message
> I think the real problem is that RING ended up as an unusual number of
> issues (quick, name another 14 issue limited series...)
Earth X (0-12 and issue X)
(took me half a minute to think of it though...)
>2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
>BEST LETTERER
Question to the Squiddy voters. Are there people here who are familiar with both
Klein and Sim's lettering work this year who still voted for Todd?
If so, I'd like to try and understand why.
>BEST COMICS JOURNALIST
>35: Rich Johnston
You're mentallists the lot of you. But thanks. And I bet it's given one or two
people ulcers already.
>7: Rich Johnston, Joe Quesada
Hey Joe, gizza job, I'm as popular as you...
The first reporter on the comics industry for the internet
All The Rage at http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com
Ramblings 2000 at http://www.twistandshoutcomics.com
> >The "2 to 12 episodes" clause in the "Best Limited Series" defintion
is
> >something that will very likely get reworked for the 2001 awards.
>
> I hope not. Unless you want to count Cerebus as a limited series, you
have
> to pick some number between 2 and 300 as a stopping point, and 12 has
been
> the industry standard for the upper bound on a limited series.
There are others means than an arbitrary number that can decide what
constitutes a limited series. How about this: "a multi-issue series
with a pre-planned ending number, the majority of which series is
scheduled to be published entirely within the year under consideration."
That would leave out Cerebus (which was not initially a limited series,
but became one) while not accidentally leaving out a 14 issue series-
although a series with more than 12 issues would only be considered
eligible for voting in a single year during its publication, unless it
would have exactly half the series published in each of two separate
years.
"For the one thing that continually amazes me in my fellow human beings,
intellectual or not, is their lack of imagination." - Ray Bradbury
Sent via Deja.com
2/8/01 2:48 AM
> I hope not. Unless you want to count Cerebus as a limited series, you have
> to pick some number between 2 and 300 as a stopping point, and 12 has been
> the industry standard for the upper bound on a limited series. And with
> a number of "ongoing" series being cancelled before or shortly after the
> 12 issue mark, it'd sure seem odd for a series running considerably longer
> than that to be counted as "limited".
Actually, I'd always known it as that 6 issues was the upper limit for a
limited series (such as the recent X-Men Forever and Sentry series'), with
anything from 7 to about 12 issues being a maxi-series (such as the upcoming
The Brotherhood from Marvel, or Earth X and Universe X).
--
"Thomas Galloway" < [email protected] > wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
In article < [email protected] >, Johanna says...
>>Rich Johnston at [email protected] wrote:
>> Are there people here who are familiar with both
>> Klein and Sim's lettering work this year who still voted for Todd?
>> If so, I'd like to try and understand why.
>
>There are lots of votes I'd like to understand. :)
Ha.
>But that's the will of the people -- everyone has different tastes, and
>everyone gets a chance to express them.
I know, and I agree. I'm just interested in why people think Klein is a better
letterer over Sim...
>Thomas Galloway at [email protected] wrote:
>> Unless you want to count Cerebus as a limited series
>
>And why not? It is, isn't it?
It is now. It wasn't intended to be when Sim started it.
The first reporter on the comics industry for the internet
All The Rage at http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com
Ramblings 2000 at http://www.twistandshoutcomics.com
> >2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
> >BEST WRITER
> True winner. Heh. Looks like this was me and Brandt?
> >BEST CREATIVE TEAM
> Who could possibly be voting for this great title?!?!? :)
Yep. I guess we're howling into the wind, you and me. Where are the
other 6,998 readers?
> Hands down winner of this category.
Undeniably.
> Oooh! An extra vote! OK, confess!
> >BEST CHARACTER
> OK, who's the other voter??? You are so correct.
He/she (not an hermaphrodite reference!) is probably scared of being
labeled an Evil Misogynist.
That's the one category I left blank. Agreed!
Yer aardvarkian pal,
>>>3: Comic Book Galaxy ( www.comicbookgalaxy.com )
>
>>Whoa! All that hype and only three votes?
>
>Three more than your web site got, Talon.
Heh. You're right...just giving you the business. Hey, I still want that Dave
Sim interview, you hear? :)
Anyway, at least it's nice and neat...you got one vote for each name. ;)
>Thanks to the three voters, it's nice to be noticed. I would have
>voted if I could have figured out how to.
See, Johanna could've helped you if only...ok, won't go there. :)
Talon T M
In article <95ti4c$q00$ [email protected] >, [email protected] says...
>
>To be really honest (and this is not a slam at either Kate or Sidne [the
>two people I can think of who had/have "campaigns" being run for 'em by
>someone else]), while I like the posting of prelim "who's gotten a vote"
>Squiddies postings, I really dislike campaigns being done for items.
I don't see the harm of a campaign run exclusively in the RAC communities, as
long as it is done so in a moderate way.
>Especially in the Favorite r.a.c.er categories.
I disagree. Sure, it can be abused, but I think that had Carl made his
'campaign' argument for Kate, she would've gotten more votes (that she
deserved), not because Carl promoted her, but because it brought to mind all
that she does here...which people tend to forget.
>Anyway, I really hope there aren't any "campaigns" for folks next year.
>Just feels wrong, in a way giving me more the feeling that such turn
>the category into a "X vs. Y" scenario than a way of recognizing folk.
I hope that there are more, so that we the voters can be reminded of all the
reasons to vote for a deserving candidate (not that it helped Sim this year! :)
Now, if it turns into negative campaigning and mudslinging, well *then* you have
a point.
In article < [email protected] >, Rich says...
>>2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
>>BEST LETTERER
>Question to the Squiddy voters. Are there people here who are familiar with
>both Klein and Sim's lettering work this year who still voted for Todd?
It is *certainly* not based on the actual Lettering...most probably those who
voted did not see Sim's lettering genius this past year.
>If so, I'd like to try and understand why.
If they did see it, yeah...WHY?
>>BEST COMICS JOURNALIST
>>35: Rich Johnston
>
>You're mentallists the lot of you. But thanks. And I bet it's given one or two
>people ulcers already.
Who out there is like unto you, oh...no, wait. Hey, you deserved it.
Talon T M
In article < [email protected] >, [email protected] says...
Something I forgot to do... thank my campaign manager.
Cheers, Talon.
The first reporter on the comics industry for the internet
All The Rage at http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com
Ramblings 2000 at http://www.twistandshoutcomics.com
In article < [email protected] >, Johanna says...
>
>Thomas Galloway at [email protected] wrote:
>> Unless you want to count Cerebus as a limited series
>
>And why not? It is, isn't it?
Yes, it is, but I think the category is misnamed at "LIMITED SERIES" when what
it really *means* is "SHORT SERIES".
The question is, just how short is short? And right now it's 2 to 12.
Talon T M
> >2000 SQUIDDY AWARD WINNERS--FULL RESULTS
> >BEST LETTERER
> Question to the Squiddy voters. Are there people here who are
familiar with both
> Klein and Sim's lettering work this year who still voted for Todd?
>
> If so, I'd like to try and understand why.
Primarily because I only read it in phonebooks so I haven't read any of
Sim's 2000 output.
I guess the Going Home phonebook itself counts but I just didn't think
of it as 2000 material and the tpb itself is 10 months old now so he
wasn't in my mind when I voted. Given that so many people have switched
over to the phonebooks and therefore only read Sim once a year or so I
can see why material that is fresher in the mind might get a vote.
For whats its worth I think he is much better than Klein who is no
slouch himself (and got my vote) if you had started campaigning before
I voted I would have chosen Sim but I honestly forgot that I'd read
anything eligible.
I'd just like to add my voice to the chorus of people thanking Carl and
Johanna. From the outside at least it seemed to be organised really
well this year. Well done.
> FAVORITE RAC'ER (NON-CREATOR)
> 11: Carl Henderson, Elayne Riggs, Todd VerBeek
> 10: Michael Alan Chary
> 8: Bala Menon, Talon (Rick Sharer)
> 7: Loren Di Iorio, No Award
> 6: Owen Erasmus
>
And thanks to the 6 of you who voted for me. I am totally amazed to be
honest as I've never picked up a single vote in the last 8 years and
probably posted less times than anyone else who got a vote this year so
I'm not entirely sure what I've done to deserve this but I'm ecstatic
all the same. Thanks whoever you were you made my day.
Owen Erasmus
On 8 Feb 2001 07:26:31 -0800, [email protected] (Talon The Merciful)
wrote:
>>>>3: Comic Book Galaxy ( www.comicbookgalaxy.com )
>>
>>>Whoa! All that hype and only three votes?
>>
>>Three more than your web site got, Talon.
>
>Heh. You're right...just giving you the business. Hey, I still want that Dave
>Sim interview, you hear? :)
You have his phone number or e-mail address? If so, send it along.
Alan David Doane
>> Hmm a new name to me anyway.
> You should try him, then ... he's been at work in
> the industry for over two decades, maybe three.
Closer to three. If memory serves, he worked on the
"Ant Man" strip in MARVEL FEATURE (I think it was)
back in '71 or '72.
He was part of that surge of talented young artists
that popped up seemingly out of nowhere in the early
70s (among the others being Starlin, Simonson,
Nasser/Netzer, and Chaykin).
"Diane, 3 P.M. Just back from the Lydecker Clinic. While
a llama may produce some of the finest wools prized around
the world, their breath on the other hand could only be
prized somewhere in the far reaches of llama hell."
Sent via Deja.com
> > I still want that Dave
> >Sim interview
> You have his phone number? If so, send it along.
Call Aardvark-Vanaheim at 519.576.7820 + leave a message if Dave's not
answering.
> I'd just like to add my voice to the chorus of people thanking Carl and
> Johanna. From the outside at least it seemed to be organised really
> well this year. Well done.
I know "me too" posts are generally discouraged, but this is
one of the cases where an exception should be made. Thanks to both of
you (and Todd), once again. Great job.
Eric Gimlin
> [...] I have to say that I think at least two of you
> were nuts in that Carl certainly deserved a higher
> ranking than me this year (i.e. anyone who voted for
> me and not him) [...]
Not half as nuts as the two who voted for me.
While I suppose the "favorite" part of the category title
means that one should vote based on how much enjoyment
one gets from someone's postings rather than how much a
person posts, I don't feel that I've contributed enough
to the groups to be deserving of any votes.
(Says the man who didn't vote at all...)
Nevertheless, thanks to whomever those two are.
"Diane, 3 P.M. Just back from the Lydecker Clinic. While
a llama may produce some of the finest wools prized around
the world, their breath on the other hand could only be
prized somewhere in the far reaches of llama hell."
Sent via Deja.com
Thanks Carl, Johanna and Todd, for your work.
>BEST WRITER
>11: Christopher Priest, Kurt Busiek
I am very disappointed in 6 of you,
>BEST COMICS JOURNALIST
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC
"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now I have
the South fight the Klingons." -- Dave Spensley
"Ipsa scientia potestas est." -- Roger Bacon
> Question to the Squiddy voters. Are there people here who are familiar with both
> Klein and Sim's lettering work this year who still voted for Todd?
> If so, I'd like to try and understand why.
I voted for John Costanza, because I always vote for John Costanza. If
not for that, I likely would've voted for Klein -- but I haven't read more
than one or two issues of Cerebus, years ago, and just never saw the
appeal ... so that doesn't address your question.
--
>>During the voting, I was very tempted to make "Vote for Kate" posts. The
>>only thing that stopped me was the feeling that it really would have been
>>improper for one of the Squiddy admins to campaign for someone during the
>>voting. However--there's always next year. So remember: "Kate Hahn for
>>Favorite RAC'er in 2001."
>
>To be really honest (and this is not a slam at either Kate or Sidne [the
>two people I can think of who had/have "campaigns" being run for 'em by
>someone else]), while I like the posting of prelim "who's gotten a vote"
>Squiddies postings, I really dislike campaigns being done for items.
>Especially in the Favorite r.a.c.er categories. It's a combination of
You know, tyg, tough. Go sleep it off. The only people who have been
posting the hierarchy for longer than 7 or 8 years who care are... well,
actually, it's just you. Okay, I suppose David Goldfarb and Kevin Maroney
might care too. Actually, most of my old friends have stopped posting:
Glenn, Iain, Mike Kelly, Elmo, Jim Drew, Paul Estin, Dani...in fact, I
blame you :)
Sidne does a whole lot of stuff for people in the real world. She
organizes get togethers at cons, she helps people find comics, and
basically in addition to doing stuff to make online more pleasant, she
make real life more pleasant. People who spend their vacations traveling
to San Diego or Chicago for the big conventions have had their times made
better by Sidne volunteering her time and effort. Think about that. You
spend several hundred dollars going to San Diego, and Sidne hooks you up
with dinner and online friends, maybe organizes dinner with some comics
creators and even helps you track down back issues. All because she's a
supernice person.
This service has never been reflected in the voting. I don't know or
really care who wins. I think it's irrelevant. In fact, had I known ten
people were voting for me, I would have told them to vote for her instead.
Not in addition to. Instead. But really, as long as we are going to hold a
vote, I just want to remind people that Sidne exists, because she is so
self-effacing that I suspect people just forget about her at vote time.
>thinking that, particularly in the r.a.c.er categories, people should be
>familiar with who/what they like already and shouldn't be "campaigned"
>into voting one way or another, as well as it bringing back memories of
>the Sluggy Freelance incident (for newcomers, a couple of years ago the
>voting for the Squiddies was done on the web, intended as a convenience
>for voters. Which it was. But there was an unfortunate side effect that
>the web ballot, combined with the notification of the Squiddies being
>promoted by many websites, resulted in large numbers of people who were
>unfamiliar with r.a.c. voting and skewing the results from representing
>what readers of r.a.c. thought. In particular, the web comic Sluggy
>Freelance urged its readers to vote for it, and a few hundred votes came
>in. To his considerable credit, Pete Abrams, the creator of Sluggy,
>declined the award when it was explained what'd happened and what the
>problem was. But we still ended up with things like Mark Waid placing
>high in the Favorite r.a.c.er despite making fewer than ten posts all
>that year based just on his name recognition to non-r.a.c.ers).
Of course, 7 years ago, a bunch of us pissed tyg off by fabricating the
Squiddies (which were six months or so late) because we got his hopes up
or something. This stuff does not matter. It's a piece of whimsy.
>Anyway, I really hope there aren't any "campaigns" for folks next year.
I really hope that you learn to stop whining whenever people don't do
things exactly the way youi want them done. I don't remember you
complaining when I campaigned for Hosun.
>Just feels wrong, in a way giving me more the feeling that such turn
>the category into a "X vs. Y" scenario than a way of recognizing folk.
There are three votes.
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC
"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now I have
the South fight the Klingons." -- Dave Spensley
"Ipsa scientia potestas est." -- Roger Bacon
>During the voting, I was very tempted to make "Vote for Kate" posts. The
>only thing that stopped me was the feeling that it really would have been
>improper for one of the Squiddy admins to campaign for someone during the
>voting. However--there's always next year. So remember: "Kate Hahn for
>Favorite RAC'er in 2001."
I actually considered addding a plug for Kate, but a) she threatened me is
I did so, and b) after the rac.o-m vote, I didn't wanbt to risk the wrath
of Ken.
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC
"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now I have
the South fight the Klingons." -- Dave Spensley
"Ipsa scientia potestas est." -- Roger Bacon
Ironically (for reasons given below), I tend to agree with the attitude
that a number of SMOFs have about the Hugo Awards for science fiction in
this regard. Namely, there shouldn't be a specific Hugo category for
something until there's not just a worthy winner each year, but consistently
enough nominees that one wouldn't be embarrassed to have win that they
make up the full five item final ballot year in and year out. For example,
there isn't a Hugo for Best SF/Fantasy Graphic Novel, even though it's
fairly standard these days for one or two a year to be generally considered
worthy of an award. But there aren't five or more per year, pretty much
every year, yet. This means, unfortunately, that sometimes something will
come up that just doesn't fit into the categories, but that a lot of people
think should get an award. It's just something you have to live with.
Although there is the advantage with the Hugos that, while not a Hugo,
the convention committee for a year's Worldcon (at which Hugos are given),
can give its own special, one time only, award(s) to pretty much anything
it wants. A classic example would be Apollo 11 given an award for "The Best
Moon Landing Ever". Perhaps the Squiddies could add a special "Administrator's
Choice" category where people could nominate things which don't fit the
other categories, such as Kavalier and Clay or Reinventing Comics, and
at the administrator(s)'s option they could recognize what they consider
either significant enough items or such items which receive substantial
support/nominations. Important things should be that no administrator
should feel they have to make an award in the category in any year, and
that items in this shouldn't be eligible in any other category (i.e. no
"life achievement award" when Cerebus hits 300 issues, or no "Well,
Black Panther placed second in continuing series, but we think it really
should get an award" type of decision).
The irony mentioned above is that I do have an issue with how graphic
novels are currently treated by the Hugos. So far, save for an anomaly
involving Watchmen not worth getting into here, the default has been to
put any graphic novel into the Best Non-Fiction/Related Book (the name
has changed over the years) category, leading to the interesting bit
of Dark Knight Returns being implicitly refered to as non-fiction. This
is due to that being the category for art books, and essentially graphic
novels are being treated as if only the art is what warrants nomination,
ignoring the words and any nomiations for a graphic novel in the
written fiction categories.
[email protected] (Michael Alan Chary) wrote:
>The only people who have been
>posting the hierarchy for longer than 7 or 8 years who care are... well,
>actually, it's just you. Okay, I suppose David Goldfarb and Kevin Maroney
>might care too.
Actually, I do. I have some of Tom's inherited sense of distrust of
campaigns for fan-voted awards because of the long history of distrust
of such campaigns for the Hugo award.
>[Sidne's] service has never been reflected in the voting.
Does it make sense for a poll about participation on r.a.c.* to
reflect behavior outside of r.a.c.*?
The main reason I supported the "Vote for Sidne" campaign was that I
hoped it would encourage her to post more.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | Unplugged Games | [email protected]
"Love doesn't have a point. Love *is* the point."--Alan Moore
Kevin J. Maroney < [email protected] > wrote:
> [email protected] (Thomas Galloway) wrote:
>>Unless you want to count Cerebus as a limited series, you have
>>to pick some number between 2 and 300 as a stopping point,
>See, there's the problem--there are people who are under the insane
>impression that _Cerebus_ isn't a miniseries.
>It basically is. Has been for about 15 years. Will be for another 3.
>Live with it.
Well, yeah. But 300 issues is longer than 90% of the books that'll come
out during its run, most of which didn't set out to be limited series.
I think this should be thought of more as the difference between
short fiction and a novel, or planned finite length and ongoing (and
I'll argue that 25 years of a series is "ongoing" for all intents and
purposes). Problem is that we're seeing some upping of the previous
generally accepted 12 issue bar for such with Earth X, Universe X,
Ring Cycle, Metabarons, and Rising Stars. However, one can argue that
Sandman, Preacher, Hitman, and Starman are all also "limited series"
in that each had a single writer who considered the book's run a
single overall story and had a rough idea of when it'd end, if not
a specific number of issues.
So I'd say to look at the best single story/novella/graphic novel
categories as amounting to divisions in "short story", the best multi-part
story and limited series as "novelette" and "novella", and the best
ongoing series as "novel" in terms of story length. Certainly not a
perfect analogy as an entry in graphic novel could very well be longer
than an entry in multi-part story, but close enough to work.
I for one would strongly disagree with limiting the category to just
magazines/periodicals. Obviously, it's not *necessary* to limit the
category, since the overwhelming majority of votes are cast for
periodicals/magazines anyway. If anything, books are *under-
represented* among the votes cast, which would imply that if any
action is warranted (and I'm not saying it is) then it should be to
promote the eligibility of books as well as magazines.
2000 was the year that saw published books like "The Amazing World of
Carmine Infantino," "Wonder Woman: A Complete History,"
"Comic Book Culture" as well as other meritorious books about comics. That
none of them received a single Squiddies nod, but other (IMO)
lesser magazines got votes in the category tells me that excluding
books from consideration will just further prevent works of merit from
possible acknowledgement--and that can't be the goal.
On another note, if y'all are keeping notes on stuff to re-cogitate for
next year, I'd suggest rethinking the "Sin City" rule which, though I
understand *what* it says, I don't understand *why* it's relevant, nor
what works or categories are better served by the exception. At the
very least, I'd suggest that the phrase "...for marketing reasons..." be
rewritten since 1) it invites hair-splitting ("This series of mini-series isn't
being issued that way for marketing reasons, but for aesthetic reasons.")
and 2) as a somewhat semantic consideration, it is impossible (and
arguably inappropriate) for we fans not part of a publisher's marketing
department to claim to speak for a publisher's marketing rationale.
But first things first: This was the first time I bothered to vote for
the Squiddies, and I know that's because of the great job the
adminitrators did. Kudos and thanks!
ATK
"You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
Then plain and right must my possession be:
Which I with more than with a common pain
'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain."
--Henry the Fourth, Part 2 IV.iv
Alan Sepinwall at [email protected] wrote:
> How, then, do you deal with the case of a Kavalier & Clay? Sure,
> award-winning mainstream novels about the comic book industry are few and
> far between, but when they come up, it might be nice if they fit into some
> category.
What category do you think they should go in? I don't know that things like
that (or Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies, to name an earlier example)
really fit anywhere in the established paradigm.
> From the outside at least it seemed to be organised really
> well this year. Well done.
Thank you. We hope that we're learning more about how best to do things
every year. Hopefully, next year will be even better... assuming we're both
still around. (Not that we're *planning* on going anywhere...)
Johanna Draper Carlson [email protected]
> 2000 was the year that saw published books like "The Amazing World of
> Carmine Infantino," "Wonder Woman: A Complete History,"
> "Comic Book Culture" as well as other meritorious books about comics. That
> none of them received a single Squiddies nod
The WW book did receive one vote, but in the Text Adaptation category, for
which it was ineligible.
(Personally, I thought Comic Book Culture was a badly written and reasoned
book that ignored major categories of fandom to ride the author's apparent
hobbyhorses. Come on, a scholarly work that stereotypes one of the groups
(alternative comic readers) it's supposedly analyzing?)
> but other (IMO)
> lesser magazines got votes in the category tells me that excluding
> books from consideration will just further prevent works of merit from
> possible acknowledgement--and that can't be the goal.
No, but neither is it the goal to have a category for every possible item
related to comics. The adaptation, merchandise, and similar categories get
poor turnout as it is. Some voters seem to want to just talk comics.
> I'd suggest rethinking the "Sin City" rule
Already on the plate. :)
> But first things first: This was the first time I bothered to vote for
> the Squiddies, and I know that's because of the great job the
> adminitrators did. Kudos and thanks!
You're welcome! Thank you for participating!
Johanna Draper Carlson [email protected]
Kevin J. Maroney < [email protected] > wrote:
> [email protected] (Michael Alan Chary) wrote:
>>The only people who have been
>>posting the hierarchy for longer than 7 or 8 years who care are... well,
>>actually, it's just you. Okay, I suppose David Goldfarb and Kevin Maroney
>>might care too.
>Actually, I do. I have some of Tom's inherited sense of distrust of
>campaigns for fan-voted awards because of the long history of distrust
>of such campaigns for the Hugo award.
I know. David too, I suspect. That was my reasoning.
>>[Sidne's] service has never been reflected in the voting.
>
>Does it make sense for a poll about participation on r.a.c.* to
>reflect behavior outside of r.a.c.*?
Apparently. They split off into pro and nonpro categories.
>The main reason I supported the "Vote for Sidne" campaign was that I
>hoped it would encourage her to post more.
Good for you.
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC
"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now I have
the South fight the Klingons." -- Dave Spensley
"Ipsa scientia potestas est." -- Roger Bacon
>Kevin J. Maroney < [email protected] > wrote:
>> [email protected] (Michael Alan Chary) wrote:
>>>The only people who have been
>>>posting the hierarchy for longer than 7 or 8 years who care are... well,
>>>actually, it's just you. Okay, I suppose David Goldfarb and Kevin Maroney
>>>might care too.
>>Actually, I do. I have some of Tom's inherited sense of distrust of
>>campaigns for fan-voted awards because of the long history of distrust
>>of such campaigns for the Hugo award.
>
>I know. David too, I suspect. That was my reasoning.
Well, actually, no -- not really. Heck, I voted for Katie Schwarz
even though she didn't post anything really substantial all year.
She is nonetheless easily my favorite person who posts to RAC.
I think large amounts of campaigning could well become obnoxious;
but I can't see any reason not to let people post their ballots saying
"here's what I voted for, and why" for all categories, including
Favorite RAC'er.
David Goldfarb <*>|"To the general public "calories" are not units
[email protected] |of measurement but evil creatures that live in
[email protected] |tasty food and make people fat."
[email protected] | -- Bill Jennings on rec.arts.comics.misc
Johanna Draper Carlson [email protected] writes:
>(Personally, I thought Comic Book Culture was a badly written and reasoned
>book that ignored major categories of fandom to ride the author's apparent
>hobbyhorses. Come on, a scholarly work that stereotypes one of the groups
>(alternative comic readers) it's supposedly analyzing?)
For the record, when I mentioned "Comic Book Culture" as
a meritorious book about comics, I was referring to "Comic
Book Culture: An Illustrated History" by Ron Goulart,
the color-laden coffee table book published by Collectors Press
and not "Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers" by Matthew
Pustz, the (ostensibly) academic analysis of fandom.
> neither is it the goal to have a category for every possible item
>related to comics.
Exactly. I *don't* think you need a seperate category for books
about comics. But I also don't think that you need to exclude
books from the "best publication" category, which is what was
being suggested. Despite my comics avocation, I'm more a bibliophile
than a magazine-reader, so as long as books are eligible somewhere,
I'm content. And I'll always rail against the idea of excluding books ;-)
As for the sui generi cases that came up in this year's awards
(Kavalier & Clay, Unbreakable,) maybe the best way to address
them in the future (if similar odd things ever get done again) is to
tweak the definitions of the "Dramatic Adaptation" and "Text
Adaptation" categories so that they cover comics-themed performances
and texts, including but not necessarily limited to
strict adaptations of pre-existing comics characters or ideas.
Of course, then you'd be without a good category for a
non-fiction TV show, movie, play (something like "Crumb.")
Ah, well... I promise to contribute some more cents' worth when
y'all feel rested enough to open the discussion about next time.
ATK
> when I mentioned "Comic Book Culture" as
> a meritorious book about comics, I was referring to "Comic
> Book Culture: An Illustrated History" by Ron Goulart
Oops! Sorry.
> I also don't think that you need to exclude
> books from the "best publication" category
No decisions are being made right now -- at least in my case, I'm still
riding the high from getting the things done! Your input is appreciated, of
course; personally, excluding books never even occurred to me until Tom
suggested it.
> tweak the definitions of the "Dramatic Adaptation" and "Text
> Adaptation" categories so that they cover comics-themed performances
Should Unbreakable have been eligible, though? What about the Simpsons,
because of Comic Book Guy? Or Chasing Amy because of the setting? Or Coyote
Ugly because an issue of Amazing Spider-Man features in a major subplot? In
other words, how do you draw the line?
> Ah, well... I promise to contribute some more cents' worth when
> y'all feel rested enough to open the discussion about next time.
Thank you! :)
>Well, yeah. But 300 issues is longer than 90% of the books that'll come
>out during its run, most of which didn't set out to be limited series.
So? 12 issues is longer than 90% of the books which come out now, most
of which don't set out to be limited series.
>I think this should be thought of more as the difference between
>short fiction and a novel, or planned finite length and ongoing (and
>I'll argue that 25 years of a series is "ongoing" for all intents and
>purposes).
But, you know, it *isn't*. The fact that _Cerebus_ is working towards
an ending has been a significant fact of its life for a very long
time.
>However, one can argue that
>Sandman, Preacher, Hitman, and Starman are all also "limited series"
>in that each had a single writer who considered the book's run a
>single overall story and had a rough idea of when it'd end, if not
>a specific number of issues.
The "specific number of issues" is an important distinction, although
I will admit that the vast number of issues that Sim chose as his
"definite number" does put it in a different category than even
something as "small" as _Transmetropolitan_ (a 60-issue limited
series, if Warren is to be believed).
>So I'd say to look at the best single story/novella/graphic novel
>categories as amounting to divisions in "short story", the best multi-part
>story and limited series as "novelette" and "novella", and the best
>ongoing series as "novel" in terms of story length.
But "ongoing series" and "novel" *aren't comparable concepts*. It's
not only not a perfect analogy, it's not even a a *useful* analogy.
It's like claiming that a city is like a house because they're both
bigger than sheds. Size isn't the best determinant.
The question is, what is the difference between "ongoing series" and
"limited series" that makes them worth considering as separate
categories? It isn't just length, or _Chase_ would have had to be
considered as a limited series. No, the difference is that the author
of a limited series (usually) sets out to tell a single story with a
beginning, a middle, and an end. There might be arcs within the
story--this is the case with _Ring of the Niebelung_ and
_Transmet_--but there is still an overall story and an end in sight at
the beginning.
>>Kevin J. Maroney < [email protected] > wrote:
>>> [email protected] (Michael Alan Chary) wrote:
>>>>The only people who have been
>>>>posting the hierarchy for longer than 7 or 8 years who care are... well,
>>>>actually, it's just you. Okay, I suppose David Goldfarb and Kevin Maroney
>>>>might care too.
>>>Actually, I do. I have some of Tom's inherited sense of distrust of
>>>campaigns for fan-voted awards because of the long history of distrust
>>>of such campaigns for the Hugo award.
>>
>>I know. David too, I suspect. That was my reasoning.
>
>Well, actually, no -- not really. Heck, I voted for Katie Schwarz
Okay, so I was wrong. I'm wrong several times a day. It's a hobby.
>even though she didn't post anything really substantial all year.
>She is nonetheless easily my favorite person who posts to RAC.
Glad to hear it. Good karma and all that.
>I think large amounts of campaigning could well become obnoxious;
>but I can't see any reason not to let people post their ballots saying
>"here's what I voted for, and why" for all categories, including
>Favorite RAC'er.
Okay, remember Sidne Gail Ward in 2002!
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC
"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now I have
the South fight the Klingons." -- Dave Spensley
"Ipsa scientia potestas est." -- Roger Bacon
> Not half as nuts as the two who voted for me.
Actually, you could count three if I'd been smart enough to remember you
when voting.
> [...] I don't feel that I've contributed enough
> to the groups to be deserving of any votes.
??? I know that I bump into you on other newsgroups which increases my
personal exposure, but you're the first person I think of when someone
asks for the list of Millenium reprints, or to explain a bit of history,
or ... I remember quite a bit of posting with some blackout periods.
RAC now has you back to add to the core knowledge base of tyg and Bala.
--
Most books should be included as "Best comics reference material".
This would allow for scholarly dissertations, albums of cover art, and
biographies to fall under the same umbrella.
> > tweak the definitions of the "Dramatic Adaptation" and "Text
> > Adaptation" categories so that they cover comics-themed performances
>
> Should Unbreakable have been eligible, though? What about the
Simpsons,
> because of Comic Book Guy? Or Chasing Amy because of the setting? Or
Coyote
> Ugly because an issue of Amazing Spider-Man features in a major
subplot? In
> other words, how do you draw the line?
>
Don't draw such a line. All the ones you mentioned should be eligible
for some sort of acknowledgement because they broaden the base of the
subculture. "Comics-related, non-comic book, not categorized
elsewhere" would cover all those, along with books such as "What They
Did to Princess Paragon" or "Bimbos of the Death Sun"; or pop-art by a
Roy Lichenstein type. It could and should be a catch-all for such
things.
> >Unless you want to count Cerebus as a limited series, you have
> >to pick some number between 2 and 300 as a stopping point,
>
> See, there's the problem--there are people who are under the insane
> impression that _Cerebus_ isn't a miniseries.
>
> It basically is. Has been for about 15 years. Will be for another 3.
> Live with it.
I'm one of those insane people.
There's probably a good term for what _Cerebus_ is that distinguishes it
from comics that are just published for as long as they keep selling.
"Miniseries" isn't it. "Limited series" is better, but not great.
If I wanted to categorize the various limited-length series by number of
issues, I'd start out by listing all the ones I could think of and see if
there was any clumping in the "number of issues" column.
--
"Soon everyone will be playing with a wireless device in their pocket."
-- from Unplugged Games business plan
Kevin J. Maroney < [email protected] > writes:
>The main reason I supported the "Vote for Sidne" campaign was that I
>hoped it would encourage her to post more.
Thanks for kind words. There are a few reasons I don't post more, but the
most important one, as many of you know, is the RSI I've been experiencing
for the past 5 years or so. Writing posts takes quite a bit more time and
effort than reading them.
I have to save the effort I can exert using the computer for my job.
But rest assured, that I do read several r.a.c.* groups almost every
day. So I'm here in spirit at least.
Sidne Gail Ward
>It's called favorite RAC'r not most useful RAC'r.
>I vote by entertainment value, not by worth.
While I hesitate to get involved in this thread... :)
I vote for r.a.c.ers I'm most glad are posting on r.a.c.*. In my case,
that's most likely to be people I've met in person (though I have voted
for posters I've never met or even communicated with outside of r.a.c.*).
It's the people I personally would miss most if they quit participating.
To be honest, I can't even remember exactly who I did vote for this year.
There's a list of about 6 r.a.c.ers who are all particular "favorites" of
mine.
Which doesn't mean I don't appreciated the contributions of most of the
other regular r.a.c.* posters. If I divided up all of r.a.c.*'s posters
into people I'm glad are on r.a.c.* and people I wish would leave, the
former list would be much, much longer than the latter.
Sidne Gail Ward
Johanna Draper Carlson [email protected] writes:
>> tweak the definitions of the "Dramatic Adaptation" and "Text
>> Adaptation" categories so that they cover comics-themed performances
>
>Should Unbreakable have been eligible, though? What about the Simpsons,
>because of Comic Book Guy? Or Chasing Amy because of the setting? Or Coyote
>Ugly because an issue of Amazing Spider-Man features in a major subplot? In
>other words, how do you draw the line?
I take your point, but my instinctive reaction is to say, "Don't draw
that line." The Squiddies are a fan awards, after all. If some fan
honestly thinks that, say, a "Comic Book Guy meets Radioactive Man" episode of
The Simpsons is the best example comics-themed media in
a given year--one better than whatever major motion picture comic book
adaptation might have been released--then why not let him/her vote
that way? I don't see that the spirit of the award for the category
would be mis-served by applying broad, sweeping, inclusive
standards for eligibility.
Then again, I'm not the guy who'd be on the receiving end of such
a diversity of votes, so take what I say with appropriate numbers
of salt grains.
Did I mention how great a job y'all did administering this puppy?
ATK
Johanna Draper Carlson < [email protected] > wrote:
>Alan Sepinwall at [email protected] wrote:
>> How, then, do you deal with the case of a Kavalier & Clay? Sure,
>> award-winning mainstream novels about the comic book industry are few and
>> far between, but when they come up, it might be nice if they fit into some
>> category.
>What category do you think they should go in? I don't know that things like
>that (or Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies, to name an earlier example)
>really fit anywhere in the established paradigm.
I did like the suggestion of some kind of catch-all "Best Comics-Related
Book/Movie/TV Show" category. You could argue that a given year might only
include one or two things worth voting for (in addition to Kavalier &
Clay, I might also have thrown my support behind Unbreakable and the Sex &
the City episode where Carrie dated the comic store owner), but the same
could be said for the Best Dramatic Adaptation category.
-Alan
> 2000 was the year that saw published books like "The Amazing World of
> Carmine Infantino," "Wonder Woman: A Complete History,"
> "Comic Book Culture" as well as other meritorious books about comics.
Including the scholarly volume _Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their
Fans_,
which I didn't get a chance to read in time to consider it for my ballot but which
is
high on my list (and not only because of the cool Static picture on the cover).
I'm with Ali--let's not lose the chance to vote for works like these. Even if we
think Kavalier & Clay is a funny case, we *at least* should be able to vote
for non-fiction books about the industry; I just can't see a distinction worth
emphasizing between them and the periodicals.
Jacob T. Levy
>>I did like the suggestion of some kind of catch-all "Best Comics-Related
>>Book/Movie/TV Show" category.
>The problem is that it ends up being a charter for arguments about
>what counts as being sufficiently comics-related.
>
>I really don't see the need for the Squiddies to cover anything other
>than comics themselves and, perhaps, journalism and works of non-
>fiction concerned with comics. You don't see the Oscars giving out
>awards for "Best Novelisation of a Film."
They also don't give out awards for best movie budget, which is arguably
the most importasnt aspect of creating cinema.
OTOH, the Nobel Prize award to medicine, economics and literature but not
mathematics.
The Squiddies are a self-defining institution and shouldn't have to define
itself by other institutions.
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC
"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now I have
the South fight the Klingons." -- Dave Spensley
"Ipsa scientia potestas est." -- Roger Bacon
> In article <95um9h$36o$ [email protected] >, < [email protected] > wrote:
> >
> > While I suppose the "favorite" part of the category title
> > means that one should vote based on how much enjoyment
> > one gets from someone's postings rather than how much a
> > person posts, I don't feel that I've contributed enough
> > to the groups to be deserving of any votes.
>
> Oh, you're a RAC legend. Heck, you got written in LNH history without
> even being around!
Jerry is missing the point. We admire him because he rarely
contributes anything! If only more of us would follow his
example. . . .
Of course, it depends on which era you're stuck in. I still
read net.comics regularly.
There was a touch of spring in the air, a poisonous,
malefic spring that seemed to burst from the manholes.
--Henry Miller, _Tropic of Cancer_
--
| Comics |
American author John Steinbeck was born in which US state? | ISSUE 26, 2010 by Critic - Te Arohi - issuu
kP age
Cover illustration by Edwin Ouellette
Disclaimer: the views presented within this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Editor, Planet Media, or OUSA. Press Council: people with a complaint against a newspaper should first complain in writing to the Editor and then, if not satisfied with the response, complain to the Press Council. Complaints should be addressed to the Secretary, PO Box 10-879 The Terrace, Wellington.
56 DUNEDIN'S NEXT MAYOR
Critic – Te Arohi PO Box 1436, Dunedin (03) 479 5335 [email protected] www.critic.co.nz Editor in Chief:
Ben Thomson Designer in Chief:
Gala Hesson Features Writers:
Susan Smirk Caitlyn O’ Fallon Thomas Redford Sub Editor:
Marie Hodgkinson
T
his week we take a look at our home, Dunedin. Like most of you reading this, I’m not from Dunedin and in a few weeks time I’ll be heading north again. Most of you will probably be coming back next year, whereas I won’t. But I am going to miss the place terribly. Dunedin has given us all a lot. We leave here with fond memories, great friends, and an independence that the sops who never left home could never understand. Now is our chance to give back to this city. We are being asked this week to vote in the leaders who will guide Dunedin into the future. The city we love is not in good hands at present, and it is not heading in the right direction. This is our chance to say so. I don’t know Aaron Hawkins very well, and I often find myself disagreeing with him when we find ourselves in awkward social situations, but in his campaign for Mayor he has really impressed me. He is passionate about this city and he has some great, workable ideas about how to improve the relationship between students and the rest of the city. Hawkins points out that in recent surveys Dunedin residents rate the University as one of its best assets, but us students as one of its worst. He has real vision and real ideas about how Dunedin and the students can more than just tolerate each other – how they can really work to benefit one another. Our current Mayor, Peter Chin, has no time for students and he vilifies us at any opportunity which he thinks will give him a bump in the polls. He told me last week that “no students are remotely interested” in these elections. When I asked him for 300 words on what he wanted to do for students, he put me in touch with his PR person (p57). Sadly, Hawkins has no chance of winning, but he deserves your vote – if not for Mayor, then for Council. It is important that students have a voice on the DCC. After all, we do make up a fifth of the city’s population. Dave Cull is a candidate with a real chance of winning and I believe he also cares about the relationship between town and gown. Read his blurb and hear from the other six candidates themselves on p57. We also have news coverage on p13. Chin is not good for this city and he is not good for us. Let’s show him this week that we do care by throwing him out of office. If you have received your voting pack in the mail fill it out now and send it back. If you have found that you forgot to enrol, you can still fill in a special vote. Head on down to the DCC Customer Service Centre in the Octagon before 12pm Saturday, October 9. Dunedin is also home to an award-winning student magazine. Last week Critic was awarded Best Student Publication, Best Editorial Writer (weird, huh?), Best Paid News Reporter, Best Illustrator, and Best Series at the ASPA Awards in Auckland. I’m very proud of the magazine the team has produced this year, and our staff and volunteers are the greatest. Thank you all very much.
Creative Director:
b ott
le
A three-year-old’s birthday party took a turn for the worse, when 75 people began brawling, using beer bottles as their primary weapons. 15 people were injured in the attack, with five hospitalised. However bystanders were most concerned about the poor young tot, who was up long after his bedtime.
rs e b
er
Germany officially closed the ledger on WWI, after paying off the last of its reparations bonds on the weekend. And you thought a mortgage sounded bad.
06
on
ov
4: Average life expectancy of a bad guy in a Chuck Norris film. In seconds. 13: Essential minerals for human health that most alcoholic drinks contain. 1980: The year that a LA hospital suspended staff for betting on when patients would die.
d
f ears a e
A man’s ingenious scheme of getting away with drink driving by pretending to be deaf has come to an end, after he ran into an officer fluent in sign language. Unfortunately the fact that the man had no idea what the officer was saying was a tiny bit of a giveaway.
ov
se
bo
A judge in the US has sentenced a man to five years of Christmas holidays in jail. The sentence, a really pretty lenient alternative to ten years in jail, is designed to keep the man out of trouble over the “difficult holiday period,”
li
d
id e a
An American reality show focused on a man, his four wives, and 16 children, has sparked a criminal investigation. Polygamy being illegal in America, the obvious way to avoid prosecution is clearly starring on national television.
07
VSM looks virtually certain to be introduced after the Education Select Committee recommended the Education (Freedom of Association) Amendment Bill be passed into law with only minor changes. The Act Party Bill is almost guaranteed to become law after the National Government indicated it would support the Bill through its second and third readings in Parliament. Student associations and leaders around New Zealand condemned the Committee’s decision, which came despite 98 percent of submissions opposing the legislation. The Committee considered 4837 submissions after submissions closed on 31 March. Committee members visited Dunedin to hear oral submissions in the middle of the year. Most student leaders were outraged that despite widespread opposition to the Bill it was endorsed by the Select Committee. “They have not listened to the voice of students. Overwhelmingly, students did not want it,” Otago Polytechnic Students Association (OPSA) Meegan Cloughley says. 08
OUSA’s President Harriet Geoghegan was also disappointed about the progress of the Bill, telling Critic that “it was surprising and disappointing that they choose to recommend it through without any changes.” However, the Young Nats issued a press release in which they were strongly supportive of the Committee’s decision, saying, “This Government is giving choice back to students, and for that it should be applauded.” In the same vein, Act’s Heather Roy, an active promoter of the Bill who is due in Dunedin this week, told the New Zealand Herald that “making membership voluntary will ensure associations are more accountable to those they claim to support.” The reality of VSM is that many smaller and less financially secure students’ associations are unlikely to survive in a meaningful form. A PriceWaterhouseCoopers study commissioned by the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations reported that revenues from membership fees would
all but dry up, leaving smaller associations without significant asset bases at risk of collapsing. Concerns have also been raised in several quarters that the only real effect of the Bill will be to shift the costs of student services and make them less transparent. Auckland University Student’s Association (AUSA) led the outcry over the shifting of costs, saying in a press release that VSM is a failed model which will ultimately end up costing students more for the same service levels. AUSA Education Vice-President Alex Nelder says “to provide the services we used to provide, the University of Auckland has one of the highest student services levies in the country. Students have no say over how high this fee is set, or where the money goes. The fee is much higher than at other campuses nationwide.” The effects of VSM on students’ associations will not become apparent until at least 2012, as the Bill is not intended to pass into law in time to affect operations for 2011.
The burning question of the moment is how, and in what form, OUSA and the Otago Polytechnic Students’ Association (OPSA) will be able to survive once VSM is in place. Research shows that voluntary students’ associations will likely struggle to gain members. A recent report commissioned by PriceWaterhouseCoopers suggests membership would drop significantly if VSM happens, citing evidence from Australian universities, where, post-VSM, revenue reduced by more than 95 percent on average. OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan is worried about the Association’s future. The fact that members are required to sign up individually and pay an upfront fee, currently $179.59, will create problems for essential membership numbers. “Not all students are able to pay for an upfront levy amongst all of the other costs at the beginning of the year. Furthermore, as we do not have direct access to all students (email addresses, for example) it is really hard for OUSA to get any information to students [about VSM], let alone sign them all up at the start of each year.” Anecdotal evidence from students around the University suggests Geoghegan’s fears are well founded. Pippa Sherratt, a fifthyear student, says that while she appreciates the work OUSA does, if she was to return next year she would not likely sign up. “There are just too many other costs at the start of the year. Becoming an OUSA member would be pretty low down on my list of important things to do.” Geoghegan says that OUSA has to be realistic, and realise that under VSM the number of students who would be willing and able to pay for membership would likely be only a fraction of current membership. Geoghegan believes that once income declines, OUSA’s ability to continue to provide services will seriously erode. Furthermore, OUSA’s priority is to retain legitimacy as a representative body for students, which means they have to get high membership numbers in order to be able to advocate students’ views.
“It is really disappointing that the Government is looking to ignore the 98 percent of submissions that were against this bill to uphold an ideology that has so many clear and obvious impracticalities, plus has not been asked for by students.” Between them, OUSA and OPSA collected more than $3.7 million this year from almost 30 000 student members. Membership fees are used to fund services such as tenancy advice, budget advice, hardship grants, common rooms, lockers, campaigns, events, contributions to the Unipol gymnasium, and contributions to Student Job Search. OUSA also owns Planet Media and the University Bookshop. OUSA is currently considering a number of survival options for 2012 when VSM is likely to come into force. OUSA is already moving to minimise potential damage, with President Harriet Geoghegan and General Manager Stephen Alexander meeting Vice Chancellor Sir Professor David Skegg Thursday last week to discuss saving vital student services. Geoghegan tells Critic that Skegg expressed his disappointment that VSM was now almost certain to come into effect, and added that the meeting had been very positive, with Skegg clearly indicating that the University would work with OUSA to retain student services. Geoghegan says that the initial “preliminary” meeting was to assess the overall situation, and that specific details would be ironed out in negotiations in the coming weeks. The first priority was to work out how the University and OUSA could work together to retain service levels, and what arrangements would need to be put in place to ensure OUSA’s continued legitimacy as the voice of Otago students. Geoghegan says the Vice Chancellor said the University was “definitely not interested” in subsidising Critic. That’s just mean.
09
The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) has revealed financial data that shows Government funding has not adapted to an increase in costs and demand for places at universities and tertiary institutions around New Zealand. Despite government funding failing to cover both an increase in costs and demand for places, universities and other tertiary institutions around the country have managed to stay above TEC guidelines that require them to return a surplus of three per cent. “TEC guidelines require universities to return a surplus of 3 per cent and this is what we’ve delivered, despite the decrease in total government funding during this period,” says Derek McCormack, Chair of Universities New Zealand–Te Pōkai Tara. McCormack believes the government was being unrealistic and unappreciative of the annual increase in costs for universities and the investment that ensues.
Cartoon
10
“While we appreciate that the government’s budget is limited, annual increases in funding for our universities need to keep pace with the real increases in costs that we face. “Universities are uniquely placed to contribute to a better future for New Zealand. We are committed to continuing to work in partnership with the government to achieve these goals.” Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce believes universities are “generally in strong financial positions and are well placed for future challenges and growth”. Funding shortages in the tertiary sector have become particularly apparent this year. In May, Victoria University had to turn away thousands of students as it closed undergraduate admissions for the rest of the year after student numbers were predicted to be 110 per cent of the cap funded by the TEC.
Monday Youth (Juventude) - Latin American Film Festival Screening 6pm, Burns 2
Tuesday “Surviving Endemic Disease: Malaria, Terraced Irrigation, and Chiefdoms in Solomon Islands” 5.15pm, Archway 2 Mothra Screenings 6.30pm and 8.30pm, Church Cinema, Dundas St
Wednesday “Responses of Different Life History Stages of Macroalgae to Climate Change Related Stress Factors” 12pm, Union Street Lecture Theatre Mothra Screenings 6.30pm and 8.30pm, Church Cinema, Dundas St
Thursday
New Rules Officially Incomprehensible In anticipation of the upcoming referendum Critic had planned to bring you an incisive, clear, and concise summary of the new process of submitting motions to OUSA. We failed. Instead we present our diagrammatic interpretation (see right) of what we think the process is, maybe. Note the sheer number of decision trees and arrows involved. Critic understands the previous way of doing things might have been a little old-fashioned. After all, where’s the fun when any old person can simply submit a motion and it gets voted on? Nevertheless, even we are not convinced that the new route, and the Dan Stridesque constitutional knowledge that is now required to submit a motion, are a real improvement. Taking to the streets, we first canvassed the opinion of a fifth-year law student, who freely admitted to Critic that he had no-fucking-idea-what-the-fuck-is-up-with-that-shit. A first-year tourism student questioned by Critic was non-responsive, instead drooling quietly onto the corner of the proffered paper. A third-year medical student claimed to understand the process perfectly, but in true spirit refused to explain it to Critic, telling us there was no way anyone outside medical school had a hope in hell of comprehending it.
“Modelling Prehistoric Agricultural Productivity throughout the Leeward Kohala Field System: Lidar and Geochemical Analyses” 5pm, Moot Court Mothra Screenings 6.30pm and 8.30pm, Church Cinema, Dundas St
Friday “Islands: The Myth of the Primitive Isolate” 3pm, Moot Court Mothra Screenings 6.30pm and 8.30pm, Church Cinema, Dundas St
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The winners of OUSA’s Next Top Flat Competition were announced last week, with two flats receiving prizes for finishing first in their respective categories. The title of Best Flat went to ‘The Picnic Table’ on Albany Street, with the inhabitants taking home $150 worth of grocery vouchers. Worst Flat was awarded to the ‘Bonnie Doon’ on Union Street, which will now receive a (much needed) five-hour professional flat clean courtesy of OUSA. Altogether there were 14 entrants into the Best Flat category and six flats competing in the Worst Flat category. These were narrowed down to a short-list and then individually inspected by the judging panel, which included OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan, Accommodation Office manager Adele Evans, and Local Council Body candidates Jinty MacTavish and Jono Clark. OUSA Welfare Officer Clare Jackson said the purpose of the competition (previously known as OUSA House and Garden Landlord of the Year Contest) is to highlight the generally sub-standard living conditions of student flats. Jackson told Critic that with rising rent prices, and
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the Local Body elections pending, it is that important people are aware of the state of many student flats, which generally would be classed as uninhabitable if situated in other suburbs. For example the tenants of the ‘Bonnie Doon’ had a backyard that resembled a landfill, damp and sticky carpet in the lounge, and a drain that overflowed when the toilet was flushed. A notable entry to the Worst Flat category was 17 Ethel Benjamin Place, which will likely be removed from the Accommodation Office flatting list due to its terrible condition. Apparently the flat’s landlords have converted one of the bedrooms into two
by sticking a piece of wood into the centre of the floor and the lounge door is so small and stiff that furniture had to be brought in through the window. Jackson expressed dismay that students would be willing to pay $110 per room for a flat in such a state; however it was ultimately pipped for the title of worst flat by the rodent-infested ‘Bonnie Doon’. On a brighter note the sunny Best Flat winner, ‘The Picnic Table’, boasted 13 couches, four of which had been converted into a lounge grandstand, and a vegetable garden. Flash.
The 2010 DCC Mayoral Candidates gathered in the University’s Main Common room last Tuesday, to speak to a small crowd of around 60 students. Mayoral favourite Cull, who sat at 45.9 percent in the latest ODT poll, didn’t show, claiming he was stuck in traffic in Waikouaiti. Second-in-line Chin, who polled at a promising 37.4 percent, arrived ten minutes late, pleading “traffic lights” as an excuse. The debate was chaired by former Mayor Sukhi Turner, to whom candidate Jimmy Knowles made subtle racist slurs. Despite Turner’s best efforts, the debate was farcical, with few of the candidates taking the meeting seriously or respecting the intellect of the students present. Port Chalmers resident and candidate Kevin Dwyer began the introductions, comparing Chin’s current structure to a “feudal empire.” The rest of his contributions were completely unmemorable, as he chose to stay seated and mumble incomprehensibly. Chin was a little flustered and unprepared, seemingly taken aback by the large audience turn-out. He later told Critic “no students are remotely interested. That forum was a farce from every angle.” Later, when Critic asked Chin where his blurb was, he said absently, “I thought I forwarded it to the person who does my PR.” Hawkins implored the audience to vote for new faces who would make a difference, rather than “stagnating with the current councilors,” saying “I can’t do it alone.” Knowles introduced himself as single, and claimed he had an advantage over “Joe Average” as he has had a few run-ins with the law in the past. Lequeux said his main focus for students was bettering the recycling system, reversing the rates for flats, reducing the rates for landlords, and improving standards of housing with OUSA’s STAR rating system. Candiate Lee Vandervis emphasised “fun,” and said he would hold “marvellous loud parties” in a cordoned-off corner of Logan Park for students to have fun and burn couches to their hearts’ content. The standard of student flats and of
housing in general was a big issue for some of the candidates. Hawkins discussed the need to raise the standards of housing and to improve public transport to give students the option of better, cheaper housing outside of North Dunedin. “I never asked to live in substandard housing,” he said. Olivier Lequeux agreed, but added, “there are lots of words, and no solutions.” By contrast, Chin advocated using consumer pressure to force landlords to improve their flats. “It’s up to students to choose what conditions to live in.” Vandervis agreed, claiming he enjoyed living in substandard flats when he was a student, and stating that students just need to have more fun. Knowles added, “Flats should be over 18 degrees Fahrenheit.” It was difficult to tell whose response was the most bizarre. The candidates were asked whether the DCC would take on the burden of some of OUSA’s services if VSM passed. Bar Chin and Hawkins, who were saddened by the
bill, the rest were surprisingly dismissive. “OUSA is self-serving and self-centred,” said Vandervis. “They’ve had it coming for years.” Soon afterwards, the debate descended into barely more than a brawl when Otago Polytechnic Student Association President Meegan Cloughley began attacking Vandervis for his callous remarks, claiming, among other things, that Vandervis had “turned her lesbian.”
If you have received your voting pack in the mail fill it out now and send it back. If you forgot to enrol, you can still fill in a special vote. Head on down to the DCC Customer Service Centre in the Octagon before 12pm Saturday, October 9. There will be a visual display in the Link all week showing the policy stances of the Mayoral candidates on key student issues. 13
Critic cleaned up at the ASPA Awards last weekend in Auckland, taking home a swag of awards including Best Student Publication in New Zealand. At the annual awards, which celebrate the 15 student magazines around the country, Critic took home Best Publication, Best Editorial Writer, Best Paid News Reporter, Best Illustrator, and Best Series. The unanimous winner for 2010, Critic received the highest possible score from all judges. Critic was praised for being “The only magazine this year that didn’t just ask the audience to notice how smart it was; instead, it went out and proved it by doing smart, creative, interesting things.” Critic’s editorial and feature writing was described as “stellar,” and one judge summed it up: “The clear winner lies in the following: an engaging and fantastically written feature about socially responsible investments was preceded by an article on Dunedin’s homeless that opened with the suggestion that Pam Corkery may have swallowed tampons to gain the confidence of gang members. Basically, the Editor knows what he’s doing, he knows who is audience is, and his contributors are good at their jobs.” Editor Ben Thomson was also named Best Editorial Writer, despite the judges agreeing he isn’t actually that good at writing. Waikato Times Editor Bryce Johns said Thomson is “almost certainly not the best writer of my three finalists, but equally almost as certainly the most sure about what an editorial is for; and the best connected with his readership. [Thomson] picks subjects readers cares about, explains them well, and forces people to have an opinion – sometimes not one you’d expect them to have started with.” Up-and-coming student media star Julia Hollingsworth was named Best Paid News Reporter after the ceremony, as the judging panel for that award had not come to a decision in time. 3 News Chief Mark Jennings cast the deciding vote. Critic’s extensive coverage on the changing face of Scarfie culture in Dunedin was also recognised. Thomas Redford, Gregor Whyte, Rory MacDonald, Gala 14
Hesson and Hollingsworth took home the award for Best Series. NZPA’s Kevin Norquay said the fivesome’s “series on the sale of student pubs and whether Otago University was out to erase the hard-drinking Scarfie culture went well beyond the basic cover, examining the possibility Dunedin was going through a cultural shift and what this might mean. It canvassed the issue from several angles in a balanced way, and was well written and informative.” The National Business Review’s Matt Nippert said, “With an equal mix of hard-nose news-breaks and a stroppiness that can only come from seasoned Scarfies, Critic delves into the heart of Otago University to ask whether their institution really cares about student culture. And they got answers. For digging deep with the Official Information Act, not taking official comment at face value, and never forgetting their readership, Critic can declare their paper ‘best-educated’.” Tom Garden was named Best Illustrator for his stunning work, which accompanies many of Critic’s feature articles. “Garden’s
work shows versatility in mindset, consistency in visually answering the storyline, good composition and colour usage and versatility in stylistic approach.” In addition to the first placings, Critic came close in other awards. In an extremely close call, Critic’s Political Cartoonist Edwin Ouellette was narrowly beaten by Auckland’s Craccum. Bro Town’s Ant Sang said Ouelette showed “sharp humour on topical issues.” Hilariously, Critic’s Facebook page was named second-best website. Kiwiblog’s David Farrar was initially sceptical of entering a Facebook page as a website, but said he found it the most effective site for interacting with students: the “key of online media.” Thomson said the magazine’s success was due to the hard work and dedication of the staff and huge volunteer base who work tirelessly on Critic each week. “No one here takes themselves seriously, we’re all here to have fun and make a magazine that Otago students enjoy reading each week,” he said. “I’m really stoked to see that reflected in our success at these awards.”
Photo: Rosabel Tan
from left: Creative Director dreke verkuylen, feature writer thomas redford, news editor gregor whyte, editor ben thomson, news reporter julia hollingsworth, designer gala hesson
Postgraduate Representative Candidates Announced
University of Otago Top Dog
The candidates for the General Executive Post-graduate Portfolio position have been announced. The two people standing for the position are Stacey Lauren Bloom and Stephanie Ruddock. The election takes place online from 9.00am 11 October 2010 until 4pm 14 October 2010.
Soz
The University of Otago recorded the highest surplus of any university in New Zealand last year, posting a healthy $31.1 million surplus when figures were released by the Tertiary Education Commission. The University of Auckland was second, posting an operating surplus of $28.5 million. Otago’s result was a recovery from 2008’s result, where the surplus fell to $18.5 million from $32.1 million in 2007. Most universities in the country mirrored this trend, with five having significant rebounds from 2008 results.
A story in the Briefs section last week about Exec resignations was, well, completely wrong. Critic reported that Education Officer Stephanie Reader resigned from the OUSA Executive for reasons connected to a job in Auckland. That information was incorrect and we apologise for the error. Critic went on to report that International Rep Art Kojarunchitt had gone overseas and needed to submit a resignation. Kojarunchitt is now back, but his future on the Exec is unclear.
Once again shit was super dull. Yeah, Critic’s a whiner, but this time, all the Execcies looked pretty over the whole shebang as well. It is almost painful for Critic to relive this, but OUSA undertook four mindnumbing phone interviews with NZUSA presidential hopefuls, so that they could decide who to vote for at the upcoming NZUSA conference. As expected, none of the candidates support OUSA’s proposed motion to limit the NZUSA withdrawal period to three months. James, the grump, was all for voting no confidence, or at the very least blackmailing the candidates to get what OUSA wanted, which the rest of the Exec admonished. Said Dan wisely, “You can’t let the perfect be the evil of the good.” Frustratingly, after the tortuous process had
concluded, OUSA’s top picks were the very same ones Harriet had suggested an hour and a half before. Critic spent a good portion of this time pondering why Brad, aka next year’s Finance Officer, was in the meeting once again. Did he not notice how boring it was before? Did he get his dates mixed up? Is OUSA Exec meeting the new pint night? Is he just that lonely? Next the ‘Young Labour’ club was affiliated, although Dan was quick to make it clear that it isn’t a Young Labour club, per se, but more a club of Young Labour supporters, so only those 25+ (Dan?) can join. Another club, Vision, was sadly pronounced deceased, supposedly having been made redundant by Student Life. Midway through snacks were produced,
and Critic and the others leapt on them in a crazed frenzy. Next up, the third-quarter Exec reports. More time was spent considering whether to consider Harriet and Dan’s late reports, than was spent considering the reports themselves. Tension was in the air as James flatly said he wouldn’t consider late reports. Michael said if James wanted to be pedantic, he shouldn’t print the reports, as it is against the environmental policy, to which James snarkily retorted that all printing is against the policy. Eventually Harriet and Dan’s reports were passed without James’ support. As fascinating as the Execcies’ drama, is Critic was relieved to escape back to NZNTM. 15
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Dunedin is voting in a new Council this week, but if you only get your news from the evening bulletins on TV you could be forgiven for thinking the only election going on was in the big smoke. At the time Critic went to print, Len Brown was paying .8411 on a contract of $1 on iPredict.co.nz to be elected Auckland’s Mayor. His counterpart, John Banks, was paying a lowly .1503. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong in the next week or so, there is no sex scandal or dance video à la Pete Hodgson, Brown is well-placed to take the Super City mayoralty when polls close on 9 October. Georgie Fenwicke spoke to him last week about his aims and intercity relations.
So, election papers have been sent out, how are you feeling at this stage? Good. The Auckland region is notoriously bad at getting out and voting at its local election, why do you think this is? I think some Aucklanders see the local elections as not as important as the nationwide elections, we are working to improve that. Voting turnout in the past has been patchy, but in Manukau we have an extremely good rate and I think it will still be up as it has been previously. What are your methods regarding motivating a somewhat benign voter population of 1.5 million? Facebook and social media. Currently, we have the second-largest political Facebook fan site in the country behind the Prime Minister with about 7000 fans and friends. It would probably have been more, but we started out with the wrong sort of page. Although a figurehead of the city as a whole, the structure of power in the Supercity is such that your vote is equally weighted to the other 20 councillors’. Are you concerned that if you are voted in, you may not be able to achieve all of your election promises if the other councillors disagree with your ideals/aims? No, I am not. For a start, the type of leader that I am I build alliances anyhow and I do so as the Mayor of Manukau. It is just the nature of our political structure, there is no party or strong ticket affiliations in our Council so I work with everybody. I think that the community is going to send into our Council a disparate group of representatives from all sorts of political backgrounds and tickets and parties and stuff like that. If I list an issue in the Auckland area, can you give me a brief description of your policy towards it – transport? By far and away, the most significant aspect of my policy is at last to deliver on the vision of a rapid rail system in Auckland, rail to the airport, complete the inner city loop area for the suburban area and rail through to the North Shore by way of tunnel. $7-$8 billion worth of work over 15 years and we are going to do it.
Are you yet seeing any parallels with the Rugby World Cup preparations in Auckland and the Commonwealth Games in India? No, the total opposite of what has been going on in that we are totally well forward in our arrangements and preparations, the infrastructure will be ready. Auckland will be an outstanding host for the Rugby World Cup. We are renowned in this country for putting on the friendly games, and that is what we will pre-eminently be. Our culture is, our communities will be in high organisational mode and I will be leading the band. You have never seen anyone lead a celebration like I can; I am half Irish so look out. What is your contingency plan if you were to lose the election? I have no B-plans, no contingency plans, I am focused totally on winning this election and I am confident that that is what will occur. Have you been paying attention to other political candidates around the country? No, not really. Although, obviously we are keeping an eye on Christchurch. So you don’t have any picks? No, crikey, no. I am too busy focusing on what I am doing. I have Mayoral colleagues all around the country, I am a member of the New Zealand local government council and have huge regard for what all the councils and my colleagues do around the country. I love local government, absolutely love it. I never, ever wanted to contemplate going to parliament, it is such important and crucial work that we do and I love every minute of it. But in saying that, you are not really keeping in touch with what is going on in the rest of country? I just don’t have time, but I am keeping a wary eye out, but really I am just so focused on what I am doing here. I’m sure they’ll understand.
The privatisation of public assets? No. Not the strategic assets, airport shares, port shares, our water and waste, our housing for the elderly, we will not be privatising those.
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By Thomas Redford Busy days at the Dunedin District Court are a big excited reunion. On Tuesday 19 September, the hallways and waiting rooms were packed at the start of the day, so nods, big reverse-nods, winks, and arm-wrestle-angle-handshakes abounded, and were remarkably shared across all of the courtroom subcultures; metal-detecting security guards welcomed regularly appearing defendants by name, 40+ defendants wassuped to their much younger counterparts, and the duty solicitors nodded their recognition to everyone. It soon became clear that it’s not only court employees that are familiar faces to the Court’s doorways: a significant proportion of Dunedin’s criminal club are regularly in and out. One of the ODT’s court reporters later told me that she can tell when some of these familiar faces have recently been in prison because they look so much healthier. As the beginning of proceedings drew closer, the day’s defendants settled into groups of varying levels of acquaintance. Most spent the time boastfully recounting the events that explained their presence in court. Almost everyone seems to wear their presence with pride. There is no hint of the injustice or innocence that the old jail-movie adage, “Well every man in Shawshank is innocent,” would make you expect. But as I found out, this was probably due to most cases being fairly minor. Only one jail sentence was given in the five hours of court hearings I witnessed.
in my notebook that began “the filthy character to my left.” Deciding that my pussiness made the exercise pointless, I wandered back down to the building’s entrance. There the kind man who matchmakes first-timers with duty solicitors gave me the compliment of asking if I was a witness. I explained that I was there trying to write an article for Critic. He greeted this concept with enthusiasm, and introduced me to the Registrar, who registered my presence with the Judge and positioned me with the ODT’s court reporters, ‘in front of the bar’ in Courtroom One. The reporters were two very accommodating ladies, who between them had 60 years of experience reporting the daily activities at Dunedin Court. Christchurch’s Judge David Holderness was presiding. The first case was also the only one of the day to involve a University of Otago student. James Frick, a 19-year-old second-year, pleaded guilty to supplying the Class-A drug LSD. At 10.15am on 2 September Dunedin police raided Frick’s flat on an unrelated matter. They found in his desk drawers enough of the drug for around 50 tabs, which they estimated had a street value of around $900. Frick admitted the drugs belonged to him, and said that by supplying some to friends, the tabs that he took personally were free. Bail was granted, and the case transferred to his hometown of Hamilton for sentencing. Frick exited the dock and was taken to a seat in front of the bar, right behind the ODT reporter who was typing up a report
I took up my position in the crowded hallway, hoping to document the spectacular hustle-bustle taking place. Standing opposite me was a bulky young man with peroxide hair, a fluorogreen marijuana leaf stud in his left ear, and a black hoodie, the front of which read: “God made grass, man made weed. Who do you trust?” I recall this alarmingly bold fashion statement only from memory, as I was too scared to take notes. I thought that retribution might await if the filthy character to my left, say, oversaw a sentence
of his case, which would appear in the paper the next day. Margaret Rose McKeich, a 72-year-old recidivist offender, was next in the dock. She pleaded guilty to the charge of theft. She had tried to hide $16 worth of groceries ‘about her person’ while paying for other items at the checkout at Countdown. The explanation relayed through her duty solicitor was that she had missed her bus, so tried to steal a few of the goods on her list so that she’d have money left over for a taxi home. During his plea for a lenient sentence, her 19
solicitor acknowledged McKeich’s recidivism but vowed that this time she was ‘making significant progress’ to change her ways. A few assault cases followed in which the defendants were given interim name suppression. Young Sam Oliver was given a fine of $1200 and disqualified from driving for nine months after recording a 1200 mcg breath test result when the limit for someone his age is 150mcg. The unemployed Paul Jeffery was given 10 hours’ community service and a 12-month disqualification for a charge of aggravated drink driving, aggravated because his front-seat passenger was an infant. A 19-year-old male took the stand on four charges of entering a building with two accomplices (one his father) with intent to commit a crime, but his duty solicitor explains that he ‘may not be fit to plead.’ The ODT reporter tells me that this is probably because he might have some sort of intellectual disability. The case is delayed for a month while an examination and report is conducted. A case then followed which was instantly startling in its relative ghastliness. A 69-year-old man was charged with seven cases of performing an indecent act on a boy between seven and ten years of age. All seven charges related to two brothers who at the time, 1965, lived on the Ranfurly farm on which the man worked. The man pleaded guilty to all seven charges. He was granted interim name suppression, given the fragile state of his wife’s health. Penelope Leith, a part-time cleaner, part-time student, pleaded guilty to three charges: wilfully and without excuse opening a postal article not addressed to her, drink-driving (628mcg, limit 400mcg), and not accompanying an officer to the police station when required to do so. The summary of facts was read out as the defendantleaned forward on the dock, with embarrassment and remorse struck across her face. The court heard that Leith had been in an argument with a flatmate who was planning on moving 20
out without paying her share of unpaid flat bills. Leith picked up a piece of mail addressed to her flatmate from the Land and Transport Authority and told the recipient that “you won’t be getting this anytime soon.” Leith duly opened the envelope, found it was a new drivers’ license, and cut it into pieces. Leith’s duty solicitor then described in detail to the Judge Leith’s profound remorse, and how “she has realised that she has a significant problem with alcohol, and is taking steps to address that.” While this plea for a smaller sentence took place, the duty solicitor whispered to the law student next to her, “Look at the Judge, you can see he isn’t even listening.” After a long deliberation period, Judge Holderness condemned Leith’s “entirely inappropriate” actions, and fined her $300 and ordered reparations of $31 for the letter-opening saga, and sentenced her to 65 hours of community work, and 12 months without a drivers’ license for the drink-driving dramas. After another eight cases, Judge Holderness declared a 30-minute break from proceedings. The ODT ladies invited me to tag along on their regular visit to Café Rue, but I declined, preferring to take opportunity to try to soak up some more of the vibe in the waiting rooms. After my earlier failed attempt, I was determined this time to actively go undercover amongst the uncalled defendants. Still slightly fearing that the large notepad bulging in my pocket meant that people would not be happy to see me, I sat near a ratty little man maybe 30 years of age, with the skin of a heavy smoker but the lingering, observing eyes of a man open to some chat. Check this for an opener: Me: It’s taking fuckin ages today eh? Him: Yeah … they fuckin’ tell you to come at ten but then you don’t even have to do anything until like 12 or something. All good though, get off work! Hahahaha. Me: Ha yeah, mean, I got off a few lectures, don’t go anyway though hahaha … where do you work? Him: Ah painting, just interiors, like doing a kitchen right now eh. Me: Oh yep, sweet as, why’d you gotta come to court today? Him: Man, just got shitloads of unpaid fines eh. Me: Aw, gay. Him: Yeah all good, it’ll just get changed to a bit of community service, clean up stuff at SPCA or something. Me: Oh true, hopefully that won’t be ratshit. Him: Nah should be sweet, my mate done it before, said you just put on your form extra hours and no one even knows about it. Me: Hah, mean. Silence attacked the conversation briefly, during which I debated first of all the age-old question of whether he didn’t acknowledge my ratshit joke because he didn’t get it, or because he just didn’t think it was funny, and second of all whether asking the obvious question of how he got his license suspended would be too much of a grilling. Luckily at this point the painter took the initiative. Him: So do you students watch much of the pornos? Me: Yeah quite a bit eh Him: Yeah ‘cos a guy I live with, he has one of the fastest computer set-ups in Dunedin, he hacked it so that we get our internet bounced off the highest tower on the top of Signal Hill, so it’s like a personal satellite pretty much; real fast. Me: Whoa! Mean! Him: Yeah so we download all the best videos first, only takes like a few seconds. Seen the Kendra one, the Kim Kardashian one, got the Catwoman movie, so knew that was a piece of shit before it was even in any of the movies here. Me: Haha, stoked. Him: So yeah, we can put those straight onto a CD, like the Paris Hilton one, or the Mini-Me one, on CD for anyone, sell it to them for ten bucks.
Seduced by the smooth sales pitch, and the undeniable appeal of watching Mini-Me humping a lady rather than a laser, I got the painter’s number and then excused myself, hopefully never to see him again. Courtroom proceedings soon started again; unpaid fines were next on the agenda. My porn-dealer friend had his $2300 of fines converted to 75 hours of community service. The young man who had earlier in the day stood opposite me wearing the jacket that advocated weed appeared, having taken off his jacket. We heard that he owed $7195 in fines and $2367 in reparations. He told the judge that his only income was $20 a week from his Mum, and he could only put $10 a week towards the fines. The $7195 of fines was converted to 75 hours of community work, and he was ordered to pay off the $2367 of reparation at $10 per week. After nine cases of unpaid fines, the case of Donald and Damin Birchall vs. the Ministry of Fisheries was called. Donald and Damin were a father and son team, each charged with the unauthorised taking of marine life from a marine reserve, and obstruction. The room heard how the pair was confronted by a Fisheries officer when they were found fishing inside the Whangarei Harbour Marine Reserve. When asked to stop fishing and hand over their rods, the father, Donald, became aggressive, told the officer “No one’s taking my rods: and threw them all into the water. His son, Damin, told the officer to “Fuck off” and tried to start his boat’s motor. Both of the men had previous convictions but leniency in the sentencing was requested based on the facts that Donald had just started a job, and the unemployed Damin would struggle to pay a fine. Judge Holderness deliberated the facts for a lengthy period before summarising the case and sentencing Donald to 85 hours’ community service for taking marine life, and 50 hours’ for obstruction, and Damin to 70 hours’ for taking marine life, and 40 hours’ for obstruction. The final case of the day was a sentencing, and was moved to the room that usually holds High Court proceedings. Six men from Southland ranging in age from 20 to 24 had pleaded guilty to, between them, 32 criminal charges, 30 of which were for a joint attack on four youths, three males and one female, in Cromwell in October 2009. During a road-trip from Southland, the six became involved in an altercation with a group of youths from Balclutha at the Cromwell BP. Some of the Balclutha youths pulled into a carpark not far down the road, as they were waiting for friends to catch up by foot. The events from that point were summarised by Judge Holderness: “The various charges you face arise out of your joint attack on the occupants of a car parked in the carpark of Cromwell Mall. Cameron Lynch was the driver, he pulled up behind some bushes, in an attempt to conceal your arrival. The six of you then got out, and the vehicle in which the Balclutha group sat was approached. Those subsequently attacked were 18 and 19. You smashed the rear windows, and three males were punched while still in the car. Two of the group managed to get out and escape. One of you then got in, and while the victim was sitting down punched him several times in the face. Another of the victims fell out of the car; he was kicked several times on the ground by the group. Another victim tried to intervene, he was punched on either side of the head by two of you, and then kicked and punched while on the ground. The other victim was kicked and stomped on the ground, and fell unconscious. The female was warned that she would be hunted down if she went to Police. The group suffered numerous injuries and the car was damaged. Reparations of $2877.78 are sought.” Each of the defendants were charged with three counts of Crimes Act assault (except for Cameron Lynch, who only received
one assault charge), one count of intentional damage, and one count of disorderly conduct likely to cause violence. Quintin Souness was charged with threatening to do grievous bodily harm to a police officer for telling an arresting officer eight to ten times that he would “stab her eyes out.” Tamati Pennicott was charged with the further offences of unlawful assembly, breach of community work, failing to attend court, driving at a dangerous speed, failing to stop for police, driving recklessly, and intentional damage, all committed while on bail. The six men all had previous convictions: their combined total was 65 previous convictions. In addition to being ordered to pay their $479.63 share of reparation, the men’s respective sentences were: Regan Black, five months’ community detention, nine months’ supervision, 120 hours’ community work; Shannon Lynch, five months’ CD, nine months’ SV, 120 hours’ CW; Cameron Lynch, five months’ CD, nine months’ SV, 200 hours’ CW; Ricky Tippett, five months’ CD, nine months’ SV, 150 hours’ CW; Quintin Souness, five months’ CD, nine months’ SV, 200 hours’ CW; Tamati Pennicott, 19 months in prison. Pennicott’s sentence was the last to be read. He stood in a dock which could be reached by stairs that led underground to a holding cell. When his jail sentence was announced, a woman, presumably his partner, came from the public seats to try to give him a hug; the bailiff who stood with him in the dock prevented the contact by standing between the two, but a simultaneous sidestep by the young lovers allowed the woman to plant a quick kiss on Pennicott’s lips before the displeased Bailiff led Penniccott away.
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Dunedin’s Dark Past
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Dunedin’s quaint architecture and quiet suburbs hide a dark past. This small southern city has had more than its fair share of brutality, with some of the country’s most high-profile crimes and horrific happenings occurring right here in the Edinburgh of the South.
The axe
murderer
that got away with it The Dewar family massacre. The Dewar family lived on the northern end of Cumberland Street, which in 1880 was described as “a large and broad thoroughfare on the outskirts of town.” James Dewar, a butcher by trade, lived with his young wife and their baby daughter. Their lives were brutally cut short on March 14, 1880 when an intruder broke into their home, used Mr. Dewar’s own axe to hack him and his wife to death, ransacked the cottage, and attempted to burn the evidence. The baby suffocated in the smoke. No one was ever convicted of the Dewars’ murder. A man called Robert Butler was tried, but found not guilty, despite very strong evidence against him. There was speculation at the time that the jury were influenced by the politics of that period: capital punishment was in force, but unpopular with many people, and there was suggestion that the jurors were unwilling to send a man to his death Robert Butler, even if he didn’t kill the Dewars, was no saint. He arrived in Otago after a criminal career in Australia, having been born somewhere in Great Britain. Soon after his arrival, he was sentenced to four years’ hard labour for burglary. After his acquittal, he spent another 16 years in penal servitude for burglaries committed at around the same time as the Dewar murders. On his release he returned to Australia, where further crimes led to another 13 years in prison. Finally, he was hanged in 1905 for the murder of Mr. William Munday in Queensland.
Colin Bouwer. Colin and Annette Bouwer seemed like the perfect couple. Married for nearly twenty years, they moved to Dunedin from South Africa in 1997 with their two teenaged children. He was Head of Psychiatry at the University; she was a homemaker. But a few years after their arrival in New Zealand, Annette started to get sick. Mrs. Bouwer suffered from hypoglycemia, condition where blood sugar levels can fall low enough to starve the brain of fuel. Her husband would bring her into the hospital very ill, often in a coma. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong. They thought it could be a tumour in her pancreas making insulin. Eventually, Mrs. Bouwer underwent major surgery to remove part of her pancreas. Afterward, she made a rapid and thorough recovery – but two weeks later, she was dead. Colin Bouwer almost got away with it. The coroner wasn’t willing to give Mrs. Bouwer a forensic autopsy based on her doctor’s suspicions, and her medical history was consistent enough with her death that if Dr. Andrew Bowers hadn’t pushed the matter, she could have been buried before anyone questioned the way in which she died. Fortunately, the autopsy was completed, and Bouwer’s story began to unravel. Tests done during the police investigation showed that Annette died of an overdose of anti-diabetic drugs – the same drugs that must have been causing her previous illness. Chillingly, Dr. Bouwer had led a class discussion in 1999 about how it would be possible to commit the perfect murder, using exactly these drugs. He had even called the National Poisons Centre to find out how long the drugs would remain traceable in the body. Having made his plans, Bouwer set about acquiring the drugs by writing prescriptions for past patients, not one of which was diabetic. He then slowly poisoned his wife to death.
He almost committed
21
It’s not a real castle without some
good ghost stories The tragic tale of the Larnachs. All great castles have a few ghosts. Although Larnach Castle is only a great castle of New Zealand by default, being the only castle in New Zealand, its history has enough sadness to warrant a haunting. The castle was built in 1871 by William Larnach, a banker, merchant and politician, for himself and his wife Eliza Guise and their six children. As anyone who has visited it will know, the castle is a beautiful building. The Larnachs’ happiness in their new home did not last long, however: Eliza died at the age of 38, when their youngest daughter Gladys was only a baby. After her death, William married Eliza’s half-sister Mary Alleyne. Five years later, Mary was also dead, also at the age of 38. Larnach’s third and final wife was much younger than him, a woman by the name of Constance de Bathe Brandon. Following this marriage, things started going downhill for William Larnach. His favourite daughter died in her early twenties, his business endeavours were failing, and there were rumours that his son was having an affair with his young wife. He committed suicide by shooting himself in the head in a locked room in the New Zealand Parliament. Larnach Castle’s history continued to be interesting: it has served as a holiday retreat for nuns, a mental hospital, and accommodation for US soldiers, among other things. But the ghost stories tend to centre around the Larnachs. One story is that Kate Larnach haunts the ballroom her doting father built for her twenty-first birthday. She died of typhoid shortly after the party. Her mother Eliza is said to haunt the doorway of the room she died in, the South Bedroom. Eliza was said to have died of ‘apoplexy’, an old word that probably suggests that she died from a stroke or heart attack. William Larnach’s ghost has been blamed for the mysterious opening and closing of doors in the castle late at night.
The Aramoana massacre. In November 1990, as it is now, Aramoana was a peaceful seaside town near Dunedin. There was no warning that it was about to become the scene of the worst mass murder New Zealand has ever seen. On 13 November, David Gray went on killing spree, taking thirteen lives and wounding three others. The dead included four children, the youngest of whom was just six years old. The most terrifying thing about the Aramoana massacre was that it happened with no warning and no apparent motive. David Gray was said to be a quiet animal lover, eccentric but not dangerous. The killing started when he had an argument with his next-door neighbour, Garry Holden, about Holden’s daughter wandering onto his property. Gray responded by shooting Holden dead. He then proceeded to kill apparently any person at random that came into his path. During the manhunt and gun battle that eventually led to his capture, Gray shot and killed Sergeant Stewart Guthrie. The Aramoana tragedy was brought back into the public view recently with the release in 2006 of the film Out of the Blue, a dramatisation of the events of that day.
New Zealand’s most
New Zealand’s most horrific shooting:
24
Madness, cruelty, and
death by fire Seacliff Asylum. Seacliff Asylum was in operation between 1884 and 1973. These years, particularly the early ones, were not good years for the mentally ill, and those who were brought to Seacliff were no exception. The asylum is particularly famous for being the institution that almost gave Janet Frame a lobotomy, a procedure that involves having the front part of the brain destroyed and which generally left the patient permanently impaired. Frame was saved when her first collection of short stories won a major literary prize, which her doctors must have considered evidence that she was not a suitable candidate for the procedure. As well as lobotomies, the medical staff at Seacliff performed a number of other treatments that would now be considered inhumane. One such treatment was the ‘unsexing’ operation performed on some female patients, involving the removal of the ovaries and clitoris. According to some residents, beatings were routine. On the other hand, Seacliff was considered in its time to be a very forward-thinking and humane institution, where the residents were well fed, participated in many activities including working, and could wander the grounds at will. In 1942, disaster hit Seacliff. One of the newer wooden ward buildings caught fire, possibly due to an electrical fault. It happened at around 9.45pm on 8 December. Because of a nursing shortage, all the patients were locked in their rooms for the night when the fire broke out. Only two of the 39 women in the ward survived.
The Bain family murders. The Bain family murders need no introduction. The massacre of Robert, Margaret, Laniet, Arawa, and Stephen Bain on 20 June 1994 is one of the most infamous crimes in New Zealand history, and the aftermath of their murders has continued even into this year. The evidence in the Bain case is complex and sometimes contradictory. What is certain is that five members of the Bain family were shot that morning, and eldest son David Bain was the only survivor. David Bain was tried for the murders in 1995, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with a 16-year non-parole period. David has always maintained his innocence, and he and his supporters have been appealing his conviction ever since his sentencing. Until 2007, none of his appeals were successful. Finally, in his second appeal to the Privy Council, it was decided that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred, and a retrial was ordered. The second trial happened in 2009, and was in the news constantly throughout the three months of testimony. There a considerable amount of previously unseen evidence presented to the jury. The verdict of ‘not guilty’ was a huge victory for David and his supporters. If David is innocent, then the most likely alternative theory for the murders has always been that Robin, David’s father, killed his wife and children and then himself.
Innocent or guilty 25
Long, long ago Post Chalmers has certainly played its part in Dunedin’s more dramatic historical moments. On 23 March 1848 the ship John Wickliffe rocked up to the friendly bay to unleash the first shipment of fiery Scottish settlers onto the unsuspecting landscape. The lucky newcomers were treated to a long row down the harbour to a scanty settlement and the task of building settlers’ barracks on the foreshore, near what is now the Exchange. The next batch arrived on the Port Chalmers Phillip Lang in April. In 1882 New Zealand’s first refrigerated meat shipment left the Port is a funky little port on the ship Dunedin, destined for London. It was also this fair port that farewelled Captain town full of historic Scott on his last Antarctic expedition, in November 1910. There is a large stone monument buildings and artsy stores. above the town to commemorate this. For the academically inclined the local museum will be It’s the perfect day trip, rain more than happy to saturate you with local salience. Today the historic deep-water Port still or shine, just 20 minutes of receives most of the city’s larger ships. It plays proud host to a parade of luxury cruise liners water and sky away from in season, and tonnes of rusty container ships the rest of the year round. When ‘Cruise the city centre. Ship Season’ hits, Dunedin is inundated with excitable, chubby Americans wearing fannypacks and impeccably clean sneakers. We bring busloads of them into town, often only for the day, when various cruise ships dock at Port Chalmers. They are greeted on arrival by a variety of sturdy southern teen buskers, whom they more often than not ignore as they scurry for the nearest souvenir stand. Dunedin has grown more and more desperate since opening its shores to passing cruisers in the 1990s to secure these fat-walleted foreigners. More than 60 ships are booked to visit in 2011 so while Port Chalmers may be quietly quirky most of the time, it will really bustle when the wind blows right.
To do
As these fringe ‘burbs so often are, Port Chalmers is a hub for all things a little bit alternative and artsy. There are a few great little cafes, and a corner store if you require a big old-fashioned ice-cream cone to top off your day’s outing. You can rummage through some great vintage stores and second-hand stores – all packed to the rafters with historic flotsam and jetsam. There is also some very original hand-crafted jewellery by local manufacturers available, and several art galleries with a variety of great local work, often incorporating the stunning landscape of the harbour, to stir the sentiments of locals and the wallets of visitors. One of the 3000 local residents is contemporary artist Ralph Hotere. Hotere and other artists of the region are known for continuously kicking up a highly artistic fuss about the continuing industrialisation of the beautiful spot. There is no doubt that the epic cranes, stacks of containers, and mountain of sawdust do make somewhat of an impact on the idyllic hill-sheltered bay. If you make a visit, don’t forget to walk/drive the small hill to the Lookout Memorial to get an awesome view out towards the ocean, and back across the town. Port Chalmers is also the gateway to many a gorgeous beach and scenic harbour drive.
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Rock on
There is Chicks. Not the short-skirted kind, or the squawky, feathery kind ... the kitchlittle-historic-hotel-with-a-happening-music-scene kind. Chicks Hotel, established in 1886, boasts itself as being famously the destination for “the cheapest booze, the nastiest slags, and the most fun times to be had this side of the Pacific.” Their colourful history is full of stories of secret tunnels, opium dens, and vengeful murderers. Today’s proprietors have seen fit to slot into the lively Dunedin music scene. Dunedinmusic.com describes the place as “a well known haunt of various iconic Dunedin artists.” They say that Chicks has seen “A heady mix of crazy locals, wharfies, and students” over the years. Much like Port Chalmers as a whole, actually.
Get there
It’s about a 20-minute drive to Port Chalmers, which is 15km from the city centre, and a very scenic one too. Head past the stadium towards the smell of fertiliser and you’ll get there eventually. Alternatively, a bus leaves Cumberland Street Stand 4 (outside Countdown) 17 times daily on a weekday, seven times on a Saturday, and three times each on Sundays and public holidays. NB: When (or ‘if’, for the pessimists) the Council ever cottons on to the idea of public transport, they might listen to the plea of the masses and once more start up a passenger train from Port Chalmers to the City, which would be completely awesome.
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DANCAN I
What’s a ‘Mothra’ anyway? twi n s
The original Mothra was a Japanese horror film about a giant moth that destroyed Tokyo. Continuing along in the tradition of low-budget filmic wonder, the OUSA Mothra film-making competition allows students to exercise their creative genius each year by entering films of varying quality in the hopes of receiving a shiny award at the Oscars-style awards night. Susan Smirk entered the event this year, and provides an inside look into the most glamorous of OUSA events. Following on in the trend of ‘wood’-ing anything with a slight link to film production, Critic would like to propose that Dunedin henceforth be referred to as Dunny-wood.
Dunny-wood Conquers 1960's vintage ad
the lady and the living dead
BITTER SWEETNESS
28
alic e d
Dunedin has a pretty strong tradition of film-making. For a start, we are home to Natural History New Zealand (NHNZ) the fine folk who produce many a cheesy educational documentary for the likes of Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. As well as this, the University itself stakes a strong claim to successful film-making ventures. The Science Communication Programme, with the help of strong links to NHNZ’s ecpertise and equipment, gives a few lucky postgrads full-on documentary film-making training, and many graduates move on to an internship with NHNZ. Students on the two-year film-making course make one short film, and then one full-length documentary. Last year SciCom graduate Jinty McTavish’s second film, Lesson’s from a Melting Icecap, recently won Best NZ Film at the Reel Earth Environmental Film Festival, while another Science Communication student Nick Holmes came runner-up in the same category. Two other Otago films were shortlisted, giving Dunny-wood a pretty impressive portion of the glory, really. What’s more, Carving the Future, made by Nick Holmes and Guy Ryan last year, has just won the Platinum Best Film Award at the 2010 Colorado International Film Festival.
Your turn
But you don’t need this kind of experience to make a Mothra. All you need is an idea – OUSA can even lend you some equipment. The sad news is that it is too late for you to enter a Mothra this year! But fame and fortune beckons you for the 2011 Mothras ... so whether you have an agenda to push, an itchy funny bone, a vision of artistic splendour or just a hunger for fame and almost-fortune, don’t miss next years Mothra competition. Till then, you can soak up the filmographic wonders of this year’s entries at the screenings 5-8 October. Screenings are at 6.30pm and 8.30pm each day, and are held at the Church Cinema (previously the Academy Cinema) at 50 Dundas Street. Tickets to view these awesome student creations are available, at only $3 each!
My Mothras
This year I finally got off my butt, sat down at my computer, and began the epic task of cutting, pasting, editing, and generally massacring the many hours of footage I took overseas a year and a half ago. After wrestling with rebellious sound-bytes, whipping wobbly visuals up to shape, and pinning many a way-ward title-card into place, I finally produced two short films of which I am tempted to feel severely ashamed. A few award nominations (in likely scanty categories such as Best Documentary) soon took the edge off my narcissistic anxiety, and I realised that I was indeed following a noble tradition in presenting my rants-ofdubious-quality to the art-starved student audiences. As unlikely as it is that my cheese-filled narrations will rip open the hearts of every cynic within a five-mile radius, or that my dramatic slow-motion sequences will be forever imprinted on the retinas of impressionable young sycophants in the audience, I’m pretty stoked that I actually managed to complete a film or two. It’s a good feeling.
The pull out
tuesday
Fashion Watch – 4 mins Kotomor: 3 stories – 5.5 mins For Your Pies Only – 7 mins 1960’s Vintage ad – 3.5 mins The Sipowicz Split – 6 mins The Ice Cream Man – 2 mins Sugar – 2 mins Grandad’s Army – 5 mins 1+2 = sheep – 2 mins Cruise Thompson Presents – 7 mins Thin Walls – 5 mins Scarfies on the Piss – 9 mins Total length of screening: 58 minutes
thursday
Duncan II – 4 mins Bobbo Ahiagble:
West African Master Wearer – 4.5 mins
Down in Dunsterdam – 2 mins Twins – 7 mins Jealously – 5 mins Murder Night Mystery – 1.5 mins Go Away – 2 mins Vanitas: You Told Me So – 2 mins Redshirts and Plot Devices – 7 mins Scott and Mark go to the Park – 7 mins Post Present Future – 5.5 mins The Empty House – 3 mins Total length of screening: 50.5 minutes
wednesday
The Fellowship of the Gings (Pt 1)
friday – 7 mins
The White Lady (Pt 2) – 4 mins
Lord of the Gings:
The Elven Princeling (Pt 3) – 3 mins
The Wall that Jack Built – 3.5 mins Departure – 4 mins Today – 2 mins Lord of the Gings:
No-mance – 6.57 mins Alice D – 5 mins The Stag Do – 6.5 mins Mummy Doesn’t Like It – 3 mins Bitter Sweet Revenge – 5 mins The Relationship – 7 mins Intimate Kiss “Lynchin’ Bitches” – 7 mins Pens vs. Crayons – 6 mins Killer Heals – 5 mins Total length of screening: 51.07 minutes
The Tree Shepherd (Pt 4) – 4 mins
Lord of the Gings:
Return of the Ging (Pt 5) – 4 mins
Pengjuan Pengwang – 4.5 mins To Anna – 4 mins Let Me Have My Fun – 2 mins The Lady and the Living Dead – 4.5 mins Beerbies – 7 mins
MOTHRA STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL
Total length of screening: 53.5 minutes
PENGJUAN PENGWANG
THE FELLOWSHI P OF THE GI NG
1+2 = SHEEP
the ic e cream man
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31 SOAP BOX
32 COLUMNS
32 left / right 33 DEBATABLE 34 ODT WATCH 35 THIS WEEK.. / Sport 36 top 5 / APOCALYPSE 37 OUSA / TE ROOPU
38 BOFS
South Dunedin. Critic challenges you to find a more depressing place.
The so-called best bakery in town only opens on Friday mornings.
No visible high society.
If you’re in the market for tasty pastries, a trip to Roslyn at sparrow’s fart is necessary. Why?
Seriously, you can get a booking at the ‘nicest’ restaurants in town any night of the week. Get some exclusivity and remove the proletariat. And get more than one nice suburb.
Shit DJs. You could write a thesis on Dunedin’s DJ/promoter ‘scene’. Give. It. Up.
Lack of a waterfront. With such an ideal harbour for waterfront cafes, why is the town centered around the Octagon, with industrial sites left to border this beautiful body of water?
It’s filled with South Island drivers. Where do we start? South Islanders simply cannot drive. Critic assumes this is the product of inbreeding.
The fact that Shane Cortese has turned his back on Dunedin. The once self-proclaimed ‘King of Dunedin’ is now nowhere to be seen on the city’s fair streets, instead preferring to spend his days chasing younger women in our nations’ largest city.
People roll their ‘r’s, even when they’re not from Southland. Perhaps the most annoying habit of all time, ‘r’-rolling is apparently not limited to Southlanders. Some Dunedinites have taken it upon themselves to adopt this habit, and Critic can only assume it is to develop a bond with the almighty Stags.
Those Speights thermals all jocks wear. Steaze. No-roots motherfuckers.
The Richardson building. As if the carnies that inhabit Union Lawn weren’t enough, this monstrosity looms high above, ensuring their pasty thighs stay engulfed in shadow.
The abundance of reasonably attractive girls but lack of genuinely hot ones. While Dunedin itself is severely lacking in attractiveness, the University tends to do okay. But sometimes outstanding would be nice. Just sayin’ is all.
Half the city is built on toxic waste. Despite the horrific consequences of Love Canal, Dunedin is still dealing with its very own Hooker Chemical.
The lack of all-night bars. Fat people get the 24. What about alcoholics?
The fuss locals kicked up over the new stadium. Think outside the square and heed the advice of Obama, Shapeshifter, and countless others. Change is good.
The weather. Mitch Hedberg once said that talking about the differences between bears and frogs is cliché. We think we’ve one-upped him.
The current state of Otago Rugby. Once the pride and joy of a region, glory days have the tendency to pass you by. In the wink of a young girl’s eye.
Those kids that hang around outside Macca’s in town. White trash. Pure and simple. Go home you little cunts.
Distance to the airport. If this list has really scared you off, then we have some icing on the cake. The airport is halfway to Invercargill. Rumour has it that the son of the biggest taxi owner in town designed it. Good luck escaping any time soon, sucker.
Dunedinites consider the city ‘quirky’. Why? Other cities have art galleries and second-hand bookstores too. These don’t suffice, people. 31
A
portion of you will have noticed billboards, posters and leaflets scattered around recently; of that portion, a few of you may not know what they are for. The rest of you will not have noticed anything. Take a look, they are everywhere. They are shiny endorsements of people young and old who believe they have what it takes to lead Dunedin. Some will lead it up the garden path (and have been doing so), some will lead it ‘into the future’ (whatever that means), and some won’t lead it at all. But how do you know? With all of the political rhetoric floating around, many people will simply close their eyes and ears and get on with cramming for that degree, and/or working to put food and booze on the table, and/or just having far too many life-dramas to even think about something that boring. And it is made boring. We are not informed of what our local bodies do for us; we are scarcely reminded that they even exist, and then once every three years we are lobbied by inspired people who have to spend thousands of dollars to get our attention away from the banalities of our individual everyday lives and on to the possibilities for running our city. These are communal matters and we are not really communal people anymore. We have become individualised to a fault. We cannot be pigeon-holed anymore, as we are all collections of fragments of cultures that were previously designed for us. We are constantly reminded by the various media that we are each on our own path aiming to strive for our own, and our family’s, personal fulfilment. That is what ACT is based on, and that is what is overloading the planet past capacity. That is precisely why we need to start caring, and start electing decent people to posts of authority. But as I said before, how the hell do we know who they are?! If all we see and barely notice are billboards and leaflets; if all we hear are unknown voices of people parroting that they want to make a difference, even if we notice anything at all, how do we differentiate? We have to rely on the word of others sometimes. We have to listen to those who can take the time to learn about the candidates. This time in the Central ward there are 39 candidates for 11 positions! There are seven candidates for mayor! It is so overwhelming that many will just rank the people they recognise the names of – if we even understand the STV voting system. As a result I am forced to give you these names (in reverse alphabetical order – for fun) of people I endorse: Geraldine Tait (for Waitati Coastal ward), and for Central ward: Teresa Stevenson, Steven O’Connor, Olive McRae, Samuel Mann, Jinty MacTavish, Hendrik Koch, Aaron Hawkins (for mayor too!), Shane Gallagher, Andrew Eames, Tracey Crampton-Smith, Jono Clark, and Fliss Butcher. We have until Wednesday to send in our voting papers.
32
T
eachers are claiming far too much. But then that’s a given as they already get more than enough, with their average wage being around $70 000. This is more than appropriate, given the money that the Government has and the current economic recovery we are still going through. Teachers sit in the highest tax bracket, and therefore they are rich compared to much of society, in fact banks often target them, along with lawyers, doctors, and police officers, as good customers with lots of money. But the PPTA wants more. Non-monetary demands are by and large a side-show. Time and again when teachers, junior doctors, teachers, or any public service union begins to make noise about industrial action, the first demands laid out are based around the rubric of patient safety, or better education. But when it comes down to it, they settle for what their bottom line really is – more cold hard cash. So, limits on class sizes is pretty much a distraction; everyone can support smaller classes, so it’s calculated to gain public support and to be conceded in the quest for money. To be cynical, for just a minute, if teachers are so very concerned about educational outcomes, are stop-work meetings and strike action actually going to help promote learning? A demand for a four percent pay increase is just not realistic; it’s not something that can be justified. Some teachers are going to be worth a lot more than what they are actually paid, but the opposition to performance-based pay is strong. So, to get paid more, to climb the ladder of their career they have to move from teaching and into management positions. That’s not really going to help students, as it’s rewarding good teachers by taking them out of the classroom, removing any benefit they have. It’s a problem, as those dedicated to their students can put in long hours, work weekends, and do the hard work, and some of their peers can turn up, do the absolute minimum and get paid exactly the same. Sound fair? So, the Government has a limited amount of money to spend on teachers. We want good teachers, who are skilled and can motivate their students and drive achievement for our future. So, do we give every teacher a 1.5 percent pay increase? Irrespective of their ability and the effort they put in? Or do we give the top teachers a massive pay rise, one they deserve for the work they do? Pay should be based on more than just seniority. Currently teaching is a very well paid, safe profession. We always need more teachers, and once you are in your pay rate increases to a very healthy amount. The PPTA should seriously consider the state of the average wage in New Zealand, how much money the Government is borrowing, and the interests of their students before their own pockets.
?
Alec: Dunedin’s artistic heritage is extraordinary for such a small city. We’ve had an entire movement of music named after us, led by the Chills, the Verlaines, and Chris Knox. We’ve been the home of numerous writers (James K. Baxter, Janet Frame, Hone Tuwhare) and now artists (Ralph Hotere) who through their work have helped define New Zealand. The value of these artists has been to provoke thought, entertain, and develop a sense of cultural pride. Art has these values and more – it can make a place simply much nicer to live in if there are public artworks, free concerts, and a clear path to success for local artists. Art inspires people and genuinely gives a place character. Yet the DCC does no more for the arts than run an art gallery and a library, and even then if you read the annual plan (go on, I dare you) they begrudgingly describe these as ‘legal obligations’ and for ‘education and learning purposes’. The arts are worth far more than this. There are numerous local bands, writers, and artists, and it would hardly cost the DCC much to simply provide more promotion and support to these people who can and do make the city a better place. If you read the promotional material of prospective Councillors, they all say that they want to keep Otago graduates here. The reality they’re facing is that (unless you’re a first-year getting on the piss because you’re away from home for the first time) Dunedin just isn’t a very exciting place to be. A vibrant creative arts scene is exactly what excites people about places – and draws them to them. It doesn’t matter how bad Lou Reed made New York sound, his music still made people want to be there. I didn’t want this to be an anti-stadium rant, but over $200 million of our money is being spent on a foolish attempt to restore pride in Dunedin rugby (forget the nice noises the Council makes, it’s about rugby). This is misguided. Dunedin rugby is unsuccessful because you can’t be both a professional sportsman and a university student. If you’re a musician, a writer, or an artist, university is exactly where you want to be. The DCC should recognise this, and put some effort into Dunedin becoming a centre for creative arts. The current Council thinks that their efforts with the stadium are ‘visionary’. Saving $100 million dollars on not building a plastic roof and putting the money towards the arts would benefit locals, give the students something to do other than break glass, and be true vision.
Is t he D CC D Prom oing ote Enou the gh T Arts o in D uned in
Paul: Funding for the arts is just another example of why governing bodies spend money inefficiently. Despite left-wing rhetoric of rates and taxes being used to fairly redistribute wealth to the poor, the reality is politicians and councillors are captured by middle-class lobby groups. Funding arts is essentially taking money away from the poor to fund the indulgences of the rich. Firstly, the idea that art is some inherent good that needs to be spread is ridiculous. At least when taxed money is spent on roads, education, and health, there is broad agreement these are services people want. Art is just one of many leisure activities people can enjoy. I like to ski, why doesn’t the DCC subsidise producers of ski equipment? The point is that it’s a subjective value judgement that individuals are best placed to make in a free market. It’s just wasteful for someone who doesn’t know me to take my money, and then try and guess what I want it spent on. And don’t say there’s some positive externality (something no individuals in a market will recognise) from art’s educative function and the heightened publicity Dunedin will receive. Anyone can construe a positive externality from anything. Skiing attracts people via Dunedin en route to Queenstown, after all. Secondly, the market will provide. There are no significant barriers to producing art as there are to, say, a traditional public service like education. Sure, there are lots of struggling artists who could use a leg up. But if they can’t raise capital privately, either they will go and improve their product until it’s good enough, or the market is signalling it’s more efficient for their time to be used elsewhere. Thirdly, what exactly is ‘good’? Art is also incredibly subjective. This means bureaucrats have to make arbitrary decisions about which art to fund. Usually this will result in funding to either whatever the Councillors’ favourite art is, or jumping on the back of an already successful artist to claim publicity – exactly what the last Labour Government did when it gave that really poor Peter Jackson millions of dollars.
Debatable is a column written by the Otago University Debating Society. They meet every Tuesday at 7pm in Commerce 2.20.
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So, it comes to pass that my Year 12 Math skills > Alison Rudd’s journalistic investigatory skills. “Students attending the University of Otago could be paying about 6.5%” Ooooh, no. Cost of levies in 2010 = $179.595 (General levy $79.86 + Building levy $79.78 * 12.5% GST). Cost of proposed levies in 2011 = $190.521 (General levy $120.36 + Building levy $45.31 * 15% GST). Percentage of increase in levy = (($190.521 $179.595) / $179.595) * 100 = 6.08% “About $3.50 of the increase is because GST is rising to 15%.” Wrong again! With no GST increase to 15%, levies for 2011 would be $186.379 ($120.36 + $45.31 * 12.5% GST). Thus, the increase due to GST = $190.52 (2011 Levies with 15% GST) – $186.379 (2011 Levies with 12.5% GST) = $4.14. How about when you write a piece showing numbers as though they have occurred, at least use numbers that are real, not those that are forecast (and also incorrect)?
“Income from student levies: $3.6 million.” Nope! Income from student levies is projected in the proposed 2011 Budget to be $2.9 million. And in 2010 it is projected to be $2.8 million. In 2009 it was $2.5 million. “Expenditure: $3.8 million” Nein. 2011 expenditure (spending which has not even occurred yet) is budgeted for $3.1 million. 2010 expenditure is budgeted at $3.2 million. And 2009 expenditure was $2.6 million. “Cash reserves (approx): $1 million.” Unless ‘approx’ means ‘let’s pick a random figure’, OUSA’s cash reserves are ‘approx’ $4 million. Sorry for nit-picking. I guess they are only out by a range of a few cents to millions of dollars. 34
S
The THEATRE STUDENT
hakespeare may be long since dead and buried but the followers of his art are still very much alive. It’s rather hard to miss them, considering that they’re all attention whores. Yes, without this demographic the world would likely be less colourful, more boring, and a lot quieter. But society would be nothing without its jesters, dramatists, and fane junkies; and as much as it might pain us to admit it, we need our entertainers. So this week, Matthew, I’m going to be a theatre student. Being noticed is the ultimate goal of any theatre student, so a good place to start is your wardrobe. I’ve yet to meet a theatre student whose style isn’t in direct defiance of societal fashion trends. This is not necessarily a bad thing – I’m friends with some extremely attractive and well dressed theatre students – but creating your own colourful style and flair goes a lot further towards getting you to Hollywood than simply following everyone else. Wear bright colours, shiny things, silky stuff, and things from op shops; the modern theatre student is half ‘60s hippie, and half GQ ponce. Be retro: wear things that nobody really wears anymore – fedoras, chuck taylors, tie dye, and wayfarers. You should end up looking like a walking museum of fashion antiquity. Don’t be afraid to over-accessorise, it’s no longer a privilege reserved for only gay men. THE NEXT BEST WAY TO GET YOURSELF NOTICED IS TO BE LOUD! Be loud in volume, loud in dress sense, and loud in attitude. Inside voices are for people who don’t want to be famous. Shouting at people shows that you have an agenda; that you want to go places. Be dramatic. After all, you study drama, so you may as well display it. You don’t even need to wait until you’re on the stage – you can find and create drama in every part of your daily life, be it a break up, a poor test result, a great test result, or your best friend misplacing your pet iguana. Shout, scream, cry, laugh, defecate, and shout some more. People need drama in their lives, it keeps things interesting and stops them from falling into a pit of self loathing after realising that gender studies isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Now, obviously if you’re going to be a theatre student you need to spend some time in an actual theatre, so you’d best pick out some productions you’d like to star in. Classic productions such as Macbeth and Les Miserables are great, but they do make you seem a bit dry and boring. The best performance for getting yourself noticed is the OUSA Capping Show. You can be loud, dramatic, over-accessorised, and a complete wanker all at once. No one really cares about serious acting; get yourself into a production filled with swearing, toilet humor, and copious amounts of nudity and I guarantee you’ll have more job offers than you can shake a stick at. Or should I say, shake-a-speare at?
T
he past few weeks have been a series of field days for New Zealand’s sporting journalists: the state of the Commonwealth Games has given them something more to talk about than just rugby. Even the news media is getting in on the act, stretching out the seven o’clock current affairs shows so they could cut live to the press conference at which it was announced New Zealand will still be going. Basically, the Games are all the Commonwealth of Nations actually does these days, so you can imagine the pressure that Indain government was under to ensure they didn’t mess it up: unfortunately they did. A lot of people they already had their tickets and MySky booked to watch the games, and if the games didn’t go ahead they and many sponsors would be a bit pissed. For others the Commonwealth Games are a bit of a novelty, a sort of baby Olympics, where nations are bought together on the basis they were once the property of good old England – except for Rwanda and Mozambique, who for some reason just chose to join. New Zealand rates itself as having a chance at the games, mainly because we are one of the big players out of the 78 countries that are competing. This is due the fact that may of the nations competing are still developing, just like the host nation. These countries’ competitors will be the ones to watch out for as the games mean just that little bit more to them. Already a few top level athletes have pulled out of this year’s Commonwealth Games, citing concerns about safety and unsanitary conditions; terrorist attacks will also be in the back of many minds. Except, it seems, for the NZ Bowls team, who didn’t appear to have the slightest worry about anything – mainly because any terrorist that would choose a bowls tournament to get their message across really doesn’t understand bowls or terrorism. I’m in two minds about those who have chosen not to compete. This is India, after all, and in any case a dirty hotel room in a developing country isn’t the end of the world. I can however sympathise with the athletes that have decided to forgo the event. For most of them their sport is their job: it’s how they make a living, and they do have the right to turn down any competition where they think the negatives outweigh the positives. No doubt over the next few weeks there will be news coverage of the poverty that is all too apparent right next to the slightly shiny and new buildings which have gone up in time for the Games. There might also be some sport on.
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Hangover Cures Around Dunedin Normally I’d write about some useless information or go on a rant and turn an otherwise trivial issue into the biggest ordeal since the OUSA elections. But at this very moment I’m too hung over to function properly, so I thought I might actually give you some useful information for once. I know I’ve left some goodies out and the reason for that is fuck you, that’s why. 5. Friendly Khmer Satay Noodle House – Satay Burgers: This isn’t just your average Khmer Satay Noodle
House, it’s a goddamn friendly one! Like a meal from a Hall of Residence, these amazing $3.50 burgers come in the choice of either beef of chicken. But don’t let that put you off – they are fucking awesome. Personally, I prefer to get two beef burgers but the chicken ones are still pretty good. 4. Willowbank Dairy – Chips: Unfortunately I haven’t been there for a while since I don’t live near it any more, but needless to say their chips are fantastic. If you want, take the risk and get some fried chicken with it. However, eating fried chicken is kinda like having a one-night stand – it seems like a good idea at the time and you sort of enjoy it, but after you’ve finished you feel violated and dirty on the inside. 3. Nesli Turkish Kebabs – Doner Kebabs: Sure, they may
cost $10 but my God they are good. Normally I just demolish these fuckers at some ungodly hour in the morning and the only way I remember this happening is by finding the remnants of tin foil and lettuce in my pockets the next day. But having one of these bad boys in the morning is divine if you’re craving something greasy and taste that isn’t Macca’s or BK. 2. Squiddies – Super Burgers: We all know and love Squiddies, a.k.a. The Flying Squid for those of you are foreign, which is just across the road from Uni on Albany Street. While many of you would argue that the $2 shoe-string chips are the way to go, you’re wrong. Get one of their burgers. Not a normal one but a super one. It is fucking massive for what you pay. I think they just double the size of it or something. One time I got one and it was so big, it was difficult trying to fit it into my mouth. *insert ‘that’s what she said’ joke here* 1. The Good Oil – Mixed Berry Smoothies: Fuck paying $4 for a blue Powerade, at only $5 this is one of the most costeffective hangover cures I’ve come across. It’s a good size and tastes incredible when you’re hungover. Not only that, but they’re probably quite good for you, and give you vitamins and shit. It’s also great when you know that your stomach cannot handle eating food and at least it’ll taste good if you throw it back up. That pretty much doubles its value!
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W
stupidity
e’ve all been there: you’ve just seen a particularly brain-dead report on the evening news or read a poorly-spelled diatribe on why Obama is a socialist Muslim Nazi and you sit back and wonder, “Is it just me, or is the world getting stupider?” Well, you’re not alone, my friend, and even experts have noticed a steadily increasing global trend in the amount of incredibly stupid shit that goes down. Just a quick glance at the internet, television, or even the people around you reveals a terrifying abyss of incoherence, aggressive ignorance, and jokes about being kicked in the balls. Why, it even seems that most people are having ability to not writing the full sentences properly. As we all know, this deluge of stupidity can lead to a lot of exasperated sighing and foreheads rubbed raw from constant facepalming. However, it could lead to something even worse: if the human intellect continues to descend at this rate, it could easily bring on the downfall of society itself. At first the changes will be subtle, as we start to see less innovation and development of technology as the number of people with the required skills begins to drop. Then things will break and no one will be able to fix them: buildings will crumble due to lack of maintenance; raw sewage will run in the streets as people forget how to flush toilets. Within the next hundred years we could be reduced to a society of mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging simpletons living in piles of rubble mixed with our own filth, before finally succumbing to scurvy and disappearing for good. So, how did we get to this point, facing imminent extinction at the hands of mass stupidity? Sure, I could just sit here and blame all the old scapegoats: the proliferation of reality TV; puerile YouTube clips designed to hold our attention for no more than a few seconds at a time; pandering, hacky ‘current affairs’ shows that assume all their viewers are slobbering imbeciles; bland, cliché pop hits shat out by slick-haired, dead-eyed record executives; various forms of entertainment that are constantly vomiting up bite-sized chunks of mindless crap designed to assault your senses, drain your intelligence and incinerate your soul. But that would be too easy. Perhaps people aren’t actually getting stupider, and it’s just that the internet and other forms of media are spreading stupidity in a way that was never thought possible. Complete cretins can now broadcast their mind-bogglingly stupid thoughts to the entire world, whereas in the past they were just made to sit in the corner in silence with the dunce cap on. Anyway, it’s not as if people were exactly that clever back in the old days, what with all their feudal systems and castles and stuff. That was some dumb shit. I mean, they didn’t even have electricity. So perhaps we’re as stupid as we’re ever been and there’s no need to panic just yet. Still, we should probably bomb all the people responsible for producing Rock of Love, just in case.
E
lecting a good Council is really important if we want to get the many issues facing students addressed. In a punditesque column, here’s my commentary on the candidates and my voting picks, based on personal interactions with candidates and the debate held last week. Lee Vandervis and Olivier Lequeux proved to be insensitive jerks with no understanding of student issues or even pretended support for students. Both candidates used the phrase “Back when I was at University ...” to tell us what was wrong with students today. Shit guys, things have changed! It is totally inappropriate for a Mayor to tell their constituents what to think! Both Vandervis and Lequeux showed a total inability to listen to what the real issues are or what students want. Vandervis even informed the crowd that we like our substandard flats. They both rank below no confidence for me. Peter Chin didn’t seem to want to be there at all. Sure, he’s done the job before, but it has been a constant battle throughout his reign to get student voices heard. When questioned about the relationship between the University/Students and Council, Chin seemed to think no improvement is necessary. As well all know he is an avid supporter of the ‘beat the devil out of them’ approach to student misbehaviour. Jimmy Knowles and Kevin O’Dwyer were lovely. They seemed sympathetic to the cause and had all the very best of intentions. However, they both displayed an absolute lack of understanding of the real issues, and a lack of leadership potential. Aaron Hawkins absolutely stole the show. He was the only candidate who understood all of the questions, let alone having the answers to them. He supports improving student housing standards, improving the public transport system, and thinks students should be welcomed and respected in the city and more efforts made to retain them after graduation. Dave Cull couldn’t make it but was sent the same questions as were posed in the debate and had some pretty positive responses. He seems to care about students and genuinely wants to hear our views and solve our problems. He supports requiring minimum standards across all housing (not just having the voluntary STARS scheme), running a licensed Undie event at Logan Park, and free buses for everyone around the central city. To me it comes down to Hawkins and Cull. Cull has been on Council already, and that experience is putting him far ahead of Hawkins in the ODT polls (in which he comes first, followed closely by Chin and then Vandervis). As I would rather have Cull than Chin or Vandervis, he gets my number-one vote for Mayor. I think he’d do a pretty good job too. Aaron Hawkins absolutely must get elected to Council, and thankfully he is running for Central ward also. So he’s my number two for Mayor, and number one for Central ward. As for the rest of the Council candidates, names that stick out include: Jinty MacTavish, Lynn Tozer, Kate Wilson, Andrew Eames, Richard Thomson, Andrew Whiley, and Craig Watson.
K
ia ora whanau, First I would like to apologise for not having an article in last week’s Critic. As some of you may have been aware, Otakou held Nga Whakataetae mo Nga Manu Korero National Speech Competitions, which saw the Edgar Centre full with rangatahi Maori from all over the motu. I was one of many Dunedin based Maori to be overwhelmed with excitement for the event, which resulted in me partially neglecting my role as Tumuaki, for which I sincerely apologise. Right-oh, to the good stuff. Te Roopu Maori would like to thank the Scarfies Pay it Forward committee on the excellent job they have done of organising the Christchurch Earthquake Charity Concert and all the performers on the night. It was good to get together and strut our stuff for a good cause – well done! Other good news is TRM finally has a new whare – if you didn’t read your emails last week, TRM and Te Huka Matauraka are the new residence of 523 Castle St (the two-storied building between the Maori Centre and TRM). This whare will provide the whanau feel our current whare has, but will also provide warmth, security, a computer suite, post-grad offices, a fully equipped kitchen, wireless, extra study space, and support for Maori students. TRM would like to thank all staff and students who supported our whare proposal in particular Space Allocation, Diana Reid, David Richardson, Te Huka Matauraka, and the divisional Maori Students Associations. Without your support my dream of providing better facilities for our tauira would remain just that. Final, most important notice:
TRM MAORI ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING (AGM) TODAY 4:30pm AGENDA: • 2009 AGM minutes • Te Rito Reports • Financial Reports • Budget Setting 2011 • General Business - Whare Progress - VSM - Constitutional Changes
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39
Letter of the Week wins a $30 book voucher FUCK NO. COME BACK TO US.
Hi Critic, I was going to write you a letter, but then I decided to write on your Facebook page instead. Is that what we’re supposed to now? In The Future? FUCKING HELL
To the people who organized their ball at Friday September 24 2010, It is incredibly dumb and stupid to be hosting a ball in the Commerce building! Next year please pick a better place to host a ball. It is annoying to some people in the building who is currently rushing to finish their assignments and all they hear is the music banging loudly and the smell of alcohol and puke all over the building. Plus its currently 12 fucking am in the commerce building and you guys have not FINISH with your ball! THINK LOGICALLY NEXT YEAR! And don’t repeat the same fucking mistake again! Fucking pissed student who is currently having a headache from all the music!
CAN’T BE FUCKED
Hi there, Just wondering if you could explain the ODT Watch in issue 25 - I don’t get it. Are you taking the piss out fo the ODT for stopping the delivery? Seems a bit weird, but your explanation may shed some light on the piece. Regards, M Hathaway
FUCK FUCK FUCK
Dear Editor, I just want to say fuck the university computer systems and printers. If I had an axe I would smash them all. What is with the yellow coat people? What is the point in their existence if the computers are slow and going ADHD 40
and they say they can’t do anything? Don’t look so goddam blasé. ISN’T IT YOUR JOB? I mean don’t look at me. I usually just hit my laptop, press as many keys as possible and then sometimes (if I’m lucky) it turns back on. Fuck, I don’t even know where the on button is most of the time. I don’t know anything!!!!!!!!!!!! Do something!!!!!!!!! All I can do is CTRL ALT DELETE CTRL ALT DELETE. I mean could you fucking be bold enough to do something other than stare at me! PLEASEEEE make some kind of suggestion. I mean I really don’t want to hear your life story ‘the server problems computer blah blah blah’, just try and fix this piece of shit? I have an essay due. If you can’t fix the fucking thing, then just kill me now. Why is it I pay this mediocre university thousands of dollars every year and the resources I need the most don’t work? Lots of love, Kylie Minogue.
FUCK THAT SUCKS
To, The kind person at one of the private functions at South Bar on Saturday 25 Sept, that very kindly picked up my girlfriend’s silver-with-blue-topaz ring, thank you. I commend your willingness to watch over the ring yourself - I’m sure you didn’t want to risk giving it to those dodgy bartenders. I can assure you though, that if you hand it in to the OUSA office, or to South Bar asap, they are more than capable of looking after it. Your honesty is appreciated, Adam
FUCK YEAH
Thanks to Jonathan Jong for his thoughtful and interesting review of G.W. Dawes’ “Theism and Explanation” in Critic #25, and particular kudos for not cramming it into a half-page format. Great job at showing that stretching your mind is a thrilling thing, not a chore. Now to get the book... florian weller
WHAT ARTICLE YOU FUCKER?
dear critic, i really enjoyed your article last week. anonymous
FUUUUUCK
To Austen Kingsbury, creator of the Made for Each Other comic, Ever since your comic started to appear in Critic this year, I’ve wondered – are the worn stereotypes you write about being played straight, or is there at least the tiniest hint of satire hidden in there? Every time I think I see some glimmer of authorial awareness that your characters and storylines are treading the same dreary road that hundreds of male comics creators have trodden before you (though you yourself are apparently a woman, if Facebook is to be believed), there you go and produce a handful that get me doubting again. Please, end my speculation. Your cartooning skills are great, and I love how perfect your characters’ expressions are (even if you do copy-paste the rest of them a bit), but I can’t get past how male-gazey the script of “Made for Each Other” is. Is it deliberate? Is it meant to be an ironic deconstruction of gender stereotypes, couched deeply within representations of the cliché harpy ice-queen and the loveable but hapless bloke? Hoping to hear from you soon, Fan of the Female Gaze (Seriously, can we at least get a bit of it in there?)
FUCKERS
Dear Critic, There are two types of women that work at the campus shop. One is the type that studiously ignores you as you stand at the counter, patiently holding your Freddo Frog, while they finish their fascinating conversation with their fascinating coworker. It’s awkward. The other is the type who screams welcome at you from the moment you step through the threshold, wanting to know every detail about your day. That type is slightly worse and the author of this letter
AUSSIE RULES CLUB AGM The Otago Australian Rules Football Club will hold its annual general meeting at 5.30pm on Tuesday 5th October in commerce 2.01. Nominations are open for President, Secretary and Treasurer. Please contact [email protected] for the full agenda. wishes she’s tone it down a bit, as it is very frightening. The man that works there is nice though. Yours Sincerely, Freddy Frog Lover.
fat ppl are real lazy and the fat cells also clog up their brains so they dont work properly. The exception is culinary school. Fat ppl are good at that. Taylor Harrington (Fat Hater)
FUCKING ANIMALS
LITTLE FUCKING SKATERS
Dear Editor, As you and probably all proud New Zealander’s know, the Commonwealth Games in Delhi could (will) be a debacle. The faecal matter of subcontinent minions has become too common in the purpose built western accommodation and apart from these guys no-one seems to be able to get their shit together. The bowls facilities are made from astro-turf with festering mosquito pools in abundance, the weightlifting arena had its roof collapse and we were told not to fret because it was only a trespasser walking on the roof (what the fuck kind of excuse that is, I do not know..If that happened during an event, shit certainly would hit the fan back in the village). So after all this uproar about the safety of our athletes, the fact that a New Zealander is the games CEO and has been lambasted for assuming his role as the much needed colonial influence in India..There has been no mention whatsoever about one of our precious Red Pandas called Khosuva being sent to India for an “arranged marriage”... These wee guys are Listed as ‘’vulnerable’’ by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and once he hits India I have no doubt in my mind he’s done for. So all I ask is that fellow scarifies spare a thought for Khosuva.
To the little fuckers skating outside commerce, FUCK OFF! Despite the fact that you’re probably high school wieners and probably won’t be reading this, I still feel compelled to vent some anger. While you’re outside screaming and yahooing and ollieing the stairs, I’m inside trying to listen to my eastern European lecturer who is hard enough to understand at the best of times. In all truth I don’t mind a kick, push every now and then, but I do it away from where people are trying to learn. In the future, please refrain from being such an inconsiderate prick. Yours truly, Distressed Steven
FUCKING FATTIES
Dear Critic, Everyone should just chill out bout this whole loans thing. Its only the dumb ppl who are gona miss out and in the scheme of things dumb ppl are almost as bad as fat ppl. In fact i bet its mostly fat ppl who are the ones who arent gonna get loans anymore cos
WRITERS’ GROUP A new writers’ group has started on campus. Writers of all genres, styles, and experience levels welcome. Email Alec Dawson at [email protected] for more information. OTAGO UNIVERSITY CANOE CLUB AGM The OUCC AGM will hold its AGM on Friday 15 October. It will be at 6.30 pm in Castle B. Voting for executive positions and showing of club DVD. Contact theoucc@gmail. com for more information.
CIRCUS FUCK
Dear Critic, One thing what I will never understand is the circus freaks on Union Lawn. They are always there, practicing their various circus tricks. Juggling tenpin bowling pins, tightrope walking between trees, firedancing etc. These activities are all good and shit. They have their place in the world. Obviously. It’s just, why do these strange people need such a large audience? Surely if you’re learning such a complicated skill as swallowing fire, you would want to practice somewhere secluded, where there is no shame when you fuck up. But fuck, nah you all do it right out in the most public part of Dunedin ay! All I really want is answers from one of these inexplicably exhibitionary carnies. Why you do man? Why you got to do it in front of everyone even when you’re no good? Are you expecting money? Who is King of da Carnies? Hit me back, And keep up the good work. NOT.
STUDENTSOUL Café-style church for students. Sunday Service 10 October 7pm at George Street School Hall. Theme: Living within Boundaries. Speaker: Rev Helen Harray. Contact Helen on 027 473 0042.
NOTICES POLICY Notices must be fewer than 50 words in length and must be submitted to Critic by 5pm on Tuesday before you want it to run. You can get notices to us or by emailing [email protected] e. bringing them to the Critic offic We accept up to five notices a tions week from non-profit organisa ps and other student-related grou bit a e mak to g lookin ’t aren that of dosh. 41
Critique Analyse this...
Dragon Age: Origins
PS3/Xbox360/PC/Mac
Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) is a fantasy role-playing game by BioWare, one of the most respected RPG developers. They’ve done the Mass Effect, Knights of the Old Republic, and Baldur’s Gate series, and more. DA:O is another, excellent addition to their stellar line-up. The PC/Mac versions differs from the PS3/360 versions in how they are played. The computer versions give you a birds-eye-view camera with pausing combat to get spell and skill combos queued up (the traditional RPG set up). The console versions use third-person cameras (more prevalent among action and sneaking games), and use buttons to quickly execute common attacks or spells, while allowing you to pause and enter a menu to select unmapped actions. From what I’ve played of the PC version, it is an outstanding RPG; however, I find the console versions more engaging, probably because I’m more familiar with games that use that style of interaction. The quest-lines and story behind DA:O are outstanding. You start the game as a human, elf, or dwarf from one of a variety of backgrounds specific to the race and choose fighter, mage, or rogue for a class. This boil-down of the traditional Dungeons and Dragons classes provides an interesting simplification; however, there is still plenty of variety as each arch-class has a root tree, a variety of specialisation trees, and can have one or two specialisation trees added as the game progresses. The story is amazing, with twists and turns throughout and a myriad of options that affect how other characters interact with you, what is available to you, and how the story unfolds. The sheer amount of dialogue is astounding! The idle chit-chat of your companions rarely repeats and is far from annoying, and every NPC you interact with is well voiced. This game is amazing! It sucks you in within minutes of starting, and is still driving me forward after over 30 hours of game-play. The combination of story, characters, combat, and visuals gives an experience every gamer should at least try. If you’re not a hard-core RPG fan, I’d recommend one of the console versions; if you are, you’ve probably already played this on your PC.
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The Naked and Famous
Passive Me, Aggressive You
Passive Me, Aggressive You is the debut album from New Zealand’s own The Naked and Famous. The album starts off with the extremely catchy song ‘All Of This’, setting the scene for the remaining 12 songs which echo the sentiments of being young, carefree and living in the moment. Amongst the synth beats of the album, jangling melodies and catchy hooks the creative duo for the band. Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers share vocal duties which works well for this industrial, electronic heavy genre but also makes some of the subtler nuances of the album be drowned out amidst the eighties-style drum machine. Opener ‘All Of This’ sets the tempo into which the newest single ‘Punching In A Dream’ segues perfectly. The insanely captivating and simple chorus of ‘Young Blood’ provides an anthem-like quality to the album and the songs ‘Spank’ and ‘Girls Like You’ provide fast beats with a single-like quality about them that are easily countered by the less chaotic and more mellow songs like the tranquil ‘Frayed’ and the leisurely pulsating ‘Eyes’, which allow for a balance which is really what makes this album work as a whole. Passive Me, Aggressive You is a brilliant start for the clearly ambitious Auckland band (who have already supported the likes of Nine Inch Nails) and have a unique and catchy sound about them. I only hope that they haven’t peaked too soon and get swept up in the hype that the industry has placed upon them.
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OK! Crazy Fiction Lady
Mystery Dinosaur Railroad
When young bands build their reputation almost exclusively on fun, participatory, and engaging live shows, the studio can be a dangerous place. With many crucial elements missing, bands may find themselves (and consequently their songs) lacking energy, passion, and the ability to connect with their audience. Dunedin’s OK! Crazy Fiction Lady are in part one such band. Over the course of this year, the trio has gained a deserved reputation for some of the most entertaining and exciting shows around with chanting party-poppers and ridiculous amounts of smiling. These facts weighed heavily upon my mind as I begun to listen to the groups full studio debut Mystery Dinosaur Railroad. However, as the self-titled opening track began, I had a strong feeling this EP would leave me with a smile upon my face. With punchy, upfront radio production, ‘OK! Crazy Fiction Lady’ is a simple piece of catchy pop, its self-referential nature falling safely on the fun side of pretentiousness. Its chant filled ending losing none of its live excitement, giving the listener the almost unstoppable urge to sing along. Unfortunately, follow-up ‘Fuck Pop’ does not survive the shift from the stage to the stereo in the same manner. Its chorus (bearing similarity to TFF’s ‘Fucksurf’) continues past the point of enjoyment reached in the live setting losing impact and taking away from the frantic versus and superbly buzzy, almost Tom Morello-styled guitar solo. Thankfully the final two studio tracks on the EP align themselves with ‘OK! Crazy Fiction Lady’ with their vitality and fun. EP centerpiece ‘Books’, easily the mellowest component, is a shimmering respite although it suffers from some slightly frustrating audible bass audio clipping. It probably seems overkill to mention the word ‘fun’ again, but in summation: fun is the essence of OK!CFL. While they’re not going to be making a life-changing opus anytime soon, they will be having serious amounts of fun. And if you give this EP a listen, you might just too.
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OK! Crazy Fiction Lady celebrate the release of Mystery Dinosaur Railroad while sadly bidding farewell to Dunedin at their final show ever on Saturday 9 October at Re:Fuel. 44
T54 Julie K.
Julie K is the advance single from T54s upcoming EP. It was recorded last month down in Dunedin with Dale Cotton. Lead singer and guitarist Joe Sampson got a bit scared by Dale’s crashing-brilliance when it comes to production. I think Joe parks cars at an airport during the day, so maybe he likes order (?), but Dale knows a thing or two about the aesthetics of violence and volume. Consequently Julie K (and by extension the whole EP) has great contrast between volume, huge guitars and soft vocals. It’s reminiscent of Bailter Space/ The Gordons playing in the production style of My Bloody Valentine. Compliments aside, I’ve seen T54 play a few shows up in Christchurch (their home town). The live show is brilliantly loud: guitar amps on the ground face away from the audience so they can be turned up louder than rocket-ships, as chords, harmonics, and overtones spark around the venue. No PA required. The drums and bass punch out the low end. I’m writing about the T54 for two reasons. First, they’ve just been signed to a small label I can’t even remember the name of – so this stuff isn’t readily available and you need to track it down. Second, T54 provide a reminder that music is a physical experience; so don’t listen to this stuff at low volumes. See T54 w/ Piha Rescue / DJ Time Life / Dan Solo @ Re:Fuel Wednesday October 6th. Free. 45
46
A
LTT Review: Moonscapes
By Jo Bond Directed by Janis C. Y. Cheng Starring Hana Aoake, Rimu Donovan, Lyndon Katene and Miriam Noonan
In last week’s Performance section, a formatting error caused some confusion. The last sentence of the review from Issue 24 was left over as the last sentence of the Issue 25 review. For the record, the performance of Lunch, directed by Hannah Gould was excellent (receiving 4.5 thumbs) and the last sentence of the review was in no way a reflection of her show – but rather a reflection of The Cyclops from the week before – which was not so excellent. Critic apologises to everyone for the fuck up.
s we entered the theatre everything was still. The actors sat in the middle of the space covered from head to toe in dust – moon dust. The dust wafted off their bodies and mingled with the luminous rays of light, moonlight. They sat in the dusty moonlight and slowly they began to move ... The actors were set up in the middle of the space; this was theatre in the round. The audience was encouraged to move about the space, glancing at the piece from every angle, sitting, standing, observing. Just as I am content with only seeing one side of the moon I was content with only seeing one side of Moonscapes. Like viewing a painting in an art gallery, I was delighted to discover everything about the image in front of me, I liked the mysteriousness associated with only seeing it from the one perspective. Every time someone in the audience moved I shuddered. The creaking of the floor masked the voices of the actors, who rightfully could have spoken up – but I was more annoyed by the movement of the audience than the actors’ volume. The stillness of the actors became the focus when the audience moved around. Instead, I craved the small movements of the actors to be the focus as everything else in the room was eerily still. I think the focus needed to be on their movement, not ours. In saying this I also feel like the actors needed to invest more in the movements they did make; they needed more control and focus. I wanted them to move as if they were slowly breaking free from a plaster cast, a cliff face, the surface of the moon. Covering the actors in talc was inspired. What could have been a potentially unexciting piece was propelled into the realms of the mystical and the artistic. Every second of the performance was intensified by the dancing of the talc. If the actors had just sat still and not spoken for 40 minutes I would have been content. This idea was stunning, and the most innovative idea I have seen on the LTT stage all year. I wish I had thought of it. The lighting, another Martyn Roberts masterpiece, was completely cohesive with Cheng’s vision. Roberts works well when he is inspired by the work he is lighting, and I think it is safe to say we were all inspired by Cheng’s work this week. Every time the lighting changed the image was illuminated anew (literally and metaphorically). Each gel focused my attention at something different in the image. The lighting changes were enough to make me feel like the images were changing, I simply did not need to walk around. Each change transformed the space and the image. Moonscapes, for me, was all about what I could see, not what I could hear. The script was not cohesive with the performance; the links between the two were tenuous at best. The script hinted towards a narrative but this was never quite realised. The script needed more of a narrative, or a more obvious refusal of a narrative. This piece was stunning and it completely exemplified all that Cheng is capable of. She has stunning visions and the skills to pull them off. Today I was completely inspired by her creativity.
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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Directed by Oliver Stone Hoyts, Rialto
The ghost of Gordon Gecko has been slithering around in the back of Michael Douglass’ mind for over 20 years, plotting his comeback to Wall Street. The long-awaited sequel to Wall Street, in which Gecko was brought down by the young Bud Fox, begins with Gecko being released from prison to a world that has changed. He pens a book, Is Greed Good?, putting a twist on his classic catchphrase. Meanwhile a hungry young trader, Jake (Shia LeBeouf), is playing in the big leagues as Wall Street teeters on the edge of the 2008 collapse. He’s in a relationship with Gecko’s estranged daughter, Winnie, who runs a leftist website. Jake’s bank is crushed in the crisis and when his mentor, the head of the bank, steps in front of a subway Jake tracks down Gecko, giving the impression that he is trying to reconnect father to daughter. But it seems that Jake is attracted to Gecko’s seductive allure. Douglass lights up the screen, as sleazy and beautiful as ever, he pulls the impressionable Jake into his world while grooming him to take on Gecko’s former rival Bretton James (Josh Brolin) who is the head of a Goldman-Sachs type institution. If you’re looking for historical accuracy, Wall Street: MNS has little to do with explaining the facts behind the financial meltdown. But you don’t go to the cinema for the ‘accountant’s truth’ anyway. WS:MNS is wildly entertaining and thoroughly satisfying and could be Oliver Stone’s best film in a while.
Picture Me
Directed by Ole Schell and Sara Ziff Rialto
Picture Me is a documentary about the world of modelling, directed and produced by model Sara Ziff, who is the star of the film, and her boyfriend Ole Schell. It’s good to see a film on models that isn’t as nauseatingly synthetic as America’s Next Top Model. The frankness of the film brings to your attention how very empty the career is. Models’ lives revolve around their appearance and their huge cheques. They endlessly take pictures and walk down runways. The life frustrates Sara, who’s obviously an intelligent girl. But although she’s very likable, she does complain a bit much. She’s walking down a runway and pocketing thousands of dollars for it – you wonder if the side-effect of tiredness, which at one point makes Sara break into tears, is really that big a drawback in this dream career. Sara decides she wants to leave the industry, because she wants to go to college. But it is uncertain whether she will work up the strength to leave in the face of the temptations of money and the modelling lifestyle. There are many poignant moments in Picture Me, during interviews with other models and behind-the-scenes footage, which give snippets of the dirty side of the industry. But Ole and Sara have been too half-hearted in their exploration. Although cases of sexual abuse, drug use, and bulimia are mentioned, that is as far as the documentarymakers are willing to go. Nothing new is really said, unfortunately, by the end of the film. But it’s still an enjoyable ride, perhaps only because it’s fun watching such beautiful people for a couple of hours.
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Alex’s Adventures in Numberland
Alex Bellos Bloomsbury
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I arrived home tonight to discover that, not to be outdone by The Bookseat (Issue #19), BookGem had decided to send me a unit of their book holder to review. So, here goes: BookGem is the quintessential portable book-holder. It folds neatly into a plastic rectangle, no thicker than most cellphones and smaller than most sunglass cases. It seems to be very well-built and sturdy, and is light enough to carry around in your bag or back pocket without being much of a burden at all. In that regard, it’s got an upper hand on The Bookseat. However, its convenient tininess comes at the cost of not being suitable for larger books like textbooks and cookbooks. That said, it deals with small but thick books (e.g., Bibles) remarkably well. This is mostly a function of its book-holding mechanism: a pair of spring-loaded page clips. The page clips are impressively strong; they hold books open more sturdily than does The Bookseat’s plexiglass, elastic band, and toggle mechanism, but are also therefore much worse for your books’ spines. Bookholders are inevitably bad for book spines, I guess, but BookGem really, unapologetically forces books to stay open flat, even if they don’t want to. One of the BookGem’s cleverer features is that has two height settings, depending on where you clip the BookGem. Most of the better book holders have multiple height settings, of course, but they’re also larger and much less portable. BookGem, like The Bookseat, managed to build in multiple height settings elegantly, without additional moving parts. Still, two height settings isn’t a lot. It’s enough for most circumstances, I think, but you might desire more flexibility. Indeed, The Bookseat’s flexibility does come at the cost of its sturdiness; compared to BookGem, books are held more precariously in The Bookseat. So, is this a Bookseat killer? I don’t think so. BookGems are not as versatile in many ways: they’re not as comfortable to use on your lap or in bed, they’re not as height-adjustable, they’re more damaging to paperbacks, and they’re not as easy to turn pages with (which, if you recall, is my pet peeve with most book holders). However, they are a very handy size for carrying around, and they hold regular-sized hardbacks remarkably well.
Chances are, you’d be hesitant to invest your time in a 400-page book about mathematics. If so, however, I urge you to take a chance on Alex Bellos’s Alex’s Adventures in Numberland. Despite its formidable size, apparently dry subject, and uninspired title, this book is actually incredibly engrossing. While he has a degree in mathematics, Bellos has worked primarily as a journalist, and so is able to spin an interesting yet informative yarn. Bored and unemployed, he decided to write a book about mathematics out of interest and enthusiasm for the subject, not necessarily out of some quest to educate the masses But educated you will be; and if you so desire, you will be able to wow your friends and family with interesting facts and anecdotes ... about maths. You’ll find out, for example, a barber’s red and white pole has in common with the word ‘algebra’, and why we find x and not p or m, and about the mathematical origins and applications of origami. There’s drama too: you’ll be captivated by the tragic story of how Sudoku ruined a man’s marriage! Don’t expect any hardcore formulae in the first chapter: it takes a broad, psychological view of humans’ and animals’ innate mathematical abilities before presenting a number of mathematical concepts in tidy, self-contained chapters. You will be utterly convinced of the importance of mathematics in every aspect of your life, only to have this blown away by tales of tribes with no words for numbers above two, who function perfectly well and don’t lose track of their multiple children. Bellos does delve into nitty gritty details about pi, Pythagorus’s theorem, and phi, but for those whose interest is less technical (or geeky...), he yarns about the historical and cultural settings that birthed these revolutionary ideas. There is, as you might expect, a lot of material in these 400+ pages, from the geometry to statistics, the golden ratio to hyperbolic crochet, abacuses to logarithmic spirals. If you don’t think you want to know about such things, Alex’s Adventures in Numberland might just have you surprised at yourself. Thanks to Bellos’ clear and witty writing, learning about math has never been so much fun.
Would You Eat Your Cat?
Jeremy Stangroom Crows Nest
This book promises to challenge your ethical foundations. Surprisingly, despite being such a slim and accessible book, it succeeds in doing just that. The book is structured to present series of scenarios followed by questions to ask yourself about the situation. Many of the scenarios appear to be clear cut cases of what’s right and wrong, but when you turn to the back of the book to the discussion, it becomes obvious that there’s almost always more to a situation than meets the eye. Would You Eat Your Cat? includes content on some of the great philosophers, their ethical theories, and a little history, but on the whole it is intended to make you think more critically about the assumptions you make about morality in everyday life. It’s no ethics textbook, of course; moral and/or political philosophy students might find that it oversimplifies very complex subjects, but this is the cross that any popularised subject has to bear. Stangroom is great as a populariser of ethics: his writing style is straightforward and witty. The scenarios laid out are sometimes clearly based on real-life situations with a few name changes. Ted Kelp of the Eastboro Ecumenical Church, for example, is clearly and sardonically Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church. Other times they are based on classic thought experiments (often used in psychological research on moral psychology, as it happens), like the one with the train that can be diverted onto a side-track, killing one person to save five. The remainder have been created specifically for the book. As I alluded to earlier, there is a discussion section for each scenario at the back of the book. This both analyses the situations in more depth, and tells you something about your own morality based on your answers to the questions in the text. Sometimes the analyses are genuinely surprising, often they expose inconsistencies in how we apply ethical principles in different situations. Overall, Would You Eat Your Cat? is a straightforward, well-written book that does exactly what it sets out to do. Not only will it challenge your ethical beliefs, but it will also make you think more deeply about how you make ethical decisions. Caitlyn O’Fallon
What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures
Malcolm Gladwell Penguin Books
If you want an author who provides random bits of knowledge – a bit of this, a bit of that – and answers questions you had no idea you had (on topics you had no idea you were interested in), then Malcolm Gladwell is your man. This book is a collection of his essays originally published in The New Yorker. A staff writer there since 1996, Gladwell, is also the author of the highly-acclaimed, best-selling Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference and Outliers: The Story of Success. Gladwell is unstoppably curious: he never tires of asking questions and usually about really quirky, seemingly (but only seemingly!) mundane things. Things you might notice, think about briefly, and then quickly dismiss, Gladwell sticks with, digging voraciously for an answer, finding all kinds of fascinating, complexly and wonderfully inter-related trivia as he does so. What the Dog Saw is split into three sections: the first is about obsessives and pioneers. The story I most enjoyed was about tomato ketchup, the people responsible for that classic Heinz flavour, and those who attempted to improve on it. Why, Gladwell asks, does there seem to be near-universal agreement about what ketchup should be like, while mustard (and pasta sauce, etc.) comes in a myriad of varied offerings? Another intriguing character he delves into is the inventor of the birth control pill, who was – did you know? would you believe? – a Roman Catholic! Part Two is about theories and predications. What do Enron, mammography, the Challenger disaster, and plagiarism have in common? Precious little, but his style of enquiry makes each topic fascinating, particularly when you think you already know all there is to know about the subject. Finally, part three offers personality, character and intelligence as well as the second dog-related essay titled Troublemakers: What Pit Bulls Can Teach Us About Crime. What the Dog Saw is a book worth having in the house for those times when you want to read something good, without committing to a whole novel. It is also very handy reading for anyone preparing for a quiz-night or to impress party guests with interesting but light chatter. Enjoy!
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Brett McDowell Gallery Until October 7
C
urrently on show at the Brett McDowell Gallery is a collection of paintings and drawings by Tony Fomison, one of New Zealand’s most well known painters of the 1970s. The exhibition features works from across over 20 years of his career, exhibiting the progression and consistencies of his style, and his longstanding passion for portraiture. The range of works reveals Fomison’s exploration with the expressiveness of the human form, of the play between light and shadow, and the potential for using landscape for personal expression such as in the work Sea Cavern (1977). The lone tree stump in the foreground of this empty and shadowy landscape can be read as an allegorical expression of mortality, a sense that comes across in the dark palette and sombre expressions of many of his portraits. Fomison’s works are not of an overtly gestural expressionism, but rather works of emotional expression conveyed through use of heavy shadow and often a distorting of the human figure. The largest work in this exhibition, and for me the most iconic of the show, is Untitled #139 (1976). This work is an example of both Fomison’s affinity with portraiture and his strong acquaintance with Pacific Island culture and people. The subject’s face, with identifiable Pacific Island characteristics like many of his portraits, takes up majority of the canvas and is rendered with a heavy use of shadow against a dark and simplistic landscape. Though the face is expressionless, the brushwork is heavy, as is the use of black, giving the work its emotional weight. The curved edge of the top of the canvas imitates the curve of a horizon, to me suggesting the division of earth and the heavens, as mythology also plays an important part in Fomison’s works. Light pencil drawings bookend the chronological order of the exhibition, and appropriately so as Fomison considered drawing to be an end in itself and not necessarily merely a preparation for painting. The earliest works (and some of my favourites in the show) are very light pencil portrait studies depicting a playful couple and the blasé expression of a young man smoking through subtle shading and distorted proportions and perspectives. This small but engaging collection of works demonstrates Fomison’s excellent command of both brush and pencil, his interest in both people and myth, and pays homage to one of New Zealand’s best contemporary painters.
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300 Highgate, Roslyn Village
N
estled in Roslyn Village is a bakery that has built quite a reputation just from word of mouth, particularly through the locals. The regulars know that you have to get in early because the popular items can sell out before 8am, and then you would have to wait another week to satiate your cravings – it is open for business only once a week. By 7.30am, there is usually a small crowd at Highgate Bridge (300 Highgate, Roslyn Village), which is better known as The Friday Shop/Bakery, waiting to get their hands on the fruit tarts, croissants, pain au chocolates, meat pies, quiches, etc. that line the shelves and tables of this otherwise sparse, no-frills shop. I was after the pain au chocolates, madeleines, and of course, the croissants. I had heard from more than one source that The Friday Shop’s croissants are unquestionably the best in town. They did not disappoint – the pastries were light and flaky, and smelt heavenly, as freshly baked, butter-laden pastries often do. The almond croissant was filled from end to end with rich, melt-in-your-mouth, sweet almond butter and encrusted with almond slices, so from the very first bite you experience the intermingling of the different textures and flavours from the sliced almonds, the pastry, and the filling. In comparison, the pain au chocolate is not much to look at, but the winning contrast between the faintly salty, flaky pastry and the sweet, smooth strips of chocolate within, makes it my favourite item. At first glance, it looks as though there isn’t enough chocolate filling, but I think that, unlike the more common chocolate drenched pastries found elsewhere, they have intentionally restrained themselves with the chocolate in order to maintain the fine complementary balance where neither the pastry nor the chocolate is the dominant flavour. The distinctly, but not overwhelmingly, orange-flavoured springy madeleines were also very good. There were so many other things to scrutinise and contemplate trying but with the pressure of the crowd of people waiting in line behind me, I got what I was familiar with and got out quickly. There’s always next Friday … The Baker’s Dozen (43 Mailer Street, Mornington) is another, more accessible bakery that I go to for pies and chocolate lamingtons. That’s not all they have, of course, but I believe they’re known for their pies. Like The Friday Shop, you will probably miss out if you get there late, but here, ‘late’ is more like 2-3pm in the afternoon, not 8am. I always get the chicken curry and the mince pies. Their delicious pies are always hot and fresh, with nice, light-ish, flaky pastries and, tasty fillings with real, lean meat. You won’t be going back to supermarket pies once you’ve had one of these.
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Peter Chin
A
s a city we are at a point where we must choose a shared vision for our future. We have made considerable investment in some aspects of our city. Yes, we do have debt, we do have rates increases signalled for several years, but we also have a plan in place to manage our way into a stronger position. So where do we go from here? In order to grow our ratepayer base and foster economic growth, thereby retaining the vitality of our city, we must proactively maximise the promotion of our city’s core advantages and our sustainable business opportunities. In the long-term investment in such strategies will see us in better shape than blindly slashing costs for minimal short-term savings. It has long been a priority of mine to advance Dunedin internationally as an ‘education city’ and to this end I have spent considerable time working with the University, Polytechnic and other organisations towards developing opportunities in China. My work on our sister-city relationship with Shanghai has put us in a unique position – it takes years to establish trust in Chinese culture, and we are now often received better as a city delegation in China than nationallyled delegations. We are making serious inroads towards creating greater opportunities for Chinese students to come to Dunedin, and Otago students to study in China. What’s more, Chinese education providers are interested in how we run our own organisations – there’s a huge demand for ‘education expertise’, and we are in a great position to deliver it. This is but one example of the kind of sustainable business which we can capitalise on for the benefit of our whole city. What is to be the vision for our city? I say an innovative city which grabs its opportunities with two hands, and in doing so makes it a attractive destination for students, business people, new residents and tourists alike.
Dave Cull
I
magine Dunedin without the University and the Polytechnic, and all of their students. The city would be totally different, less prosperous, less interesting and much less vibrant. Every year about a fifth of our community arrives from out of town. But sadly many students hardly engage with the rest of city outside of North Dunedin and George St. That’s partly because of the concentration of student flats in the north end of town, but also because of a “them and us” relationship between town and gown. The city fails to capitalise on the wonderful resource that the student and tertiary teaching body offers. I would like students to be formally welcomed into the Dunedin community each year, perhaps at the culmination of a resurrected Toga Parade. I would like students to explore and get to know all of Dunedin and the rest of our community. Council could partner with the University and Polytechnic in enhancing the streets and public spaces of North Dunedin for the use of the (mostly) students who live there. Some streets could be blocked to through traffic and facilities like basket-ball hoops, cricket nets and street furniture installed. The standard of rental accommodation is being partly addressed by the STARS scheme, but more should be done to lift minimum standards across the whole residential tenancy sector. Finally the city needs to capitalize more on the skills and knowledge of students, by encouraging business and job growth in sectors that might employ them and keep them living here after they have graduated. As Mayor, I will promote these initiatives. For their part students should realize they need to vote to have an influence on their adopted home. Vote Dave Cull for Mayor and vote for the Greater Dunedin ticket of Councillors.
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Kevin Dwyer
S
ince I have been campaigning for Mayor I have come to the conclusion that many of the people making the decisions on the Council are not affected by them.How many of them use Public Transport, take their rubbish to the Landfill,or have to find a carpark so they can go to work. We need a Mayor who is not a scaredy cat when dealing with people who dont have the best interests of the Citizens at heart.I would institute a more open tendering process so that the ratepayers get a more value for their money. I would make Public Transport more affordable. I would supply rubbish containers around the University area to help reduce the squalor.I would like to create a Group representing the students along the same lines as a Community Board with Council funding to avoid the debacle of the Undie 500 and the Toga Parade. I would like the City Council to use more of the talent from the University. Ideas create wealth which creates jobs. Not all ideas are successful but the more irons there are in the fire the better. I hope you all get out and vote. There are some good candidates standing for Council this year. The hardest working of them is Olive McCrae by a contry mile.
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Aaron Hawkins
I
n a recent survey of residents, the University of Otago was identified as one of the city’s greatest strengths, but the student population as one of the perceived weakness, and the current mayor and council have done little more than overreact and antagonize the situation when the Town & Gown relationship has been strained. If elected, I will make sure the DCC actively work towards a minimum standard for rental accommodation in Dunedin. The days of the absentee landlords and slumlords getting their money for nothing are over! Dunedin needs to be more internally mobile, allowing students to choose accommodation outside the North Dunedin area (and counteract artificially inflated rent levels), and this can be best achieved by the DCC taking a more active interest in the operation of our public transport services, and work towards making the City more cyclecommuter friendly. The DCC needs to work closer with the tertiary sector to provide incentives for the best and brightest graduates to remain in Dunedin and set up shop here, by broadening the limited Think Big scope of the aged Local Economic Development Unit, and offering cheap rent for new projects if they remain bonded to the City at the conclusion of the start up programme. The tertiary education sector is one of the great economic assets this City has, both in terms of employment and the money pumped into the local economy by the student population, but for too long the Dunedin City Council has taken that for granted. They are happy to have your money, but are less keen on making students feel like valued citizens of the City they choose to study in. If you pay rent, you pay rates, and the local government you elect this October have a daily impact on your lives, and your place in this great City of ours.
Jimmy Knowles
B
eneficiary / Student 45 years I thank you for letting me take this opportunity to convince you (or us) why you should vote for myself. I was born and raised here and have so much local knowledge in so many area’s of our society as a whole that I have to keep learning. Your our future leaders so to speak so just imagine if all this voting system stopped because of the one’s who simply did not vote. I need your votes especially so if your not intending to vote you might as well waste it on me ay! Some of my best education and teachers i have learned from at our unique university. So much of the previous negative events should and could have stayed positive, like the undie 500 for example with the right management from our end it could be still a major positive event for our people. Also the toga party and those problems associated with that. Another good reason for your vote is it equates to one dollar of the mayor salary and if i am elected then you can decide how it should be spent via a public competition. Let me walk the walk and talk the talk on your behalf vote now and please vote. Democracy or anarchy you choose.
Olivier Lequeux
M
ayoral blurb Or “why I believe the University of Otago students should vote Lequeux for Mayor� Surely, a double chin is bad enough. voting for either Thompson or Thompson (c.TINTIN)-ie. Cull or Chin, will put all of us, whiny newcomers in our place as suggested by a recent OFT poll. Nonetheless, Otago students should not be swayed by phony arguments. The main job for the next Mayor-myself- and the Mayor after that, and the Mayor after that, is managing change for all Dunedin residents, like climate change. As for students, yes, there will be reduction in funding to Universities and skyrocketing debt as there is potential of adding interest to student loans as mentioned by Mr. Key. The current Council is a bit like OUSA where voting numbers are consistently @ less than 20%: no mandate. It is my hope the students who dislike either organization or couldn’t care less, will realize that public policy matters a lot more than the most idiotic communications. By voting Lequeux for Mayor, I will work closely with ALL, ancourage free bus, flat signs, the STARS rating, sports, work experience for students, freeze the rates for the next few years, help sort out the Code of Conduct debacle, welcome the Undie 500 and embrace student culture. I am a decent man. I will not embarrass you as I have managerial toughness and personal ruthlessness. The current Council is full of jerks. But they are your jerks. Vote Lequeux for Mayor.
Lee Vandervis
O
tago Students should vote for me because I am the only innovative Candidate with business and political experience. My Otago degree was finally in Philosophy, after doing Sciences and Arts, so I have fond Otago memories and some understanding of student needs and aspirations. Dunedin needs a business head to pull it out of record debt, and it needs an innovator to heal the destructive divisions between town and gown, Stadium supporters and ripped-off ratepayers, and fun-loving students and besieged Dunedin North residents. Partying students need facilities and areas where they can socialize without destroying the quality of life of more restrained neighbors. Part of Logan Park as Party Central would be ideal for a number of events and a focus for raucous behaviour. I will offer students many more social opportunities that are safe, but I also promise to crack down on criminal behaviour irrespective of who causes it. By dealing with criminal behaviour sometimes wrongly attributed to students, I will improve the currently poor image of Otago students. The University Council needs to promote new knowledge economy businesses as has happened in Canberra. Benefits will include providing real jobs for students, and private investment in a University currently too reliant on Government funding. Otago students should also be employed by the DCC to provide survey and other services currently provided my expensive Northern agencies. Absorbing the Otago Redundant Council is a must for many reasons, not least being that our public transportation system is doomed as long as the ORC run it. It is vital to have a subsidized regular cheap ($2 max) Bus Service, which would open all of Dunedin rental accommodation to students, taking pressure off rents through greater competition, and relieving problems associated with crowding too many students in an expensive North End.
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| i don't know |
In astronomy, the ‘Aurora Borealis’ is better known by what name? | The aurora | Astronomy.com
The aurora
The aurora
The ghostly glow of an aurora is the visible manifestation of complex interactions between Earth and the Sun.
By Francis Reddy | Published: Thursday, April 01, 2010
A bright meteor streaks past a colorful auroral curtain in Chena, Alaska.
Marvin Nauman
An aurora is a sporadic, generally faint, atmospheric phenomenon usually seen in the night sky from locations at high latitudes. More commonly known as the "northern lights," it may first appear as a faint, milky glow, low in the north, too dim for the human eye to detect any color but bright enough to silhouette clouds near the horizon. It may develop into steady greenish arcs or form scintillating, swirling curtains of yellow-green light. During the most dramatic displays visible from regions at middle latitudes, such as central Europe and the United States, a crimson glow fills much of the sky. It was this form that inspired European scientists of the 1600s to call the phenomenon aurora borealis, literally "northern dawn," but it also occurs at high southern latitudes, where it is formally called aurora australis, "southern dawn." The same processes are at work in both hemispheres — not just on Earth, but on other planets as well — and today, scientists simply refer to this phenomenon as an aurora. The ghostly forms of an aurora include quiescent patches, veils, arcs, and rapidly moving rays and curtains.
Many historical accounts of the northern lights from areas far south of its usual location exist. An early Chinese record describes it as a "red cloud spreading all over the sky." The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote that an aurora in a.d. 37 tricked the emperor into sending troops to aid what he thought was the burning seaport of Ostia, "when the glowing of the sky lasted through a great part of the night, shining dimly like a vast and smoking fire." In 1583, similar "fires in the air" mobilized thousands of French pilgrims, who prayed to avert the wrath of God. On September 15, 1839, an intense aurora dispatched firefighters throughout London.
Aurorae occur in two great luminous ovals centered on Earth's north and south magnetic poles. Collisions between atmospheric gases and showers of electrons and protons guided by Earth's magnetic field set the ovals aglow, typically between heights of 62 and 155 miles (100 to 250 kilometers). Each gas gives out a characteristic color when bombarded. Excited oxygen atoms give off yellow-green light, the color most commonly observed. Ionized molecular nitrogen emits blue and violet light, colors to which the human eye is less sensitive. At lower altitudes, excited molecules of nitrogen and oxygen glow with a vivid red. These three primary colors together produce the myriad hues of a typical aurora.
What causes the showers of charged particles that create the northern lights? Ultimately, the source lies in the solar wind, a fast-moving stream of particles constantly flowing from the Sun that carries the Sun's magnetic field out into space. The solar wind, typically moving at 250 miles (400 kilometers) per second, flows past Earth's magnetic field and molds it into an elongated bubble or cavity, compressing its sunward side and stretching its night side far beyond the Moon's orbit. Under certain conditions, the solar wind's magnetic field can merge with Earth's, creating electrical currents that drive protons and electrons into the polar atmosphere. Powerful events occurring on the Sun can drive enormous changes in the solar wind, increasing both its speed and density and enhancing its effect on Earth.
Understanding just how Earth's magnetic field responds to such events is now a focus of much solar and space research. We are increasingly dependent on technologies that are extremely sensitive to changes in the space environment, changes often collectively referred to as "space weather." The story of Galaxy 4, a heavily used communications satellite, serves as a good example. At 22h UT on May 19, 1998, while in geostationary orbit above the central United States, Galaxy 4 lost its primary and backup attitude control systems. At the time, Galaxy 4 handled about 80 percent of all U.S. pager traffic. Controllers could no longer maintain a stable link between the satellite and Earth, resulting in a loss of pager service to an estimated 45 million customers. Researchers believe the incident occurred because a sequence of solar events about two weeks prior to the failure created an extremely energetic cloud of electrons that wreaked havoc with the satellite.
Transient events on the Sun can generate fast-moving clouds of particles that greatly intensify the solar wind's impact on Earth. Solar flares may blast material from the Sun's surface for hours. Areas called coronal holes generate broad torrents of solar wind and may last for many months. But the most dramatic space-weather effects arise when enormous clouds of material erupt from the solar atmosphere and race to Earth. Scientists call these eruptions coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. Somehow, a portion of the Sun's magnetic field undergoes a sudden disruption, stretching and twisting like a rubber band until it snaps. When it does, as much as one billion tons of matter blast away from the Sun at speeds up to 1,250 miles (2,000 km) a second. When a CME slams into Earth's magnetic bubble, it pushes the sunward side closer to Earth and triggers other sudden changes. The result is a surge of particles into Earth's atmosphere — a geomagnetic storm. Sometimes a fast CME will overtake and merge with one or more CMEs already on their way, resulting in a "cannibal" CME that can have an especially dramatic effect. Particularly powerful storms cause the auroral ovals to expand and move southward from their normal locations, bringing the northern lights to skywatchers at far lower latitudes than normal.
The Dynamics Explorer 1 (DE-1) satellite captured the massive aurora that occurred on March 14, 1989 over Earth's southern polar regions. Scientists mapped this image along magnetic field lines to create a view from the northern polar regions (top). This is a close approximation of what the auroral oval would have probably looked like if the satellite had been over the northern hemisphere.
NASA / GSFC / Univ. of Iowa
One of the most important spacecraft in the fleet now dedicated to monitoring the Sun is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint mission between NASA and ESA. Launched in December 1995, it was placed in an orbit around a dynamically stable point 932,000 miles (1.5 million km) sunward of Earth. From here, it has an uninterrupted view of the Sun.
"Two instruments on SOHO have proved to be especially valuable for continuous real-time monitoring of solar storms that affect space weather," says Paal Brekke, a SOHO project scientist. These are the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) — which provides images of the solar surface at far ultraviolet wavelengths that are blocked by Earth's atmosphere — and the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) — which looks for the enormous bubbles of charged particles and entrained magnetic field that represent a CME. Before SOHO was operational, only 27 percent of major magnetic storms were forecast correctly, and most forecasts were false alarms. Between 1996 and 1997, SOHO detected more than two dozen CMEs. "Over 85 percent [of these CMEs] caused major magnetic storms," Brekke says, "and only 15 percent of such storms were not predicted." Because geomagnetic storms can affect radio communications and navigation signals — and even introduce errors in positions determined by the Global Positioning Satellite network — advance notice is increasingly important as our reliance on such technology grows.
Coronal mass ejections, solar flares, and coronal holes tend to be more frequent on the active side of the Sun's 11-year sunspot cycle. This cycle peaked in 2000, with a secondary maximum in 2002, which means solar activity is now on the downswing and will continued to decline until 2006. Activity is now slowly rise as the Sun powers up for its next maximum early in or after 2010.
Overall, the chances of seeing an aurora are not all that bad — especially in Canada and the United States. Because the north magnetic pole lies in North America, the auroral oval generally reaches farther south there. This means observers at a given latitude in North America have a better chance of seeing an aurora than those at the same latitude in Europe or Asia. Both Rome and Chicago lie at a latitude of 42°, for example, but Rome averages one aurora per decade while Chicago could see about ten each year.
The atmospheric activity responsible for the northern lights occasionally has a profound effect on everyday life. "During the aurora of September 2, 1859," wrote American researcher Elias Loomis (1811-1889), "the currents of electricity on the telegraph wires were so steady and powerful that, on several lines, the operators succeeded in using them for telegraphic purposes as a substitute for the battery." For a time, messages were transmitted solely on auroral currents.
A rapidly shifting and expanding auroral oval can induce electrical currents in other long conductors as well. An example that has become legend in the space-weather community occurred in March 1989, when an extremely active solar region broke records held for more than 30 years: Auroral activity was seen as far south as Jamaica. In Quebec, Canada, aurora-induced currents flowed through seven 100-ton capacitors operated by the Hydro-Quebec Power Authority, causing their protective relays to detect an overload condition. When the relays kicked in and took the devices off-line, about half of Quebec's available electrical power went with them. Less than one minute later, the entire power-distribution system collapsed, leaving some 6 million people without electricity for more than 9 hours.
And the blackout could have expanded farther. "The power pools that served the entire northeastern United States were uncomfortably close to a cascading system collapse," says Paal Brekke. Beyond power problems, induced currents also can weaken welds in oil pipelines and create damaging electrical surges in telecommunications cables.
A bright aurora is a feast for the eyes, but it is also a reminder of the powerful forces and tremendous energies routinely at work just a few miles above our heads.
| Northern Lights |
The James Bond film ‘You Only Live Twice’ is set in which country? | Aurora Borealis: What Causes the Northern Lights & Where to See Them
Aurora Borealis: What Causes the Northern Lights & Where to See Them
By SPACE.com Staff |
February 10, 2015 08:15pm ET
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Skywatcher Shawn Malone took this photo of the aurora March 15-16, 2012. She writes: "[A]urora activity picking up casts a bright reflection off of Lake Superior, Marquette, MI."
Credit: Shawn Malone
The northern lights, or aurora borealis, offer an entrancing, dramatic, magical display that fascinates all who see it — but just what causes this dazzling natural phenomenon?
At the center of our solar system lies the sun, the yellow star that sustains life on our planet. The sun's many magnetic fields distort and twist as our parent star rotates on its axis. When these fields become knotted together, they burst and create so-called sunspots . Usually, these sunspots occur in pairs; the largest can be several times the size of Earth's diameter.
This image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun as it appeared in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths on March 5, 2012 just after a major solar flare.
Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA
At the center of the sun, the temperature is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius). As the temperature on its surface rises and falls, the sun boils and bubbles. Particles escape from the star from the sunspot regions on the surface, hurtling particles of plasma, known as solar wind, into space. It takes these winds around 40 hours to reach Earth. When they do, they can cause the dramatic displays known as the aurora borealis. [Infographics: How the Northern Lights Work & Anatomy of Sun Storms & Solar Flares ]
Sunspots and cycles
The sunspots and solar storms that cause the most magnificent displays of the northern lights occur roughly every 11 years. The solar cycle peaked in 2013, but it was the weakest solar maximum in a century. [ Photos: Amazing Auroras of 2014 ]
"This solar cycle continues to rank among the weakest on record," Ron Turner of Analytic Services, Inc. who serves as a Senior Science Advisor to NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program, said in a statement.
Since record-keeping of the ebb and flow of the sun's activity began in 1749, there have been 22 full cycles. Researchers monitor space weather events because they have the potential to affect spacecraft in orbit, knock out power grids and communications infrastructure on Earth, and amp up normal displays of the northern and southern lights. Scientists are also investigating how fluctuations in the sun's activity affect weather on our planet.
Particles and polar attraction
Earth is constantly bombarded with debris, radiation and other magnetic waves from space that could threaten the future of life as we know it. Most of the time, the planet's own magnetic field does an excellent job of deflecting these potentially harmful rays and particles, including those from the sun.
Particles discharged from the sun travel 93 million miles (around 150 million km) toward Earth before they are drawn irresistibly toward the magnetic north and south poles. As the particles pass through the Earth's magnetic shield , they mingle with atoms and molecules of oxygen, nitrogen and other elements that result in the dazzling display of lights in the sky.
An Expedition 30 crew member took this photo of the North Atlantic with an aurora on March 28, 2012.
Credit: NASA
The auroras in Earth's Northern Hemisphere are called the aurora borealis. Their southern counterpart, which light up the Antarctic skies in the Southern Hemisphere, are known as the aurora australis .
What causes the colors?
The colors most often associated with the aurora borealis are pink, green, yellow, blue, violet, and occasionally orange and white. Typically, when the particles collide with oxygen, yellow and green are produced. Interactions with nitrogen produce red, violet, and occasionally blue colors.
The type of collision also makes a difference to the colors that appear in the sky: atomic nitrogen causes blue displays, while molecular nitrogen results in purple. The colors are also affected by altitude. The green lights typically in areas appear up to 150 miles (241 km) high, red above 150 miles; blue usually appears at up to 60 miles (96.5 km); and purple and violet above 60 miles.
These lights may manifest as a static band of light, or, when the solar flares are particularly strong, as a dancing curtain of ever-changing color.
History of the auroral lights
For millennia, the lights have been the source of speculation, superstition and awe. Cave paintings in France thought to date back 30,000 years have illustrations of the natural phenomenon.
In more superstitious times, the northern lights were thought to be a harbinger of war or destruction, before people really understood what causes them. Many classic philosophers, authors and astronomers, including Aristotle, Descartes, Goethe and Halley, refer to the northern lights in their work.
As early as 1616, the astronomer Galileo Galilei used the name aurora borealis to describe them, taking the name of the mythical Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for wind of the north, Boreas.
The aurora australis, or the southern lights, occur around the south polar region. But, since the South Pole is even more inhospitable than the North Pole, it is often trickier to view the southern lights.
Astrophotographer Antti Pietikäinen took this aurora photo on Jan. 24, 2012 in Muonio, Lapland, Finland.
Credit: Antti Pietikainen
Where to see the lights
The best places to see the northern lights are Alaska and northern Canada, but visiting these vast, open expanses is not always easy. Norway, Sweden and Finland also offer excellent vantage points. During periods of particularly active solar flares, the lights can be seen as far south as the top of Scotland and even northern England. [ A Guide for Watching Earth's Auroras ]
On rare occasions, the lights are seen farther south. They were first observed by European settlers in New England in 1791. In "Historical Storms of New England," published in 1891, Sidney Perley wrote, "May 15, 1719, the more beautiful and brilliant aurora borealis was first observed here as far as any record or tradition of that period inform us, and it is said that in England it was first noticed only three years before this date. In December of the same year the aurora again appeared, and the people became greatly alarmed, not dreading it so much as a means of destruction but as precursor of the fires of the last great day and a sign of coming dangers."
When to see the lights
The northern lights are always present, but winter is usually the best time to see them, due to lower levels of light pollution and the clear, crisp air. September, October, March and April are some of the best months to view the aurora borealis. The lights are known to be brighter and more active for up to two days after sunspot activity is at its highest. Several agencies, such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , also monitor solar activity and issue aurora alerts when they are expected to put on a particularly impressive show.
Additional reporting by Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor
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Which two English footballers had a hit single with ‘Diamond Lights’ in 1987? | The 11 worst football singles that should never have been committed to record - The Vinyl Factory
The 11 worst football singles that should never have been committed to record
The 11 worst football singles that should never have been committed to record
Written by
A first team squad of 11 shocking (read: ruddy fantastic) football singles that should never have been committed to record.
Words: Chris May
The mantra “don’t give up your day job” has rarely been more appropriate than when applied to footballers in the recording studio. As the World Cup approaches, here are 11 of the worst records by footballers or about football. Most are so bad they are good; some are so extraordinarily bad they are brilliant. We kick off in the run-up to the 1966 championship, when England won the cup, in the hope that history will repeat itself.
Lonnie Donegan
World Cup Willie / Where In This World Are We Going
(Pye, 1965)
In the mid-1950s, Lonnie Donegan laid the foundations of British rock’n’roll with gritty covers of Americana such as ‘Rock Island Line’. But by autumn 1965, when ‘World Cup Willie’ was released, he had been eclipsed by the very bands, led by the Beatles, whose formation he had helped inspire. Donegan now had to take what the A&R department offered, including this trad jazz-lite, sing-along number arranged by Tony Hatch, the go-to music director for BBC light entertainment producers. Possibly Donegan’s worst record – although, perhaps, his residual talent removes it from football’s absolute-worst list.
Johan Cruyff
Oei Oei Oei (Dat Was Me Weer Een Loeig) / Alle Stoppen Ineens Noor De Knoppen
(Polydor, 1969)
Donegan would not have been able to mitigate this one, and neither would have Sinatra. Netherlands star Johan Cruyff’s ‘Oei Oei Oei’- another singalong, a staple of the genre – is arranged in a style akin to German oompah music, replete with that leaden emphasis on the downbeat that accompanies the bladdered swing of a beer stein and, in defter hands, is a signature of African-American funk. Like many football records over the last 50 years, ‘Oei Oei Oei’ sounds like a bottom-feeder from the Eurovision Song Contest.
Kevin Keegan
It Ain’t Easy / Do I Know You
(MAM, 1972)
It’s a tie between this and Kevin Keegan’s other singles – “Head Over Heels In Love”, a sentimental romantic ballad released during his time with Hamburg, and ‘England’, a sentimental patriotic ballad made to mark his return to English football. 1972 was the year Gary Glitter spawned glitter-rock with ‘Rock And Roll’, and ‘It Ain’t Easy’ employs a similarly mindless four-on-the-floor beat. The lyric warns any admirer who fancies taking up with Keegan that he will be a difficult man to tame. His wife, Jean, was up to the task, however; the couple married in 1974 and are still together.
*It’s not the cover of ‘It Ain’t Easy’, but the sleeve for ‘Head Over Heels In Love’ was too good not to feature.
Winni II
Dynamo / He, Kleines Fräulein
(Amiga, 1977)
‘Dynamo’ was recorded in honour of Dynamo Dresden, in 1977 a dominant team in East Germany – or as it preferred to be called, the German Democratic Republic. As a general rule, any country with Democratic in its name is authoritarian and the GDR was no exception. Winni 2 was one of the state’s officially-approved beat combos. The Amiga label was a wing of the state-monopoly record company and specialised in heavily-censored homegrown pop. Presumably intended to be celebratory, ‘Dynamo’ was taken at a perversely funereal pace.
The Manchester United First Team Squad
Onward Sexton’s Soldiers / Come On You Reds
(RCA, 1979)
‘Onward Sexton’s Soldiers’ is sung over a martial rhythm played on a snare drum to the tune of the imperialistic, mid-nineteenth century hymn ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ (co-written by Arthur Sullivan, one half of Gilbert & Sullivan). The lyrics needed minimal tweaking to accomodate the team pledging loyalty to manager Dave Sexton instead of you know who, and this time the enemies were not treacherous heathens in foreign lands, as perceived in Sullivan’s era, but rival British football teams. A persuasive argument for disestablishmentarianism.
*Thankfully this one’s not on Youtube, but you can listen to it HERE if you really must.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Just Like Kenny / Dalglish We Are Right Behind You
(Zuma, 1984)
‘Just Like Kenny’ plays fast and witlessly with ‘Just Like Eddie’, the Joe Meeks-produced 1963 hit for the ex-Tornados bassist and singer, Heinz, which itself was a medley of familiar moments from Eddie Cochran’s discography. In the lyrics, members of the 1984 Liverpool squad salute their Scottish-born star, Kenny Dalglish. A less inclusive, Little Englander mentality kicked in on the team’s 1988 offering, ‘Anfield Rap’ (see below).
Coventry City F.A. Cup Squad
Go For It! / Go For It, Cupid
(Sky Blue, 1987)
So bad it is brilliant, ‘Go For It!’ is a mid-tempo, sing-along boogie with backing from a band which sounds like entry-level Status Quo crossed with a West Midlands version of Chas & Dave. Utterly bereft of originality, it nonetheless delivers a shedload of genuine and infectious enthusiasm and, in truth, would sit just as well in a best-of list. The 1980s usually sounded more grim…..
Glenn & Chris
Diamond Lights / Diamond Lights (Instrumental)
(Record Shack, 1987)
Much of what was naff about the 1980s on one 7” single. Glenn & Chris were Tottenham and England team-mates Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle, and ‘Diamond Lights’ was a formulaic synth-rocker written by Bob Puzey, better known for the Nolan Sisters’ “I’m In The Mood For Dancing.” Like the song, the picture sleeve has it all, right down to Hoddle’s mullet and the rolled-up sleeve of Waddle’s faux-leather blouson jacket. How gruesome were the 1980s? Well, this record reached number 12 on the charts.
*Please, please also check out the accompanying picture disc .
Liverpool F.C.
Anfield Rap (Red Machine In Full Effect) / Anfield Rap (Red Machine Dub)
(Virgin, 1988)
Released in the run-up to Liverpool’s F.A. Cup Final match against Wimbledon, ‘Anfield Rap’ features John Aldridge and Steve McMahon – the only native Liverpudlians in the squad – mocking their team mates’ various “funny” accents. Samples (still cutting edge in Liverpool in 1988) include sound bites from legendary former manager Bill Shankly, the guitar riff from the Beatles’ ‘Twist And Shout’ and snatches of terrace favourite ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.
Boli & Waddle
We’ve Got A Feeling (Mixte) / We’ve Got A Feeling (Anglais Courte)
(Eva, 1991)
Chris Waddle’s famously uncomfortable appearance on Top of the Pops performing ‘Diamond Lights’ was widely mocked at the time, and Waddle later recalled it as the most embarrassing event of his life. But he returned to the recording studio with Hoddle to make ‘It’s Goodbye’, and in 1991 recorded the part-rapped, part-sung ‘We’ve Got A Feeling’ with Marseille team-mate Basile Boli. Waddle was no more convincing as a rapper than as a singer and, despite spirited accompaniment from a group of Paris-based soukous musicians, ‘We’ve Got A Feeling’ is another chien.
Vinnie Jones & The Soul Survivors
Wooly Bully / Crazy Games
(Cherry Red, 1993)
Vinnie Jones’ lovable-thug schtick kicked-in during the early 1990s, as exemplified by this assault and battery on Sam the Sham & The Pharoahs’ 1965 hit “Wooly Bully.” Jones sounds less like he is singing, more like he is being garrotted. The Soul Survivors are competent enough, but should not be confused with the great 1960s Philadelphia group of the same name.
Postscript: Football has also produced some musically literate singles, a disproportionate number of them from South America. For starters, if you can find it, try Pelé’s gentle samba ‘Perdao, Nao Tem’ (1969), sung as a duet with Brazilian bossa nova queen Elis Regina.
Post, postscript: Honorary mention also goes to Bolton legend Ricardo Gardner’s “Move To Your Goal” featuring a nod to Jamaica’s 1998 World Cup adventure. Sadly this one never made to onto vinyl.
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Who wrote ‘If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you….’? | Pitch perfect: footballers’ pre-match playlists | Music | The Guardian
The Observer
Pitch perfect: footballers’ pre-match playlists
Are Roy Keane’s Sunderland the only football team to have had a soft spot for Abba’s Dancing Queen? Here, Lincoln City’s goalkeeper asks his fellow pros to share their dressing room soundtrack
Footballers’ faves: (l-r) Ed Sheeran (top), Drake (bottom), Neil Diamond, Tinashe, Aloe Blacc, Wiz Khalifa, David Guetta, Liam Gallagher, DJ Khaled, Mark Knopfler. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/REX/Getty/Ben Watts/Redferns/Wireimage
David Preece
Sunday 26 October 2014 04.30 EDT
Last modified on Monday 4 April 2016 10.24 EDT
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Footballers and good taste in music go together like oil and water. The evidence is undeniable. I could chart the course of my 20-year career in football dressing rooms by way of every MOR act during that time, from Phil Collins to Coldplay. Yes, Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola likes Viva la Vida, but we can forgive him because he has excellent taste in cardigans and jumpers. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but there’s a reason why ex-football players are more likely to be seen behind the bar serving than behind a set of turntables DJ-ing. It was after listening to the low-level dentist’s drill droning of Drake , played by Barnsley’s younger lads week after week, that first made me contemplate retirement.
The problem with most dressing room playlists is pleasing everyone. You’ve got 20 guys preparing themselves for battle and each individual has their own way of dealing with their pre-match adrenaline. As one of the best passages in Roy Keane’s recent autobiography reveals, not every player wants to listen to music that makes their veins bulge from their temple. Some want to sing, some want to dance, some just want to relax. At Sunderland, when Keane was manager, his lads headed out on to the pitch to Abba’s Dancing Queen. “They were going out to play a match, men versus men, testosterone levels were high,” he says. “You’ve got to hit people at pace. Fuckin’ Dancing Queen. It worried me.”
I wrote a similar piece to this once before, canvassing musical tastes from pro footballers up and down Britain. This time round, their choices were probably even more predictable. I was desperate for a few leftfield choices, yet almost all the tracks I was given were club floor-fillers: right down the middle of the road. There are those who are desperate to prove their credentials, such as QPR’s Joey Barton , who revealed that his love of Morrissey came from his father playing early demos of the Smiths when his mother was pregnant, but in the main, the hipster beards sported by many can’t be backed up culturally.
The likes of Coventry’s Jim O’Brien, who writes and performs his own original, very listenable material, are a rarity. Former Everton and Arsenal striker Kevin Campbell actually started his own record label, 2 Wikid, with rapper Mark Morrison his first signing. (Enough said.)
Premiership pre-match playlist
I’m hardly a music snob. I grew up listening to Roxy Music and David Bowie, but if I had to cite my influences, I’d probably say Michael Hutchence and Tim Burgess . That said, I will maim anyone who says 1987’s Diamond Lights , by former Tottenham and England stars Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle, isn’t a classic.
For many players, choosing what to listen to ahead of a game is about tempering the nervous energy. One player’s Fire by Kasabian is another man’s Love TKO by Teddy Pendergrass. That’s the reason why many players hide themselves away, a set of massive headphones clamped to their ears, and listen to their own tunes. And I can understand why. For years, I listened to Acquiesce by Oasis to give me some of the Liam Gallagher swagger I felt I needed to play well. In truth, all it probably did was make me look like an arrogant prick.
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I know I run the risk of sounding like a dinosaur but I constantly bemoan the advent of the Apple generation. It’s killed a little of the camaraderie you’re trying to create within the squad. Whether you were all watching a film together on the team bus or listening to the side’s own playlist, you bonded and shared experiences. Times have changed. Now we all stare at our iPhones and tweet one another while sitting a few feet apart. Even the dressing room hasn’t been left untouched by the corporatisation of football. I spoke to my former Odense BK team-mate Anders Lindegaard, now Man United’s reserve goalkeeper, and he revealed that the playlists they listen to are curated by Spotify, the official sponsors of – wait for it – the club’s dressing room speaker system.
Some teams adopt certain pre-match tunes as a lucky charm. I was part of Sunderland’s championship-winning squad in 1995-96 and our preparation wasn’t complete without Oasis’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and the odd standup routine from the manager, Peter Reid. (A joke about snails at Burnley went down particularly well, I remember.)
Just like those footballers lacking in finesse who become cult heroes, it’s the unlikeliest of tunes that become dressing room anthems. While I was with Odense in Denmark, head coach Lars Olsen’s team talk would be followed by an hour of eurodance maestro Dr Alban, which seemed to sit well with the Afro-Scandinavian mix within our squad. Imagine Denmark’s ex-AC Milan defender Thomas Helveg and former Man United midfielder Eric Djemba-Djemba loosening up to songs such as It’s My Life and No Coke. You get the picture.
Kris Commons, Celtic and Scotland
Top tracks:
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“Our skipper, Scott Brown, is really into his hardcore dance. Give him a can of Red Bull and a bit of [German techno outfit] Scooter and he’s ready to go. At the other end of the spectrum, we have a few lads who are deeply religious and like to listen to something inspirational. Take [defender] Emilio Izaguirre, for example. He just sticks his earphones on and listens to something uplifting or watches videos on YouTube. Anthony Stokes is a proud Irishman so you’ll often find him listening to all the old traditional Irish tunes to get himself in the zone.
“We don’t have what you’d class as an anthem to run out to at Celtic, but when I was at Nottingham Forest, the last song we played was always Oasis’ Cigarettes & Alcohol. When I was at Derby County, our manager, Nigel Clough, banned all music from the dressing room before games, which was strange. We just weren’t used to the place being so quiet. It was like a morgue. In the end, Shaun Barker managed to coax him into allowing us to bring some speakers in. We asked him what music he liked and from then on the first two songs were always his: Neil Diamond and Dire Straits.”
Kieran Trippier, Burnley
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“Every team that have a successful season always have a tune they play before a match. It’s superstition, isn’t it? Waves by Mr Probz became one of those songs for us last season, when we were promoted. We’re a pretty relaxed bunch so we listen to house music most of the time. [Striker] Sam Vokes is in charge of what we listen to, but there’s never anything too different because if you stray from what everyone likes then the rest of the lads will batter you. There’s only Matt Gilks who likes rock music. Personally, I like to listen to anything by Drake – something like Hold On, We’re Going Home or Take Care .”
Paul McShane, Hull City and Republic of Ireland
Top tracks:
Avicii: Wake Me Up!
“I’m usually in charge of the music at Hull. Much of what we listen to is mainstream dance to keep everyone upbeat, although I try and slip in Here I Go Again by Whitesnake now and again. I love that tune. During our promotion season two years ago, we had a great playlist that included a couple of Mumford & Sons songs, I Will Wait and their rendition of The Boxer . But the song that became our anthem that year was Runaround Sue by Del Shannon. That was the track we put on as we were going out on to the pitch.
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“Even when we’re training, you never find anyone in the changing rooms. The lads are either in the gym or the treatment room. It’s not like when I was at Barnsley. We had our own playlist with a song each chosen by one of the lads – something like I Am the Resurrection by the Stone Roses or The Seeker by the Who.
“Whenever I’ve been away with England, the Arsenal lads usually put tunes on from Soundcloud. Not everyone’s happy about it, but it doesn’t bother me. The only time I used to see those players was when I was playing Fifa on my Xbox and now I’m playing alongside them, so I just try and concentrate on my football.”
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How many noggins are in an Imperial pint? | Convert US fl oz to Imperial pints, Imperial pints to US fl oz - Volume Conversions
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Convert US fl oz to Imperial pints, Imperial pints to US fl oz - Volume Conversions
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How to convert US fl oz to Imperial pints : Use the conversion calculator titled "Convert US fl oz to Imperial pints". Enter a value in the US fl oz field and click on the "Calculate Imperial pints" button. Your answer will appear in the Imperial pt field.
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What is a US fluid ounce (US fl oz)?
A US fluid ounce is a unit of volume in US Customary Units. The symbol for US fluid ounce is US fl oz. There are 19.21520676 US fluid ounces in an Imperial pint.
What is an Imperial pint (Imperial pt)?
An Imperial pint is a unit of volume in the Imperial System. The symbol for Imperial pint is Imperial pt. There are 0.052042115 Imperial pints in a US fluid ounce.
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The formula to convert from US fl oz to Imperial pt is:
Imperial pt = US fl oz x 0.052042115
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US fl oz = Imperial pt ÷ 0.052042115
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Next, let's look at some examples showing the work and calculations that are involved in converting from US fluid ounces to Imperial pints (US fl oz to Imperial pt) or converting from Imperial pints to US fluid ounces (Imperial pt to US fl oz).
US Fluid Ounce to Imperial Pint Conversion Example
Task: Convert 2,500 US fluid ounces to Imperial pints (show work) Formula: US fl oz x 0.052042115 = Imperial pt Calculations: 2,500 US fl oz x 0.052042115 = 130.1052875 Imperial pt Result: 2,500 US fl oz is equal to 130.1052875 Imperial pt
Imperial Pint to US Fluid Ounce Conversion Example
Task: Convert 75 Imperial pints to US fluid ounces (show work) Formula: Imperial pt ÷ 0.052042115 = US fl oz Calculations: 75 Imperial pt ÷ 0.052042115 = 1,441.14050707 US fl oz Result: 75 Imperial pt is equal to 1,441.14050707 US fl oz
Conversion Tables
For quick reference purposes, below are conversion tables that you can use to convert from US fl oz to Imperial pt, and Imperial pt to US fl oz.
US Fluid Ounces to Imperial Pints Conversion Chart
US fluid ounces (US fl oz)
Imperial pints (Imperial pt)
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Who played Phil Archer in the BBC radio series ‘The Archers’? | The Beer Glass Guide | The Beer Wrangler™
The Beer Glass Guide
The Beer Glass Guide
Beer Glassware
Beer around the world has been served in glasses for many years, but it was only when it became affordable did ordinary people start using it regularly in the 19th century. Pewter mugs, goblets and tankards had been used for years, as it was relatively cheap, and very tough, but the advent of inexpensive glassware caused the quick decline of this form of drinking vessel. Using glasses was instrumental in how we brew beer in the modern age, as drinkers could now see the liquid, they wanted a more visually attractive product, so muddy brown ales went out of fashion, and brighter, clearer and paler ales and lagers were the order of the day. In Britain the pale ale was invented, and in what is now the Czech Republic in 1842 the pale gold pilsener was born – the palest of beers at the time.
Using the right glass for your beer is important for the all round enjoyment of the beverage, especially if you are drinking a specialty or stronger brew. I wouldn’t want a 10% barleywine in a 1 litre german masskrug, and I don’t need a snifter glass to drink my English 4% bitter with my lunch either! Almost all Belgian breweries produce their own branded glasses, which bars and cafés will serve their beer in, making the whole experience more enjoyable. Although not every glass is listed here, I think it is a pretty good round up of the main styles that are available to use and collect for the avid beer lover.
Pint Glasses
What is a pint? Well if you go to the U.S.A. it is quite a bit smaller than the U.K., if you are in Canada, you ought to check with the barman – some places use the British Imperial Pint and others (illegally) sell a pint as the smaller U.S. Pint, so you had better watch out. If you have a pint in Australia you could have an ‘Imperial Pint’ (568ml or 570ml) or a ‘pint’ which is 425ml, it seems to depend on which state you’re in. In New Zealand however, there is no standard anymore, and you would usually end up with a ‘pint’ of 450ml
Imperial Pint: = 568ml or 20 fl oz (Imperial) or 19.2 fl oz (US)
US Pint: = 473ml or 16.7 fl oz (Imperial) or 16 fl oz (US)
Metric Pint: = 500ml or 17.6 fl oz (Imperial) or 16.9 fl oz (US) (an informal term when metrication of US/Imperial terminology is being discussed)
If beers aren’t served by the pint were you live then it will usually be in half litres (500ml) in most of Europe on draught or 330ml bottles; although some European Breweries (including British) sell bottled beer in 500ml bottles. In Canada the standard bottle is 341ml (12 Imp fl oz or 11.5 US fl oz) with the larger style being 650 ml (22 US fl oz / 22.9 Imp fl oz). In the U.S. bottles are 354ml (12 US fl oz / 12.5 Imp fl oz) or they also use the larger 650ml ones. In Australia bottles are either 375ml or 750ml but there are a myriad of glass sizes when you go into pub, again dependant on where you are……. Phew!
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Conical Glass/Straight – Imperial Pint
This is an old fashioned, yet familiar sight in some British and Irish Pubs. Although has mostly been replaced by the Nonic for ease of use. This is a similar shape as the American Shaker Glass but with a larger capacity. Stouts, bitters, mild ales, porters or pretty much anything you get on draught in a British pub are fine in this and most other pint glasses.
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Tankard – Imperial Pint/ 500ml & smaller sizes
Sometimes simply called a ‘Mug’, this is a simple handled glass, usually with straight sides, or slightly tapered in at the top. In the UK before the 1960’s a ten sided glass tankard was popular but not seen these days. Obviously there are pewter versions of these too, for the real traditionalist.
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Krug / Seidel (Stein) – 500ml / 1 Litre+
This is the classic German beer tankard, and comes in a few different forms. Often made with a hinged lid (originally to keep out the flies from the 15th Century onwards) it can be made of earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, glass, silver and pewter. The German term is Steinkrug, and this is for a stoneware version, other materials have their own names such as Glaskrug (for glass). The glass versions are usually seen without the pewter lid, and with a brewery name etched on the side, but the one here is shown with the traditional top and a plaque that is ready to be personalised. Drink any of the many German lagers under 6% in this one.
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Weissbier Glass – 500ml (Germany) 330ml (Belgium)
A specific curvy version of a pilsner glass that holds the aromatics and expansive head of the many German and Belgian wheat beers. American and Canadian craft brewers who make their version of wheat beers, also serve it in these ergonomically curvaceous glasses.
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Tulip Glass (stemmed)
This is popular with some Belgian strong Golden Ales, and is perfect for sipping and savouring these powerful yet refreshing beers. This is also great for Imperial or double IPAs, strong spiced Christmas ales or any strong aromatic beer.
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Goblet / Kindl
This is one of the classic Belgian styles of glass. There are many styles made as each brewery has either a Goblet or Chalice designed and branded for its own beer. It is a pleasure to drink these distinctive and some times strong beers from a glass that has been specially made for the brew. Goblets have a round bowl sat upon a medium sized stem, and are designed for sipping rather than slurping. These are designed for strong Belgian ales any colour. Some more delicate goblets can be found with a narrower stem and and tapering mouth, and are used for some premium lagers in Europe. In Germany Berliner Weiss is served in a goblet and this is called a Berliner Kindl.
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Beer Boot / Bierstiefeln
This is a fun way to drink a beer, and comes in a variety of sizes from the shot glass to 2 litres. Traditionally made in Germany, it is often used in drinking competitions to ‘down’ a large amount of beer in one go. Legend has it that a German General promised to drink a beer from his boot if his troops were victorious, as they won the battle, the General appeared with a specially made boot shaped glass to fulfill his promise without using his real leather boot. This may or may not be true, but it explains the military styling to this glassware , and also makes for a good tale!
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Yard Glass – 3 Imperial Pints or 1.5 Litres
Drinking a yard of ale is no easy feat, but it must be done from Yard long glass, usually found hanging on the pub wall. This glass is a Yard in length (91.5cm) and dates back to the 17th Century in Britain when the art of glass making was taking off. It would have been a great accomplishment for a blower to make this glass, and no known examples survive from before 1674 when a tougher glass called flintglass was being produced. The art of drinking it is something of a skill too, as there is a danger of being covered in beer! The technique is to raise the glass past horizontal and keep rotating it as you drink, – not easy! The world record is 5 seconds for drinking a yard of ale, and is unlikely to be beaten. Half Yards are also available and are good to practice at home with!
| i don't know |
‘Lovers of the Stinking Rose’ have a great fondness for what? | Lovers of the Stinking Rose | Mississippi Market
Lovers of the Stinking Rose
Posted on August 3, 2011 by Jan
Garlic was not a part of my Minnesota German mother’s cooking, so of course I embraced it ardently when I started cooking on my own—that’s what we did back in the ’60s: tried to make it new.
Along with cooking garlic every which way, I joined the Lovers of the Stinking Rose, a very informal Berkeley group devoted to garlic cooking and eating. When Robert Charles opened La Vielle Maison in Truckee, California, in the 1970s, I hopped the first Southern Pacific train I could to chug up there for a five-course, garlic-infused meal.
What changes have been rung in the status of garlic here in south-central Minnesota!—now each August, Minnesota has its very own garlic festival, and every fall, Mississippi Market stocks a lively variety of locally grown garlics. This is a very happy time to be a lover of the stinking rose in the North Star state.
This year’s Minnesota Garlic Festival —the sixth—will be held at the McLeod County fairgrounds in Litchfield. Chefs from the Twin Cities will offer fabulous garlic-infused food. With any luck, the Minars of Cedar Summit will show up, as they have in past years, with garlic ice cream made in their creamery. Newly harvested local garlic—most of it is hard-necked, and happily lots of it is really firey—will be on sale for Christmas stockings, faux Chanukah gelt, and fall and winter braises. You can sacrifice a head or two to planting for your own harvest in late summer 2012 (Check out our class on the subject). What more can a lover of the stinking rose ask for?
It’s fascinating to look over the varieties for sale at the festival; many, if not most, originate in Russia, Siberia, Poland, and other northerly places—I suppose that should come as little surprise. If all you’ve eaten is the conventional, white-skinned, soft-necked garlic that comes from California (and in supermarkets, from China, which exports more than 75% of the world’s soft-necked garlic), you’re in for a surprise. Hard-necked garlics are fuller bodied, more deeply flavored, and sometimes far hotter than standard-issue garlic. Rocambole varieties (for example, Spanish Roja, German Brown, Argentine Red Stripe, Purple Max) offer deep, memorable flavors. Purple-stripes (for example, Metechi, Siberian, Persian Star) become wonderfully sweet when roasted. Porcelains (for example, Georgian Fire, Georgian Crystal, Music, Leningrad, German White, Polish Hardneck, Romanian Red) have few but uniformly sized, usually very large cloves (4–8 per head) and offer the fieriest taste.
Once you know what garlic you prefer, harden off some cloves of your favorites and plant them in fall for 2012’s harvest. The chartreuse-green scapes that emerge in spring possess a youthful garlic-y flavor: you can chop them up as you would chives or scallions and use them to add a bit of bite and green flavor to salads, soups, and casseroles. The beautiful flower heads that rise atop lengthy stems in spring are edible and add striking color (blue to purple) to salads and otherwise blandly colored cheese and potato dishes.
For a more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know introduction to garlic lore, cultivation, and cooking, check out Ted Jordan Meredith’s The Complete Book of Garlic: A Guide for Gardeners, Growers, and Serious Cooks (Timber Press, 2008), a book as beautiful as it is comprehensive.
For a blast from the past, find yourself a used copy of Lloyd J. Harris’s The Book of Garlic (Holt, Rinehart, 1975)—good recipes, great lore, a tonic reminder that avid interest in food in this country did not start in the 1980s or 1990s.
GARLIC FAVORITES
Herb Oil
This is one of the most versatile foodstuffs I know of. You can use it on pizzas when they come out of the oven; as a salad dressing or marinade for grilling, with a squeeze of fresh lemon; as a wake-me-up for mashed or smashed potatoes. Use it fresh within a day or freeze it for up to six months. If I were stuck on the proverbial desert island, this is the one sauce I would want with me.
Ingredients:
2 large cloves of garlic, skinned
¼ c. flatleaf parsley
½ tsp. fresh rosemary leaves
½ tsp. fresh thyme leaves
¼–½ tsp. dry oregano
shake of red pepper flakes
¼–½ tsp. sea salt
½ c. extra-virgin olive oil (preferably a peppery one like Napa Valley Naturals
Rich & Robust)
If using a mortar and pestle, grind garlic and other ingredients into a rough paste; add olive oil; pour into a ½-pint jar and leave out for an hour before use so flavors can marry.
If chopping up ingredients, put olive oil into a small jar, then mince garlic, chop parsley, basil, rosemary, and thyme finely; scrape into jar, add pepper flakes and salt. Leave out for an hour before use so flavors can marry.
If used as a marinade or salad dressing, add juice of a half lemon first.
Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic
Yes, this sounds excessive, but the flavor is memorably sweet and complex and cherished by most lovers of the stinking rose. You could probably win a bet with most diners by asking them to name the seasoning; few would be able to identify the garlic. This is adapted from the late Richard Olney’s interpretation of an old provençal recipe (Simple French Food, 1974).
Ingredients:
4 each chicken thighs and drumsticks, or one cut-up chicken, skin on
2/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil
4 heads of garlic, broken into cloves but not peeled
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tsp. dry herbes de Provence
seasoning vegetables: 1 stalk of celery, small handful of flatleaf parsley,
dry bay leaf, greens from a leek or scallions
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Pat chicken pieces dry so they brown well. Heat 1/3 c. olive oil on MEDIUM in heavy skillet, and when it shimmers, add chicken pieces with tongs (do not break skin). Brown lightly on both sides.
Add the rest of the olive oil to a Dutch oven, earthenware pot, Romertopf, or stoneware casserole. Then add the chicken, which should just fit into the cooking vessel; don’t use a huge vessel lest the chicken dry out. The food should be tucked in companionably (a 3-quart pot is about right for one chicken; a 2-quart will do for legs and thighs alone).
Add garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and dry herbs. Use your hands to mix all of the ingredients thoroughly, so everything is well coated.
Push the chicken pieces toward the sides of the roasting vessel and stuff the fresh vegetables into the center. If any garlic cloves pop up to the top, push them back down amid the chicken pieces.
Put a piece of crumpled parchment paper over the contents and cover with a lid or with tightly closed aluminum foil to fully seal the dish. Bake in center of oven for 1¾ hours.
| Garlic |
Broken Heart, Charley Horse, Wish Bone and Brain Freeze are all parts of which board game? | The Stinking Rose - Italian Restaurant in North Beach
The Stinking Rose
"The Gilroy Garlic Ice Cream w/chocolate mole sauce is incredible."(26 Tips)
"Definitely try the Bagna Calda, absolutely delicious."(7 Tips)
"It will definitely keep vampires away and also your lover!!"(6 Tips)
"40 clove chicken"(5 Tips)
Log in to leave a tip here.
Post
Hermann Brandi November 25, 2016
Garlic ice cream anyone...?
Hermann Brandi November 25, 2016
The Halibut is very good. I tried the one with paprika and was delicious. I will try the one with garlic and basil. Sounds like a great combination.
Jim Murphy November 14, 2016
Everything was good
Try the Garlic Ice Cream (via @Foodspotting)
Greyhawk68 September 9, 2016
Try the Artichoke Ravioli With Red Pepper Bacon Sauce (via @Foodspotting)
Greyhawk68 September 9, 2016
Tana Babcock August 29, 2016
Pasta portions are kind of small so if you're hungry make sure to get some sort of starter. The Dungeness Crab was the best!
Kate Yan August 1, 2016
I recommend the garlic meatballs and 40 clove chicken. The free bread that they give you isn't that great, so don't fill up on those.
Jennifer Newell July 12, 2016
Th garlic dipping appetizer is delicious. You can get more bread if you'd like.
Jamie Dumbill July 4, 2016
Great prime rib. Pasta dishes tasty too. Get the signature garlic appetiser and scare off vampires for months. You will smell for so long after eating all the garlic in this place!
💕Linds💕 June 29, 2016
The artichoke ravioli was really good.
💕Linds💕 June 26, 2016
Eric William Pitts May 26, 2016
Food is authentic, staff is not. Very expensive.
aprilkalinka ff April 24, 2016
Good place but pastas are waaaay over cooked. My husband is italian so we know what is good pasta. This was not. I order meatloaf, and it was good. Just make sure to tell, not to over cook the pasta
Giovanna Hano March 26, 2016
RUN!!! This place is disgusting, over priced, and has slow service! TOURIST TRAP! But if you do decide to take the plunge, the meatloaf is the only thing worth eating.
Pete Williams February 4, 2016
So much garlic deliciousness
Emiliano Viscarra January 19, 2016
Garlic garlic garlic garlic. Meatloaf and chicken are great.
Siddhant Puri January 11, 2016
The fondue, garlic clove chicken and ribs
Bingül Ispahi January 1, 2016
Garlic beef çok sahane😊
Fredrik Holm December 13, 2015
The Fresh Tomatoes pasta is REALLY fresh and nice ! Recommended for a light lunch.
John Brasley September 6, 2015
Garlic heaven
Jimmy Douglas September 5, 2015
Quantity over quality, but still pretty fun.
Randale August 30, 2015
Steve Beeston August 28, 2015
Nothing. Really bad meal. Don't go. Nothing tastes of garlic, food is cold or over cooked. It's a tourist trap. Don't go!
Culera Connor August 22, 2015
Not many options for "non-so garlic lovers" really expensive, and when u go out u STINK for the rest of the day
Benjamin Roodman August 15, 2015
You're body will reject all the garlic fun in a few hours and the next morning.
Jorg Roodbeen July 29, 2015
Must do in San Francisco.
What's Good Here July 22, 2015
A short walk from the waterfront, come over to this bistro for your garlic fix.
Curtis Allen July 22, 2015
Have more then 3 people? Ask for a booth on the north side of the restaurant, much more comfortable
Timothy Mathews July 20, 2015
Everything
Nancy Tran July 6, 2015
Meatloaf was bomb!
Hector A Parayuelos June 17, 2015
The meatloaf is incredible, best I've ever had. Super tasty and moist!
Keiron Q June 11, 2015
Garlic ice cream is surprisingly good. This place sounds like a gimmick but the food is top notch.
CNN June 5, 2015
The garlic fun is not limited to the food. The Stinking Rose's walls are adorned with animated garlic characters, and the restaurant is filled with garlic-themed collectibles. Read more
Mike Winston June 5, 2015
Do yourself a favor – turn around a leave right now. Yes, everything's got garlic, but nothing at this expensive, kitchy, tourist trap is actually very good. Read more on WinstonWanders below! Read more
PJ Pink Schowalter June 2, 2015
Great place!
Natalie M June 1, 2015
Get the hummus to start. So very yummy!
Sean Miller May 26, 2015
Love this place! We can't make a trip to the Bay Area without having dinner here.
Greg Cal April 28, 2015
It's quirky and unusual but a lot of fun for garlic lovers. The garlic ice cream is revolting but it's a must try
Bernardo Estrella April 11, 2015
Never misses on good taste and a good stink afterwards! Jk. Just go with an entreé and a dish
Silvia Edgell April 5, 2015
Overpriced and nothing special. Service was awful. Not worth the visit specially with so many options around.
Amy B March 30, 2015
Service: Great. Good: Adequate.
Daniel Plemmons March 17, 2015
I feel like it's a bit pricey for what it is.
Joseph Tinner February 3, 2015
Came here for lunch on a Tuesday. Hardly anyone here. Service was a C-. Food was a B. Ambience was B+ Check was pricey.
Robert Black January 25, 2015
Everything is great here
| i don't know |
In a standard game of chess, how many bishops does each player start with? | How to Play Chess: Rules and Basics - Chess.com
Chess.com
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Learn to Play Chess
It's never too late to learn how to play chess - the most popular game in the world! If you are totally new to the game or even want to learn all of the rules and strategies, read on!
Getting Better at Chess
History of Chess
The origins of chess are not exactly clear, though most believe it evolved from earlier chess-like games played in India almost two thousand years ago.The game of chess we know today has been around since the 15th century where it became popular in Europe.
The Goal of Chess
Chess is a game played between two opponents on opposite sides of a board containing 64 squares of alternating colors. Each player has 16 pieces: 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and 8 pawns. The goal of the game is to checkmate the other king. Checkmate happens when the king is in a position to be captured (in check) and cannot escape from capture.
Starting a Game
At the beginning of the game the chessboard is laid out so that each player has the white (or light) color square in the bottom right-hand side. The chess pieces are then arranged the same way each time. The second row (or rank) is filled with pawns. The rooks go in the corners, then the knights next to them, followed by the bishops, and finally the queen, who always goes on her own matching color (white queen on white, black queen on black), and the king on the remaining square.
The player with the white pieces always moves first. Therefore, players generally decide who will get to be white by chance or luck such as flipping a coin or having one player guess the color of the hidden pawn in the other player's hand. White then makes a move, followed by black, then white again, then black and so on until the end of the game.
How the Pieces Move
Each of the 6 different kinds of pieces moves differently. Pieces cannot move through other pieces (though the knight can jump over other pieces), and can never move onto a square with one of their own pieces. However, they can be moved to take the place of an opponent's piece which is then captured. Pieces are generally moved into positions where they can capture other pieces (by landing on their square and then replacing them), defend their own pieces in case of capture, or control important squares in the game.
The King
The king is the most important piece, but is one of the weakest. The king can only move one square in any direction - up, down, to the sides, and diagonally. Click on the '>' button in the diagram below to see how the king can move around the board. The king may never move himself into check (where he could be captured).
The Queen
The queen is the most powerful piece. She can move in any one straight direction - forward, backward, sideways, or diagonally - as far as possible as long as she does not move through any of her own pieces. And, like with all pieces, if the queen captures an opponent's piece her move is over. Click through the diagram below to see how the queens move. Notice how the white queen captures the black queen and then the black king is forced to move.
The Rook
The rook may move as far as it wants, but only forward, backward, and to the sides. The rooks are particularly powerful pieces when they are protecting each other and working together!
The Bishop
The bishop may move as far as it wants, but only diagonally. Each bishop starts on one color (light or dark) and must always stay on that color. Bishops work well together because they cover up each other’s weaknesses.
The Knight
Knights move in a very different way from the other pieces – going two squares in one direction, and then one more move at a 90 degree angle, just like the shape of an “L”. Knights are also the only pieces that can move over other pieces.
The Pawn
Pawns are unusual because they move and capture in different ways: they move forward, but capture diagonally. Pawns can only move forward one square at a time, except for their very first move where they can move forward two squares. Pawns can only capture one square diagonally in front of them. They can never move or capture backwards. If there is another piece directly in front of a pawn he cannot move past or capture that piece.
Promotion
Pawns have another special ability and that is that if a pawn reaches the other side of the board it can become any other chess piece (called promotion). A pawn may be promoted to any piece. [NOTE: A common misconception is that pawns may only be exchanged for a piece that has been captured. That is NOT true.] A pawn is usually promoted to a queen. Only pawns may be promoted.
En Passant
The last rule about pawns is called “en passant,” which is French for “in passing”. If a pawn moves out two squares on its first move, and by doing so lands to the side of an opponent’s pawn (effectively jumping past the other pawn’s ability to capture it), that other pawn has the option of capturing the first pawn as it passes by. This special move must be done immediately after the first pawn has moved past, otherwise the option to capture it is no longer available. Click through the example below to better understand this odd, but important rule.
Castling
One other special rule is called castling. This move allows you to do two important things all in one move: get your king to safety (hopefully), and get your rook out of the corner and into the game. On a player’s turn he may move his king two squares over to one side and then move the rook from that side’s corner to right next to the king on the opposite side. (See the example below.) However, in order to castle, the following conditions must be met:
it must be that king’s very first move
it must be that rook’s very first move
there cannot be any pieces between the king and rook to move
the king may not be in check or pass through check
Notice that when you castle one direction the king is closer to the side of the board. That is called castling kingside. Castling to the other side, through where the queen sat, is called castling queenside. Regardless of which side, the king always moves only two squares when castling.
Check & Checkmate
As stated before, the purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent’s king. This happens when the king is put into check and cannot get out of check. There are only three ways a king can get out of check: move out of the way (though he cannot castle!), block the check with another piece, or capture the piece threatening the king. If a king cannot escape checkmate then the game is over. Customarily the king is not captured or removed from the board, the game is simply declared over.
Draws
Occasionally chess games do not end with a winner, but with a draw. There are 5 reasons why a chess game may end in a draw:
The position reaches a stalemate where it is one player’s turn to move, but his king is NOT in check and yet he does not have another legal move
The players may simply agree to a draw and stop playing
There are not enough pieces on the board to force a checkmate (example: a king and a bishop vs.a king)
A player declares a draw if the same exact position is repeated three times (though not necessarily three times in a row)
Fifty consecutive moves have been played where neither player has moved a pawn or captured a piece
Chess 960
Chess960 follows all the rules of standard chess, except for the starting position of pieces on the back rank, which are placed randomly in one of 960 possible positions. Castling is done just like in standard chess, with the King and Rook landing on their normal castled squares (g1 and f1, or c1 and d1). 960 plays just like standard chess, but with more variety in the opening.
Some Tournament Rules
Many tournaments follow a set of common, similar rules. These rules do not necessarily apply to play at home or online
Touch-move
If a player touches one of their own pieces they must move that piece as long as it is a legal move. If a player touches an opponent’s piece, they must capture that piece. A player who wishes to touch a piece only to adjust it on the board must first announce the intention, usually by saying “adjust”.
Introduction to Clocks and Timers
Most tournaments use timers to regulate the time spent on each game, not on each move. Each player gets the same amount of time to use for their entire game and can decide how to spend that time. Once a player makes a move they then touch a button or hit a lever to start the opponent’s clock. If a player runs out of time and the opponent calls the time, then the player who ran out of time loses the game (unless the opponent does not have enough pieces to checkmate, in which case it is a draw).
Basic Strategy
There are four simple things that every chess player should know:
#1 Protect your king
Get your king to the corner of the board where he is usually safer. Don’t put off castling. You should usually castle as quickly as possible. Remember, it doesn’t matter how close you are to checkmating your opponent if your own king is checkmated first!
#2 Don’t give pieces away
Don’t carelessly lose your pieces! Each piece is valuable and you can’t win a game without pieces to checkmate. There is an easy system that most players use to keep track of the relative value of each chess piece:
A pawn is worth 1
A knight is worth 3
A bishop is worth 3
A rook is worth 5
A queen is worth 9
The king is infinitely valuable
At the end of the game these points don’t mean anything – it is simply a system you can use to make decisions while playing, helping you know when to capture, exchange, or make other moves.
#3 Control the center
You should try and control the center of the board with your pieces and pawns. If you control the center, you will have more room to move your pieces and will make it harder for your opponent to find good squares for his pieces. In the example above white makes good moves to control the center while black plays bad moves.
#4 Use all of your pieces
In the example above white got all of his pieces in the game! Your pieces don’t do any good when they are sitting back on the first row. Try and develop all of your pieces so that you have more to use when you attack the king. Using one or two pieces to attack will not work against any decent opponent.
Getting Better at Chess
Knowing the rules and basic strategies is only the beginning - there is so much to learn in chess that you can never learn it all in a lifetime! To improve you need to do three things:
#1 – Play
Just keep playing! Play as much as possible. You should learn from each game – those you win and those you lose.
#2 – Study
If you really want to improve quickly then pick up a recommended chess book. There are many resources on Chess.com to help you study and improve.
#3 - Have fun
Don’t get discouraged if you don’t win all of your games right away. Everyone loses – even world champions. As long as you continue to have fun and learn from the games you lose then you can enjoy chess forever!
| two |
The Nansen Basin contains the lowest part of which ocean? | evaluation - How many points is each chess piece worth? - Chess Stack Exchange
How many points is each chess piece worth?
I am a beginner at chess; please answer this for me:
How many points is each chess piece worth?
I have edited my answer. Now, it is a simple list of individual pieces and piece combinations. Cheers. – Rauan Sagit Feb 16 '14 at 13:51
Rook and Knight - 7.5 points
Rook and Bishop - 8 points
Pair of Rooks - 10 points
Three light pieces - 10 points
Rook and two light pieces - 11 points
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The answer by MikroDel gives the commonly-used "Reinfeld values" of pawn=1, bishop=knight=3, rook=5, and queen=9 (kings are essentially worth an infinite number of points, because the game ends if it is lost). While this is a good guide, chess is rarely that simple. Many books will give the value of bishops as 3.5 instead of 3, simply because they are often much stronger than knights in endgames and open middlegames.
There are other things to take into account as well. For example, bishops are much stronger if you own both of yours, but you opponent has already lost/traded one or both of theirs. The nature of the position can also affect the worth of individual pieces, as a position that is completely blocked up might leave a bishop with no useful squares to go to while a knight may be able to jump straight over the obstruction.
Another example of how the Reinfeld values can be misleading is that 3 minor pieces (bishops and knights) are often more powerful than a single queen, provided that they are used properly.
For some further reading, you might also want to take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_piece_relative_value which has a much more detailed explanation.
3
"While this is a good guide, chess is rarely that simple." that was in no way the idea of my answer. Thats why I wrote that the evaluation depends on position. And also have extra posted an explanation what was meant – MikroDel May 29 '13 at 8:10
4
Even more detailed than the wikipedia page is Larry Kaufman's Evaluation of Material Imbalances . – dfan May 29 '13 at 12:13
1
@MikroDel Yes, that part of my comment was intended to reinforce what you said about Reinfeld's values only being a guide. – DTR May 29 '13 at 13:29
Bishops and Knights are better in closed games, whereas rooks are typically better in open games. Something to consider when trading that knight and bishop for a rook. – BigHomie May 30 '13 at 16:33
Not a fan of the "king is worth infinite points" bit, because it completely abandons any attempt at gauging the actual relative strength of the king. If all that system does is gauge importance, then wouldn't a lone pawn that's currently positioned to prevent a mate be worth infinite points as well? – b1nary.atr0phy Jul 6 '16 at 3:24
Queen - 9 Pawns
The evaluation depends on the position.
In some situation you will find it equal or good to give you Rook and Pawn (6 Pawns) for Bishop and Knight (6 Pawns). But it is also possible that two light pieces are more valuable than Rook + Pawn.
The value of pieces given to you will be a good start point to evaluate your position.
up vote 6 down vote
Though one cannot trade one's king for other considerations -- and in this sense the king cannot be evaluated -- the king still has a practical strength as an attacking and defending piece in the many concrete positions in which no immediate mate is in view -- especially during the endgame. This strength can indeed be evaluated. World Champion Emanuel Lasker regarded the king to be one point stronger than a minor piece.
Thus, in this sense, if a knight or bishop has a strength of three, and if we accept Lasker's advice, then the king's strength is four.
Computer Chess programs provide an evaluation of pieces relative to the strength of a pawn , which compliment's Dave's answer nicely. To summarize:
Piece: Range of Values
Queen: 880-1200
King: 10000*
*Kings are given a large actual value to simplify the search behavior, but essentially have infinite value
There's a great analysis/article about this by GM Larry Kaufman available here.
To summarize:
Rook = 5
Queen = 9.75
There's also a lot more detail in the article about what situations favor which groups of pieces. For example, when B+N is better than R+P, or when Q+P is better than R+R, etc.
up vote 2 down vote
The standard is usually to compare pieces to each other (i.e how many pawns is a knight worth, a bishop, a queen etc.?
Another way is to determine piece value dynamically using the idea of "absolute/potential activity" and "nominal activity". This idea is based on the number of squares any given piece controls (and I believe is partly how computer engines determine piece values). I believe it is also called mobility by some chess players. Let me explain:
First a few definitions (these are my own, created for the sake of the explanation):
Activity = The number of squares any piece controls
Control = (referring to squares) when a square(s) cannot be occupied by an opponent piece or pawn due the danger of it being captured
Center = The squares e4, d4, e5 and d5
Each piece (lets ignore pawns for the moment) has an absolute activity value and a nominal activity value. The Reinfeld system given above is essentially the former, and it describes the value of the piece in its best condition (i.e where it controls the greatest number of squares). For the sake of convenience we can say that this condition is when the piece is in the center, as all pieces control the maximal number of squares when placed there (try it out with a few pieces and see).
We can quickly formulate some absolute activity values for the pieces by counting the number of squares each piece controls when placed in the center (of an empty board):
Queen: Controls 27 squares
Bishop: Controls 13 squares
Knight: Controls 8 squares
*Note that I've omitted the pawn and the king, this is because they are special, and I will deal with them a bit later.
Now looking at the above we see that the Reinfeld scores were more or less based on this derivation, with the apparent exception of the bishop which seems to be closer to a rook than a knight (the thing which is omitted here, is the fact that a bishop can only control squares of one color; hence its low Reinfeld value).
Other common ideas also become clear with this formulation, e.g the idea of the "two bishops" advantage, which, according to this, would be close to a queen in strength! (13*2 = 26). However, this formulation is only half-complete, because in a real game things are rarely so perfect and ideal as an empty board with your pieces huddled in the center.
Thus we introduce the idea of "nominal activity", which is simply the activity of a piece in a given position. Remember that activity = the number of squares a piece controls. Nominal activity can be constantly in flux (since the position is inevitability bound to change) but is a useful concept when compared against the "absolute activity", for three reasons:
It helps you determine whether to trade pieces (and also which pieces to trade)
It helps you decide what kinds of positions to create (this is where common chess principles like "knights favor closed positions, bishops favor open ones" come from)
It helps you figure out which piece's position you need to improve first ("Knights before bishops" comes from this)
Many, many common ideas can be elucidated from this formulation (mostly because it is so fundamental to the game). Consider the idea of a positional sacrifice, it is simply a move which gives up material in exchange for one's piece(s) to get closer to its(their) absolute activity.
This brings me to the pawns. The pawns don't really have activity in the same way pieces do, instead they are used to determine terrain, i.e the "positional factors" on the board which determine nominal activity. In that sense, they are used to limit or increase the nominal activity of other pieces (this why you move the pieces first, then the pawns, because its usually faster to move a piece to a better square than to improve a piece by making a pawn move). Pawns serve other purposes as well, of course, but in the context of this question I think this will suffice.
So to summarize:
Absolute activity: the greatest number of squares a piece can potentially control
Nominal activity: the number of squares a piece controls in a given position
Piece Value: a dynamic measurement based upon how close a piece's nominal activity is to its absolute activity
EDIT:
Notice how easy (and accurate, and logical) piece combination values become when using this system.
2 Rooks (28) > 1 Queen (27)
2 Knights + 1 Bishop (29) > 1 Queen
2 Bishops + 1 Knight (34) >> 1 Queen
2 Bishops (26) >> 2 Knights (16)
Bishop + Knight (21) >> Rook + pawn (~16)
etc.
Also notice how nominal activity can help determine which pieces are better in the endgame (the pieces whose nominal activity is greatly affected by pawns will improve in the endgame)
Bishop (eg ~13) > Knight (eg ~8)
Rook (eg ~14) < Bishop + pawn(eg ~15)
etc.
up vote 1 down vote
I'd say in general bishops get 3.5 knights 3, queen 9, rooks 5 and the king doesn't get evaluated because, as everyone said he doesn't have a definite value, but you could say he's quite important in the endgame.
Now the values change. So in a closed position knights are stronger than bishops, often stronger than rooks even. In half open-open positions bishops are stronger than knights but 2 bishops basically increase each others strength.
Another example, in positions with a small number of pawns and light pieces, 2 rooks are often better than a queen, whereas in positions with a lot of other pieces a queen is (most often) better.
So it all really depends on the position. And my words are true only if you can actually use your pieces as good as possible, or something close to that. :)
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How many vowels are in the English alphabet? |
Gretchen McCulloch
How many vowels does English have? Five, right? A, E, I, O, U. Oh, and sometimes Y. So, six? Actually, English has at least 14 different vowel sounds and, depending on the speaker and dialect , maybe more than 20.
What do I mean by this? Well, if we're talking about spelling, then, yeah, our alphabet has six vowels (maybe seven or eight if you count æ and œ as a single letters in words like archæology and fœtus). But spelling is just the representation of a vowel; even if a language has no written alphabet, it still has vowels. So then, what is a vowel?
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We can think about whether a sound is or isn't a vowel in two ways: the production of the sound and the perception of the sound. Let's take a look at both of these options.
How do you say a vowel?
Try saying the word "snip". Now say it again, slowly, focusing on what your mouth and throat and tongue are doing as you go from s to n to i to p. snip.
When you make a consonant sound, you create a blockage or a point of turbulence in the airflow, somewhere between your vocal cords (or vocal folds) and your lips. Where and how this blockage and turbulence happens is what distinguishes one consonant from another (/s/ creates turbulence at the roof of your mouth, just behind your teeth; /n/ is made at the same place, but the air comes out your nose instead). Vowels, however, are sounds that don't have any blockage or turbulence in the airflow at all. An easy rule of thumb is that a vowel is any sound you can hold while singing ( like Whitney Houston ) and everything else is a consonant. But what distinguishes one vowel from another?
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As a young Isaac Newton noticed in 1665, when you pour beer into a narrow glass, the changing volume makes a series of sounds much like vowels ("the filling of a very deepe flagon with a constant streame of beere or water sounds the vowels in this order w, u, ɷ, o, a, e, i, y"). Think of your mouth and throat as an empty tube (or flagon!)— the shape and volume of the tube determines what kind of sound it will make, kind of like how a trombone makes different musical notes as you move the slide. You can't slide your mouth-tube, but you can change its shape by opening or closing your jaw, moving your tongue, and rounding your lips.
If you fill your stomach with beer, on the other hand, you may find yourself making sounds of a rather different variety.
DS Bigham
One problem with this phonetic definition of vowels is that it doesn't exclude sounds like "l," "w," "y," or most versions of the American English "r" sound, like in the word squirrel. All of these sounds are also made with open airflow, just like vowels.
How do you hear a vowel?
But vowels aren't just things we produce, they're also ideals we perceive as part of a language's general system of sounds, or phonology. In phonological terms, one way to distinguish between a consonant and a vowel in English is that a consonant can come before a vowel in the same syllable whereas another vowel can't. So, in a word like yes, the "y" sound at the beginning, even though it doesn't create blockage or turbulence, is followed by a vowel "e" that we perceive as belonging to the same syllable, so "y" must be a consonant. Similarly, in a word like wood, the "w"—even though it's produced in exactly the same way as the following "oo"—is considered a consonant because we hear it as the beginning part of the same syllable as the vowel "oo."
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Sometimes we do get two vowel sounds in a single syllable, but we perceive these as a single sound, which we call a diphthong (two=di, sound=phthong), like in the words "choice", "mouth", and "price". If you say the vowels in these words very slowly, you can feel your mouth move from the first part of the diphthong to the second.
But even with the phonological definition of vowel-ness, there's still no way to exclude the American English /r/ sound, which is clearly what the syllable is being built around in words like "fur" or "her" or "bird" (and "squirrel"— perhaps that’s why it's so tricky for German speakers ). But maybe that's okay... some linguists actually think that there are actually two American English /r/ sounds: one that's a consonant and one that's really a vowel.
Counting vowels
With our revised definition, there are at least 14 vowel sounds that are common to almost all English dialects: These are the sounds in the words BEAT, BIT, BAIT, BET, BAT, BOT, BUTT, BOOT, BITE, BOUT, and BERT. There's also the vowel in PUT, the vowel in BOYS, and a vowel called schwa .
Depending on your dialect, you might also have vowels in some of BOUGHT, BAUD, BUTTE, BOUY (like BOOEY but as a single syllable), BART, BORE, BEAR, or BALM that are different from any of the first fourteen vowels. And depending on how well you pronounce your borrowed French or German words, you may even have two more vowels, as in BU (French "drank" or German über "over") and BOEUF (French "beef" or German schön "beautiful"). No wonder dictionary pronunciation guides are complicated!
One way to remember most of these different vowels is in the phrases "Who would know aught of art must learn, act, and then take his ease" and "Fear the poor outside the door; beware of power; avoid desire." The first contains fourteen different English vowels and the second eight different English diphthongs. They're still dependent on dialect, but it's slightly easier than listing all the monosyllabic words that you can think of which begin with "b."
So... how many vowels are there in English? Well, it turns out that's not the easiest question to answer, but it's certainly more than the five or six written letters we use to represent them.
DS Bigham is an assistant professor of linguistics at San Diego State University, where he looks at how language and society interact with each other. He also has a YouTube channel where he talks about linguistics sometimes.
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Oil of Cloves is traditionally used to treat the pain in which part of the human body? | discrete mathematics - Combinatorics question about english letters (with consonants and vowels) - Mathematics Stack Exchange
Combinatorics question about english letters (with consonants and vowels)
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1
The english alphabet contains $21$ consonants and $5$ vowels. How many strings of $6$ lowercase letters of the English alphabet contain
a) exactly 1 vowel
c) at least one vowel
d) at least two vowels
Exactly $1$ vowel: The location of the vowel can be chosen in $\binom{6}{1}$ ways. (Of course this is $6$, but we are trying to use a technique that works more generally.)
For each choice of location, the location can be filled with a vowel in $5$ ways.
That leaves $5$ empty locations, which can be filled with consonants in $21^5$ ways. That gives a total of $$\binom{6}{1}(5)(21^5).$$
Exactly $2$ vowels: The location of the vowels can be chosen in $\binom{6}{2}$ ways.
For each choice of locations, the locations can be filled with vowels in $5^2$ ways.
That leaves $4$ empty locations, which can be filled with consonants in $21^4$ ways. That gives a total of $$\binom{6}{2}(5^2)(21^4).$$
At least $1$ vowel: There are $26^6$ $6$-letter "words." And there are $21^6$ all consonant words. So there are $26^6-21^6$ words that have at least one vowel.
There are other ways of counting this, but they are less efficient.
At least $2$ vowels: Again, there are various ways of counting. An efficient way is to count the words that have $0$ vowels or $1$ vowels, and subtract from the total number of words. This approach lets us recycle previous results, and recycling is a virtue.
So take the total number $26^6$ of words, and subtract the $21^6$ all consonant words, and the number of $1$-vowel words we already calculated.
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What is the surname of Del-boy and Rodney in the UK television series ‘Only Fools and Horses’? | Only Fools and Horses - streaming tv series online
as Damien Trotter
Synopsis
Only Fools and Horses is a British sitcom, created and written by John Sullivan. Seven series were originally broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom between 1981 and 1991, with sporadic Christmas specials until 2003. Episodes are regularly repeated on Gold and occasionally repeated on BBC One. Set in Peckham in south London, it stars David Jason as ambitious market trader Derek "Del Boy" Trotter, Nicholas Lyndhurst as his younger brother Rodney, and Lennard Pearce as their elderly Grandad. After Pearce's death in 1984, his character was replaced by Uncle Albert. Backed by a strong supporting cast, the series chronicles the Trotters' highs and lows in life, in particular their attempts to get rich. After a relatively slow start, the show went on to achieve consistently high ratings, and the 1996 episode "Time On Our Hands" holds the record for the highest UK audience for a sitcom episode, attracting 24.3 million viewers. Critically and popularly acclaimed, the series received numerous awards, including recognition from BAFTA, the National Television Awards and the Royal Television Society, as well as winning individual accolades for both Sullivan and Jason. It was voted Britain's Best Sitcom in a 2004 BBC poll.
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Currently you are able to watch "Only Fools and Horses" streaming on Netflix or buy it as download on Google Play Movies, Amazon Instant Video, Wuaki.
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What colour ‘Haze’ is the title of a 1967 hit by Jimi Hendrix? | "Only Fools and Horses...." Reviews & Ratings - IMDb
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Overview
63 out of 66 people found the following review useful:
One of the best
from United Kingdom
21 April 2005
This truly is the greatest comedy to hit the screens in the UK. Some of moments of comic genius written by creator John Sullivan are on a completely different level to anything else seen on British TV. Yes, you can talk about Del falling through the bar, and yes you can talk about the blow up sex dolls. They are classic moments, but there are so many hugely funny scenes that are so advanced, it really is amazing how JS thought of them. For example, my personal favourite is in the episode Heroes and Villains when Del Boy and Rodney go to a publican's ball dressed as Batman and Robin - a good idea for a fancy dress party. But then comes a catalogue of comic brilliance. Firstly, (already dressed in their outfits) the van breaks down in the middle of Peckham. DB and R do a runner and scamper through Peckham only to confront a group of muggers. The muggers leave their intended victim convinced it's the real Batman and Robin! Then comes Rodney's wonderful clench fist (ala Robin) before shouting to Del "Let's go" - in my opinion it's the perfect line and one of British comedy's greatest moments. And to top it off, they finally get to the ball only to find the landlord has 24 hours earlier died. Everyone is dressed in their funeral outfits except for our 'caped crusaders' who stand out like a sore thumb.
John Sullivan's achievements of rattling up 25m viewers is fully justified. Not only does he produce perfect comedy, but he couples that with real drama such as the death of Grandad, Cassie's miscarriage, and Rodney's wedding.
We have grown up with the Trotters - and we have died with them in some cases. But the true brilliance of David Jason, Nick Lyndhurst, Buster Merryfield and of course John Sullivan will live on.
Can I give it 11/10?
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44 out of 52 people found the following review useful:
The Greatest British Sitcom in History!
from Broken Arrow, Ok
19 November 1999
`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!
from Australia
8 January 2002
"Only Fools and Horses" is definitely one of the funniest shows ever written. David Jason plays Derrick (Del Boy) Trotter, a likable rip-off merchant who runs Trotters Independent Traders. Although Del Boy's cockney speech is riddled with malapropisms (such as saying goodbye with words like "bonjour"), he manages to con the public into buying (stolen) goods they don't really want, pay for services they don't really need, or basically give up large sums of money for whatever doomed enterprise he happens to be peddling that week.
Del Boy's gift of the gab comes in handy whenever he has to placate his gauche brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), who, unlike Del Boy, happens to have principles. Rodney allows himself to be talked into the most ridiculous, humiliating situations, thanks to Del Boy's twisted logic and specious arguments.
Grandad is the third member of the team; often the butt of Del Boy's pranks, his cookery skills leave a lot to be desired. He spends most of the time taking care of the flat (filled with all kinds of gaudy junk) and watching two televisions. Grandad was later replaced by Uncle Albert, whose experiences in the Navy have provided him with a limitless store of anecdotes that invariably begin with "During the war..."
Among my favourite episodes are "The Yellow Peril", where Rodney has to paint the grotty kitchen of a Chinese takeaway. "The Russians Are Coming" is (or was) a timely episode where the Trotters spend time in their own nuclear fallout shelter and Del Boy ponders the idea of procreation with mutants. "A Touch of Glass" has the team cleaning 17th Century chandeliers. That episode also proves that the best solution to a problem is to run away from it.
John Sullivan was originally going to call this show "Big Brother". But then he decided that people take more notice of long titles. Sullivan also sings the catchy theme song. Each episode of "Only Fools and Horses" is laughter guaranteed.
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32 out of 32 people found the following review useful:
Nice and cool Trig, Nice and cool!
from United States
10 August 2008
It is time that Americans got to have this syndicated! This is the funniest sitcom I have ever seen. Thank goodness for the trips to the UK when I can sit around with my friends and watch it. I am a Rodney fan. My favorite episodes are the Chandelier episode, the Batman and Robin one, and Del and Trig in the bar where he falls down. This is top notch comedy. I recommend it to anyone who wants a good laugh! I want to buy the DVD set of this if I can get it in American format. It's a shame other Americans have not seen this. I have not met one person here in the States that has seen it. All I can say is they are missing out on the world's best sitcom. American sitcoms are boring, British rock! God Bless Hooky Street!
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33 out of 43 people found the following review useful:
The best? Man, it certainly seems like it!
from England
21 June 2004
Only Fools & Horses has never really been one of my favourites but for over 20 years i have enjoyed it when it has been on television and has gave me many a laugh. My life at the moment isn't actually what you would call sweet so a lot of the time i mope around like a miserable git and laugh at few things. Couple of weeks ago i decided to sit down and watch Only Fools & Horses on UK Gold and you know what? I haven't laughed so much in years! I was laughing so much my sides were splitting which not even top comedies like Fawlty Towers or Red Dwarf could do. Now the episodes i've been watching were the ones from the eighties which are by far the best of the bunch and the last time i seen them i was a kid so i didn't fully appreciate the humour but now i'm in my late twenties it's like ten times more funnier! The episode where Del wins Rodney a holiday and Rodney has to pretend to be 14 is absolutely priceless. That cheered me up no end. I would never ever buy Only Fools & Horses on DVD for the main reason that comedies of this calibre shouldn't be watched over and over again. I'll catch the episodes in another few years time so i can laugh just as hard once again. I never thought that Only Fools & Horses was this good but me uncontrollably laughing proves otherwise. HAHAHA Rodney's expressions when Del does something he doesn't like! Man, you all have to watch this brilliant British comedy. By the way, Trigger ROCKS!!!
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24 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
Classic!!
from Los Angeles
18 October 2001
I'm a Yank who loves OFAH. The characters are charming, the dialogue hilarious & there's usually a nice twist at the end. The way writer Sullivan weaves call-backs into the stories is impressive. A must see for any fan of great British sitcoms. Be wary of the post-domesticated years, however. As much as Del & Rodney deserved steady girlfriends, it changed the dynamic of the show for the worse & diminished its off the wall appeal. The longer episodes also diluted the sharp, compact punch of earlier seasons. Start with the "holy Trinity" years (Grandad & Uncle Albert are both great) to appreciate OFAH at its finest. Cushty!
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20 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Simply the best
from Dublin Ireland
4 October 2005
Classic comedy is a term which is often overused but it fits Only Fools & Horses perfectly. In particular series 1-4 are absolutely brilliant. John Sullivan made you fall in love with the characters so that you could laugh and share in their experiences down through the years as if you actually knew them. The creation of Del Boy as a character was inspired and played faultlessly by David Jason. I felt the later episodes and specials were vastly inferior to the earlier ones but were still well worth a watch.
My favourite programme ever ..............
from Leicester, england
20 January 2003
This show is by far the greatest show in history with out any doubt at all. When it began in 1981 before i was born it was a instant hit but i got to see the videos from thr first couple of years which are good but the best episdoes are from 1985 onwards with the introduction of the bearded uncle albert and his famous quote 'DURING THE WAR'. But the best thing about this show is trigger who is the best tv character of all time even funny than chandler bing from american sitcom friends, he is so stupid it is so funny. In one episode he is talking about his brush which he has used for twenty years and how it is the same brush and then he says that he has changed the head 10 times and 7 new handles CLASSIC.I just hope they still give us the adventures of rodney and del for some time to come.
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19 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
Excellent
from Hull, England
8 September 2001
I will agree with almost everyone else who has posted a comment, this is probably the best comedy show ever!! Its funny though how there are no Americans commenting on it, I presume its shown in America. Anyway, its great. I didnt really like the first few series much, but once the nineties hit, it became really funny, i have lost count how many times I have watched each episode, but they are still funny. 9/10
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20 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
Fantasticly original and hilarious
Author: SoulAngel7
26 May 2003
I wasn't born when it began and its only been in the 90s and through repeats of old episodes have I been able to watch the progression of this unique and hilarious comedy show. As a British person I can relate to the humour and characters and there are some real people like this. I adore the show and its wonderful timeless classic humour from Trig and his "alright Dave" to the warm, but annoying Uncle Arthur who somehow completed the show more than poor old Grandad. This story of two brothers really is made so that people can warm and relate to their struggles in life, because we are all looking to make money and be accepted and loved. Del Boy is a chip off the old block with his "one day we'll be millionaires" and then they were!! Del has some bad schemes, legal and illegal mainly, but he has a generous heart and loves his younger brother Rodney, but his terrible French is always a classic in the joke stakes. Rodney is a little dopey, but always a warm and great character who interacts well with the others and finally found love the lovely Cassandra. All the other characters have an immense dose of the right humor from the ever stupid Trig, to the untrustworthy and sly Boycie to the good mate Mike the landlord of the regular pub the Nag's Head.
This is sublime and classic British comedy at its best.There are easily funny and memorable lines and each episode has a great sense of humour. The show never fails to impress and is one of the superb shows of all time. My particular favourite moments are the episode where they pretend to be chandelier cleaners and Uncle Albert unscrews the wrong one and crash goes an expensive chandelier, the episode where Trig and Del are out on the pull and Del eyes 2 females and says "play it cool Trig, play it cool", goes to lean on the previouly complete bar, which has now been lifted and falls down and the expression on Trigs face is priceless and also the time Del stops the lift to make Rodney open up his pent up anger and sadness after the loss of his and Cassandra's baby. Absolutely a wonderful show that can be repeated endlessly and never fail to make me laugh.
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What is the capital of France? | What is the Capital of France? - Capital-of.com
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Capital of France
The Capital City of France (officially named French Republic) is the city of Paris. The population of Paris in the year 1999 was 9,644,507 (12,067,000 in the metropolitan area).
France is a French speaking country on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, The English Channel and The North Sea.
Additional Information
| Paris |
Who is the voice of Princess Fiona in the Shrek series of films? | Capital of France | Article about capital of France by The Free Dictionary
Capital of France | Article about capital of France by The Free Dictionary
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/capital+of+France
Also found in: Dictionary , Thesaurus , Medical , Financial , Wikipedia .
Paris
(pâr`ĭs, Fr. pärē`), city (1999 pop. 2,115,757; metropolitan area est. pop. 11,000,000), N central France, capital of the country, on the Seine River. It is the commercial and industrial focus of France and a cultural and intellectual center of international renown. The city possesses an indefinable unity of atmosphere that has fascinated writers, poets, and painters for centuries. Paris is sometimes called the City of Light in tribute to its intellectual preeminence as well as to its beautiful appearance.
Paris is the center of many major newspapers and periodicals, as well as all the major French radio and television stations. Elegant stores and hotels, lavish nightclubs, theaters, and gourmet restaurants help make tourism the biggest industry in Paris. Other leading industries manufacture luxury articles, high-fashion clothing, perfume, and jewelry. Heavy industry, notably automobile manufacture, is located in the suburbs. About one quarter of the French labor force is concentrated in the Paris area.
Transportation Facilities
Situated in the center of the Paris basin (see Île-de-France Île-de-France
, region and former province, N central France, in the center of the Paris basin, a fertile depression where the Marne and Ouse rivers join the Seine.
..... Click the link for more information. ), and only 90 mi (145 km) from the English Channel, the city handles a great volume of shipping. Orly and Charles de Gaulle airports (the latter opened in 1974) and many major railroad stations make Paris one of the great transportation centers of western Europe. The Paris metro (subway), built in 1900, was modernized and extended during the 1970s. There are now 16 principal metro lines and a high-speed express subway system servicing the suburbs. The system's hub, Chatelet Les-Halles, is perhaps the largest, busiest underground station in the world. Paris is also the hub of the national rail system, with high-speed trains connecting it to most major European cities.
Points of Interest
Paris is divided into roughly equal sections by the Seine. On the right (northern) bank are the Bois de Boulogne Bois de Boulogne
, park in Paris, France, bordering on the western suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. A favorite pleasure ground since the 17th cent., the park contains the race courses of Auteuil and Longchamps and many delightful promenades and bridle paths.
..... Click the link for more information. and the adjoining Stade Roland Garros (site of tennis's French Open), Arc de Triomphe Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile
, imposing triumphal arch in Paris standing on an elevation at the end of the Avenue des Champs Élysées and in the center of the Place de l'Étoile, which is formed by the intersection of 12 radiating avenues.
..... Click the link for more information. , the old Bibliothèque nationale Bibliothèque nationale
, national library of France, in Paris, a government archive, and one of the foremost libraries of the world. It originated with the collections of writings made by early French kings, including Charlemagne.
..... Click the link for more information. , Élysée Élysée
, palace in Paris, on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Built in 1718 and once the property of Mme de Pompadour, it has been since 1873 the official residence of the presidents of France.
..... Click the link for more information. Palace, Grand Palais, Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture (see Beaubourg Beaubourg
, popular name for the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture
, museum in Paris, France; the popular name is derived from the district in which it is located.
..... Click the link for more information. ), Place de la Concorde Concorde, Place de la
, large square, Paris, France. It is bounded by the Tuileries gardens; the Champs Élysées; the Seine River; and a facade of buildings divided by a vista of the Madeleine Church.
..... Click the link for more information. , Opéra Opéra
(Académie de musique), former chief opera house of Paris, on the Place de l'Opéra, one of the main crossroads on the right bank of the Seine. Designed by J. L. C. Garnier and also called the Palais Garnier, it was built between 1861 and 1875.
..... Click the link for more information. , Comédie Française Comédie Française
or Théâtre Français
, state theater of France. Also known as La Maison de Molière, it was officially established by Louis XIV in 1680.
..... Click the link for more information. , Louvre Louvre
, foremost French museum of art, located in Paris. The building was a royal fortress and palace built by Philip II in the late 12th cent. In 1546 Pierre Lescot was commissioned by Francis I to erect a new building on the site of the Louvre.
..... Click the link for more information. , Palais de Chaillot, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Grande Arche de la Défense, Champs Élysées Champs Élysées
, avenue of Paris, France, leading from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. It is celebrated for its tree-lined beauty, its commodious breadth, the elegance of its cafés, theaters, and shops, and the fountain display at its center.
..... Click the link for more information. , and other great streets, sites, and boulevards. In the eastern part of the right bank is the Museum of the Art and History of Judaism, the Place de la Bastille Bastille
[O.Fr.,=fortress], fortress and state prison in Paris, located, until its demolition (started in 1789), near the site of the present Place de la Bastille. It was begun c.1369 by Hugh Aubriot, provost of the merchants [mayor] of Paris under King Charles V.
..... Click the link for more information. and the Bastille Opera; to the north is Montmartre Montmartre
[Fr.,=hill of the martyrs], hill in Paris, on the right bank of the Seine River. The highest point of Paris, it is topped by the Church of Sacré-Cœur. Parts of the ancient quarter on its slopes were long a favorite residence of the bohemian world.
..... Click the link for more information. , the highest area in Paris, topped by the Church of Sacré-Cœur Much of the right bank, which has many of the most fashionable streets and shops, has a stately air. At night many monuments and boulevards are floodlit. In the city's northeastern outskirts is the Parc de la Villette, home of the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (1986), the Cité de la Musique (1995), the Philharmonie de Paris (2015), and other performance and exhibition spaces.
The left bank, with the Sorbonne Sorbonne
, first endowed college in the Univ. of Paris, founded by Robert de Sorbon (1201–74), chaplain of Louis IX, and opened in 1253 for the purpose of providing quarters for theology students who were not friars.
..... Click the link for more information. , the French Academy French Academy
(L'Académie française), learned society of France. It is one of the five societies of the Institut de France. Development
..... Click the link for more information. , the Panthéon (see under pantheon pantheon
, term applied originally to a temple to all the gods. The Pantheon at Rome was built by Agrippa in 27 B.C., destroyed, and rebuilt in the 2d cent. by Hadrian.
..... Click the link for more information. ), the Luxembourg Palace Luxembourg Palace,
large Renaissance palace in Paris, on the left bank of the Seine near the Sorbonne. It was built (1615–20) for Marie de' Medici by Salomon de Brosse on the site of a former palace belonging to the duke of Piney-Luxembourg (hence its name), and it was
..... Click the link for more information. and Gardens, the Jardin des Plantes (site of the National Natural History Museum), the Chamber of Deputies, the Quai d'Orsay Quai d'Orsay
, quay on the left bank of the Seine River in Paris, extending from the Eiffel Tower to the Palais Bourbon (housing the national assembly). Next to the Palais Bourbon stands the French ministry of foreign affairs, a vast palatial building, which is often referred to
..... Click the link for more information. , and the Hotel des Invalides Invalides, Hôtel des
, celebrated landmark of Paris, France, built (1671–76) by Libéral Bruant as a hospital for disabled veterans. One of the most imposing examples of French classical architecture, it now houses a military museum.
..... Click the link for more information. , is the governmental and to a large extent the intellectual section. The Latin Quarter, for nearly a thousand years the preserve of university students and faculty; the Faubourg Saint-Germain section, at once aristocratic and a haven for students and artists (the celebrated Café des Deux Magots and Café de Flore are there); and Montparnasse Montparnasse
, quarter of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine River, centering on the intersection of the Boulevard de Montparnasse and the Boulevard Raspail. Its famous cafés (the Dôme, the Rotonde, the Coupole, and others) were long centers of the Parisian
..... Click the link for more information. are the most celebrated left-bank districts. The Eiffel Tower Eiffel Tower,
structure designed by A. G. Eiffel and erected in the Champ-de-Mars for the Paris exposition of 1889. The tower is 984 ft (300 m) high and consists of an iron framework supported on four masonry piers, from which rise four columns uniting to form one shaft.
..... Click the link for more information. stands by the Seine on the Champ-de-Mars. In SE Paris, also on the left bank, is Paris Rive Gauche, a former industrial area redeveloped with a variety of newer buildings and renovations, many by prominent architects; the new Bibliothèque nationale (opened 1998) is there.
The historical nucleus of Paris is the Île de la Cité, a small boat-shaped island largely occupied by the huge Palais de Justice and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. It is connected with the smaller Île Saint-Louis, occupied by elegant houses of the 17th and 18th cent. Characteristic of Paris are the tree-lined quays along the Seine (famed, on the left bank, for their open-air bookstalls), the historic bridges that span the Seine, and the vast tree-lined boulevards that replaced the city walls. Skyscrapers, apartment complexes, and highways have been added to the Paris scene in recent years.
Government and People
Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements (districts or boroughs), each of which has a local council and a mayor, but most of the power is held by the mayor of the City of Paris who is chosen by the city's council. Paris and its suburbs together make up the eight departments of the Île-de-France administrative region, which is governed by an elected assembly, chairman (or president), and supervisor and overseen by a prefect appointed by the state.
Immigrants to France now constitute nearly 20% of Paris's population. The majority of these are Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian. Large groups of Indochinese have also immigrated to Paris. About 75% of all Parisians live in the suburbs due to high costs and a high population density in the city. New towns have been built, consolidating suburban areas, and a great deal of manufacturing and other industry takes place in the suburbs.
History
Early History
Julius Caesar conquered Paris in 52 B.C. It was then a fishing village, called Lutetia Parisiorum (the Parisii were a Gallic tribe), on the Île de la Cité. Under the Romans the town spread to the left bank and acquired considerable importance under the later emperors. The vast catacombs under Montparnasse and the baths (now in the Cluny Mus.) remain from the Roman period. Legend says that St. Denis Denis, Saint
, fl. 3d cent.?, patron of France. He is said to have been first bishop of Paris and to have died a martyr on Montmartre. His shrine was Saint-Denis. The Latin of the name is Dionysius; he was long identified with Dionysius the Areopagite. Feast: Oct. 9.
..... Click the link for more information. , first bishop of Paris, was martyred on Montmartre (hence the name) and that in the 5th cent. St. Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, preserved the city from destruction by the Huns. On several occasions in its early history Paris was threatened by barbarian and Norman invasions, which at times drove the inhabitants back to the Île de la Cité.
Clovis I and several other Merovingian kings made Paris their capital; under Charlemagne it became a center of learning. In 987, Hugh Capet, count of Paris, became king of France. The Capetians firmly established Paris as the French capital. The city grew as the power of the French kings increased. In the 11th cent. the city spread to the right bank. During the next two centuries—the reign of Philip Augustus (1180–1223) is especially notable for the growth of Paris—streets were paved and the city walls enlarged; the first Louvre (a fortress) and several churches, including Notre-Dame, were constructed or begun; and the schools on the left bank were organized into the Univ. of Paris. One of them, the Sorbonne, became a fountainhead of theological learning with Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas among its scholars. The university community constituted an autonomous borough; another was formed on the right bank by merchants ruled by their own provost. In 1358, under the leadership of the merchant provost Étienne Marcel, Paris first assumed the role of an independent commune and rebelled against the dauphin (later Charles V). During the period of the Hundred Years War the city suffered civil strife (see Armagnacs and Burgundians Armagnacs and Burgundians,
opposing factions that fought to control France in the early 15th cent. The rivalry for power between Louis d'Orléans, brother of the recurrently insane King Charles VI, and his cousin John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, led to Louis's murder
..... Click the link for more information. ), occupation by the English (1419–36), famine, and the Black Death.
During the Renaissance
The Renaissance reached Paris in the 16th cent. during the reign of Francis I (1515–47). At this time the Louvre was transformed from a fortress to a Renaissance palace. In the Wars of Religion (1562–98), Parisian Catholics, who were in the great majority, took part in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day (1572), forced Henry III to leave the city on the Day of Barricades (1588), and accepted Henry IV only after his conversion (1593) to Catholicism. Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIII's minister, established the French Academy and built the Palais Royal and the Luxembourg Palace. During the Fronde Fronde
, 1648–53, series of outbreaks during the minority of King Louis XIV, caused by the efforts of the Parlement of Paris (the chief judiciary body) to limit the growing authority of the crown; by the personal ambitions of discontented nobles; and by the grievances of
..... Click the link for more information. , Paris once again defied the royal authority. Louis XIV, distrustful of the Parisians, transferred (1682) his court to Versailles. Parisian industries profited from the lavishness of Versailles; the specialization in luxury goods dates from that time. J. H. Mansart under Louis XIV and François Mansart, J. G. Soufflot, and J. A. Gabriel under Louis XV created some of the most majestic prospects of modern Paris.
The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
During the late 17th and the 18th cent. Paris acquired further glory as the scene of many of France's greatest cultural achievements: the plays of Molière, Racine, and Corneille; the music of Lully, Rameau, and Gluck; the paintings of Watteau, Fragonard, and Boucher; and the salons where many of the philosophes of the Enlightenment Enlightenment,
term applied to the mainstream of thought of 18th-century Europe and America. Background and Basic Tenets
The scientific and intellectual developments of the 17th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. gathered. At the same time, growing industries had resulted in the creation of new classes—the bourgeoisie and proletariat—concentrated in such suburbs (faubourgs) as Saint-Antoine and Saint-Denis; in the opening events of the French Revolution French Revolution,
political upheaval of world importance in France that began in 1789. Origins of the Revolution
Historians disagree in evaluating the factors that brought about the Revolution.
..... Click the link for more information. , city mobs stormed the Bastille (July, 1789) and hauled the royal family from Versailles to Paris (Oct., 1789). Throughout the turbulent period of the Revolution the city played a central role.
Napoleon to the Commune
Napoleon (emperor, 1804–15) began a large construction program (including the building of the Arc de Triomphe, the Vendôme Column, and the arcaded Rue de Rivoli) and enriched the city's museums with artworks removed from conquered cities. In the course of his downfall Paris was occupied twice by enemy armies (1814, 1815). In the first half of the 19th cent. Paris grew rapidly. In 1801 it had 547,000 people; in 1817, 714,000; in 1841, 935,000; and in 1861, 1,696,000. The revolutions of July, 1830, and Feb., 1848, both essentially Parisian events, had repercussions throughout Europe. Culturally, the city was at various times the home or host of most of the great European figures of the age. Balzac, Hugo, Chopin, Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, Delacroix, Ingres, and Daumier were a few of the outstanding personalities. The grand outline of modern Paris was the work of Baron Georges Haussmann Haussmann, Georges Eugène, Baron
, 1809–91, French civic official and city planner. Distinguished for his bold alterations in the layout of Paris under Napoleon III, he is largely responsible for the city's present appearance.
..... Click the link for more information. , who was appointed prefect by Napoleon III. The great avenues, boulevards, and parks are his work. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), Paris was besieged for four months by the Germans and then surrendered. After the Germans withdrew, Parisian workers rebelled against the French government and established the Commune of Paris Commune of Paris,
insurrectionary governments in Paris formed during (1792) the French Revolution and at the end (1871) of the Franco-Prussian War. In the French Revolution, the Revolutionary commune, representing urban workers, tradespeople, and radical bourgeois, engineered
..... Click the link for more information. , which was bloodily suppressed.
Under the Third Republic
With the establishment of the Third French Republic and relative stability, Paris became the great industrial and transportation center it is today. Two epochal events in modern cultural history that took place in Paris were the first exhibition of impressionist painting (1874) and the premiere of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps (1913). In World War I the Germans failed to reach Paris. After 1919 the outermost city fortifications were replaced by housing developments, including the Cité Universitaire, which houses thousands of students. During the 1920s, Paris was home to many disillusioned artists and writers from the United States and elsewhere. German troops occupied Paris during World War II from June 14, 1940, to Aug. 25, 1944. The city was not seriously damaged by the war.
Contemporary Paris
Paris was the headquarters of NATO from 1950 to 1967; it is the headquarters of UNESCO and the European Space Agency. A program of cleaning the city's major buildings and monuments was completed in the 1960s. The city was the scene in May, 1968, of serious disorders, beginning with a student strike, that nearly toppled the Fifth Republic. In 1971, Les Halles, Paris's famous central market, called by Zola the "belly" of Paris, was dismantled. Construction began immediately on Chatelet Les-Halles, Paris's new metro hub, which was completed in 1977. The Forum des Halles, a partially underground, multistory commercial and shopping center, opened in 1979. Other developments include the Georges Pompidou National Center for Art and Culture, built in 1977, which includes the National Museum of Modern Art. The Louvre underwent extensive renovation, and EuroDisney, a multibillion dollar theme and amusement park, opened in the Parisian suburbs in 1992. A number of major projects in the city were initiated by President François Mitterrand Mitterrand, François Maurice
, 1916–96, French political leader, president of France, 1981–95. Initially a supporter of Pétain's Vichy government during World War II, he joined the Resistance in 1943.
..... Click the link for more information. (1981–95); they include the new Bibliothèque Nationale, the glass pyramid at the Louvre, Grande Arche de la Défense, Arab Institute, Bastille Opera, and Cité de la Musique.
Bibliography
See J. Flanner, Paris Journal (2 vol., 1965–71; repr. 1977) and Paris Was Yesterday, 1925–39 (1988); M. Kessel, The History of Paris, from Caesar to Saint Louis (tr. 1969); L. Bernard, The Emerging City: Paris in the Age of Louis XIV (1970); M. Guerrini, Napoleon and Paris: Thirty Years of History (tr. and abr. 1971); D. Thomson, Renaissance Paris (1984); D. Roche, The People of Paris (1987); J. Seigel, Bohemian Paris (1987); J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, Paris: City of Art (2003); S. Roux, Paris in the Middle Ages (2009); J. W. Baldwin, Paris 1200 (2010); E. Hazan, The Invention of Paris (2010); G. Robb, An Adventure History of Paris (2010); C. Rearick, Paris Dreams, Paris Memories (2011); S. Kirkland, Paris Reborn (2013); J. DeJean, How Paris Became Paris (2014); M. McAuliffe, Twilight of the Belle Epoque (2014).
Paris
(pâr`ĭs), city (1990 pop. 24,699), seat of Lamar co., E Tex., in the Red River valley; settled 1824. It is a processing center for the rich farms of the blackland region, which produces cotton, grain, and livestock. There are various light manufactures. The city developed after the arrival of the railroad in 1876, and it was rebuilt after its destruction by fire in 1916.
Paris
or
Alexander,
in Greek mythology, son of Priam and Hecuba and brother of Hector. Because it was prophesied that he would cause the destruction of Troy, Paris was abandoned on Mt. Ida, but there he was raised by shepherds and loved by the nymph Oenone Oenone
, in Greek mythology, nymph skilled in the art of healing. Paris loved her but later deserted her for Helen. Oenone, in revenge, sent their son, Corythus, to guide the Greeks to Troy. When Paris lay mortally wounded, he asked her to heal him but she refused.
..... Click the link for more information. . Later he returned to Troy, where he was welcomed by Priam. Paris was chosen to settle a dispute among the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, all of whom claimed possession of the apple of discord, a golden fruit inscribed "to the fairest." It had been thrown among the guests at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis by Eris, who sought revenge because she had not been invited. Hera tried to bribe Paris with royal greatness and riches, and Athena offered him success in war, but Paris awarded the apple to Aphrodite, who promised him Helen, the most beautiful of women. With Aphrodite's help he abducted Helen from King Menelaus of Sparta; thus he brought on the Trojan War. In the war Paris killed Achilles, but was himself fatally wounded by Philoctetes.
Paris
a genus of perennial grasses of the Liliaceae family. The leaves are oval or lanceolate and are located on a whorled scape (usually six to 12 of them). The flowers are single and terminal with three to ten sepals; the petals are usually narrow and long, often almost threadike, and as a rule yellowish-green. (Sometimes they are absent.) The fruit is berry-like or is a boll. Approximately 30 species grow in Eurasia; in the USSR there are four species, the most wide-spread of which is the herb paris (P. quadrifolia), which is found in forests and among bushes in humid areas of the European part of the USSR, in the Caucasus, and in Siberia. Paris is a poisonous plant.
Paris
the capital of France, the country’s main economic, political, and cultural center, and one of the world’s largest and most beautiful cities. Paris is situated at the confluence of the Seine and its chief tributaries, the Marne and the Oise. The climate is mild, temperate, and maritime, with an average January temperature of 3.4°C and an average July temperature of 18.8°C. The temperature drops to freezing 52 days a year. The annual precipitation is 645 mm.
The area of Paris proper is 105 sq km (within the city limits —the department of Paris, which is divided into 20 arrondissements, or districts). The population is 2,455,000 (1973; 2,725,400 according to the 1946 census). The Paris conurbation (Greater Paris) has an area of 1,700 sq km and a population of approximately 10 million (1974). The most important suburbs are Boulogne-Billancourt, St. Denis, Montreuil, Versailles, Argenteuil, Nanterre, and Colombes. Greater Paris occupies the Seine River valley and the surrounding plateaus and buttes— monadnocks rising 100–150 m above the water level of the Seine (for example, Montmartre, Mont Valérien, and the Plateau des Alluets). The diversity of the relief adds interest to the landscape, lending a picturesque quality to the city. In 1970, Paris and the seven departments surrounding it were designated the Paris region (since 1976, Ile-de-France), an urbanized area considered to be a single economic region. Its area is 12,100 sq km (2 percent of the territory of France). In 1974 its population was 10 million (95 percent urban; approximately one-fifth of the country’s population). For a long time, the population of Paris increased rapidly, as a result of migration and territorial expansion. Since the mid-20th century, however, the population of Paris proper has declined (see Table 1). According to the 1968 census, native Parisians constituted only 60 percent of the residents of Greater Paris. The city’s growth has led to an increase in daily commuter traffic. In the Ile-de-France region more than 1.4 million people cross departmental boundaries twice a day. Of these, 860,000 commute to Paris for work or study, and 200,000 commute to work in the suburbs.
Table 1. Population of Paris
15.5
15
The chief branch of industry is machine building and metal-working, which employs more than half of the city’s industrial labor force. The automobile, electrical engineering, and electronics industries are particularly important. More than 2 million automobiles per year are produced (2,634,000 in 1972, or 79 percent of the industry’s national output). The largest plants are operated by Renault (in Boulogne-Billancourt) and Citroën (on the Quai de Javel). Also of great importance are the aircraft industry (about half the industry’s national output), the machine tool industry (about 40 percent of the national output), the production of equipment for precision mechanics and optics, the armaments industry, and other branches of machine building (except metal-consuming ones). Industrial plants obtain metal primarily from Lorraine and the northern and Lyon economic regions. The chemical industry of Paris employs one-third of that industry’s national work force. The industry’s main branches are the rubber industry, fine chemicals (pharmaceuticals and photographic chemicals), and plastics.
The garment industry is a branch of light industry. Paris is the international arbiter of fashions. More than 30 percent of France’s ready-to-wear clothing is produced there. The city is known throughout the world for the manufacture of toiletries, fancy goods, jewelry, and souvenirs. Also among the city’s highly developed industries are the paper, publishing, furniture, and food-processing industries, as well as the building materials and construction industries.
Most of the industrial enterprises are located in the northern and western suburbs of Paris, primarily on the banks of the Seine and along the St. Denis Canal in Boulogne-Billancourt, Puteaux, Levallois-Perret, Gennevilliers, and St. Denis.
Half of the country’s banks and 72 percent of the total national banking capital (1972) are concentrated in Paris. The city plays a leading role in France’s foreign trade, as well as in internal trade, accounting for half the national trade turnover. Major trade fairs are held regularly in Paris. Every year, millions of foreign tourists visit the city. (A total of more than 15 million tourists come to France every year.) To accommodate tourists, the city has approximately 1,300 hotels (55,000 rooms in 1972).
Paris is the main transportation center of France. Important international routes pass through the city. The capital is the hub of 11 railroad lines, which link it with the country’s economic regions and major ports and which are connected within Greater Paris by two circular lines. The most important highways and internal waterways converge in Paris. Canals have been built on the Seine as far as Rouen. The river is navigable for vessels with a maximum displacement of 2,000 tons. A system of canals extending from the Seine and its tributaries connects Paris with the Rhine, the Rhône, and the Loire, as well as with the northern industrial region. The freight turnover at the city’s river port is 24 million tons (1972). The main cargoes include building materials, petroleum products, coal, and metals. Gennevilliers is the main river port.
Paris is a major center for international air routes. The main airports are Orly, Le Bourget, and Charles De Gaulle airport. (In 1972 the total passenger turnover at all of the city’s airports was 16.1 million.) Paris has a well-developed network of subway and bus lines. In 1972 there were 2.8 million automobiles in the city. Automobile traffic does not flow smoothly; during rush hours, even the widest streets accommodate the stream of cars with difficulty, and there is a shortage of parking spaces. The municipal authorities are trying to solve the transportation problem by building high-speed subway lines, underground garages, and expressways encircling and radiating out from the city. (The first high-speed subway line [east-west] is already in operation.)
In the Paris region (Ile-de-France) the condition of the environment is deteriorating. Urban waste products poison and pollute the Seine, and waste gases from automobiles and industrial enterprises pollute the air. Paris has relatively little green area (8 sq m per resident, as compared with 9 in London, 25 in Vienna, and 38 in Moscow).
A. E. S
LUKA
Architecture and city planning. Paris is one of the world’s most unusual cities. Imposing ceremonial architectural ensembles, Renaissance and classical buildings, parks and sculptures, main squares, esplanades, boulevards, and avenues border on cozy, picturesque quays, squares, and narrow medieval streets, as well as on expressways and districts with new buildings and skyscrapers. The city’s architectural character, which developed over many centuries, combines the features of various styles but has artistic unity because most of the buildings are of the same height and the spatial structures are in proportion. The radial and circular layout of Paris dates from the Middle Ages. Its axes are formed by streets crossing the city from north to south, through the Ile de la Cité (the boulevards de Sébastopol, de Strasbourg, and St. Michel), and streets running east to west and parallel to the Seine (St. Antoine and St. Honoré). In Greater Paris more than 60 bridges span the river. The radial highways are crossed by wide circular boulevards built on the site of the city’s fortified walls. The ruins of a Gallo-Roman amphitheater (first century) and baths (second to third centuries) have been preserved.
Historically, Paris developed around three centers. Of these, two emerged in the third century—one on the Ile de la Cité, where the secular and religious authorities of Paris were later concentrated, and the other on the Left Bank of the Seine, where the University of Paris was founded in the 12th-13th centuries. In the fifth through 13th centuries churches were built, and a ring of fortifications was constructed. New settlements developed around monasteries established near the city. The cultural and economic growth of Paris was associated with the flowering of the Romanesque (11th—12th centuries) and Gothic styles (mid-12th century through early 16th). Among the buildings in these styles are the towers of John the Fearless (late 14th century) and St. Jacques (beginning of the 16th century), as well as many churches: the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, St. Germain des Prés (11th—17th centuries), St. Martin des Champs (12th-13th centuries), and St. Pierre de Montmartre (parts dating from the 12th century). Other Gothic churches include St. Julien le Pauvre (12th—17th centuries), St. Germain l’Auxerrois (parts from the 13th—15th centuries), and St. Séverin (13th-16th centuries). During the Middle Ages the city’s third historical center emerged—the trading and artisan districts on the Right Bank.
Most of the buildings erected after the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) were private residences, including the Hôtel de Cluny (now a museum; begun in 1485) and the Hôtel de Sens (begun in 1474). In the 16th and 17th centuries construction resumed its earlier pace, and an element of rational, regular planning was introduced into the chaotic medieval layout. During this period the city’s most important classical ensembles were built, including the Place des Vosges (1606–12, architect C. de Châtillon), as well as the Place Vendôme (1685–1701) and the Place des Victoires (1685–86, both by the architect J. Hardouin-Mansart). In addition, structures important from the point of view of city planning were erected, including the Pont Neuf (1578–1606, architect J. B. du Cerceau), the Fontaine des Innocents (1547–49, sculptor J. Goujon), and the Porte St. Denis (1672, architect F. Blondel). Among the palaces dating from the 16th and 17th centuries are the Louvre, the Tuileries Palace (begun in 1564, architect P. Delorme, not preserved; with the Pavillon de Flore, 1600–08, architect J. B. du Cerceau), the Luxembourg Palace (1615–20, architect S. de Brosse), and the Palais Royal (1629–36, architect J. Lemercier). A number of important public buildings were constructed during the 17th century, including the Sorbonne (begun in 1629, with a church, 1635–54; architect Lemercier) and the Collège des Quatre-Nations (now the Institut de France; begun in 1661, architect L. Le Vau). Private residences dating from this period include the Hôtel Carnavalet (now a museum; begun in 1544, architect P. Lescot, sculptor J. Goujon; alterations in 1660–61, architect N. F. Mansart) and the Hôtel de Sully (c. 1624, architect Jean I A. du Cereau). The Val de Grâce Monastery was built during this period (1645–1710, architects Mansart, Lemercier, and G. Le Duc), as was the Church of St. Roch (begun in 1653, architect Lemercier; from 1705, architect Hardouin-Mansart; completed in 1735, architect R. de Cotte). Wide avenues, including the Grand Boulevards, were built during the 1670’s.
From the late 18th century through the early 19th, one of the main projects in city planning was the construction of squares —Place Louis XV (now Place de la Concorde; 1753–75, architect J. A. Gabriel) and the Place du Carrousel, with the Arch of Triumph (1806, architects C. Percier and P. Fontaine). Another major project was the erection of city gates (1784–89, architect C. N. Ledoux). Chiefly as a result of the work of G. E. Haussmann, prefect of the department of the Seine, extensive urban renewal measures were carried out between 1853 and 1896. Major transportation arteries were constructed (for example, the Rue de Rivoli, and the axis made up of the boulevards de Strasbourg, de Sébastopol, and St. Michel). Public squares were built, with streets radiating out from them (for example, the Place de la République, 1854–62). In addition, new public gardens and forested parks were designed, including the Bois de Boulogne (1852–58) and the Bois de Vincennes (1859–60).
In the wealthy bourgeois residential districts of western Paris, where major improvements were made (asphalt paving and gas lighting, for example), there are streets unusual for their width, green area, and impressive buildings. In the overcrowded eastern and northern districts, which are inhabited by workers, artisans, and lower-level office workers, there are many old buildings without modern facilities, and apartment houses are interspersed with industrial enterprises.
The eclectic and modernist styles of architecture were in vogue from the second half of the 19th century through the early 20th. Typical of the eclectic style are the Opéra and the Sacré Coeur basilica (begun in 1875, architect P. Abadie; illumination installed in 1919). Examples of the modernist style include subway entrances built around 1900 (H. Guimard) and the Théâtre des Champs Elysées (1911–13, architects A. Perret and G. Perret).
During the 20th century the residential quarters on the outskirts of the city grew rapidly, and many shops, large stations, and exhibition halls were built. In the 1920’s and 1930’s most construction projects were in the suburbs (for example, housing developments such as Le Pré-St.-Gervais [1929], Pantin [1930–33], and Drancy [1934]). After World War II (1939–45) and especially in the 1950’s, large residential areas were built in the suburbs, including Bobigny, Bonneuil, Massy-Antony, Sarcelles, and Bagnolet. Nonetheless, the concentration of an enormous population on a small territory has given rise to many extremely complex urban problems, including an acute housing crisis. The resolution of the housing problem is impeded by limited municipal credits for housing construction, by private landed property, and by real estate speculation, as well as by the grave deterioration of much of the city’s housing. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s intensive construction of residential complexes continued on the periphery of Paris (Nanterre and Créteil, for example). Urban renewal projects in the city’s central districts have emphasized the construction of new buildings among existing ones—for example, the UNESCO building (1953–57, architects M. Breuer and B. Zehrfuss, engineer P. L. Nervi); the building for the Office of French Radio Broadcasting and Television (1959–63, architect H. Bernard); and the building of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party (1966–71, Brazilian architect O. Neimeyer). Problems in city planning are being solved by the construction of complexes of buildings, including two situated outside the city limits—the National Center for Industries and Technology (1958, architects B. Zehrfuss, R. Camelot, and J. de Mailly) and the new government and business center at the Quartier de la Défense (20 skyscrapers, begun in 1964). Construction of Maine-Montparnasse, a high-rise business center, began in 1964 (architects E. Beaudouin, J. Dubuisson, and R. Lopez). The Front de Seine is a modern residential and office complex (begun in 1965; architects R. Lopez, A. Pottier, and M. Prou). Neither project has any relation to the structures around it. As a result, the distinctive unity and organic character of the city’s architecture have been lost, at least in part. To solve the main problems in city planning—preserving the city’s uniqueness and limiting its growth—satellite towns are under construction, and gradual decentralization of the city has been recommended.
There are many important architectural ensembles in Paris. Among those located on the Ile de la Cité is the Palais de Justice (1783–86, architects P. Desmaisons and J. D. Antoine). Built on the site of the royal castle, it includes the 14th-century Conciergerie. The Ile de la Cité is also known for the Tour de l’Horloge (1370, clock installed c. 1585; sculptor G. Pilon), as well as for the Sainte Chapelle (1243–48; stained-glass windows, 13th—15th centuries) and the cathedral of Notre Dame (1163–1257).
On the Left Bank, one of the most important architectural ensembles is the Hôtel des Invalides (1671–76, architect L. Bruant), with the Cathédrale des Invalides (1680–1706, architect J. Hardouin-Mansart). The Hôtel des Invalides faces the Esplanade des Invalides and the Pont Alexandre III (1896–1900), which leads from the Esplanade des Invalides to two Right Bank exhibition halls, the Grand Palais (1900, chief architect J. A. A. Deglane) and the Petit Palais (1900, architect C. Girault). Another axis begins near the Hôtel des Invalides and includes the Ecole Militaire (1751–75, architect J. A. Gabriel) and, leading to the Jena Bridge (1809–13), the Champ de Mars (modern layout, 1908–28), with the Eiffel Tower (1889). On the Right Bank this axis culminates in the Palais de Chaillot (1936, main architect L. Azéma). Left Bank architectural ensembles also include the Panthéon (1758–90, architect J.-B. Soufflot), the Bibliothèque Ste. Geneviève (1843–50, architect H. Labrouste), and the church of St. Etienne du Mont (rebuilt between 1492 and 1626).
On the Right Bank the center of the architectural ensembles is formed by the intersection of two axes at the Place de la Concorde. The first axis, the main chain of architectural ensembles located at the center of the city, may be represented schematically as a series of squares. It consists of the Louvre (1546-mid-19th century) and the Jardin des Tuileries (architect A. Lenôtre), the Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysées (17th century, architect A. Lenôtre; built primarily in the 19th century), and the Place De Gaulle (formerly the Place de l’Etoile) with the Arch of Triumph (1806–37). Perpendicular to this axis is another one made up of the Rue Royale (1732), which leads from the Place de la Concorde north to the Place de la Madeleine, with the church of the Madeleine (begun in 1806, architect P.-A. Vignon; illumination installed in 1842). To the south, on the opposite side of the Seine, the axis culminates in the Palais Bourbon (the National Assembly; begun in 1722, facade 1804–07, architect B. Poyet).
Among the most important monuments in Paris are the Vendôme Column (1806–10, architects J.-B. Lepère and J. Gondouin), the relief La Marseillaise on the Arch of Triumph (1833–36, sculptor F. Rude), and the Wall of the Communards in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (1909, sculptor P. Moreau-Vauthier). Other important monuments include the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, under the Arch of Triumph (1921); the Memorial to the Martyrs of the Resistance on Mont Valérien (1960–61); and the Memorial to the Victims of the Fascist Concentration Camps (Ile de la Cité; 1961, architect H. Pingusson).
Educational, scientific, and cultural institutions. Among the educational institutions located in Paris are the University of Paris, the Collège de France, the Ecole Practique Supérieure, the Institut Polytechnique National, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, the Ecole National Supérieure de l’Education Technique, and the Catholic University of Paris. There are more than 40 “independent” institutes in the city, as well as two conservatories (dramatic arts and music), the Ecole du Louvre, and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Many scientific and scholarly institutions are located in Paris, including the Institut de France, which consists of five academies; the French Agricultural Academy; the Academy of Architecture; the Academy of Surgery; the Naval Academy; and the Academy of the Latin World. Other scientific institutions in the city are the National Academy of Medicine, the French Veterinary Academy, the National Center for Scientific Research, and various research institutes and scientific societies in all branches of science. France’s major libraries, including the National Archives and the National Library, are located in Paris. In addition, there are about 50 libraries at academies, universities, research institutes, and scientific societies.
The Louvre, one of the world’s largest museums, is located in Paris, as are the Carnavalet Museum, which is devoted to the history of Paris; the National Museum of Modern Art; the Rodin Museum; the Army Museum (at the Hôtel des Invalides); and the Guimet Museum, which is devoted to the cultural history of several Asian countries. Also located in Paris are the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of the Legion of Honor, the Balzac and Hugo memorial museums, and the V. I. Lenin Apartment Museum.
Paris, one of the greatest theater centers in the world, has more than 60 theaters. In 1974 the leading ones included the Opéra, the Comédie Française, and the Théâtre de l’Est Parisien, which are subsidized by the government. Many theaters are located on the Grands Boulevards, including the Hébertot, the Renaissance, the Gymnase, the Porte St. Martin, Michodière, the Théâtre des Mathurins, and Comédie Caumartin. The stages of the Théâtre des Nations, the Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Odéon are usually reserved for various companies on tour. The popular suburban theaters represent the democratic wing of French theater arts. Among the best known of these are the Théâtre de la Commune (Aubervilliers), the Théâtre Gérard Philipe (St. Denis), the Théâtre des Amandiers (Nanterre), and the Théâtre du Soleil (Vincennes). Chansonniers perform at the city’s numerous café theaters and cabarets. Among the concert halls of Paris are the Salle Pleyel, the Palais des Sports, the Olympia, and the Bobino. Actors are trained at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art, musicians at the Paris Conservatory, and cinematographers at the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Study.
REFERENCES
Barroux, R. Paris dès origines à nos jours et son rôle dans l’histoire de la civilisation. Paris, 1951.
Boudet, J. Histoire de Paris et des parisiens. Paris, 1957.
Wilhelm, J. Paris au cours des siècles. [Paris, 1961.]
Ziegler, G. Paris et ses révolutions. Paris, 1970.
Izmailova, R. Parizh. Moscow, 1954.
Vitver, I. A., and A. E. Sluka. Frantsiia. Moscow, 1958.
Biriukov, V. P. Parizh. Moscow, 1968.
Sytin, V. A. Parizh—gorod raznyi: Ocherki. Moscow, 1973.
Arkin, D. Parizh: Arkhitekturnye ansambli goroda. [Moscow] 1937.
Kalitina, I. N. Muzei Parizha. Leningrad-Moscow, 1967.
Piliavskii, V. I., and N. Ia. Leiboshits. Parizh. Leningrad, 1968.
Maurois, A. Parizh (Goroda i muzei mira series). Moscow, 1970. (Translated from French.)
Hoffbauer, F. Paris à travers les âges, 2nd ed. Paris, 1885.
Contet, F. Les Vieux Hôtels de Paris, vols. 1–21. Paris, 1908–34.
Morizet, A. Du Vieux Paris au Paris moderne. Paris, 1932.
Boinet, A. Les Eglises parisiennes: Moyen âge e! Renaissance. Paris, 1958.
Christ, Y. Paris. Paris, 1961.
Hautecoeur, L. Paris, vols. 1–2. Paris, 1972. [19–584–3; updated]
Paris
in the Iliad, a son of the Trojan king Priam and Hecuba. He was exposed on a mountain upon birth because soothsayers had predicted that he would cause the ruin of Troy. Rescued by shepherds, Paris survived and, when he grew up, was made shepherd of the royal flocks on Mount Ida. Zeus chose him to act as judge in a quarrel between the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Aphrodite received the golden apple—the apple of discord—from Paris as the most beautiful of the three goddesses and thereafter became his protectress. She helped him abduct Helen, the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus, which led to the Trojan War. At the end of the war, Paris slew Achilles but himself perished when struck by a poisoned arrow of Philoctetes.
In classical art, Paris was portrayed as a handsome youth. L. Cranach, P. P. Rubens, and A. Watteau are among the later artists to depict Paris in their works.
Paris
disguised as priest of Venus to free Helen. [Fr. Operetta: Offenbach, La Belle Hélène, Westerman, 272–273]
Paris
1
1. Greek myth a prince of Troy, whose abduction of Helen from her husband Menelaus started the Trojan War
2. Matthew. ?1200--59, English chronicler, whose principal work is the Chronica Majora
Paris
2
1. the capital of France, in the north on the River Seine: constitutes a department; dates from the 3rd century bc, becoming capital of France in 987; centre of the French Revolution; centres around its original site on an island in the Seine, the Île de la Cité, containing Notre Dame; university (1150). Pop.: 2 125 246 (1999)
2. Treaty of Paris
a. a treaty of 1783 between the US, Britain, France, and Spain, ending the War of American Independence
b. a treaty of 1763 signed by Britain, France, and Spain that ended their involvement in the Seven Years' War
c. a treaty of 1898 between Spain and the US bringing to an end the Spanish-American War
Paris
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‘What’s up Doc’ is the catchphrase of which cartoon character? | What's Up Doc? - Bugs Bunny | SuperCartoons
Series
What's Up Doc?
The Disassociated Press wants Bugs Bunny's life story. Got a pencil? "First," says Bugs, "I was born." He quickly learns he is different from the other children: he's a "rabbit in a human world." He grows up to accept repetitive chorus boy jobs in such Broadway revues as "Girl of the Golden Vest," "Wearing of the Grin" and "Rosie's Cheeks." His career hits the skids and he's living on a park bench before he's discovered by that great vaudeville star, Elmer Fudd. Their dual comedy act is a hit, which leads to film roles. Will Bugs Bunny ever have to look back?
Rating
| Bugs Bunny |
Which US singer is known by the nickname J Lo? | 'What's up Doc?' - the meaning and origin of this phrase
Famous Last Words
Browse phrases beginning with:
What's up Doc?
Origin
'Eh, What's up Doc?' joins ' That's All Folks! ' as the best-known lines from Tex Avery's Looney Tunes cartoon series. It was delivered by Bugs Bunny, while nonchalantly chewing on a carrot, in most of the cartoons in which the character appeared, beginning with A Wild Hare, 1940. This was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon, although Bugs wasn't named until the second cartoon - Elmer's Pet Rabbit ('Happy Rabbit', a prototype Bugs Bunny with a somewhat different personality had appeared earlier).
Avery explained how the line became established in the numerous cartoon confrontations between Bugs Bunny and the hapless hunter Elmer Fudd:
"We decided he [Bugs] was going to be a smart-aleck rabbit, but casual about it. That opening line of 'Eh, what's up, Doc?' floored them. They expected the rabbit to scream, or anything but make a casual remark. For here's a guy pointing a gun in his face! It got such a laugh that we said, 'Boy, we'll do that every chance we get.'"
Chuck Jones went on to explain that the demeanour of Bugs when delivering the line was adapted from Clark Gable's performance in It Happened One Night. In that film, Gable's character leans against a fence eating carrots and gives instructions with his mouth full to Claudette Colbert's character. The scene was well-known to audiences at the time who would have been well aware that Bugs was spoofing Clark Gable.
The line has outlived Bugs Bunny and is now commonly used worldwide as a jokey alternative to the straightforward query 'what's up?', that is, 'what's going on?'.
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On which fictional planet was Superman born? | Superman's Home Planet Krypton 'Found'
Superman's Home Planet Krypton 'Found'
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer |
November 5, 2012 12:39pm ET
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Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson helped DC Comics, home of the Superman comics, find a plausible star to be the host of the superhero's home planet, Krypton.
Credit: DC Comics
A prominent astrophysicist has pinned down a real location for Superman's fictional home planet of Krypton.
Krypton is found 27.1 light-years from Earth, in the southern constellation Corvus (The Crow), says Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium in New York City. The planet orbits the red dwarf star LHS 2520, which is cooler and smaller than our sun.
Tyson performed the celestial sleuthing at the request of DC Comics, which wanted to run a story about Superman's search for his home planet.
The new book — Action Comics Superman #14, titled "Star Light, Star Bright" — comes out Wednesday (Nov. 7). Tyson appears within its pages, aiding the Man of Steel on his quest.
"As a native of Metropolis, I was delighted to help Superman, who has done so much for my city over all these years," Tyson said in a statement. "And it’s clear that if he weren’t a superhero he would have made quite an astrophysicist."
You'll have to read "Star Light, Star Bright" to find out just how Superman and Tyson pinpoint Krypton. For amateur astronomers who want to spot the real star LHS 2520 in the night sky, here are its coordinates:
Right Ascension: 12 hours 10 minutes 5.77 seconds
Declination: -15 degrees 4 minutes 17.9 seconds
Proper Motion: 0.76 arcseconds per year, along 172.94 degrees from due north
Superman was born on Krytpon but was launched toward Earth as an infant by his father, Jor-El, just before the planet's destruction. After touching down in Kansas, Superman was raised as Clark Kent by a farmer and his wife.
Now Superman will apparently know exactly where he came from.
"This is a major milestone in the Superman mythos that gives our super hero a place in the universe," DC Entertainment co-publisher Dan DiDio said in a statement. "Having Neil deGrasse Tyson in the book was one thing, but by applying real-world science to this story he has forever changed Superman’s place in history. Now fans will be able to look up at the night’s sky and say, 'That’s where Superman was born.'"
Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom . We're also on Facebook and Google+ .
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| Krypton |
If something is biannual how often does it occur? | Superman Home: Planet Krypton 'Found' in Sky - ABC News
ABC News
Superman Home: Planet Krypton 'Found' in Sky
November 5, 2012
By NED POTTER via GOOD MORNING AMERICA
A panel from DC Comics, in which astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson helps Superman find Krypton. Image: DC Entertainment.
Look! Up in the sky! It's - oh, forget it.
Superman is, of course, a fictional character, the stuff of comics and movies. But that didn't stop DC Comics, which owns the Superman franchise, from enlisting the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to "find" the location of his lost home planet, Krypton.
It's in the constellation Corvus the raven, in the southern sky not far from Virgo and Hydra. The planet Krypton - not that it ever existed - would have orbited a red dwarf star called LHS 2520, Tyson concluded. The star is 27.1 light-years from Earth.
You'll recall that according to the story, the baby Kal-El was sent in a spaceship to Earth by his parents, who knew that Krypton would soon be destroyed. As an adult in the city of Metropolis, he disguises himself as Clark Kent, a reporter fighting a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way. But he also has feelings. In the newest comic, out this week, Tyson is seen helping the homesick Superman trace his roots.
It's all a good bit of publicity - both for DC Comics and for Tyson, who directs New York's Hayden Planetarium and has become a popular science communicator - but you can also tell he has tongue firmly planted in cheek.
"As a native of Metropolis," said Tyson in a statement, "I was delighted to help Superman, who has done so much for my city over all these years."
DC Entertainment, which says it approached Tyson, had its own take. Co-publisher Dan DiDio said, "Having Neil deGrasse Tyson in the book was one thing, but by applying real world science to this story he has forever changed Superman's place in history. Now fans will be able to look up at the night's sky and say, 'That's where Superman was born.'"
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Which English artist painted ‘The Hay Wain’? | The Hay Wain | artble.com
The Hay Wain
The Hay Wain Story / Theme
The Hay Wain
The Hay Wain
John Constable
In The Hay Wain John Constable chose to paint a rural landscape which runs into the distance in sun-drenched meadows, offset by the cool waters of the pool in the foreground. The theme of this painting is very much rural life and the beauty of the landscape which the artist loved so much.
The Hay Wain is based on a site near Flatford on the river Stour, in Suffolk, England. The hay wain itself is a type of horse-drawn cart which would have been a common piece of agricultural equipment used during the artist's youth.
The cottage in the left of the image was rented by a farmer and stands behind Flatford Mill , owned by Constable's father. Across the meadow in the distance on the right, a group of haymakers can be seen working.
The farm workers are hard at work but seem contended and are surrounded by beautiful scenery. All of these aspects illustrate Constable's idyllic view of his home county of Suffolk.
Industrial Revolution:
However idyllic Constable's view of rural England was throughout his career it's unlikely that there was as much calm and happiness in the countryside during this period. Due to the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, many rural people found themselves out of jobs as farming work became more industrialized and machines reduced the man power needed to harvest and maintain crops and animals. Large areas of Britain also saw uprisings and riots amongst the rural communities that were affected by the job losses.
It may be that Constable did not paint images of these problems because he did not want to draw attention away from the natural landscape itself. In The Hay Wain the workers happily fit in with nature and live in harmony with the area.
On the other hand the admission of the true relationship farm workers had with the land could have been because the industrial revolution simply didn't affect Constable; he came from a wealthy family and the revolution only served to make the rich richer.
Through family friends and business associates Constable was exposed to what was considered the best art of his day and this led to him developing his own painting style which is illustrated in The Hay Wain.
The Hay Wain Analysis
John Constable
Composition:
Unlike the symmetrical and classical landscapes of Claude Lorrain , widely considered to be the pinnacle of landscape painting even up to Constable's day, The Hay Wain is portrayed as a real scene and therefore symmetry is not as important as realism in the piece.
Instead Constable sketched what he saw and ultimately what he knew well, having lived near this farm as a boy.
Technique:
Complete and perfect beauty- something that could only be created in a mythical or biblical world - was popular during Constable's time. The artist painted nature as it was, and his work was a breath of fresh air in an art world full of over-dramatic and stylized landscapes.
Color palette:
In keeping with the artist's love of nature, natural tones are predominant in The Hay wain and there is contrast between the pool of water, the tall delicate trees and the strong brick house to the left.
The different tones all complement each other and are repeated to add harmony to this piece: the blue of the pool is reflected in the sky and the red of the house is highlighted subtly in the trees and in the harness of the horse.
The trees and grass encircle the whole composition with relief from the yellow meadows disappearing to the right which help to stop the painting from seeming closed in or too claustrophobic.
Use of light:
The Hay Wain represents a near-perfect English summer day and Constable accomplishes this by using natural light and painting realistically from his sketches of the scene. As a young boy Constable often went out "skying", sketching the clouds and sky to perfect his technique.
One of Constable's most innovative techniques was to create light on water by using white paint as a highlight. This technique can be seen in The Hay Wain as the water from the stream in the foreground is disturbed by the wheels of the hay wain itself.
Method:
Although Constable is famous for being one of the first landscape painters to create canvases purely based on nature, he did not paint The Hay Wain on site. Instead he created several sketches in the summer of 1821 and produced the finished oil version in his London studio in the winter of the same year.
This technique was commonly used by Constable and of course it helped that he knew the landscapes he was painting very well, having spent his childhood in the same area, and he often added details from memory.
The Hay Wain Critical Reception
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Paris
Charles X
Constable's work was not very well received by his contemporaries in Britain, who believed that the ideal landscape should mirror those of Claude Lorrain. Also, they didn't appreciate Constable's innovative used of the "impasto" technique.
The artist's success on continental Europe however established his reputation and allowed him to finally make money from his art.
Contemporary reception:
England:
Constable first exhibited The Hay Wain in 1823 at the Royal Academy in London. The painting was not well received and did not find a buyer during the exhibition but this is typical of Constable's work during the 19th century in a country which did not appreciate his new style of painting or the subjects he chose.
France:
After the Royal Academy exhibition Constable sent this painting to France, where he was asked to exhibit a number of pieces at the Paris Salon in 1824. The Hay Wain proved to be a great success and inspired local artists such as Delacroix and Corot.
In fact it was such a success that Charles X saw fit to award it the Gold Medal of the exhibition. Constable's work would go on to influence Impressionist artists almost 50 years later in the same city.
Modern reception:
Today The Hay Wain is considered to be one of Constable's best known and most skilled works. It is currently owned by The National Gallery in London and has featured in a number of exhibitions across the country.
The Hay Wain Related Paintings
The White Horse
John Constable
The Hay Wain is one of John Constable's most famous paintings and in it all of the innovative and creative devices which made this artist's work so different from his contemporaries are evident.
One of the artist's "six footers", this work was produced on a very large scale which meant that he could add a lot of detail to the piece.
The Hay Wain is situated near Flatford in Suffolk, England, a site which is still very much as Constable's portrayed it. This artwork is another example of Constable illustrating an idealistic English countryside, in which hardworking but happy farm workers go about their everyday business.
Constable produced many works depicting the English countryside and this theme inspired a great number of other artists. Furthermore, Constable's innovative technique and his influence on the French Impressionist movement after his death cannot be denied.
Constable spent most of his youth in Suffolk, sketching the landscape which would feature in all his canvases as an adult. Although Constable started to display at the Royal Academy by 1806 he did not sell a painting until he was 39 and remained unpopular in his native England until after his death.
Luckily for Constable, French patrons found his work much more appealing and he began to sell a lot of work in Paris. Although he was popular outside of his own country Constable never left England and only ever painted landscapes of his beloved Suffolk.
The Hay Wain Art Period
Theodore Gericault
John Constable was born in the second half of the 18th century, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when poverty was rife within the poorer communities of England.
In the art world, many professionals were rebelling against the pure and realistic lines of the Neoclassical period and started producing paintings and sculpture which took the viewer into a new world, far removed from the realities of everyday life.
In this respect Constable was different; he loved painting nature and used it as the focus of his pictures, creating realistic landscapes. His style was to take a natural landscape and paint it just as he saw it without enhancing or changing it.
This realism made Constable's work stand out from his contemporaries as well as the techniques he used to create a more life-like feel to his paintings.
Constable was a landscape revolutionary and it is thanks to him that the work of Monet and the French Impressionists developed in the way it did.
The Hay Wain Bibliography
To read more about Constable and his art please choose from the following recommended sources.
• Bailey, Anthony. John Constable: A Kingdom of his Own. Vintage; Reprint edition, 2007
• Clarkson, Jonathan. Constable. Phaidon Press Ltd. , 2010
• Cormack, Malcolm. Constable. Oxford: Phaidon, 1986
• Cove, Sarah, et al. Constable: The Great Landscapes. Tate Publishing, 2006
• Gayford, Martin. Constable In Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter. Penguin, 2010
• Gayford, Martin. Constable Portraits: The Painter and His Circle. National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2009
• Leslie, C. R. Memoirs of the life of John Constable, Esq. , R. A. 2nd ed. Phaidon, 1951
• Parkinson, Ronald. John Constable: the man and his art. V&A Publications, 1998
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Who wrote the novel ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’? | John Constable - The complete works
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Portrait
John Constable John Constable (11 June 1776 - 31 March 1837) was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home - now known as "Constable Country"- which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
His most famous paintings include Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821. Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful and did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52. He sold more paintings in France than in his native England.
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Which nuts are traditionally used to make pesto sauce? | Basil Pesto Recipe : Food Network Kitchen : Food Network
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 cup freshly grated Pecorino cheese
Directions
Watch how to make this recipe.
Combine the basil, garlic, and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add 1/2 cup of the oil and process until fully incorporated and smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
If using immediately, add all the remaining oil and pulse until smooth. Transfer the pesto to a large serving bowl and mix in the cheese.
If freezing, transfer to an air-tight container and drizzle remaining oil over the top. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw and stir in cheese.
Copyright 2003 Television Food Network, G.P. All rights reserved
Recipe courtesy of Food Network Kitchens
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Bill Oddie, Tim Brook Taylor and Graeme Garden created and starred in which UK television sketch show? | Basil Pesto Recipe - Taste.com.au
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Cooking for 1 or 2
Easter
Basil pesto can be used as an accompaniment to many roast dishes but it also tastes delicious stirred through a big bowl of pasta.
0:15
Australian Good Taste - March 2006 , Page 60
Recipe by Michelle Southan
45g (1/4 cup) pine nuts
1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves
2 small garlic cloves, halved
60g (3/4 cup) shredded parmesan
5 tablespoons olive oil
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Notes
Step 1
Preheat oven to 180°C. Spread the pine nuts over a baking tray. Bake in oven for 5 minutes or until toasted. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes to cool.
Step 2
Place the pine nuts, basil, garlic and parmesan in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely chopped. With the motor running, gradually add the oil in a thin steady stream until well combined.
Vegetable soup with pesto
To freeze half (for up to 4 months): Transfer half the pesto to a small airtight container and smooth the surface. Drizzle with olive oil to cover. Label, date and freeze. To thaw: Place in the fridge for 3-4 hours or until thawed. Stir to combine.
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‘Mince Pies’ is Cockney rhyming slang for which part of the body? | Please complete the fields below:
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Guide to Cockney Rhyming Slang
September 20, 2015 2:31 pm
Cockney Rhyming slang is a die hard part of East End London culture that will always be part of the fabric of the city and has been around since the mid 19th century. There are many theories as to how it started, some say it was a lingustic mutation and accident, others speculate that it was the result of a widespread game; some say it was devised by criminals to trick the police; and others say that it developed as a secret language to confuse non-locals passing through, or traders among traders to bargain without the customers knowing.
For those unfamiliar of this dialect the language has formed through two rhyming words with a common household word – however over time, this has mutated; so on occasion the slang really does sound like another language!
To make it easier for you – here’s a list of the top 10 classic rhyming slang that you might here if ever you venture East past Hackney. To practice, just watch an episode of Only Fools & Horses, or EastEnders, to get a feel for it…
Apples and Pears = stairs
This might have roots in the traders stalls who stacked their fruit and vegetables in “steps and stairs” in front of their stands in an arresting display.
Bees and honey = money
This is a more cryptic literal link, referring to bees which produce honey which can translate into workers producing money – the result of both is sweet!
Bottle and stopper = copper
The copper is a slang term in itself for a policeman. In this case there are two meanings; a bottle would hold the contents – ie, like a police would in a jail, or the stopper would prevent someone or something from happening.
Butcher’s hook = look
The butchers hook was the double ended hook that hung up in butchers to display the meats they had on show. This phrase probably originated in Smithfield Meat Market, near Farringdon.
Duck and dive = hide
As a duck would dive under the surface of the water, this phrase means something the same, as in to remove oneself from the situation and to hide.
Dog and bone = phone
We’re not sure where this one came from other than it rhymes and is a brilliant one to slip into every day conversation!
Kettle and hob = watch
This is a confusing phrase as it doesn’t rhyme with its modern day meaning. The term means watch, which has stemmed from a fob watch which was a pocket watch with attached to the body with a small chain. The kettle used to boil on the hob of a stove… hence the rhyme.
Mince pies = eyes
This is a term used widely in London even to this days, usually to describe a girls features. Her eyes would be described as Minces, an even more slang term from the original mince pies.
On the floor = poor
This was a colloquial term for housewives who would find themselves temporarily out of pocket, and without any money.
Porky pie = lie
To tell a porkie is something everyone’s been accused of as a child – and perhaps even older! A fib or a lie, to tell a pork pie means to fabricate something and has to be one of the all-time favourite phrases in the cockney rhyming slang dictionary!
If you fancy a trip out into East London , the London Pass has got lots of great attractions for you to visit whilst you embark on this cockney rhyming slang adventure. Why not stop off at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford to go up the Arcelormittal Orbit , or stop off for some shopping at Westfield.
| Eye |
How many holes are there, usually, in a ten-pin bowling ball? | Chew the Fat: A Look at Cockney Rhyming Slang - ALTA Language Services
Chew the Fat: A Look at Cockney Rhyming Slang
Posted by Maria Khodorkovsky on July 23, 2010
Chew the fat is a colloquial phrase meaning “to talk or discuss informally, or to talk at length on a variety of subjects.” The phrase has been in use since the early 19th century. There is some debate as to the origin of the term. While some etymologists argue that it is a variation of the older phrase, to chew the rag, and others quibble about the varieties of meats or blubbers that the term’s original users could have been chewing, my favorite origin story comes from Cheapside, London.
To chew the fat could be an addition to the English language from the whimsical and free-spirited Cockney rhyming slang.
The user of Cockney rhyming slang replaces a word with its rhyme or with a phrase in which the last word rhymes with the original. To chew the fat comes from the more mundane “to have a chat.” Further muddling understanding is the fact that, often, the word that rhymes with the intended one is omitted and another portion of the phrase is used. Many examples of this can be found in rhyming slang terms for body parts: the word “feet” becomes “plates of meat” and shortens to simply “plates;” “legs” becomes “Scotch eggs” and, later, just “Scotches;” and “eyes” becomes “mince pies” or “minces.”
Cockney rhyming slang developed in the East End of London and in the suburbs around central London. It was first systematically recorded in 1859 in Ducange Anglicus’s The Vulgar Tongue: A Glossary of Slang, Cant, and Flash Phrases, used in London from 1839 to 1859. Several terms that are still used in and around London could already be found in this text, among them “apples and pears” to mean “stairs,” “Barnet-Fair” to mean “hair,” and “butcher’s hook” to mean “look.” The latter is frequently shortened to “butcher’s,” so that one is told to “take a butcher’s” at something of interest.
Despite recent research which suggests that the Cockney accent may no longer exist in London within 30 years, Cockney rhyming slang shows no sign of going out of use or losing popularity. Many British websites offer tutorials, translators, and even private lessons in the art of rhyming slang. In addition, internationally popular films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and Ocean’s Eleven help add to the appeal of this linguistic game.
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Last reply was December 15, 2010
Simonne Jaspers
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An older woman who is attracted to, and often has sex with, much younger men is named after which member of the cat family? | How to Know if a Woman is a Cougar: 12 Steps (with Pictures)
How to Know if a Woman is a Cougar
Two Parts: Identifying a Cougar Attracting an Older Woman Community Q&A
“Cougars” are popularly defined as women in their 40s (or older) who date significantly younger men, generally at a 10-year age gap or more. Pop culture paints the cougar as predatory and pathetically desperate, but women have recently begun fighting the stereotype: real cougars, they argue, are confident, successful, single women over the age of 40, who — tired of unromantic and narrow-minded men their own age — date younger, more active and more adventurous men. [1] [2] This article offers tips on identifying and attracting a “cougar” — also (and preferably) known as, an older woman.
Steps
Identifying a Cougar
1
Forget everything you think you know about cougars. In fact, forget the term all together. If you are interested in dating and/or having a romantic encounter with an older woman, you’ll need to treat her like a human being — not some sexist stereotype of how a sexually active older woman looks and behaves.
2
Determine the woman’s age. The generally accepted age group for cougars is 40-plus; however, some people go as low as 35 in their definition. With new creams and procedures available, many men and women are able to look much younger than they are. Some things you can look for, which apply to both sexes: [3]
Dry, dull and/or thinning hair: both men and women experience a decrease in the quality of their hair as they get older. You might notice that an older woman has brittle-looking hair that lacks the shine and fullness of younger people. Her hair might also be dyed to cover grey hairs. [4]
Sparse eyebrows and eyelashes: as we age, our hormones drop and hair growth slows, which can make our eyebrows and eyelashes less lush. Some women might opt for pencilled or tattooed eyebrows, and eyelash extensions — so it still might be difficult to judge their age based on these factors alone.
Thinner lips and eroded tooth enamel: our lips wrinkle and thin with age, and our teeth wear down and erode. You might notice thin lines around an older woman’s mouth, thinner lips (maybe partly hidden with lipliner), and duller or translucent teeth.
Thin skin: as men and women get older, the smooth skin on their necks gain ridges and wrinkles — unless they use Botox or have a face-lifts, that is. Thin skin will also be apparent on the hands, making veins, knuckles, and tendons more visible.
Dry and saggy knees and elbows: with age the skin around our knees and elbows begins to dry and sag around the joints. The skin around the elbows in particular can become darker and much drier than the surrounding skin.
3
Evaluate her makeup. Evolutionary psychology has shown that when evaluating women’s desirability, physical attractiveness is a more important factor than it is in evaluating men’s desirability. [5] This means that while less attractive men might still be desirable based on their intelligence, humor, income, etc., women are still largely judged on how they look. For this reason, it makes sense that with age, a woman might amp up her makeup routine to try to hide the signs of aging that will make her less desirable.
You might notice an older woman wearing more foundation and structuring creams and shades to help give her face a smooth, contoured look.
She might also be more likely to wear lipliner to make her lips look fuller, a brow pencil to fill in her eyebrows, and blush to make her cheeks look more youthful and rosy.
Contouring is a popular makeup technique right now, used by women in all age groups, from their teens upward.
4
Don’t think you can judge her by her fashion sense. The comical cougar stereotype is of a woman wearing clothes that are much too young, and often too tight, for her — usually in tacky fabrics such as animal print. The reality is that women of any age can dress in a tasteless and unflattering manner.
How a woman dresses — regardless of her age — depends largely upon her own personal sense of style.
While women of all ages wear push-up bras, older women may find them even more useful as their breasts will sag with age.
5
Pay attention to her self-confidence. In general, the older a woman gets, the better she knows herself and what she likes, and the more confident she becomes. Some signs that she is confident: [6]
Good posture : whether sitting or standing, a person with good self-confidence will likely have a straight back and a head that is well-balanced on the neck, with the chin pointed neither too high nor too low.
Relaxed: a person with good self-confidence will likely seem relaxed in most situations, perhaps looking around the room with an easy smile, or just seeming generally calm and at peace with herself. She won’t be very fidgety.
Eye contact: confident people make eye contact and maintain it in social interactions. That said, there's a difference between maintaining eye contact and staring intimidatingly at someone: looking someone in the eye roughly 60% of the time you are talking to them is a good rule of thumb.
Part 2
Attracting an Older Woman
1
Know what you want, and be honest about it. Whether it’s just sex or a long-term relationship, knowing what you want will help you figure out your best course of action to get it. It’s also important to be honest with the woman about what you want — don’t act like you want a relationship if all you want is sex. Women enjoy sex too; she might be fine with some no-strings-attached fun.
Some questions to consider: Is it sexual — a checkmark on your bucket list? Or, are you interested in something long-term, with someone who is more mature than your previous partners? Perhaps you have someone specific in mind already, and are wondering how you can get her to notice you .
If you just want sex with an older woman, for example, your best bet might be dating sites geared specifically toward older women seeking younger men, and vice versa. There are even cruises devoted to connecting older women with younger men. [7]
Dating sites are also a good option if you are seeking a longer-term relationship with an older woman. Again, just be clear about your intentions from the beginning.
Women in and over the age of 40 have lives too; this means that you can meet them literally anywhere — from the gym to a boating club, to an acting class, or even in your local grocery store. Spaces are shared interest are great for meeting people in general, no matter your age.
2
Forget the stereotype. Sure, some older women might fit the traditional “cougar” stereotype, but just as many — if not more — will not. As with all people, desires and behaviour differ depending on the individual. When approaching an older woman for romantic purposes, you’ll do well to forget the “cougar” stereotype and simply treat her with the same respect and consideration that you would treat anyone else.
Some websites would have you believe that there are specific types of cougar: the moneyed cougar (or sugar mama), the angry cougar, the sweet cougar; alpha versus beta cougars. [8] [9]
While there is often some truth in stereotypes, you’re better off getting to know the individual woman rather than trying to lock her into some predefined, narrow-minded, and generally unflattering idea of how a mature woman behaves.
3
Show her you’re interested . If you’re interested in a mature woman, let her know. How you show you’re interested will vary depending on your own situation — including where you meet the woman and how well you already know her.
If you meet a woman at the bar, you might show your interest by smiling at her and seeing if she smiles back. Wait to see if she keeps looking back at you; if she does, this might be a sign that she’s interested. You could then approach her and ask to buy her a drink.
If you are interested in a woman who is in the same running club as you, your tactic would be different. You might gauge her interest by starting a conversation with her after the run — it doesn’t have to be anything too serious; small talk about the weather and the run will do to begin with.
4
Be prepared for rejection, and take it gracefully. If you approach a mature woman and she rejects you, don’t be a jerk about it. It’s okay to be disappointed and to even express your disappointment in a polite or witty manner; it’s not okay to call her names or threaten her.
Do: “I’m devastated, but if you change your mind, I’ll be over there!”
Don’t: “Are you kidding me? You’re lucky to have a young guy like me show interest in you!”
5
Be “young.” If you are trying to attract an older woman, don’t get stuck on the idea that you need to act like a man their age might act. Many women in their 40s admit to seeking younger men because they are more open-minded, adventurous, and romantic.
When going out on dates , be adventurous and willing to try new things. Share your interests with her, and learn about her interests too. As with any relationship, take pleasure in learning and growing together.
You’ll also benefit from being adventurous and open-minded in the bedroom. Chances are, she’ll be clear about what she likes, so it’s important that you’re willing to listen and possibly follow instructions.
6
Be honest about who you are. If a mature woman says that her last relationship ended because her partner was an unromantic, stubborn workaholic, and you know that you’re approaching a critical time in your career where you will need to prioritize work over everything else, it might not be the best time to get into a relationship with this woman.
7
Be reliable and uncomplicated. Most older women (and men) have had enough relationships to know what works and what doesn’t; they’re not interested in playing games. Cancelling plans at the last minute and “forgetting” to call for days to weeks might have been tolerated by younger women, but more mature women will likely not put up with this behaviour. [10]
Community Q&A
If this question (or a similar one) is answered twice in this section, please click here to let us know.
Tips
If you are seeking a long-term relationship with a mature woman, be realistic about your expectations from her. If she has already had children and is over the age of 40, it is unlikely that she will want more.
Warnings
Be prepared for people to judge you. It might not be fair, but if you choose to date an older woman long-term, people will probably judge you. What’s most important is that you’re both happy; when your friends and family see this, it should be easier for them to accept the relationship.
| Cougar |
Serendip was an old name for which modern Asian country? | Single Older Cougar Women Dating Younger Men - AARP
Join the discussion: Talk openly with other folks about love, sex and relationships.
For many women, younger men — many of them 15 years or more their juniors — are a natural fit. — Taxi/Getty Image
Wheeler, a fiery redhead who lives outside Baltimore, leaned back in her chair and sighed. “I adore younger men,” the 60-year-old purred. “I liked younger guys even when I was in high school — like a year or two younger. I was a cougar before there were cougars.”
Indeed, Wheeler’s pre-marriage and post-divorce dating history reads like a steamy screenplay. She listed a string of young men with whom she had various relationships, occasionally punching numbers into a calculator to determine age differences she had never considered in the first place. She never analyzed her attraction to younger men (or their attraction to her), but with “cougar” an increasingly popular term used to describe older women dating much younger men, her longtime preference is suddenly in the spotlight.
For Wheeler and other women like her, younger men — many of them 15 years or more their juniors — are a natural fit. Boomer women are looking younger and feeling better than ever. Widowed, separated, or divorced, a growing number seek young men for dating and companionship. And since men have been dating younger women for ages, why are so many of us surprised — shocked, even — that women would follow suit?
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Confessions of a Cougar
Valerie Gibson, author of Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men, is all too familiar with this double standard. The self-proclaimed cougar wrote her first book on the topic — Younger Men: How to Find Them, Date Them, Mate Them, and Marry Them — 14 years ago, “and let me tell you something,” she said in a whisper. “It caused an awful stir — and not a good one. People were horrified. They were absolutely horrified that older women should be having sex with younger men .”
When many of us think “cougar,” we picture the ultimate cougar of the big screen: The Graduate’s legendary, martini-sipping Mrs. Robinson. These days, real-life cougars are stars like Demi Moore (who, in her 40s, married then-twenty-something heartthrob Ashton Kutcher), the coiffed reality-show cast of The Real Housewives of Orange County, and, yes, everyday women — suburbanites and city-slickers alike.
While there’s no denying that cougars are slinking into the mainstream, there’s still an element of taboo surrounding these age-spanning relationships.
“It’s definitely considered creepier for women to go out with younger men,” admitted Junie Smith*, a 52-year-old cougar who lives on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “For a 70-year-old guy to go out with a 40-year-old woman, as opposed to a 70-year-old woman going out with a 40-year-old guy? A 70-year-old woman going out with a 40-year-old guy is considered creepy.”
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Why the double standard? Smith figured it comes down to science: “It probably has something to do with the concentration of the species on procreation,” she quipped.
All scientific notions aside, older women opt for younger men for the same reasons that older men select younger women .
“The mentality of having a youthful person on your arm who makes you feel good, who makes you feel ageless, makes you feel desired and desirable,” Gibson said.
Statistics compiled by AARP The Magazine back up the trend.
A whopping 34 percent of women over 40 are dating younger men, according to a 2003 survey. The same poll, which surveyed 3,500 single people (both women and men) aged 40 to 69 years old, found that 56 percent are currently separated or divorced from a spouse, 31 percent have never been married, and seven in 10 (74 percent) of formerly married singles in their 50s have been single for five years or more.
The study stated that the divorce rate now, compared to when cougars were married some 25 years ago, has contributed to the amount of single, 50+ women, said to be “on the prowl” in today’s dating pool .
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For Wheeler, younger men have been a natural fit for an energetic lifestyle that her male peers have never quite matched.
“I can’t explain why, but I’ve always been,” she said, pausing. “Without even knowing someone’s age, you can be sure I’m going to gravitate toward the younger guy. And I don’t know if it’s a function of I’m attracted to younger guys or younger guys are attracted to me. It’s just their energy, their enthusiasm” and—the biggie—“less baggage.”
In fact, the stuff of the past may be what keeps her from dating men closer to her age altogether. That and music, of course.
“They’re always going on and on about their exes and the kids,” she said of her male peers. “The baggage, the baggage, is the main thing. And being stuck in the music they listened to in college. I want to know what’s new. I want to hear what’s new. Younger guys seem to have more to contribute to my life, and they’re just adorable.”
The AARP study concludes that the No. 1 complaint from both single men and single women—42 percent and 35 percent, respectively—dating in their 50s was the history a partner of the same age carried into a relationship.
Men, of course, have their reasons for dating older women , too. In the fast-paced world of Los Angeles, “dating” may mean going out a few times or spending just one night together. “This isn’t about dating,” said Kevin Mercer* candidly. The 27-year-old works in L.A.’s entertainment industry and isn’t shy discussing his city’s cougar phenomenon. “It’s a total transactional situation.”
And that works out just fine for these young men, who often prefer relationships—whether fleeting or long-term—with cougars.
“These older women are confident, sexually mature, they don’t have inhibitions, they know what they like, and they know what they want,” said Nancy D. O’Reilly, clinical psychologist, researcher, author and host of Voice America’s radio program “Timeless WomenSpeak.” Cougars are independent, career-oriented women who have a been-there-done-that attitude towards marriage and “don’t need anyone to take care of them,” she said. “They’re looking for companionship, sexual contact, and someone good to talk to and spend time with. So be it if the relationship goes further.”
'A Badge of Honor'
While women aren’t exactly shouting their cougar status from the rooftops (“Women never want to be called a “cougar,” because it implies they’re older,” Mercer explained nonchalantly), men aren’t shy about their relationships with older women. On the contrary, they’ll even boast about them, wearing them, in the words of Mercer, “as a badge of honor.”
According to Gibson, young men are driving the trend, sometimes even calling themselves “cougar hunters” when they’re out on the town looking for sexy older women. “Younger men have no problem whatsoever in approaching an older woman who’s single or obviously not wearing a wedding ring anyway,” she said. “They don’t mind at all what age she is as long as she’s vital and gorgeous or something attracts them. Young men have no fear now of being put down by their peers when there’s cougars like Demi Moore and all these beautiful women around, and they say, ‘My gosh, I would love to bed her!”
Smith has found young men to be quite enthusiastic about spending time with her, and she definitely enjoys the attention. After all, she has worked hard for it, with ample sessions of yoga, calculated vitamin concoctions, a good diet, and even a little Botox here and there.
And while she’s not thrilled with the term “cougar” (“slightly dangerous and prone to wearing animal-print clothes,” was her initial cougar visual), she’s certainly not changing her dating habits anytime soon. Wheeler isn’t either, but she’s warming up to the term—slowly.
“It’s silly,” she said laughing. “But I use it. I use it now.”
Originally published Feburary 2008
| i don't know |
A spinone is what type of animal? | Spinone Italiano Dog Breed Information
Tendency toward a tolerance for cats and a lower prey drive.
3 stars
Child Friendly
Dogs that tend to be more sturdy, playful and easygoing around children and more tolerant of children's behavior.
5 stars
Tendency to enjoy or tolerate other dogs.
5 stars
Level of daily activity needed.
4 stars
Amount of bathing, brushing, even professional grooming needed.
2 stars
Level of health issues a breed tends to have.
3 stars
A dog's thinking and problem-solving ability (not trainability).
5 stars
How lighthearted and spirited a dog tends to be.
3 stars
Amount and frequency of dog hair shedding.
3 stars
Preferred amount of interaction with other pets and humans.
4 stars
Tendency to be welcoming to new people.
5 stars
A dog's inclination to be protective of his home, yard or even car.
3 stars
Level of ease in learning something new and a willingness to try new things.
4 stars
A breed that is likely to alert you to the presence of strangers.
3 stars
Overview
Did You Know?
The Spinone is a versatile Italian pointing breed with stamina and patience. He excels at hunting on any terrain, including being an excellent retriever, but given enough exercise can be perfectly happy as a companion dog.
We’re not talking an Italian dessert here. The Italian Spinone is a pointing breed with versatile hunting skills and a calm, easygoing temperament. He works slowly and methodically and is noted for his wiry, bramble-repelling “spino” coat, from which he takes his name. This is a large dog , weighing 60 to 85 pounds.
The breed is sometimes called Italian Spinone in English, but the AKC calls him Spinone Italiano (Spinoni Italiani is plural). An easygoing type, this Italian wirehaired pointer can be an endearing clown at home but takes his hunting very seriously. He is smart enough to know the difference between a real hunt and a field trial, and doesn't show much enthusiasm for training dummies.
The Spinone is a great family dog or companion for people who have the time and motivation to give him daily exercise and channel his energy and intelligence into dog sports such as agility, flyball, rally and obedience. Overall health permitting, he can also be a great hiking or camping buddy. Italian Spinoni can be great companions for families with kids who are at least 6 years old, and they tend to get along well with other dogs and cats if they are raised with them.
The Spinone doesn't need to live on a farm or an acreage, as he's less active than most sporting dogs, but he does need daily exercise. This breed likes to jump and dig, so he needs a securely fenced yard with an area he can call his own.
The Spinone wants to be with his people and would be miserable without them. However, if you don't act like a leader, he may become stubborn, and he may resist certain training if he thinks there isn't a point to it, like working with field dummies. The Spinone isn't the fastest dog to housetrain, either. He's a bit cautious sometimes; a good word for him is sensible. The Spinone is an adequate watchdog, but not a guard dog. He barks only once in a while.
This is an active, enthusiastic dog that needs an owner capable of matching his intelligence and activity level. He learns quickly but has a mind of his own. Keep training interesting, though, and he will be fascinated with whatever you are teaching. Use positive reinforcement techniques for best results with this sensitive dog, and give him plenty of praise and encouragement.
Grooming the Spinone isn’t difficult. Brush his coat once or twice a week to remove dirt, and pluck out dead hairs occasionally, called “stripping” the coat, to keep the face and feet looking neat. Other grooming needs are regular nail trims, ear cleaning, and frequent tooth brushing.
Like most dogs, Spinoni become bored when left to their own devices. They can become noisy or destructive if they don’t have other dogs to keep them company and don’t receive much attention from their people. But when they live with a family committed to giving them plenty of training, exercise and attention, they thrive.
Other Quick Facts
The Spinone is a muscular dog with a squarish body, solid and powerful. He has a unique profile with a long head; yellowish-brown or darker eyes depending on his coat color; a bulbous and spongy looking nose with large, open nostrils; triangular ears that hang down; and a gentle, intelligent expression. His docked tail is carried horizontally or down, flicking from side to side while he works.
The Spinone’s skin is protected by a dense, wiry, weather-resistant coat. The same coat protects his face, with stiff hair forming eyebrows, a mustache and beard to help prevent lacerations from briars and bushes. The coat comes in solid white, white and orange, orange roan, with or without orange markings, white with brown markings, and brown roan, with or without brown markings. The brown color should be a chestnut shade, described as “monk’s habit.”
This breed likes to jump and dig, so he needs a securely fenced yard with an area he can call his own.
After he eats or drinks, the Spinone’s beard is a mess. Be prepared to spend time wiping his face to keep it clean.
History
The History of the Spinone Italiano
Pointing breeds were developed in Europe some 300 years ago, and most countries or regions having pointing breeds that are developed for their specific terrain or game. In Italy, that breed is the Spinone Italiano, also known as the Italian Pointer . Developed primarily in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy, probably from coarsehaired Italian setter breeds, white Mastiffs and French Griffons , he is a do-it-all dog, perfect for the hunter on foot because he moves at a slow pace.
The American Kennel Club recognized the Spinone in 2000. It ranks 118th among the breeds registered by the AKC.
Personality
Spinone Italiano Temperament and Personality
The Spinone Italiano is a social, sturdy retriever, known for his distinctive appearance and joyful zest for life. As a hunting dog, he has the stamina and endurance to work all day, though he is a slower-moving dog than some of the newer pointing breeds. The Spinone is happiest when he is doing something with his family, be it hiking, kayaking or training for dog sports, with his favorite activity of course being hunting!
The Spinone is a social dog, and enjoys group activities, especially a good romp around the yard. He is a natural retriever, and will bring you toys or other small objects such as shoes, especially when he wants to initiate play. While robust and persevering, he also tends to be docile and patient when interacting with his family. This patience combined with his physical sturdiness can make him a good companion for children, as long as they treat him with respect.
The Spinone enjoys learning, and can be a good partner for dog sports such as field trials, hunting tests, obedience, agility, or tracking. He is eager to please and responds well to fair and consistent training. Begin the training process as soon as you bring your puppy home, as he can begin learning at 8 weeks old. An early start will help to foster his love of learning and build a solid foundation of good manners and behavior that should hold through his adult life.
If possible, get him into puppy kindergarten class by the time he is 10 to 12 weeks old, and socialize, socialize, socialize. However, be aware that many puppy training classes require certain vaccines (like kennel cough) to be up to date, and many veterinarians recommend limited exposure to other dogs and public places until puppy vaccines (including rabies, distemper and parvovirus ) have been completed. In lieu of formal training, you can begin training your puppy at home and socializing him among family and friends until puppy vaccines are completed.
When introducing your puppy to new dogs, first check that the other dog is good with puppies. You want your Spinone to be comfortable with strange dogs, not afraid of them. The socialization process should continue throughout your Spinone’s life.
The Spinone can be good with cats and other small animals if he is raised with them, but remember that he is a good-sized hunting dog. Even if he is just playing and jumping around, his paws could do damage to small household pets.
When looking for a Spinone puppy, talk with your breeder and try to meet both parents of the litter. Breeders are very knowledgeable about both the traits of their breed in general and their own lines in particular, and do their best to match each puppy with the best home. Discuss what you are looking for in a puppy and what your goals for it are, and she will help you to find the right one for you. When meeting the parents and any other relatives, pay attention to their temperaments and personalities, as your puppy will probably be very similar. All of the dogs at the breeder’s house should be well cared for and show signs of proper socialization.
Health
What You Need To Know About Spinone Italiano Health
All dogs have the potential to develop genetic health problems, just as all people have the potential to inherit a particular disease. Run, don’t walk, from any breeder who does not offer a health guarantee on puppies, who tells you that the breed is 100 percent healthy and has no known problems, or who tells you that her puppies are isolated from the main part of the household for health reasons. A reputable breeder will be honest and open about health problems in the breed and the incidence with which they occur in her lines.
While Spinoni are reasonably healthy, problems that have been seen in the breed include hip and elbow dysplasia , hypothyroidism , and entropion.
The Spinone Club of America participates in the Canine Health Information Center , a health database. Before individual Spinoni can be issued a CHIC number, breeders must submit hip evaluations from the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) and eye test results from the Canine Eye Registration Foundation (CERF). PennHIP certification of hips is also accepted.
Breeders must agree to have all test results, positive or negative, published in the CHIC database. A dog need not receive good or even passing scores on the evaluations to obtain a CHIC number, so CHIC registration alone is not proof of soundness or absence of disease, but all test results are posted on the CHIC website and can be accessed by anyone who wants to check the health of a puppy’s parents.
Do not purchase a puppy from a breeder who cannot provide you with written documentation that the parents were cleared of health problems that affect the breed. Having the dogs "vet checked" is not a substitute for genetic health testing.
Remember that after you’ve taken a new puppy into your home, you have the power to protect him from one of the most common health problems: obesity. Keeping a Spinone at an appropriate weight is one of the easiest ways to extend his life. Make the most of your preventive abilities to help ensure a healthier dog for life.
Grooming
The Basics of Spinone Italiano Grooming
The Spinone has a dense, wiry coat that resists weather and protects him from brush and debris. As he has no undercoat, he needs only occasional brushing and hand stripping to remove dead hair. For stripping your Spinone’s coat, you can use either a stripping knife (don’t worry – it won’t cut your dog) or your bare hands. Your breeder can show you proper technique, and how to tell how much hair needs to be stripped. Because of his harsh coat, he will only need a bath if he gets into something really gross.
You may want to keep a hand towel close by when your Spinone gets a drink, because afterward his beard will drip water all over the place.
Keep your Spinone’s ears clean and dry, and trim his nails and brush his teeth regularly with a vet-approved pet toothpaste. Good dental hygiene promotes general health and will also give your Spinone good breath. Start grooming him at an early age so he becomes used to the process and accepts it willingly.
Finding
Finding a Spinone Italiano
Whether you want to go with a breeder or get your dog from a shelter or rescue, here are some things to keep in mind.
Choosing a Spinone Italiano Breeder
Finding a good breeder is a great way to find the right puppy. A good breeder will match you with the right puppy, and will without question have done all the health certifications necessary to screen out health problems as much as possible. He or she is more interested in placing pups in the right homes than making big bucks. Be wary of breeders who only tell you the good things about the breed or who promote the dogs as being “good with kids” without any context as to what that means or how it comes about.
Good breeders will welcome your questions about temperament, health clearances and what the dogs are like to live with and come right back at you with questions of their own about what you’re looking for in a dog and what kind of life you can provide for him. A good breeder can tell you about the history of the breed, explain why one puppy is considered pet quality while another is not, and discuss what health problems affect the breed and the steps she takes take to avoid those problems. A breeder should want to be a resource for you throughout your dog’s life.
Look for more information about the Spinone Italiano and start your search for a good breeder at the website of the Spinone Club of America . Choose a breeder who has agreed to abide by the SCA’s code of ethics , which prohibits the sale of puppies to or through pet stores and calls for the breeder to obtain recommended health clearances on dogs before breeding them.
Avoid breeders who only seem interested in how quickly they can unload a puppy on you and whether your credit card will go through. Breeders who offer puppies at one price “with papers” and at a lower price “without papers” are unethical. You should also bear in mind that buying a puppy from websites that offer to ship your dog to you immediately can be a risky venture, as it leaves you no recourse if what you get isn’t exactly what you expected. Put at least as much effort into researching your puppy as you would into choosing a new car or expensive appliance. It will save you money in the long run.
Lots of reputable breeders have websites, so how can you tell who’s good and who’s not? Red flags include puppies always being available, multiple litters on the premises, having your choice of any puppy, and the ability to pay online with a credit card. Those things are convenient, but they are almost never associated with reputable breeders.
Whether you’re planning to get your new best friend from a breeder, a pet store, or another source, don’t forget that old adage “let the buyer beware”. Disreputable breeders and facilities that deal with puppy mills can be hard to distinguish from reliable operations. There’s no 100% guaranteed way to make sure you’ll never purchase a sick puppy, but researching the breed (so you know what to expect), checking out the facility (to identify unhealthy conditions or sick animals), and asking the right questions can reduce the chances of heading into a disastrous situation. And don’t forget to ask your veterinarian, who can often refer you to a reputable breeder, breed rescue organization, or other reliable source for healthy puppies.
The cost of a Spinone Italiano puppy varies depending on the breeder’s locale, whether the pup is male or female, what titles his parents have, and whether he is best suited for the show ring or a pet home. The puppy you buy should have been raised in a clean home environment, from parents with health clearances and conformation (show) and, ideally, working titles to prove that they are good specimens of the breed. Puppies should be temperament tested, vetted, dewormed, and socialized to give them a healthy, confident start in life.
Before you decide to buy a puppy, consider whether an adult Spinone Italiano might better suit your needs and lifestyle. Puppies are loads of fun, but they require a lot of time and effort before they grow up to become the dog of your dreams. An adult may already have some training and will probably be less active, destructive and demanding than a puppy. With an adult, you know more about what you’re getting in terms of personality and health and you can find adults through breeders or shelters. If you are interested in acquiring an older dog through breeders, ask them about purchasing a retired show dog or if they know of an adult dog who needs a new home. If you want to adopt a dog, read the advice below on how to do that.
Adopting a Dog from Spinone Italiano Rescue or a Shelter
There are many great options available if you want to adopt a dog from an animal shelter or breed rescue organization. Here is how to get started.
1. Use the Web
Sites like Petfinder.com and Adopt-a-Pet.com can have you searching for a Spinone Italiano in your area in no time flat. The site allows you to be very specific in your requests (housetraining status, for example) or very general (all the Spinone Italianos available on Petfinder across the country). AnimalShelter.org can help you find animal rescue groups in your area. Also some local newspapers have “pets looking for homes” sections you can review.
Social media is another great way to find a dog. Post on your Facebook page that you are looking for a specific breed so that your entire community can be your eyes and ears.
2. Reach Out to Local Experts
Start talking with all the pet pros in your area about your desire for a Spinone Italiano. That includes vets, dog walkers, and groomers. When someone has to make the tough decision to give up a dog, that person will often ask her own trusted network for recommendations.
3. Talk to Breed Rescue
Networking can help you find a dog that may be the perfect companion for your family. Most people who love Spinoni love all Spinoni. That’s why breed clubs have rescue organizations devoted to taking care of homeless dogs. The Spinone Italiano Club of America’s rescue network can help you find a dog that may be the perfect companion for your family. You can also search online for other Spinone Italiano rescues in your area.
The great thing about breed rescue groups is that they tend to be very upfront about any health conditions the dogs may have and are a valuable resource for advice. They also often offer fostering opportunities so, with training, you could bring a Spinone Italiano home with you to see what the experience is like.
4. Key Questions to Ask
You now know the things to discuss with a breeder, but there are also questions you should discuss with shelter or rescue group staff or volunteers before you bring home a dog. These include:
What is his energy level?
How is he around other animals?
How does he respond to shelter workers, visitors, and children?
What is his personality like?
What is his age?
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David Vine, David Coleman and Sue Barker have all hosted which BBC television quiz show? | Italian Spinone Rescue and Adoption - Adopt an Italian Spinone Near You
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Find an Italian Spinone or mix near you to adopt. Why find an Italian Spinone for sale when you can adopt?
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Rescue & Adoption: Why Adult Italian Spinones Make Better Pets
By By Adopt-a-Pet.com's Pia Salk
trong>So, you want to adopt an Italian Spinone, huh? Great idea! Want to hear an even better idea? Rescue an adult Italian Spinone. No pooch is too old for puppy love and puppies are only puppies for a few months after all, right? Oh, you have your heart set on a cute little Italian Spinone puppy? Have you been looking at Italian Spinone puppies for sale, checking out Italian Spinone puppy breeders? OK, here's some food for thought if you have your heart set on a puppy, and a few reasons why adopting an adult might be your better option:
What It Takes to Housebreak a Puppy
Before you adopt an Italian Spinone, consider how much time your new family member will spend alone. Remember, a puppy requires constant attention. The key to successful housebreaking is consistency; preventing "accidents" is key. Once a puppy soils the carpeting, it becomes much more difficult to train them out of that behavior. Here's a good rule of thumb to consider: a puppy can hold his bladder just one hour for every month they've been alive. For instance, a 3-month-old puppy will need to empty his bladder every three hours! Before you adopt an Italian Spinone puppy, ask yourself if you are available to walk your dog several times throughout the day, and if you have the patience and commitment to wake up and take him out first thing every morning at the same time, and stick to a strict schedule. Of course, before you can walk him at all, you will need to train him to walk on a leash, which is a project in itself.
On the other hand, an adult dog's bladder is already fully developed. Shelter dogs are often already housetrained and Italian Spinone rescue groups can tell you if their adult dogs for adoption are housebroken before they go into your home. You also have the advantage of knowing that your dog is physically able to "hold it" for several hours at a stretch. In most cases, adult dogs are by far easier to housebreak than puppies. You can teach an old dog new tricks!
Puppy Behavior Sometimes Isn’t Pleasant
Sure, Italian Spinone puppies are super-cute, but simply put, puppies can be adorable, relentless machines of destruction. Even the most well-behaved puppy will destroy shoes, clothing, paper, remote controls, telephones, leashes, dog beds, carpeting…anything and everything. More rambunctious pups have been known to obliterate sofas, car seats, Venetian blinds, electrical cords, door frames…you name it, they can eat it or shred it. And when they're teething, look out! Cute puppies have very sharp teeth, and they are happy to use your hands, feet, nose, hair, etc, as a chew toy. Ouch! Needless to say, a teething Italian Spinone puppy and a small child do NOT make good companions! To keep the puppy from hurting himself, and to prevent the destructive behavior from becoming a bad habit, you will need to spend every waking moment supervising his every move. Do you have that kind of time?
Many Italian Spinone dogs in shelters or with rescue groups are already trained and ready to go! Adults have a much longer attention span than puppies, too, which means they're easier and faster to teach. Adult dogs already have recognizable personality traits, so you'll be able to select one who is great with children. Many Italian Spinone rescue groups use foster homes to make sure each Italian Spinones for adoption is trained to be well-behaved indoors. Although all dogs need attention and playtime, an adult dog's needs are far less demanding than a puppy's.
You Won’t Know a Puppy’s Personality for Sometime
With an adult Italian Spinone, what you see is what you get. Their personality is already developed, and you'll be able to spot the characteristics you're looking for much more easily than with a puppy Italian Spinone. Shelters and rescue groups are able to assess the personality of each Italian Spinone for adoption, and carefully match you up with the right dog for your lifestyle. When you adopt a puppy, there is a lot more guesswork involved.
Adult Italian Spinone Adoption = An Instant Friend for Life
Ask anybody who has adopted an adult dog, and they'll swear their bond with their rescued pal is as deep as they come. When you open your heart and your home to a dog who needs help, they really do show their appreciation for the rest of their life! Dogs who have been uprooted from their homes, or have had difficult beginnings are likely to bond completely and deeply with their new human caretakers who they view as heroes. Italian Spinones who find themselves in the shelter or at a rescue group because of a death or other tragedy in their former human family usually go through a mourning period. Once they are adopted, however, they usually want nothing more than to please their new hero---YOU! No matter what circumstances brought them to the shelter or rescue group, most Italian Spinone dogs for adoption are exceptionally affectionate and attentive pets and extremely loyal companions. But first you have to adopt one!
Adult Italian Spinone Adoption = Truly Saving a Life
When you adopt an adult dog, you are doing the ultimate good deed. Let's face it: at first a lot of people think they want to find Italian Spinone puppies for sale, but not everyone is lining up to adopt the great adults! Some people might have the misconception that Italian Spinones in shelters have something wrong with them. In fact, most Italian Spinones for adoption end up in shelters not because of any problem with pet behavior or health issues, but because they were dropped off by someone who simply didn't have the time or money to care for the animals. In some cases pets are lost and never found by their owners. These animals are healthy and very eager to please. Did you know that every year, approximately 4 million adoptable animals are killed? A staggering 25% of those animals are purebreds, so you can bet there is an Italian Spinone in need of adoption.
With such a huge overpopulation problem, looking for an Italian Spinone dog for sale, or Italian Spinone puppies breeders, sadly contributes to this tragedy. Rescue groups that specialize in adoption work very, very hard to help adult dogs find good homes. Rescues are almost always made up of a group of volunteers. They often keep Italian Spinones for adoption in their own homes while they assess their health and personalities. If a dog needs basic training, often the rescuer will provide it. If a dog needs medical treatment, many dedicated dog rescuers pay for it out of their own pocket. These people are incredibly passionate about rescue, and they work tirelessly to make sure every dog finds a home. Nothing is as rewarding to these heroes as a successful adoption! Please help these healthy pets, before looking at an Italian Spinone puppies breeder, or an Italian Spinone puppy for sale search our Italian Spinone adoption database at this page!
Adoption Means a Healthier Italian Spinone as You’re Pet
Shelters have dogs of all breeds, including purebred Italian Spinones. These dogs sometimes end up in shelters because an Italian Spinone dog breeder, or someone who had Italian Spinone puppies sale was not able to find a home for all the dogs. These people are sometimes called "backyard" breeders. These are people who make some easy cash by breeding purebred Italian Spinones over and over then try to make easy cash by posting Italian Spinones puppies for sale in newspaper classified ads. Remember that most of these backyard Italian Spinone dog breeders don't know about breeding for favorable health and temperament qualities, and they don't know how to raise a properly socialized litter. Many of the Italian Spinone dog breeders wean litters from their mothers way too soon. Sometimes, a backyard Italian Spinones puppies breeder turns into small-time puppy mill to increase their supply so you can find Italian Spinone puppies for sale all the time in order for profits to grow.
What are puppy mills? A puppy mill is basically a purebred puppy factory farm where the puppies are just churned out as fast as they can in order to have, for example, as many Italian Spinone dogs for sale as possible. The dogs are kept in small cages and forced to breed at unhealthy rates… it's all about the money. Female dogs in puppy mills are made to have several litters per year, which is extremely dangerous and cruel. Usually Italian Spinone breeders pay little attention to the specific health and genetic diseases due to in-breeding, reluctantly they don’t inform whoever is looking for an Italian Spinone dog for sale about this problem. Genetic health testing is almost unheard of and mass-producing pets for profit is the bottom-line. In the worst puppy mills, horrifying conditions are the norm. How can you stop puppy mills? There is only one way. Take away their profits. Remember before you look for an an Italian Spinone sale, or Italian Spinone dogs for sale keep in mind that adoption is the most humane option!
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| i don't know |
Which motorcycle stuntman set a world record in February 1971, by jumping 19 cars? | The Man |
Evel Knievel was born Robert Craig Knievel
on Oct. 17, 1938 in Butte, Montana.
After a police chase in 1956, in which he crashed his motorcycle, Knievel was taken to jail on a charge of reckless driving. When the night jailer came around to check roll call, he noted Robert Knievel in one cell and William Knofel in another. Knofel was well known as “Awful Knofel” (“awful” rhyming with “Knofel”) so Knievel began to be referred to as Evel Knievel (“Evel” rhyming with “Knievel”). He chose this misspelling because of his last name and because he didn’t want to be considered “evil”.
And thus the legend was born…
“THE PEOPLE DON’T COME TO SEE ME DIE.
THEY COME TO SEE ME DEFY DEATH.”
Death-defying feats have fascinated mankind for centuries. From sword swallowers to human cannonballs, the daredevils of history have risked life and limb to draw a crowd. Few performers gained lasting fame. But in the 1970’s a motorcycle-jumping stuntman from Butte, Montana vaulted this tradition from its sideshow origins to unthinkable heights of popularity and influence.
Evel Knievel made the leap from rural county fairs to sold-out stadiums through a unique combination of bravado, determination, and promotional genius. He invented himself and his business, jumping, crashing, and miraculously recovering to promise even more outrageous stunts to come.
A generation of kids grew up transfixed by his televised exploits, imitating his stunts on bicycles and with Evel Knievel toys.
Evel’s first jump was i n1966 at the National Date Festival in Indio, California. From that point on, Knievel’s stunts became more ambitious and more dangerous. Some of his most memorable jumps include Caesars Palace (1967), Madison Square Garden (1971), Twin Falls, Idaho, Snake River Canyon(1975), and of course the famous Wembley Stadium jump (1975).
When USA ABC’s Wide World of Sports collated the top twenty most watched sporting moments of all time, Evel featured five times – including the top spot. In one of his first jumps for ABC’s Wide World of Sports, Knievel successfully jumped 50 stacked cars at the Los Angeles Coliseum in front of a crowd of 35,000.
This performance lead to a world record where Evel jumped 14 greyhound buses at King’s Island amusement park in Ohio in 1975, four months after a spectacular crash in the jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London, England – which remains ABC’s Wide World of Sports’ highest rated show of all time.
Teach your kids about good and Evel. With the throttle wide-open, Evel Knievel went head to head with danger and lived to tell the tale. Despite failed jumps, crashes, and multiple broken bones, he always rose to perform again. This unconventional attitude to do things that had never been done before is exactly what made him a global icon.
Evel Knievel is an inspiration to people – young and old – who recognize they want to be in control of their own destiny. People who want to go out and do great things. People who use drive, determination, personality, and hard work to become their own legend.
AN AMERICAN ICON
From his humble roots in the unlikely town of Butte, MT, Knievel rode his motorcycle and guts to an unparalleled level of worldwide glory and fame, much of which he still carries with him today: King of the Daredevils, The Last of the Gladiators, The Godfather of Extreme Sports, Guinness Book of Records holder for the most bones broken, an unwavering optimist, a doer, a go-getter, self-promoter extraordinaire, media genius, an enigmatic folk hero — an American legend. Knievel’s nationally televised motorcycle jumps, including his 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho, represent four of the twenty most-watched, including the number 1 spot, ABC’s Wide World of Sports events in history. His achievements and failures, including his record 35 broken bones, earned him several entries in the Guinness Book of World Records. These are the titles by which millions of people around the world know Evel Knievel.
Evel Knievel spoke a prayer to himself before every jump, whether it was over cars, fountains or canyon, just before he sped off toward his take-off, not knowing whether he’d live or die.
Because of Knievel’s flashy bravado, bold charisma and unfailing ability to self-promote, outspoken boxing legend Muhammad Ali once humorously billed the daredevil in his prime as “the white Muhammad Ali” during the mid70′s. He has also been called a “modern day P.T. Barnum” for his uncanny promotional knack. Nothing has changed in Evel’s ability to persuade, convince and captivate his audiences. A master storyteller, when Evel Knievel talks, people listen.
“Kids wanted to be like me, men wanted to be me, and the women wanted to be with me,” he often quipped.
Of all the superheroic characters that have appeared on the pages of Marvel and DC comics, there is only one, real life superhero: Evel Knievel. And the legend lives on.
EARLY LIFE
Evel Knievel (October 17, 1938 – November 30, 2007), born Robert Craig Knievel, in the mining city of Butte, Montana on October 17, 1938. “The Richest Hill on Earth” had an attitude of its own. The men worked hard and played harder, their women worried and the common rule was…well, there weren’t really any rules, as long as you worked hard. It didn’t take long for young Bobby to start flourishing as a character in this kind of wide-open, anything goes atmosphere. And it didn’t take long for people to notice.
Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel was the first of two children born to Robert E. and Ann Keough “Zippy” Knievel. His surname is of German origin; his great-great-grandparents on his father’s side emigrated to the United States from Germany and on his mother’s side from Ireland. The boys were raised by paternal grandparents, Ignatius and Emma Knievel. At the age of eight, Bobby attended a Joie Chitwood Auto Daredevil Show, to which he gave credit for his later career choice to become a motorcycle daredevil.
Knievel started racing around Butte’s grisly, mining-scarred landscapes on his bicycle at an early age before he’d come to realize that it would be his calling.
Always a thrill seeker with a cunning edge, young Knievel found himself in trouble early and often, but never without learning a valuable lesson. As a young boy, he would outsell most of the local newspaper boys, many much older than him, on the busy corners of the uptown, by stretching the truth of the papers’ headlines. Knievel eventually found himself as a high school dropout with an unsavory yet inescapable choice after a hub cap theft bust: go to prison or join the Army. His stint in the service straightened him out several fold. Upon his return to The Mining City, he married Linda Bork, they had their first child, Kelly, and Knievel started to explore legitimate ways to make a living and raise a family. Times were hard, but despite the lack of income, Knievel always showed brilliance and promise in his ventures.
First, he got a job in the copper mines with the Anaconda Mining Company as a diamond drill operator. He was then promoted to surface duty where he drove a large earth mover. Knievel was fired when he made the earth mover do a motorcycle-type wheelie and drove it into Butte’s main power line. The incident left the city without electricity for several hours. Idle, Knievel began to find himself in more and more trouble around Butte. After a police chase in 1956 in which he crashed his motorcycle, Knievel was taken to jail on a charge of reckless driving. When the night jailer came around to check the roll, he noted Robert Knievel in one cell and William Knofel in the other. Knofel was well known as “Awful Knofel” (“awful” rhyming with “Knofel”) so Knievel began to be referred to as Evel Knievel (“Evel” rhyming with “Knievel”). He chose this misspelling because of his last name and because he didn’t want to be considered “evil.”
Always looking for new thrills and challenges, Knievel participated in local professional rodeos and ski jumping events, including winning the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men’s ski jumping championship in 1959. In the army, his athletic ability allowed him to join the track team where he was a pole vaulter.
Shortly after getting married, Knievel started the Butte Bombers, a semi-pro hockey team. To help promote his team and earn some money, he convinced the 1960 Olympic Czechoslovakian hockey team to play the Butte Bombers in a warm-up game to the Olympics. Knievel was ejected from the game minutes into the third period and left the stadium. When the Czechoslovakian officials went to the box office to collect the expense money the team was promised, workers discovered the game receipts had been stolen. The United States Olympic Committee wound up paying the Czechoslovakian team’s expenses to avoid an international incident. Evel Knievel also played with the Charlotte Checkers of the Eastern Hockey League.
During this period in his life when the young man was trying on many different hats in an attempt to find his calling, Knievel started a hunting outfitting service called Sure-Kill. As a man who always insisted on walking the walk he talked, Knievel found himself right in the middle of a conservation debate between Montana’s hunting guides and outfitters and the National Park Service. There had been a long-standing practice of park rangers slaughtering the excess elk numbers in Yellowstone National Park. In 1961, the Yellowstone herd numbered over 10,000, calling for a drastic reduction of some 5,000 animals.
In response, Knievel decided to hitchhike from Butte to Washington, D.C. in December 1961 to lobby to have the elk relocated to areas where hunting was permitted. After his conspicuous trek (he hitchhiked with a 54-inch-wide rack of elk antlers and a petition with 3,000 signatures), he presented his case to Representative Arnold Olsen, Senator Mike Mansfield and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. As a result of his efforts, the culling was stopped, and the animals have since been regularly captured and relocated to areas of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.
After returning home from Washington, Knievel joined the motorcycle racing circuit and had moderate success, but he still couldn’t make enough money to support his family. During 1962, Knievel broke his collarbone in a racing accident. The doctors said he couldn’t race for at least six months. To help support his family, he switched careers and sold insurance for the Combined Insurance Company of America, working for W. Clement Stone. Stone suggested that Knievel read Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude, a book that Stone wrote. Knievel credited much of his success to Stone and his book.
Knievel was successful as an insurance salesman (even selling insurance policies to several institutionalized mental patients) and wanted recognition for his efforts. When the company refused to promote him to vice-president after a few months on the job he quit. Wanting a new start away from Butte, Knievel moved his family to Moses Lake, Washington. There, he opened a Honda motorcycle dealership and promoted racing. During the early 1960s, it was difficult to promote Japanese imports. People still considered them inferior to American built motorcycles, and there was lingering resentment from World War II, which had ended less than 20 years earlier. Always the promoter, Knievel offered a $100 discount to anybody who could beat him at arm wrestling.
After the closure of the Moses Lake Honda dealership, Evel went to work for Don Pomeroy at his motorcycle shop in Sunnyside, Washington. It is here where Jim Pomeroy, a well known motorcycle racer taught Knievel how to do a “wheelie” and ride while standing on the seat of the bike.
DAREDEVIL
While trying to support his family, Knievel recalled the Joie Chitwood show he saw as a boy and decided that he could do something similar using a motorcycle. Promoting the show himself, Knievel rented the venue, wrote the press releases, set up the show, sold the tickets and served as his own master of ceremonies. After enticing the small crowd with a few wheelies, he proceeded to jump a twenty-foot-long box of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions. Despite landing short and having his back wheel hit the box containing the rattlesnakes, Knievel managed to land safely.
Knievel realized to make any amount of real money he would need to hire more performers, stunt coordinators and other personnel so that he could concentrate on the jumps. With little money, he went looking for a sponsor and found one in Bob Blair, owner of ZDS Motors, Inc., the West coast distributor for Berliner Motor Corporation, a distributor for Norton Motorcycles. Blair offered to provide the needed motorcycles, but he wanted the name changed from the Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils Thrill Show to Evil Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils. Knievel didn’t want his image to be that of a Hells Angels rider, so he convinced Blair to allow him to use Evel instead of Evil.
The debut of Knievel and his daredevils was on January 23, 1966, at the National Date Festival in Indio, California. Evel performed wheelies, crashed through plywood firewalls and jumped over two pick-up trucks. The show was a huge success. Knievel received several offers to host more shows after that first performance. The second booking was in Hemet, California, but was canceled due to rain. The next performance was on February 10, 1966 in Barstow, California. During the performance, Knievel attempted a new stunt where he would jump, spread eagle, over a speeding motorcycle. Knievel jumped too late and the motorcycle hit him in the groin, tossing him fifteen feet into the air. He was placed in the hospital as a result of his injuries. When released, he returned to Barstow to finish the performance he had started almost a month earlier.
Knievel’s daredevil show broke up after the Barstow performance because injuries prevented him from performing. After recovering, Knievel started traveling from small town to small town as a solo act. To get ahead of other motorcycle stunt people who were jumping animals or pools of water, Knievel started jumping cars. He began adding more and more cars to his jumps when he would return to the same venue to get people to come out and see him again. Knievel hadn’t had a serious injury since the Barstow performance, but on June 19, 1966 in Missoula, Montana, he attempted to jump twelve cars and a cargo van. The distance he had for takeoff didn’t allow him to get up enough speed. His back wheel hit the top of the van while his front wheel hit the top of the landing ramp. Knievel ended up with a severely broken arm and several broken ribs. The crash and subsequent stay in the hospital were a publicity windfall.
With each successful jump, the public wanted him to jump one more car. On May 30, 1967, Knievel successfully cleared sixteen cars in Gardena, California. Then he attempted the same jump on July 28, 1967, in Graham, Washington, where he had his next serious crash. Landing his cycle on a panel truck that was the last vehicle, Knievel was thrown from his bike. This time he suffered a serious concussion. After a month, he recovered and returned to Graham on August 18 to again finish the show.
Knievel finally received some national exposure when actor Joey Bishop had him on as a guest of The Joey Bishop Show. All the attention not only brought larger paydays, but also female admirers.
CAESARS PALACE
While in Las Vegas, to watch Dick Tiger successfully defend his light heavyweight boxing titles at the Las Vegas Convention Center in November 1967, Knievel first saw the fountains at Caesars Palace and decided to jump them. To get an audience with the casino’s CEO Jay Sarno, Knievel created a fictitious corporation called Evel Knievel Enterprises and three fictitious lawyers to make phone calls to Sarno. Knievel also placed phone calls to Sarno claiming to be from ABC-TV and Sports Illustrated inquiring about the jump. Sarno finally agreed to meet Knievel and the deal was set for Knievel to jump the fountains on December 31, 1967. After the deal was set, Knievel tried to get ABC to air the event live on Wide World of Sports. ABC declined, but said that if Knievel had the jump filmed and it was as spectacular as he said it would be, they would consider using it later.
Knievel used his own money to have actor/director John Derek produce a film of the Caesars’ jump. To keep costs low, Derek used his then-wife Linda Evans as one of the camera operators. It was Evans who filmed Knievel’s famous landing. On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed his last 100 dollars on the blackjack table (which he lost), stopped by the bar and had a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by two showgirls. After doing his normal pre-jump show and a few warm up approaches, Knievel began his real approach. When he hit the takeoff ramp, it was perfect, the landing however was a disaster. Knievel came up short which caused the handlebars to be ripped out of his hands as he tumbled over them onto the pavement where he skidded into the Dunes parking lot. As a result of the crash, Knievel suffered a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist and both ankles and a concussion that kept him in a coma for 29 days. For certain- the most famous motorcycle crash in history.
Before the Caesars’ jump Knievel asked his friend, a Combined Insurance sales agent, to sell him ten accident policies. Combined’s underwriting policies allowed for only one of these policies to be written, since the policy covered any accident and was non-cancelable for the life of the insured. The friend agreed and was fired by Combined when Knievel filed the claims on all ten. Upon hearing that his friend had been fired Knievel contacted Combined’s Vice President. He agreed to return nine of the policies and be paid full benefits on only one, if Combined allowed the friend to return to work. Combined agreed and his friend was reinstated.
After his crash and recovery Knievel was more famous than ever. ABC-TV showed the jump paying far more than they originally would have had they televised the original jump live. Ironically, when Knievel finally achieved the fame and possible fortune that he always wanted, his doctors were telling him that he might never walk without the aid of crutches, let alone ride and jump motorcycles.
JUMPS AND RECORDS
To keep his name in the news, Knievel started describing his biggest stunt ever, a motorcycle jump across the Grand Canyon. Just five months after his near fatal crash, Knievel miraculously performed another jump. On May 25, 1968, in Scottsdale, Arizona, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump fifteen Ford Mustangs. Knievel ended up breaking his right leg and foot as a result of the crash.
On August 3, 1968, Knievel returned to jumping, making more money than ever before. He was earning approximately $25,000 per performance, and he was making successful jumps almost weekly until October 13, 1968, in Carson City, Nevada. As famous for his crashes as his success, Evel lost control when landing and crashed again, breaking his hip once more.
On May 10, 1970 in Yakima, Washington, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump 13 Pepsi delivery trucks. His approach was complicated by the fact that he had to start on pavement, cut across grass, and then return to pavement. His lack of speed caused the motorcycle to come down front wheel first. He managed to hold on until the cycle hit the base of the ramp. After being thrown off he skidded for 50 feet (15 m). Knievel broke his collarbone, suffered a compound fracture of his right arm and broke both legs.
On January 8 and January 9, 1971, Knievel set the record by selling over 100,000 tickets to back-to-back performances at the Houston Astrodome. On February 28, he set a new world record by jumping 19 cars with his Harley-Davidson XR-750 in Ontario, California. The 19 car jump was also filmed for the movie, Evel Knievel.
On March 3, 1972, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, after making a successful jump, he tried to come to a quick stop because of a short landing area. Knievel suffered a broken back and a concussion after getting thrown off and run over by his motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson. Knievel returned to jumping in February 1973, where he successfully jumped over 50 stacked cars at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. For 35 years, Knievel held the record for successfully jumping the most stacked cars on a Harley-Davidson XR-750. His historic XR-750 is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Made of steel, aluminum and fiberglass, the customized motorcycle weighs about 300 pounds.
THE GRAND CANYON JUMP
Although Knievel never attempted to jump the Grand Canyon, rumors of the Canyon jump were started by Knievel himself in 1968 following the Caesars’ Palace crash. During a 1968 interview, Knievel stated, “I don’t care if they say, ‘Look, kid, you’re going to drive that thing off the edge of the Canyon and die,’ I’m going to do it. I want to be the first. If they’d let me go to the moon, I’d crawl all the way to Cape Kennedy just to do it. I’d like to go to the moon, but I don’t want to be the second man to go there.”
Knievel kept up his pursuit of getting the United States government to allow him to jump the Grand Canyon. To push his case, he hired famed San Francisco defense attorney Melvin Belli to fight the legal battle in obtaining government permission. ABC’s Wide World of Sports started showing Knievel’s jumps on television regularly. His popularity, especially with young boys, was ever increasing. He became a hero to a generation of young boys, many of whom were injured trying to imitate his stunts. A. J. Foyt made Knievel part of his pit crew for the Indianapolis 500 in 1970. Evel became great friends with racing legend JC Agajanian whose teams won the race three times.
For the next several years, Knievel would negotiate with the U.S. government to secure a jumping site and develop various concept bikes to make the jump. However, the U.S. Department of Interior denied him airspace over the Grand Canyon. In 1971, Knievel switched his attention to the Snake River Canyon.
SNAKE RIVER CANYON
In 1971, while flying back to Butte from a big jump, Knievel looked out the window and saw the Snake River Canyon. After finding a location near Twin Falls, Idaho, that was both wide enough, deep enough and on private property, Knievel leased 300 acres for $35,000 to stage his jump. He set the date for September 1972.
ABC Sports was unwilling to pay the price Knievel wanted for the Snake River Canyon jump, so he ended up hiring Bob Arum’s company, Top Rank Productions, to put the event on closed circuit television and broadcast to movie theaters. Knievel then hired subcontractor and aeronautical engineer Doug Malewicki to build him a rocket-powered cycle that he could use to jump across the Snake River, to be called the X-1 Skycycle. Doug’s creation was powered by a steam engine built by former Aerojet engineer Robert Truax. On April 15, 1972 the X-1 was launched to test the feasibility of the launching ramp and dunked in the river a mile below. The decision was then made to have Truax build the Skycycle X-2 and have it take off and fly more like a rocket than a motorcycle.
The launch at Snake River Canyon (42.59713°N 114.42292°W) was on September 8, 1974, at 3:36 p.m. MDT. The steam that powered the engine was superheated to a temperature of 500 °F (260 °C). Upon take-off, the drogue parachute deployed. The deployed chute caused enough drag that even though the skycycle made it part way across the canyon to the north rim, the prevailing winds caused it to drift back south, into the canyon. By the time it hit the bottom of the canyon, it landed only a few feet from the water on the same side of the canyon it had been launched from. If he had landed in the water, Knievel would have drowned due to a jumpsuit/harness which kept him strapped in the vehicle. Knievel survived the jump with only minor injuries.
WEMBLEY JUMP
After the Snake River jump, Knievel returned to motorcycle jumping with ABC Wide World of Sports televising several jumps. On May 26, 1975, in front of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium in London, Knievel crashed while trying to land a jump over thirteen single-deck AEC Merlin buses (the term “London Buses” used in earlier publicity had led to the belief that the attempt was to be made over the higher and more traditional Routemaster double-deck type). After the crash, despite breaking his back, Knievel addressed the audience and announced his retirement. Near shock and not yielding to Frank Gifford’s (of ABC Wide World of Sports) plea to use a stretcher, Knievel walked off the Wembley field stating, “I came in walking, I went out walking!”
KINGS ISLAND JUMP
After recuperating, Knievel decided that he had spoken too soon, and that he would continue jumping. On October 25, 1975, Knievel successfully jumped fourteen Greyhound buses at the Kings Island theme park in Ohio. Although Knievel landed on the safety deck above the 14th bus (the frame of the Harley-Davidson actually broke) his landing was successful and he held the record for jumping the most buses on a Harley-Davidson for 24 years. The Kings Island event scored the highest viewer ratings in the history of ABC’s Wide World of Sports and would serve as Knievel’s longest successful jump at 163 feet. After the Kings Island jump, Knievel again announced his retirement.
Again, his retirement was short lived and Knievel continued to jump. However, after the lengthy Kings Island jump, Knievel limited the remainder of his career jumps to shorter and more attainable lengths. Evel jumped on October 30, 1976, at the Seattle Kingdome. He only jumped seven Greyhound Buses but it was a success. Despite the crowd’s pleasure, Knievel felt that it was not his best jump, and apologized to the crowd.
SHARK JUMP
In January 1977, Knievel was scheduled for a major jump in Chicago, Illinois. The jump was inspired by the film, Jaws. Knievel was scheduled to jump a tank full of live sharks and would be televised live nationally. However, during his rehearsal, Knievel lost control of the motorcycle and crashed into a cameraman. Although Knievel broke his arms, he was more distraught over a permanent injury his accident caused to the cameraman (who lost his eye). The footage of this crash was so upsetting to Knievel, that he did not show the clip for 19 years until the documentary, Absolute Evel: The Evel Knievel Story.
After the failed shark jump, Knievel retired from major performances and limited his appearances to speaking only, rather than stunt riding, saying ” a professional is supposed to know when he has jumped far enough.”
MOTORCYCLES
Knievel briefly used a Honda 350cc motorcycle, using it to jump a crate of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions, which was his first known jump. Knievel then used a Norton Motorcycle Company 750cc. He used the Norton for only one year during 1966. Between 1967 and 1968, Knievel jumped using the Triumph Bonneville (with a 650cc engine). Knievel used the Triumph at the Caesars Palace crash on New Year’s Eve 1967. When Knievel returned to jumping after the crash, he used Triumph for the remainder of 1968.
Between December 1969 and April 1970, Knievel used the Laverda American Eagle 750cc motorcycle. On December 12, 1970, Knievel would switch to the Harley-Davidson XR-750, the motorcycle with which he is best known for jumping. Knievel would use the XR-750 in association with Harley-Davidson until 1977.
On September 8, 1974, Knievel attempted to jump the Snake River Canyon on a rocket propelled motorcycle designed by former NASA engineer Robert Truax dubbed the Skycycle X-2. The State of Idaho registered the X-2 as an airplane rather than a motorcycle.
INJURIES
CORE VALUES
One of Evel’s qualities was that he had great pride in his core values. Throughout his career (and later life), he would repeatedly talk about the importance of “keeping his word”. He stated that although he knew he may not successfully make a jump or even survive the canyon jump, he followed through with each stunt because he gave his word that he would. Prior to the canyon jump, Knievel stated, “If someone says to you, ‘that guy should have never jumped the canyon. You knew if he did, that he’d lose his life and that he was crazy.’ Do me a favor. Tell him that you saw me here and regardless of what I was, that you knew me, and that I kept my word.”
In the documentary Last of the Gladiators, Knievel discussed the crash of a 1970 Pepsi-Cola sponsored jump in Yakima, Washington. Knievel knew the jump was questionable, but stated, I went ahead and did it anyway. When you give your word to somebody that you’re going to do something, you’ve gotta do it. In the 1971 biopic, George Hamilton (as Evel) emphasizes in the opening monologue that a man does not go back on his word.
Knievel would regularly share his anti-drug message, as it was another one of his core values. Knievel would preach an anti-drug message to children and adults before each of his stunts. One organization that Knievel regularly slammed for being drug dealers was the Hells Angels. A near-riot erupted on January 23, 1970 at the Cow Palace when a tire-iron was thrown at Knievel during his stunt show, and Knievel and the spectators fought back, sending the Hells Angels to the hospital. The plot to his only motion picture as an actor, Viva Knievel, centers around Evel foiling the attempts of drug lords smuggling narcotics into America from Mexico.
Family
Knievel was married twice. He and his first wife, Linda, were legally married for 38 years. During their marriage, the couple had four children: 2 boys and 2 girls (oldest child Kelly and second-born Robbie are the boys and Tracey and youngest child Alicia are the girls). Throughout Kelly’s and Robbie’s adolescence, the boys performed at Knievel’s stunt shows. Robbie Knievel continued into adulthood to perform as a professional motorcycle daredevil. Knievel’s courtship and marriage to Linda was the theme of the 1971 George Hamilton movie, Evel Knievel. Linda and Evel were legally divorced in 1997.
In 1999, Knievel married his girlfriend, Krystal Kennedy. The marriage was held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The couple were married for two years, divorcing in 2001. Following the divorce, Krystal and Evel would work out their differences and remain close friends and live together until Knievel’s death.
DEATH
Knievel died in Clearwater, Florida, on November 30, 2007, aged 69. He had been suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for many years. A longtime friend reported that Knievel had trouble breathing while at his residence in Clearwater, but died before the ambulance could reach the hospital. “It’s been coming for years, but you just don’t expect it. Superman just doesn’t die, right?” In one of his last interviews, he told Maxim Magazine, “You can’t ask a guy like me why [I performed]. I really wanted to fly through the air. I was a daredevil, a performer. I loved the thrill, the money, the whole macho thing. All those things made me Evel Knievel. Sure, I was scared. You gotta be an ass not to be scared. But I beat the hell out of death.”
Knievel was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in his hometown of Butte, Montana on December 10, 2007, following a funeral at the 7,500-seat Butte Civic Center presided over by Rev. Robert Schuller (actor Matthew McConaughey gave the eulogy). Prior to the Monday service, fireworks exploded in the Butte night sky as pallbearers carried Knievel’s casket into the center.
POSTHUMOUS RECOGNITION
On July 10, 2010, a special temporary exhibit entitled TRUE EVEL: The Amazing Story of Evel Knievel was opened at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The exhibit was opened in collaboration with Harley-Davidson Motorcycles and Evel’s oldest son, Kelly. Among the various artifacts from Knievel’s life, the exhibit included his “Shark Jump” Harley-Davidson XR-750, the X-2 Skycycle, his “Wembley Blue” jumpsuit, and his trademark “red, white and blue” jumpsuit complete with his helmet and walking stick. Evel Knievel merchandising, personal artifacts, and X-rays from his injuries were also exhibited.
The TRUE EVEL exhibit ran approximately two-months and ended on September 6, 2010.
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TIMELINE
| Evel Knievel |
The US citizenship of which American Civil War General was restored in 1975? | Evel Knievel - Telegraph
Obituaries
Evel Knievel
Evel Knievel, the American motorcycle stunt rider who has died aged 69, combined a considerable talent for self-promotion with a hazardous capacity for bravery; among the several world records he held was that for the most bones broken by one person (433), and he is said to have spent the equivalent of three years in hospital.
Evel Knievel in his rocket on Sept. 8, 1974, before his failed attempt at a highly promoted 3/4-mile leap across Snake River Canyon in Idaho Photo: AP
12:01AM GMT 01 Dec 2007
| i don't know |
What is the title of the only ‘Dirty Harry’ film directed by Clint Eastwood? | Clint Eastwood - Dirty Harry Music Anthology
You don't assign him to murder cases.
You just turn him loose.
here have been few film series as popular as Warner Brothers' Dirty Harry movies starring Clint Eastwood. From the original Dirty Harry in 1971 to The Dead Pool in 1988, San Francisco homicide inspector Harry Callahan went his own way, tracking down killers while fighting his own battles within an ineffective criminal justice system. This page pays tribute to this wonderful film series.
In each Dirty Harry film, Harry's partner is either injured or killed.
In 1968 Harry's partner Fanduchi was killed.
In 1971 Harry's partner Dietrick was hospitalized.
Also in 1971, Harry's new partner, Chico Gonzales, was injured and hospitalized after a gun fight with Scorpio. He saved Harry's life. Chico retired from the force and became a school teacher. Frank De Georgio became Harry's partner.
In 1973, Harry was assigned a new partner named Early Smith. Smith was killed when a bomb detonated in his mail box. The bomb was planted by the vigilante cops. De Georgio became Harry's partner again.
In 1976, after being demoted to personnel but before being assigned a new partner Harry's former partner Frank De Georgio, was killed by Bobby Maxwell during a robbery.
In 1976, Harry was assigned a new partner. As the Mayor was trying to boost his popularity he began a new policy of having women on the police force. Harry's new partner was Kate Moore. Kate Moore died on Alcatraz while trying to save the mayor.
In 1983 Harry's partner was Horace King. Harry and Horace were good friends and when Harry got sent to San Paolo, Horace went to visit him. Horace was killed in Harry's apartment.
Until 1988 Harry worked without a partner. After testifying at the Jannero trial, Jannero wanted Harry killed. After an attempt on Harry's life where Harry killed his attackers he was assigned a new partner to cover his back. Al Quan moved into homicide to help Harry. Quan was injured when their car was partially blown up by the Dead Pool killer.
All Dirty Harry films end with the camera zooming out from the action.
In Dirty Harry , the camera zooms out as Harry walks away from killing Scorpio and throwing his badge in the water.
In Magnum Force , the camera zooms out as Harry walks away from the burning car of Lieutenant Briggs.
In The Enforcer , the camera zooms out as Harry walks away from the Mayor on Alcatraz Island.
In Sudden Impact , the camera zooms away as Harry and Jennifer Spencer walk away from the amusement park rides.
In The Dead Pool , the camera zooms away as Harry and Samantha Walker leave the pier.
In each Dirty Harry movie someone is killed within the first 5 minutes.
In Dirty Harry , an unknown women is killed by Scorpio while swimming in a rooftop pool.
In Magnum Force , four gangsters are killed after leaving court by a vigilante cop.
In The Enforcer , two gas men are killed by Bobby Maxwell in order to get their uniforms and truck.
In Sudden Impact , a man is killed by Jennifer Spencer as an act of revenge.
In The Dead Pool , Harry kills four gangsters who are ordered by Lou Jannero to kill him.
In each Dirty Harry film, Harry breaks up a daring robbery.
In Dirty Harry , Harry breaks up a bank robbery by using his .44 magnum to stop the robbers. He also tricks the last robber by having him question his luck as to if Harry has a bullet left.
In Magnum Force , Harry ends a plane hijack by posing as an airline pilot.
In The Enforcer , Harry ends a liquor store robbery by driving his car though the store window and shooting the robbers.
In Sudden Impact , Harry ends a robbery at his local coffee shop by killing the robbers and saving a hostage held a gun point by echoing the words,"Go ahead, make my day."
In The Dead Pool , Harry ends a China Town restaurant robbery with the help of his partner Al Quan.
Each Dirty Harry film ends near water.
In Dirty Harry , Harry shoots Scorpio and sends his body splashing into the water.
In Magnum Force , Harry ends his battle with the two of the vigilante cops on mothballed aircraft carriers in Alameda.
In The Enforcer , Harry blows up Bobby Maxwell in the lighthouse on Alcatraz Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.
In Sudden Impact , Harry kills Jennifer Spencer's kidnappers on the amusement park boardwalk.
In The Dead Pool , Harry kills Rook on a pier with a harpoon gun.
In four of the Dirty Harry films, Harry uses something besides his .44 Magnum to end the final confrontation.
In Magnum Force , Harry uses a bomb to blow up Lt. Briggs' car.
In The Enforcer , Harry uses a missile to destroy a lookout tower on Alcatraz in which Bobby Maxwell is seeking refuge.
In Sudden Impact , Harry uses the new .44 Magnum automag to kill his enemy at the amusement park.
In The Dead Pool , Harry uses a harpoon gun to kill the Dead Pool killer.
In four Dirty Harry movies, the police arrive just after Harry finishes his work.
In Dirty Harry the police start to arrive after Harry walks away from the water.
In The Enforcer , the police helicopter arrives after Harry blows up Bobby Maxwell, announcing that they have the ransom money.
In Sudden Impact , the police arrive after Harry kills the bad guys.
In The Dead Pool , the police arrive while Harry is walking away from Rook.
| Sudden Impact |
Which animal is the symbol of the US Republican Political Party? | Amazon.com: The Dirty Harry Collection (Dirty Harry/Magnum Force/The Enforcer/Sudden Impact/The Dead Pool): Clint Eastwood, Andrew Robinson, Liam Neeson, Sondra Locke, Tyne Daly, Harry Guardino, Reni Santoni, John Vernon, John Larch, John Mitchum, Mae Mercer, Lyn Edgington, Buddy Van Horn, Don Siegel, James Fargo, Ted Post, Charles B. Pierce, Dean Riesner, Durk Pearson: Movies & TV
Dirty Harry Special Edition
Dirty Harry is generally regarded as a classic, the beginning of a second larger-than-life persona for Clint Eastwood (after The Man with No Name). It's the source of the famous "Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" (The actual quote is "... you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" but the original doesn't quote as well out of context.)
Tough cop "Dirty" Harry Callahan has his own simple, commonsense rules for dealing with crime, based on a strong sense of right and wrong and an impatience with needless details and constraints. The latter gets him into continual trouble with the system which, as portrayed in the movie, is more about politics and bureaucracy than doing what needs to be done. This reflected well the frustrations and fears of Americans in the '70s that criminals were taking over the streets and that the law was powerless to stop them because the "criminal-coddling" courts were holding them back. I personally value the Fourth Amendment and other such niceties and shiver to think of some of the political and moral ramifications of this movie (some of which are still very much with us), but whatever one's politics, Dirty Harry is very effective as a police-action thriller, largely because of Eastwood's unique persona. It's hard not to admire and root for him even if you think he's not always right. There are also the standard gunfights and car chases, and high suspense, all well done.
In the films that followed in the series, Harry became a somewhat more balanced, complex or confusing character, depending on your point of view, coming down clearly on the side of the law against rogue vigilante cops, for example, and learning to appreciate a female cop as a partner, but the basic idea of Harry standing strong despite the corrupt, wimpy system remained.
I'm pleased to see that some of the new special features in the set deal with the "issues" raised by the Dirty Harry films. I look forward to seeing what others make of them.
The special features:
-- new commentary by filmmaker and Eastwood associate/biographer Richard Schickel
-- new featurette "The Long Shadow of Dirty Harry," on the influence and legacy of Dirty Harry
-- "Dirty Harry: The Original," with Clint Eastwood and the film's creators looking back at the creation of the Dirty Harry character
-- "Dirty Harry's Way," a promotional short focusing on the toughness of the movie's main character
-- interview gallery, with Patricia Clarkson, Joel Cox, Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Evan Kim, John Milius, Ted Post, Andy Robinson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Urich
-- "Clint Eastwood: The Man from Malpaso," a 1993 TV program on his life and career, including scenes from his work and interviews with friends, fellow actors and crew members
-- trailer gallery: Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool
Magnum Force Deluxe Edition
As the sequel to a classic film, it suffers some from the let-downs typical of sequels, but it's still Clint Eastwood being a tough guy, which is enough to carry the merely average plot and script and make it good entertainment for Eastwood fans. I'd say that applies to all four sequels.
In this installment, Harry, the cop frustrated by the rules that hold him back, shows he has his limits when he goes up against wicked vigilante cops killing criminals without any due process. As in the first movie, there's plenty of action, a car chase, suspense, people getting shot, etc.
Special features:
-- new commentary by director and Magnum Force screenwriter John Milius ("in this gritty, entertaining commentary, legendary Hollywood screenwriter Milius discusses Eastwood, the world of Dirty Harry and the rugged resilience of crime drama in American cinema")
-- new featurette "A Moral Right: The Politics of Dirty Harry," with filmmakers, social scientists and authors on the politics and ethics of the Dirty Harry films
-- "The Hero Cop: Yesterday and Today"
-- trailer gallery
The Enforcer Deluxe Edition
In this installment, Harry, the renegade cop with some old-fashioned attitudes and no desire to be tied up with a partner, gets stuck with a female partner, well played by Tyne Daly. Surprise surprise, he learns to respect and rely on her as they make hamburger of a group of domestic terrorists. As in the first two movies, there's plenty of action, suspense, people getting shot, etc., but with a chase on foot in place of the usual car chase.
Special features:
-- new commentary by Enforcer director James Fargo
-- new featurette "The Business End: Violence in Cinema"
-- "Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood: Something Special in Films"
-- trailer gallery
Sudden Impact Deluxe Edition
Sudden Impact inspires very mixed reactions, but it's still Clint Eastwood in a classic role, this time with Sondra Locke, his partner in several films and off-screen. Some people hate Locke, but I think she's good with Eastwood. (I liked them even more in the Dirty Harryish Gauntlet and the very un-Dirty-Harry Bronco Billy .)
Harry is on forced leave for being his usual trouble-making self while getting the bad guys, but still finds himself in the middle of a string of murders that he undertakes to stop. As in a couple of the others in the series, this movie includes a story line where extralegal justice is an issue, as Locke's damaged rape victim seeks revenge. With the usual action, shootings, and a high level of violence, with women getting their share.
This one is the source of the famous quote, "Go ahead, make my day." It was directed by Eastwood.
-- new commentary by filmmaker and Eastwood associate/biographer Richard Schickel
-- new featurette "The Evolution of Clint Eastwood," on the film in the context of Eastwood's career as a director
-- trailer gallery
The Dead Pool Deluxe Edition
The Dead Pool was pretty well received, considering its place in the series. It has a convoluted plot about a game in which bets are taken on the deaths of celebrities, including Harry, with young Liam Neeson playing a questionable film director who's playing the game. Issues of the celebrity-enslaved press are mixed with romance as Harry dates a reporter. As always, there's plenty of action, suspense, gun play, and, this time, a unique and hilarious car chase with a very small but dangerous car.
-- new commentary by Dead Pool producer David Valdes and Dead Pool cinematographer Jack N. Green
-- new Featurette "The Craft of Dirty Harry," including the cinematography, editing, music, and production design of the Dirty Harry films
-- trailer gallery
The Ultimate editions will contain all of the above features, plus some:
-- the feature-length documentary Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows (which has been and is available separately)
-- 40+ page hardcover book
-- wallet with metal badge and removable ID card
-- five 5" x 7" lobby poster reproduction cards and an exclusive Ultimate Collector's Edition card
-- "Scorpio: Portrait of a Killer" 19" x 27" map of San Francisco detailing Harry's hunt for the killer in the first film
-- never-before-seen production correspondence
The Out of the Shadows documentary is a substantial bonus (87 minutes) for the Ultimate edition. You can get it separately pretty cheap used, though. There's an Amazon page for it, with reviews, here .
| i don't know |
How deep, in feet, is a fathom? | Fathom | Definition of Fathom by Merriam-Webster
Examples of fathom in a sentence
<the pilot had to continually fathom the river, which drought conditions had lowered to unprecedented levels>
Did You Know?
Fathom comes to us from Old English fæthm, meaning "outstretched arms." The noun fathom, which now commonly refers to a measure (especially of depth) of six feet, was originally used for the distance, fingertip to fingertip, created by stretching one's arms straight out from the sides of the body. In one of its earliest uses, the verb fathom meant to encircle something with the arms as if for measuring and was also a synonym for "embrace." In the 1600s, however, fathom took on the meaning of using a sounding line to measure depth. At the same time, the verb also developed senses synonymous with "probe" or "investigate," and is now frequently used to refer to the act of getting to the bottom of something (figuratively speaking).
Origin and Etymology of fathom
| six distance |
The drug MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamin) is more commonly known by what name? | Fathom | Define Fathom at Dictionary.com
fathom
[fath -uh m] /ˈfæð əm/
Spell
noun, plural fathoms (especially collectively) fathom.
1.
a unit of length equal to six feet (1.8 meters): used chiefly in nautical measurements.
Abbreviation: fath.
to measure the depth of by means of a sounding line; sound.
3.
to penetrate to the truth of; comprehend; understand:
to fathom someone's motives.
Old English
900
before 900; Middle English fathme, Old English fæthm span of outstretched arms; cognate with German Faden six-foot measure, Old Norse fathmr; akin to patent
Related forms
Examples from the Web for fathom
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Contemporary Examples
If the concept of W.H. and Michelle Price as a happy couple is hard to fathom, the reality is easy to understand.
Wall Street's New Bonus Outrage William D. Cohan March 4, 2009
The intuition of women, especially for ones they love, surpasses anything I can fathom.
Ben Stiller's Daddy Issues Jacob Bernstein April 16, 2011
As a powerful woman she presents problems for men trying to fathom her.
Historical Examples
The omnipotence of God is so vast that it is quite impossible for us to fathom it.
The Friendly Road (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
Were they ten thousand fathom past the reach of mercy, they are punished.
British Dictionary definitions for fathom
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noun
1.
a unit of length equal to six feet (1.829 metres), used to measure depths of water
2.
(mining) a unit of volume usually equal to six cubic feet, used in measuring ore bodies
3.
(forestry) a unit of volume equal to six cubic feet, used for measuring timber
verb (transitive)
to measure the depth of, esp with a sounding line; sound
5.
to penetrate (a mystery, problem, etc); discover the meaning of
Derived Forms
fathomer, noun
Word Origin
Old English fæthm; related to Old Frisian fethem outstretched arms, Old Norse fathmr embrace, Old High German fadum cubit, Latin patēre to gape
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 fathom
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n.
Old English fæðm "length of the outstretched arm" (a measure of about six feet), also "arms, grasp," and, figuratively "power," from Proto-Germanic *fathmaz "embrace" (cf. Old Norse faðmr "embrace, bosom," Old Saxon fathmos "the outstretched arms," Dutch vadem "a measure of six feet"), from PIE *pot(e)-mo-, from root *pete- "to spread, stretch out" (see pace (n.)). There are apparent cognates in Old Frisian fethem, German faden "thread," which OED explains by reference to "spreading out."
v.
Old English fæðmian "to embrace, surround, envelop;" see fathom (n.). The meaning "take soundings" is from c.1600; its figurative sense of "get to the bottom of, understand" is 1620s. Related: Fathomed; fathoming.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
fathom in the Bible
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(Old A.S. faethm, "bosom," or the outstretched arms), a span of six feet (Acts 27:28). Gr. orguia (from orego, "I stretch"), the distance between the extremities of both arms fully stretched out.
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
| i don't know |
How many Triple Letter squares are on a standard Scrabble board? | How to Make a DIY Scrabble Board
How to Make a DIY Scrabble Board
Make a DIY Scrabble board so that you can enjoy this fun word game with friends. Watch this About.com video to learn how to make a DIY Scrabble board. Show transcript Hide transcript
Transcript: How to Make a DIY Scrabble Board
Hi, I'm Jacob Taxis for About.com. In this video you will learn how to make your own Scrabble board.
Supplies to Make a DIY Scrabble Board
To begin, you'll need:
Large sheet of cardboard or foamboard
Long ruler
Alphabet ink stamps or alphabet stickers
Star sticker
Thin cardboard or illustration board
Notepad
Make a Grid for a DIY Scrabble Board
First, using the ruler and a permanent marker, draw a square grid on your piece of foamboard. The square grid should have 15 rows and 15 columns. Next, color in the squares that will indicate Triple Word Score, Double Word Score, Triple Letter Score, and Double Letter Score. You can use any colors to paint the squares; however, because you’ll have to write over them, try to avoid very dark colors. We’ll be using a variety of greens and blues. To make the process easier, at the top of the board, lightly letter the columns A-O. On the left side of the board, number the rows 1-15.
Paint the DIY Scrabble Board
With the craft paint, paint the following squares green: A-1, A-8, A-15, H-1, H-15, O-1, O-8, O-15. Paint the following squares teal: B-2, C-3, D-4, E-5, K-5, L-4, M-3, N-2, B-14, C-13, D-12, E-11, K-11, L-12, M-13, N-14, H-8. Paint the following squares blue: F-2, J-2, B-6, F-6, J-6, N-6, B-10, F-10, J-10, N-10, F-14, J-14. Finally, paint the following squares light blue: D-1, L-1, G-3, I-3, A-4, H-4, O-4, C-7, G-7, I-7, M-7, D-8, L-8, C-9, G-9, I-9, M-9, A-12, H-12, O-12, G-13, I-13, D-15, L-15.
Mark the Tiles for a DIY Scrabble Board
When the paint dries, draw a star or place a star sticker in the green square at H-8 and erase the letters and numbers. Next, using a fine tip marker, write "Triple Word Score" in the light green squares, "Double Word Score" in the remaining teal squares, "Triple Letter Score" in the blue squares, and "Double Letter Score" in the light blue squares. When the board is complete, draw a square grid on the thin cardboard you're using for the letter tiles. The grid should have 10 rows and 10 columns. Be sure to make each letter tile the same size as the squares on the playing board.
Mark Points on a DIY Scrabble Board
Next, stamp or stick the letters for the game on the tiles you've made. If you don’t have an ink stamper or any alphabet stickers, simply write the letters in the tiles with a marker. At the bottom right-hand corner of each tile, write the number of points awarded for that particular letter. Then cut the tiles out. The following is a list of the proper number of tiles for each letter in the game and the number of points awarded for each letter:
A: 9 tiles, 1 point
B: 2 tiles, 3 points
C: 2 tiles, 3 points
D: 4 tiles, 2 points
E: 12 tiles, 1 point
F: 2 tiles, 4 points
G: 3 tiles, 2 points
H: 2 tiles, 4 points
I: 9 tiles, 1 point
J: 1 tile, 8 points
K: 1 tile, 5 points
L: 4 tiles, 1 point
M: 2 tiles, 3 points
N: 6 tiles, 1 point
O: 8 tiles, 1 point
P: 2 tiles, 3 points
Q: 1 tile, 10 points
R: 6 tiles, 1 point
S: 4 tiles, 1 point
T: 6 tiles, 1 point
U: 4 tiles, 1 point
V: 2 tiles, 4 points
W: 2 tiles, 4 points
X: 1 tile, 8 points
Y: 2 tiles, 4 points
Z: 1 tile, 10 points
Blank: 2 tiles, 0 points
When complete, grab your notepad for scoring and you're ready to play! Thank you for watching. For more, visit About.com.
About videos are made available on an "as is" basis, subject to the Terms of Use .
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What colour ‘Cadillac’ did Bruce Springsteen sing about in 1984? | Scrabble | Letter Tile Games Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia
Letter Tile Games Wiki
Scrabble brand logo by Mattel, Inc., used throughout the rest of the world
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Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary . Official reference works (e.g. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary ) provide a list of permissible words. The Collins Scrabble checker can also be used to check if a word is allowed. [1]
The name Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the United States and Canada. Elsewhere, Scrabble is trademarked by Mattel . The game is sold in 121 countries; there are 29 different language versions. One hundred and fifty million sets have been sold worldwide, and sets are found in roughly one-third of American homes. [2] [3] [4]
Contents
File:Alfred Butts letter frequencies.JPG
In 1938, architect Alfred Mosher Butts created the game as a variation on an earlier word game he invented called Lexiko . The two games had the same set of letter tiles, whose distributions and point values Butts worked out meticulously performing a frequency analysis of letters from various sources including The New York Times . The new game, which he called "Criss-Crosswords," added the 15-by-15 game board and the crossword-style game play. He manufactured a few sets himself, but was not successful in selling the game to any major game manufacturers of the day. [5]
In 1948, James Brunot, [6] a resident of Newtown, Connecticut – and one of the few owners of the original Criss-Crosswords game – bought the rights to manufacture the game in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit sold. Though he left most of the game (including the distribution of letters) unchanged, Brunot slightly rearranged the "premium" squares of the board and simplified the rules; he also changed the name of the game to "Scrabble," a real word which means "to scratch frantically." In 1949, Brunot and his family made sets in a converted former schoolhouse in Dodgingtown , a section of Newtown. They made 2,400 sets that year, but lost money. [7] According to legend, Scrabble's big break came in 1952 when Jack Straus, president of Macy's , played the game on vacation. Upon returning from vacation, he was surprised to find that his store did not carry the game. He placed a large order and within a year, "everyone had to have one." [8] In 1952, unable to meet demand himself, Brunot sold manufacturing rights to Long Island-based Selchow and Righter (one of the manufacturers who, like Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley Company , had previously rejected the game). Selchow & Righter bought the trademark to the game in 1972. [9] JW Spears began selling the game in Australia and the UK on January 19, 1955. The company is now a subsidiary of Mattel , Inc. [5] In 1986, Selchow and Righter sold the game to Coleco , who soon after went bankrupt. The company's assets, including Scrabble and Parcheesi , were purchased by Hasbro . [9]
In 1984, Scrabble was turned into a daytime game show on NBC . Scrabble ran from July 1984 to March 1990, with a second run from January to June 1993. The show was hosted by Chuck Woolery . The tagline of the show in promo broadcasts was, "Every man dies; not every man truly Scrabbles." In 2011, a new TV variation of Scrabble, called "Scrabble Showdown", aired on "The Hub" cable channel, which is a is a joint venture of Discovery Communications, Inc. and Hasbro.
Game details
File:Scrabbletileset.png
The game is played by two to four players on a square (or nearly square) board with a 15-by-15 grid of cells (individually known as "squares"), each of which accommodates a single letter tile. In official club and tournament games, play is always between two players (or, occasionally, between two teams each of which collaborates on a single rack).
The board is marked with "premium" squares, which multiply the number of points awarded: dark red "triple-word" squares, pink "double-word" squares, dark blue "triple-letter" squares, and light blue "double-letter" squares [In 2008, Hasbro changed the colors of the premiums squares to orange for TW, red for DW, blue for DL, and green for TL]. The center square (H8) is often marked with a star or logo, and counts as a double-word square.
In an English-language set the game contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value ranging from 1 to 10. The number of points of each lettered tile is based on the letter's frequency in standard English writing; commonly used letters such as E or O are worth one point, while less common letters score higher, with Q and Z each worth 10 points. The game also has two blank tiles that are unmarked and carry no point value. The blank tiles can be used as substitutes for any letter; once laid on the board, however, the choice is fixed. Other language sets use different letter set distributions with different point values. Template:See
Edit
In the notation system common in tournament play, columns are labeled "A-O" and rows "1-15". A play is usually identified in the format xy WORD score or WORD xy score, where x denotes the column or row on which the play's main word extends, y denotes the second coordinate of the main word's first letter, and WORD is the main word. Although unnecessary, additional words formed by the play are occasionally listed after the main word and a slash. In the case where the play of a single tile forms words in each direction, one of the words is arbitrarily chosen to serve as the main word for purposes of notation.
When a blank tile is employed in the main word, the letter it has been chosen to represent is indicated with a lower case letter, or, in handwritten notation, with a square around the letter. Parentheses are sometimes also used to designate a blank, although this may create confusion with a second (optional) function of parentheses, namely indication of an existing letter or word that has been "played through" by the main word.
Example 1:
A(D)DITiON(AL) D3 74
(played through the existing letter D and word AL, using a blank for the second I, extending down the D column and beginning on row 3, and scoring 74 points)
The parentheses can be omitted, though, if each play states how many tiles were laid on the board in that play.
Sequence of play
File:Scrabble1.JPG
Next, players decide the order in which they play. The normal approach is for players to draw tiles: the player who picks the letter closest to the beginning of the alphabet goes first (with blank tiles ranked higher than A's). In North American tournaments, the rules of the US-based North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) stipulate instead that players who have gone first in the fewest number of games in the tournament have priority, or failing that, those who have gone second the most. In the case of a tie, tiles are drawn as in the standard rules.
At the beginning of the game, and after each turn until the bag is empty (or until there are no more face-down tiles), players draw tiles to replenish their "racks", or tile-holders, with seven tiles, from which they will make plays. Each rack is concealed from the other players.
During a turn, a player will have seven or fewer letter tiles in their rack from which to choose a play. On each turn, a player has the option to: (1) pass, forfeiting the turn and scoring nothing; (2) exchange one or more tiles for an equal number from the bag, scoring nothing, an option which is only available if at least seven tiles remain in the bag; or (3) form a play on the board, adding its value to the player's cumulative score.
A proper play uses any number of the player's tiles to form a single continuous word ("main word") on the board, reading either left-to-right or top-to-bottom. The main word must either use the letters of one or more previously played words, or else have at least one of its tiles horizontally or vertically adjacent to an already played word. If words other than the main word are newly formed by the play, they are scored as well, and are subject to the same criteria for acceptability.
When the board is blank, the first word played must cover H8, the center square. The word must consist of at least two letters, extending horizontally or vertically. H8 is a premium square, so the first player to play a word receives a double score.
A blank tile may take the place of any letter. It remains as that letter thereafter for the rest of the game. Individually, it scores no points regardless of what letter it is designated and its possible placement on a premium square. However, its placement on a double-word or triple-word square does cause the appropriate premium to be scored for the word in which it is used. While not allowed in official or tournament play, a common " house rule " allows players to "recycle" blank tiles by later substituting the corresponding letter tile.
After playing a word, the player draws letter tiles from the bag to replenish their rack to seven tiles. If there are not enough tiles in the bag to do so, the player takes all of the remaining tiles.
After a player plays a word, their opponent may choose to challenge any or all the words formed by the play. If any of the words challenged is found to be unacceptable, the play is removed from the board, the player returns the newly played tiles to their rack and their turn is forfeited. In tournament play, a challenge is to the entire play rather than any one word, so a judge (human or computer) is used, and players are not entitled to know which word or words caused the challenge to succeed. Penalties for unsuccessfully challenging an acceptable play vary within club and tournament play, and are described in greater detail below.
Under North American rules, the game ends when (1) one player plays every tile in their rack, and there are no tiles remaining in the bag (regardless of the tiles in their opponent's rack); or (2) when six successive scoreless turns have occurred. (For several years, a game could not end with a cumulative score of zero-zero, but this is no longer the case, and this has occurred a number of times in tournament play. [10] )
When the game ends, each player's score is reduced by the sum of his/her unplayed letters. In addition, if a player has used all of his or her letters, the sum of the other player's unplayed letters is added to that player's score; in tournament play, a player who "goes out" adds double this sum, and the opponent is not penalized.
Scoreless turns can occur when a player passes, when a player exchanges tiles, or when a player loses a challenge. The latter rule varies slightly in international tournaments.
Scoring
Orange
Each word formed in the play is scored this way:
Any tile played from the player's rack onto a previously vacant square that is a "double-letter" or "triple-letter" premium square has its point value doubled or tripled as indicated.
Add the normal point value of all other letters in the word (whether newly played or existing).
For each newly played tile placed on a "double-word" premium square, the total of each word containing that tile is doubled (or redoubled).
For each newly placed tile placed on a "triple-word" premium square, the total of each word containing that tile is tripled (or re-tripled).
Premium squares affect the score of each word made in the same play by constituent tiles played upon those squares. Premium squares, once played upon, are not counted again in subsequent plays.
Players occasionally achieve quadruple (4x) or nonuple (9x) word scores by spanning two double-word (called a "double-double" or two triple-word premium squares (called a "triple-triple") with a single word. Septenviguple (27x) word scores spanning three triple-word squares are possible, if only in constructed games. (A hexuple [6x] or octodecuple [18x] word score is also possible under the rules, but only remotely so, since it would require that the opening play have missed the center square and not have been challenged off as a result. Game-construction enthusiasts have disavowed this ruse.)
If a player uses all seven of the tiles in the rack in a single play, a bonus of 50 points is added to the score of that play (this is called a " bingo " in Canada and the United States, a "Scrabble" in Spain and a "bonus" elsewhere). These bonus points are added after totaling the score for that turn.
When the letters to be drawn have run out, the final play can often determine the winner. This is particularly the case in close games with more than two players. The player who goes out first gets the sum of all remaining unplayed tiles added to their score. Players with tiles remaining on their rack have the sum of their remaining tiles subtracted from their score.
Acceptable words
Edit
Acceptable words are the primary entries in some chosen dictionary , and all of their inflected forms. Words that are hyphenated, capitalized (such as proper nouns), or apostrophized are not allowed, unless they also appear as acceptable entries: "Jack" is a proper noun, but the word JACK is acceptable because it has other usages as a common noun (automotive, vexillological , etc.) and verb that are acceptable. Acronyms or abbreviations, other than those that have been regularized (such as AWOL, RADAR, LASER, and SCUBA), are not allowed. Variant spellings, slang or offensive terms, archaic or obsolete terms, and specialized jargon words are allowed if they meet all other criteria for acceptability. Foreign words are not allowed in the English language Scrabble unless they have been incorporated into the English language – for example, the words "patisserie" and "glace".
Proper nouns and other exceptions to the usual rules are allowed in some limited contexts in the spin-off game Scrabble Trickster .
There are two popular competition word lists used in various parts of the world: TWL and SOWPODS (also referred to as "Collins").
OWL2 and OSPD4
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The North American 2006 Official Tournament and Club Word List, Second Edition (OWL2) went into official use in American, Canadian, Israeli and Thai club and tournament play on March 1, 2006 (or, for school use, the bowdlerized Official Scrabble Players Dictionary , Fourth Edition (OSPD4)). Early printings of OWL2 and OSPD4 have to be amended according to corrigenda posted at the National Scrabble Association web site. North American competitions use the Long Words List for longer words.
The OWL2 and the OSPD4 are compiled using four (originally five) major college-level dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster (10th and 11th editions, respectively). If a word appears, at least historically, any one of the dictionaries, it will be included in the OWL2 and the OSPD4. If the word has only an offensive meaning, it is only included in the OWL2. The key difference between the OSPD4 and the OWL2 is that the OSPD4 is marketed for "home and school" use, with expurgated words which their source dictionaries judged offensive, rendering the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary less fit for official Scrabble play. The OSPD4 is available in bookstores, whereas the OWL2 is only available from the National Scrabble Association 's retail website wordgear.com (as of July 2009, NSA membership is no longer required to purchase the OWL).
Collins Scrabble Words
Edit
In all other countries, the competition word list is the Tournament and Club Word List (Collins), also known as Collins Scrabble Words. It was published in May 2007 (see SOWPODS ) and it lists all words of length 2 to 15 letters and is thus a complete reference. This list contains all OWL2 words plus words sourced from Chambers and Collins English dictionaries. This book is used to adjudicate at the World Scrabble Championship and all other major international competitions outside of North America.
Collins Scrabble Words 2012 Edition will be used from 1 January 2012 for countries currently using the Tournament and Club Word List (Collins).
Challenges
Main article: Challenge (Scrabble)
The penalty for a successfully challenged play is nearly universal: the offending player removes the tiles played and forfeits the turn. (However, in some online games, an option known as "void" may be used, wherein unacceptable words are automatically rejected by the program. The player is then required to make another play, with no penalty applied.)
The penalty for an unsuccessful challenge (where all words formed by the play are deemed valid) varies considerably, including:
"Double Challenge", in which an unsuccessfully challenging player must forfeit the next turn. This penalty governs North American (NASPA-sanctioned) tournaments, and is the standard for North American, Israeli and Thai clubs. Because loss of a turn generally constitutes the greatest risk for an unsuccessful challenge, it provides the greatest incentive for a player to "bluff", or play a "phony" – a plausible word that they know or suspect to be unacceptable, hoping their opponent will not call them on it. Players have divergent opinions on this aspect of the double-challenge game and the ethics involved, but officially it is considered a valid part of the game.
"Single Challenge"/"Free Challenge", in which no penalty whatsoever is applied to a player who unsuccessfully challenges. This is the default rule in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, as well as for many tournaments in Australia, although these countries do sanction occasional tournaments using other challenge rules.
Modified "Single Challenge", in which an unsuccessful challenge does not result in the loss of the challenging player's turn, but is penalized by the loss of a specified number of points. The most common penalty is five points. The rule has been adopted in Singapore (since 2000), Malaysia (since 2002), South Africa (since 2003), New Zealand (since 2004), and Kenya, as well as in contemporary World Scrabble Championships (since 2001). Some countries and tournaments (including Sweden) use a 10-point penalty instead. In most game situations, this penalty is much lower than that of the "double challenge" rule. Consequently, such tournaments encourage a greater willingness to challenge and a lower willingness to play dubious words.
Historic evolution of the rules
The North American "box rules" (that are included in each game box, as contrasted with tournament rules) have been edited four times: in 1953, 1976, 1989, and 1999. [11]
The major changes in 1953 were as follows:
It was made clear that:
words could be played through single letters already on the board.
a player could play a word parallel and immediately adjacent to an existing word provided all crosswords formed were valid.
the effect of two word premium squares were to be compounded multiplicatively.
The previously unspecified penalty for having one's play successfully challenged was stated: withdrawal of tiles and loss of turn.
The major changes in 1976 were as follows:
It was made clear that the blank tile beats an A when drawing to see who goes first.
A player could now pass his/her turn, doing nothing.
A loss-of-turn penalty was added for challenging an acceptable play.
If final scores are tied, the player whose score was highest before adjusting for unplayed tiles is the winner.
The editorial changes made in 1989 did not affect game play.
The major changes in 1999 were as follows:
It was made clear that:
a tile can be shifted or replaced until the play has been scored.
a challenge applies to all the words made in the given play.
Playing all seven tiles is officially called a "Bingo".
A change of wording could be inferred to mean that a player can form more than one word in one row on a turn.
Club and tournament play
Main article: English language Scrabble
Tens of thousands play club and tournament Scrabble worldwide. The intensity of play, obscurity of words, and stratospheric scores in tournament games may come as a shock to many parlor players. All tournament (and most club) games are played with a game clock and a set time control . Although casual games are often played with unlimited time, this is problematic in competitive play among players for whom the number of evident legal plays is immense. Almost all tournament games involve only 2 players; typically, each has 25 minutes in which to make all of his or her plays. For each minute by which a player oversteps the time control, a penalty of 10 points is assessed. The number of minutes is rounded up, so, for example, if a player oversteps time control by two minutes and five seconds, the penalty is 30 points. Also, most players use molded plastic tiles (of which Protiles is one major brand), not engraved like the original wooden tiles, eliminating the potential for a cheating player to "braille" (feel for particular tiles, especially blanks, in the bag).
Players are allowed "tracking sheets", preprinted with the letters in the initial pool, from which tiles can be crossed off as they are played. Tracking tiles is an important aid to strategy, especially during the endgame, when no tiles remain to be drawn and each player can determine exactly what is on the opponent's rack.
The most prestigious (regularly held) tournaments include:
The World Scrabble Championship : held in odd years, the last was in Johor Bahru , Malaysia in 2009. [12]
The National Scrabble Championship : an open event attracting several hundred players, held around July/August every year or two, most recently in Dallas, Texas on August 7–11, 2010.
The Brand's Crossword Game King's Cup : the largest tournament in the World. Held annually around the end of June or beginning of July.
Other important tournaments include:
The World Youth Scrabble Championships : entry by country qualification, restricted to under 18 years old. Held annually since 2006.
The National School Scrabble Championship : entry open to North American school students. Held annually since 2003.
The Canadian Scrabble Championship : entry by invitation only to the top fifty Canadian players. Held every two to three years.
Clubs in North America typically meet one day a week for three or four hours and some charge a small admission fee to cover their expenses and prizes. Clubs also typically hold at least one open tournament per year. Tournaments are usually held on weekends, and between six and nine games are played each day.
There are also clubs in the UK and many other countries. There are a number of internationally rated SOWPODS -tournaments. [13]
During off hours at tournaments, many players socialize by playing consultation (team) Scrabble, Clabbers , Anagrams , Boggle and other games.
Computer players
Edit
Maven is a computer opponent for the game, created by Brian Sheppard. The official Scrabble computer game in North America uses a version of Maven as its artificial intelligence and is published by Atari . Outside of North America, the official Scrabble computer game is published by Ubisoft . Quackle is an open-source alternative to Maven of comparable strength. [14]
Console and computer video game versions
The Nintendo DS version of Scrabble 2007 Edition made news when parents became angry over the game's AI using potentially offensive language during gameplay. [15]
Scrabble on the Internet
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A number of sites offer the possibility to play Scrabble online against other users. The game is available to play for free at www.pogo.com, part of Electronic Arts. The Internet Scrabble Club (ISC) www.isc.ro , which is free of charge, is frequented continuously by thousands of players, including many of the game's most renowned experts. The social networking site Facebook had offered an online variation of Scrabble called Scrabulous as a third-party application add-on. On January 15, 2008, it was reported that Hasbro and Mattel were in the process of suing the creators of Scrabulous for copyright infringement . On July 24, 2008, Hasbro filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the creators of Scrabulous. [16] On July 28, 2008 the Scrabulous Facebook application was disabled for users in North America, [17] eventually re-appearing as " Lexulous " in September 2008, with changes made to distinguish it from Scrabble. On December 20, 2008 Hasbro withdrew their lawsuit against RJ Softwares. [18] There is also a version in Turkish as a Facebook application named "SKRABL Turkce" which offers only 2 player game. [19]
Mattel launched its official version of online Scrabble, Scrabble by Mattel on Facebook in late March 2008. [20] [21] The application was developed by Gamehouse , a division of RealNetworks who has been licensed by Mattel. [21] However since Hasbro controls the copyright for North America with the copyright for the rest of the world belonging Mattel, [20] the Facebook application is available only to players outside the United States and Canada. [21] Ownership of the rights to Scrabble by multiple companies is limiting the introduction of the game to Facebook [21] and, between its launch date and April 6, 2008, fewer than 2000 users had registered, compared with 600,000 registered Scrabulous users. [21] As of November 3, 2008, the official Facebook Scrabble game has 203,644 monthly active users. The new "official" application has been heavily criticised in Facebook reviews, particularly by former users of the Scrabulous application which allowed American and Canadian users to play opponents in other countries, which is no longer possible: the Scrabble Beta application is only available in the USA and Canada, whereas Scrabble Worldwide is only available to other countries. Some have complained that they have been unable to use the new application due to technical bugs and glitches, and many have criticized Hasbro for failing to reach an agreement with Scrabulous developers. [22] In addition, the Facebook version only allows automatic verification of words, making it impossible to play invalid words, and making challenges redundant.
RealNetworks has stated that the application is currently in its beta stage and there have been reports of a number of bugs and limitations. [21] The Original Scrabble now exists on Facebook, and was developed by Electronic Arts .
Scrabble "TV game show" board game versions
Main article: Scrabble (game show)
In 1987, a board game was released by Selchow & Righter, based on the Scrabble game show which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1990 (and for five months in 1993). Billed as the "Official Home Version" of the game show (or officially as the "TV Scrabble Home Game"), game play bears more resemblance to the game show than it does to a traditional Scrabble game, although it does utilize a traditional Scrabble game board in play.
On September 17, 2011, a new game show based on Scrabble, called "Scrabble Showdown", premiered on the The Hub . The show is hosted by Justin "Kredible" Willman . [23]
Super Scrabble
Main article: Super Scrabble
A new licensed product, Super Scrabble , was launched in North America by Winning Moves Games in 2004 under license from Hasbro, with the deluxe version (with turntable and lock-in grid) released in February 2007. A Mattel-licensed product for the rest of the world was released by Tinderbox Games in 2006. This set comprises 200 tiles in slightly modified distribution to the standard set and a 21×21 playing board.
Records
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The following records were achieved during competitive club or tournament play, according to authoritative sources, including the book Everything Scrabble by Joe Edley and John D. Williams, Jr. (revised edition, Pocket Books , 2001) and the Scrabble FAQ. [24] When available, separate records are listed based upon different official word lists:
OSPD or OCTWL, the North American list also used in Thailand and Israel;
OSW, formerly the official list in the UK;
SOWPODS, the combined OSPD+OSW now used in much of the world. To date, new editions or revisions of these lists have not been considered substantial enough to warrant separate record-keeping.
High game (OSPD) – 830 by Michael Cresta (Mass.), October 12, 2006. Cresta defeated Wayne Yorra 830-490. [25] [26]
High game (OSW) – 793 by Peter Preston (UK), 1999. [27]
High game (SOWPODS) – Nicholas Mbugua set a new Kenya record with 789 on June 3, 2007 at the 2nd WSC Qualifier in Machakos. Russell Honeybun set a new Australian record with 764 in August 2007.
High combined score (OSPD) – 1320 (830-490) by Michael Cresta and Wayne Yorra, in a Lexington, Mass., club, 2006. [25] [26]
High combined score (OSPD) in a tournament game – 1134 (582-552) by Keith Smith (Tex.) and Stefan Rau (Conn.), Round 12 of the 2008 Dallas Open. (Rau's losing score of 552 included three phony words which were not challenged.) [28]
High combined score (OSPD) in a tournament game with no phony words played – 1127 (725-402) by Laurie Cohen (Ariz.) and Nigel Peltier (Wash.), in a tournament in Ahwatukee, Arizona, February 16, 2009. [29]
High combined score (SOWPODS) – 1157 (627-530) by Phillip Edwin-Mugisha (Uganda) and Vannitha Balasingam (Malaysia), at the 2009 World Scrabble Championship. [30]
Highest losing score (OSPD) – 552 by Stefan Rau (Conn.) to Keith Smith's (Tex.) 582, Round 12 of the 2008 Dallas Open. [28]
Highest tie game (OSPD) – 502-502 by John Chew and Zev Kaufman, at a 1997 Toronto Club tournament. [31]
Highest tie game (SOWPODS) – 522-522 by A Webb and N Deller, at the Peterborough Free Challenge Event 2009 [32]
Highest opening move score (OSPD) – MuZJIKS (with a blank for the U) 126 by Jesse Inman (S.C.) at the National Scrabble Championship , 2008. [33] The highest possible legal score on a first turn is MUZJIKS 128, using an actual U rather than a blank.
Highest opening move score (SOWPODS) – BEZIQUE 124 by Sam Kantimathi (1993), [34] Joan Rosenthal. [35] BEZIQUE 124 by Sally Martin. [35]
Highest single play (OSPD) – QUIXOTRY 365 by Michael Cresta (Mass.), 2006. [25] [26]
Highest single play (SOWPODS) – CAZIQUES 392 by Karl Khoshnaw. [36]
Highest average score, multi-day tournament (OSPD) – 474 by Suhas Rao (N.C.) over 29 rounds at the 2011 National Scrabble Championship . [37] 471 by Chris Cree (Tex.) over 18 rounds at the Bayou Bash in Houston, Tex., 2007. [38]
Highest average score, multi-day tournament (SOWPODS) – 499.94 by Nigel Richards (MY) over 16 rounds at the 7th Lim Boon Heng Cup, Singapore, 2009. [39]
In the absence of better documentation, it is believed that the following records were achieved under a formerly popular British format known as the "high score rule", in which a player's tournament result is determined only by the player's own scores, and not by the differentials between that player's scores and the opponents'. As a result, play in this system "encourages elaborate setups often independently mined by the two players", [27] and is profoundly different from the standard game in which defensive considerations play a major role. While the "high score" rule has unsurprisingly led to impressively high records, it is currently out of favor throughout the world; associating its records with normal competitive play is misleading.
High game score of 1,049 by Phil Appleby of Lymington, Hants, UK , on June 25, 1989 in Wormley, Herts, UK. His opponent scored just 253 points, giving Appleby a record victory margin of 796 points.
High single-turn score of 392, by Dr. Saladin Karl Khoshnaw [36] in Manchester , UK, in April 1982. The word he used was CAZIQUES , meaning "native chiefs of West Indian aborigines".
Hypothetical scores in possible and legal but highly unlikely plays and games are far higher, primarily through the use of words that cover three triple-word-score squares. The highest reported score for a single play is 1780 (OSPD) and 1785 (SOWPODS) using oxyphenbutazone . [40] When only adding the word sesquioxidizing to these official lists, one could theoretically score 2015 (OSPD) and 2044 (SOWPODS) points in a single move. [40] The highest reported combined score for a theoretical game is 3,986 points using OSPD words only. [41]
Other records are available for viewing at Template:PDFlink , an unofficial record book which includes the above as sources and expands on other topics.
International versions
Edit
Template:See Versions of the game have been released in several other languages.
The game was called Alfapet when it was introduced in Sweden in 1954. However, since the mid-1990s, the game has also been known as Scrabble in Sweden. Alfapet is now another crossword game, created by the owners of the name Alfapet. A Russian version is called Erudit. Versions have been prepared for Dakotah , Haitian Creole , Dakelh ( Carrier language ), and Tuvan . [42]
For languages with digraphs counted as single letters, such as Welsh and Hungarian , the game features separate tiles for those digraphs.
Variations
Main article: Scrabble variants
Variations of the game include AlphaJax, Literati, Alfapet, Funworder, Skip-A-Cross, Scramble, Spelofun, Square-write, Palabras Cruzadas ("crossed words"), Word for Word, Lexulous, Wordipelago, Wordfeud, and Words With Friends . While these games are similar to the original Scrabble game, they include minor variations. For example, Literati draws random tiles instead of providing a finite number of tiles for the game, assigns different point levels to each letter and has a slightly different board layout whereas Lexulous assigns eight letters to each player instead of the customary seven.
Duplicate Scrabble is a popular variant in French speaking countries . Every player has the same letters on the same board and the players must submit a paper slip at the end of the allotted time (usually 3 minutes) with the highest scoring word they have found. This is the format used for the French World Scrabble Championships but it is also used in Romanian and Dutch . There is no limit to the number of players that can be involved in one game, and at Vichy in 1998 there were 1485 players, a record for French Scrabble tournaments.
In one variation of Scrabble, blanks actually do score points corresponding to the letter which the blank is used to represent. For example, if one played blank to represent a "Z", it would get ten; a blank to represent a V or an H would get four; a blank to represent a D would get 2 and blank to represent a T, N or any of the vowels would get one.
Game board formats
The game has been released in numerous game board formats appealing to various user groups. The original boards included wood tiles and many "deluxe" sets still do.
Travel editions
Edit
Editions are available for travelers who may wish to play in a conveyance such as a train or plane, or who may wish to pause a game in progress and resume later. Many versions thus include methods to keep letters from moving, such as pegboards, recessed tile holders and magnetic tiles. Players' trays are also designed with stay-fast holders. Such boards are also typically designed to be folded and stowed with the game in progress.
Production and Marketing Company, 1954 – metal hinged box, Bakelite tiles inlaid with round magnets, chrome tile racks, silver colored plastic bag and cardboard box covered with decorative paper. The box, when opened flat, measures 8½″ × 7¾″ and the tiles measure ½″ × ½″ each.
Spear's Games, 1980s – boxed edition with pegboard, plastic tiles with small feet to fit snugly in the pegboard. Racks are clear plastic, allowing some sorting while holding tiles fairly snugly. Set comes with a drawstring plastic bag to draw tiles and a cardboard box. It is possible to save a game in progress by returning the board to the box. There is risk of players' trays being mixed and upset, and the box lid, held on by friction, is subject to upset.
Selchow & Righter, 1980s – pocket edition with plastic "magnetic" board and tiles. Tile racks are also plastic with asymmetrical shape to provide handhold. All elements fit in a plastic envelope for travel and to permit a pause in the game. Plastic letters are very small and tend to lose their grip if not placed with slight lateral movement and if they are not perfectly clean. Game format is extremely small, allowing Scrabble games for backpackers and others concerned about weight and size.
Hasbro Games, 2001 – hinged plastic board with clear tile-shaped depressions to hold tiles in play. Board is in a black, zippered folio such that board and tiles may be folded for travel, even with game in play. Reverse side of board contains numbered mounts for racks, holding tiles face down, allowing secure and confidential storage of tiles while game is paused. Some versions have tile racks with individual tile slots, thus not permitting easy sorting of tiles in rack.
Deluxe editions
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At the opposite end, some "deluxe" editions offer superior materials and features. These include editions on a rotating turntable so players can always face the board with the letters upright and a raised grid that holds the tiles in place. More serious players often favor custom Scrabble boards, often made of Lucite or hardwood, that have superior rotating mechanisms and personalized graphics.
Large print edition
Edit
An edition has been released (in association with the RNIB ) with larger board and letters for players with impaired vision. The colours on the board are more contrasting and the font size is increased from 16 to 24 point. The tiles are in bold 48 point.
Works detailing tournament Scrabble
An introduction to tournament Scrabble and its players can be found in the book Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis . In the process of writing, Fatsis himself progressed into a high-rated tournament player.
There have been numerous documentaries made about the game, including:
Word Wars (2004) by Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo, about the "tiles and tribulations on the Scrabble game circuit".
Scrabylon (2003), by Scott Petersen, which "gives an up-close look at why people get so obsessed with that seemingly benign game..."
Word Slingers by Eric Siblin and Stefan Vanderland (produced for CBC , 2002), which follows four expert Canadian players at the 2001 World Championship in Las Vegas.
See also
| i don't know |
Which city is known as the ‘Pearl of the Adriatic’? | Wandering Dubrovnik's City Walls by Rick Steves
Wandering Dubrovnik’s City Walls
By Rick Steves
Dubrovnik's central promenade is the place to see and be seen. (photo: Cameron Hewitt)
Within its thick medieval walls, Dubrovnik holds a jumble of cobbled back lanes and sleepy charm. (photo: Cameron Hewitt)
Sunbathed seating isn't hard to find among the Old Town’s restaurants and bars. (photo: Cameron Hewitt)
Croatia, with thousands of miles of coastline on the Adriatic Sea, is Eastern Europe's Riviera. Holiday-makers love its pebbly beaches, predictably balmy summer weather, and dramatic mountains. Croatia's top tourist town, Dubrovnik, is deservedly known as the "Pearl of the Adriatic," jutting confidently into the sea on the southern tip.
While Dubrovnik's museums are nothing special, this town is one of those places that you never want to leave. The real attraction here is the Old Town and its relaxing, breezy setting. It's a multigenerational celebration of life, where everybody's out enjoying an easygoing stroll or taking a dip in the sea.
For travelers, Dubrovnik's single best sight is the still-stout medieval wall that surrounds this city of about 40,000, offering an unforgettably scenic mile-long stroll above town. While constructed over many centuries, today's impressive fortifications date from the 1400s, when they were beefed up to defend against the Ottoman Turks.
Jockeying my way between cruise-excursion groups that have descended upon the town (these days about 800,000 cruisers stopped here each year), I climb the steep steps to the top of the mighty wall. As I begin a slow, circular, hour-and-a-half walk around the fortified perimeter of one of Europe's best-preserved medieval towns, I'm bombarded with ever-changing views. On one side is a sea of red rooftops; on the other side, the actual sea.
As I approach the Pile Gate wall entrance, I pause to enjoy a full frontal view of the Stradun, the 300-yard-long promenade that runs through the heart of Dubrovnik's Old Town. In the Middle Ages, merchants lined this drag; before that, it was a canal. Today this is the main artery of the city: an Old World shopping mall by day and sprawling cocktail party after dark.
Farther along, I look down and see a peaceful stone terrace perched above the sea, clinging like a barnacle to the outside of the city walls. Generously shaded by white umbrellas, this is my favorite Dubrovnik escape, a rustic outdoor tavern called Buza . The name means "hole in the wall" — and that's exactly what you'll have to climb through to get there. Filled with mellow tourists and bartenders pouring wine from tiny screw-top bottles into plastic cups, Buza comes with castaway views and Frank Sinatra ambience.
Looking inland from my ramparts perch, my eyes fall on a random arrangement of bright- and dark-toned red roof tiles. In this complex and once troubled corner of Europe, even a tranquil stroll around the walls comes with a poignant history lesson. After Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the Yugoslav National Army laid siege to this town and lobbed mortars over the hill. Today, the new, brighter-colored tiles mark houses that were hit and have been rebuilt. At a glance, it's clear that more than two-thirds of the Old Town's buildings suffered bomb damage.
Surveying the rooftops, my thoughts turn to Pero, my B&B host, who spent years after the war turning the bombed-out remains of his Old Town home into a fine guesthouse. Upon my arrival last night, Pero uncorked a bottle of orahovica (the local walnut liqueur). Hoping to write that evening with a clear head, I tried to refuse the drink. But this is a Slavic land. Remembering times when I was force-fed vodka in Russia by new friends, I knew it was hopeless. Pero had made this hooch himself, with green walnuts. As he slugged down a shot, he handed me a glass, wheezing, "Walnut grappa — it recovers your energy."
Pero reached under the counter and held up the mangled tail of a mortar shell, describing how the gorgeous stone and knotty-wood building he grew up in suffered a direct hit in the siege. He put the mortar in my hands. Just as I don't enjoy holding a gun, I didn't enjoy touching the twisted remains of that mortar. Pero explained that he gets a monthly retirement check for being wounded in the war, but he got bored and didn't want to live on the tiny government stipend — so he went to work rebuilding his guesthouse.
I took Pero's photograph. He held up the mortar and smiled. I didn't want him to hold up the mortar and smile, but that's what he did. He seemed determined to smile — as if it signified a personal victory over the destruction the mortar had wrought.
It's impressive how people can weather tragedy, rebuild, and move on. In spite of the terrors of war just a couple of decades ago, life here is once again very good, and, from my perch here atop the city walls, filled with promise.
| Dubrovnik |
The LED (light-emitting diode) started life in 1962 as a single illumination in which colour? | Introducing Dubrovnik - LikeCroatia
Introducing Dubrovnik
Don’t leave without trying: Plavac Mali Wine
Known for being: a shooting location for “Game of Thrones”
A lot of things have been written about Dubrovnik , the gorgeous pearl of the Adriatic . But whatever is said always seems insufficient, as people strive to learn more about this ancient city. Its astonishing views of the crystal-clear sea, its ancient defense walls and the vibe which flows through its streets remain in the memory forever.
Without exaggeration, Dubrovnik is one of the best tourist sites to visit in the world. This claim is backed by the city’s constant presence on “top destination” lists and reflected upon by hundreds of writers, journalists and bloggers worldwide. It’s became a synonym for a dream come true for a dedicated traveller. And while the hype brings increasing hordes of tourists every year, the old town refuses to surrender its charm and takes care that every soul feels comfortable inside its walls. Its restaurants, inns, hotels and konoba-taverns also help to achieve this.
An Old Town
According to recent archaeological theories, Dubrovnik was founded by the Greeks in the 7th Century (at the same time, Croats also began settling in the country). It became a city-state known as Ragusa, a prominent figure in Adriatic affairs. The idea of liberty was very precious to its citizens – the word “Libertas” was inscribed on its official banner. Even the slave trade, a very fruitful business at the time, was abolished as early as 1418 here.
However, history gave many challenges to the Ragusian Republic, as its people had to balance between mighty Venice and the even mightier Ottoman Empire. After them, the Austro-Hungarians came, and the city was even occupied by Napoleon’s armies.
Despite being an independent state, Ragusa was culturally always Croatian soil. Because of playwright Marin Drzic, often nicknamed the “Adriatic Shakespeare”, Dubrovnik is seen as one of the cradles of Croatian literature. At the beginning of the 20th century, the city was incorporated into the then existing kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. After the Second World War, it became part of Yugoslavia, and when that state collapsed, it finally became official Croatian territory.
Forts and walls – to defend and impress
There are many sites in Dubrovnik which impress. From Orlando’s column and its statue of an armoured knight to luxurious buildings such as Sponza Palace, every inch of the city is a perfect backdrop for any shot you take with your camera. Its ancient defence grid is probably its most famous feature.
Dubrovnik’s power and influence peaked in the 15th century, and this is when the well-known ramparts were raised. Their quality was proven when a huge earthquake struck the republic in 1667 and they were left intact. Today, these defense walls provide a magnificent view of the city, as well as the surrounding sea and the supposedly cursed island of Lokrum . The entrance fee for adults is 70 HRK/ 9.20 €, but students get a considerable price cut and pay only 30 HRK / 4.00 €.
To the south-east, a defensive grid was formed in the 14th century, but upgraded to a fort two centuries later. It was named St. John’s. Today, its ground level houses a city Aquarium.
Outside the city walls, the old fort of Lovrjenac proudly guards the naval perimeter of Dubrovnik. It was a living nightmare to all invaders planning an attack on the city. On its gates, an inscription in Latin was engraved saying “Freedom is not to be sold, even for all the fortunes of the world.” But today, soldiers abandoned the site and left it for the actors. Situated on a 40-meter sea cliff, Lovrijenac often hosts theatrical performances, especially during Dubrovnik Summer Fest. Other forts transformed into theatres include Revelin, Minceta and Bokar.
Museum heaven
It is often said that Dubrovnik itself is a large museum. And this is not a false statement. But apart from that, it also hosts a considerable number of real museum spaces. They can also be found in strange places. For example, Rupe Etnographic Museum (Od Rupa 3) is located in a 16th-century granary. The Maritime Museum is located on the first two floors of St. John’s Fort, while Rector’s Palace houses the Cultural Historical Museum.
The people of Dubrovnik were fond of religion, and invested a lot of craft in their sacral tradition. While visiting the baroque Katedrala Marijina Uznesenja (Assumption of the Virgin Mary Cathedral), take a look at its fruitful treasury. Franciscan and Dominican museums also exist, as well as one belonging to Sigurata Convent.
During the Croatian War of Independence, Dubrovnik was heavily shelled by the Serbian military. However, they were unable to break its defences. Two museum spaces are dedicated to this era of country’s history – The Memorial Room of Dubrovnik Defenders hosts pictures of soldiers who gave their life for the town’s safety. The Museum of Croatian War of Independence exhibits various items related to the conflict.
In 1996, Ronald Brown, USA Trade Minister, died in a plane crash near Dubrovnik. To commemorate the loss of such an important person who perished during a peace mission, the people of Dubrovnik dedicated a memorial house to his honor, featuring the paintings of Antun Maslo, Ivo Dulcic and Duro Pulitika.
More than sights
Dubrovnik offers a lot of historical value, but it doesn’t stop there. The city’s beaches provide much needed refreshment during the summer months. Numerous excursions introduce visitors to the surrounding nature (especially those featuring boat rides).
Dubrovnik is also a home to strong kayaking, scuba diving and yachting scenes. Sport-loving visitors will value its tennis courts and clubs, and everyone will love a time spent in the city’s wellness centers.
No guide could do justice to Dubrovnik’s beauty. In order to understand it in its pure form, you will simply have to visit the old city. It awaits you with a smile on its walls.
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Which lake has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in the world? | Largest Lake in the World - Largest in the United States
Largest Lake in the World
& Largest Lake in the United States
Caspian Sea map: Map of the Caspian Sea - World's largest landlocked water body (by surface area). Image by CIA.
Which Lake is the World's Largest?
There are a few different ways to define the world's largest lake. Are you interested in the lake with the largest surface area? Or, the lake with the greatest water volume? And, do you want to consider saltwater seas in your comparison?
"Which lake is the world's largest?" is not a simple question to answer. So, we will explore the question from a few different perspectives.
World's Largest Lake (by volume):
Lake Baikal is the world's largest freshwater lake in terms of volume. It contains about 5,521 cubic miles of water (23,013 cubic kilometers), or approximately 20% of Earth's fresh surface water. This is a volume of water approximately equivalent to all five of the North American Great Lakes combined.
While Lake Baikal is extremely deep, its surface area is only about 12,248 square miles (31,722 square kilometers), putting it in seventh place worldwide in terms of surface area.
Lake Baikal map: Map of Lake Baikal - World's largest freshwater lake (by volume). Image by CIA.
World's Largest Lake (by surface area):
The salty Caspian Sea has the greatest surface area of any lake at 143,200 square miles (370,886 square kilometers).
Lake Superior, on the United States/Canada border, is the named freshwater lake with the greatest surface area at 31,700 square miles (82,103 square kilometers).
However, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron can technically be considered a single lake because they both have the same surface elevation and they are connected by the Mackinac Strait (which is not a river because the water does not have a consistent flow direction). So, Lake Michigan-Huron could be considered the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. It has a total surface area of 45,410 square miles (117,611 square kilometers), which is significantly larger than Lake Superior. The total water volume in Lake Michigan-Huron, at 2,026 cubic miles (8,443 cubic kilometers), is much smaller than the volume of Lake Baikal.
Great Lakes map: Map of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan-Huron - World's largest freshwater lakes (by surface area). Image by CIA.
Largest Lake in the United States (by volume):
The largest lake in the United States on the basis of water volume is Lake Superior with a volume of 2,904 cubic miles (12,104 cubic kilometers).
Largest Lake in the United States (by surface area):
Lake Superior is the single named lake with the largest surface area in the United States at 31,700 square miles (82,103 square kilometers).
However, as mentioned above, if you consider Lake Michigan and Lake Huron as a single lake, then Lake Michigan-Huron has the largest surface area at 45,410 square miles (117,611 square kilometers).
| Lake Superior |
How many rows of whiskers, on each side, does a cat usually have? | KidZone Geography - Ontario
Ontario, Canada
© Contributed by Leanne Guenther
Ontario is the second largest Canadian province (in terms of area) and can be found on the map between Manitoba and Quebec. Toronto is the capital city of Ontario.
Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, is also in Ontario.
Ontario joined the Canadian Confederation in 1867.
Ontario includes part of "the Great Lakes". The Great Lakes consist of Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Ontario and Lake Superior. Lake Superior is the largest of the great lakes and also has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in the world.
The border between Canada (Ontario) and the United States runs through Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Lake Michigan is entirely in the United States. Environmental management of the Great Lakes is a joint effort between the two countries.
Check out our brief photo tour of Ontario if you'd like to see more of the scenery of the province.
You can find out a lot of interesting information about Ontario at http://www.ontario.ca/welcome-ontario .
Ontario scenery on-line jigsaw puzzles
The Provincial Flag
The Ontario provincial flag was adopted on May 21, 1965. The Canadian Red Ensign is used with the Union Jack in the upper left hand corner and the Ontario shield of arms on the right side in the middle.
The Provincial Flower
The white trillium was adopted as the official flower of Ontario in 1937. The white trillium blooms in late April and early May. It begins white, but turns light pink as it ages. The flower is followed by red berries that ripen to a blue-black color.
The Provincial Bird
The common loon (or Great Northern loon) is Ontario's official bird. It was adopted as the provincial bird in June 23, 1994. It is also the bird pictured on the Canadian $1 coin.
The common loon is water bird that lives on quiet fresh water lakes and rivers. It is well recognized for it's haunting call.
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What was the name of the infamous English art forger, born in 1917, who claimed to have faked more than 2,000 paintings by over 100 artists? | Worlds 150 most Famous Fakers - Art Forgers, Forgeries, Fake Paintings, Greatest Fakes - Greatest Fakers in the World | Counterfeit art fraud | Freemanart authentication experts
1446-49
Jacopo di Poggibonsi: (1418-1449) Italian
There are many contemporary critics at the University of Michigan who label Jacopo di Poggibonsi as a "master forger". This criticism stems from his purported imitation of the works of Fra Filippo Lippi which Cosimo de' Medici in about 1447 realised he had copied elements of, from an Adoration hanging in the Medici Palace. However, many artists of the time engaged in imitations of the earlier styles and after all, in translation from the French renaissance does mean, "rebirth." Clearly, many Renaissance artists not only imitated earlier forms of art, but also each other's recent works. It was standard practise.
History according to U of M has it however that Lippi was outraged and is believed to have hired paid muscle to track down di Poggibonsis' studio where more alleged copies were found.
A few days later, thirty-one year old Jacopo, is found murdered in his bed.
All in all a good story but sadly untrue.
Art History Students are advised to check this out very carefully. All may not be as it seems!
Botticelli Copy
Piero del Pollaiuolo: (1443-1496) Italian
Made pastiches (copies) of works by artists such as Sandro Botticelli as illustrated here on the right.
His, Profile of a woman is a straight copy of Portrait of a Woman (La Bella Simonetta) and this reproduction is now housed in the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli in Milan.
Michaelangelo Self Portrait
Michelangelo di Ludovico di Lionardo di Buonarroti Simoni: (1475-1564) Italian
It's widely believed that the worlds greatest sculptor Michaelangelo as a student, forged an "antique" marble cupid for his patron, Lorenzo de' Medici.
It is certainly recorded that he also produced many replicas of the drawings of Italian painter Domenico Ghirlandajo (1449–1494) which were so good that on seeing them Ghirlandajo thought they were from his own hand.
“He also copied drawings of the old masters so perfectly that his copies could not be distinguished from the originals, since he smoked and tinted the paper to give it an appearance of age. He was often able to keep the originals and return the copies in their stead.” Vasari on Michaelangelo
Colantonio
Neapolitan painter also known as Colantuono was appreciated as an imitator of the Flemish masters such as van Eyck and for making fake drawings by Dürer.
Marcantonio Raimondi: Italian (1480c. - 1534)
Interested in German engraving, he affected copper numerous woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer.
According to Vasari he made 17 copies of Dürer selling them as originals.
Tommaso della Porta (the Elder): Italian (1568
Manufactured fake heads of Greeks and Romans passing them off as authentic.
Vasari wrote of him: " He worked marble excellently, and particularly has counterfeited antique heads of marble that were sold to the ancient, and the masks has done so well that no one has compared and I have one of his hand, marble, placed in the chimney of my house at Arezzo, that every one believes the old ... "(VII, p. 550).
His only original works are the statues of Faith and Religion for the tomb of Paul IV in S. Maria sopra Minerva (now in the corridor of the sacristy)
Giovanni Cavino and Pirro Ligorio: (1500-83) Italian
Cavino was born in Padua in 1500. He was a goldsmith who faked medals and coins. Scholar Alessandro Bassiano often assisted. Both Cavino and Ligorio were master 16th century coin counterfeiters which is one of the earliest forms of faking and fraud.
Coins have been counterfeited since they were first introduced by King Gyges of Lydia in 670 BC and it was pretty easy to accomplish. Casts could simply be made from original coins and new ones minted!
Terenzio Terenzi - Terenzio from Urbino: Italian (1575-1621)
Was a crafty painter of the late Renaissance.
Born near Pesaro, also known as Terence from Urbino or Rondolino. He was a pupil of the painter Federico Barocci. There is an altarpiece of Terenzi in the Cathedral of St. Andrew, a baptism of Constantine in the collection of San Costanzo and an assumption of the Virgin in the Capuchin Church in Rome.
. According to Baglione, Terenzi visited Rome, where he enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Montalto, nephew of Pope Sixtus V. After he deceived different buyers, he tried it with his benefactor, impersonating his paintings to works by Raphael and rapidly fell out of favour
Hans Hieronymus Imhoff: Flemish (1569-1629)
Grandson of Hans Imhoff Pirckheimer a humanist who was a close friend of Dürer, on the sale of some of the works he owned to an art dealer of Leiden, his diary read: "* Our Lady and Child, painted on parchment ... It was painted for my ancestor Hans Imhoff in Antwerp; I described it to Overbeck (art dealer) as a work of Lucas van Leyden;
** Our Lady, painted on wood oil, baby. My father of blessed memory meant that there was the signature of Dürer, but there are sufficient reasons to believe that Dürer had painted it."
Minor luck met Imhoff in resale abroad, perhaps because these buyers were less inclined to recognize as genuine the works he marketed.
Luca Giordano portrait.
Luca Giordano: Italian (1634 -1705)
Also known by the nickname "Luke Fapresto" ("Luke Hurry"), given to him while he was working in the church of Santa Maria Wailing in Naples, when he painted the canvas in just two day. The nickname also stemmed from his amazing speed to copy the major painters of his era.: Bassano, Rubens, Tintoretto. But there was a prior, who did not believe he was capable of remaking a Dürer. Giordano then painted a Dürer, making him buy it for six hundred crowns. The forgery was discovered, the prior sued, but lost:
Reubens Self portrait
Peter Paul Reubens: (1577-1640) Flemish
Was a pre-eminent artist of the 17th century and his position in history is sealed forever. However lesser known is the fact that he actually resorted to copying and reworking many compositions and works created by others.
Known copied works include those originally executed by Giulio Romano, 1499 to 1546. Before the Renaissance copying paintings created by others was a requisite part of any artists apprenticeship. It did not constitute forgery
Pietro della Vecchia: Socrates and two students, Prado.
Pietro Della Vecchia alias Muttoni: Italian (1603 - 1678)
Faked Giorgione and other old masters
Georg Friedrich Schmidt
Georg Friedrich Schmidt: German (1712-1775) - Alias: Georg Fridrich Šmidt
Around 1639, the great Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn drew an old bearded man in a flat cap. Perhaps distracted by other projects, Rembrandt left about 80 percent of the image empty, except for a few lines indicating how the final printed version would continue. A century after his death, in 1669, a printer and engraver named Georg Friedrich Schmidt, filled the empty spaces in the style of Rembrandt and made a series of prints that unsuspecting buyers could purchase as genuine.
The two versions of the etching, the unfinished handmade by the master and completed one by the Schmidt: are displayed side by side in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Anton Raphael Mengs: German (1728-1779)
The great art historian and former supporter of Neoclassicism Winchelman writes in 1764, in his "History of Arts and Design"... it came to light one day in September 1760 ... a painting that obscured all of the Herculaneums known paintings "
Anton Raphael Mengs, was one of the greatest painters of the Neoclassical period but who turned his hand to illicit forgery.
He created a freesco Jupiter Kissing Ganymede, with Giovanni Casanova (Giacomo's brother) in 1758. An imitation of an ancient Roman fresco, it was created to fool archeologist and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, for his enthusiasm for homosexual love and themes, who regarded it as an original. Now in the Palazzo Corsini, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome.
In 1779 on his deathbed, Mengs confessed that the famous Ganymede was his doing.
Giuseppe Guerra
Giuseppe Guerra, Italian (XVIII century)
Giuseppe Guerra, a minor painter in Rome, faked and sold hundreds of counterfeit paintings to kings, cardinals, and collectors who considered themselves learned devotees of the antiques world & believing they were originals from Pompei.
William Sykes English 18 c
The writer Horace Walpole described him as a 'known forger.'
In 1722 he convinced the Duke of Devonshire to buy a fake van Eyck, due to an inscription, which he had created, on the back of the painting.
The work involved was titled "Coronation of S.Romold Malines" (image at right) and is now displayed in the National Gallery of Ireland.
Fake Durer Portrait
Wolfgang Küffner: (1760-1817) German
Faked Albrecht Dürer. In 1799, a self portrait by Albrecht Dürer from the Nuremberg Town Hall was loaned to Wolfgang Küffner. The painter successfully made a copy of the original and returned the fake in place of the original. On the right is an image of the Kuffner fake of 1799 after Durer's self portrait.
Shakespeare Forgery
William Henry Ireland: (C 1775) British Author of the Shakespeare Papers:
William Henry Ireland was the creator of many forged documents, miscellaneous papers and legal instruments believed to be William Shakespeare memorabilia.
(As laterly published as original and later by his father William Henry.)
He was the least likely to become a literary master forger and made nothing of himself at school. His first venture into forgery came after William saw how obsessed his father was at owning original Shakespeare memorabilia. This was on a trip to Stratford to collect material for Samuel's forthcoming publication, Picturesque views on the Upper, or Warwickshire Avon.
The first Shakespeare forgery he made was modest. A lease agreement for a property in Blackfriars and one closely based on one of the few genuine manuscripts available at the time bearing Shakespeare's legitimate signature. After this though, the forgeries followed thick and fast and he became more and more proficient in their execution. As his father's acceptance of them was so rewarding, they were soon followed by others.
William Henry became more confident and ambitious, fabricating manuscripts and letters from and to Shakespeare even including a love letter to Anne Hathaway with an enclosed lock of her hair !!!!
William even became an art faker, using a coloured drawing he had bought from a local antique dealer, making it into a representation of Shakespeare performing the part of Bassanio from The merchant of Venice, complete with signature. His father was overjoyed at all the finds and combined them into a master literary work, Miscellaneous papers and legal instruments under the hand and seal of William Shakespeare, which was published over the Christmas holiday period of 1795-1796.
With scholarly challenges as to the authenticity of these documents and drawings ensuing, finally and seeing that the game was up, William Henry confessed the forgeries to his father. But his father never believed him and died in 1800 fully convinced that the
documents were real.
Altered Durer Panel
Johann Georg Paul Fischer: (1786-1875) German
Court painter and restorer to the Duke of Bavaria who 'modernised' old master works such as those by Albrecht Dürer to be more in keeping with the then acceptable idiom. Of note, the Paumgartner family altarpiece (now in the Alte Pinakithek, Munich) Fischer reworked the side panel which was painted by Albrecht Dürer during the the Northern Renaissance period between about 1498 and 1504. Rather than just restoring the work, he obliterated the saint’s attributes, substituting a horse and landscape for the dark ground that Durer had painted. He then added a helmet on the knight’s cap, which was Fischer making use of other Dürer motives. (See right)
Johann was the son of an engraver and originally a pupil of German portraitist Heinrich Ramberg, to whom he apprenticed and assisted in his portrait work. Coming to England in about 1810, he worked mainly in London and executed portraits of the English aristocracy and nobles, including Queen Victoria and Queen Charlotte. Best known now for his portrait miniatures.
Charles V of Holland and her mother Joan the Mad.
Wolfgang Franz Rawsmell (or Rohrich): German (1787-1834)
Was a German painter, born in Nuremberg where he died. He is most famous as forger who as a painter iImitated Lucas Cranach and Dürer.
He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Monaco of Bavaria, where, in 1809, he registered under the name of Rorich. With the sale of many fakes inspired by ancient German masters, including numerous copies, apparently about thirty, one to the the Duchess Sophie of Saxony in the style of Cranach, he seems to have earned 1,500 guilders while still a student at the Academy.
Ben and Jerry!
Robert 'Forger' Spring: (1813- 1876) British
Robert Spring was one of the first and most successful commercial autograph forgers of all time.
Born in England in 1813 he immigrated to the USA in 1858 to open a bookshop in Philadelphia. His favourites and particular specialism of autograph forgery was to copy the signatures of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Horatio Nelson. Recreating them convincingly on the fly leaves of old books of which he had plentiful supply!
In order to market his product in the USA and Britain, he cleverly invented a new character in the guise of a respectable maidenly lady he called Miss Fanny Jackson whose fake identity was that of the only daughter of General '"Stonewall" Jackson and convincingly to whom most of the American documents were related.
As she offloaded her vast collection of antiquated documents and letters onto the market, seemingly to cope with financial difficulties, Spring worked full time to keep up with the demand!
From Martin Luther to Lincoln, believable letters, notes and even blank cheques flowed from his pen.
Many times he had brushes with the law and was finally arrested in 1858 for receiving money under false pretences. He jumped bail and fled to Canada where he continued to sell his historical documents pre aged with coffee grounds!
In 1869, having foolishly returned to America, he was arrested in Philadelphia, confessed to his crimes and imprisoned. He died a poor man in a charity hospital in 1876.
Frederick W. Watts (7 October 1800 – 4 July 1870) British
Copiest or faker?
An English landscape painter so much influenced by Constable that dealers sold many of his works as original Constable’s particularly his direct copies.
Constantine Simonidis: Greek (1820-1890?)
Master forger of ancient documents and manuscripts and well covered in Wikipedia;
Quoted as: A dealer of icons, a man with extensive learning, knowledge of manuscripts, miraculous calligraphy. He surpassed his contemporaries in literary ability. According to opinion of paleographers, he was the most versatile forger of the nineteenth century.
he claimed to have discovered many ancient biblical manuscripts which he tried to sell to museums.
The historian Jacob Burckhardt 1882 wrote that Simonidis belonged to the category of counterfeiters driven by an irresistible impulse, by an admirable virtuosity than by lust for money. He died poor.
Reinhold Vasters: (1827-1909) German
Vasters was a German master goldsmith and restorer who worked in Aachen from 1853 to 1890.
It is widely believed that he was responsible and the maker of many forgeries, attributed as priceless Renaissance jewellery.
1n 1979, more than 1,000 workshop drawings by Vasters were discovered in the archives of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and expert examination showed that these were fake pieces that had been sold to collections as Renaissance jewellery. Amongst the fakes he is believed to have created are; The Rospigliosi Cup sometimes referred to as the Cellini Cup and attributed to Jacop Billivert. The St. Hubert Tazza and a gold and emerald dragon pendant, thought to have been made in Spain at the end of the 16th century sold to the Rothchilds.
Paul Désiré Trouillebert:
Paul Désiré Trouillebert: (1829-1900) French
Was a fine Barbizon painter in his own right but he also was a copyist and imitator of Corot as you will see from the image on the right. When he was first exposed to Corot’s work, Trouillebert took a very keen interest in it and immersed himself in emulating his techniques. He was so similar to Corot that if his signatures were erased and Corots forged added, enormous value was added to the work.
All in all, the Corot fakes issue was compounded by Camile Corot himself, as he signed many reproduced works by other artists when asked simply because he felt honoured to be copied!
A Trouillebert Corot
Denis Vrain Lucas
Denis Vrain Lucas: ( C 1830) French
Was the most blatant French contemporary autograph forger. A faker who executed forgeries from Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Rabelais and Louis XIV
It's recorded that within an eight year career, he produced and sold no less than 27,000 autographed manuscripts including a letter from Judas Iscariot to Mary Magdalene.
His downfall: composing a letter from Cleopatra to Julius Caesar but written in modern French!
Bastianini
Giovanni Bastianini: (1830-1868) Italian
Giovanni Bastianini, produced numerous neo-Renaissance works, especially busts and bas-reliefs in the style of Donatello, Verrocchio, Mino de Fiesole and other Italian Old Masters. Most of which were sold as genuine pieces to such noted museums as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Louvre.
Faker or just a copyist? You decide.
Right: Giovanni Bastianini: Buste de femme"Aloysa Strozi"
Egisto Rossi
Egisto Rossi: Italian (1824-1899)
Sculptor and designer student of Luigi Bartolini, during his career he falsified the drawings of the most prominent artists of his time, including Antonio Canova.
False sarcophagus of Cerveteri
Peter and Henry Pinelli: Italian (XIX century)
Were skilled stonemasons, who beautifully reproduced the Etruscan sarcophagus of Cerveteri, dated to 500 BC which they said they had found within the Necropolis. This was bought at a high price by the British Museum in London and was admired for years in the room entirely dedicated to it, until it was discovered that the splendid archaeological find was actually false and, therefore, was hastily relegated and forgotten in the basement of the museum.
Henry, was a restorer from the Louvre. One day in 1893, casually informed the experts of the British Museum, an Egyptian sarcophagus exhibited in the museum's collection, had been made by him and his brother.
They had flooded the market with great success with Italian masterpieces of day.
Moses Shapira
Moses Shapira: 1830-1884
Jerusalem antiquities dealer and purveyor of fake biblical artifacts such as fake scrolls and forged Hebrew scripts. One isue in particular concerned a sheepskin manuscript which was supposed to have come from the Moabite hills to the East of the Red sea. He tried to convince the world that it was an early variation of the Book of Deuteronomy that dated from around the 9th century B.C., the era of Moses. Accused of many forgeries in his life and pursued by scandal, he shot himself in the Hotel Bloemendaal in Rotterdam on March 9, 1884
.
Tadeu Hasdeu
Tadeu Hasdeu Bogdan Petriceicu-Hasdeu (1836-1907) (Pseud) Romanian
A Romanian scholar and archivist who was a pioneer in Romanian language and historical studies but was likely responsible for the so-called 'Dacian' or 'Sinaia' lead plates. These were gibberish texts, probably manufactured to substantiate Romanian cultural nationalism in the 1880s.
Legend has it that the lead plates are in fact copies made at the Nail Factory of Sinaia in about 1875 from the originals, which were made out of gold.
They first appeared when the 200 lead plates were discovered in the archive warehouse of the Bucharest Museum of Antiquities in the late 19th century. Up to now, they have been widely ignored and considered as fakes because they looked so new, not showing any traces of corrosion.
Renewed interest in the plates has been shown however by experts more than a century later.
For more information see: Sorin Olteanu's Thraco-Daco-Moesian Languages Project (TDML)
Dacian lead Plates fakes produced by Hasdeu?
Eugene Boban C 1860
Eugene Boban: (C1840) French
Eugene Boban was a French collector of pre-Columbian artefacts. Appointed archaeologist to the court of Maximilian and a successful antiques dealer who latterly ran a lucrative business in Mexico City, it is believed between 1862 and 1880. He was sent to Mexico by Napoleon III in 1860 to head a scientific commission to collect works of art which were to be exhibited in 1867 at the Trocadero Museum. Napoleon's idea, perhaps copy Napoleon 1st success in an attempt to emulate his earlier explorations in Egypt?
Experts widely believe that Boban may well have had a part in the forgery itself, let alone the deception of the British Museum in relation to their 'Aztec' rock crystal skull which was proven to be a fake after it was sold to them by Tiffany's in 1897 and another at Paris' Musée de l'Homme also suspect.
An investigation carried out by archivist, Jane Walsh at the Smithsonian in 1992, alleged that documents she unearthed reveal that it was Boban who had acquired the skull that were eventually sold to Tiffany's in 1897. She also uncovered evidence that it was Boban who some years earlier tried to sell the same skull to the Smithsonian themselves and that it was Boban himself who sold a similar crystal skull to a collector who later donated it to the Musée de l'Homme in Paris.
It is believed that Boban likely acquired the skulls from sources in Germany where large quantities of Brazilian quartz crystal were shipped in the early nineteenth century.
As to the mystery surrounding the crystal sculls, it is said that "he who reveals the secret will die!"
Charles Weisberg
"Baron" Charles Weisberg (D 1945) American
Forged original letters along with surveys of Mount Washington with signatures of the presidents and various celebrities.
Served two terms in prison.
Alfred André: (D 1919) French
A Parisian goldsmith and restorer who worked for a time for the Rothschild family.
In 1994 Rudolph Distelberger, an Austrian museum curator, became suspicious of jewellery that had been given to the National Gallery of Washington by the American millionaire Peter Widener and his subsequent research lead him to the Andre workshops. There, Distelberger found drawers full of plaster casts and wax models of his fakes.
At Sotheby's Rothschild sale in 2003, were three of André's fakes all with their history clearly marked. "Not only was André expertly restoring original Renaissance pieces," says the catalogue. "He was also creating examples in the Renaissance manner to satisfy the high demand among the collectors of the period.'
Émile Schuffenecker: (1851-1934) French
Implicated with Wacker in the van Gogh fakes affair.
One independent theory proposed by Ben Landais a Frenchman based in the Netherlands and his colleague Antonio de Robertis, which has caused considerable controversy in the art world. It concerns the Yasuda "Sunflowers" painted by Vincent van Gogh, in Arles in 1889 and suggests that it is a fake.
In a booklet published by Mr Landais, he claims that the picture is not by Van Gogh at all but is in fact a fake and the creation of Emile Schuffenecker, its owner, who exhibited it at Bernheim in June of 1901.
It has never been established whether he actually produced any forgeries at all?
Scythian artifact
The Gokhman Brothers & Israel Rouchomovsky (1860-1934) Russian. The unknowing faker.
Rouchomovsky was a brilliant Jewish goldsmith who was born in Mozyr, a small town near Minsk in Russia.
His claim to infamy is that he unwittingly created an exquisite gold artifact which was sold as an ancient Scythian - Greek tiara known better as the “Tiara of Saitapharnes” to the Louvre Museum in Paris but apparently without his knowledge. Experts there dated it to the third century B.C.!
In fact, the beautiful work, a tiara, bearing a Greek dedication in the form of a convincing inscription which confirmed it in their eyes as an ancient artifact, was actually a great deal younger.
It came to light that it had been created in Odessa in Russia only two years earlier in 1880 after a commission to the young Rouchomovsky by shady dealers known as the Gokhman brothers.
After paying for it, the Gokhman brothers immediately took the tiara to Paris, where it was shown to the curators at the Louvre. Once there the Gokhmans cleverly let it slip that they were on their way to sell their priceless Greek find to the British Museum. After that, it didn’t take long for the officials to get all hot and bothered, promptly purchasing the crown for a huge amount of money, some 200,000 gold francs!
It was only much later when German archeologist Rudolf Furtwanglerfirst labelled it as a forgery, that eyebrows were raised and others chipped in. It only took the Louvre seven years to announce to the public that the tiara was indeed a fake and they promptly removed it from public view!
Not wanting to be beaten, the Louvre once again bought artifacts which they didn't know emanated from the Gokhman shop in Ochakov. Here at the shop, it transpired that L Gokhman would sketch out artifact orders which would magically become treasures in silver and gold and pass the plans to jewellers and craftsmen to manufacture. They operated an extensive and very successful network of agents with one, Anyuta, a woman from Peroutino, a village on the site of the ancient city of Olvia, who would make regular visits to museums, offering up highly plausible stories of how the treasures were discovered buried and exhumed from a grave or turning up in excavations and so on!
So once again, this time in 1939, the Louvre bought another Scythian artifact in the form of a Golden horn in the likeness of a boars head!
Said E R Stern, Director of the Archaelogical Museum in Odessa; "The shop would forge everything!
Woodcut
Earl M. Washington: (1862-1952) African-American
Print forger and expert woodcut artist who it's alledged, used the designs of other artists to create new engraved blocks which would turn up as finds.
Ken Martens who is an attorney and print collector from Canada believes that the prints of Earl M. Washington have no historical significance but are rather more likely the production of a young man in Michigan who is trying to deceive buyers that the prints were produced in the early part of the 20C by his great grandfather!
Federico Joni
Icilio Federico Joni: (1866-1946) Italian
Known as the prince of Sienese fakers. He specialized in Renaissance and Old Master paintings. Joni was so good that Old Master experts have called him one of the art world’s most spectacularly inventive forgers.
Much of his success as a forger was due to the fact that he imitated either the works of lesser painters such as Sano di Pietro or the undistinguished works of more famous artists, which could deceive even the best connoisseur. It is widely believed that he was responsible for a Madonna and Child with Angels supposedly by Sano di Pietro in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection (Exposed in 1948), a Triptych in the Courtauld Institute Gallery and a Madonna & Child, Saint Maria Maddalena and Saint Sebastiano in the style of Neroccio di Bartolomeo Landi in the Lehman Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Reuben Lyon of Holborn - Charles Twinam: English (nineteenth century)
In 1898, the Goldsmiths' Company became aware that fake silverware was being traded by Reuben Lyon of Holborn. When police raided his premises, over 300 pieces were seized and Lyon was fined £3000.
On April 11 the following year at The Old Bailey, London, Charles Twinam, a silversmith of Latham Street, Holloway, was found guilty of supplying the fakes and sentenced to five years' penal servitude.
Police had raided his house to find a large collection of punches with the initials of various 18th century silversmiths, including George Smith, John Manby and William Shaw amongst others, along with items of modern silver punched with these marks. Despite the evidence, Twinam pleaded not guilty and claimed that the parcel of punches had been left with him by a "Devonshire man" 14 years earlier.
Following the trial, the confiscated goods were melted down and the resulting bullion used to cover costs. However, some of these high-quality fakes may still be undiscovered today.
Credit ATG
Umberto Giunti
Umberto Giunti: Italian (1886-1970)
Forger associated with the Madonna of the Veil, bought expensively by Lord Lee of Fareham in 1930 and bequeathed to the Courtauld Institute in 1947. It was accepted by London experts in the 1930s as a masterpiece by Botticelli, but the feeling that something was wrong about it grew.
Kenneth Clark said the Madonna had ‘something of the silent cinema star about her’ (he mentioned Jean Harlow), and the too full lips, the baby-doll look, now seem very un-Botticelli: the picture refuses to fit the template. The models and film stars that define our current paradigm of beauty are not much like Jean Harlow; if they were, the feeling that something is wrong would perhaps not be so strong. She is now attributed to Umberto Giunti (1886-1970), a lesson for art-history students in both how skilful and how careless forgers can be.
We are sure she is not who she says she is because the painter used a number of pigments not available before the 19th century; moreover, damage that seems to have been done by time is the result of intentional attack, and stress marks around holes in the wooden panel suggest that they were made by a drill not a worm.
Fulvio Corsini: Italian (1874 - 1938)
A forger used by the Italian government, which commissioned the statues "in the style of" to fill the gaps in the facades of churches and monuments.
Pavel Jerdanowitck, alias Paul Jordan Smith: American (1885-1971)
A mysterious Russian-born painter who launched a hoax art movement called ‘Disumbrationism’ in 1924.
Annoyed that art critics had rubbished his wifes efforts in an art exhibition, Jordan-Smith sought revenge by styling himself as "Pavel Jerdanowitch", a variation on his own name and entering a blurry, badly painted picture of a Pacific islander woman brandishing a banana skin, under the title "Exaltation". He made a suitably dark and brooding photograph of himself as Jerdanowitch and submitted the work to the same jury as the representative of the new school, "Disumbrationism". He explained "Exaltation" as a symbol of "breaking the shackles of womanhood” To his dismay, if not to his surprise, the Disumbrationist daub won praise from the critics who had belittled his wife's more realistic still life painting.
More fake art movement Disumbrationist paintings followed: a composition of zig-zag lines and eyeballs he called "Illumination" then a garish picture of a black woman doing laundry which he called "Aspiration" and which a critic praised as "a delightful jumble of Gauguin, Pop Hart and Negro minstrelsy, with a lot of Jerdanowitch individuality"; "Gination", an ugly, lopsided portrait and a painting named "Adoration", of a woman worshipping an immense phallic idol, which was exhibited in 1927.
The same year, Jordan-Smith confessed to the Los Angles Times that the Disumbrationist paintings were meant as a spoof.
Oxan Aslanian: the "Master of Berlin; German (1887-1968)
Oxan Aslanian was a 20th century forger of Egyptian art. Born in Green in 1887, he emigrated to Syria and Egypt, and then eventually went to Germany where he opened an antique shop in Berlin. In his work as a forger, he concentrated on the Amarna Period. His extraordinarily high-quality products satisfied the demand of many eminent collections and museums in Europe, which gave him his nickname as the "Master of Berlin." He created some exceptional fakes, which sometimes still deceive experts. Aslanian died at the age of 80 in Munich.
Joseph van der Veken
Joseph van der Veken: (1872 - 1964) Belgian
Joseph van der Veken was the official art restorer to the Royal Museums in Belgium and considered to be one of the forefathers of restoration of old masters in Belgium. He is now better associated with a fake painting scam! The production of 'Mary Magdalen' that had been long attributed to the Flemish artist Hans Memling (1430-1494) Van der Valken was also accused of faking many other Flemish Primitives during his lifetime and it was later to be proven that indeed the Memling was a fabrication, a fake created in the 1920s.
According to Christina Ceulemans who was a department head of the Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium's Artistic Heritage, like Van Meegeren, van der Valken also sold a painting, the Mary Magdalen panel, to Herman Goering during the second world war, after which it disappeared.
Like a bad penny, it turned up again in 2004, when a Scandinavian man took the picture in to be appraised. Ceulemans said that Van der Veken, had worked creating commissioned copies of art and that in this case he had scraped an authentic 15th century panel down and painted his own old master, complete with craquelure.
Ironically, van der Valken finally got his own posthumous exhibition, "Fake / Not Fake: Restorations, Reconstructions, Forgeries," at the Groeninge Museum in Bruges, Belgium.
James Edward Little: (1876-1953) British
An antiques dealer and restorer who worked and lived in Torquay on Devons' south coast where he specialised in selling ethnographic material and Polynesian artifacts and although he'd never set foot in the South Pacific in his life. His specialism was forging and selling Maori artefacts.
His modus operandi was to place advertisements in the Exchange and Mart newspaper and soon had a string of serious collectors as clients. Starting up in the process, one of Britains first antiques mail order businesses.
In his career, Little fooled museum directors, scholars and art collectors across the world. All bought into the idea that his forged or stolen Polynesian artefacts and their associated documentation were real.
Little's best work was often direct copies of authentic Maori artefacts, instruments, curiosities and trinkets. His master plan was to steal artefacts from museums, copy the pieces accurately, replace them with fakes and sell the originals on. As a master thief however, he was next to useless and he bungled many criminal attempts.
In 1915 he stole a decorated Maori wooden box from a Wiltshire museum, substituting the original for one of his fakes. But it was noticed.
Little was tracked down by police having signed the visitors' book at the museum with a false name in - Another Little bungle as he was the only visitor at the museum in three days!
He was arrested and sent to prison for six months, serving more time up and into the 1930's for attempted theft from various museums and auction houses. Even so, he was never actually convicted of forgery.
Alceo Dossena
Alceo Dossena: (1878-1937) Italian
Dossena didn't set out to copy sculptures but just happened to be so adept at using the techniques of the Greek and Renaissance sculptors that many of his works were bought by unknowing collectors and museum curators who were convinced that they were authentic!
This was principally down to his dealer Alfredo Fasoli who marketed them as priceless antiquities.
Dossena successfully defended himself at his trial and was acquitted of the charges set against him claiming that he'd been unaware that his dealer was selling his work under false pretences.
Jean Charles Millet
Jean Charles Millet: French (1892-1944)
Grandson of the painter Jean-François Millet, he took advantage of the family name and a stencil that Jean-François had made for the signature of his paintings. Employing a deaf painter named Paul Cazot who copied more than 40 oil and two hundred drawings purportedly by his grandfather.
Accused of forgery, Millet defended himself in court saying he had sold the fakes only to American and British, collectors, claiming that he could not be blamed for their ignorance.
In June 1930 he was sentenced to a year in prison for fraud and issuing a bad cheque by the Criminal Court of Melun in France.
In 1935, he was sentenced by the Criminal Court of Fontainebleau to a further six months in prison and received a fine of five hundred francs for fproducing orged signatures and breach of trust, with the sentence upheld by the Court of Appeal of Paris in 1936.
He was imprisoned by the Germans during the war at Royallieu Compiègne (Oise), and died in the Dachau concentration camp.
NOTLAY ?
All by himself a faker named Notlay signed more Jean François Millet’s than Millet ever painted
Jean de Sperati
Jean de Sperati: (1884-1957) French Known as: The King of Counterfeits and as the Rubens of Philately.
Sperati was the master forger born in Italy but spending most of his life in France.
He was noted as the faker of pre-1920 Australian stamps which even the authenticators believed to be authentic. This included the red 1913 - £2 stamp and the Hong Kong olive 1865 - 96 cent stamp.
Like many before him and indeed after him, he considered himself to be an artist and not a counterfeiter.
In 1942, Sperati came into conflict with the law when French customs officials seized a shipment of German stamps and found some to be forgeries. Sperati claimed that they were not forgeries but simply copies.
It didn't wash and he got a year for his trouble and was fined 310,000 francs for his criminal intentions.
Sperati is best known in Australia for his excellent 1913 £2 Kangaroo stamp forgeries of which dozens are now in collector hands. Today, the stamp forgeries of Jean de Sperati are considered to be some of the best of the world and ore selling at Sotheby's and Christies, legitimately as fakes, for thousands of pounds.
Martin Coneely
Joseph Cosey aka Martin Coneely: (1887-1950) American
Cosey stole a Benjamin Franklin document from the Library of Congress in the 1930's which began his career as an autograph forger and copyist of presidential handwriting.
Han van Meegeren
Han van Meegeren (1889-1947) Dutch
Han van Meegeren, was charged with having sold a Dutch national treasure in the form of a Vermeer painting which later turned out to be a fake, to German military leader Hermann Goering. Van Meegeren defended himself in court by demonstrating that he had painted the Vermeer masterpiece himself.
He also brilliantly forged paintings of some of the world's most famous artists including; Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch and Gerard Peter Borch. His story is well documented.
Otto Wacker
Otto Wacker: (1898-1976) German
Notorious German art dealer and Berlin cabaret performer and the faker of at least 33 unknown Vincent van Gogh canvases that were supposedly painted 35 years before they were found.
In 1932 Wacker was charged with fraud and after an appeal, was sentenced to 19 months in prison.
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio De Chirico: Italian (1888 - 1970)
The master, who died in Rome in recent years was not too fussy in authenticating works of his vast production. Giorgio de Chirico was known to paint exact copies of some of his earlier works, backdate them, and put them on the market which caused considerable litigation from collectors who then sued when they realized their De Chirico was not an original from his pre-World-War-I heyday
The paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, according to the first wife Raissa Gourevich, would split (as told by Luisa Spagnoli, into those which were noted in 1971 in the book "Long life of Giorgio de Chirico" into four distinct categories: Authentic, almost true, false and almost fake.
"Authentic", are all the pictures painted by the master.
"False", those painted by counterfeiters operating in Italy and in France and also in America.
"Most authentic" all the paintings from him but the same, and those able to be sold it as dating back to 'metaphysical', and re signed by adding a false date (for example, the paintings in the Fifties but dated 1913).
And "Most false" all the paintings from some "negro ', with the signature of the master notarized at his request.
Zhang Daqian
Chang Dai-chien / Zhang Daqian: (1899-1983) Chinese
Regarded by many art experts as one of the most gifted master forgers of the twentieth century and was renowned for being a professional forger but also as a dealer used to sell genuine paintings.
When he noticed that his buyers couldn't tell the difference he turned to fakes! Chang produced outstanding works reminiscent of the Ming master Shitao, as well as controversial imitations often regarded as forgeries during the early part of his career.
A. Beers. (19C) Belgian
A. Beers, was a faker of fakes. A 19th-century Belgian artist who according to art historian Hans Tietze; "because Beers didn’t have time to fill all his commissions, he had inferior artists make copies of his paintings. When they were well done he signed them himself. Tietze wrote. When they were not, he had the copyists sign them with his name for him, thus, if they aroused suspicion, he could disown them.
By this method, Beers himself helped to forge genuine and even fake A. Beers paintings!
Howitt-Bernard Lodge aka D S Windle: English (XX century)
In 1936 Windle has entered a painting titled "Abstract painting of a Woman" in the International Surrealist Exhibition in London. The work was one of the most discussed and admired paintings in the exhibition. The truth was : D S Windle ("De Swindle") was actually Howitt-Bernard Lodge , a portrait painter who hated surrealist art. Has put together "a phantasmagoria of paint stains, beads, a cigarette butt, Christmas tinsel, pieces of hair and a sponge" because he wanted to create "the worst possible mess." "One of the most warped and disgusting I've ever seen” he said.
What happened was the modernists remained indifferent to his confession, accepting the work Howitt Lodge created as a genuine work of surrealist art.
"He may think it is a hoax," they commented "but he is an artist who unconsciously may be a surrealist.
Are not we all?"
Yves Chaudron: (C 1900) French
Was reputed to be one of the most gifted counterfeiter in the art world. A respected conservator but really a master forger, from his studio in the Bohemian artist district, Montmarte, Chaudron would copy great paintings which had been lost or stolen, which his collaborator the Edouardo Marquis of Valfierno would then sell on to collectors.
He was most notoriously responsible for copying da Vincis La Gioconda in the famous 1911 Mona Lisa painting theft from the Louvre.
Renato Peretti, Italian - aka "Reni" (twentieth century)
Specialised in the reproduction of De Chirico’s baroque style but died before the scandal that involved Umberto Lombardi, another Florentine forger.
Between 1954 and 1976, Renato Peretti worked as one of the most skilled forgers of Giorgio de Chirico. Peretti himself admitted to having produced more than a thousand forgeries of paintings by different artists, and in particular, of many works by de Chirico, who was not only his favourite artist, but his works were also the most valuable and the easiest to sell.
At home in Lombardi in Florence in 1983 were found dozens of paintings in the style of De Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, De Pisis and Carrà, and Casorati, along with authentic paintings in the trust of De Chirico, plus a notary seal, some parchments and transparencies that reflected the paintings and the signature of the master, diaries with details of paintings to be finished or already finished.
He was among the most famous counterfeiters in the '70s; and unscrupulous dealers paid him partly in cash and partly in cocaine. Peretti boasted of his ability to forge the father of metaphysical painting in an interview with the Sunday Courier, who dedicated a 1978 cover to him.
According to the De Chirico archive’s website, several paintings by De Chirico, which Peretti said were his fakes, are “still in circulation today” and are regularly sold by auction houses as authentic works.
Oscar Dominguez
Oscar Dominguez: Spanish (1906-1957)
Historically established as one of the first forgers of Giorgio De Chirico were Mario Girardon - who emigrated to the USA - and the Spanish surrealist painter Oscar Dominguez a friend of Picasso- who committed suicide - He produced about thirty false works which circulated in France after the war. It was in June of '46 and at the Galerie Allard in Paris during a major exhibition of De Chirico - of 28 paintings on display 20 were identified as fake Dominguez, all of metaphysical subjects.
Edouardo Valfierno
Edouardo (Marquis) of Valfierno: (C 1900) Argentinian
Was a small-time South American conman from Argentina who made his living by scamming art collectors. Valfierno sold fake Spanish masters, such as Bartolome' Murillo, in Buenos Aires and was the brains behind the Mona Lisa Art theft.
Real Lessard: (C 1900) Canadian
Painter and dealer and part of the forgery partnership with Elmyr de Hory.
He worked for an agent called Fernand Legros who was selling de Hory's forged art production along with fake certificates of authenticity.
Elmyr de Hory
Elmyr de Hory aka Elemér Albert Hoffmann: (1906-1976) Hungarian
Hungarian art forger who lived on the island of Ibiza. He made hundreds of art forgeries and duped collectors with his Picassos, Modiglianis and Matisses but also painted works signed Van Dongen.
The Dutch artist himself, towards the end of his life and in need of money, is said to have endorsed more than once the validity of such de Hory fakes which were sold on as original by Fernand Legros.
In the 1950s and 1960s claiming to have sold over a thousand works in his career, de Hory was featured with Clifford Irving in Orson Welles' documentary, F for Fake, but was never successfully convicted of the crime of forgery or fraud.
Following his death, de Hory's paintings have since became very valuable. His paintings now becoming so popular that even forgeries of his forgeries have appeared on the market!
Umberto Lombardi (Italian)
In 1976, police raided the apartment of Florenitinan artist Lombardi which they said was ‘a laboratory for forging paintings’.
In all, 741 fake canvasses were seized claiming to be by prominent Italian artists.
Umberto Lombardi, then 51, was arrested and later jailed for creating fake artworks.
Ellic Howe
Ellic Howe: aka. "Armin Hull" (1910-1991) British
Armin Hull, was the non-de-plume of Eric Howe and it was Howe who became the man who was put in charge of Britain's forgery and counterfeit operation during World War Two with SOE (the Special Operations Executive)
As a younger man in the 30's, he had made a special study of German typography and printing techniques and had been a professional printer before the war. As an expert, he was made responsible therefore for espionage forgeries and propaganda parodies of postage stamps. This includes the forgery of German ration cards, orders and letters. The scale of the operation was massive.
As the Daily Express’s chief foreign correspondent Sefton Delmer wrote later:
"....it became necessary for us to forge signatures and handwriting. Once we needed to forge a letter written by one of Goebbels's astrologers. Hull produced the perfect forgery within three days."
Waterlows in Dunstable was where forged documents for secret agents were printed in the UK and the printing itself took place at local newspaper presses in Luton.
Surviving the war, Howe went on to write many books
Pio and Alfonso Ricardi: Italian (XX century)
The Etruscan terracotta warriors are three statues that recall the work of the ancient Etruscans, but are actually fakes.
The statues, created by the brothers Pio and Alfonso Riccardi and three of their six children, with the help of the sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti, were purchased by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1915 and 1921.
The statues were exhibited together in 1933. In subsequent years, many historians, especially in Italy, suggested that they could be false, but there was no forensic evidence to support the charges.
An expert later decided these were authentic pieces.
In 1960, chemical testing of enamels showed the presence of manganese, an ingredient that the Etruscans had never used. The museum was not convinced until the facts confirmed by Alfredo Fioravanti, when on January 5, 1961, he entered the US consulate in Rome and signed a confession. The counterfeiters had the skills he siad - and a very large oven needed to achieve the results.
So they produced fragments, later "discovered" and sold, then re-assembled ("restored") then resold. As proof of the deed, Fioravanti showed an inch section of an old warrior. He had kept it as a souvenir.
On 15 February, the Metropolitan Museum finally announced that the statues were fake.
Tom Keating
Tom Keating: (1917-1984) British
Thomas Patrick Keating, was a true cockney born in Lewisham. He made a particular speciality out of producing forged water-colours by Samuel Palmer and fine oil paintings by Dutch, Flemish, English and French old masters. The infamous yet loveable British rogue was a remarkable forger who certainly showed up all the experts in a forgery career which landed him in jail charged for conspiracy to defraud!
Born into a poor family, he failed to achieve any real fame in the art world and felt himself shunned and just like many artists before and indeed after him, he turned to faking to prove his talent. This was likely to get his own back on society as Keating saw the art world and in particular the gallery system as utterly rotten.
As he himself wrote;
"avant-garde fashion, with critics and dealers often conniving to line their own pockets at the expense both of naive collectors and impoverished artists".
Tom Keating effectively avenged himself by producing forgeries of all sorts in a prolfic and remarkable career. Oil paintings, water colours and drawings flowed out of his studio, all which were certified as genuine works by artists such as Gainsborough, Renoir, Van Dongen, Degas, Fragonard, Boucher, Modigliani and of course Samuel Palmer. One clear and important point that was missed was that Keating planted "time bombs" in all his pictures, Often writing snide or blatantly rude comments in lead white on the canvas before he started the painting, knowing full well that if the works were examined properly in the first place and x rayed, they'd show up!
Not satisfied with just that, he would always plant obvious flaws within the compositions and often used materials which out dated the original time frame of the fake he'd painted by hundreds of years.
Admitting to painting over 200 Kornelius Kreighof pastiches which are still floating around Canada somewhere today, he was prolific to say the least and of his John Constables and other fine reproductions and there is only an guestimate of what is out there!
He is reported to forged over 2,000 paintings by something like 100 artists,
One remarkable piece was the Haywain - which he painted backwards!
Ironically, after confessing in 1976, he was to star in his own major television program on Channel 4 in the UK on how to paint like the masters!
Derek Hughes
Derek Hughes: (1925 -2003) British
A gentleman British master of faking English Naive and Provincial School primitives, usually executed on old timber panels and vintage canvas pot boilers which he cleaned off with thinners. His supplies of wood, canvasses and particularly tubes of old paint, were bought in regularly from local auctioneers in Cornwall.
Looe, Lostwithiel and Par were his own favourite haunts before he contracted Parkinson's and couldn't get around but he had a regular team of friends supplying him with artists products with which to paint.
Derek Hughes principally concentrated on the production of fake animal art. Old Gloucestershire spot pigs, farmer Gile's prize bulls and sheep, but very successfully reproduced many works purportedly by Eugene Boudin.
He lived, taught painting and worked vociferously from a busy studio on the Espanade in Fowey where many of the fake paintings were exhibited in his bay window for holidaymakers to see.
Derek colluded with the local baker who happily 'cooked' his works in the large bread ovens to give them age in return for the odd masterpiece many of which lined the walls of his three story town house.
As he told me many times and like Tom Keating, Derek turned to his tongue in cheek faking simply to get his own back on an art world that did not truly recognise his own talent but more often than not, he painted fakes just for fun!
A prime example of his dry humour, he exhibited many of his works at Constables Studio which was housed in the Old Fowey Police Station and Jail!
Enrico & Piero Penelli: (19 C) Italian
Enrico, was a restorer from the Louvre. One day in 1893, he casually informed experts at the British Museum, that an Egyptian sarcophagus held in their collection had been made by him and his brother and that they had formerly buried it in Certeveri! They very successfully flooded the Italian market with clay masterpieces.
Lothar Malskat
Lothar Malskat:(1913-1988) and Dietrich Fey. German
This pair were German master forgers who swamped the German art market with up to 2,000 expert imitations of 71 ancient and modern masters. Everything from Rembrandts to Utrillos. They masterfully copied such artists as Degas, Corot, Gauguin, Renoir, Rousseau, Chagall and Munch, with Malskat doing all of the faking work. Sometimes he would copy famous old paintings, sometimes imitate the style of old masters. Incredibly, Malskat could forge one a day and was so good at faking the French impressionists that they took less than an hour to make. Fey then forged the signatures on the paintings.
Unfortunately, the pair went too far when they were involved with the 'restoring' of Gothic murals and Frescoes which magically appeared whenever they worked.
Feys firm were commissioned to restore the frescoes of a cathedral, the Marienkirche in Lübeck which had been severely damaged in World War II. The medieval frescoes on its walls had nearly disappeared! Fey's company happily did the work usefully, behind closed doors! The restorations finishing in 1951.
The restorers were immediately praised for their good work and for discovering upreviously unknown Frescoes. The new treasures were unveiled with great ceremony during the 700 anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Marienkirche; Embarrasingly as it would transpire, with dignitaries in attendance at the unveiling which included various government ministers such as Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the West German government celebrated the finds by printing 2 million postage stamps depicting the newly found frescoes!
In 1952, Malskat, Feys assistant, announced that he had painted the frescoes himself and instead of restoring the original frescoes, had whitewashed the walls and painted them with new works. Both were arrested. Fey got 20 months and Malskat 18. The frescoes were rapidly removed from the church walls.
When asked why had he confessed? Malskat said that he was angry that his partner Fey grabbed all the glory over the restoration of St. Mary's old frescoes!
Gianfranco Becchina
Gianfranco Becchina: Italian (twentieth century)
A record haul of rare antiquities illegally looted from Italy and discovered during raids on the Swiss warehouses of an accused Sicilian art dealer, was unveiled by authorities.
Police estimated the value of the 5,361 vases, bronze statues and frescoes at about €50m (£38m).
The works, dating from the eighth century BC to the third century, were laid out at the Terme di Diocleziano National Roman Museum and may go on public display before being returned to museums in southern Italy.
“This is by a long shot the biggest recovery in history in terms of the quantity and quality of the archaeological treasures,” the Carabineri general Mariano Mossa said.
The items were found during an investigation into Basel-based art dealer Gianfranco Becchina and his wife, Ursula Juraschek, also known as Rosie, who were accused by prosecutors of being part of an antiquities trafficking network that involved “tombaroli” tomb raiders in southern Italy, plus dealers and buyers around the globe.
Becchina remained free because the charges against him had expired, police said.
The investigation showed how dealers would forge provenance papers for the antiquities and create fictitious histories for them, so that museums and private collectors could in theory buy them in good faith, police said.
Police said that as a result, Italian authorities now had detailed documentation of Becchina’s inventory, including photos and receipts, that were also found in the warehouses.
Credit Guardian
The Getty Kouros bought in 1985 for nine million dollars from Becchina is still the subject of controversy.
Elizabeth Durack
Elizabeth Durack: (1915 - 2000) Australian
A Western Australian artist, who signed paintings as the work of Eddie Burrup, who it turned out, was a non existent aboriginal artist.
The Amiel Family
* The Deletion of the Amiel family story from our web page:
At the insistence of Ms. Sarina Amiel, the educational information we previously collected from publicly available sources on the Amiel family's alleged activities connected with the selling and distribution of illicit fine art prints, this section has been removed from its historical dateline position on this information page.
She feels it is 'inappropriate' for the family to be associated or listed alongside forgers and or information relating to fakes and forgery.
As Ms. Amiel took great pains to point out to us in an email in which she complained of the factual stories inclusion, none of those involved were ever charged nor convicted of forgery or art fraud, nor of faking works of art, but only of 'mail fraud' and it is therefore inappropriate for them to be accurately included here under any of our headings. So that's all right then?
Sadly, as Ms. Amiel is offended by the families prior inclusion in this copious list of the worlds most successful and even 'admired individuals' who were, or have, ever been accused or involved with illegal activities associated with art, we naturally do not wish to cause them or her any further offence and subsequently have immediately complied with her wishes and removed the section entirely.
Anyway Ms Amiel! Enjoy your life.
Miguel Canals: 1925- 1995 Spanish
Legitimate Copyist
Commercial paintings produced by the Barcelona based studio of Miguel Canals have been successfully offered for sale by top Auctioneers Bonhams for many years, giving the works an air of social respectability. The Spanish studio claims no anonymity as all the paintings produced here carry clear and definitive studio stamps on the back. The studio to this day, specialise in producing outstanding reproductions and or variations of works in the manner of many artists, styles and sizes and cover every subject imaginable; from a Parisian Street Scene to a romantic Victorian portrait to a still-life with birds, fruit and flowers.
Miguel Canals was responsible for founding one of the first and most highly successful studios to mass produce high-quality fakes that are neither designed to confound nor defraud the buyer. They're sold for their decorative merits only. Today, the manufacture of these works is continued by his family at the studio in Barcelona, which is staffed by 14 master copyists. Each has a specialist period, style or painter as their expertise. It's true to say that many of their copies carry a facsimile signature of the original painter they are reproducing but only if the work is out of copyright (70 years) and it was signed by the artist in the first place. This makes it legal.
Fernand Legros
Fernand Legros: (1931–1983) Egyptian
Fernand Legros was an Egyptian born American art dealer who sold the forgeries of Elmyr de Hory conspiring together with Real Lesard.
It is beleived that Legros kept most of the profits from his dealings across America in selling fakes, without telling De Hory.
Eric Hebborn
Eric Hebborn: (1934-1996) British.
It's written that: "Hebborn was a rogue who had no limits to his skulduggery." Eric Hebborn was a British forger who defrauded the art world in the 1960s with purportedly over a thousand Old Master drawings. Hebborn copied the style of artists such as; Corot, Castiglione, Van Dyck, Poussin, Savelli Sperandio, Francesco del Cossa, Mantegna, Ghisi, Rubens,Tiepolo, Piranesi and Jan Breughel, with huge success, duping great art auction houses, including Christie's and made a good living out of duplicating works of art for owners who didn't want the real thing hanging on the wall. Apparently even the Foreign office were clients of his.
Hebborn died under mysterious circumstances in 1996?
The Ixelles Workshop
One Belgian workshop in Ixelles Brussels in the late 1800's, is said to have produced 235 fake Corot's in its output of fakes onto the European market.
David Stein
David Stein: (1935 - 1999) French
David Stein is a French born forger who never physically copied a painting but painted in the style of: Chagall, Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Paul Klee, Miro, Jean Cocteau and Rouault and got away with it , that is until he was jailed in the 60's. See the book "Three Picassos Before Breakfast" having served a prison term in the USA, he was deported to his native france, where he served another sentence.
Konrad Kujau: (1938-2000) German
The German author of the Hitler Diaries. Again very well recorded.
Many of the manufactured relics he sold included military helmets, uniforms, flags, medals, forged letters and documents allegedly by former SS officials. Yet, of all the items he sold, his most popular were paintings purportedly created by Hitler.
Petra Kujau
Petra Kujau (Claimed to be great niece of Konrad Kujau ) 2010
Bizarrely in a strange twist, following a two-year long trial which centred on 300 paintings obtained by Dresden art dealer Petra Kujau from the far east, it seems she put his signature on them and sold them on as fake paintings by Konrad Kujau himself , claiming they were works the elderly Stuttgart forger had made in his latter years. Forgeries of forgeries.
She admitted to 40 counts of fraud having bought paintings in Asia and selling them on as “Kujau forgeries” for a total of €300,000 (£247,000). Her 56-year-old male accomplice received a 20-month suspended sentence and 120 hours’ community service. The court gave her a two-year suspended sentence.
Jean-Pierre Schecroun
Jean-Pierre Schecroun: (C 1940) French
Jean-Pierre Schecroun was a French art forger arrested for his Picasso forgeries in 1962. At the time he had admitted to making eight forgeries in two years. Before he was arrested and charged with forgery in 1962, Schecroun had produced about 80 works purported to be by Picasso and others.
The pictures were said to have brought in about £25,000 in two years.
Pamela and Ivan Liberto: (C 1942) Australians
Were jailed for nine months in 2007 after forging works by aboriginal artist Rover Thomas, four of which sold for over $307,000 through auction houses including Sotheby's and Christie's.
Pamela Liberto
Geert Jan Jansen
Geert Jan Jansen: (B 1943) French
Has been called by the French police, the most sophisticated and prolific master forger that ever lived.
He had over 12 million in Swiss bank accounts and 3 false identities. Not clever enough though as Dutch painter Karel Appel recognized one of Jansen's forgeries as his own work.
When police investigated the farm where Jansen had his studio, they found 1600 forged paintings, including works purportedly by Cocteau, Dufy, Ferdinand Erfman, Charles Eyck, Leo Gestel, Bart van der Leck, Matisse, Miro and the most popular target of all, Picasso. Jansen was sentenced to one-year imprisonment and five additional years suspended sentence.
Many thanks to Mr Peter Leutscher, who has added some information about Geert Jansen.
Mr Leutscher tell s Freemanart that "He was, however, NOT apprehended in a farm, but in a French Chateau in La Chaux, all his adventures are written in a book about him called "Magenta" written with his consent.
Publisher Prometheus, September 2008.
His last known residence is: Castle Beverweerd, near the village of Werkhoven, province of Utrecht, in the Netherlands, where he has a studio and exposes art he now signs with his own name, but in the style of any artist wanted.
We thank Mr Leutscher for his factual contribution.
John Douglas O'Loughlin: (1948-) Australian
In 2001, an Adelaide art dealer who sold fake Dreamtime art, purportedly to be by Aboriginal artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, was found guilty of deception. In 1999, police were called in to make enquiries after experts queried the authenticity of dot paintings hanging in his Sydney gallery. O'Loughlin, told the court that he was allowed to make Tjapaltjarri paintings because he was given a "skin name" during a ceremonial kangaroo hunt and was therefore Tjapaltjarri's cousin and entitiled to!
He is an art dealer who is said to have become the first Australian convicted and sentenced for Aboriginal art fraud.
Anthony Masaccio
Ken Perenyi and Anthony Masaccio (1949) American
For almost three decades, Perenyi had earned a fortune falsifying popular works of the eighteenth and nineteenth century artists like Martin Johnson Heade, Gilbert Stuart and Charles Bird King.
Perenyi’s specialities included British sporting and marine paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries. In his memoir, he explained the tricks of his trade, from recreating natural cracks to discoloured varnish, backed up with plausible stories of how a particular picture had been discovered in a relative’s attic or a car boot sale. Though investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, his case was closed in 2003 and is now subject to the statute of limitations.
He recalls that, by rotating auctioneers and dealers across the UK and US, he kept under the radar.
Masaccio was once a studio assistant to artist Willem de Koonig
Art forger Perenyi remembers Anthony Masaccio as a practiced partner in the sale of fake paintings, a man with movie-star looks and the nickname Tony Cha Cha who mingled with models and artists in the back room of Andy Warhol’s hangout, Max’s in Kansas City during the 1970s.
In a memoir published last year, Mr. Perenyi describes how he painstakingly created fakes that Mr. Masaccio hawked to gallery owners out of a Saks shopping bag.
Now Mr. Masaccio has surfaced as “a known purveyor in forged art” in another document — a newly amended complaint against Knoedler & Company, a gallery that is at the center of an $80 million forgery case.
Cornell Gabos: American (XX century)
Was the owner of the Renaissance Fine Arts, when a federal court in Ohio, USA, put an end to his business of selling fakes and he was ordered to repay $ 2.3 million to the defrauded customers.
In January 1994 he tried to sell non original signed lithographs and etchings by famous artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali and Joan Miro. The police investigation, called "Operation Bogart" had discovered an international network of forgers and dealers that were flooding the art market with fake prints
At the center of this fraudulent organization stood the name of Leon Amiel, the publisher of important art books and original limited editions on Miro, Dali and other European masters and whose family were involved in several scandals of this type.
In total Gabos sold more than 3,000 counterfeit works. He was imprisoned in 1996 for mail fraud.
Clifford Irving
Michael Clifford Irving: American (1930)
It was 1970, when a novelist named Clifford Irving living in Ibiza hatched a plan to cash in by publishing an entirely fabricated “autobiography” of Howard Hughes, the billionaire tool magnate, and aviator.
Confessing, Irving had to return the $750,000 advance, but his follow-up tell-all reportedly netted a $500,000 offer. When that book was made into a movie in 2007, he insisted his name be removed from the credits.
Thomas McAnea
Thomas McAnea: (1950) Scottish “Hologram Tam”
A Glaswegian master bank note forger. Reputedly responsible for forging some £700,000 worth of bank notes at Print Link Ltd. and subsequently sentenced in 2007 for six and a half years in prison.
McAnea had previously walked free from a 10-year sentence.e for counterfeiting after earlier an conviction in 1998 was overturned following his appeal.
Lawrence Cusack
Lawrence Cusack: (1951) American
Was convicted in 1999 for forging papers supposedly by J F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, letters which he claimed were proof certain of a steamy relationship between them. Called the most audacious and most profitable hoax since the Hitler diaries, the case was known as the Cusack Papers
He defence was that he had found more than 700 pages of documents written by JFK, his brother Robert Kennedy and Monroe, amongst the files of his father, Lawrence Cusack Sr, who died in 1985.
Robert Thwaites
Robert Thwaites: (B.1952) British
Produced forgeries of British Victorian oil paintings. He even conned an Antiques Roadshow expert Rupert Maas into buying one of his 19th century fakes purportedly by John Anster Fitzgerald and was jailed for two years in the process.
Ely Sakhai
Ely Sakhai: (B 1952) Iranian
Ely Sakhai is a Manhattan gallery owner, charged with forging works by numerous post-Impressionist and Impressionist painters. According to the FBI, Sakhai had bought the real Gauguin years earlier, painted a duplicate and sold the fake copy to a Japanese collector. Sakhai then brazenly put the original up for auction in an attempt to double his profits. It was a pure fluke that the unwitting owner of the Tokyo forgery decided to resell his copy at the same time. But for that coincidence, the forgery might never have been identified.
Sakhai allegedly duplicated 25 works by the painters; Claude Monet, Marc Chagall, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin and Paul Klee amongst others.
Prosecutors claimed he had been pursuing his forgeries racket for about 14 years and an estimate of his profits sits at $3.5 million. In March 2004, Sakhai was charged with a total of 8 counts of art fraud and deception but was released on bail. In July of 2005 he was sentenced to 41 months in prison, fined $12.5 million and ordered to forfeit eleven art works, for the crime of federal mail fraud.
Mark William Hofmann
Mark William Hofmann (B 1954) American 'The Utah Bomber.'
Mark Hofmann has built for himself the reputation of being a notorious dealer in forged historical documents but is widely regarded as one of the most successful document, coin and banknote forgers in US history.
His downfall involved a criminal deception & the Mormon church in a Hofmann scam by convincing them that he had discovered vital documents relating to the churches founding history. Counting on their ultimate desire to suppress anything negative in its possible content, he set about the felony
Sounding dramatically as if they were penned for Jason Bourne by Robert Ludlum, these forged documents included amongst others: the Salamander Letter, the Anthon Transcript, the Far West Letter the Stowell Letter and Blessing of Joseph Smith III.
On October 15, 1985, two motion activated booby-trapped shrapnel bombs, both hidden in parcels addresses to church officials, exploded in Salt Lake City, Utah, killing two people.
Steven F. Christensen, a Mormon bishop and Kathleen Sheets whose husband was also a bishop in the Mormon Church. Both, it is believed, were involved with negotiations between the church and Hofmann for the secret purchase of the 'recently discovered' documents.
Eventually, Hofmann, after a confession to police authorities, was charged with theft and deception relating to hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mormon Church leaders through the sale of forged historical documents and with two counts of first-degree murder.
He is currently serving a sentence of 5 years to life in Utah state prison.
Ethem Ulge
Ethem Ulge: (B.1964) Turkish
Hillsborough Police say the 44 year old native of Turkey, netted about $200,000 in bogus art sales in the USA in 2007. Under the eBay username "pakmailseller24," he offered fake paintings on eBay and was arrested in 2008. He is thought to have netted about $200,000,
Pedro Castorena Ibarra
Pedro Castorena Ibarra: (C 1965) Mexican
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Pedro Castorena who was on the US, 10 most-wanted fugitives list, is accused of heading the family-run enterprise that has dominated the document-forging industry in the United States since the late 1980s. Supplying bogus identity papers to millions of illegal immigrants over the last two decades. It is alleged that the Fake Documents Cartel operated in 33 states.
Brigido Lara
Brigido Lara: (20 C) South American
A Mexican forger of pre-Columbian antiquities who created many items in the style of the Mayans, Aztecs.
Lara sold his work as genuine Mexican antiquities with buyers not asking too many questions since they beleived they were buying contraband!
Lara went to jail in 1974 for a year.
Christian Goller
Christian Goller: (B 1974) German
Art history news tells us that state prosecutors had begun investigating the work of an art restorer, called Christian Goller after it was alleged that he has been producing 'Old Master' pictures that have subsequently been sold as the real thing. He specialises, it is alleged, in German 16th Century paintings, especially Lucas Cranach. The prosecutors are looking into 40 paintings, which have apparently been sold for hundreds of thousands of Euros, some in the London art market. Apart from being an exceptionally talented creator of 'old' paintings, Goller's best trick, it is said, is not to make exact copies of known Old Masters, but to make subtle variants. That is, he'll take a known composition, but alter it slightly, with the inclusion of a new detail, or a slight variation in a limb, pose, or background.
It is alleged that he was the faker of a work supposedly painted by Matthias Grünewald for which the Cleveland Museum of Art' had paid US $1 million. The work was subsequently reattributed.
Christophe D. Petyt
Christophe D. Petyt: (20 C) French Legitimate Copyist
Runs a Paris-based art company formed in 1992, L'Art du Faux, that employs more than 80 highly talented artists. All are specialists in copying particular styles, periods and specific artists, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne and so on and all ingeniously create individually commissioned copies of master works. The company's decorative fakes are clearly labelled and as an additional security measure, a piece of gold leaf is worked into each picture.
L'Art du Faux boasts galleries in the United Arab Emirates and Palm Beach Florida.
He and Fetterman were charged with Shill bidding. Bidding on the item themselves.
Kenneth Fetterman
Kenneth Fetterman: (20 C) American
Scam artist who occasionally partnered with Kenneth Walton to sell very expensive counterfeit art on rigged 'on line' auctions.
No Photo available
Guy Hain: (20C) French
On January 17th 1997, Guy Hain, nicknamed "the Duke of Burgundy, a well-known French bronze dealer appeared before a court in Lure, central France, under charges accusing him of having produced thousands of faked sculptures which eventually were sold as originals of Rodin, Renoir, Maillol, Camille Claudel, Carpeaux, Barye, Fremiet, Mène and other sculptors.
The French art forger who produced a large number of fake bronze sculptures, the most famous pretending to be by Rodin, was sentenced to four years in jail on June 28, 1997 but served only 18 months. He was to be rearrested 2002. This time evidence collected by Dijon police department consisted of 1,100 copies of works of 98 different French sculptors. The prosecutor asked for five years in prison and FFr2 million fine!
The faking scam is said to be worth more than $60 million.
It's is estimated that he produced something like 6,000 copies beyond those that the police had previously confiscated. Only one-third of the copies have ever been traced!
Vishwan Vilas Likhite
Dr. Vilas Vishwan Likhite American (XX century)
Vishwan Vilas Likhite, 67, a former professor at Harvard Medical School, was sentenced to a year in prison for attempting to sell fake drawings by Mary Cassatt in 2004.
Likhite was in possession of many other false Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Hans Hofmann, Constantin Brancusi and Marie Laurencin who was selling tens of millions of dollars.
Likhite had also sold an "Edgar Degas," a "Pierre Bonnard," and a "Daniel Ridgeway Knight" according to a local entrepreneur, Anthony Biancaniello, who had subsequently brought criminal charges against him.
Mark A. Landis
Mark A. Landis, American (1955)
An American painter, famous for his falsifications which he then gave free to museums, passing them off as originals. His philanthropic cheating was discovered in early 2008.
Robert Driessen
Robert Driessen, Netherlands (1959)
At 16, after leaving school, he began to paint for a living, until he was asked to carry out, copies of the works of some Dutch Romantic painters: Paul Gabriel, Johan Hendrik Weissenbruch and Hendrick Willem Mesdag.
Driessen used some old paintings bought at flea markets, then removed the paint from the canvas and re worked it. After a few years he began painting fake works of expressionists like Emil Nolde, August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
He began to fake his first sculptures in 1987, with the technique of casting.
The first sculpture that he copied by Alberto Giacometti was built in 1998, after studying his style, his signature, stamp of foundry made a slim figure of 2.7 meters and entitled "Annette". He held the sculpture hidden in the house and only after finding a buyer, made a bronze cast. Through an art dealer he was able to cash in by selling it for 250,000 German marks. Copying many others later, it was bought by an art dealer of Greek origin living in Germany, identified as "Guido S.". The story went on for another ten years.
Robert Driessen and his new business partner, Lothar Senke, tried to place these works to rich people who were not familiar with the works of Giacometti. Most of the fakes were made in the foundry owned by Roel Maaskant, Brummen, Netherlands.
In 2005, Robert Driessen, his wife and his son emigrated to Thailand. Before escaping, Driessen burned all the pictures that were false, while Guido S. continued to deposit payments his business concluded about him in Germany.
On one occasion in 2009, he returned to Holland in order to make another false Giacometti. But he was stopped by police, who were investigating S. Guido, and he was held for two hours at the airport in Frankfurt. After his release he was kept under surveillance for ten days, after which he managed to leave for Thailand. Five months later, Guido S., Lothar Senke and two other employees were arrested by police at Frankfurt airport, while trying to sell false Giacometti valued at 338,000 Euro. The police managed to discover the complete stock of the gang in the city of Mainz, where his associates lived: There were 831 171 bronzes and plaster figures, all in the style of Alberto Giacometti.
Lhotar Senke was sentenced to 9 years in prison and Guido S. to 7 years and 4 months by the regional court in Stuttgart that they also inflicted heavy fines. Driessen, being German however, cannot be extradited from Thailand.
Today Robert Driessen is one of the most sought counterfeiters,
Wolfgang Beltracchi & Otto Schulte-Kellinghaus: German (twentieth century)
In Cologne four individuals were accused of having implemented a large-scale falsification of art.
Wolfgang Beltracchi, born Wolfgang Fischer, an artist of Friìburgo, was leader of an 'organization which included his wife Helene, 52, the sister Susanne, 57. The two women were described as "great sorceresses" and another alleged forger Otto Schulte-Kellinghaus, all were responsible for a scam that has fooled some of the most prestigious auctioneers in Europe.
False works by Heinrich Campendonk, Max Pechstein, Johannes Molzahn, Fernand Léger, Raoul Dufy and Max Ernst were sold as legitimate pieces for a whopping 30 million pounds by auctioneers Christies and Lempertz.
Police say that they sold at least 44 fake paintings.
UPDATED
Charges have been filed in Cologne Germany against four individuals for running what police authorities believe is the largest-scale art forgery ring in German history.
Wolfgang Beltracchi, born Wolfgang Fischer, is the accused leader of a recent European forgery ring that included his wife, sister-in-law and another alleged forger Otto Schulte-Kellinghaus, allegedly responsible for a massive fake art scam duping some of the worlds most prestigious auctioneers.
Police are investigating whether that forger is Wolfgang Beltracchi, 59, an artist from Freiburg, aided by his wife, Helene, 52, and her sister, Susanne, 57 - women described as "great charmers". All three are now in police custody. Two additional men are also being investigated.
Fake works of art believed to be by Heinrich Campendonk, Max Pechstein, Johannes Molzahn, Fernand Léger, Raoul Dufy and Max Ernst have been sold as legitimate pieces with the enormous figure of £30,000,000.00 being mentioned and imperious auctioneers Christies and Lempertz caught up in the scam which has rocked the art world. The police allege that the ring sold at least 44 apparently forged paintings since the mid-1990s. With all of the purported fakes rediscovered or lost works, with each carefully chosen for their lack of photographic image, the scam has been enormous.
Incredibly however, if found guilty, Beltracchi may get away with most of the crimes as the statute of limitations is limited to 10 years!
Lothar Wilfried Senke (German) given 9 Years imprisonment for Giacometti sculpture forgery
Called the largest scam to ever shake the German art market.
Lothar Senke - calling himself Count Graf von Wallstein was accused of the worst counterfeiting scandal of works of Giacometti to date in a case involving more than 1000 bronzes and plasters. He was convicted on June the 30th 2011 in Stuttgart Germany for 38 of the 50 crimes including the infringement of the copyright of Alberto Giacometti.
Senke had produced as provenance for prospective buyers, some who had bought fake Giacometti sculptures out of the boot of his car, providing a convincing book of photographs and dialogue relating to the forgeries which purportedly has been secreted away by Giacometti's brother who was a personal friend.
Accomplices named were Herbert Schulte -- an art dealer in Mainz -- as well as Schulte's wife and another accomplice.
Schulte also admits to sending bank transfers to the Netherlands amounting to €700,000.
Michel Van Rijn
Michel Van Rijn: Dutch (1950)
Having turned the craft of international art smuggling into an art in its own right, Michel Van Rijn was once wanted by authorities all over the world for sneaking valuable pieces of art across sea and land. With millions in the bank, Michel lived the life of a playboy. He owned private planes, enjoyed a harem of beautiful women and did business with some of the world’s most dangerous criminals – many of whom were members of various governments (and probably still are).
Art smuggling has been his racket since he was 20 years old. Dealing with upper class gangsters and supposedly legitimate art dealers, he’s been shot, extradited, jailed, hunted by MI6 and Interpol and received photos of his children in the mail by way of a very unsettling threat from his enemies.
Credit October 11, 2012 J Hanrahan
Peter Ashley-Russell British 20 C
On May 16, 1986 in Knightsbridge Crown Court, a 38-year-old Peter Ashley-Russell was sentenced to 21 months in jail after pleading guilty to six counts of false hallmarking and of obtaining money by deception.
Police had found a secret panel in Ashley-Russell's Bethnal Green workshop containing forgeries, tools and hallmark punches following the discovery that he had made a fake 17th century gold spoon and fork sold at Christie's.
On July 11, 1985, a gold rat-tailed trefid spoon and three-pronged fork with the marks of William Mathew 1689, had sold to Spink & Son, bidding on behalf of an overseas client, for £48,000. They were submitted to Goldsmiths' Hall and found to be modern fakes made from melted gold coins. Not all fakes were traced and it took many years for the market to recover.
The true size of Ashley-Russell's fraud is still not known. The prosecution was formed around 39 pieces, but he is also known to have had an eBay account, regularly listing silver flatware.
It is thought that more than 450 items were offered on eBay but they did not form part of the case because the police wished to avoid a costly and time-consuming High Court appearance to obtain a production order that would have allowed them to look at eBay and PayPal accounts.
In particular the Oluwole area of Lagos
Here its said that anything can be and is forged!
Police recently seized; 50,000 assorted foreign cheques, 10,000 blank British Airways tickets and 10,000 United States Postal Money Orders!
Biagio (Luigi) Cugini and Charles Locke
In July of 2005 a Manhattan art dealer Chantal Park of Art History inc. alleged she spent $145,000.00 for a fake drawing called “Personnage Endormi et Femme Accroupie” (Sleeping Person and Kneeling Woman) allegedly created by Picasso and deemed fake by his daughter Maya Picasso. She paid to Charles Locke of Duluth, Georgia and to Biagio Cugini of Maynard, Massachusetts $145,000 for the fake piece.
The judge entered a $175,000 judgment against Cugini and his co-defendant in their absence..
Cugini was a co-defendent in California in the mid 1980s in an additional alleged art fraud case involving $600,000.00 and the fake sale of art. In the case in 1985, Cugini and an associate were charged with art forgery and fraud involving artists which included fakes purportedly by Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.
The case, however, was dropped.
August 26, 2010
The now sixty-eight-year-old Luigi Cugini was arrested again by the FBI in Florida recently accused of trying to sell counterfeit works of art by Picasso, Matisse and John Singer Sargent. He was also alleged to have forged Sotheby’s provenance documents confirming their authenticity. Marketing the paintings by deceit as part of the private collection of his grandfather Joseph Coletti dec’d, it seems he lied about being the grandson of the late Joseph Coletti, a Boston-area sculptor. Undercover FBI agents investigated Cugini for six months posing as a jewellery broker in order to trick Cugini.
Cugini intended to sell three paintings claimed to be the authentic works of Sargent, for $565,000. He told the undercover agent that the works were called “A Gust of Wind,” “Under the Willows” and “Head of a Young Woman.”
In addition to the ongoing undercover operation that led to Cugini’s arrest, the FBI had previously been investigating Cugini for selling a counterfeit Picasso watercolour in March and for offering to sell $28 million dollars worth of fake paintings purportedly by Matisse to a dealer who later became a confidential informant for the government.
Cugini is currently charged with mail fraud!
This complaint is only an accusation and a defendant Cuguini is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Tatiana Khan and art restorer Picasso faker Maria Apelo Cruz
69 year old Tatiana Khan, a West Hollywood antiques dealer admitted to having a Picasso drawing replicated in 2006 order to sell it for $2 million. In a complaint against her, it is reported that Tatiana Khan, owner of the Chateau Allegre Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard, claimed that an artwork called “La Femme Au Chapeau Bleu” (The Woman in the Blue Hat) was an original Picasso and further told a prospective buyer Victor Sands of the Sands Family Trust, that it was previously owned by the Malcolm Forbes family estate and was a bargain at only $2 million, according to court documents. It was alleged that dealer Khan told artist Maria Cruz that she needed a copy of the original work based upon an accurate photograph of the original Picasso and that the reason the copy was needed was that the real Picasso artwork had been stolen from one of her clients and that she needed a copy to play a trick that would help catch the thief. Artist Cruz, had worked with Khan in the past and did not think ill of the request and was subsequently paid $1000.00 for the copied work. Khan allegedly sold the drawing for $2 million to the art investor SandsIt was also alleged that Khan paid other accomplices in the attempted art fraud, people called the Kavanaughs an $800,000 kickback disguised as a “loan.”Tatiana Khan was charged with wire fraud and other crimes.
She's currently free pending arraignment but could face 45 years in prison if convicted.
On April 27th 2010, Khan agreed to plead guilty to federal fraud charges and as part of the plea deal will make full restitution to the purchaser of the fake Picasso and will forfeit an original work by the abstract impressionist painter Willem de Kooning that Khan had purchased with some of the proceeds from her fraud.
Jack and Leslie Kavanaugh
According to reports and information based on the official complaint; Jack Kavanaugh and his wife lived an opulent lifestyle which spoke much of their success in life and their collection of fine art, backed up their apparent knowledge of the art market. Its alleged that they also convinced Sands to buy paintings claimed to be by Marc Chagall, Willem de Kooning and Pierre Auguste Renoir which “represented outstanding investment opportunities that were sure to earn Sands a substantial return on his initial investment,” Though these works have not been proven to be illegitimate, it was alleged that they were ‘overpaid for’ and would never reach the investment profit levels implied.
It is interesting that Sands is now suing the Kavanaugh’s In his complaint he adds that the de Kooning and Renoir were never delivered to him and he was never refunded the $175,000 deposits that he paid. Sands subsequently sued the Kavanaughs and 21 unknown defendants for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, misrepresentation, conversion and breach of contract.
The outcome is not published to our knowledge as yet.
This complaint is only an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Kristine Eubanks and husband Gerald Sullivan
Television Art Fraud: Fine Art Treasures Gallery
Kristine Eubanks and her husband Gerald Sullivan pleaded guilty in 2007 to conspiracy and tax evasion having conducted an art auction shows twice a week on DirecTV and The Dish Network from 2002 to 2006. The Fine Art Treasures Gallery allegedly sold fake and forged lithographs, prints and paintings purportedly found at estate liquidations around the world to more than 10,000 victims. Both received prison sentences of seven and four years respectively.
James Mobley, 63, of Woodland Hills a TV show auctioneer was also implicated in the same Fine Art Treasures Gallery fraud which aired on DirecTV and the Dish Network. For his part he was sentenced to five years in prison.
In the interrim, Feds seized $3.8 million from bank accounts connected to the couple.
for Beryl Ann Toye
William and Beryl Ann Toye
William and Beryl Ann Toye, a Baton Rouge couple, have been accused by the FBI of forging paintings by renowned black folk artist Clementine Hunter.
Clementine Hunter:
The FBI investigated allegations that William Toye, 78 and his wife Beryl Ann, 68, inferring that they had been selling forged paintings to unsuspecting art collectors and dealers since the 1970s. Works which have got into the hands of Museums and galleries its claimed. William Toye was previously arrested in the 1970s on a charge of forging Hunter's work but was never prosecuted. The couple also is suspected of using an intermediary, Robert Edwin Lucky Jr., to sell forged paintings.They were eventually charged with three counts each of mail fraud and one of conspiracy to commit mail fraud from early in 2000 until Sept. 30.
If convicted of conspiracy, the defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both. Mail fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years, a $250,000 fine or both.
Both were latterly sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to pay $426,393 in restitution.
John C. Andrews, English (1949)
The mask on the right appeared on Ebay in January 2008. The seller was John C. Andrews with the nickname 'Antiqus-2000' which became 'phosphene-gallery' and 'franks1310'.
The mask was described as "an undisputed masterpiece of Egyptian art" had been attributed to the 22nd dynasty with a framed letter apparently written by Sir Wallis Budge in 1920 and another sent by the current curator of the British Museum, dated April 2003, with stamp of the museum, that authenticate the piece, along with the envelope of the letter and a xerox copy of the entry pass of the mask to the British Museum for the control, which dates back to March 2003.
The price was £ 5,000.
John Andrews is still in business on eBay, now he sells copies with false labels antique. Buy replica for little and adds a label suitably aged, and sell them to hundreds of pounds.
Tony McManus - AKA Tony the Terrible (Irish 20 C) d 2004
A conman with no remorse. Belfast art dealer and faker who sold fake works to collectors he said were stupid enough to buy them. Offering to buy the work back from them for more then they paid for it the following year.
Jonathan Rayfern
Jonathan Rayfern, British 21 C
A former art student who once worked alongside artist Tracey Emin. Jailed for 16 months after being convicted of forging her work.
Rayfern at the time, 32, admitted 10 counts of fraud and one of deception after faking the artworks and selling them on eBay.
He made at least 11 fake items said to be by Emin, who became famous as one leading lights of the Britart movement.
Emin fakes included pen work, printing on fabrics and patchwork.
Xiao Yuan
Xiao Yuan ( Chinese) 21 C
Art theft and forgery appears to be a major problem at China's Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, where former chief librarian Xiao Yuan has admitted to replacing 143 artworks with fakes he created himself. He claims that several of his fakes were subsequently replaced with even poorer quality copies. Xiao is reported to have admitted that he removed the 143 paintings from a gallery under his care between 2004 and 2006, successfully auctioning 125 of them until 2011.
By swapping the landscapes and calligraphies of 17th and 20th-century Chinese artists with his own replicas, Xiao amassed 34 million yuan (£3.5m) which he spent on apartments and more paintings. Xiao was finally caught when a former student of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art noticed the university seal on artworks for sale in Hong Kong. Not that bright then !
Xiao was arrested in May 2014 and will be sentenced at a later date.
Appearing at Guangzhou People's Intermediate Court, Xiao, age 57, pleaded guilty on a corruption charge. His defense for his crime?
Everyone else was doing it.
Karl F Sim
Karl Feoder Goldie AKA: Karl F Sim - (New Zealand) 1923-2013
New Zealand's most infamous painting forger and the first to be convicted in NZ history,. CF Goldie was formerly an art forger called Karl F Sim.
In his autobiography, “Good as Goldie” he included E.W.Christmas, Rita Angus, his downfall, Frances Hodgins, Colin McCahon and Charles F Goldie, his favourite,, as artists whose works he’d forged. He a;lso faked; Petrus van der Velden, Toss Woollaston, Renoir, William Dobell, Arthur Stretton and Evelyn Page.
Sim was arrested in the 1985 on 40 counts of forgery and fined $1000. Afterwards, he changed his name by deed poll to Carl Feodor Goldie so he could sign his paintings C.F.Goldie legally !
The magistrate that sentenced him came each day to the trial from Wellington to Foxton and visited the four pubs in the town. Problem was, he couldn't find anyone that had a bad word to say about him, which was probably part of the reason he got off so lightly….. !
Pei-Shen Qian - 20 C. Chinese Art Forger.
And an elaborate $80 million (£51 million) New York art fraud.
An alleged 73 year old New York based forger who had trained at the same art school attended by Mark Rothko and other famous abstract expressionists —had an uncanny knack for mimicking their style and forged there works throughout the 1980’s.
Though Qian was charged and indicted on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and lying to the FBI, along with two Spanish dealers– brothers Jose Carlos and Jesus Angel Bergantinos Diaz, 58 and 65 who await extradition from Spain. Jose Carlos is said to have bought Qian old canvases from flea markets and auctions and supplied him with old paint.
He is also aleged to have “stained newer canvases with tea bags to give them the false appearance of being older than they really were”, said the indictment, which also claimed that some works were subjected to the heat of a blow dryer, while others were left outside and exposed to the elements.
Pei fled to China however before he was brought to court.
Pei it is alleged, began painting fakes of Rothkos and others from his garage at his Queens home in exchange for just a few hundred dollars up to $9,000.
A Federal jury heard about the Chinese immigrant who forged fakes of modern masters such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Sam Francis and Franz Kline. Also involved were a once-reputable Manhattan gallery that sold them to wealthy buyers who paid millions for the knockoffs.
The Montagutelli Brothers
The Montagutelli brothers who were Rodin's Parisian casting experts also forged Rodin´s work and were persecuted by him.
[De Caso, p. 341]
David Henty British 20 C
British artist David Henty from Brighton, is known as a master forger.
He was banned from eBay for life in recent times for selling thousands of fake paintings that he had made on the Internet site. Only to re register under a different seller name to continue his work.
Faking works by celebrity names such as Winston Churchill, Noël Coward, Ronnie Kray, the gangster and Rolf Harris, the entertainer was only part of his stable.
He openly admits to churning our fake Lowry’s to sell on Ebay for up to five thousand pounds each. But bigger names are at his talented command. Duncan Grant, a member of the Bloomsbury group of artists for one, Canadian Jean-Paul Riopelle, Van Gogh, Modigliani and Monet to name a few.
Earlier in his life, he'd been to prison for 5 years for making counterfeit passports and number plates. Ironically was there that he learned to paint.
Now he is going straight, working as a master copyist with many clients commissioning him for his variations of famous artists paintings including valuable Picasso works.
He has recently had an exhibition of his work and will soon be the subject of a TV series.
| Tom Keating |
Who played Bill Sykes in the 1968 film ‘Oliver’? | Personnel famous | Royal Navy History
Royal Navy History
History of the Royal Navy
.
Tristan Jones - Author and Mariner
Arthur Jones, pen name Tristan Jones (Liverpool, 8 May 1929 – 21 June 1995) was an English author and mariner who wrote numerous books and articles, many in the first person, about sailing. His stories tended to be a combination of both fact and fiction in the tradition of Welsh story tellers and it has often been difficult to tell these apart. Indeed, he was a consummate story-teller, but as far as his account of his royal naval service in WWII in particular goes, any old salt would have regarded him, at best, as a 'rum gagger'.
Tom Keating - Painter & Forgerer
Thomas Patrick Keating (March 1, 1917 – February 12, 1984) was an art restorer and famous art forger who claimed to have faked more than 2,000 paintings by over 100 different artists.
Tom Keating served in the Royal Navy during World War Two aboard HM ships as a Stoker. His autobiography gives a small glimpse into his world during this time.
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What does the statue of Eros, in Piccadilly Circus in London, hold in his left hand? | The Statue of Eros - Sightseeing - visitlondon.com
The Statue of Eros
This statue of a winged archer poised with his bow is known as The Statue of Eros. Eros was the God of Love. The statue might really be the Angel of Christian Charity, or Anteros, the brother of Eros…Read More
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This statue of a winged archer poised with his bow is known as The Statue of Eros. Eros was the God of Love. The statue might really be the Angel of Christian Charity, or Anteros, the brother of Eros, but Londoners call him Eros.
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| The Bow |
Myology is the scientific study of which part of the human body? | Proposal to cover London's Eros statue in giant inflatable globe to protect it from vandals | Daily Mail Online
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It has been an iconic feature of the London landscape for more than a century - but now the famous 'Eros' statue in Piccadilly Circus could be temporarily turned into a giant 'snow globe' to protect it from vandals.
A planning application has been submitted to encase the 36ft-high monument in Piccadilly Circus in a see-through inflatable globe after recent years saw a rise in the number of acts of vandalism - especially over the Christmas period.
The proposal is for the Grade I listed statue to be covered in a PVC globe, tough enough to withstand the elements and fitted with smart technology to reinflate it should sharp or fast-moving missiles cause punctures.
Artist's impression: A planning application has been submitted to encase the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus in a see-through inflatable globe
The Eros statue has been vandalised a number of times since it was installed in 1893 - here an identified man is seen climbing up it in 2002
Erected in 1892 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury, the statue has been targeted by vandals a number of times over the years. The council says it is particularly at risk of drunken attack by revellers during the festive season.
The application is for the statue to be covered for a temporary period between December and January until 2017.
Westminster Council previously protected the monument by surrounding it with advertising boards. But it hopes the new idea will provide a neater solution for protecting the statue and the fountain beneath it.
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Cllr Robert Davis, deputy leader of Westminster City Council, said: 'We believe this is a exciting project which will add a real sense of entertainment and wonder around an iconic landmark at Christmas. Eros will be able to add its own festive touch to the West End.'
Philip Allard, director of planning at Wildstone, the outdoor advertising firm that drew up the plans for December 2013, said he hoped the snow globe would become a popular annual event, adding: 'Eros needs to be protected for up to eight weeks over Christmas.'
The statue is on one leg, his wings outstretched and having already fired an arrow from the bow he carries in his left hand. While the fountain beneath is cast in bronze, the statue is made from aluminium - at the time a rare and novel material.
Commonly referred to as Eros, the Greek god of love, the statue is actually of Anteros, Eros's brother - and has always been named Anteros by the sculptor Alfred Gilbert.
When the fountain was opened it was warmly described by the Magazine of Art as: 'A striking contrast to the dull ugliness of the generality of our street sculpture.'
'A work which, while beautifying one of our hitherto desolate open spaces, should do much towards the elevation of public taste in the direction of decorative sculpture, and serve freedom for the metropolis from any further additions of the old order of monumental monstrosities.'
Unfortunately, the statue had already been vandalised by August of that year, and the spot had been 'permitted to be used as a playground by dirty and squalid children'.
In 1994 it was damaged by a drunken visitor climbing on it and bending the figure.
It was then renovated and put back, as one of the most familiar sculptural emblems of London.
The statue, and the decorations on the base of the fountain are characteristic of Gilbert's art nouveau style.
BROTHERS IN ARMS: AN EROTIC TALE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY
Previous covering: Advertising boards and a see-through covering protecting the Anteros statue and Shaftesbury monument in 2009
The famous London statue rising above the tourists and traffic in Piccadilly Circus has been the victim of mistaken identity for almost its entire existence.
Commonly referred to as Eros, the Greek god of love, the statue is in fact (and has always been) a depiction of Anteros - Eros's brother.
Other names for the statue include the Shaftesbury Monument and the Angel Of Christian Charity.
Sculptor Alfred Gilbert even called his creation Anteros, but it hasn't stopped scores of tourists - and Londoners alike - naming him after his brother (or, worse still, the Roman god Cupid).
The statue and fountain was originally erected as the centrepiece of Piccadilly Circus, but was moved to its present location after the Second World War.
In Greek mythology, Anteros was the son of Ares and Aphrodite and was given to the lonely Eros as a playmate.
Where Eros was the god of frivolous and mischievous desire, and often unrequited love, Anteros was the more serious god of direct, returned love.
Unlike the arrow of Eros or Cupid, which left its targets smitten with desire, Anteros's lead arrow was literally a weapon to punish those who scorned love and avenge those who had had their advances spurned.
Gilbert had already finished his Anteros statue - modelled on 16-year-old Italian studio assistant Angelo Colarossi - when he was commissioned to work on the Shaftesbury Memorial.
He said a statue depicting a god of selfless love was a suitable addition to a monument to the philanthropic Earl of Shaftesbury, well known for his work with the poor.
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Who starred as Jim Bowie in the 1960 film ‘The Alamo’? | The Alamo (1960) - IMDb
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A small band of soldiers sacrifice their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant from smashing the new Republic of Texas.
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Won 1 Oscar. Another 6 wins & 8 nominations. See more awards »
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Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.
Directors: Michael Curtiz, John Wayne
Stars: John Wayne, Stuart Whitman, Ina Balin
A Union Cavalry outfit is sent behind Confederate lines in strength to destroy a rail/supply center. Along with them is sent a doctor who causes instant antipathy between him and the ... See full summary »
Director: John Ford
A dramatization of the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima.
Director: Allan Dwan
During the Alaska gold rush, prospector George sends partner Sam to Seattle to bring his fiancée but when it turns out that she married another man, Sam returns with a pretty substitute, the hostess of the Henhouse dance hall.
Director: Henry Hathaway
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.6/10 X
Col. Mike Kirby picks two teams of crack Green Berets for a mission in South Vietnam. First off is to build and control a camp that is trying to be taken by the enemy the second mission is to kidnap a North Vietnamese General.
Directors: Ray Kellogg, John Wayne, and 1 more credit »
Stars: John Wayne, David Janssen, Jim Hutton
Ranch owner Katie Elder's four sons determine to avenge the murder of their father and the swindling of their mother.
Director: Henry Hathaway
After the Civil War, Cord McNally searches for the traitor whose perfidy caused the defeat of McNally's unit and the loss of a close friend.
Director: Howard Hawks
Based on the 1836 standoff between a group of Texan and Tejano men, led by Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, and Mexican dictator Santa Anna's forces at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
Director: John Lee Hancock
Cattle baron John Chisum joins forces with Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett to fight the Lincoln County land war.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
Wealthy rancher G.W. McLintock uses his power and influence in the territory to keep the peace between farmers, ranchers, land-grabbers, Indians and corrupt government officials.
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
J.D. Cahill is the toughest U.S. Marshal they've got, just the sound of his name makes bad guys stop in their tracks, so when his two young boys want to get his attention they decide to rob... See full summary »
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
After the Civil War, ex-Union Colonel John Henry Thomas and ex-Confederate Colonel James Langdon are leading two disparate groups of people through strife-torn Mexico. John Henry and ... See full summary »
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
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Storyline
In 1836 General Santa Anna and the Mexican army is sweeping across Texas. To be able to stop him, General Sam Houston needs time to get his main force into shape. To buy that time he orders Colonel William Travis to defend a small mission on the Mexicans' route at all costs. Travis' small troop is swelled by groups accompanying Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, but as the situation becomes ever more desperate Travis makes it clear there will be no shame if they leave while they can. Written by Jeremy Perkins <[email protected]>
The Mission That Became a Fortress, The Fortress That Became a Shrine See more »
Genres:
24 October 1960 (USA) See more »
Also Known As:
(director's cut) (1993 video release) |
140 min
3 Channel Stereo (Westrex Recording System) (5.0) (L-R)
Color:
Did You Know?
Trivia
John Wayne formed a close friendship with Laurence Harvey during filming. He later said Harvey should have received an Oscar nomination instead of Chill Wills . See more »
Goofs
The distinctive Alamo church sports upper windows that were not installed until about 15 years after the battle. There are other architectural inaccuracies, too. See more »
Quotes
Col. Davy Crockett : Step down off your high horse, Mister. Ya don't get lard less'n you boil a hog!
If You Really Want to Know John Wayne, See This Legacy
16 February 2005 | by Bob-45
(Savannah, GA) – See all my reviews
Corny? At times long-winded and stilted? Touching, poignant and inspiring? John Wayne's "The Alamo" is all of these things; and, of this, I'm certain John Wayne would agree. For, unlike the lessor men who make up most of Wayne's critics, Wayne was fair. This is clear even in "The Alamo," in his depiction of Santana's army. Wayne believed in the basic nobility of men, much like those heroes depicted in "Rio Bravo". That his life and memory is treated more like that of Marshal Sam Kane's in the Wayne-despised "High Noon," or even in Wayne's own "The Shootist" is testimony that Wayne HOPED men were better than they are.
I'd never seen the full-length version of "The Alamo" until it was released on VHS in the early 90s. I realized then the greatest scene in the movie is "The Birthday Party," which was cut from the general release version of the film. NOTE: For those that don't remember, during the 50s and 60s, Hollywood would release long, big budget movies as reserved seat attractions. The film would show at a "roadshow" theater for several months before general release. Since "roadshow" theaters showed the movies only twice a day, running time was restricted pretty much to the patience of audiences. However, when the same film was shown general release, time restrictions became important, so films were cut to maximize theater owner profits. It still happens today, except now the "director's cut" reaches the home audience via DVD. In any event, the short version of "The Alamo," while impressive, is still a pale shadow of the Wayne's original cut. Most importantly, to see "The Alamo" is to understand John Wayne as a man, not an idol or actor. Wayne generously gave virtually all the big scenes to his costars. Certainly, Lawrence Harvey, Richard Widmark, Ken Curtis, Joan O'Brian and Richard Boone get better scenes. Also certainly, Chill Wills, Jester Hairston (Jethro) Hank Worden (Parson) and Veda Ann Borg (Blind Nell Robertson) have showier ones than Wayne. The scenes between Wayne and Linda Crystal in the first hour seem out of a different movie, though neither Wayne's nor Cristals are as big or showy as the ones I've mentioned. One thing I hope to suffer again was the "reunion" video attached to the VHS. The same old garbage about Wayne not being able to direct actors (by his SON, no less), that he really wasn't a very good director (Wayne's action scenes will match or beat anybody's in Hollywood). Especially rude was Richard Widmark's idea of impressing Wayne by insisting Wayne call him "Richard" and not "Dick" during their first meeting. Widmark came across as a pompous ass. However, the rudest cut was from Ken "Festis" Curtis. Curtis never had a better, more respectful part in ANY movie, but he didn't miss an opportunity to try to soil Wayne's memory.
Forget that "The Alamo" is a topnotch, if not entirely historically accurate historical western. Forget that Wayne directs action better than his mentor, John Ford, or that Chill Wills got an Oscar nomination, the only of his career, thanks to this "lousy director/actor". Remember this, Wayne risked EVERYTHING on "The Alamo" and lost. He was broke for years afterward. Wayne's continued success on the "A" list was by no means assured. He was 54 years old and raising a second family. Wayne had recently been swindled by a business manager and recently lost a best friend to suicide (Grant Withers). Wayne had to take a role in "The Alamo" to secure financing, and "The Alamo" is probably STILL the biggest movie ever directed by one of its stars. During filming, Wayne had to contend with interference from mentor John Ford and a murder investigation of one of his actresses. That same year Wayne's house was severely damaged by fire. Yet Wayne took continued carping by lessor men, those "artists" in Hollywood who ridiculed his acting and his directing. I'm sure they sneered in satisfaction when "The Alamo" failed to break even. However, it's reported the movie eventually made a small profit, probably part of it through sale of "Alamo Village" in Bracketville, Texas.
Wayne continued to make fine movies for sixteen more years after "The Alamo." In 1969 he was finally awarded by his peers an Oscar for "Rooster Cogburn." However, by then, Wayne had P.O.d them again with "The Green Berets". War service or not, NOBODY can say the man ever ran from a fight.
I'm not sure I would have liked John Wayne had I known him. I'm not a drinker and I'm not obsessively patriotic about this country, particularly since we started picking fights in the Middle East. However, as Wayne proved with Lawrence Harvey and Rock Hudson, Wayne didn't have to agree with someone's lifestyle or even their personal views to treat them with respect. I most certainly would respect him better than the "friends" he gave jobs in "The Alamo;" at least, those who slandered him.
Oh, and by the way, "RICHARD Widmark never won an Oscar."
I give "The Alamo" a solid 8.
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| Richard Widmark |
Which British place of learning is referred to as the ‘OU’? | The Alamo
Remind Me
The Alamo (1960)
Nominated for six Academy Awards®, The Alamo (1960) was a dream that John Wayne had been harboring for over 15 years and he threw himself into developing the project after completing The Quiet Man in 1952. Initially proposed as a picture for Republic Studios with Herbert Yates producing, the deal eventually fell through with Yates going on to produce his own Alamo movie, The Last Command (1955). Wayne refused to abandon his original vision, however, and finally succeeded in striking a deal with United Artists in 1956. In order to direct the film and insure that creative control could not be taken from him, the Duke had to agree to play the part of Davy Crockett and sign a three-movie deal with the studio. As a result, Wayne exercised nepotism in assembling his cast and crew to make sure that his project would remain faithful to his ideals. His son Michael served as assistant producer, Wayne's brother Bob was the producer's aide, other sons and daughters were extras or had bit parts. Wayne's pal James Edward Grant wrote the screenplay. Good friend and mentor, director John Ford, came to the set to lend any help Wayne might need. And John Ford's son-in-law, Ken Curtis, played Captain Dickinson.
The story of the 187 Texans (including frontiersmen Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie) who held out against over 6,000 regular Mexican army troops for 13 days during the Texas Revolution embodied the idealistic elements that were closest to Wayne's heart. For the film's location, Wayne decided on Brackettville, Texas, and began building the sets in 1958 while he assembled his cast. Clark Gable was his first choice as William Travis and Burt Lancaster was considered for Jim Bowie, roles which would eventually be played by Laurence Harvey and Richard Widmark, respectively. Sammy Davis, Jr. campaigned vigorously for the part of Jethro, Jim Bowie's slave, but was passed over in favor of Jester Hairston, a less controversial choice (Davis's "Rat Pack" status and interracial romance with May Britt made him an unpopular choice with investors in the film). By the time production began, The Alamo had a cast and crew of 342 people, 1600 leased horses, and a catering staff of 45 which was a daily drain on the film's budget.
Historically there was a rivalry between Col. Travis and Jim Bowie, but on the set of The Alamo, the clash was between Richard Widmark and John Wayne. Widmark repeatedly challenged Wayne's direction in front of everyone and once they almost came to blows; thereafter the two remained professional but aloof. Other on-set aggravations were caused by the Texas location - scorpions, skunks and other critters were a constant nuisance. In the biography, John Wayne American by Randy Roberts and James S. Olson (University of Nebraska Press), co-star "Hank Worden remembered that "there were something like thousands of rattlesnakes every square mile." The heat was oppressive. In September the temperature was already 84 degrees by 10:00 a.m., and by 3:00 in the afternoon it was a blistering 98. The humidity was terrible, not at all the dry heat they had expected. Decked out in his costume and coonskin cap, Wayne poured sweat, sometimes so profusely that he had to change clothes before going in front of the camera."
Wayne also found that allowing John Ford to sit in on the set was a big mistake. His former director would constantly undermine Duke's direction, offering unsolicited advice or barking, "G*ddamnit, Duke, that's no way to play it," after scenes. Not wanting to appear disloyal to the man that had launched his career, Wayne assigned Ford some second unit action scenes which kept him busy while the Duke could work uninterrupted (he hardly used any of Ford's footage). On the other hand, some suggestions were heeded and Wayne decided to cast pop singer Frankie Avalon (recommended by Michael Wayne) in the role of Smitty, a part he once planned to play when he was younger and trying to launch the project. In addition, he also cast world famous matador Carlos Arruza as an aide to General Santa Anna. Both were obvious ploys to appeal to young audiences and Mexicans, respectively.
When Wayne first previewed the film in San Antonio, The Alamo ran 192 minutes and nearly everyone agreed that it was too long. Even after 40 minutes were cut for the general release, most critics were still unfavorable in their reviews. The public was more enthusiastic, making The Alamo the number five box office hit of the year. Even though it was also a huge success in Europe and Japan, it would take years for the film to turn a profit due to its runaway production costs. The Duke later remarked, "That picture lost so much money I can't buy a pack of chewing gum in Texas without a co-signer."
Despite its much-maligned reputation, however, The Alamo is an often impressive epic with several memorable set pieces and performances. The second half of the film, in particular, where the Mexican troops stage their final assault on the Alamo's defenders is genuinely stirring and the Dimitri Tiomkin score yielded a top forty radio hit, "The Green Leaves of Summer." Of the six Oscar® nominations only one was a winner - Best Sound by Gordon E. Sawyer and Fred Hynes.
The only film John Wayne would ever direct, The Alamo proved to be more autobiographical than he possibly realized at the time. According to the authors of John Wayne American, John's daughter, "Aissa Wayne believed that the film had a great deal to do with her father's decision not to enlist in World War II. "I think making The Alamo became my father's own form of combat. More than an obsession, it was the most intensely personal project of his career." He used the film to explain himself - his Cold Warrior passions, lifestyle, failed marriages, and patriotism. The Alamo was Duke's confessional, an open letter to 150 million Americans. The film tells more about John Wayne than about Texas in 1836."
Director/Producer: John Wayne
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In the Bible, who is the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth? | Genesis 6:10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Matthew Henry Commentary
6:8-11 Noah did not find favour in the eyes of men; they hated and persecuted him, because both by his life and preaching he condemned the world: but he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and this made him more truly honourable than the men of renown. Let this be our chief desire, let us labour that we may be accepted of him. When the rest of the world was wicked, Noah kept his integrity. God's good-will towards Noah produced this good work in him. He was a just man, that is, justified before God, by faith in the promised Seed. As such he was made holy, and had right principles; and was righteous in his conversation. He was not only honest, but devout; it was his constant care to do the will of God. God looks down upon those with an eye of favour, who sincerely look up to him with an eye of faith. It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it shows strong faith and resolution, to swim against the stream, and to appear for God when no one else appears for him; Noah did so. All kinds of sin were found among men. They corrupted God's worship. Sin fills the earth with violence, and this fully justified God's resolution to destroy the world. The contagion spread. When wickedness is become general, ruin is not far off; while there is a remnant of praying people in a nation, to empty the measure as it fills, judgments may be long kept off; but when all hands are at work to pull down the fences, by sin, and none stand in the gap to make up the breach, what can be expected but a flood of wrath?
| Noah |
Fictional character Sir Percy Blakeney is better known by what name? | What Does the Bible Say About Ham?
Genesis 9:1-29 ESV / 5 helpful votes
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And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. ...
Psalm 78:51 ESV / 4 helpful votes
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He struck down every firstborn in Egypt, the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
Leviticus 19:34 ESV / 4 helpful votes
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You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Genesis 9:18 ESV / 4 helpful votes
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The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.)
Isaiah 53:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes
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All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
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