The Hollow Sword Blades Company was a British joint-stock company founded in 1691 by a goldsmith, Sir Stephen Evance, for the manufacture of hollow-ground rapiers.

In 1700 the company was purchased by a syndicate of businessmen who used the corporate identity of the company to operate as a bank. At this time the Bank of England held a monopoly by act of parliament as the only organisation permitted to operate as a bank in England, so anyone wishing to carry out banking operations had to do so by devious means. The company was used as a stepping stone to the foundation of the South Sea Company which set out to supplant the Bank of England as banker to the government.

Founder
Sir Stephen Evance was a goldsmith whose father had been born in New England, but who had set up a business in Lombard Street in London. Evance did not confine his interests simply to metalwork, but had attempted salvage work with a diving machine,  lead mining, mineral prospecting in Canada, a fishing enterprise off the coast of Ireland in partnership with Sir James Houblon (one of the founders of the Bank of England) and a draper named Samuel Ongley.

Sir Stephen Evance was Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company during 1692–1696 and 1700–1712. He first acquired stock in the Hudson's Bay Company in February 1684, and he was a good friend of the company who would arrange money and other favours for the company. For this, Evance received a gratuity from the Deputy Governor of 50 "Gunneys" (sic) to buy a couple of horses to pull his coach. Sir Stephen never married or had any children of his own, but he did have a niece named Hester Child who inherited Sir Stephen's estate, which was significant even after his debts were paid. Despite this, before his death, Sir Stephen had large debts and his suicide in 1712 is reputed to be a result of Sir Stephen believing that his situation, at the time of his death, indicated a terminal failure in life.

Company origins
In 1691, war between France and England interrupted the importation of hollow ground swords from France which had become popular weapons in England and a business opportunity presented to manufacture the swords in England. Evance arranged for  Huguenot metalworkers to move to Britain to manufacture the swords and obtained a charter of corporation as the 'Governor and Company for Making Hollow Sword Blades in England', granted 13 October 1691.
The company obtained premises  at Shotley Bridge in Durham. Granting of the charter plus two patents was on condition the applicants loaned the government £50,000, which sum was provided by Evance and Sir Francis Child in August 1692. Evance was appointed the first governor of the company, Peter Reneu the deputy governor, assistants Francis Tissen, Matthew Evans, John Carter, John Holland, Abraham Dashwood, John Samford, Robert Peter, Thomas Evans, Peter Justice, John Reneu, William Reneu, John Baker. The corporation had power to purchase land and issue stock to unlimited value.

The company manufactured swords and by virtue of the charter had power to seize imported foreign hollow swords. Evance became an excise commissioner and succeeded Childs as jeweller to King William III. However, after the king's death in 1702 Evance's involvement in the Hollow Sword Blade Company was minimal. One of the  swordsmiths employed by the company, Herman Mohll continued to manufacture swords at Shotley in his own right under the name Herman Mohll and son, founding a company which continued with a change of name to Mole in 1832. The company was purchased by Wilkinson Sword in 1922.

Banking operations
The Hollow Sword Blade Company was sold and moved to Birchin Lane in London, to the premises of its new company secretary, John Blunt, a scrivener (lawyer specialising in business and financial contracts). The sale was probably arranged by Francis Child, whose son was a banker and business associate of Blunt. The new Governor was Elias Turner, a goldsmith with a shop in Lombard street under the sign of the Fleece, who provided both finance and experience. The deputy Governor was Jacob Sawbridge, who came from a business family and who had a small estate in Canterbury. The fourth partner, George Caswall, came from Leominster which his family had represented as MP for generations. His father had been Mayor, and Receiver of the land tax for Monmouthshire. Caswall was a partner with another goldsmith, Brassey, specialising in finance and trading securities. Daniel Defoe described them: "Sawbridge is as cunning as Caswall is bold, and the reserve of the one with the openness of the other makes a complete Exchange Alley man. Turner ... acts in concert ... and makes together a complete triumvirate of thieving". (Exchange Alley was the place where stock trading and other financial transactions took place in London.) The objective of the partnership was to break into the business monopolised by the Bank of England, which was handling and providing loans for the government.

In 1703 the company purchased some of the Irish estates forfeited under the Williamite settlement in counties Mayo, Sligo, Galway, and Roscommon. They also bought the forfeited estates of the Earl of Clancarty (McCarthy) in counties Cork and Kerry and of Sir Patrick Trant in counties Kerry, Limerick, Kildare, Dublin, King and Queen's counties (Offaly and Laois). Further lands in counties Limerick, Tipperary, Cork and other counties, formerly the estate of James II were also purchased, also part of the estate of Lord Cahir in county Tipperary. In June 1703 the company bought a large estate in county Cork, confiscated from a number of attainted persons and other lands in counties Waterford and Clare. However within about 10 years the company had sold most of its Irish estates. Francis Edwards, a London merchant, was one of the main purchasers.

The recent reconquest of Ireland by forces loyal to William III had resulted in the confiscation of land from Jacobites which had been given to members of the Williamite army. Blunt was amongst others who campaigned that the property should instead have been sold to defer government expenses, and an act of parliament was passed cancelling the grants of land which instead were to be sold. The Sword Blade company now used its charter powers to own property to purchase land to the value of £200,000 with anticipated revenues of £20,000 per year, or 10%. To pay for this, the company used a trick which the Bank of England had employed in its own creation. The Hollow Sword Blades Company issued shares, which it was also entitled to do under its charter. It offered to exchange its own shares at a nominal value of £100 for £100 of government debt issued by the army paymaster. The government was willing to accept its own debt as payment for the land, so no cash money was required for the transactions. The army debt could at that time only be sold on the open market at a rate of £85 per £100 of face value, so this offered a way for holders to realise a better price.  The land remained the property of the company, and the company would pay dividends on the shares from its rental income.

The deal was negotiated with the treasury by Blunt and their legal advisor, Lake and agreed on 1 June 1704. Once the debt was cancelled, the government no longer had to pay interest upon it, which it had been doing at 7.5%. However, it also required a 'sweetener' in the form of receiving a new loan of £20,000 at 5% as part of the deal, secured against Royal shares in Cornish tin.

Before announcing the offer, the Sword Blade Syndicate made full advantage of the anticipated rise in value of army debt, by buying as much as it could privately beforehand. This was then sold as the price rose once the general market realised there was an offer available to trade in the debt at its full value.

The Sword Blade company also branched out into providing mortgages for other would be purchasers of Irish land, accepting cash deposits and issuing its own notes. This came to the attention of the Bank of England, who advised the treasury that their own monopoly to act as a bank was being infringed. The treasury took no action. In part, the government recognised that it had a good deal it did not wish to spoil. There was also a legal complication, that the Bank act protected it against any other company being set up by act of parliament to operate as a bank. In the case of the sword company charter, although the steps to enact its charter had been commenced, they had never actually been completed in Parliament.

The Bank of England charter was due to expire in 1710, and they were concerned to arrange its renewal. Others, however, continued to lobby Parliament not to do so, and a new syndicate had formed, offering to take on funding of the latest loan required by government. The Bank responded by dropping its interest rate to underbid the competition, and succeeded in renewing its charter until 1732, with more strictly drawn terms to prevent others operating as banks.

Further complications faced the Sword Blade company, as title to land in Ireland began to be disputed by relatives of dispossessed Jacobites and others claiming to have bought from the initial beneficiaries of the first cancelled land distribution. The matter was settled by an act of parliament in 1708 (Forfeited Estates Act 1707, 6 Ann. c. 61) setting a time limit on further claims, but  by then the company stock had fallen to £55 per nominal £100 issued. As some consolation, pressure was also mounting on the Bank of England from an increasingly distressed government seeking new ways to raise money.

Notes

References

Sources

 Hoppit, Julian. (2002) "The Myths of the South Sea Bubble," Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, (2002) Vol. 12 Issue 1, pp 141–165 in JSTOR
Paul, Helen Julia (2010) The South Sea Bubble: an economic history of its origins and consequences,  Routledge Explorations in Economic History, Routledge, London.

Political scandals in the United Kingdom
British slave trade
Chartered companies
Defunct companies of the United Kingdom
Economic bubbles
Economic history of England
Financial crises
Stuart England
History of banking
Corruption in the United Kingdom
1691 establishments in England
Companies established in 1691

Hollow Sword Blade Company


Inky Mark (; born November 17, 1947) is a Canadian politician and a former member of the House of Commons of Canada, representing the Manitoba riding of Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette. Mark was a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, although he frequently criticized and took positions opposite the party and its leader, Stephen Harper. Mark ran in the 2015 federal election, noting that he is now a Green Party of Canada member but that he would still run as an independent. He lost significantly.

Early life
Mark was born in Taishan, China, and moved to Manitoba as a child. Mark's father and grandfather had emigrated from China to Canada some time previously, but were unable to bring their families with them as a result of provisions in the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Mark accompanied his mother when she fled China in 1953, and subsequently settled with his family in the Manitoba community of Gilbert Plains.

Education
Mark has a Bachelor of Arts from Brandon University and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Manitoba. Before entering political life, he worked as a high school teacher and small businessman. Mark also has a certificate in broadcasting and started a master's degree in education program, although he did not graduate.

Political career

Municipal politics
Mark's political career started when joined the Board of Directors of the Dauphin First United Church. He was subsequently elected to the Dauphin town council in 1991, and became the town's mayor in 1994.

Federal politics

Mark was first elected to the House of Commons in the federal election of 1997, running as a candidate of the Reform Party in the riding of Dauphin—Swan River. From 1997 to 2000, Mark was one of only three Chinese-Canadian MPs in the House of Commons.

The Reform Party dissolved itself in 2000 in favour of the Canadian Alliance, and Mark ran as a candidate of the new party in the federal election which followed.

On September 12, 2001, Mark left the Canadian Alliance caucus to sit as a member of the Democratic Representative Caucus, in alliance with the Progressive Conservative Party.

The DRC came to an end on April 10, 2002, when Stephen Harper replaced Day as Canadian Alliance leader.  Every other member of the DRC requested to be re-admitted to the Alliance; Mark did not join them, but instead decided to sit as an "Independent Conservative", with the intention of rejoining the Progressive Conservatives at their annual party convention later in the year; he had been a Progressive Conservative before the early 1990s.  Mark formally joined the Progressive Conservatives on August 27, 2002.

In December 2003, the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party formally merged to create the new Conservative Party of Canada.  Mark supported the merger, and formally joined the new party's caucus on February 2, 2004. Mark was easily re-elected in the Canadian federal election of 2004.

In 2005, Mark alleged that Treasury Board President and Liberal MP Reg Alcock offered him an ambassadorship if he were to resign his seat. Alcock responded by saying, "Frankly, if I was going to recruit somebody, I'd go a little higher up the gene pool." Mark called this comment racist and filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. As the CHRC does not publish its investigations, it is not possible to know the outcome of this case.

Criticism and complaints
While a sitting MP, Mark gained a reputation as "an outsider" within the Conservative caucus.  Mark is and has been an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister's Office, and several sitting and former Conservative MPs. He frequently complained that Harper was controlling, and he responded by refusing to attend Conservative events. Mark has called Harper a "fascist" and complained that he runs a "top-down dictatorship". He says that the Central Intelligence Agency is controlled by the United States' Republican Party, and that the Republican Party installed Stephen Harper as the Canadian Prime Minister in order to sell out Canada to the United States.

Following the announcement of his resignation, Mark complained that the nomination race for his successor was rigged, and allowed Robert Sopuck to be acclaimed without competition.

Following his resignation as an MP, Mark stepped up his criticisms of the Harper government. He complained that the nomination race for the Conservative candidate following the resignation of Labrador MP Peter Penashue was rigged because Harper "wants a candidate he can control". He also complained that the nomination race to replace Merv Tweed was rigged, and that the eventual successor, Larry Maguire, was just a "rubber stamp" for Harper. Mark was featured prominently in the book Tragedy in the Commons, where almost every chapter quoted Mark's complaints about the way Harper's government was run.

Mark complained that the Conservatives' Constituent Information Management System (CIMS) was a secretive database used to track and control Canadians' information and voting preferences, and said that Harper could simply "switch off" this system to punish an MP.

Parliamentary work
For his tenure as an MP, Mark was always a "backbencher".

In 2001, as the Alliance's parliamentary critic for Immigration, Mark was responsible for expressing his party's position on the Liberal government's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which he did during the immigration controversy involving the Sklarzyk family who, as a result of an administrative error, was deported from Canada to Poland in May 2001. He also contributed to the parliamentary committee's work in drafting the final version of the bill, and was generally regarded by MPs from all parties as having made several constructive criticisms to the legislation.

However, on June 13, 2001, Mark's position on the bill was undercut by Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day, who delivered a speech in parliament supporting tighter restrictions against refugee claimants and reduced opportunities for rejected claimants to appeal to the Refugee Board.  Day's comments diverged from Mark's stated position on several particulars, and his speech was regarded as very surprising by many other MPs in the House of Commons. For example, Liberal MP Steve Mahoney referred to Day's comments as "treachery" towards Mark, for which he was ruled out of order by the Speaker.

In 2005, Mark's private members' Bill C-331 (Internment of Persons of Ukrainian Origin Recognition Act) was passed by the House of Commons and Senate of Canada, eventually resulting in the establishment of the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, supporting educational and commemorative projects recalling Canada's first national internment operations of 1914–1920.

Federal resignation and return to municipal politics
Mark announced in June 2009 that he would be resigning before the next federal election. On August 16, 2010, he announced that he would step down as an MP on September 15 to campaign for another term as mayor of Dauphin. However, he lost to Eric Irwin.

Return to federal politics and switch to Green Party of Canada
Mark announced on November 13, 2014, that he would be running as an independent candidate for the 2015 federal election in Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, which includes nearly all of his old riding. Mark announced that he is now a member of the Green Party of Canada, but would still seek election in 2015 as an independent candidate. Mark finished a distant fourth behind Sopuck, garnering only eight percent of the vote.

Twitter Presence

Mark was a prolific user of Twitter, amassing almost 22,000 followers over the period 2013 to 2023.  He posted over one-half million times during that period, averaging nearly 150 tweets and/or re-tweets per day. He gained twitter popularity around the world, in part due to his frequent links to interesting posts and to interesting news sources.

After the election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Canada, his twitter tone took an increasingly anti-Trudeau stance.  The overwhelming majority of his more recent retweets, links and memes became extremely critical of Liberal policies in general, and Prime Minister Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in particular.

Specific targets included the government's handling of climate change, gun control, the economy, the pandemic, and the "truckers' convoy".   He frequently reposted or linked to articles of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories.

Other targets included the CBC.

For an unknown reason, his account abruptly stopped posting on twitter after January 25, 2023.

Electoral record

^  Change is from the total of Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance votes in the 2000 election.

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Note: Canadian Alliance vote is compared to Reform Party vote in 1997 election.

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References

External links

1947 births
Living people
Members of the House of Commons of Canada from Manitoba
Members of the United Church of Canada
People from Taishan, Guangdong
Chinese emigrants to Canada
Reform Party of Canada MPs
Canadian Alliance MPs
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada MPs
Conservative Party of Canada MPs
Mayors of Dauphin, Manitoba
Canadian people of Chinese descent
Naturalized citizens of Canada
Politicians from Jiangmen
Independent candidates in the 2015 Canadian federal election
Foreign-born Canadian politicians

Inky Mark


Martigny  is the capital city of the French-speaking district of Martigny in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.

It is 495 meters high.  It has a population  of about 15,000 people. Martigny is at the joining of Italy, France and Switzerland, one road linking this town over the Great St. Bernard Pass to Aosta (Italy), and the other one, over the col de la Forclaz to Chamonix (France). In winter, Martigny is appreciated for its nearby ski resorts like Verbier.

History
In the first century BCE, present-day Martigny was an oppidum or vicus of a Celtic tribe, the Veragri. It was then called Octodurus or Octodurum. When Julius Caesar was in Gaul (57-56 BCE), he sent Servius Galba with the twelfth legion and some cavalry into the country of the Nantuates, Veragri, and Seduni. His purpose in sending this force was to open the pass over the Alps, the pass of the Great St. Bernard, by which road the mercatores had been used to travel at great risk, and with the payment of great tolls. (B. G. iii. 1.) The people of the Alps allowed the Italian merchants to pass, because if they plundered them the merchants would not come; but they got as much out of them as they could. Galba, after taking many strong places, and receiving the submission of the people, sent off two cohorts into the country of the Nantuates, and with the remaining cohorts determined to winter in Octodurus, which was in a valley with no great extent of level ground near it, confined on all sides by very lofty mountains. There is some level ground at Martigny, and the valley of the Rhone at this part is not very narrow. Caesar says that the town of Octodurus was divided into parts by a river, but he does not mention the river's name. It is the Dranse. Galba gave one part of the town to the Galli to winter in, and assigned the other to his troops. He fortified himself with a ditch and rampart, and thought he was safe. He was, however, suddenly attacked by the Galli before his defences were complete or all his supplies were brought into the camp. Thus began the Battle of Octodurus. The Romans obstinately defended themselves in a six hours' fight; when, seeing that they could no longer keep the enemy out, they made a sortie, which was successful. The Romans estimated the Galli at more than 30,000, and Caesar says that more than a third part were destroyed. The slaughter of the enemy was prodigious, which has been made an objection to Caesar's veracity, or to Galba's, who made his report to the commander. It has also been objected that the valley is not wide enough at Martigny to hold the 30,000 men. There may be error in the number that attacked, and also in the number who died.  After this escape Galba prudently withdrew his troops, and marching through the country of the Nantuates reached the land of the Allobroges, where he wintered.

The region joined the Roman Empire. In 47, Emperor Claudius founded Forum Claudii Augusti, later renamed Forum Claudii Vallensium to avoid confusion with another city that was dear to him.  Octodurus was the principal town of the area until the displacement of the episcopal see to Sion in the 4th century. Pliny (iii. c. 20) says that the Octodurenses received the Latinitas (Latio donati). The town appears in the Antonine Itinerary and in the Tabula Peutingeriana. In the Notit. Prov., the place is called Civitas Vallensium Octodurus. At a later period it was called Forum Claudii Vallensium Octodurensium, as an inscription shows. One authority speaks of the remains of a Roman aqueduct at Martigny. Many coins, and other memorials of the Roman time, have been found about the place.

The name Octodur is manifestly Celtic. The second part of the name is Dur, water. The first part, probably some corrupt form, is not explained. The town sat on the Roman road from Augusta Praetoria (modern Aosta) in Italy.

Present situation
The Romans left many ruins. The city is known for the amphitheatre, which was restored in 1978. Cow fights are held in the amphitheatre during early autumn for the "Comptoir". The city is also famous for its museum, the Pierre Gianadda Foundation, built on top of Roman ruins.

The area has some apricot orchards, and vines on steep slopes.

Notable Martignerain
 Pascal Couchepin, politician,  was the President of the Swiss Confederation.

References

Other websites

 Martigny Homepage
 Cow fights - Les vaches d'Hérens
 Pierre Gianadda Foundation

Municipalities in Martigny
Cities in Switzerland

Martigny, Switzerland


Demetrios Vikelas (also Demetrius Bikelas; ; 15 February 1835 – 20 July 1908) was a Greek businessman and writer; he was the co-founder and first President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), from 1894 to 1896.

After a childhood spent in Greece and Constantinople (now Istanbul), he found fortune in London, where he married. He then moved to Paris, on account of his wife. Abandoning business, he dedicated himself to literature and history, and published numerous novels, short stories and essays, which earned him a distinguished reputation.

Because of his reputation and the fact that he lived in Paris, he was chosen to represent Greece in a congress called by Pierre de Coubertin in June 1894, which decided to re-establish the Olympic Games and to organise them in Athens in 1896, designating Vikelas to preside over the organisation committee. After the Games were over, he stepped down, remaining in Athens until his death in 1908.

Childhood
Vikelas was born in Ermoupoli, on the island of Syros in Greece. His father was a merchant, originally from Veria (then part of the Ottoman Empire, today capital of the northern Greek province of Imathia in Central Macedonia) and his mother, Smaragda, was a member of the rich Melas family. He was educated at home by his mother, possibly due to his fragile health.

When he was six, the family moved to Constantinople, and ten years after that to Odessa. There he started working for his father's business.

Already he showed signs of his literary potential. At the age of 17 he translated Esther, a tragedy by Jean Racine.

London, from business to literature
While aged 17, in 1852, he left home to live in London with his uncles Leon and Vasileios Melas, where he worked for their business, Melas Bros, first as a bookkeeper and then as a partner. He also began to maintain a weekly correspondence with his mother.

This correspondence, which was kept, is one of the most important in establishing his biography. He also kept a journal in which he recorded not only facts about his daily life but also advice from his uncle Leon and his thoughts on books he had read and plays he was able to attend.

After his day's work at his uncles' business, he took evening classes at University College London (the only university in London which did not require students to be Anglican). There, he obtained a degree in botany (the only subject which offered evening classes). He learned German and Italian. He also took part in fencing, horse-riding and rowing, although circumstances did not allow him to keep these up. He had also become very scholarly, and started to publish — an anthology of poems in 1862 and numerous articles in London periodicals, on the British press and the growing of cotton in Greece.

During the political events of 1863 in Greece, following the revolution which led to the eviction of Otto and the enthronement of George I, Vikelas led fundraising efforts in support of the provisional government. He also wrote letters to the main newspapers of the time to demand that Greece's rights be respected. He became definitively known in the British intellectual world in 1866 when he contacted authors and academics to gain their support for the Cretan cause during the Cretan Revolt of 1866-1867, for which he raised more fundraising.

Also in 1866, he married Kalliope Geralopoulou, a young sister of Katerini, the wife of one of his uncles, also a member of a rich merchant family in London. He also became a titular partner in his uncles' business.

He also met and became friends with Charilaos Trikoupis - the son of the Greek ambassador to Britain Spyridon Trikoupis, himself destined to become Prime Minister of Greece. At the time they met, Charilaos Trikoupis was just starting his diplomatic and political career as an attaché, then chargé d'affaires, of the Greek legation. The two men kept a busy correspondence.

Demetrius Vikelas continued to gain favour in Greece — in 1868 he published a 30-page statistical article on the Kingdom of Greece following a conference at the Royal Statistical Society; in 1870 he founded a school for Greek children living in England. All his work — polemic, political, journalistic, historical or literary — had a double objective: to elevate the morals and level of intellect of his country but also to change its reputation with respect to the rest of the world. In his historical essay of 1874, On the Byzantines, he wrote that he wanted to restore the reputation of the Byzantine Empire.

In 1876, in the wake of the economic crisis that had started in 1873, and in order not to lose the profits of their work, Vikelas and his uncles dissolved their business (now called "Melas Bros - D. Vikelas"). He thus found himself in command of a comfortable fortune, which allowed him to fully dedicate his time to literature.

Paris, the illness of his wife, and literature
In 1874, following the death of her father, Vikelas' wife Kalliope began to suffer from mental problems and showed a number of suicidal tendencies. The couple tried travelling to ease the illness. In Paris, following another scare, doctors declared Kalliope mad and she stayed for seven and a half months in Jules Bernard Luys' asylum in Ivry-sur-Seine. True to his character, Vikelas recorded the progress of his wife's mental health daily during the twenty years which followed.

In his journal, from 1872 Vikelas expressed the wish to move to Athens. In 1877, while Kalliope's condition was in remission, they took the opportunity to make the move. Vikelas started to build a home around the corner from the streets of Panepistimiou (on which the University was situated) and Voukourestiou. However, his wife's health worsened again and he accompanied her to France where she again stayed in Ivry-sur-Seine.

During his stays in Paris, Vikelas embarked on translating Shakespeare plays into Greek: King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and Othello during his wife's first stay (1878), and Macbeth and Hamlet during the second (1881). The public readings of his translations received an enthusiastic welcome in the literary community in Athens. He then also wrote his main literary work: Loukis Laras. The book first appeared in Athens as a series starting in 1879. The same year, it was translated into French and German. The French translation (which had its first republication in 1880) was included by the Education Minister Jules Ferry in the list of works which could be given as prizes to good students.

Vikelas spent the following fifteen years in Paris, building up contacts with the surrounding intellectuals and literati of the French capital. Consequently, Juliette Adam dedicated her anthology Poètes grecs contemporains ("Contemporary Greek poets"), published in 1881, to him, and he published in her Nouvelle Revue. He wrote for it, as before, numerous articles (on Byzantine history, Eastern issues and Greek political life), novels (a compendium in French and Greek came out in 1887) and even travel guides.

In the linguistic controversy in Greece between Katharevousa and Dimotiki, Vikelas chose the middle ground, rejecting the excesses of the Dimotikists just as much as the fierce defenders of the more intellectual language. He suggested using Katharevousa for parliamentary proceedings, for example, but popular language for poetry.

Between 1877 and 1892, he travelled, since at the worst of her crises, his wife could not bear his presence. He returned to Greece, visited Scotland, Switzerland, Spain and Constantinople.

In 1892, he bought a new plot in Athens (between the streets of Kriezotou and Valaoriti) where he built a new residence which was also his final home.

In 1893, he helped finance the construction of the .

In May 1894, he received a request from the Pan-Hellenic Gymnastic Club, asking him to assist at a congress on amateurism convened the following month by Pierre de Coubertin. After hesitation, he agreed to represent the association. Following the congress it was decided to recreate the Olympic Games and to organise them in Athens.

Originally, it had been De Coubertin's idea to hold the first celebration of the modern Olympics in Paris in 1900, but Vikelas convinced him and the newly created International Olympic Committee that they should be held in Athens, in order to symbolically link them to the original Games. As the constitution of the IOC at that time required the IOC president to be from the country which would host the next Games, Vikelas became the IOC's first president.

Permanent return to Greece
With his responsibility for the 1896 Summer Olympics, Vikelas returned to Greece for just ten days in autumn 1894. On October the 14th, he received a telegram from doctor Luys informing him that the condition of his wife had worsened. She had œdemas in her thighs, calves and stomach. She could no longer feed herself. He urgently returned to Paris. It seems that she then died.

In November 1894, a number of young nationalist officers, advocates of the Megali Idea, created a secret society, Ethniki Etairia, whose aim was to revive the morale of the country and prepare the liberation of Greek peoples still under the Ottoman Empire. In September 1895, they recruited civilians, all linked to the organisation of the Olympic Games, including Vikelas himself, although he claimed only to have given in to friendly pressure, playing a solely financial role and then quickly resigning from it. At this point he was still attracted by the possibility of rebuilding his country.

After the Games, which proved a success, Vikelas withdrew from the IOC, replaced as a member by the Count Alexander Mercati and as president by Coubertin. The defeat in the Greco-Turkish War which came soon after dealt a serious blow to his morale. He decided to leave Paris to move permanently to Athens. There he dedicated himself to popular education. In 1899 he founded the "Society for the Spread of Useful Books" in Athens, to help the country to recover from its defeat.

In 1905, he represented the University of Athens at the third Olympic Congress and seventh IOC Meeting in Brussels. He also remained an active member of the Hellenic Olympic Committee. He died in Athens on 20 July 1908 "from an afflicting illness".

He had been made a knight of the Legion of Honour on 31 December 1891, and honorary doctor of the University of St Andrews in November 1893 (the first Greek to receive this honour). He was a member (from 1874, and Vice-President from 1894) of the French "Association for the Promotion of Greek Studies", and of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in London.

Legacy
He left his immense library collection to the city of Heraklion in Crete, founding the Vikelaia Municipal Library.

Though in fact he did not live much of his life in Syros, the island counts him among its most well-known sons. Today, the Sports Center (Stadium) in Ermoupoli bears Demetrios Vikelas' name. The stadium seats 2000 people, and has an Olympic-size swimming pool, four tennis courts, two gym halls, basket and volleyball courts, track and field, floor football court and soccer field.

Also the Syros Island National Airport is named for him.

The Olympic Movement

First Olympic Congress

Pierre de Coubertin had already attempted to restart the Olympic Games at the Congress for the fifth anniversary of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques in 1892. While he may have raised the enthusiasm of the public, he did not manage to establish a proper commitment.

He decided to reiterate his efforts at the Congress in 1894 which followed, which would openly address the issue of amateur sports, but also with the sub-text of the recreation of the Olympic Games. Six of the seven points which would be debated pertained to amateurism (definition, disqualification, betting, etc.) and the seventh on the possibility of restoring the Games. Coubertin also sought to give an international dimension to his congress. He gained support from several personalities: the King of the Belgians, the Prince of Wales, the Diadochus Constantine (hereditary prince of Greece) and William Penny Brookes, the founder of the "Olympian Games" in Shropshire, England, and Ioannis Phokianos. Phokianos was a professor of mathematics and physics and a college principal. Phokianos was also one of the propagators of sport in Greece and the organizer of an Olympic Games sponsored by Evangelis Zappas in 1875. In 1888, Phokianos organized an elite and private Games as the founder of the Pan-Hellenic Gymnastic Club. Phokianos could not travel to Paris for financial reasons and because he was finalizing the construction of his new college. He turned to one of the more eminent representatives of the Greek community in Paris, Demetrios Vikelas, to whom he wrote to ask him to take part in the Congress.

Historical and literary works

Novels and short stories
 Poems, London, 1862.
 Loukis Laras; his main work, a historical, patriotic and moral novel. The style is naturalistic, as opposed to his heavy romantic works which were written as they were in Greece. It is written in simple language to make it accessible to a wider audience. The action unfolds as the Greek War of Independence enters Smyrna, Chios, Syros and the Cyclades. An old rich Greek merchant in London reflects on the adventures of his youth. The novel was published as a series from 1879 in the literary Athenian magazine Estia. The book was translated into eleven languages.
 Nouvelle grecques, translated by the Marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire, 1887.
 "Philippe Marthas (Nouvelle grecque)" appeared in La Nouvelle Revue., September–October 1886. read at Gallica (French)
 Papa-Narcissus, novel, 1887
 Filippos Marthas, novel, 1887
 Tales of the Aegean, 1894

Books and historical articles
 Articles on Palaiologos, the last dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, in the Athenian journal Pandora, 1859-1860.
 On the Byzantines., London, 1874.
 "Les Grecs aux conciles de Bâle et de Florence.", La Nouvelle Revue., May–June 1882. read at Gallica (French)
 "La Grèce avant la révolution de 1821", La Nouvelle Revue., January–February 1884. read at Gallica (French)
 De Nicopolis à Olympie. Lettres à un ami., 1885. (following his correspondence with the Marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire)
 "The Byzantine Empire", Scottish Review, no. 8:16, October 1886.
 "Byzantism and Hellenism", Scottish Review, no. 9:17, janvier 1887.
 "The Subjects of the Byzantine Empire", Scottish Review, no. 9:18, April 1887.
 "Greece before 1821", Scottish Review, no. 13:26, April 1889.
 "The Formation of the Modern Greek State", Scottish Review, no. 14:27, July 1889.
 "L'Empereur Nicéphore Phocas", La Nouvelle Revue., July–August 1890. read at Gallica (French)
 Seven Essays on Christian Greece., 1890.
 "Le Philhellénisme en France.", Revue d'Histoire diplomatique., III, 1891.
 "La Littérature byzantine", Revue des deux mondes, March–April, 1892. read at Gallica (French)
 Grèce Byzantine et moderne., Firmin Didot, Paris, 1893.

Political and polemic works
 "Journalism in England", Eunomia (Athènes), 1864.
 "Statistics of the Kingdom of Greece", Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, no. 31, September 1868.
 Le Rôle et les aspirations de la Grèce dans la question d'Orient., Cercle Saint-Simon, Paris, 1885. read at Gallica (French)
 "Vingt-cinq années de règne constitutionnel en Grèce", La Nouvelle Revue., March–April 1889. read at Gallica (French)
 "The Territory of the Hellenic Kingdom", no. 14:28, October 1889.

Translations
He translated into Greek the stories of Hans Christian Andersen (for his nephews and nieces), and various Shakespeare plays.

Notes

References

External links
 Biography of Demetrius Vikelas on the IOC website

Founders of the modern Olympic Games
1835 births
1908 deaths
People from Ermoupoli
Presidents of the International Olympic Committee
Knights of the Legion of Honour
Greek writers
Translators to Greek
Greek businesspeople
Greek philanthropists
19th-century Greek historians
Greece at the Olympics
Alumni of University College London
Greek expatriates in the United Kingdom
Greek expatriates in France
19th-century translators
19th-century philanthropists
Greek International Olympic Committee members

Demetrios Vikelas


Scripped was an online screenplay services company offering three services: script writing, script registration, and script coverage. Scripped did not facilitate collaboration among screenwriters. It combined with Zhura in 2010. According to Techcrunch, Scripped had more than 60,000 writers as of March 2010.

Scripped was administered by Sunil Rajaraman, Ryan Buckley and Zak Freer. Actor, writer, and director Edward Burns and screenwriter Steven E. de Souza joined Scripped's Board of Advisers in May 2008. In 2008, the company formed a partnership with Write Brothers, makers of Movie Magic Screenwriter software. On March 29, 2010, Scripped announced that it closed $250,000 in private investment and merged with competitor Zhura. Scripped's CEO, Sunil Rajaraman, remains the merged company's Chief Executive Officer.

On April 1, 2015, citing a serious technical failure, Scripped shuttered its service. As part of the announcement, it was disclosed that their backup servers had failed as well, losing all of its users' stored scripts.

The website URL currently redirects to WriterDuet's website, another online scriptwriting service; Scripped had advertised WriterDuet in Scripped's shutdown open letter.

Features
The Scripped Writer provided a built-in screenplay template which formatted the document to a standard for scripts as recommended by the AMPAS. The screenplay document was composed of seven elements: scene, action, character, dialog, parenthetical, transition and general. Each element had a specific style to which the Scripped Writer conformed as text was entered.

Like other client-side screenplay software, Scripped offered Tab-Enter toggling between screenplay elements, making the writing process much faster.

Text files could be imported into the Scripped Writer and automatically conformed to the screenplay template. Completed scripts could be exported as PDF files.

In May 2011 the administrators of Scripped launched Scripted.com -  a sister site focused on freelance writing jobs. Subsequent to the service's launch, the company was renamed to Scripted, Inc.

See also
Web 2.0
Screenwriting
Screenwriting software
List of screenwriting software

References

External links
Scripped's shutdown notice (Wayback Machine)

Screenwriting software
Web applications

Scripped


The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1978 British comedy film spoofing the 1902 novel The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It starred Peter Cook as Sherlock Holmes and Dudley Moore as Dr. Watson. A number of other well-known British comedy actors appeared in the film including Terry-Thomas, Kenneth Williams and Denholm Elliott.

Plot
The film begins in a theatre, where a pianist (Moore) begins to play a piano accompaniment to the actual film being shown in the theater.

Holmes (Cook) has just restored a stolen artifact to three French nuns, and is later called on a case by Dr. Mortimer (Terry-Thomas) concerning Sir Henry Baskerville (Kenneth Williams) and a legendary hound that curses the Baskerville estate. Tired and worn out by so many cases, Holmes passes the case onto Dr. Watson (Moore), who is portrayed as a Welsh eccentric.

Upon arriving at the station, Sir Henry, Dr. Mortimer, Watson and Perkins (their driver) are halted by a policeman (Spike Milligan), who warns them of a murderer stalking the moors, before sending the group on their way.

While out in the moor collecting specimens, Watson has a curious encounter in a hut with the raving Mr. Frankland (Hugh Griffith) and Frankland's exceedingly strong daughter, Mary (Dana Gillespie ).

In the next scene, we see Holmes still in London, visiting Ada, his mother (also played by Dudley Moore), who, as a bogus spiritualist aided by her housekeeper, Iris, scams older ladies of their money in false seances. Holmes' mother is concerned that "Watty" (Watson) may need help, and that "Sherl" (as she calls her son), should rush to his aid.

In next scene, Holmes interviews the one-legged Mr. Spiggot (also played by Dudley Moore) to act as a runner on the moor.

In the next scene, while wandering on the moors, Watson happens upon Mr. Stapleton (Denholm Elliott), who mistakes him for Sir Henry. Stapleton's sister (Joan Greenwood) describes dramatically her encounter with the Hound on the moor, suggesting that it ravished her, whereupon she attempts to force herself upon the reluctant Watson, with Miss Stapleton undergoing supernatural transformations reminiscent of The Exorcist.

The Barrymores (Max Wall and Irene Handl) at Baskerville Hall mistreat Sir Henry and Watson, feeding them only cheese and water and then throwing them into a small bedroom, ankle-deep in water. Watson then goes to the village to send a message to Holmes (who is during this time visiting his cranky mother), and meets Mr. Stapleton of Merripit Hall. Stapleton is carrying a chihuahua that proceeds to urinate in Watson's pocket and face.

Arriving at Merripit Hall, Watson meets the eccentric Mrs. Stapleton, who displays surreal symptoms suggesting demonic possession. Late at night, Sir Henry and Watson discover the Seldons and the escaped murderer, whom Watson recognizes as Mrs. Barrymore's brother Ethel Seldon (Roy Kinnear), having a family dinner. Oddly enough, neither of the men seems to panic at this.

Afterward, Holmes arrives and examines the case so far. An invitation arrives for Sir Henry, asking him to dinner at Merripit Hall. Suspecting a trap, Watson goes along with Sir Henry while Holmes observes carefully. Mrs. Stapleton resumes her bizarre acts and begins to vomit pale-blue liquid over Sir Henry, whilst Mr. Stapleton's chihuahua urinates in Watson's soup.

Ordered to leave in disgrace, the Stapletons, Dr. Mortimer, Mr. Frankland, and his daughter Mary follow Sir Henry and Watson to kill them, but become trapped in a quagmire. Holmes then proceeds to reveal that the Hound is no more than a large, rather friendly Irish wolfhound owned by the late Sir Charles Baskerville, whose excited barking was misinterpreted as a monstrous beast. He also states that the dog is the sole heir of Sir Charles. With the dog gone, the would-be murderers would have gained the Baskerville fortune and the estate.

The film ends on the pianist, who is then hit by vegetables from the audience.

Cast

Filming locations
The film was shot at Bray Studios and on location in neighbouring Oakley Court, as the manor house.

Reception
The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews, being described variously as "a chore" and "a ponderous shambles", with much of the blame being laid at Morrissey's direction, especially given the substantial comedic talent involved. Virtually the entire cast consisted of comic actors who were well-known and respected in the UK and overseas. Perhaps because of this, it went unreleased until 1981 in the United States.

It has a 0% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

References

External links

Films based on The Hound of the Baskervilles
1978 films
1978 comedy films
Atlantic Entertainment Group films
British comedy films
Films directed by Paul Morrissey
1970s English-language films
1970s British films

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978 film)


For the place of similar name in New Zealand see: Kurow

Kurów is a village in south-eastern Poland, near Puławy and Lublin, on the Kurówka River. It is the main village of a gmina within the Lublin Voivodship and has 2826 people living there (as of 2010). The village was built before 1185 and made bigger between 1431 and 1442 with city rights based on the Magdeburg Law. The former President of Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski was born in Kurów in 1923.

Other websites
 Wiki about Kurów

Villages in Lublin Voivodeship

Kurów


Rash, written RASH, is a 2005 Australian documentary film, directed by Nicholas Hansen. Its subject is contemporary urban Australia and the artists who are making it a host for illegal street art. With the tagline 'Scratch it and it spreads', Rash explores the cultural value of unsanctioned public art and the ways that street art and graffiti contribute to public dialogue.

Directed by Nicholas Hansen and Mutiny Media, Rash was three years in the making and includes interviews with many of Melbourne's inspired street art and graffiti artists as well as visitors who came to Melbourne and leave their mark. Rash is the first feature-length documentary in Australia to focus on the new art form of street art.

Filming began in 2002 on this documentary, which conveys the commitment, ideals and beliefs demonstrated in Melbourne street art. Artists use a variety of approaches including bill posters, stencils, and performance art put the artwork right in the public eye.

The film was made in the lead up to the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. Before the games local councils were juggling the need to present a clean and safe city for visitors against the enthusiastic activities of street and graffiti artists. A similar response was later observed in the lead up to the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

In Rash the spirit of rebellion is channeled into street art and the visual conversations are spread across the walls of Melbourne. Rash offers a rare look inside these graffiti artists world-view.

The musical soundtrack was created by Ryan Ritchie and band True Live. The band was made up of MC Rhyno, Thomas Butt (double bass), Tamil Rogeon (violin), Tim Blake (cello), Ivan Khatchoyan (drums) and Thai Mattus (keys).

A 2006 review stated 'It is this rare spotlight on this hidden subculture that makes Rash so fascinating and potentially illuminating to those who view graffiti artists as merely vandals. In fact, it is this misconception of the graffiti artist and their role in society that Hansen's film centrally explores. Rash reveals that Melbourne's graffiti subculture is not only a very tight knit community where everyone knows what each other is doing. It is also governed by a set of 'street etiquette''.

Prior to its 2006 TV broadcast in Australia Sacha Molitorisz of The Age newspaper reviewed the film saying 'This fresh documentary explores Melbourne's flourishing graffiti subculture.' Other notable screenings include the 17 August 2008 event of documentaries programmed in the 'Street Art' exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. Archival footage from Rash was licensed to Banksy's film production company Paranoid Pictures for the opening montage of documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010).

Featured artists include Chali 2na, Civilian Dest, Dominic Allen, Fers, Fliq (BurnCrew), Ha-Ha, Dlux AKA James Dodd, KAB 101, Kano, Lister, Meek, Miles Allinson, Prism, Psalm, Reka, Shida, Sixten, Snog, Sync, Tai Snaith, Tower, and Vexta.

The Rash DVD extras include short films: Girls Do Street Art, Gallery VS Street, Drawing Room, Phibs, Urban Express – Short Film 2004, Shepard Fairey (Interview) OBEY GIANT USA, SCIEN (Interview 8.5 mins), 123Klan – France.

Awards
 Best Australian Documentary, 2005, Film Critics Circle of Australia
 Runner up Audience Favourite Documentary, 2005 Melbourne International Film Festival

See also
 Street art
 Street art in Melbourne

References

External links
 Official website (archived)

 RASH on Mutiny Media website

2005 films
Documentary films about graffiti
Australian documentary films
2000s English-language films

Rash (film)


Pharmacokinetics is a branch of pharmacology which studies what the body does to a drug. Pharmacokinetics looks at how a substance enters, moves through and exits the body. It relates how the dose delivered affects the concentration within the body. It is closely related to another branch of pharmacology, pharmacodynamics, which describes how a drugs affects the body.

ADME
When developing new drugs, it is important to know exactly what happens to the chemical once administered. There are four important parameters of pharmacokinetics, usually known by the acronym ADME: Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism and Excretion. This model was developed in order to simplify perception of the many processes that take place once a drug enters an organism.

 Absorption - How is the medication absorbed (through the skin, the intestine, the mouth)?
 Distribution - How does it spread through the organism?
 Metabolism - Is the medication converted chemically inside the body, and into what. Are these new substances active? Could they be toxic?
 Excretion - How does the organism get rid of the chemical (through the bile, urine, breath, skin)?

Absorption

Absorption describes the movement of a drug from the dosage form to the site of action, usually the blood.
The bioavailability (F) of the drug is the fraction of the drug being administered that reaches the blood circulation.

Factors affecting the absorption
 Route of administration
 Physicochemical properties of the drug, for example, how soluble or acidic it is.
 Patient related factors: sex, age, disease state, blood flow and supply to the site of adsorption

Route of administration

How does the route of administration affect drug absorption?

Effects of lipid solubility acidity
Once the drug is in the body, it enters many cells. Cells are surrounded by a protective membrane made of lipid bilayer. For this reason, only lipid soluble, (lipophillic) drugs can enter cells.
Sometimes the substance gets trapped within the lipids of waste products that need excreted, and leave the body without ever being absorbed.
For this reason, there must be a balance between lipophilicity and hydrophilicity of drug molecules.
The acidity of a pharmaceutical compound can also affect absorption. It is important to know how acid or basic the substance is in order for the body to accept it, giving our bodies a biological effect.

 If the drug is a weak acid, it absorbs better in the stomach (e.g. aspirin or penicillin).
If it is a weak base, it absorbs better in the intestine (e.g. atropine, codeine). If a weak base drug is given orally, it will get destroyed by stomach acid and bile, and not produce any beneficial effect.

Parental route of administration
One way to overcome the need to absorb the drug in the stomach (where it can be destroyed by bile), is to inject it  in the skin (intradermal), subcutaneously, in the muscle (intramuscular) or directly into the bloodstream (intravenously).

 Intravenous (IV) delivers the drug directly into the blood stream, taking on its full affect. There is 100% absorption, which means all of the drug enters the circulation system. This method takes around 2 minutes to start taking effect. However, there is a downside; initial local concentration is high when injected quickly, meaning there is a lot of drug in one place. To avoid this, some drugs need to be injected slowly (e.g. chemotherapy).

 Intramuscular injection is the second fastest method, taking around 30 minutes to enter the blood system. This works well because muscles have a rich blood supply. The rate of absorption can be increased when the blood flow to the muscle is increased, for example with exercise.

 Subcutaneous injections are submitted between the muscle and dermis (skin). They're less painful and can be self-administered. The downside is that absorption tends to be much slower than the previous two routes.

Other routes include the topical route, where the drug is applied directly to the skin or mucosal surface on which it is intended to act. These drugs are also known as ointments and include eye drops, thrush cream and eczema lotion. Though absorption is slow, there is a high concentration of the substance in this one area, meaning a pharmacological affect at only the site of application is produced.

Nasal spray and inhalers are other routes of admission which bypass the stomach.

Distribution
Distribution describes how a drug moves about in the body once it has entered blood circulation, and how this movement may decrease the concentration.

The apparent volume of distribution (Vd) is the apparent volume into which the drug is distributed, expressed in liters (L).

Vd = Dose/Initial plasma concentration

Vd is a hypothetical volume of fluid that will contain the total amount of drug administered to the body. One inside thebody, the drug can move around either by diffusion (soaking through a membrane due to a lower concentration), or by transport in the blood. The body should be considered as being multicompartmental, where drugs can be distributed into plasma (blood) - 8% , interstitial fluid (a liquid that surrounds tissues) - 24%,  intracelullar fluid (which surrounds cells) - 65% and also fat.

A lower Vd value infers that the drug is retained within the plasma.

A higher Vd value suggests that the drug is retained in volumes outside of the plasma (i.e. in peripheral tissues).

Factors affecting drug distribution
There are many factors which affect drug distribution, the most important ones are the following:
 Physiochemical properties (molecular weight, lipophilicity...): smaller compounds cross the capillary membrane more easily and therefore are quicker in producing a biological affect. Highly lipid soluble drugs are likely to accumulate in the brain and fat deposits.
 Blood flow to the tissues: drugs accumulate faster in tissues with a good blood supply, like the heart, lungs and liver, as opposed to adipose tissue and bone.
 Plasma protein binding: many drugs bind strongly to blood proteins, and because these stay inside the blood vessels, such drugs remain within without being redistributed. For this reason, only free (unbound) drug is pharmacologically active and available for metabolism and excretion.
 Diseases: Some diseases reduce plasma protein binding, increasing the concentration of free drug. In meningitis and encephalitis, the blood vessels become more permeable and polar antibiotics like penicillin can cross through. In contrast, shock and heart failure can cause capillaries to become less permeable, decreasing drug distribution.
 Special compartments and barriers: These prevent movement of the drug into areas where their effects may be dangerous, such as the brain, which has a highly selective barrier.

Metabolism
Metabolism describes how a drug is altered chemically in the body into its metabolite, which may be more or less active. This process usually occurs in the liver, but can also take place in the plasma, lungs, stomach, small intestine, kidney and skin. It contains two phases: phase 1 and phase 2.
 Phase 1 reaction: oxidation, reduction and hydrolysis - mediated by the Cytochrome P450 enzyme. This process makes the drug chemical more reactive, often makes it more toxic, or even more pharmacologically active.
 Phase 2 reaction: Glucuronidation, sulfation, glutathione conjugation, N-acetylation, methylation. The 'activated' drug molecule is combined with another molecule to produce an inactive compound which is usually more water soluble (polar) than the original chemical. It is also easier for excretion.

Put simply, this process converts lipid soluble drugs to water soluble metabolites.

First pass metabolism
All drugs that are absorbed from the small intestine are first transported to the liver by the hepatic portal vein, in many cases a large proportion of the drug is then metabolized immediately before the drug enters the systemic circulation. This process is called first pass metabolism.
Some drugs undergo extensive first pass metabolism such that only about 10% of the administered dose enters the circulation: "10% bioavailability".
In the case of some drugs, the metabolism occurs within the gut before even reaching the liver.

Kinetics of drug elimination
Can be zero order or first order:

Excretion
This is how a drug or its metabolite is removed from the body. Usually this occurs in the kidneys (urine), but can also take place in the biliary system (faeces), gastrointestinal tract (GIT), skin (sweat) and lungs (expired air).

Factos effecting drug excretion
Many of the products of hepatic metabolism are water soluble metabolites of lipid soluble drugs, these enter the systemic circulation and are transported to the kidney where they are eventually excreted in the urine.

Drugs and metabolites that are in free aqueous solution may also be excreted in sweat or expired air. Where the drug or metabolite is not freely water soluble, it is normally excreted into the gut via the bile duct from when it is excreted in the faeces.

One complication of this route of excretion is the enterohepatic shunt. In this process the drug is excreted into the guy from the bile duct, but is then reabsorbed and transported back to the liver. The consequence of this is that the presence of the drug or metabolite within the body is extended, which, if the metabolite is pharmacologically active, may extend the duration of action of the drug.

Some chemicals, for example lead, accumulate within the tissues.

Factors effecting plasma drug concentration
The actual concentration of drug present within the plasma (bloodstream) following administration is dependent on absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion. Plasma concentrations of a drug after administration of identical doses either by intravenous injection or orally. Only about half of the dose administered orally actually enters circulation, however the plasma half-life of the drug is approximately 3 hours both orally and via IV.

In most therapeutic circumstances, drugs are not given as a single dose but as multiple doses. This has profound effects on the plasma concentrations achieved. The state of constant maxima and minima is called "steady state". This is the point where rate of drug availability equals rate of elimination, and the optimum therapeutic effect is reached.

Pharmacology

Pharmacokinetics


Zenna Chlarson Henderson (November 1, 1917 – May 11, 1983) was an American elementary school teacher and science fiction and fantasy author. Her first story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1951. Her work is cited as pre-feminist, often featuring middle-aged women, children, and their relationships, but with stereotyped gender roles. Many of her stories center around human aliens called "The People", who have special powers. Henderson was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959 for her novelette Captivity. Science fiction authors Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Connie Willis, Dale Bailey, and Kathy Tyers have cited her as an influence on their work.

Biography
Zena Chlarson (she began using the spelling "Zenna" in the early 1950s) was born in 1917 in Tucson, Arizona, the daughter of Louis Rudolph Chlarson and Emily Vernell Rowley. She was the oldest of five children. She began reading science fiction at age 12 from magazines such as Astounding Stories, Amazing Stories, and fantasy from Weird Tales. She cited Heinlein, Bradbury, Clement, and Asimov as her favorite science fiction writers.

She received a bachelor of arts in education from Arizona State College in 1940, and taught school, primarily in the Tucson area, mainly first grade. She also taught in a "semi-ghost mining town," at Fort Huachuca, in France and Connecticut, as well as in a Japanese internment camp in Sacaton, Arizona, during World War II. She married Richard Harry Henderson in 1943, but they were divorced in 1951. In 1955 she received her MA, also from Arizona State College, and continued to teach elementary school.

Henderson was one of the first 203 female science fiction authors to publish in American science fiction magazines between 1926 and 1960. She never used a male pseudonym. In an essay on the increase in women authors of science fiction in 1950, Sam Merwin mentioned her as an up-and-coming woman SF writer. Her first story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1951. Her work has been called feminist, pre-feminist, and "distinctly feminine, without being politically feminist." Some feminist critics disliked the gender stereotypes present in her fiction, though her work depicts middle-aged and old women as well as women's relationships. Her women protagonists cherish social roles as mothers and sisters while also being "strong, intelligent", and "outspoken". In an analysis of "Subcommittee," Farah Mendlesohn examines how Henderson uses stereotypical gender roles to emphasize how feminine communication is conducive to peacemaking. In "Subcommittee," the wife of a general, Serena, befriends an alien mother and her child. Through their sharing of "women's things" like cooking and knitting, Serena finds out that the aliens need salt to continue their species. After hearing that peace negotiations are deteriorating, Serena interrupts a meeting with her revelation and a proposed solution. Unlike other popular science fiction at the time, which often centered around war with aliens, "Subcommittee" focuses on conflict resolution. The characters' gender roles enabled the ending plot twist, but were not the focus of speculation.

Henderson was born and baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though she never renounced her membership, after her marriage, she was no longer a churchgoing Latter-day Saint. In the standard reference Contemporary Authors, she identified as Methodist, and according to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Volume 2, she was a member of Catalina United Methodist Church in Tucson. During her later years, she attended an independent charismatic fellowship. Her work contains many Christian themes and Biblical names. Many of her stories include The People, aliens who have traveled to Earth, which is their promised land. The People also invoke God as "the Power, the Presence and the Name."

Zenna Henderson died of cancer in 1983.

Works
Most of Henderson's stories emphasize the theme of being different and the dangers therein. They often feature children or young people. Most are part of her series concerning the history of "The People", human beings from a faraway planet who are forced to emigrate to Earth when their home world is destroyed by a natural disaster. Scattered mostly throughout the American Southwest during their landing before 1900, they are set apart by their desire to preserve their home culture, including their religious and spiritual beliefs. Their unusual abilities include telepathy, telekinesis, prophecy, and healing, which they call the "Signs and Persuasions". The People suppress their unusual abilities as they attempt to integrate into human life. The stories describe groups of The People, as well as lonely isolated individuals, most often as they attempt to find communities and remain distinct in a world that does not understand them. This aspect of individuality was a common theme in most of Henderson's writing. New York Times reviewer Basil Davenport described the stories as "haunting". Brian W. Aldiss and David Wingrove noted that "As a sentimental portrait of the alien [the series] out-Simaks Simak." In a book on early women science fiction writers, Eric Davin noted that all of her stories focus on "the search for community and communication," a theme that many women's science fiction stories from the time share. Henderson's years as a school teacher helped her to write believable child characters.

Beginning with "Ararat" (1952), Henderson's The People stories appeared in magazines and anthologies, as well as the novelized Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961) and The People: No Different Flesh (1966). Other volumes include The People Collection (1991) and Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (1995).

A common conflict in Henderson's stories is when a child has unusual powers that a school teacher discovers through observation. In "The Last Step," a children's teacher in a future Martian colony takes various petty measures to interrupt a children's game on the grounds that they take it too seriously, unaware that the "game" is in fact using sympathetic magic to save the colony from an upcoming hostile invasion. In "The Believing Child", a young daughter of a migrant worker believes so strongly in an imaginary magic word that its powers come true; she then uses her newfound powers to take revenge on her abusive classmates. Compared to these are more frequent, gentler tales like "The Anything Box," in which a teacher learns that an unhappy little girl has discovered a box in which she can see her heart's desire. After struggling with her desire to steal the Anything Box for herself, the teacher must instruct the girl on how to use it safely without becoming "lost" in it.

Henderson mentions mental illness in several tales, including obsessive-compulsive disorder in "Swept and Garnished", and agoraphobia in "Incident After". In "One of Them", a woman's latent telepathic powers cause her to lose her identity as she unwittingly probes the minds of her co-workers. In "You Know What, Teacher?" a young girl confides in her teacher of her father's philandering, and of her mother's plan for revenge.

Adaptations in other media
Henderson's story "Pottage" was made into the 1972 ABC-TV Movie, The People, featuring William Shatner, Kim Darby, and Diane Varsi, and concerning the story of a group of human extraterrestrials who live in an isolated rural community on Earth. It was the directorial debut for John Korty and was produced by his sometime partner Francis Ford Coppola. It has been released on VHS format by Prism Entertainment and DVD format by American Zoetrope.

Henderson's story "Hush" was adapted as an episode of the George A. Romero TV series Tales from the Darkside. The episode first aired in 1988.

Awards
Henderson was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959 for her novelette "Captivity". Her books were long out of print until the 1995 release of Ingathering: The Complete People Stories, published by the New England Science Fiction Association Press. Ingathering was a second place finalist in the 1996 Locus Award for Best Collection.

Bibliography
 Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961)
 The Anything Box (1965)
 The People: No Different Flesh (1967)
 Holding Wonder (1971)
 The People Collection (1991), , cover art by Mark Harrison
 Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (1995), NESFA Press,
 Believing: The Other Stories of Zenna Henderson (2020), NESFA Press,

References

External links

 Zenna Henderson Home Page Unofficial fan page with many commentaries and reviews

 Past Masters – Zenna Henderson by Bud Webster at Galactic Central
 "Zenna" by L. Neil Smith
 A Zenna Henderson Bibliography
 Zenna Henderson letters, MSS SC 1251 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University

1917 births
1983 deaths
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American women writers
American fantasy writers
Former Latter Day Saints
American science fiction writers
American women short story writers
American women novelists
Arizona State University alumni
Women science fiction and fantasy writers
Novelists from Arizona
20th-century American short story writers
Harold B. Lee Library-related 20th century articles

Zenna Henderson


"Where Everybody Knows Your Name", also credited as "Theme from Cheers (Where Everybody Knows Your Name)", is the theme song from the television sitcom Cheers, as well as the debut single for Gary Portnoy. The song was written by Portnoy and Judy Hart-Angelo, and performed by Portnoy in 1982. Shortly after the premiere of Cheers, Portnoy went back into the studio to record a longer version of the song that made the U.S. and British pop charts.

The full-length version was made available on Portnoy's 2004 album Keeper. In January 2013, Argentum Records released a five-song EP entitled Cheers: Music from the TV Series which also includes Portnoy's original demo version, as well as several earlier attempts by Portnoy and Angelo at composing the theme.

History
By 1981, New York songwriter Gary Portnoy had already written songs for Air Supply ("I'll Never Get Enough of You") and Dolly Parton ("Say Goodnight"). One night in the summer of that same year, his friend Judy Hart happened to be seated next to a Broadway producer at dinner. Upon finding out that Hart was working for a music publisher, he asked her if she could recommend someone to compose the score for a new musical he was producing. On a whim, Hart, who had never written a song, approached Portnoy, who had never written for the theater. Together they set out to compose the words and music for the musical named Preppies.

In the spring of 1982, Judy, now using her full married name of Judy Hart-Angelo, sent a tape of Preppies opening number "People Like Us" to a friend in California, who then passed it on to television producers Glen and Les Charles. Upon hearing it they each felt that with a lyric re-write "People Like Us" would be the perfect theme song for their upcoming NBC sitcom, Cheers. Upon learning that "People Like Us" was legally bound to the musical Preppies, the Charles Brothers asked Portnoy and Hart-Angelo to take a shot at composing a theme specifically for Cheers. The song that resulted, "My Kind of People", was somewhat of a reworked version of "People Like Us". It was subsequently rejected.

Portnoy and Hart-Angelo then wrote and submitted two more potential themes for Cheers. One of them, entitled "Another Day", contained a lyric line "There are times when it's fun to take the long way home" that greatly appealed to the Charles brothers. But overall, the song missed the mark and was passed over. The fourth song began with a catchy intro followed by simple alternating chords on a piano. The opening verse lines, both musically and lyrically, were something of a lament. The verse then transitioned into a soaring refrain that seemed to capture the essence of why people might want to go to a place like "Cheers"—a place "Where Everybody Knows Your Name". The two songwriters recorded a simple piano/voice demo of the new song for the Cheers producers. Upon hearing it, the Charles Brothers gave it their stamp of approval, and once Portnoy and Hart-Angelo had complied with a request for a few lyric changes intended to broaden the song's appeal to a more general audience, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" was officially designated the "Theme from Cheers". The original opening verse,

Singin' the blues when the Red Sox lose,it's a crisis in your life.On the run 'cause all your girlfriendswanna be your wife.And the laundry ticket's in the wash.was changed toMakin' your way in the world todaytakes everything you've got.Takin' a break from all your worriessure would help a lot.Wouldn't you like to get away?After several months of mulling over possible outside singers, the producers eventually asked Gary Portnoy to record the vocal for the opening credits of their new series. (The chorus of the song is six of Portnoy's vocals that he recorded one on top of the other to create the "group sound" of the hook.) It was also decided to maintain the simple feel of the New York demo in the TV version by keeping the number of instruments to a minimum. The finalized version of the Cheers theme song was recorded on August 13, 1982 at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles, California.

Accolades
The song received an Emmy Award nomination in 1983 for Outstanding Achievement in Music and Lyrics.  In a 2011 Readers Poll in Rolling Stone magazine, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" was voted the best television theme of all time.   In 2013, the editors of TV Guide'' magazine named "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" the greatest TV theme of all time.

Chart history

References

Cheers
1983 singles
Comedy television theme songs
Songs about friendship
1980s ballads
Pop ballads
1982 songs
Television theme songs
Adventure Time
Songs from animated series

Where Everybody Knows Your Name


Eric Marienthal (born December 19, 1957) is a Grammy Award-nominated Los Angeles-based contemporary saxophonist best known for his work in the jazz, jazz fusion, smooth jazz, and pop genres.

Early life
Eric Marienthal was born on December 19, 1957 in Sacramento, California to Robert Marienthal, an insurance salesman, but moved to San Mateo when he was two years old. He has credited his enthusiasm for music on being taught music while in school, and picked up the saxophone in the fourth grade after he thought it looked "pretty cool". Marienthal has also mentioned his father was a fan of music, particularly 1940s and 1950s such as Boots Randolph, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. He initially wanted to pick up the trumpet but a teacher discouraged him because of his braces. As Marienthal progressed, his father bought him a $400 Selmer saxophone and enrolled him in Corona Del Mar High School. Throughout his education, Marienthal also learned to play guitar (in grade school), flute, clarinet (both high school) and piano (college).

After graduating from high school in Southern California in 1976, he studied at the Berklee College of Music, where he studied with the saxophone professor, Joe Viola. By the time he left Berklee, Eric had achieved the highest proficiency rating given by the school.

Career

Marienthal started his professional career in 1980 with famed New Orleans trumpeter Al Hirt. After returning to Los Angeles, Eric became a member of the Chick Corea Elektric Band. Marienthal has stated that he was a Chick Corea fan even before he started performing with him. He recorded six albums with that band and two of them won Grammy Awards.

Marienthal has also written instructional books, including Comprehensive Jazz Studies & Exercises, The Ultimate Jazz Play Along, and The Music of Eric Marienthal and instructional videos, including Play Sax From Day One, Modern Sax and Tricks of the Trade, all published by Warner Brothers Publications, which is now Alfred Publishing/Belwin Jazz.
Every summer since 1999, he has put on an annual fundraising concert for High Hopes Head Injury Program, a non-profit organization in Orange County, California that works with people who have suffered traumatic head injuries.

Marienthal occupies the lead alto chair of Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band, playing alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute, and piccolo.

In 2012, Marienthal released the album It's Love, produced by guitarist Chuck Loeb, who also appears on the tracks. The studio band includes keyboardist Russell Ferrante, drummer Gary Novak, and bassist Tim Lefebvre.

Equipment
 Selmer Mark VI Alto Saxophone with a  "Eric Marienthal Special" mouthpiece with a size 7 (.085 inch) tip opening and ishimori woodstone  ligature
 Yamaha Custom Z Alto Saxophone with a Beechler Metal No. 7 mouthpiece and 'Olegature' ligature
 Selmer Mark VI Tenor Saxophone with a Berg Larsen Metal 100/2 mouthpiece and Brancher ligature
 Yamaha YSS 62 Soprano Saxophone with a Selmer Super Session #H mouthpiece and Harrison ligature
Muramatsu Flute
 Vandoren traditional 2.5 reeds

Discography
 1988: Voices of the Heart (GRP)
 1989: Round Trip (GRP)
 1990: Crossroads (GRP)
 1991: Oasis (GRP)
 1993: One Touch (GRP)
 1994: Street Dance (GRP)
 1997: Easy Street (PolyGram/Verve)
 1997: Collection (GRP)
 1998: Walk Tall (Verve)
 2001: Turn Up the Heat (Peak)
 2003: Sweet Talk (Peak)
 2005: Got You Covered (Peak)
 2007: Just Around the Corner (Peak)
 2012: It's Love (Peak/Entertainment One)
 2015: Bridges with Chuck Loeb (Shanachie)
 2020: Double Dealin' (with Randy Brecker, Shanachie Records)

References

External links
~
 Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame Official Website, jazzhall.com; accessed March 9, 2015.

1957 births
American jazz saxophonists
American male saxophonists
Smooth jazz saxophonists
People from San Mateo, California
GRP Records artists
Living people
Musicians from Sacramento, California
Musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area
Berklee College of Music alumni
The Rippingtons members
21st-century American saxophonists
Jazz musicians from California
21st-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band members
Chick Corea Elektric Band members
GRP All-Star Big Band members

Eric Marienthal


Chiwetel Umeadi Ejiofor  ( ; born 10 July 1977) is a British actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award, with nominations for an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.

After enrolling at the National Youth Theatre in 1995 and attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, at age 19 and three months into his course, Ejiofor was cast by Steven Spielberg to play a supporting role in the film Amistad (1997) as James Covey.

Ejiofor portrayed the characters Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Peter in  Love Actually, Lola in Kinky Boots, Victor Sweet in Four Brothers, The Operative in Serenity (all 2005), Luke in Children of Men (2006), Thabo Mbeki in Endgame, Adrian Helmsley in Roland Emmerich's 2012 (both 2009), Darryl Peabody in Salt (2010), Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave (2013), Vincent Kapoor in Ridley Scott's The Martian (2015), Karl Mordo in Doctor Strange (2016) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), and Trywell Kamkwamba in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019). He voiced Dr. Watson in Sherlock Gnomes (2018) and Scar in the 2019 remake of The Lion King and featured in the fantasy film Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. For 12 Years a Slave, he received Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, along with the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He was nominated for a 2014 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his performance on Dancing on the Edge. In 2022, he played the lead role in the Showtime science fiction television series The Man Who Fell to Earth.

In 2008, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. He was elevated to Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 Birthday Honours.

Early life
Ejiofor was born on 10 July 1977 in Forest Gate, east London, to middle-class Nigerian parents of Igbo descent. His father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist. His younger sister, Zain, is a CNN correspondent. His other sister Kandi is a GP doctor.

In 1988, when Ejiofor was 11, during a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding, he and his father were driving to Lagos after the celebrations when their car was involved in a head-on crash with a lorry. His father was killed, and Ejiofor was badly injured, receiving scars that are still visible on his forehead.

He began acting in school plays at his junior school, Dulwich Prep London (known at the time as "Dulwich College Preparatory School"), where he played the gravedigger in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Ejiofor continued acting at his senior school, Dulwich College, and joined the National Youth Theatre. He got into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art but left after his first year, after being cast in Steven Spielberg's film Amistad. He played the title role in Othello at the Bloomsbury Theatre in September 1995, and again at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, in 1996, when he starred opposite Rachael Stirling as Desdemona.

Career

1996–2007: Career beginnings and early recognition
Ejiofor made his film debut in the television film Deadly Voyage (1996). He went on to become a stage actor in London. In Steven Spielberg's 1997 film Amistad, he gave support to Djimon Hounsou's Cinque as interpreter Ensign James Covey. In 1999, Ejiofor appeared in the British film G:MT – Greenwich Mean Time. In 2000, he starred in Blue/Orange at the Royal National Theatre (Cottesloe stage), and later at the Duchess Theatre. That same year, his performance as Romeo in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award. Ejiofor was awarded the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards in 2000. For his performance in Blue/Orange, Ejiofor received the London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer in 2000 and a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2001.

Ejiofor had his first leading film role playing Nicky Burkett in Jeremy Cameron's It Was an Accident (2000). In 2002, he starred in Dirty Pretty Things, for which he won a British Independent Film Award for best actor. In the following year, he was part of the ensemble cast of Love Actually, starred in a BBC adaptation of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale and also starred on the BBC series Trust. Also in 2003, he starred in the lead role of Augustus in the radio production of Rita Dove's poetic drama "The Darker Face of the Earth", which premiered on the BBC World Service on 23 August of that year, marking the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. He starred alongside Hilary Swank in Red Dust (2004), portraying the fictional politician Alex Mpondo of post-apartheid South Africa.

He played the central role of Prince Alamayou in Peter Spafford's radio play I Was a Stranger, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 17 May 2004, and he played the god Dionysus, alongside Paul Scofield's Cadmus and Diana Rigg's Agave, in Andrew Rissik's play, Dionysus, based upon Euripides' Bacchae, also broadcast by the BBC. He also received acclaim for his performance as a complex antagonist The Operative in the film Serenity (2005). Ejiofor played a revolutionary in the film Children of Men (2006). His singing and acting performance in Kinky Boots received a Golden Globe Award and British Independent Film Award nomination. He was also nominated for the BAFTA Orange Rising Star Award in 2006, which recognises emerging British film talent. Ejiofor's performance in Tsunami: The Aftermath received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film in 2007.

In 2007, Ejiofor starred opposite Don Cheadle in Talk to Me, a film based on the true story of Ralph "Petey" Greene (played by Cheadle), an African-American radio personality in the 1960s and 1970s. He performed on stage in The Seagull at the Royal Court Theatre from 18 January to 17 March 2007, then later that year reprised his role as Othello at the Donmar Warehouse, alongside Kelly Reilly as Desdemona and Ewan McGregor as Iago. The production received favourable reviews, with particularly strong praise for Ejiofor. "Chiwetel Ejiofor produces one of the most memorable performances of Othello in recent years." He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance. He also narrated the BBC television film Partition: The Day India Burned (2007), which was based on the Partition of India. He starred as Mike Terry in the 2008 cult film Redbelt that received favourable reviews.

2008–2018: International recognition and critical acclaim
Ejiofor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. In the same year, he made his directorial debut in the short film Slapper, which he also wrote, based on an idea by editor/director Yusuf Pirhasan. Ejiofor appeared alongside John Cusack in the film 2012 (2009). The film went on to gross over $700 million, and is among the list of highest-grossing films of all time and placing 5th of top films of 2009. He played CIA officer Darryl Peabody in Salt (2010), and the Golden Globe Award-nominated leading role of band creator Louis Lester on the BBC Two drama series Dancing on the Edge (2013), which played on Starz in the United States.

In 2013, Ejiofor took on the role of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave. The film was based on Northup's memoir, edited in 1968 by historians Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon, of Northup's experience as a free black man in New York, who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery in Louisiana. On casting, director Steve McQueen said:Chiwetel Ejiofor was always going to be Solomon Northup for me. I was looking for someone that had that genteelness, that kind of humanity. Knowing that humanity was going to be tested under certain duress and circumstances, I needed a person who could actually keep hold of that, even through periods of extraordinary trying and extraordinary situations where it would be tested to its absolute limit. He was the only person.At the Toronto International Film Festival, Ejiofor said he briefly hesitated about playing Northup. "You wait all your life for a great script to come through the door. You're hassling your agent and all that, and then it comes and you read it and your first reaction surprises you. Your first reaction being, 'Can I do this?'" He accepted the role about 24 hours later. As part of his preparation for the role, Ejiofor learned to play the violin, collected slave stories, maintained a slave's edge up hairstyle, and engaged in some of the physical labour that Northup was subject to, including cotton picking. Since he had not worked with McQueen before, Ejiofor also observed the working dynamic between the director and co-star Michael Fassbender, who worked with McQueen on Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011). On playing Northup, Ejiofor did feel a responsibility, not being American, to get the story of Solomon Northup as current he could, adding "I've been very grateful to show the film to his descendants and see them be so proud of it."

12 Years a Slave opened to wide acclaim, with many critics citing Ejiofor's performance and declaring him an almost-certain Academy Award nominee for Best Actor. From Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly: "It is Chiwetel Ejiofor's extraordinary performance that holds the movie together, and that allows us to watch it without blinking. He plays Solomon with a powerful inner strength, yet he never soft-pedals the silent nightmare that is Solomon's daily existence." From Christopher Orr at The Atlantic: "Ejiofor has given notable performances in the past (Dirty Pretty Things, Serenity, Talk to Me), but this is by far his most essential role to date. Stoic, watchful, compromising himself just enough to stay alive, he is the point of stillness and decency around which spin the madnesses of the film." In his The Hollywood Reporter review, Todd McCarthy wrote, "Ejiofor is terrific in a demanding character who's put through the wringer physically, mentally and emotionally." On 16 January 2014, Ejiofor was officially nominated for Best Actor for the 86th Academy Awards on 2 March.

As of September 2013, Ejiofor was slated to portray Patrice Lumumba in a film adaptation of Aimé Césaire's A Season in the Congo, a role in which he had performed on stage at the Young Vic. Joe Wright, who directed the play, was to also direct the film.

In 2014, Ejiofor starred in the Nigerian film Half of a Yellow Sun alongside Thandiwe Newton.

It was announced in June 2014 that Ejiofor would play real-life drug dealer Thomas McFadden in film based on the book Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail, written by McFadden and Australian journalist Rusty Young. In 2016, Ejiofor co-starred with his friend Benedict Cumberbatch and played Karl Mordo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Doctor Strange. That same year, it was announced that he would play Peter in the upcoming film Mary Magdalene, written by Helen Edmundson and directed by Garth Davis.
On 1 November 2017, he was officially chosen for the role of Scar for the computer-animated remake, The Lion King (2019) directed by Jon Favreau. Played by Jeremy Irons in the 1994 animated film, Ejiofor described Scar as more "psychologically possessed" and "brutalized" than in the original. Ejiofor stated, "especially with Scar, whether it's a vocal quality that allows for a certain confidence or a certain aggression, to always know that at the end of it you're playing somebody who has the capacity to turn everything on its head in a split second with outrageous acts of violence – that can completely change the temperature of a scene." He also said that "[Scar and Mufasa's] relationship is completely destroyed and brutalized by Scar's way of thinking. He's possessed with this disease of his own ego and his own want." Favreau said of casting Ejiofor, "[He] is just a fantastic actor, who brings us a bit of the mid-Atlantic cadence and a new take on the character. He brings that feeling of a Shakespearean villain to bear because of his background as an actor. It's wonderful when you have somebody as experienced and seasoned as Chiwetel; he just breathes such wonderful life into this character." Ejiofor narrated the 2019 documentary film The Elephant Queen.

2019–present: Directorial debut with The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
In 2019, Ejiofor made his feature directorial debut with The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, adapted from the memoir of the same name from William Kamkwamba, about a boy who built a wind-powered water pump in Malawi. In 2022, Ejiofor returned to the role of Mordo for the sequel film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Personal life and legacy
In 2015, Ejiofor was honoured with a Global Promise Award by The GEANCO Foundation, a non-profit welfare organisation in West Africa, for his charity work in Nigeria.

On 12 September 2016, Ejiofor, as well as Cate Blanchett, Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Capaldi, Douglas Booth, Neil Gaiman, Keira Knightley, Juliet Stevenson, Kit Harington and Stanley Tucci, featured in a video from the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR to help raise awareness of the global refugee crisis. The video, titled "What They Took With Them", has the actors reading a poem, written by Jenifer Toksvig and inspired by primary accounts of real refugees, and is part of UNHCR's #WithRefugees campaign, which also includes a petition to governments to expand asylum to provide further shelter, integrating job opportunities, and education. Ejiofor is a supporter of Crystal Palace F.C.

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

Awards and nominations

Ejiofor is the recipient of several awards, including numerous nominations in the Best Actor category for his role as Solomon Northup in the 2013 biographical drama film 12 Years a Slave, of which he won the AACTA International, BAFTA, BET, Black Reel awards, in addition to several critical accolades. His other acclaimed roles include: as Othello in a 2007 Donmar Warehouse production of the play of the same name, which won him the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor; as geologist Adrian Helmsley in the 2009 apocalyptic disaster blockbuster 2012, which garnered worldwide commercial success, with a box-office growth of over 769 million dollars (the fifth-highest of any film that year and the highest for its week of release), which earned him nominations for a Black Reel and NAACP Image Award; as Louis Lester in the BBC miniseries Dancing on the Edge (2013), for which he was nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe and Satellite award for outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie, and won a Black Reel Award in the same category; as the narrator of the 2018 Apple TV+ documentary film The Elephant Queen, for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator; and as the director and screenwriter of the 2019 British drama film The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which saw him receive nominations for the Black Reel Award for Outstanding Breakthrough Screenwriter, two British Independent Film Awards (Best Supporting Actor and Best Debut Director), the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture and the Alfred P. Sloan Prize―winning the latter two.

In 2008, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. He was elevated to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2015 Birthday Honours.

References

External links

1977 births
Living people
20th-century British male actors
21st-century British male actors
Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
Audiobook narrators
Best Actor AACTA International Award winners
Best Actor BAFTA Award winners
Black British male actors
British expatriate male actors in the United States
British male stage actors
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Critics' Circle Theatre Award winners
English expatriates in the United States
English male film actors
English male radio actors
English male Shakespearean actors
English male stage actors
English male television actors
English male video game actors
English male voice actors
English people of Igbo descent
Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male winners
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Male actors from London
National Youth Theatre members
People educated at Dulwich College
People from Forest Gate

Chiwetel Ejiofor


The Château de Meudon was a former royal residence in France.  It is most commonly associated with the Grand Dauphin the only son of Louis XIV who made it his personal residence. However, on the death of the Dauphin the property reverted to the crown and  was used by the famous Duchess of Berry (a granddaughter of Louis XIV) and was later ignored under Louis XV and Louis XVI, but became the official residence of the King of Rome from 1812, and was occupied by Jérôme Bonaparte under the First Empire. The main building was largely destroyed in a fire in 1871, and it is now the site of the Observatoire de Paris-Meudon.

History

There was originally a small manor on the site which was given to the Duchess of Étampes, a mistress of Francis I of France. The family remodelled the building in around 1540 when the property was given to the Cardinal de Lorraine. At the Cardinal's death in 1574, Meudon reverted to the House of Guise until 1654. In 1679, the château was sold by Servien's heir to Louvois, the minister of Louis XIV, who continued to improve it inside and out, until his death in 1691. Above all, he commissioned André Le Nôtre to construct grand gardens and fountains fed by elaborate hydraulic works. In June 1695, Louis XIV purchased Meudon from the widow of Louvois, with the intention of installing his only legitimate child le Grand Dauphin in the premises. A brilliant period followed. The Dauphin employed Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Following the death of the Dauphin the property was briefly used by his son Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Dauphin of France. It was then later given to the Duchess of Berry in 1718.

Louis XV employed Meudon as a hunting lodge. Although his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, was installed in the nearby Château de Bellevue, Meudon was eclipsed in his favour by the Château de Choisy. Meudon declined further under Louis XVI, the parterres overgrown, the basins emptied, the park let piecemeal to tenant farmers.

In 1870, the terraces of Meudon were part of the strategic defenses of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, and the château, damaged by shelling,[6] was occupied by Prussian forces. Forty-eight hours after the signing of the armistice, in January 1871, Meudon caught fire. It burned for three days, until only some exterior walls were left standing

Gallery of residents

References

Former royal residences
Buildings and structures in France
Meudon

Château de Meudon