Robert King Steel (born August 3, 1951) is an American businessman, financier and government official who has served as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development in the administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Under Secretary for Domestic Finance of the United States Treasury, chief executive officer of Wachovia Corporation and vice chairman of Goldman Sachs. He has also served as chairman of the board of trustees at Duke University and the Aspen Institute. In May 2014, he was tapped to succeed Joseph R. Perella as chief executive officer of Perella Weinberg Partners, a private investment banking and asset management firm.

Personal life
The second of three boys, Steel grew up in Durham, North Carolina, attending public schools near Duke University, his future college.  He was a Boy Scout and attained the rank of Eagle Scout.  His late father, Charles Steel, III, was a life insurance agent and his mother, Elizabeth, was a homemaker.

He received his undergraduate degree from Duke in 1973, majoring in history and political science.  He received his Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago in 1984.

Steel lives in New York, NY; he is married to Gillian Steel and they have three daughters.  He enjoys hiking, skiing and golfing.

Business career

Goldman Sachs, 1976–2004

Steel spent nearly 30 years at Goldman Sachs, rising to vice chair of the firm.  He joined the Chicago office in 1976 and served as that office's co-head of institutional sales.  In 1987, he transferred to London, where he founded the Equity Capital Markets Group for Europe.  At the time, Europe was privatizing major state-owned enterprises, like telecom, utility and energy interests, to transition to more market-driven economies.  Steel was extensively involved in the privatization and capital-raising efforts for European corporations and governments.  In 1988, he became partner in the firm.  He later became head of Goldman Sachs Equities for Europe.  In 1994, he relocated to New York and served as co-head of the Goldman Sachs Equities Division from 1996 to 2002 until his appointment as a vice chair of the firm.  Upon his retirement from Goldman Sachs on February 1, 2004, he became advisory director and then senior director in December 2004.

Barclays Bank, 2005–06

From June 1, 2005 to October 11, 2006, Steel served on the board of directors of Barclays Plc.  In 2005 he helped settle a conflict between Barclays' commercial and investment divisions over who would serve a newly purchased South African bank.  Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson later said of Steel: "He's very good at smoothing over conflicts; and when there's tensions, bringing the temperature down."

Wachovia/Wells Fargo, 2008–2010
On July 9, 2008, Steel was named president and CEO of Wachovia.  Although Steel's predecessor, G. Kennedy Thompson had been criticized for exposing the firm to high-risk mortgages, Steel hoped to put the company on firm footing until it failed in the Fall 2008 crisis.  He bought one million shares of Wachovia stock on the open market and bought a house in Charlotte.  He also turned down a bonus he was due to receive.

Steel was adamant that Wachovia would stay independent.  However, by September 2008, market conditions had deteriorated severely.  On September 26, Wachovia lost almost one percent of its deposits, leading regulators to force Wachovia to put itself up for sale.  After an initial deal with Citigroup for $1/share, Steel and the Wachovia board accepted an offer to merge with Wells Fargo for $7/share.  (Wells Fargo would be purchasing 100% of Wachovia; the Citi deal would have resulted in Wachovia shedding its commercial banking arm while retaining  Wachovia Securities and Evergreen Investments.] This merger was more than the 100th merger in Wachovia's history. The arrangement made Wells Fargo the second-largest retail brokerage in the United States.

In January 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating claims Steel made about the future of the bank before it started talks about a potential merger.

Following the merger, Steel was invited to join the board of Wells Fargo and served on the firm's credit and finance committees.  In 2010, upon being appointed Deputy Mayor for Economic Development of New York City, Steel resigned his seat on the Wells Fargo board.

Perella Weinberg Partners, 2014-present
On July 7, 2014, Steel was named CEO of Perella Weinberg Partners.  Perella Weinberg is an independent, privately owned, global financial services firm providing corporate advisory and asset management services to clients around the world. Founded in 2006, the firm has since grown to more than 400 employees, and has worked on transactions like NYSE Euronext's sale to IntercontinentalExchange and J. Crew's leveraged buyout by TPG. Its asset management arm oversees $11.5 billion in capital.

Government service

Mayor's Office, New York City
On June 22, 2010, Steel was appointed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development. Steel served as New York City Deputy Mayor for Economic Development from August 2010 to December 2013, ending his service at the conclusion of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's third term in office.

As Deputy Mayor, Steel was responsible for overseeing more than 10 mayoral agencies with collective annual operating budgets of $5B and more than 20,000 employees, including the New York City Economic Development Corporation; the New York City Housing Authority; NYC & Company; the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission; and the city's Departments of City Planning, Transportation, Finance, Housing Preservation and Development, and Small Business Services. As Deputy Mayor, he served as Chairman of Brooklyn Bridge Park and Vice Chairman of Hudson River Park.

During Steel's tenure as Deputy Mayor, New York City's economy significantly outperformed the national economy, recovering more than 300% of the jobs it lost from the beginning of the recession compared to the country as a whole. Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Steel left office with New York City enjoying record levels of total jobs (4m), private sector jobs (3.5m), tourist visitors (54.3m), and total population (8.4m).

Steel oversaw a number of critical projects, most notably the Applied Sciences initiative that will result in four new engineering and applied sciences campuses throughout New York built by Cornell Tech, New York University, Columbia University, and Carnegie Mellon. Together, these institutions will double the number of engineering faculty and graduate students in New York City over the next decade. Steel worked with the New York City Department of Education and the private sector to open the Academy for Software Engineering, a first of its kind public high school focused on the skills most in demand in the information and innovation economy, and to expand technology and coding curriculum throughout New York City's public middle schools and high schools.

Steel's term also saw the advancement of a range of large-scale development projects in all five boroughs, including the redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx into the world's largest ice center; the proposed development of the Staten Island Wheel on Staten Island; the redevelopment of Willets Point and Hallets Point in Queens; the expansion of the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District; and the completion of the long-stalled Seward Park Urban Renewal Area on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Steel also led Mayor Bloomberg's comprehensive redevelopment of the City's 520 miles of waterfront as well as the City's major development projects on the east side of the East River in Brooklyn (including the redevelopment of the Domino Sugar Factory, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Watchtower complex, Greenpoint, Hunters Point South and Hallets Point in Queens), the Far West Side of Manhattan and Lower Manhattan at the World Trade Center site, where he mediated negotiations to restart construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in 2012.

Steel also oversaw a significant expansion of transportation in New York City, including Citi Bike, boro taxis, the East River Ferry, five Select Bus Service bus rapid transit lines, and the 7 Subway Extension that extended the New York City Subway to 34th Street–Hudson Yards station.

Steel led several major initiatives to improve the governance and operations of the New York City Housing Authority, the largest Public Housing Authority in the country. In particular, Steel successfully pushed for state legislation to restructure NYCHA's board of directors and to advance a controversial plan to develop underutilized NYCHA land to generate proceeds needed to fund critical housing repairs.

U.S. Treasury, 2006–08
Steel was appointed Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the United States Department of the Treasury on October 10, 2006 and served until July 9, 2008.  He was the principal adviser to the secretary on matters of domestic finance and led the department's activities regarding the U.S. financial system, fiscal policy and operations, governmental assets and liabilities, and related economic matters.

In March 2007, Steel testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on reform of the housing Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  He said that the regulatory system for these institutions "neither has the tools, nor the stature, to deal effectively with the current size, complexity, and importance of these enterprises."  He also testified that if GSEs are able to accomplish their mission, the risks must be managed and supervised.  "Otherwise there may be a threat to their solvency, and importantly to the stability of other financial institutions and the strength of our economy," he said.  Steel also oversaw the creation of the Blueprint on Financial Services Regulation as part of an initiative to increase America's capital market competitiveness.

As economic conditions worsened in 2007 and 2008, Steel helped design the federal government's response.  In April 2008, Steel testified before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee regarding the rescue of Bear Stearns.  Steel explained that although the Treasury had believed that the rescue of Bear Stearns was necessary, it had encouraged a low sale price so as not to encourage risky behavior by other large institutions.

Academic and non-profit work

Kennedy School, 2004–06

From February 2004 to September 2006, Steel was a senior fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  He co-taught "Current Issues in U.S. Financial Markets Regulation."  He received an award from the university president for excellence in teaching.  He also co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post entitled "For Retirees, A Day of Reckoning."

SeaChange Capital Partners, 2004–06

In 2004, Steel and another former partner at Goldman Sachs, Charles T. Harris III, founded SeaChange Capital Partners, a nonprofit organization that arranges transformational funding for nonprofit organizations. It collaborates with wealthy individuals and family foundations and pools together their funds to provide significant unrestricted, multi-year support for these organizations. In so doing, SeaChange is employing many private sector strategies in raising capital for nonprofit organizations.  In February 2010, Business Week profiled SeaChange in a "Second Acts" column.

Aspen Institute, 2006, 2008–present

In 2006, Steel was named chairman of the board of the Aspen Institute, a non-profit organization that promotes values-based leadership and provides neutral venues for discussing and acting on critical issues.  He first assumed the position in 2006, but took a leave of absence during his service as Under Secretary of the Treasury.  He returned to the role in 2008, succeeding William E. Mayer.  In this role, Steel oversees development of the Aspen Global Leaders Network, which provides leadership training to leaders under 40.

Duke University, 1996–2009
Steel served on the Duke University Board of Trustees from 1996–2009.  He became vice chairman in 2000, and on July 1, 2005, he succeeded Peter M. Nicholas as the first Durham native to chair the board since its founding as a university in 1924.  He left when his term ended in 2009.  Prior to becoming chair of the Board, Steel chaired the Duke University Management Company, the university's investment arm.

During Steel's term as chair, the board completed a $300 million financial aid initiative, saw record freshman applications, and completed several buildings on campus including the Nasher Museum of Art.  Also during Steel's term, the Duke campus experienced the false-rape charge known as the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case.  Steel was criticized for not supporting the falsely-accused students and insisting that the legal proceedings take their course. When the charges were dismissed and the players were declared innocent, Steel for the first time said the players "deserve our respect for the honorable way they have conducted themselves during this long legal ordeal ....  Much as we wish that these three young men...could have been spared the agony of the past year, we believe that it was essential for the university to defer to the criminal justice system."
In a suit by the lacrosse players, Steel is alleged to have helped suppress evidence of innocence to protect Duke's image, ordering Duke police to falsify their records to make the players appear more guilty, and explaining, "Sometimes individuals have to suffer for the good of the organization".

The After-School Corporation, 2004–06, 2008–2010
In March 2004, Steel succeeded Herbert Sturz as the second chairman of The After-School Corporation (TASC), a non-profit organization devoted to "giving all kids opportunities to grow through after-school and summer activities that support, educate and inspire them."  Upon confirmation as Under Secretary of the Treasury, Steel resigned as chairman and was succeeded by Robert D. Joffe.  Steel rejoined the TASC board in 2008, but with his appointment as Deputy Mayor, stepped down again.

Hospital for Special Surgery, 2009–present
In September 2009, Steel was named to the board of trustees of the Hospital for Special Surgery.  The Hospital for Special Surgery is the oldest orthopedic hospital in the United States and is considered the top hospital in the nation for joint replacement.

American Action Network, 2010–present
In 2010, Steel became a founding member of the advisory board of the American Action Network, a group devoted to developing and marketing conservative ideas.  The group was described by the New York Times as a "center-right version of the Center for American Progress."

Other activities

Steel has been a frequent panelist and commentator on America's financial situation and markets.  In May 2009 he shared a panel with Felix Rohatyn and Daniel Gross, Senior Editor of Newsweek, on "Bringing the Economy Back to Life."  Lesley Stahl moderated.

He is also a member of the Pew Charitable Trusts Task Force on Financial Reform, which advises the United States Congress on critical financial reform issues.  In December 2009, he testified before the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. House and Senate regarding financial reform.  He is also a member of The FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion (ComE-IN), which focuses on how to improve underserved and low- and moderate-income consumers' access to the financial mainstream.

Although Steel was appointed to his Treasury post by a Republican president, he does not regard himself as an ideologue, and has been occasionally criticized for his political independence.  For example, although Steel hosted fundraisers at his home for John McCain, columnist Bob Novak complained that Steel is "no Republican," citing that he had worked with Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs and made campaign donations in 2002 to Democrats from his home state of North Carolina.

In 2013, Steel was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.

Film Production
In February 2010, the New York Times reported that "Blood Done Sign My Name," a film about race relations in North Carolina in 1970, was conceived when Steel read Timothy B. Tyson's book of that name and saw "cinematic potential" in the story about his home state.  Steel brought Tyson together with screenwriter and fellow Greenwich-resident Jeb Stuart, who wrote and directed the film.  Steel is listed as an executive producer.

References

External links
 Aspen Institute biography
Duke University Board of Trustees biography

1951 births
Living people
American bank presidents
Businesspeople from Durham, North Carolina
Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni
Harvard Kennedy School staff
University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni
American chief executives of financial services companies
George W. Bush administration personnel
North Carolina Republicans
Deputy mayors of New York City

Robert K. Steel


Allen's interval algebra is a calculus for temporal reasoning that was introduced by James F. Allen in 1983.

The calculus defines possible relations between time intervals and provides a composition table that can be used as a basis
for reasoning about temporal descriptions of events.

Formal description

Relations

The following 13 base relations capture the possible relations between two intervals.

Using this calculus, given facts can be formalized and then used for automatic reasoning. Relations between intervals are formalized as sets of base relations.

The sentence
 During dinner, Peter reads the newspaper. Afterwards, he goes to bed.
is formalized in Allen's Interval Algebra as follows:

In general, the number of different relations between n intervals, starting with n = 0, is 1, 1, 13, 409, 23917, 2244361... OEIS A055203. The special case shown above is for n = 2.

Composition of relations between intervals
For reasoning about the relations between temporal intervals, Allen's interval algebra provides a composition table. Given the relation between  and  and the relation between  and , the composition table allows for concluding about the relation between  and . Together with a converse operation, this turns Allen's interval algebra into a relation algebra.

For the example, one can infer .

Extensions
Allen's interval algebra can be used for the description of both temporal intervals and spatial configurations. For the latter use, the relations are interpreted as describing the relative position of spatial objects. This also works for three-dimensional objects by listing the relation for each coordinate separately.

The study of overlapping markup uses a similar algebra (see ). Its models have more variations depending on whether endpoints of document structures are permitted to be truly co-located, or merely [tangent].

Implementations
 A simple java library implementing the concept of Allen's temporal relations and the path consistency algorithm
 Java library implementing Allen's Interval Algebra (incl. data and index structures, e.g., interval tree)
 OWL-Time Time Ontology in OWL an OWL-2 DL ontology of temporal concepts, for describing the temporal properties of resources in the world or described in Web pages.
 GQR is a reasoner for Allen's interval algebra (and many others)
 qualreas is a Python framework for qualitative reasoning over networks of relation algebras, such as RCC-8, Allen's interval algebra, and Allen's algebra integrated with Time Points and situated in either Left- or Right-Branching Time.
 SparQ is a reasoner for Allen's interval algebra (and many others)
 EveXL is a small domain-specific language for the detection of events that implements the Interval Algebra's operators via ASCII art patterns.

See also
 Temporal logic
 Logic
 Region connection calculus
 Spatial relation (analog)
 Commonsense reasoning

References

Sources

Knowledge representation
Constraint programming

Allen's interval algebra


Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (born London, 15 August 1875; died Croydon,  1 September 1912) was an English composer.

Coleridge-Taylor died in Holborn, London.  His black father was a doctor from Sierra Leone,  his mother was English. His parents were not married. The father went back to Africa by February 1875. He had the job of coroner for the British Empire in the Gambia in the late 1890s.  He did not know anything about his son's existence.

Life
Coleridge-Taylor was brought up in Croydon .  He studied the violin at the Royal College of Music and composition with Charles Villiers Stanford.  In 1899 he married Jessie Walmisley who had been a student with him at the RCM.  Her parents did not want her to be married to someone of  mixed race.  The couple had a son, Hiawatha (1900-1980) and a daughter, Avril, born Gwendolyn (1903-1998).

Soon Coleridge-Taylor became known as a composer.  Edward Elgar helped him get one of his pieces performed at the Three Choirs Festival.  Two months later Stanford conducted the cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast, the piece for which he is best remembered.  He toured the United States in 1904.  This made him even more interested in finding out about his racial heritage. He wanted to do for African music what Johannes Brahms had done for Hungarian music and Antonín Dvořák for Bohemian music. He had met the American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar in London and set some of his poems to music.  Several people encouraged him to learn more about his heritage.

Coleridge-Taylor was a shy man, but he was a very good conductor.  He was often asked to adjudicate at music festivals.

Coleridge-Taylor was 37 when he died of pneumonia. His widow hardly had any money, but  King George V gave her a pension of GB£100, which shows how popular Coleridge-Taylor had been as a composer.   A memorial concert was held later in 1912 at the Royal Albert Hall and gathered £300.

Coleridge-Taylor's works were often performed by Sir Malcolm Sargent who conducted ten seasons of a costumed ballet version of Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall between 1928 and 1939 with the Royal Choral Society (600 to 800 singers) and 200 dancers.

His music
Coleridge-Taylor's best-known work is his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding-feast, which was  performed very often by choral groups in England during his lifetime and for many years after his death.  He wrote several other pieces about Hiawatha: The Death of Minnehaha, Overture to The Song of Hiawatha and Hiawatha's Departure.

He also wrote a lot of chamber music, anthems and other works.  The orchestral piece Petite Suite de Concert used to be very popular, but its Romanticism sounds a little old-fashioned now.

References
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed Stanley Sadie;

1875 births
1912 deaths
20th-century English composers
Romantic composers

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor


VMware VMFS (Virtual Machine File System) is VMware, Inc.'s clustered file system used by the company's flagship server virtualization suite, vSphere. It was developed to store virtual machine disk images, including snapshots. Multiple servers can read/write the same filesystem simultaneously while individual virtual machine files are locked. VMFS volumes can be logically "grown" (non-destructively increased in size) by spanning multiple VMFS volumes together.

Version history
There are six (plus one for vSAN) versions of VMFS, corresponding with ESX/ESXi Server product releases.
 VMFS0 can be reported by ESX Server v6.5 as a VMFS version when a datastore is unmounted from a cluster/host.
 VMFS1 was used by ESX Server v1.x. It did not feature the cluster filesystem properties and was used only by a single server at a time. VMFS1 is a flat filesystem with no directory structure.
 VMFS2 is used by ESX Server v2.x and (in a limited capacity) v3.x. VMFS2 is a flat filesystem with no directory structure.
 VMFS3 is used by ESX Server v3.x and vSphere 4.x. Notably, it introduces directory structure in the filesystem.
 VMFS5 is used by vSphere 5.x. Notably, it raises the extent limit to 64 TB and the file size limit to 62 TB, though vSphere versions earlier than 5.5 are limited to VMDKs smaller than 2 TB.
 VMFS6 is used by vSphere 6.5. It supports 512 emulation (512e) mode drives.
 VMFS-L is the underlying file system for VSAN-1.0. Leaf level VSAN objects reside directly on VMFS-L volumes that are composed from server side direct attached storage (DAS). File system format is optimized for DAS. Optimization include aggressive caching with for the DAS use case, a stripped lock down lock manager and faster formats.

Features
 Allows access by multiple ESXi servers at the same time by implementing per-file locking. SCSI reservations are only implemented when logical unit number (LUN) metadata is updated (e.g. file name change, file size change, etc.)
 Add or delete an ESXi server from a VMware VMFS volume without disrupting other ESXi servers.
 With ESX/ESXi4, VMFS volumes can also be expanded using LUN expansion.
 Optimize virtual machine I/O with adjustable volume, disk, file and block sizes.
 Recover virtual machines faster and more reliably in the event of server failure with Distributed Journaling.
 While present in previous versions automatic unmap was added to VMFS 6 allowing for automatic space reclamation requests which previously were manually actioned.

Limitations
 Can be shared with up to 64 ESXi Servers.
 Maximum filesystem size is 50 TB as of VMFS3, and 62 TB as of VMFS5.
 Maximum LUN size of 2 TB as of VMFS3 and 64 TB as of VMFS5.
 In VMFS3 and VMFS5 prior to vSphere 5.1, the maximum number of hosts which can share a read-only file is 8. This affects the scalability of linked clones sharing the same base image. In vSphere 5.1, this limit is increased to 32 with the introduction of a new locking mechanism.
 VMFS3 limits files to 262,144 (218) blocks, which translates to 256 GB for 1 MB block sizes (the default) up to 2 TB for 8 MB block sizes.
 VMFS5 uses 1 MB blocks throughout (with block suballocation for small files), and has a file size limit of 62 TB, though the VMDK size is restricted to 2 TB - 512 B in ESXi versions earlier than 5.5 due to a limitation in the version of SCSI emulated.
 There is also a limit of approx 30,720 files (using MBR) on a single VMFS3 datastore. This has been raised to 130,690 files (using GPT) on VMFS5

Open source implementations

fluidOps Command Line Tool
A Java open source VMFS driver enables read-only access to files and folders on partitions formatted with the Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) is developed and maintained by fluid Operations  AG. It allows features like offloaded backups of virtual machines hosted on VMware ESXi hosts up to VMFSv3.

glandium VFS FUSE Mount
vmfs-tools supports more VMFS features and read only VMFS mounts through the standard Linux VFS and the FUSE framework.  Developed by Christophe Fillot and Mike Hommey and available as source code download at the glandium.org vmfs-tools page or the Debian vmfs-tools and Ubuntu vmfs-tools packages.

References

External links
 VMFS Technical Overview and Best Practices - VMware, Inc.
 VMware VMFS product page - VMware, Inc.
 Open Source VMFS Implementation - Project vmfs

VMware
Proprietary software
Shared disk file systems
Virtualization software

VMware VMFS


My Parents Are Aliens was a British children's television sitcom that was produced for eight series by Yorkshire Television and aired on ITV from 8 November 1999 to 18 December 2006.

Overview
The show primarily follows the lives of three orphaned children called Mel, Josh, and Lucy Barker, and their new foster parents Brian and Sophie Johnson. The children soon discover that the Johnsons are in fact aliens from the planet Valux, who crash-landed on Earth when Brian tampered with the controls of their spaceship. As shown by the opening credits, the house they live in is actually a morphed form of their spaceship. They also have the ability to morph into other people. Brian and Sophie start out with very limited and muddled knowledge of life on Earth, and the children must do their best to help them understand. No one outside the family must ever learn that they are aliens, or they will be taken away for scientific testing, and the Barkers will lose another set of parents. The humour in the programme is considered surreal and sometimes gently subversive. Whilst being a children's show, it occasionally makes reference to rather mature matters, high-brow culture, and complex scientific thinking; and because of this, it has also gained a considerable following of older viewers outside of its intended age range.

Episodes

Characters

Parents
Brian Johnson (Tony Gardner) (1999–2006): Brian is a Valuxian alien and the cause of the Johnsons' crash-landing on Earth. Often childlike, he follows crazes and fads and gets bored easily and is easily suckered into Josh's scams. He has little or no concept of morality, often creating difficult situations for the characters and only rectifying them because he is told to. He does care for and like his family but will often be very selfish or when well-meaning cause chaos through his ignorance of earth culture. Though he can morph at will, his allergy to ice cream makes him grow moose's antlers involuntarily whenever he eats it. He is, despite his personality, an excellent scientist, a trait that Lucy appreciates.
Sophie Johnson (Barbara Durkin) (1999–2000, 2005) and (Carla Mendonça) (2001–2006): Sophie is a Valuxian alien and Brian's wife. She has slightly more common sense than Brian but is still quite clueless and easily led after enough persuasion. Unlike Brian, she is not good at morphing and can only do so when eating ice cream; after morphing into a new shape at the beginning of the third series, Sophie finds she is unable to return to her previous form and decides to remain as she is (Carla Mendonça took up the role). Barbara Durkin returns as Aunt Sophie in the episode "Thanks for All the Earthworm Custard".

Series 1–7: The Barkers

Melanie Mel Barker (Danielle McCormack) (1999–2005): Mel is a teenager who has a sarcastic personality; the oldest of the Barker children, she has a protective and motherly nature towards her younger siblings since the death of their parents. Mel's difficult attitude comes from the pain of losing her parents, as well as being moved to and from different foster homes. Despite her reputation as a tough person, she displays weaknesses in episodes such as "The Box", an episode towards her sister Lucy. Mel's best friend is Trent Clements, the two have an obvious romantic interest in each other, though they do not start going out until much later in the series. Mel has a radical and unusual sense of fashion and shows an interest in photography; this led to her moving to Canada on an exchange programme at the end of Series 6, she returned for the Series 7 finale, "Thanks for All the Earthworm Custard".
Joshua Josh Barker (Alex Kew) (1999–2005): Josh is the middle Barker sibling and was around twelve years old when he was fostered by Valuxians, Brian and Sophie Johnson. Josh is devious and scheming, constantly inventing new and interesting scams to make money and roping Brian into his latest schemes. His two best friends are Pete and Frankie (in the first and second episodes there was a friend called Mikey but in the second episode 'The home team' Frankie seems to take over). Although cunning, Josh is often outsmarted by his more quick-witted sisters, Mel and Lucy; he does not show much interest in school studies, hence his poor grades, although he has shown average signs of intelligence. His interests include rollerblading, making money and "the gorgeous Tania Thomas". He also plays the guitar very well.
Lucia Lucy Barker (Charlotte Francis) (1999–2005): Lucy is the youngest and most intelligent Barker. At the start of the show, she was nine years old. She is very talented in her school subjects, particularly in Maths and Science, with her favourite subject being Chemistry. Her above-average intelligence means she often bonds with Brian, who has excellent scientific knowledge, despite a lack of common sense, and they often play chess or conduct chemistry experiments. Her best friend is Wendy Richardson, who is equally intelligent and shares Lucy's goal to become an astronaut. Lucy and Wendy are not very popular, due to their scientific interests. She is very honest and moral and is often the one to set her foster parents straight in Earth matters and issues; she easily sees through Mel and Josh's tough acts and voices their true feelings accurately. She lacks a sense of adventure and can be somewhat uptight and controlling. Despite these traits, she is the kindest and most caring character.
C.J. (Olisa Odele) (2004–2005): C.J. is a small, quiet boy who was rescued from being run over by 'SuperBrian', a.k.a. Brian Johnson wearing a cape. He turns out to be an orphan from the children's home and is adopted into the family because he finds out about Brian and Sophie being aliens and threatens to report them. C.J. generally takes on the role of Brian's 'sidekick', and is involved in many of Brian's ridiculous schemes and mad ideas.
Harriet Harry (Stephanie Fearon) (2005): Harry first appeared in Series 7 Episode 1 'The Trouble with Harry'; Brian and Sophie adopted her, looking for a replacement for Mel, who left for Canada on an exchange trip. She is similar to Mel in personality, she is usually moody and is a bit of a tomboy. She is also very protective of C.J. because he is the youngest, although he finds her behaviour patronising. Like Josh, she plays the guitar, and her practising sometimes irritates the others. Originally, Josh planned to go out with her, but his plans went awry when Brian and Sophie fostered her making her his foster sister.

Other characters
Pete Walker (Patrick Niknejad) (1999–2005) One of Josh's long-suffering friends. Pete has a pessimistic outlook on life and easily spots Josh's scams, but usually ends up getting drawn in anyway. His voice broke in Season 2. Pete is often seen feeling sorry for himself. He is also the first to realize all the signs that Brian and Sophie were aliens after Wendy reveals it in "Thanks For All The Earthworm Custard".
Frankie Perkins (Jordan Maxwell) (1999–2005) Along with Pete he's often the target of Josh's scams. He has a long-held crush on Mel (when Mel asked Scott out to the disco, Frankie claims he would have attacked Scott if the table wasn't in the way, see 'First Christmas', and, in Series 7, he has a crush on Harry. Pete and Frankie have tried to desert Josh on several occasions, but have always come back.
Wendy Richardson (Isabella Melling) (1999–2005), Lucy's only friend. In her scientifically minded and studious nature she is very similar to Lucy, but as has been seen throughout the episodes, is perhaps not as smart and is even less in touch with popular culture than Lucy. Pompous, and somewhat arrogant, she will always lose exams/tests to Lucy by 1%. Despite originally having strong feelings for Josh, she gets together with Frankie at the end of series seven due to Brian messing with both of their brains. ("Thanks For All The Earthworm Custard").
Terence "Trent" Clements (Keith Warwick) (2000–2005), Mel's long-time friend. He endures Mel's mood swings with resignation and good humour; it is hinted that he is romantically interested in her. They finally get together in series 6. In series 7, it is revealed that his Scottish accent is fake (although Warwick's Scottish accent is real). He is also known as a lothario of the series, much to Josh's resentment; a fan of music and cultural activities. Trent befriends Harry in her first appearance in the show, after finding her using Mel's old locker. He and Harry have a similar friendship to him and Mel's. Trent also shows that he looks out for her by trying his best to convince her not to enter a boxing competition.
Mr Graham Whiteside (Dan O'Brien) (2000-2005), a very grumpy teacher with a particular dislike for Josh Barker. Sophie has a bit of an obsession with him, whilst he has an obsession with Kate Winslet. He can be quite judgmental and is the most feared of all the teachers. Graham often includes himself in after school activities such as first aid, chess club and advanced mathematics classes.
Mrs Alison Hardman (Beatrice Kelley) (1999–2005), another of Josh's and Lucy's teachers who, unsurprisingly, has a dislike for Josh, and a liking for Lucy. In "The Box", she went to the house to tell Josh that he might have dyslexia. He did not believe her and, thinking that she was Brian in disguise, threw several scoops of ice cream over her head resulting in her leaving the house and vowing to tell his Doctor and The School Counselor to give him extra work about being dyslexic. In "Thanks For All The Earthworm Custard" at the leaving party for Canada she said sorry about giving him extra work. She cannot take criticism shown in the episode "Brian's Eleven (Minus 8)". It's revealed in the episode "Dirty Dancing" that Mrs Hardman had an unquestionable talent for ballroom dancing; she also enjoys her usual job as a Brownie leader.
Poppy Manning (Kirsha Southward) (2002–2005), a girl who frequently appears as a rival to Josh, due to her similarly scheming, sneaky personality. She is also a rival to Lucy because of their moral differences and competitive attitude. She appears mostly in series 4 & 5. She also has the catchphrase of 'It's too easy' which she uses against Josh on many occasions while scamming him.
Tania Thomas (Zoe Thorne) (1999); Emily Fleeshman (2001–2002) Sasha Tilley (2004-2005), the object of Josh's affections. In the "Valentine's Day" episode she is shown to harbour a secret affection for Josh, though he mistakenly believes she has sent him hate mail and is determined to get back at her. Brian's well-meaning attempts to ask her out while morphed as Josh apparently ruin any potential relationship. She gets together with Pete Walker in series 7.
Mikey (Chris Cornwell) (1999, 2005) appears in the first series, as good friends with Josh Barker, Pete Walker and Frankie Perkins. He is perfectly happy being Josh's third-in-command and is most commonly used as a look-out. He makes a cameo at the end of series 7.
Dave Locket (Julian Triandafyllou) (1999), a cool, good-looking and popular - but very unintelligent - boy in school. Although originally Josh's idol, the two later sink into rivalry, most notably in the episode, "The Home Team". He is particularly fond of his hair.
Andy 'the Freak' (Danny Robinson) (2000–2005) appears throughout the Barker era as a repulsively geeky boy who is in love with Mel and is deluded in thinking that she returns his ardour. In an episode in Series 6 ("Le Freak C'est Chic"), he gets a makeover. His cousin's name is Jamie, a football player who Mel was briefly infatuated with in the episode, "Magic Johnson". He almost discovered that the Johnsons were aliens after seeing Sophie as a mermaid while fishing. However, the family successfully convince him otherwise as he went in pursuit of her after falling in love.
Scott Taylor (Marco Williamson) (2000) is a popular boy who Mel had a date with in the episode "First Christmas". He is the head of the school football team and will not, to Josh's dismay, let him have a place on the team.

Series 8: The Bennetts
Jacqueline "Jaq" Bennett (Jessica Woods) (2006); a fiery teenage girl, Jaq is the oldest of the new foster children.  Jaq has difficulty making friends because of her attitude. She rarely shouts, usually letting her sharp wit do the talking.
Dan Bennett (Daniel Feltham) (2006), Becky's twin. Although he is arguably the 'geekier' of the two, collecting comics and speaking Klingon, he is neither academic nor interested in science. Dan is a television addict, but also enjoys computer games and the Internet.
Becky Bennett (Katie Pearson) (2006), Dan's twin. Becky is very studious. She is fond of dissecting animals, and her ambition is to study veterinary science at University. She is a little pompous.
Eddie Bennett (Jake Young) (2006), the youngest member of the family. He manipulates and even emotionally blackmails the other characters to get what he wants. He does this easily because of his innocent appearance, as well as the naïveté of his foster parents. He often plays with Sophie and, like CJ, likes to play with Brian.

Production
The show was filmed in Studio 4 at The Leeds Studios. A laugh track was added from series 4 onwards, although there were complaints that it spoiled the feel of the show. The last episode of series 7, Thanks for all the Earthworm Custard, was the final one to feature the original regular cast, and concluded ongoing plots from the first seven series.

Despite the conclusive nature of the final episode of series 7, the show returned for an eighth series. The new plot acted as a clean slate for the show, with Brian and Sophie crashing their ship again and taking in a new family of foster children after having their memories of the past seven years erased by Guido, the new avatar of the galactic guidebook. The new family, the Bennetts, were very similar in personality to the Barkers and CJ, and Harry. However the new status quo was not to last long, as in 2006, it was announced by ITV that they were to close its in-house children's production unit, bringing the show to a sudden end following series 8.

The same year, Nickelodeon purchased the rights to make an American version of the series. A pilot script was written; the structure was ostensibly the same as the UK original, with alien parents The Jonses (in place of the Johnsons) adopting three children, the Bishops (the Barkers), with similar characteristics to their UK counterparts: teenager Samantha (Sam) in place of Mel; Brad (Josh) and Shelly (Lucy). A pilot episode was written which, unlike the UK source material, introduced the series by having the Joneses adopting the Bishops on-screen. However, the pilot never entered production and the project was eventually dropped.

Broadcast
Series 1 to 7 was repeated regularly on CITV from the channel's launch in 2006 up until late 2017, while series 8 repeats were discontinued by early 2010.

Entertainment Rights Distribution handled worldwide distribution rights to the series.

Home media
In 2000, a VHS release containing all six Series One episodes was released by Video Collection International and Granada Media.

A single-release DVD containing two episodes from Series 2 and four from Series 3 titled The Best Of was released in 2006 by Right Entertainment/Universal Pictures Video UK. Right/Universal also released Series 1 and 2 in a box-set sold as a bulk-release.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

1999 British television series debuts
2006 British television series endings
1990s British children's television series
1990s British teen sitcoms
2000s British children's television series
2000s British teen sitcoms
2000s British teen television series
British children's comedy television series
British children's fantasy television series
British children's science fiction television series
English-language television shows
ITV children's television shows
ITV comedy
Television series about extraterrestrial life
Television series about orphans
Television series by ITV Studios
Television series by Yorkshire Television

My Parents Are Aliens


The Cod Wars, also called the Iceland Cod Wars (Icelandic: Þorskastríðin, "the cod wars", or Landhelgisstríðin, "the wars for the territorial waters") were a series of confrontations in the 1950s and 1970s between the United Kingdom and Iceland regarding fishing rights in the North Atlantic.  The name of the conflict may be derived from a pun on the term "Cold War" (with "cod" reading so similarly to "cold"), possibly via the British tabloid press.

In 1972, Iceland unilaterally declared an Exclusive Economic Zone extending beyond its territorial waters, before announcing plans to reduce over-fishing. It policed its quota system with the coast guard, leading to a series of net-cutting incidents with British trawlers that fished the areas. As a result, a fleet of British Royal Naval warships and tug-boats was employed to act as a deterrent against any future harassment of British fishing crews by the Icelandic craft.

In 1976, a compromise between the two states allowed a maximum of 24 British trawlers access to the disputed 200 nautical mile (370 km) limit.  Two-hundred-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zones became recognized internationally on November 14, 1994, after having been agreed at the conference on the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982.

References

History of international relations
Fishing
1950s in the United Kingdom
1970s in the United Kingdom
20th century in Iceland

Cod Wars


is a 2011 Japanese drama film directed by Yoshihiro Fukagawa. It stars Yōsuke Eguchi, who is playing the role of a legendary patissier who suddenly quits making patisserie and becomes a guidebook writer. It also stars Yū Aoi as Natsume, who comes from Kagoshima and moves to Tokyo to find her boyfriend.

Patisserie Coin de rue was released in cinemas in Japan on 11 February 2011.

Plot
Tomura was once widely lauded as a legendary patissier, but suddenly and inexplicably left the world of sweets some eight years before the setting of the film and repeatedly declined invitations to show off his skills at a renowned pastry shop in Tokyo where he is a regular. Since that time, Tomura has only lectured at culinary schools and wrote a guidebook for pastry critics.

Meanwhile, Natsume, the daughter of a Kagoshima bakery owner, travels from Kagoshima to Tokyo to find her boyfriend. She looked for a pastry shop named "Patisserie Coin de Rue" because she heard that her boyfriend works there. However, she finds out that he no longer works there, but none of the staff were willing to tell her where he went. She saw a recruitment notice, and she request for a job there until she can find her boyfriend. Initially reluctant to hire her, the store owner Yuriko reluctantly gave in when she saw Natsume's resolve. There, Natsume works with a talented patissier Mariko, who disapproves of Natsume and gives her a hard time.

Later, Natsume discovers that her boyfriend had abandoned her and found another girl. Brokenhearted, she got drunk and staggers back to the patisserie. She decides to continue working at the patisserie despite the fact that she no longer had a boyfriend. She trains under the skilled Yuriko, and her skills gradually got better, to the extent that Yuriko had the confidence to give a sample of her patisserie to a regular customer and the critic Tomura. However, Tomura gives her patisserie a rating of zero.

Natsume started arguing with Tomura, and in the resulting argument, Natsume criticized Tomura's decision to quit pastry-making and become a critic. This made Tomura very angry, and he returned to his home without saying anything. In his house, a flashback ensues, showing Tomura's daughter being knocked down by a car in front of his patisserie. He blames himself for the accident because he was supposed to pick his daughter up from her nursery that day, but he forgot because he was busy preparing pastries for a feast. He stopped making pastries because he did not want to be reminded of the accident again.

Suddenly, just as "Patisserie Coin de Rue" received a huge order to supply patisseries for a party at a French family's party, Yuriko fell down the stairs and broke her arm. As she could not make pastries for three months, she decided to close down the Patisserie Coin de Rue and have to pay a penalty for not honouring her contract. However, Natsume lobbies hard to let her have a chance. She also went to persuade Tomura to take over Yuriko's place, and also convince Mariko to come back to the shop. Together, they produce pastries in time for the party, and their pastries are praised by the people at the party. Later, Natsume receives a scholarship to study patisserie-making at a prestigious American university, the place where Yuriko and Tomura studied. Tomura is also reunited with his wife, whom he was separated from after his daughter's accident.

Cast
 Yōsuke Eguchi as Tomura, a legendary pastry chef who was renowned for his sweets before suddenly dropping out of industry circles.
 Yū Aoi as Natsume, a cake-maker's daughter who traveled from Kagoshima to Tokyo to chase after a boyfriend and works at a popular Tokyo shop called "Pastry Coin de Rue".
 Noriko Eguchi as Mariko
 Hiroyuki Onoue
 Urara Awata
 Tomoka Yamaguchi
 Nathan Berg as Julian
 Kyusaku Shimada
 Mariko Kaga
 Mizuho Suzuki
 Sumie Sasaki
 Keiko Toda as Yuriko

Release
Patisserie Coin de rue made its debut in Japanese cinemas on 11 February 2011.

Later, this film was released in Singapore by local film distributor Golden Village Pictures on 11 August 2011. The film was shown as "My Patisserie" in Singaporean cinemas.

Critical reception
The Japan Times reviewed that "Aoi energizes any scene she happens to be in, ... She even mastered the Kagoshima dialect for the role. ... So give her an "A" for effort — and for making the film at least bearable, if still predictable. ...Fukagawa, who not long ago was making smartly observed, has since settled into a more commercial groove, while losing whatever was distinctive about his directorial personality."

Awards
 26th Santa Barbara International Film Festival (2011)- Best East Meets West Cinema Award

References

External links

Japanese drama films
Films directed by Yoshihiro Fukagawa
Films about confectionery
2010s Japanese-language films

Patisserie Coin de rue


Spatial design is a relatively new conceptual design discipline that crosses the boundaries of traditional design specialisms such as architecture, landscape architecture, landscape design, interior design, urban design and service design as well as certain areas of public art.

It focuses upon the flow of people between multiple areas of interior and exterior environments and delivers value and understanding in spaces across both the private and public realm. The emphasis of the discipline is upon working with people and space, particularly looking at the notion of place, also place identity and genius loci. As such, the discipline covers a variety of scales, from detailed design of interior spaces to large regional strategies, and is largely found within the UK. As a discipline, it uses the language of architecture, interior design and landscape architecture to communicate design intentions. Spatial design uses research methods often found in disciplines such as product and service design, identified by IDEO, as well as social and historical methods that help with the identification and determination of place.

As a growth area of design, the number of spatial design practitioners work within existing disciplines or as independent consultants.

The subject is studied at a number of institutions within the UK, Denmark, Switzerland, and Italy though, as with any new field of study, these courses differ in their scope and ambition.

Ultimately it can be seen as "the glue that joins traditional built environment disciplines together with the people they are designed to serve".

During the COVID-19 pandemic, spatial design became an important aspect of reshaping collective use of urban space. and thinking about access and egress.

References

Public art
Urban design
Environmental design
Landscape architecture
Types of garden
Interior design

Spatial design


A markup language is a computer language. It is made up of a set of instructions, and of data. It is not the same as a programming language, as only programming languages can have "if" statements and other conditional statements. The first markup languages were used for printing; there was the text, and there were instructions how the text should be printed. The source code is generally done in ASCII. Then there are tags. That way, LaTeX (and with that, Wikipedia), uses the instruction \mu to get the symbol , the Greek letter "Mu". HTML uses µ to get the same symbol.

References

Markup language


Loppers are a long-handled cutting tool.  It has two handles, one connected to a blade and the other to a blunt surface that holds the object being cut.  Like the word scissors, is always used as a plural (one pair of loppers is shown in this image).

It is used for cutting thick plants, even saplings (young trees) or branches that are less than an inch (2.5 cm) thick (about as thick as a person's thumb).  It is used in gardening, tree care, and prairie restoration.  It can cut things that are too big for gardening clippers or pruners. If the branch or tree is too big for loppers, then a saw is needed.

Cutting tools
Gardening tools

Loppers


Per Sigurd Agrell (16 January 1881 in Värmland – 19 April 1937 in Lund) was a Swedish poet, translator, runologist and professor of Slavic languages at Lund University.

Biography
Agrell's parents were Frans Vilhelm Agrell (1843–1900) and Ida Vendela Örtenholm (1851–1928). After graduating from secondary school in Norrmalm in 1898, he was admitted to Uppsala University, where he earned his licentiate degree in 1907. He then continued his academic career at Lund University, where he in 1908 defended his PhD thesis on aspect in Polish. He received his doctoral degree in 1909 and was later appointed associate professor (docent) at the same university.

Having taught at Lund University since 1908, Agrell became professor of Slavic languages in 1921. He translated a number of Russian books, such as Slavic legends, and Ivan Bunin's stories. His 1925 translation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was for a long time the standard translation of this novel in Sweden. At first, however, it was criticized for being more personal and original that a previous translation by Walborg Hedberg. Alongside his work in Slavic languages, Agrell was also interested in runology, and published a number of papers in this field.

He began his poetic career as a 16-year-old secondary school student in Örebro, where he contributed with translations and own poems to Lingvo internacia, an Esperanto magazine that had been published in Uppsala since 1895. Among others, he translated poems by Swedish authors Erik Johan Stagnelius and Per Daniel Amadeus Atterbom.

During his studies in Uppsala, Agrell belonged, together with John Landquist, Sven Lidman and Harald Brising to Les quatre diables, a group of students with literary interests. Agrell wrote mainly symbolist poetry, with an emphasis on form, but his interest in writing diminished as modern free verse poetry gained popularity in Sweden. At the same time, he became more focused on his academic work.

He is perhaps most known for his work in runology, particularly for formulating the Uthark theory. He focused on the magical and mystical aspects of runes (gematria).

Agrell married Anna Elvira Osterman. He was father to military psychologist Jan Agrell and zoologist Ivar Agrell, and grandfather to historian Wilhelm Agrell. He died in 1937 and is buried at Norra kyrkogården in Lund.

Poem collections
 1903 - Arabesker
 1905 - Solitudo
 1906 - Hundra och en sonett
 1908 - Den dolda örtagården
 1909 - Purpurhjärtat
 1912 - Antika kaméer
 1931 - Valda dikter

Selected works in philology
1908 - Aspektänderung und aktionsartbildung beim polnischen zeitworte
1913 - Intonation und auslaut im slavischen
1915 - Zur slavischen lautlehre
1917 - Slavische lautstudien

Selected works in runology
1927 - Runornas talmystik och dess antika förebild
1930 - Rökstenens chiffergåtor och andra runologiska problem (Available online via Projekt Runeberg)
1931 - Senantik mysteriereligion och nordisk runmagi: en inledning i den nutida runologiens grundproblem
1932 - Die spätantike Alphabet-Mystik und die Runenreihe
1934 - Lapptrummor och runmagi: tvenne kapitel ur trolldomsväsendets historia (Available online via Projekt Runeberg)
1936 - Die pergamenische Zauberscheibe und das Tarockspiel
1938 - Die Herkunft der Runenschrift

References

External links

1881 births
1937 deaths
People from Filipstad Municipality
Writers from Värmland
Linguists from Sweden
Swedish-language poets
Uppsala University alumni
Academic staff of Lund University
Swedish translators
20th-century Swedish poets
20th-century translators
20th-century linguists

Sigurd Agrell


George Frederick Samuel Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon,  (24 October 1827 – 9 July 1909), styled Viscount Goderich from 1833 to 1859 and known as the Earl of Ripon in 1859 and as the Earl de Grey and Ripon from 1859 to 1871, was a British politician and Viceroy and Governor General of India who served in every Liberal cabinet between 1861 and 1908.

Background and education
Ripon was born at 10 Downing Street, London, the second son of Prime Minister F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich (who was created Earl of Ripon in 1833), by his wife Lady Sarah Hobart, daughter of Robert Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire. He was educated privately, attending neither school nor college.

He was awarded the honorary degree of DCL by the University of Oxford in 1870.

Diplomatic and political career, 1852–1880
Ripon served on Sir Henry Ellis' British special mission to the Brussels Conference on the affairs of Italy in 1848–49. Although his father had been a Tory, Ripon was first a Whig and later a Liberal. He entered the House of Commons as one of the two members for Hull in 1852. Both he and his party colleague James Clay were unseated in 1853 by petition over claims of widespread corruption in their election, of which they were exonerated of any knowledge. He was returned for Huddersfield later in 1853 and for the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1857.

In 1859 he succeeded his father as second Earl of Ripon, taking his seat in the House of Lords, and later that year succeeded his uncle in the more senior title of Earl de Grey, becoming known as the Earl de Grey and Ripon. He was Under-Secretary of State for War under Lord Palmerston between 1859 and 1861 and again from 1861 to 1863,and briefly Under-Secretary of State for India in 1861. In 1863 he was made a Privy Counsellor and Secretary of State for War under Palmerston, with a seat in the Cabinet. He retained this office when Lord Russell became prime minister on Palmerston's death in 1865, and then served under Russell as Secretary of State for India between February and June 1866. In Gladstone's first administration he was Lord President of the Council (1868–1873). During this period he acted as chairman of the joint commission for drawing up the Treaty of Washington with the United States over the Alabama Claims. For this, in 1871 he was created Marquess of Ripon, in the County of York. He had already been made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1869. In 1878 he served as President of the first day of the Co-operative Congress.

Viceroy of India, 1880–1884

When Gladstone returned to power in 1880 he appointed Ripon Viceroy of India, an office he held until 1884. During his time in India, Ripon introduced legislation (the Ilbert Bill, named for the legal member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, Courtenay Ilbert) that would have granted native Indians more legal rights, including the right of Indian judges to judge Europeans in court. Though progressive in its intent, the legislation was scuppered by Europeans living in India who did not want to be tried by a native judge. In this Ripon was supported by Florence Nightingale, who also backed his efforts to obtain a Bengal land tenancy bill (eventually the Bengal Tenancy Act 1885) that would improve the situation of the peasants. In 1882 he repealed the controversial Vernacular Press Act of 1878 passed by Lytton. He also promoted the Indian Famine Codes.

He was also instrumental in supporting Dietrich Brandis to reorganize the Madras Forest Department and expand systematic forest conservancy in India. In 1883, Lord Ripon joined a shooting party organised by the Maharaja of Darbhanga which had a total bag of 1683, including 4 tigers, 47 buffaloes, 280 pigs and 467 deer. (The remainder was ″small game″.) There was some criticism at ″... such wholesale destruction, particularly as it happens to be the breeding season.″

He is still revered in Chennai (formerly Madras), India as "Lord Ripon engal appan" meaning: Lord Ripon, our father. The Corporation of Chennai's Ripon Building was named for him, as well as the town of Riponpet in the Shivamogga district in the state of Karnataka. In Calcutta, Ripon Street was named for him. The Ghanta Ghar Multan or Clock Tower of Multan in Pakistan was named Ripon Building and the hall of the same building was named Ripon Hall.. The Ripon Club in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) founded in 1884 by the Parsis for their community members, was named after him.

Political career, 1884–1908
Lord Ripon also became a supporter of Home Rule for Ireland. In Gladstone's 1886 government he was First Lord of the Admiralty, and in the government of 1892 to 1895 he was Secretary of State for the Colonies. When the Liberals again returned to power in 1905 under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, he took office, aged 78, as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. In 1908, he declined to remain as Lords leader when H. H. Asquith became Prime Minister in April, and he resigned as Lord Privy Seal in October.

As noted by Neil Smith, Ripon's liberalism had roots in the mid-nineteenth century, but his political views "shifted with the times". According to Smith, "he was greatly interested in labour questions, deeply sympathetic to labour aspirations and believed the state might interfere with wages and that the state had a duty to deal with unemployment".

Other appointments

Lord Ripon was President of the Royal Geographical Society during 1859–1860, and Trustee of the National Gallery. Lord Ripon also held many positions in public life in Yorkshire. In 1860, he was appointed honorary Colonel of the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Prince of Wales' Own (West Yorkshire) Regiment, and was later awarded the Volunteer Decoration (VD); in 1863, he was High Steward of the borough of Hull, and from 1873 to 1906 he was Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire. He was a deputy lieutenant and JP for the counties of Lincolnshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, JP for the Liberty of Ripon, and served as Mayor of Ripon in 1895–1896.

Lord Ripon was a Freemason, who served as Provincial Grand Master of the West Riding and Deputy Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England from 1861 to 1869, and ultimately as Grand Master from 1870 until his conversion to Catholicism in 1874. His conversion to Catholicism was met by astonishment in the political world, and accusations of disloyalty.

Following his conversion he was generous in supporting Catholic educational and charitable works. He was president of the Society of St Vincent de Paul from 1899 until his death and a great supporter of St. Joseph's Catholic Missionary Society and St Wilfrid's Church in Ripon.

Lord Ripon was Chancellor of the University of Leeds from its creation in 1904 until his death in 1909.

Marriage and children
Lord Ripon married his cousin Henrietta Anne Theodosia Vyner, daughter of Henry Vyner and his wife Lady Mary Gertrude Robinson, daughter of Thomas Robinson, 2nd Earl de Grey, on 8 April 1851. They had one son and one daughter:

 Frederick Oliver Robinson, 2nd Marquess of Ripon (29 January 1852 - 22 September 1923)
 Mary Sarah Robinson (16 July 1857 - 3 July 1858)

Death
Lady Ripon died in February 1907, aged 73. Lord Ripon survived her by two years and died of heart failure at Studley Royal Park in July 1909, aged 81. He was buried at St Mary's, Studley Royal and was succeeded in the marquessate and other titles by his only son, Frederick Oliver. His estate was assessed for probate with a value of £127,292. 15s. 8d. (equivalent to £ million in ).

References

External links

1827 births
1909 deaths
British Secretaries of State
Children of prime ministers of the United Kingdom
Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Earls of Ripon
Earls de Grey
English Roman Catholics
Fellows of the Royal Society
First Lords of the Admiralty
Grand Masters of the United Grand Lodge of England
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Knights of the Garter
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George
Robinson, George
Robinson, George
Ripon, M1
UK MPs who were granted peerages
Robinson, George
Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria
People associated with the University of Leeds

George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon


Gothic Revival architecture is architecture that has been made to look as if it is from medieval times, but is really much later. This architectural style began in the late 1740s in England. Its momentum grew in the early 19th century. Serious and learned admirers of neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval Gothic architecture.

The Gothic style of architecture was built in Europe between about 1140 and about 1550. Beginning in late 18th century Europe, through the 19th century and into the early 20th century in Europe and elsewhere there was a fashion to build in the Gothic style. In this period architects and their patrons had various different styles to choose from. There were also revivals of Classical and Renaissance styles. Since medieval Gothic buildings vary so much, some architects often copied selectively from medieval buildings and some adapted the style to the needs of their own period. The "Gothic Revival" style was most commonly used for churches, cathedrals, universities, town halls and sometimes houses.

Gothic Revival buildings have features that are like real Gothic buildings. They often have:
 Pointed arches round the doors and windows
 Arched stoned roofs called "vaults"
 Towers and sometimes also spires on top of towers
 Many stone-carvings around the doors and fireplaces
 Stained glass windows

Famous Gothic Revival examples
 Strawberry Hill at Twickenham, near London, was one of the first houses designed in the Gothic Revival style.
 The Houses of Parliament, London
 Sydney University
 São Paulo Cathedral, Brazil
 The campus of Yale University and the University of Chicago

References

Architectural styles

Gothic Revival architecture


Weaving is the interlacing of two sets of threads at right angles to each other to form cloth. Weaving is usually done on a loom.

One set of threads is called the warp. These threads are held taut and in parallel order on the loom by harnesses creating a space called the shed. The weft thread is wound onto bobbins. In old-fashioned hand weaving the bobbins are held in a shuttle, which carries the weft thread through the shed. The warp threads are moved over and under the weft threads. Modern high speed weaving does not use a shuttle.

Hobbies

Weaving


Gustav Schleicher (sometimes spelled Gustave) (November 19, 1823 – January 10, 1879) was a German-born Democratic United States Representative from Texas.  He was an engineer who served briefly in the Texas legislature, and was a veteran of the Confederate Army.

Early life
Schleicher was born in Darmstadt in the German principality of Hesse in 1823.  He attended the Giessen University and studied engineering.  He assisted in the construction of early railroads in Europe.

He, Hermann Spiess and Dr. Ferdinand Ludwig Herff were among the leaders in a group of intellectuals who immigrated to Texas and founded a Fisher–Miller Land Grant commune, named Bettina after the German literary figure and social visionary Bettina von Arnim, on the banks of the Llano River in 1847. According to the Handbook of Texas Online,"The community was intended to prove the truth of communist ideals and light the way for relief of the troubles in Europe, which had led to sporadic attempts at revolution and were later to lead to the abortive German revolt of 1848."

Texas politics and American Civil War
Schleicher became disillusioned with the experiment in Bettina (he is said to have remarked that "the bigger the men, the more they talked, the less they worked and the more they ate.")  and moved to San Antonio.  In San Antonio, he worked with others to begin the Guadalupe Bridge Company to build a toll bridge across the Guadalupe River on the main road between San Antonio and New Braunfels.  He also was instrumental in forming the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad and he began to build a railroad from Port Lavaca to San Antonio with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston who was stationed in Texas.

In 1852, Schleicher became an American citizen and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, where he served one term in the Fifth Texas Legislature. From 1854—1861 Schleicher was surveyor of the Bexar Land District, which included most of the area from San Antonio to El Paso. During this time he acquired title to extensive land holdings on the Edwards Plateau. In 1856, Schleicher married Elizabeth Tinsley Howard. Beginning in 1858, he and his brother-in-law, Heinrich Dresel, published the San Antonio German-language newspaper the Texas Staats-Zeitung. Schleicher was a cofounder of the San Antonio Water Company in 1858 and of Alamo College in 1860.

He was elected to the Texas Senate in 1859 representing the 31st District which comprised territory west of San Antonio: Gillespie, Medina, and Uvalde Counties. Like most German immigrants, Schleicher opposed Texas's secession from the Union.  However, after his adopted state joined the Confederacy, Schleicher became a captain in the Confederate Army, in charge of Gen. John B. Magruder's Corps of Engineers.

After the war and service in Congress
Schleicher practiced law in San Antonio when the Civil War was over and resumed his work in developing railroads. He is listed as one of the incorporators of the Columbus, San Antonio and Rio Grande Railroad and  served as engineer for the construction of the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railway, which ran from Indianola, Texas to Cuero, Texas. According to the Handbook of Texas Online, "He founded the latter town as a way-station and moved to it soon afterward, in 1872."

In 1874, he was elected to Congress representing the 6th District when it was drawn for the first time.  He was reelected to two additional terms and served as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and then as Chairman of the House Canals and Railroads Committee.

His activities in support of the gold standard gained him a challenger within the Democratic primary in the person of John Ireland, and Schleicher had to wage a bitter campaign before being nominated and reelected in 1878.  He died on January 10, 1879, two months before the start of his third term.  A memorial address by the Republican floor leader James A. Garfield was more than a courtesy for a deceased junior member of the opposition party, and attested to the depth of feeling for Schleicher.

He was buried in the San Antonio National Cemetery.

Memorials
Schleicher County, Texas was named for Gustav Schleicher.

See also
List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)

References

Sources
 Retrieved on 2009-04-27
Faust, Albert Bernhardt. The German Element in the United States. Boston:Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1909.
Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association.

Democratic Party members of the Texas House of Representatives
Democratic Party Texas state senators
People of Texas in the American Civil War
Hessian emigrants to the United States
Engineers from Darmstadt
1823 births
1879 deaths
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas
19th-century American politicians
Schleicher County, Texas

Gustav Schleicher


Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that happens in children and young adults as a result of becoming infected by group A streptococci bacteria. The first attack usually happens between the ages of 5 and 15. It affects the heart, skin, joints and the central nervous system. It is most common in the Middle East, eastern Europe, South America and the Far East and is rare in western Europe and North America. Treatment includes resting in bed and antibiotics.

Wolfgang Mozart, the famous composer famously died of rheumatic fever.

Diseases caused by bacteria

Rheumatic fever


The Duchy of Bouillon () (), was a small state located between Luxembourg, Champagne, and the Three Bishoprics and centered on Bouillon. The duchy was claimed by the House of La Tour d'Auvergne. It was officially a State of the Holy Roman Empire. Even though it was a fairly small "state" its capital was the city of Bouillon, now in modern Belgium. The La Tour d'Auvergne family claimed to rule the state from 1456? – 1794 as during the French Revolution it officially changed its legal status to the "Republic of Bouillon". The heir to the ducal throne was traditionally titled the Prince of Turenne.

Dukes of Bouillon
The dukes were usually addressed by the style of Serene Highness.
 Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne (1655-1623)
 Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne (1605-1652)
 Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne (1636-1721)
 Emmanuel-Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne (1668-1730)
 Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne (1706-1771)
 Godefroy Charles Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne (1728-1792)
 Jacques Léopold de La Tour d'Auvergne (1746-1802)

Jacques Léopold was the last Duke of Bouillon, and following the Napoleonic Wars the duchy was absorbed into the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

References

States of the Holy Roman Empire

Duchy of Bouillon


"Colonel" Robert "Bob" Denard (April 7, 1929 in Bordeaux - October 14, 2007), also known as Gilbert Bourgeaud and Saïd Mustapha Mahdjoub, was a French mercenary. He was one of the most famous mercenaries after World War II.

During his time in the French Navy Denard fought in Indochina and in Algeria, and spent some time in jail. He subsequently served as a policeman in French Morocco. Afterwards he became a mercenary and fought in African countries like Congo, Angola, Rhodesia, Gabon and especially in the Comoros.

He converted from Roman Catholicism to Judaism, from Judaism to Islam, and from Islam to Roman Catholicism.

He was married seven times and was the father of eight children. He practiced polygamy after his conversion to Islam.

Denard had Alzheimer's disease at the time of his death.

1929 births
2007 deaths
Anti-communists
Converts to Islam
Converts to Judaism
French military people
French prisoners
French Roman Catholics
Jewish military people
People from Bordeaux
French police officers
Mercenaries

Bob Denard


The coulomb (sometimes written C) is the SI unit of electric charge. It is named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb.

A coulomb is a quantity of electric charge. The movement of electric charge is called current in an electric circuit. For example, a flashlight bulb that has a current of one ampere will pass one coulomb of charge every second. So in ten seconds, ten coulombs have passed through the light bulb.

In an electric wire the charge that moves is in a particle called the electron. Each electron has a very small electric charge of negative one elementary charge. The elementary charge is the smallest electric charge found in a stable particle. A coulomb is equal to 6,241,509,629,152,650,000 elementary charges. The coulomb was named in honor of Charles-Augustin de Coulomb who worked on understanding electric charge in the late 1700s.

Technical Definition:

1 coulomb is the amount of electric charge carried by a current of 1 ampere flowing for 1 second.

SI derived units

Coulomb


Kullervo is a person in the Finnish national epic Kalevala. He is a good looking man with golden hair. Bad things happen to him; his destiny is tragic.

In folk stories Kullervo is the son of the giant Kaleva. In the Kalevala however Kullervo is the son of a man called Kalervo.

In the Kalevala Kullervo's family is killed by Untamo's family before Kullervo is born. Only one woman is not killed. She gives birth to Kullervo who will be a slave of Untamo. Every work that Kullervo tries goes ill. This is why Untamo sells him to a smith called Ilmarinen.

Ilmarinen puts Kullervo to shepherd cows. Ilmarinen's wife gives Kullervo bread that has stones in it. While Kullervo cuts the bread his knife hits the stone and breaks. Kullervo gets angry and curses bears to eat cows and Ilmarinen's wife. Then he escapes.

While travelling Kullervo has sex with a girl. He does not know that this is his own sister. When he finds out he goes very angry and attacks Untamo and kills him and his family. Then he commits suicide.

The story of Kullervo differs from all other folktales in the respect that it describes the effects of child abuse in a very realistic way, and in the end of the poem Väinämöinen especially warns all parents from abusing their children.

Finnish mythology

Kullervo


The County of Nevers () was a county in central France. Its principal town was Nevers. It roughly corresponds to the later province of Nivernais and the modern of department of Nièvre.

The county itself dates from approximately the beginning of the 10th century. The county has frequently been associated with the neighboring Duchy of Burgundy; it was included among the lands and titles held by Duke Henry I of Burgundy. Beginning with Renauld I, the county was held jointly with that of the County of Auxerre. Nevers came under the rule of the count of Flanders in the 14th century, and from there, into the possessions of Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy, briefly reuniting the two lands. Philip's younger son Philip II was granted the County of Nevers, passing later into the possession of a cadet branch of the dukes of Cleves. The count was raised to duke in 1539. In 1565 Louis Gonzaga became duke of Nivernais by marriage with Henriette of Cleves. His successor Charles II sold the duchy to Cardinal Mazarin. The duchy survived until the French Revolution, the last duke being Louis Jules Mancini Mazarini, who lost his title in the Revolution, but survived the Reign of Terror to die of natural causes in 1798.

See also
Counts and dukes of Nevers
Duchy of Nivernais
Nivernais
Nevers

References

States and territories established in the 10th century
States and territories disestablished in 1798
County of Nevers

County of Nevers


An antivenom is a medicine used to protect against a specific venom. (A venom is a poison released by a snake or insect.) Frequently the venom of some creature such as a cobra will be harvested and a little will be injected using a hypodermic needle into a horse every day for a long time. The horse's body will develop an immunity to the venom, so more and more venom from the snake can be injected every day. After the horse is immune, its blood can be drawn little by little to get the part of the blood that makes the horse immune. That part can then be injected into humans who have been bitten by cobras.

There are antivenoms for the very large and very dangerous funnel-web spiders found in Australia, and for the widow spiders (such as the black widow) found all around the world.

Drugs

Antivenom


Lucia di Lammermoor is an Italian opera in three acts.  Salvatore Cammarano wrote the libretto (story and words). Gaetano Donizetti wrote the music. The opera is based on Sir Walter Scott's novel, The Bride of Lammermoor.

The opera was first performed on September 26, 1835 at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy. Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani played the title role. The opera is celebrated for the sextet "Chi mi frena" and Lucia's lengthy Mad Scene, a technically and dramatically demanding double-aria tour de force. The opera was a great success. Every number received a tremendous ovation. Donizetti and the cast were called forth for numerous curtain calls. The opera is number 19 on the Operabase list of the most performed operas worldwide.

Characters

 Lucia, an aristocratic young woman in love with Edgardo (soprano)
 Edgardo di Ravenswood, Lucia's beloved (tenor)
 Enrico Ashton, Lucia's brother (baritone)
 Arturo Bucklaw, a rich lord and Lucia's bridgegroom (tenor)
 Raimondo Bidebent, a Calvinist chaplain (bass)
 Alisa, Lucia's maid (mezzo-soprano)
 Normanno, Enrico's retainer (tenor)

Story

Background. The story is set in the early 18th century at Lammermoor Castle in Scotland. Two noble families  the Ashtons and the Ravenswoods  are bitter enemies. They have very nearly exterminated one another with constant warring. Enrico Ashton is almost broke. He has arranged a marriage for Lucia with a rich man. He hopes this marriage  will relieve his money troubles. He is aware however that Lucia is in love Edgardo Ravenswood.

Act One. Normanno and others search the castle gardens for an intruder. They believe it is Edgardo on his way to meet Lucia. Enrico has marriage plans for Lucia, and vows to end her affair with his mortal enemy. Lucia waits for Edgardo in another part of the garden. She says she has seen the ghost of a maiden who died for love. Her maid believes this is a bad omen. Edgardo enters. He tells Lucia he must leave for France on family business.  He hopes to make his peace with Enrico and marry Lucia. They exchange rings.

Act Two. Enrico has decided Lucia will marry Arturo at once. He knows she will resist, so he shows her a forged letter. It says that Edgardo has found a new lover. Lucia is crushed. Raimondo urges her to marry Arturo. Arturo arrives, and, with the stunned Lucia, signs the marriage contract. Edgardo suddenly enters and discovers Lucia's signature on the marriage contract. He curses her, and throws his ring on the floor.

Act Three. The wedding has taken place. Arturo and Lucia have retired to the bridal chamber. Raimondo interrupts the festivities in the Great Hall. He says Lucia is insane and has stabbed her husband to death. Lucia enters carrying a dagger. Her gown is smeared with blood. She acts disoriented. She imagines she is beside Edgardo, and soon to be married to him. She collapses and is carried away. Outside the castle, Edgardo learns that Lucia has died. He stabs himself, hoping to be united in death with Lucia.

Notes

References

 Woodstra, Chris, et al. 2005. All Music Guide to Classical Music.  All Media Guide,LLC. p. 379.

Other websites

 Lucia di Lammermoor synopsis (Metropolitan Opera)
 Online vocal score

Compositions by Gaetano Donizetti
1830s operas

Lucia di Lammermoor


Vegetation is general plant life an the grund cover providit bi plants.  Vegetation haes na parteecular taxa, life furms, structur, spatial extent, or ony ither specific botanical or geografic characteristics. It is broader nor flora which refers exclusively tae species composeetion. Aiblins the closest synonym is plant community, but vegetation can, an eften daes, refer tae a wider range o spatial scales nor that term daes, includin scales as lairge as the global.  Primeval reidwid forests, coastal mangrove stands, sphagnum bogs, desert sile crusts, roadside weed patches, wheat fields, cultivatit gairdens an lawns; aw are encompassed bi the term vegetation.

Botany
Ecologie
Ecological succession
Habitat
Biology terminology

Vegetation


HIStory: Past, Present and Future is the ninth studio album by Michael Jackson. It was released in 1995. It is Jackson's first album on his record label MJJ Productions. The album has two discs. The first disc is a 'greatest hits' of fifteen popular singles Jackson had released from his previous albums. The second disc is fifteen new songs. Two of them are Jackson's versions of songs that have already been made by people. The album has sold 25 million copies around the world. It is the best selling album with more than one disc. On November 13 2001 the first disc was released again on its own as Greatest Hits: HIStory, Volume I. It has sold 4 million copies.

Singles
Six singles were released around the world from the second disc. The first single "Scream" was a duet with Jackson's sister Janet Jackson. It reached number one in New Zealand, Italy, and Spain.

The second single "You Are Not Alone" was written and produced by R. Kelly. It was the first song ever to go straight to number one in the Billboard Hot 100.

The third single "Earth Song" did not reach the Billboard Hot 100. However, it is Jackson's best selling single in the United Kingdom. It was number one there for six weeks.

The sixth single was "Stranger in Moscow". It reached number one in Italy and Spain.

The fourth single, "This Time Around", had The Notorious B.I.G. rapping in it.

"They Don't Care About Us" was released on March 31, 1996. It was number one in Germany for three weeks.

"Stranger in Moscow" was the last single released from the album. It was the least successful single in the United States.

Reviews
Rolling Stone gave the album four stars out of five. The Seattle Times gave the second disc of HIStory a bad review.

Tour
Jackson did the HIStory World Tour to promote the album. It was Jackson's last tour.

References

Michael Jackson albums
1995 albums

HIStory: Past, Present and Future


Clément Marot (23 November 1496 – 12 September 1544) was a French Renaissance poet.

Biography

Youth
Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496–1497. His father, Jean Marot (c. 1463-1523), whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman from the Caen region and was also a poet. Jean held the post of escripvain (a cross between poet laureate and historiographer) to Anne of Brittany, Queen of France. Clément was the child of his second wife. The boy was "brought into France" — it is his own expression, and is not unnoteworthy as showing the strict sense in which that term was still used at the beginning of the 16th century — in 1506. He appears to have been educated at the University of Paris, and to have then begun studying law. Jean Marot instructed his son in the fashionable forms of verse-making, which called for some formal training.

It was the time of the rhétoriqueurs, poets who combined stilted language with a fondness for the allegorical manner of the 15th century and the most complicated and artificial forms of the ballade and the rondeau. Clément began as a "rhétoriqueur", though he later helped overthrow this style.  He wrote panegyrics to Guillaume Crétin and translated Virgil's first eclogue in 1512. He soon gave up the study of law and became page to Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, which led to his introduction into court life. The house of Valois, which would hold the throne of France for the greater part of a century, was devoted to literature.

At the French court
As early as 1514, before the accession of King Francis I, Clément presented to him his Judgment of Minos, and shortly afterward he was either styled or styled himself facteur (poet) de la reine to Queen Claude. In 1519 he was attached to the suite of Marguerite d'Alençon, the king's sister, (later to become Marguerite de Navarre), a great patron of the arts. He was also a great favourite of Francis himself, attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and duly celebrated it in verse. In the next year he was at the camp in Flanders, and wrote of the horrors of war.

Marot, like most of Marguerite's literary court, was attracted by her grace, her kindness, and her intellectual accomplishments, but there is no grounds for thinking that they had a romantic relationship. During this time his poetic style began to change, becoming much less artificial.  Some of his poems praise a lady named "Diane", whom some have identified with Diane de Poitiers.

In Paris
In 1524, Marot accompanied King Francis on his disastrous Italian campaign. The king was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia, but there are no grounds for supposing that Marot was wounded or shared the king's fate, and he was back in Paris again by the beginning of 1525. However, Marguerite for intellectual reasons, and her brother for political, had until then favoured the double movement of "Aufklärung", partly humanist, partly reforming, which distinguished the beginning of the century. Formidable opposition to both forms of innovation now began to appear, and Marot, never particularly prudent, was arrested on a charge of heresy and lodged in the Grand Châtelet in February 1526. This was only a foretaste of his coming trouble, and a friendly prelate, acting for Marguerite, arranged his release before Easter. The imprisonment caused him to write a vigorous poem entitled Enfer (hell), later imitated by his friend Étienne Dolet. His father died about this time, and Marot seems to have been appointed in Jean's place as valet de chambre to the king. He was certainly a member of the royal household in 1528 with a stipend of 250 livres. In 1530, probably, he married. The following year he was once again in trouble, this time for attempting to rescue a prisoner, and was again released, this time after Marot wrote the king one of his most famous poems, appealing for his release.

In 1532 he published (it had perhaps appeared three years earlier), under the title of Adolescence Clémentine, the first printed collection of his works, which was very popular and was frequently reprinted with additions.  Unfortunately, the poet's enemies ensured that Marot was implicated in the 1534 Affair of the Placards, and this time he fled.

In Ferrara
He passed through Nérac, the court of Navarre, and made his way to Renée, duchess of Ferrara, a supporter of the Protestant Reformation in France—as steadfast as her sister-in-law Marguerite, and even more efficacious, because her dominions were outside France. At Ferrara his work there included the celebrated Blasons (a descriptive poem, improved upon medieval models), which set all the verse-writers of France imitating them. The blason was defined by Thomas Sébillet as a perpetual praise or continuous vituperation of its subject. The blasons of Marot's followers were printed in 1543 with the title of Blasons anatomiques du corps féminin.

Back in Paris
Duchess Renée was not able to persuade her husband, Ercole d'Este, to share her views, and Marot had to leave Ferrara. He went to Venice, but before very long Pope Paul III remonstrated with Francis I on the severity with which the Protestants were treated, and they were allowed to return to Paris on condition of recanting their errors. Marot returned with the rest, and abjured his heresy at Lyon. In 1539 Francis gave him a house and grounds in the suburbs.

It was at this time that his famous and influential translations of the Psalms appeared.  Each courtier identified his or her favorite psalms, and the poems were sung in the court and in the city.  It is said, probably with exaggeration, that these translations did more than anything else to advance the cause of the Protestant Reformation in France. Marot's translations of the Psalms continued to be sung for centuries by Protestant congregations.

Later life
At the same time Marot engaged in a literary quarrel with a poet named François de Sagon, who represented the Sorbonne. Verse-writers of France aligned themselves as Marotiques or Sagontiques, and abuse was exchanged. Victory, as far as wit was concerned, was with Marot, but at the cost of ill-will against him.
Marot also edited the works of his fellow poet François Villon.

Although the Psalms were published in 1541 and 1543 with royal privilege, the Sorbonne still objected to translations from the Bible into French. In 1543, it was evident that Marot could not rely on the protection of the king; therefore he left for Geneva. After living working on the Psalms there, as Calvin became more influential, he went to Piedmont. He died at Turin in the autumn of 1544 and was buried in the Cathedral there at the expense of the French ambassador to Rome.

Editions
The most important early editions of Marot's Œuvres were published at Lyon in 1538 and 1544. In the second of these the arrangement of his poems which has been accepted in later issues was first adopted; in 1596 an enlarged edition was edited by François Mizière. The Parisian printer Denis Janot, however, also printed several important editions of books by Marot. Others of later date are those of Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy (The Hague, 1731) and P. Jannet (1868–1872; new ed., 1873–1876), on the whole the best, but there is a very good selection with a still better introduction by Charles d'Héricault, the joint editor of the Jannet edition in the larger Collection Garnier (no date). From an elaborate edition by G. Guiffrey only Vol. II and III appeared during his lifetime. Robert Yve-Plessis and Jean Plattard completed the edition in 5 vols (Paris, 1874-1931).
The first 'scientific' edition is by C. A. Mayer in 6 vols.(1958-1980), which follows the arrangement of the material in 'genres' (like the edition 1544).
The last complete scientific edition is by Gérard Defaux in 2 vols. (1990–92). Defaux adopts the editing principles of Marot himself, as deducible from his own 1538 edition, mentioned above.

Influence
Many of Marot's texts were set as chansons, particularly by his contemporary Claudin de Sermisy.

Douglas Hofstadter's book  Le Ton beau de Marot, deals with the problems of translation, and includes several dozen different translations of Marot's poem A une damoyselle malade.

Both Maurice Ravel and George Enescu composed song settings of Marot's poems.

Wilhelm Killmayer set one of his poems in his song cycle  in 1953, and another in  in 1968.

References

External links

 Pictures of Marot
 C A Mayer Memorial Trust

1496 births
1544 deaths
People from Cahors
French Calvinist and Reformed Christians
French poets
Writers from Occitania (administrative region)
University of Paris alumni
Burials at Turin Cathedral

Clément Marot