Ankit Sharma (born 20 July 1992) is an Indian athlete who competes in the long jump event. He holds the long jump national record of 8.19 metres set in June 2016 at the G. Kosanov Memorial Meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Early life and background
Sharma was born on 20 July 1992 in Pinahat, Uttar Pradesh as the youngest child of teacher Harnath Sharma and Mithlesh Sharma. His family originally hails from Morena district, Madhya Pradesh, and migrated to Pinahat several years before Sharma was born. He did his initial schooling in Morena, before graduating in commerce in Bhopal. His elder brother Pravesh Sharma is also an athlete.

Sharma aspired to become a cricketer but was unable to take up the sport due to lack of adequate facilities in Morena. When he was eight, Sharma started practicing javelin throw. His instructors suggested him to switch to long jump after watching him "jump up with joy" at each successful throw. He took part in long jump events which were a part of Raksha Bandhan celebrations in Morena, and, at his parents' suggestion, decided to pursue a career in long jump. Apart from cricket and javelin throw, he also played volleyball, triple jump, discus throw and hurdles during his childhood.

Career
In 2006, Sharma was selected to represent Sports Authority of India, Bhopal, when he crossed the 6-metre mark at the age of 13. He was trained by Nishad Kumar since 2009 and Romanian coach Bedros Bedrosian since 2015.

Sharma competed in the 2010 Commonwealth Games but failed to win a medal. Having participated at the 2010 Asian Games, he was left out of the Indian contingent for the 2014 Asian Games, with India incidentally fielding no athletes in men's long jump. Regarding his omission, he said, "Certain athletes were even given a third chance to qualify; I did not get even one. I pleaded for one chance but was told I was no medal hope."

In 2015, he recorded a jump of 8.04 metres at the National Games in Thiruvananthapuram and became the fifth Indian to go past the 8 metre-mark. He won the gold medal at the 2016 South Asian Games with a jump of 7.89 metres, breaking a 27-year Games record.

In June 2016, Sharma took part in the G. Kosanov Memorial Meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he broke the national record two times on the same day. He recorded jumps of 8.17, 8.19 and 8.14 metres, surpassing Kumaravel Premkumar's national record of 8.09 metres set in 2013. He also gained qualification for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro where the qualification standard was 8.15 metres.

Personal life
Sharma is posted as an income tax inspector in Chennai as of June 2016, having been selected by the Income Tax Department in 2015.

References

External links

All-Athletics.com profile

1992 births
Living people
People from Agra district
Athletes from Uttar Pradesh
Indian male long jumpers
Commonwealth Games competitors for India
Athletes (track and field) at the 2010 Commonwealth Games
Athletes (track and field) at the 2010 Asian Games
Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Olympic athletes for India
South Asian Games gold medalists for India
Asian Games competitors for India
South Asian Games medalists in athletics
21st-century Indian people

Ankit Sharma (athlete)


Nick Vernier Band's Sessions is a collaborative album by an ensemble containing notable musicians, such as Probyn Gregory, Gerry Beckley (with Jeffrey Foskett), Matt Malley, Paul Jones, Iain Matthews, Emitt Rhodes, Pizza Delivery Boys, Janaki, The Monkees
, and Iason Chronis, among others. The studio group was initiated by musician and record producer Eric Van Den Brink. The album, officially released on iTunes in April 2010, consists of songs by featured collaborators, as well as original material.

The name "Nick Vernier Band" is an anagram of "Eric Van Den Brink".

Track listing
"I'm Your Kingpin" (Paul Jones, Manfred Mann) – The album's opening track showcases some excellent harmonica playing by Paul Jones. Jones also featured on the original version of this British blues classic. Line-up: Eric Van Den Brink: instruments, vocals / Paul Jones: harmonica / Sal Giorgianni: tenor sax
"I Send Up My Prayer" (Probyn Gregory) – Rich in melody and musical texture, "I Send Up My Prayer" can't help but hint at its Californian origin. A fascinating song, yet very accessible. Line-up: Probyn Gregory: harmonica, lead vocal / Eric Van Den Brink: instruments, background vocals
"Time Will Show The Wiser" (Emitt Rhodes) – Both Emitt Rhodes and Iain Matthews previously recorded this Rhodes-original early on in their careers, the song being starting points as well as signature works for The Merry-Go-Round and Fairport Convention respectively. This new recording unites the two singers in an Indian musical setting. Line-up: Eric Van Den Brink: instruments, vocals / Iain Matthews: lead vocals / Emitt Rhodes: vocals / Matt Malley: mohan veena / Iason Chronis: violin
"Mister Bob" (Eric Van Den Brink, Micky Dolenz, Dave Jones, Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith) – "Mister Bob" features the voices of The Monkees. It's a new song produced under license from Rhino Entertainment, containing vocal samples from the band's recording "Zilch". Line-up: Micky Dolenz: vocal / Davy Jones: vocal / Peter Tork: vocal / Michael Nesmith: vocal / Eric Van Den Brink: instruments, background vocals
"You're Wrong" (Paul Jones) – The first studio rendition of an up-tempo 'foot tapper' previously performed by Paul Jones in concert only. Line-up: Paul Jones: harmonica, vocal / Eric Van Den Brink: instruments
"La Tête Bat" (Eric Van Den Brink, Cucchilou) – Guitars galore and a funky drum track lay the foundation of the French song within this collection. An Oriental flavour surfaces in the song's coda. Line-up: Eric Van Den Brink: instruments, vocals / Abe Laboriel Jr.: drums (courtesy of Spectrasonics) / Chanteuse Girl: vocal / Atsuko Kurokawa: vocal
"Now Sue" (Gerry Beckley) – This piece of 'new millennium Country rock' offers an up-tempo approach to an original ballad by Gerry Beckley, who sings lead here. Also adding his distinguishable vocal touch is Jeffrey Foskett. Line-up: Gerry Beckley: lead vocals, background vocals / Jeffrey Foskett: background vocals / Eric Van Den Brink: instruments, additional background vocals
"On 42nd Street" (Eric Van Den Brink, E.H. Roelfzema) – A jazzy ballad with lyrics by poet E.H. Roelfzema, painting a picture of desolation amid a New York night scene. Line-up: Eric Van Den Brink: instruments, lead vocal / E.H. Roelfzema: harmonica, spoken vocal / Frank Verhey: piano / Carl Fischer: trumpet
"You're Wrong Again" (Paul Jones) – The alternate version of "You're Wrong" sees more of a bluesy, sultry kind of approach to the song. Line-up: Paul Jones: harmonica, vocal / Eric Van Den Brink: instruments
"Agaraga" (E. Van Den Brink; adapted from a Traditional bhajan by Mansur Mastana) – An Indian flavored piece of World/Rave music, offering an interesting fusion of musical blends. Incorporating Hindi vocals, violin, mohan veena and sitars, it ranges 'from devotional to dance'. Line-up: Janaki: vocals / Eric Van Den Brink: instruments / Iason Chronis: violin / Matt Malley: mohan veena
"Bob's Day Off" (Eric Van Den Brink) – An instrumental bonus track. Line-up: Eric Van Den Brink: instruments

Music Publishers: 1: Coppa Music Ltd./EMI Music Publishing Ltd. [prs]; 2: Red Eft Music [bmi]/Brinker Music Publishing [stemra]; 3: Emitt R. Music/Almo Music [ascap]; 4: Brinker Music Publishing [stemra]/Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc. [bmi]; 5 & 9: Hornall Brothers Music Ltd. [prs]; 6, 10 & 11: Brinker Music Publishing [stemra]; 7: Human Nature Music [ascap]; 8: Brinker Music Publishing [stemra]/E.H. Roelfzema [stemra]

All selections: arranged by Eric Van Den Brink, except track 2: arranged by Probyn Gregory and Eric Van Den Brink. Recording engineers include Matt Malley, Julia Wolff, Hank Linderman, Bill Gautier, Coen Berrier, Hank Cicalo, Chip Douglas, and Dan Duskin.

References

External links
Paul Jones
Matt Malley
Iain Matthews
Gerry Beckley
Probyn Gregory
Emitt Rhodes Band
Nick Vernier Band

2010 albums
Collaborative albums
Nick Vernier Band albums

Nick Vernier Band Sessions


Ellerton Oswald White (November 11, 1917, Panama City, Panama - April 28, 1971, New York City), better known as Sonny White, was a jazz pianist.

White took on the nickname Sonny while a member of Jesse Stone's band in the middle of the 1930s. Later in the decade he played with Willie Bryant, Sidney Bechet, Teddy Hill (whose band at the time also included Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke), and Frankie Newton. White recorded several sessions with Billie Holiday, with whom he had a yearlong affair in 1939, and their engagement was announced in Melody Maker that May. White was a member of different line-ups backing Holiday in New York between January 1939 and October 1940, including the classic recording of "Strange Fruit"; in her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday mistakenly credits White with having co-written the music, to a poem by Lewis Allan.

In the 1940s he spent time in the bands of Artie Shaw, Benny Carter, with whom he played both directly before and directly after military service during World War II, and in whose band he would again play with Dizzy Gillespie, Big Joe Turner, Lena Horne, Dexter Gordon (1944–46), and Hot Lips Page (1947). In the 1950s White played with Harvey Davis and then with Wilbur De Paris, remaining with the latter until 1964. In the 1960s he freelanced with Eddie Barefield (1968), among others, and was working with Jonah Jones at the time of his death in 1971.

References

Bibliography
Eugene Chadbourne, [ Sonny White] at Allmusic

1917 births
1971 deaths
American jazz musicians
American jazz pianists
American male pianists
20th-century American pianists
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians
Panamanian emigrants to the United States

Sonny White


Heaven Has No Favorites () is a novel by the German writer Erich Maria Remarque. This novel is a story about passion and love, set in 1948 with a background of automobile racing. Inspired by racing driver Alfonso de Portago.

The novel was serialized in the Hamburg magazine Kristall in 1959 under the title Borrowed Life (), and first published in book form in 1961.

Plot summary
The main figure, Clerfayt, is an automobile racer who goes to a Swiss sanatorium to visit a fellow racer, Hollmann, who has tuberculosis. There he meets the young Belgian woman Lillian suffering from tuberculosis. She is in its terminal stage with no chance of a cure, and she wants to enjoy her last months rather than waiting for her death. She has been talking about leaving the hospital for months and has never gone through with it. This changes when a friend of hers dies in that hospital and she realizes that the corpses aren't named, they're given numbers and treated like cargo. Unwilling to become an unnamed body, she decides to leave the Bela Vista sanatorium with Clerfayt after having gone out with him the night before.

Together they travel over Europe, while Lillian indulges in lavish dresses and food, paid for by her uncle. Eventually they fall in love and Clerfayt starts to hope for a future with her. However, when he expresses his wish to settle down and wants to get her visited by a doctor, she internally realizes that marrying Clerfayt would be to make him a widower within months and refuses the idea. Although she loves him, she decides to leave him before they start an actual life together.
In one race, after the racer in front of him crashes,  Clerfayt is seriously injured and dies in the hospital. Lillian, devastated, returns to Switzerland. On her way there she encounters Hollmann, now healed, who has been offered the former job of Clerfayt. Six weeks later, Lillian dies. It is described as a peaceful moment, as if even the landscape had stopped breathing.

Film adaptation
Bobby Deerfield, a 1977 film based on the novel, starred Al Pacino as automobile racer Bobby Deerfield and Marthe Keller as Lillian Dunkerk.

References

1961 German novels
Novels by Erich Maria Remarque
Novels first published in serial form
Works originally published in German magazines
Novels set in Switzerland
German novels adapted into films
Novels set in the 1940s
Fiction set in 1948

Heaven Has No Favorites


Thale is a 2012 Norwegian supernatural horror film directed and written by Aleksander L. Nordaas. The film was released in Norway on February 17, 2012, with a following worldwide release, sold to over 50 countries.

Plot

Elvis and Leo run a crime scene cleanup business and are hired to clean up after a death, when they discover Thale, a female humanoid creature with a cow's tail that appears to be incapable of human speech, hidden in a basement. Playing a tape left behind by her captor, Elvis and Leo learn of her life in captivity, and that she has been the subject of medical experimentation.  Later, paramilitary soldiers come to recapture Thale. Thale's fellow creatures, hulders that are more satyr-like, come to the rescue and leave Elvis and Leo alive. Thale later rejoins the hulders in the wild.

Cast
 Silje Reinåmo as Thale
 Erlend Nervold as Elvis
 Jon Sigve Skard as Leo
 Morten Andresen as Hvittkledd
 Sunniva Lien as Young Thale

Production
Thale was shot on a budget of $10,000. Aleksander L. Nordaas served as the film's writer, director, co-producer, cinematographer, editor, and the set designer. He built the sets and shot most of the film in his father's basement. Nordaas has published a clip on YouTube where he talks a bit about the process.

Thale lead actress Silje Reinåmo commented that she found the role challenging and that the character's nudity made her "very vulnerable and naked, in the true sense".

Reception
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 55% of eleven critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating was 6.2/10.  Michael Calore of Wired.com called it "a little film" that is "large in scope".  Calore wrote, "And while some of the gentler, emotional material falls flat, Thale (pronounced 'tall-eh') does prod the brain and the heart enough for me to recommend it."  In a mixed review, John Anderson of Variety called it creepy but "too wordy by half, saying what it should be showing." Owen Williams of Empire wrote that the film is "beautifully enigmatic and eerie" and Mark L. Miller of Ain't It Cool News said that it is "a truly unique and amazing film".  John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that film is "intriguing to a point but unable to exploit its mysteries in a satisfying way".  Serena Whitney of Dread Central rated it 2.5/5 stars and wrote, "Although Nordaas does a competent job directing an ambitious low-budget indie creature feature with very little money, the laughable social commentary, failed boo scares and unbelievably cheesy ending make Thale a mediocre, yawn-worthy disappointment."  Noel Murray of The A.V. Club rated it C− and wrote, "Thale takes over an hour to get to where it should be by the end of the first reel. And then it ends."

Thale won the Best Screenplay ifab Award at the  International Film Awards Berlin. It also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and later won the Audience Award at Fantasporto Film Festival.

Sequel
A sequel for Thale is under development. It will be co-produced by Epic Pictures and Yesbox Productions. Nordaas is attached as scriptwriter and director.

References

External links

2012 films
Films directed by Aleksander L. Nordaas
2012 horror films
2012 fantasy films
Norwegian horror films
2010s Norwegian-language films
Films based on Norse mythology

Thale (film)


Admiral of France () is a French title of honour. It is the naval equivalent of Marshal of France and was one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France.

History
The title was created in 1270 by Louis IX of France, during the Eighth Crusade. At the time, it was equivalent to the office of Constable of France. The Admiral was responsible for defending the coasts of Picardy, Normandy, Aunis, and Saintonge. In times of war, it was his responsibility to assemble French merchant ships into a navy. He had to arm, equip, and supply the ships for the course of the war, and give letters of marque to corsairs. In peacetime, he was responsible for the maintenance of the royal fleet (when one existed). He was also responsible for maritime commerce and the merchant fleet.

During the modern era, few admirals were sailors; moreover, with the exception of Claude d'Annebault, none of them actually commanded the fleet. It must be said that the actual power of the admiral was rather small, partly because of the creation of other admirals (the Admiral of the Levant for Provence, the Admiral of Brittany, and the Admiral of the West for Guyenne), and because of the creation of the General of the Galleys and the Secretary of State for the Navy.

The title, like the title of Constable, had much more political importance (which would eventually lead to the suppression of both titles). It was also a lucrative position: the admiral was allocated a part of the fines and confiscations imposed by the admiralty, and he had a right to unclaimed ships and shipwrecks as well as a tenth of the spoils taken in battle. He also had juridical rights, comparable to those exercised by the constable and the marshal. This was known as the , after the seat of the admiralty in Paris. A second headquarters of the admiralty was established at Rouen, and about 50 other headquarters were set up at various other places around the coast of France. These tribunals judged cases dealing with fishing disputes and any crimes committed in the country's ports.

The Admiralty was suppressed in 1627 by Cardinal Richelieu, who had been named to the newly created post of Grand Master of Navigation and who wanted to bring all naval authority under one position. The position was recreated in 1669, but was now only an honorific title. The first new admiral was Louis, Count of Vermandois, who at the time was only 2 years old. Thereafter, only Louis Alexandre, Count of Toulouse involved himself in maritime affairs.

It was suppressed once more in 1791, restored in 1805 in the person of Marshal of France Joachim Murat. Currently, the most recent Admiral of France was François Thomas Tréhouart, in 1869.

This dignity remains fully valid today as a 2005 law article recalls: "The title of Marshal of France and that of Admiral of France, is a dignity in the state."

Admirals

 Florent de Varennes, 1270 – First admiral of France
 Aubert II de Longueval – killed in naval combat in 1283 along the coasts of the Crown of Aragon
 Othon de Torcy, 1296–1297
 Mathieu IV of Montmorency, 1297–1304
 Rainier I of Monaco, Lord of Cagnes, 1304–1314
 Hugues Quiéret, 1335–1340
 Nicolas Béhuchet, 1338–1340
 Antonio Aithone Doria, 1339
 Robert de Houdetot, 1340
 Luis de la Cerda, prince of Fortuna, 1341
 Charles I, Lord of Monaco, 1342
 Pierre Flotte de Revel, March 28, 1345 – 1347
 Jean de Nanteuil, 1347–1356
 vacant 1356–1359
 Enguerran de Mentenay 1359
 Jean "Baudran" de la Heuse, 1359–1368
 François de Perilleux, 1368–1369
 Aymeri VI, Viscount of Narbonne, 1369–1373
 Jean de Vienne, 1373–1396
 Renaud de Trie, lord of Sérifontaine, 1397–1405
 Pierre de Bréban, called Clignet, 1405–1408
 Jacques de Châtillon, lord of Dampierre, 1408–1415
 Robert de Bracquemont, called Robinet, 1417–1418
 Jeannet de Poix, 1418
 Charles de Recourt, viscount of Beauvoir, 1418–1419
 Georges de Beauvoir de Chastellux, 1420
 Louis de Culant, 1421–1437
 André de Laval-Montmorency, lord of Lohéac and baron of Retz, 1437–1439
 Prégent VII de Coëtivy, 1439–1450
 Jean V de Bueil de Montrésor, 1450–1477
 Jean de Montauban, 8 October 1461 – 1466
 Louis de Bourbon, Count of Roussillon, bastard son of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, 1466–1486; legitimated 1463
 Charles II d'Amboise, 1508–1511
 Louis Malet de Graville, 1511–1516
 Guillaume Gouffier, lord of Bonnivet, 1517–1525
 Philippe de Chabot, lord of Brion (called ), count of Charni, 1525–1543
 Claude d'Annebault, 1543–1552
 Gaspard de Coligny, lord of Châtillon-sur-Loing, 1552–1572
 Honorat II de Savoye, Marquess of Villars, 1572–1578
 Charles de Guise, Duke of Mayenne, 1578–1582
 Anne de Joyeuse, 1582–1587
 Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, Duke of Épernon, 1587–1589
 Bernard de Nogaret, lord of La Valette, 1589–1590
 Antoine de Brichanteau, Marquess of Beauvais-Nangis 1589–1592
 Charles de Gontaut, Duke of Biron, 1592–1594
 André de Brancas, Marquess of Villars, 1594–1595
 Charles de Montmorency-Damville, Duke of Damville, 1596–1612
 Henri II de Montmorency, 1612–1626

Grand Masters of Navigation

 Cardinal Richelieu, 1626–1642
 Jean Armand de Maillé-Brézé, 1642–1646
 Anne of Austria, 1646–1650
 César, Duke of Vendôme, 1651–1665

Restoration of the title Admiral of France

 Louis, Count of Vermandois, 1669–1683
 Louis Alexandre, Count of Toulouse, 1683–1737
 Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, Duke of Penthièvre, 1737–1789

Revolutionary and post-revolutionary period
 Charles Hector d'Estaing, 1792 (First Republic)
 Joachim Murat, 1805–1814 (First Empire)
 Louis-Antoine d'Artois, Duke of Angoulême, 1814–1830 (Bourbon Restoration)

July Monarchy, Second Republic and Empire
 Guy-Victor Duperré, 1830
 Laurent Truguet, 1831
 Albin Roussin, 1840–1847
 Ange René Armand, Baron of Mackau, 1847–1854
 Charles Baudin, 1854
 Ferdinand-Alphonse Hamelin, 1854
 Alexandre Ferdinand Parseval-Deschenes, December 2, 1854
 Armand Joseph Bruat, 1855
 Joseph Romain-Desfossés, 1860
 Charles Rigault de Genouilly, 1864
 Léonard Charner, 1864
 François Thomas Tréhouart, 1869

English admirals

Henry VI of England appointed two English aristocrats during the ministrations of Louis de Culant and André de Laval-Montmorency. Accordingly, they were not recognized by the Kingdom of France.

 William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, 1424–1437 (during the ministration of Louis de Culant)
 Edward de Courtenay, 1439 (during the ministration of André de Laval-Montmorency)

References

Sources
 B. Barbiche, Les institutions de la monarchie française à l'époque moderne, Presses universitaires de France, 1999.
 Musée national de Versailles Galeries historiques du Palais de Versailles, book 7, Imprimerie royale, 1842.
 Philippe Le Bas, France dictionnaire encyclopedique, tome 1, A-AZ, 1810.

History of the French Navy
Military ranks of France

Admiral of France


David Lister (18 April 1930 – 13 February 2013) was the world's leading origami historian. He was a founding member of the British Origami Society. He wrote its constitution and served as its first president.

Personal life
Born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, Lister was educated at a state school in Grimsby before earning a degree in history at Downing College, Cambridge. He then worked as a solicitor in Grimsby. Lister had three children and six grandchildren.

Origami
Lister was interested in Origami since he was young, but took it up in earnest in 1955 after seeing Robert Harbin on television in the children's show Mr Left and Mr Right. He corresponded with Lillian Oppenheimer and became a member of the Origami Portfolio Society founded in 1965. In 1967 he was an inaugural member of the British Origami Society and its first president, a position he also held from 1998 to 2002. During his life he built a large library that included 5,000 origami related items. He researched the history of origami and corresponded with most of the founders of modern origami. He became prominent after his retirement when he became increasingly involved in Origami and the British Origami Society. He was considered a world authority on the culture and history of origami, and contributed articles on the history of origami to magazines throughout the world.

He was also interested in string figures, recreational mathematics, heraldry, and Chinese pottery, among other things. The library he put together on his various interests grew to a final size of more than 25,000 books.

References

External links
 The Lister List – A collection of 115 essays by Lister.
 Origami History – Contains more writings by Lister.

Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge
People from Grimsby
1930 births
2013 deaths
Origami artists

David Lister (origami historian)


The Big Blue River Bridge is a National Register of Historic Places-listed bridge located in Fillmore County, Nebraska, near the village of Grafton. The bridge is one of two listed on the Register within Fillmore County, the other being the Deering Bridge. The bridge is a single-span, concrete, spandrel arch facility. The site was first designed by state engineers in 1917, and was constructed in 1918. At the time of the construction, the facility's architectural style was the main bridge design in the state. The bridge still retains all original building materials, and has only undergone slight maintenance since construction. The bridge carries Fillmore County Road 6 over the West Fork of the Big Blue River.

Location and description

The Big Blue River Bridge is located in the Grafton Township, in the northwestern portion of Fillmore County. The bridge is located approximately five miles north and one mile west of the village of Grafton, or approximately  directly northwest of Grafton. The facility is located along Fillmore County Road 6 (CR 6), and is about  from CR 6's northern terminus at County Road 1, and about  north of CR 6's southern terminus at Thayer County Road AA. The site is rectangular shaped, with dimensions of  by , which contains only the bridge.

The Big Blue River Bridge carries CR 6 over the West Fork of the Big Blue River. The bridge is located just west of School Creek's confluence with the river. The facility carries the road's single lane. The bridge consists of a single-span, concrete filled spandrel arch, with a substructure consisting of two abutments and several flared wingwalls. The span has a length of  while the bridge has a total length of . The roadway width along the bridge is . The facility's floor is covered with gravel filled with dirt, the same substance as the surface of the road. The bridge structure also contains a solid, concrete, rectangular parapet.

History

Background
Starting in the early 1900s, Fillmore County began experimenting in designing bridges constructed entirely of concrete. Starting from around 1914, concrete became the exclusive construction material for bridges in the county. The main designs for the concrete bridges were arches and slab spans. This building style remained the main design for the county's bridges until 1920. The style was largely due to the state of Nebraska's reliance on concrete to construct bridges, which was believed to be more durable than steel, which was usually used to construct bridges at the time.

Planning and construction

Fillmore County's reliance on concrete bridges began to decrease when it hired William A. Biba as its county engineer. Biba began experimenting with different bridge designs, and constructed all of the county's bridges until 1931. The first plan for a bridge over the Big Blue River's west fork was drawn up in June 1917. The bridge consisted of a single concrete arch  in length, which would pass between Grafton Township's Sections 1 and 2. However, no documentation exists to show that the bridge was constructed. In early May 1918, the plan was introduced for the construction of the Big Blue River Bridge, engineered by Biba. The plan was approved by the County Commissioners Court later that month, and awarded a $4,250 contract (equivalent to $ respectively in ) to local contractor Frank N. Craven. He constructed the bridge later that year. Aside from minor maintenance repairs, the bridge has remained unaltered since its construction, and continues to carry vehicular traffic. Its condition is considered "good".

Significance
The Big Blue River Bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on June 29, 1992. The bridge was nominated under national register criteria C, relating to design and construction. The facility's historic significance is architecture and engineering with an area of significance under engineering. Its historic function is considered to be road-related transportation. The bridge's period of significance is 1918, with a significant date of 1918. The facility is considered to be the best example of about 30 concrete bridges constructed by Biba which remain, and is considered technologically significant due to the fact that it "retains a high degree of integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association". It was one of the first designed by Biba.

See also

 National Register of Historic Places listings in Fillmore County, Nebraska
 List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska

References
Footnotes

Bibliography

External links

Road bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska
Bridges completed in 1918
National Register of Historic Places in Fillmore County, Nebraska
Arch bridges in the United States
Concrete bridges in the United States
Buildings and structures in Fillmore County, Nebraska

Big Blue River Bridge (Grafton, Nebraska)


Adolf Bruno Behne (13 July 1885 – 22 August 1948) was a German critic, art historian, architectural writer, and artistic activist. He was one of the leaders of the Avant Garde in the Weimar Republic.

Behne was born in Magdeburg and studied architecture briefly, then the history of art in Berlin. He joined the Deutscher Werkbund and was a guiding light of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst in 1918. In a 1913 critique of Bruno Taut, Behne helped coin the term "Expressionist architecture", and soon became one of the leading promoters of expressionism. He was close to the members of the Magdeburg artist collective 'The ball' and demanded the creation of a new closeness between art and architecture. He was influenced by the writings of Jakob von Uexküll.  He taught at the University of Berlin until 1933 when the Nazis banned him from teaching. Between 1945 and 1948 he was a professor at the National University for Fine Arts, (Staatlichen Hochschule für Bildende Kunst Berlin) and belonged to the architect group Der Ring.

As an architect he rarely had his projects executed. However, between 1932 and 1936 he built the reception building of the main station in Düsseldorf.

He died in Berlin. His hometown of Magdeburg named a street after him (Behneweg).

Selected Literature

 Behne, Adolf 1913. Bruno Taut. Pan 3(23) (7 March 1913): 538–540.
 Behne, Adolf 1914–1915. Biologie und Kubismus. Der Sturm 5(11/12), 68–71.
 Behne, Adolf 1919. .  Kurt Wolff, Leipzig.  Reprint: Kraus, Nendeln/Liechtenstein, 1973; Gebr. Mann, Berlin, 1998.
 Behne, Adolf 1926. . Drei Masken Verlag, Vienna/Berlin.  Reprint: Der moderne Zweckbau. Ullstein Bauwelt Fundamente, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin, 1964; and Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 1998. Translated as Modern Functional Building, ed. & intro. Rosemarie H. Bletter. Getty, Oxford UP, Santa Monica, 1996.
 Behne, Adolf 1927. . Hesse & Becker, Leipzig.
 Behne, Adolf 1928. . Stuttgart. Neuausgabe Berlin 1984
 Behne, Adolf 1994. . Herausgegeben von Haila Ochs. Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhäuser-Architektur-Bibliothek.
 Behne, Adolf 1998.  . Ed. & postscript Cornelia Briel. Berlin: Gebr. Mann.
 Bohm, Arnd 1993. Artful Reproduction: Benjamin's Appropriation of Adolf Behne's `' in the Kunstwerk Essay. The Germanic Review 68(4): 146–155.
 Bushart, Magdalena, ed.  2000. . Berlin: Gebr. Mann.
 Gutschow, Kai Konstanty 2005. "The culture of criticism: Adolf Behne and the development of modern architecture in Germany, 1910–1914." Ph.D. diss., Columbia University.
 Lindner, Bernd 1992. 'Auf diesen Berg...' Adolf Behne – Vermitter der Moderne. In: , ed. Henrike Junge. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, pp. 7–15.
 Mertins, Detlef 1997.  Transparencies Yet to Come: Sigfried Giedion and Adolf Behne. A + U 10(325) (Oct. 1997): 3–17.
 Schwartz, Frederic J.  1998. Form Follows Fetish: Adolf Behne and the Problem of Sachlichkeit. Oxford Art Journal 21(2): 45–77.

References

External links

 Genealogy of Adolf Behne

1885 births
1948 deaths
German architecture writers
Architectural theoreticians
Expressionist architects
Architects from Magdeburg
People from the Province of Saxony
German male non-fiction writers
20th-century German architects

Adolf Behne


Higher-order volitions (or higher-order desire), as opposed to action-determining volitions, are volitions about volitions. Higher-order volitions are potentially more often guided by long-term beliefs and reasoning. A higher-order volition can go unfulfilled due to uncontrolled lower-order volitions.

The philosopher John Locke already claimed that free will was the ability to stop before making a decision, to consider what would be best to do, and the ability to decide and act based on the outcome of that thinking, which could be seen as equivalent to forming a higher-order volition. Locke concludes that when it comes to "chusing a remote [i.e., future] Good as an end to be pursued", agents are "at Liberty in respect of willing" and that "in [the power to suspend the prosecution of one's desires] lies the liberty Man has", that the power to suspend is "the source of all liberty".

Prof. Dr. Regine Kather does not see free will as a condition, but as a lifelong process, fitting the view that free will arises from the presence of higher-order volitions in each new situation. Prof. Dr. Ansgar Beckermann and Prof. Dr. Regine Kather both address the connection between consciousness and free will: Consciousness has the quantum noise of physical processes as an input variable and the repetition of learned behavior as a central functional principle. Free will emerges only through intelligent metacognition, i.e. the application of higher-order volitions to one's own intentions to act and thus the ethical control of one's own impulsiveness, which cannot represent free will if, according to Beckermann, "it is based on neural processes in the brain that take place before I even form the intention of wanting to do something", or, according to Kather, the human being decides under concrete conditions and in the light of ethical principles, whereby the human being, through the specific form of consciousness, can consider the goals and reasons for its actions and thus gain greater freedom than is already found in the animal kingdom.

An example for a failure to follow higher-order volitions is the drug addict who takes drugs even though they would like to quit taking drugs. According to Harry Frankfurt the drug addict has established free will when their higher-order volition to stop wanting drugs determines the precedence of their changing, action-determining desires either to take drugs or not to take drugs.

John Locke argues that if the will were determined by the perceived greater good, every agent would be consistently focused on the attainment of "the infinite eternal Joys of Heaven", which consequently would be the topmost higher-order voliton to win Pascal's wager, corresponding to the drug addict's desire to survive his drug addiction.

The concept of higher-order voltions goes back to the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, who used it to explain free will independently of determinism, of the thesis that what happens in the world is determined by predictable natural laws, which is however made unplausible by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and resulting quantum noise. But even if the world were governed by such laws, one could be free in the sense that higher-order volitions determined the primacy of first-order desires. This view is called compatibilism.

See also
 Akrasia
 Meta-emotion

References

Free will
Motivation

Higher-order volition


Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu, 1st Count of la Cierva (; 21 September 1895 – 9 December 1936) was a Spanish civil engineer, pilot and a self-taught aeronautical engineer. His most famous accomplishment was the invention in 1920 of a rotorcraft called Autogiro, a single-rotor type of aircraft that came to be called autogyro in the English language. In 1923, after four years of experimentation, De la Cierva developed the articulated rotor, which resulted in the world's first successful flight of a stable rotary-wing aircraft, with his C.4 prototype.

Early life
Juan de la Cierva was born to a wealthy, aristocratic Spanish family, and for a time his father was the war minister. At the age of eight he was spending his pocket money with his friends on experiments with gliders in one of his father's work sheds. In their teens they constructed an aeroplane from the wreckage they had bought from a French aviator who had crashed the plane. The final aeroplane used wood from a Spanish bar counter for the propeller. He eventually earned a civil engineering degree and after building and testing the first successful autogyro, moved to the United Kingdom in 1925, where, with the support of Scottish industrialist James G. Weir, he established the Cierva Autogiro Company.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, De la Cierva supported the Nationalist coalition forces, helping the rebels to obtain the De Havilland DH-89 'Dragon Rapide' which flew General Franco from the Canary Islands to Spanish Morocco. His brother was summarily executed by the Republican army in Paracuellos del Jarama.

The gyroplane (autogyro)
De la Cierva started building the aircraft in 1912. In 1914 he designed and built a tri-motor aeroplane which was accepted by the Spanish government. In 1919 he started to consider the use of a rotor to generate lift at low airspeed, and eliminate the risk of stall.

In order to achieve this, he used the ability of a lifting rotor to autorotate, whereby at a suitable pitch setting, a rotor will continue to rotate without mechanical drive, sustained by the torque equilibrium of the lift and drag forces acting on the blades. This phenomenon was already known, and was available as a safety feature to allow controlled descent of a helicopter in the event of engine failure. With De la Cierva's autogyro, the rotor was drawn through the air by means of a conventional propeller, with the result that the rotor generated sufficient lift to sustain level flight, climb and descent.

Before this could be satisfactorily achieved, De la Cierva experienced several failures primarily associated with the unbalanced rolling movement generated when attempting take-off, due to dissymmetry of lift between the advancing and retreating blades. This major difficulty was resolved by the introduction of the flapping hinge. In 1923, De la Cierva's first successful autogyro was flown at Getafe aerodrome in Spain by Lt. Gomez Spencer.

This pioneering work was carried out in De la Cierva's native Spain. In 1925 he brought his C.6 to Britain and demonstrated it to the Air Ministry at Farnborough, Hampshire. This machine had a four blade rotor with flapping hinges but relied upon conventional airplane controls for pitch, roll and yaw. It was based upon an Avro 504K fuselage, initial rotation of the rotor was achieved by the rapid uncoiling of a rope passed around stops on the undersides of the blades.

The Farnborough demonstration was a great success, and resulted in an invitation to continue the work in the UK. As a direct result, and with the assistance of the Scottish industrialist James George Weir, the Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd., was formed the following year. From the outset De la Cierva concentrated upon the design and the manufacture of rotor systems, relying on other established aircraft manufacturers to produce the airframes, predominantly the A.V. Roe Company.

The Avro built C.8 was a refinement of the C.6, with the more powerful 180hp Lynx radial engine, and several C.8s were built. The C.8R incorporated drag hinges, due to blade flapping motion causing high blade root stresses in the rotor plane of rotation; this modification resulted in other problems such as ground resonance for which drag hinge dampers were fitted.

The resolution of these fundamental rotor problems opened the way to progress, confidence built up rapidly, and after several cross-country flights a C.8L4 was entered for the 1928 Kings Cup Air Race. Although forced to withdraw, the C.8L4 subsequently completed a  tour of the British Isles. Later that year it flew from London to Paris thus becoming the first rotating wing aircraft to cross the English Channel. The tour was subsequently extended to include Berlin, Brussels and Amsterdam.

A predominant problem with the autogyro was driving the rotor prior to takeoff. Several methods were attempted in addition to the coiled rope system, which could take the rotor speed to 50% of that required, at which point movement along the ground to reach flying speed was necessary, while tilting the rotor to establish autorotation.

Another approach was to tilt the tail stabiliser to deflect engine slipstream up through the rotor. The most acceptable solution was finally achieved with the C.19 Mk.4, which was produced in some quantities; a direct drive from the engine to the rotor was fitted, through which the rotor could be accelerated up to speed. The system was then declutched prior to executing the take-off run.

As De la Cierva's autogyros achieved success and acceptance, others began to follow and with them came further innovation. Most important was the development of direct rotor control through cyclic pitch variation, achieved initially by tilting the rotor hub and subsequently by Raoul Hafner by the application of a spider mechanism that acted directly on each rotor blade. The first production direct control autogyro was the C.30, produced in quantity by Avro, Liore et Olivier, and Focke-Wulf. This machine allowed for change of motion in any direction – upwards, downwards or sideways – by the tilting of the horizontal rotors and also effected a minimising of some of controls used in more conventional aircraft of the period. Development of cyclic pitch variation was also influenced by the Dutch helicopter pioneer Albert Gillis von Baumhauer, who adopted swashplate principle in his designs and probably influenced Cierva in their meeting in 1928.

The introduction of jump take-off was another major improvement in capability. The rotor was accelerated in no-lift pitch until the rotor speed required for flight was achieved, and then declutched. The loss of torque caused the blades to swing forward on angled drag hinges with a resultant increase in collective pitch, causing the aircraft to leap into the air. With all the engine power now applied to the forward thrusting propeller, it was now possible to continue in forward flight with the rotor in autorotation.

The C.40 was the first production jump takeoff autogyro.

Autogyros were built in many countries under De la Cierva licences, including France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States.

De la Cierva's motivation was to produce an aircraft that would not stall but near the end of his life he accepted the advantages offered by the helicopter and began the initial work towards that end. In 1936 the Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd. responded to a British Air Ministry specification for a Royal Navy helicopter with the gyrodyne.

Death

On the morning of 9 December 1936, he boarded a Dutch DC-2 of KLM at Croydon Airfield, bound for Amsterdam. After delay caused by heavy fog, the airliner took off at about 10:30 am but drifted slightly off course after takeoff and exploded after flying into a house on gently rising terrain to the south of the airport, killing 15 people, among them de la Cierva.

Legacy
Juan de la Cierva's work on rotor-wing dynamics made possible the modern helicopter, whose development as a practical means of flight had been prevented by a lack of understanding of these matters. The understanding that he established is applicable to all rotor-winged aircraft; though lacking true vertical flight capability, work on the autogyro forms the basis for helicopter analysis.

De la Cierva's death in an aeroplane crash in December 1936 prevented him from fulfilling his recent decision to build a useful and reliable aircraft capable of true vertical flight for the Royal Navy, but it was his work on the autogyro that was used to achieve this goal. Technology developed for the autogyro was used in the development of the experimental Fw 61 helicopter, which was flown in 1936 by Cierva Autogiro Company licensee Focke-Achgelis. His pioneering work also led to the development of a third type of rotorcraft, the gyrodyne, a concept of his former technical assistant and successor as chief technical officer of the Cierva Autogyro Company, Dr. James Allan Jamieson Bennett.

In 1966, Juan de la Cierva was inducted into the International Aerospace Hall of Fame for his innovation in rotor blade technology, using them to generate lift and to control the aircraft's altitude with precision. The Juan de la Cierva scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Science in named after him.

See also
Cierva C.1
Cierva C.2
Cierva C.3
Cierva C.4
Cierva C.6
Cierva C.8
Cierva C.9
Cierva C.12
Cierva C.17
Cierva C.19
Cierva C.24
Cierva Air Horse
Cierva W.9
Cierva CR Twin

References

Further reading
 Brooks, Peter W.: Cierva Autogiros. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1988
 Ord-Hume, Arthur W. J. G. (2011) Juan de la Cierva and his Autogiros. Catrine, Ayrshire:Stenlake Publishing

External links
Juan de la Cierva
History of the autogyro and gyrodyne
Cierva, Pitcairn and the Legacy of Rotary-Wing Flight
U.S. Centennial of Flight – Juan de la Cierva
"It is Easy to Fly Autogiro Declares Inventor" Popular Mechanics, January 1930 p. 45 and see drawings by scrolling up to p. 44

|-

1895 births
1936 deaths
Aerospace engineers
Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in England
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1936
Counts of Spain
Francoist Spain
20th-century Spanish engineers
Spanish aviation pioneers
Spanish inventors
Aircraft designers
Fellows of the Royal Aeronautical Society
Members of the Early Birds of Aviation
People from Murcia
Spanish people of the Spanish Civil War (National faction)
Accidental deaths in London
Burials at Cementerio de la Almudena
People educated at Instituto San Isidro
Spanish scientists

Juan de la Cierva


Max Beloff, Baron Beloff,  (2 July 1913 – 22 March 1999) was a British historian and Conservative peer.  From 1974 to 1979 he was principal of the University College of Buckingham, now the University of Buckingham.

Early life
Beloff was born on 2 July 1913 at 21 York House, Fieldway Crescent, Islington, London and was the oldest child of a Jewish family who had moved to England in 1903 from Russia. He was the elder son in a family of five children of merchant Semion (Simon) Beloff (born Semion Rubinowicz) and his wife Maria (Marie) Katzin. His sister Anne later married German-born Nobel Prize–winning biochemist Ernst Boris Chain in 1948. His sister Renee Soskin was a politician and educationalist. His other sister Nora Beloff was a journalist and political correspondent. His brother was the psychologist John Beloff. His paternal great-grandmother was Leah Horowitz-Winograd, the sister Eliyahu Shlomo Horowitz-Winograd and a descendant of the Hasidic master, Shmelke Horowitz of Nikolsburg (1726-1778). The young Beloff was educated at St Paul's School, and then studied Modern History at Corpus Christi College, Oxford where he graduated with first-class honours. (Scholar; MA; Honorary Fellow, 1993).

Politics
In his 1992 autobiographical work A Historian in the Twentieth Century Beloff discusses his political journey. He had been at school a conservative, was then attracted to socialism once at university and became a liberal after the Second World War. In 1962, during public debate of the case for a referendum on whether to join the European Economic Community, he argued that a referendum is not meaningful unless clear alternatives are set before the electorate; in the absence of such clarity, "the electorate would... be doing no more than indicating a very general bias one way or another" ('"The Case against a Referendumˮ", The Observer, 21 October 1962, p. 11).

In the debate about educational standards in the 1960s, he found the Labour government hostile to his idea of a university outside the state-financed framework and felt the Liberal Party was "moving increasingly to the left". That inclined him to join the Conservative Party upon his retirement in 1979.

He received a knighthood in 1980, and on 26 May 1981 he was created a life peer, taking the title Baron Beloff, of Wolvercote in the County of Oxfordshire. He spoke often on educational and constitutional matters in the House of Lords and, outside of the chamber, continued to write. He was a strong Eurosceptic and argued that Britain's history made it incompatible with membership of the European Union, which led to him writing Britain and European Union: Dialogue of the Deaf, published in 1996.

In 1990 Lord Beloff was one of the leading historians behind the setting up of the History Curriculum Association. The Association advocated a more knowledge-based history curriculum in schools. It expressed "profound disquiet" at the way history was being taught in the classroom and observed that the integrity of history was threatened.  In a House of Lords debate on 21 July 1989 he supported the two Lewes teachers, Chris McGovern and Dr Anthony Freeman who suffered redeployment following  their criticism of the academic quality of the what was then the new GCSE examination.

He was a strong opponent of New Labour's House of Lords Bill and gave many speeches in the chamber defending the hereditary principle; however, he died before the bill was passed. He gave his final speech in the House of Lords on 22 March 1999, the day he died.

Career
 Junior Research Fellow, Corpus Christi College, 1937
 Assistant Lecturer in History, Manchester University, 1939–46
World War II service: Royal Corps of Signals, 1940–41.
 Nuffield Reader in Comparative Study of Institutions, Oxford University, 1946–56

In 1954, he delivered the Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History at Johns Hopkins University for that year, with the lectures later published as Foreign Policy and the Democratic Process.

 Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, 1947–57
 Gladstone Professor of Government and Public Administration, Oxford University, 1957–74, then Professor Emeritus
 Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, 1957–74, Emeritus Fellow, 1980–99
 Supernumerary Fellow, St Antony's College, Oxford, 1975–84
 Principal, University College of Buckingham, 1974–79
 Honorary Professor, St Andrews University, 1993–98.

He became governor of the University of Haifa, and was knighted in 1980 and elevated to a life peerage with the title Baron Beloff, of Wolvercote in the County of Oxfordshire on 26 May 1981. After his death the University of Buckingham established 'The Max Beloff Centre for the Study of Liberty' in January 2005.

Works
Public order and popular disturbances 1660–1714 (1938).
The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1929–41 (2 volumes) (1947/1949).
Thomas Jefferson and American Democracy (1948).
Soviet Policy in the Far East, 1944–51 (1953).
The Age of Absolutism, 1660–1815 (1954).
Foreign Policy and the Democratic Press (1955).
Europe and the Europeans (1957).
The Great Powers (1959).
New Dimensions in Foreign Policy (1961).
The United States and the Unity of Europe (1963).
The Balance of Power (1968).
Imperial Sunset-Volume 1: Britain's Liberal Empire 1897–1921 (1969).
The American Federal Government (1969).
The Future of British Foreign Policy (1969).
The Intellectual in Politics (1970).
The Tide of Collectivism- Can it be Turned? (1978).
The State and its servants (1979).
The Government of the United Kingdom (with Gillian Peele) (1980).
Wars and Welfare: Britain, 1941–1945 (1984).
Imperial Sunset-Volume 2: Dream of Commonwealth 1921–42 (1989).
An Historian in the Twentieth Century (1992).
Britain and European Union: Dialogue of the Deaf (1996).

Works edited by Beloff include:
History: Mankind and his story (1948).
The Federalist (1948).
The Debate on the American Revolution, 1761–1783 (1949).
Europe and the Europeans: an International Discussion (1957).
On the track of tyranny: essays presented by the Wiener Library to Leonard G. Montefiore (1960).
American Political Institutions in the 1970s (with Vivian Vale) (1975).
Beyond the Soviet Union: the fragmentation of power (1997).

References

Sources
 Hutchinson's Encyclopaedia of Britain
 Who was Who
 The Times, 24 March 1999, p23
Cameron-Watt, D. (2004) 'Max Beloff', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Crick, B. (1999) 'Loose and loud cannon', The Guardian, 25 March.
Johnson, N. (1999) 'Obituary: Max Beloff', The Independent, 26 March.
Johnson, N. (2003) 'Max Beloff, 1913–1999', Proceedings of the British Academy: Vol. 120, pp21–40.

External links

1913 births
1999 deaths
20th-century English historians
Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Max
British Army personnel of World War II
British Jews
British people of Russian-Jewish descent
Beloff, Max Beloff, Baron
Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford
Fellows of the British Academy
Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Historical Society
Gladstone Professors of Government
Jewish British politicians
Knights Bachelor
People associated with the University of Buckingham
People educated at St Paul's School, London
Royal Corps of Signals officers
Life peers created by Elizabeth II

Max Beloff, Baron Beloff


Wrongful trading is a type of civil wrong found in UK insolvency law, under Section 214 Insolvency Act 1986. It was introduced to enable contributions to be obtained for the benefit of creditors from those responsible for mismanagement of the insolvent company.  Under Australian insolvency law the equivalent concept is called "insolvent trading".

The Insolvency Act 1986
The principle of wrongful trading was introduced in the Insolvency Act 1986, to complement the concept of fraudulent trading. Unlike fraudulent trading, wrongful trading needs no finding of 'intent to defraud' (which requires a heavy burden of proof).  Wrongful trading is therefore a less serious, and more common offence than fraudulent trading.

Under UK insolvency law, wrongful trading occurs when the directors of a company have continued to trade a company past the point when they:

"knew, or ought to have concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation"; and
they did not take "every step with a view to minimising the potential loss to the company's creditors".

Wrongful trading is an action that can be brought only by a company's liquidator, once it has gone into insolvent liquidation.  (This may be either a voluntary liquidation - known as Creditors Voluntary Liquidation, or compulsory liquidation).  It is not available to the directors of a company while it continues in existence, or to other insolvency office-holders such as an administrator.

A limited company becomes insolvent when it can no longer pay its bills when due, or when its liabilities, including contingent liabilities such as redundancy payments, outweigh the company's assets. This is a critical point in the lifespan of a company as it denotes when the directors responsibilities change from protecting the interests of the shareholders to protecting those of the creditors. It also means that the directors need to be extremely careful when considering whether to continue to trade, or not. Any director who knows that the company is insolvent and makes the decision to continue to trade, and in doing so increases the debts of the company can be made liable for the company debts.

Who may be liable?
Section 214 Insolvency Act 1986 has very wide scope, since it applies not only to de jure directors (that is directors who were formally appointed and their appointment was registered with Companies House. It can apply to de facto directors (that is people who assumed the role of director of a company without being appointed), or shadow directors (that is people in accordance with whose direction the de jure directors were accustomed to act.

Initially, there was uncertainty among banks and insolvency and restructuring professionals who assisted and advised companies facing insolvency that they may be caught by the wrongful trading provisions.  This has not proved to be the case (as of July 2006), and professionals are unlikely to be covered by these provisions except in exceptional circumstances.

What is expected of directors?

In order to establish liability, the liquidator needs to demonstrate, using the civil burden of proof (i.e. on the balance of probabilities) that the directors continued trading the company beyond a point in time when they knew, or ought to have ascertained, that insolvent liquidation was inevitable.

The facts a director ought to have known were those a reasonably diligent person—having both the skill and experience possessed by a reasonable director — together with the skill and experience actually possessed by that individual. This means that there is a two-fold test for knowledge.  There is a general level of skill required for all directors under the first part of the test.  Under the second, a higher standard of knowledge is required by those with specialist skills. (These are likely to be accounting or legal skills).   This principle has been confirmed in a 1999 case where an executive husband had to pay £210,000 to the liquidator compared with his non-executive wife's £50,000.

The normal approach to wrongful trading actions is that the liquidator will try to establish a date at which the company can be shown to be balance sheet insolvent, and then show why it was unreasonable for directors to continue to trade after this. In the UK, and contrary to many misconceptions, it is not an offence to trade a company while it is insolvent.  Indeed, in some situations, if the directors genuinely believe that the position will be turned around and the position of creditors will improve, it is the correct thing to do. When it becomes wrongful trading is when it should have been realised that the position of the creditors was likely to deteriorate from that position onwards and that the company would proceed into liquidation. Once a director realises that his or her company is insolvent, one important thing for him to do is to seek immediate professional advice from a licensed insolvency practitioner. All directors who continue as directors of a company trading while insolvent may face disqualification under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.  Under the provision of this act, when a company goes into liquidation, the liquidator must make a report to the Disqualification Unit of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on the conduct of all directors.

Many legal systems (including English law) recognise the blue sky defence; which broadly provides that, if the directors, in good faith, believed the company was about to turn the corner and improve, they would not normally be held liable for continuing to trade. Liability only attaches when the company has no realistic prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation.

The amount of the award
The Court has wide discretion over the contribution that it can require.  Traditionally this has been compensatory, rather than punitive.  The starting point for assessing the appropriate amount was the difference between the net assets of the company at the date that the directors should not have traded beyond, and the net assets at the date of liquidation.

The Court however has wide discretion, and may award just a percentage of this.  It awarded 70% of the drop in net assets in Re Brian D Pierson (Contractors) Ltd [1999] BCC 903.  This was on the basis of the judge's "guesstimate" that 70% of the drop in net assets was due to the actions of the directors, and 30% could be attributed to extraneous causes.

Barriers to wrongful trading actions
It was thought prior to 1997 that the amount paid by a director following a wrongful trading claim was simply paid to the liquidator and it became available to swell the assets of the company generally.  In most instances there would have been substantial bank borrowings  secured by a debenture and personal guarantees given by the directors.  Many directors chose not to fight the claims, reasoning that any amounts paid to company (hence the bank under its mortgage security) via a wrongful trading claim, simply reduced the director's liability under their personal guarantees.  It was therefore irrelevant how the directors repaid the bank. This changed with the Court of Appeal's decision in 1998 that a claim for wrongful (or fraudulent) trading, is different from a normal 'asset' of the company.  In particular, it held that such claim cannot be secured by a debenture.  The Court held that the fruits of a claim for wrongful trading are instead held in trust by the liquidation for the general body of unsecured creditors.  It then followed that the costs of a wrongful trading action could not be drawn from the company's assets held by the liquidator, and fell to be paid personally either by the liquidator (which he would not do), or would require a unanimous decision of unsecured creditors.  The position has now been clarified with the Enterprise Act 2002 changing the law to allow the costs of wrongful trading actions to be included as a cost of the liquidation.  These can be met from the company's assets.

As is often the case, a company in liquidation has no assets with which to bring an action for wrongful trading. How can the liquidator bring, or fund an action?  Can the liquidator sell or assign the claim to a specialist litigation company?

Because a claim for wrongful trading is a personal action brought by the liquidator,  it follows that if it is unsuccessful, the liquidator is personally liable for the legal costs of the defendants. This was found to be the case following a 5 months trial in which the liquidator of Continental Assurance Company of London plc sued a number of its directors.  Although the costs of an action (whether successful or otherwise) can now be properly paid by the liquidator out of company assets where there are adequate funds available, the House of Lords in 2004 altered the hitherto accepted priority of costs in a liquidation, making the liquidator's costs (including the legal costs of a wrongful trading action) rank last in priority behind both preferential creditors and the sums due to debenture holders. The decisions in Continental Assurance and Leyland Daf make wrongful trading actions unattractive to liquidators.

It is now usual practice for liquidators to enter into conditional fee arrangements with lawyers and have insurance against adverse costs in place in the event that he is unsuccessful (although the Ministry of Justice has announced that an exemption allowing these arrangements will end in April 2016). The liquidator is able to assign the action regardless of the normal rules relating to champerty and maintenance. (He is empowered by statute to sell any of the company's property).  As an alternative, there are commercial litigation funding organisations that take over management and funding of the entire claim, and pay the liquidators a percentage of recoveries.

See also
Trading while insolvent
Fraudulent trading
Insolvency
Liquidation

Case list
Re Produce Marketing Consortium Ltd (No 2) [1989] 5 BCC 569
Re Purpoint Ltd [1991] BCLC 491
Re Oasis Merchandising Services Ltd [1998] Ch 170
Re Brian D Pierson (Contractors) Ltd [2001] 1 BCLC 275
Re Continental Assurance Co of London plc (Singer v Beckett) [2001] BPIR 733, Ch D, [2007] 2 BCLC 287
Re Cubelock Ltd [2001] BCC 523

Notes

External links
 Outside Funding of Insolvency Litigation - Pitfalls and Progress
Wrongful Trading Or Insolvent Trading: Which Is The Unlawful Act That You Could Be Personally Liable For?

United Kingdom company law
Insolvency law of the United Kingdom

Wrongful trading


Douglas Cordovez Quijano (July 24, 1944 – June 13, 2009) was a Filipino talent manager. He was credited for "discovering and developing some of the Philippine local entertainment industry's biggest stars."

Life and career
Quijano born on July 24, 1944, in Lanao del Norte. He was the oldest of six siblings. In the late 1960s, he became a columnist and writer at the Daily Star, a local tabloid paper. He started his career as a talent manager handling veteran actor Tirso Cruz III and the superstar Nora Aunor. Quijano then helped Lily Monteverde establish Regal Films, a filmmaking and entertainment firm producing various movies such as Scorpio Nights and Shake, Rattle, and Roll. He also established the production company Sine Filipino and became a major producer and handler of MAQ Productions.

In 1999, Quijano was awarded the Dr. Jose Perez Memorial Award from the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences.

Quijano participated in the production of over 140 television shows and movies including the recent Starstruck: The Next Level (2006) and Happily Ever After (2005). He was a talent manager in GMA Network his best friend was Lolit Solis. Quijano was a judge on the TV series StarStruck. He served as a consultant for YES! Magazine, a local showbiz publication, and Philippine Entertainment Portal (PEP), an online tracker of various showbiz news and events.

Before his death, he was the business manager of Richard Gutierrez' product endorsements.

Death
Quijano died on 13 June 2009 of a heart attack.

References

External links

1944 births
2009 deaths
People from Lanao del Norte
People from Quezon
University of Santo Tomas alumni
Complutense University of Madrid alumni
Heidelberg University alumni
GMA Network (company) people
20th-century Filipino LGBT people
21st-century Filipino LGBT people

Douglas Quijano


David McGregor Rogers (November 23, 1772 – July 18, 1824) was a farmer and Member of the 2nd Parliament of Upper Canada.

He was born in Londonderry, Vermont, in 1772. the third son and second David born to Capt. James Rogers and Margaret McGregor, the first David having died at the age of four in 1766. He was named after his great-grandfather Rev. David McGregor of Londonderry, New Hampshire. He settled with his family in Fredericksburg Township in Lennox County after the American Revolution. His uncle, Major Robert Rogers, led a group known as Rogers' Rangers during the Seven Years' War. In 1789, Rogers settled on his own farm in Prince Edward County. In 1796, he was elected to the 2nd Parliament of Upper Canada representing Prince Edward County. In 1800, he was elected to represent Hastings and Northumberland; he served in the assembly until 1816 and then from 1820 to 1824. He served in the local militia and also served as clerk in the district court. He also served as justice of the peace in the Newcastle District. In 1808, with Thomas Dorland and Peter Howard, he left the assembly to protest an attempt by the government to speed passage of an amendment to the District Schools Act. Lieutenant Governor Sir Francis Gore attempted to punish Rogers for this action but Rogers' actions were upheld on review and he returned to Parliament in 1820.

In 1802 he married Sarah Playter and after her death in 1810 he married her widowed sister Elizabeth.

In 1824 he was reelected and died on election day. He is buried in St George's Anglican Church Cemetery in Grafton in Haldimand Township.

External links
Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
 Descendants of James Rogers, Father of the Rangers. Contains descendants of Robert Rogers, James Rogers, Samuel Rogers and his other siblings Including David McGregor Rogers and his descendants.

1772 births
1824 deaths
People from Londonderry, Vermont
Members of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada

David McGregor Rogers


Lady Elaine Marsh-Morton, a.k.a. "Lady Vic" or "Lady Victim" is a character in the DC Comics universe. She is an English noblewoman who works secretly as an assassin, bounty hunter, and mercenary. She is employed on a semi-regular basis by Roland Desmond and appears most frequently as an antagonist of Nightwing (Dick Grayson).

Her sobriquet "Lady Vic" is short for "Lady Victim", referring to any of her possible targets.

Lady Vic appeared in the third season of Titans, portrayed by Kimberly-Sue Murray.

Publication history
Lady Vic first appeared in Nightwing (vol. 2) #4 and was created by Chuck Dixon and Scott McDaniel.

Fictional character biography
Lady Elaine is descended from a long line of British soldiers and mercenaries, and a genuine English aristocrat. The money she earns from her secret career helps prevent foreclosure on her impoverished family estate.

She completes an assignment for Blüdhaven gang boss Antonio "Angel" Marin and returns to Blüdhaven to collect her fee, and is upset to find Marin missing. She tracks down Marin's lawyer and threatens to kill his young daughter if she isn't paid—a threat she definitely would have carried out if Nightwing had not intervened. Dudley Soames informs her that Marin had been replaced by Blockbuster and offers to pay her fee, with a retainer to continue working for him.

Elaine is one of Blockbuster's hirelings tasked with tracking down Oracle. When Blockbuster was dying of heart failure, Elaine is entrusted with locating Gorilla City in Africa, and finding a replacement heart.

Lady Vic is sent to eliminate Tarantula, Blockbuster's latest ally, when Tarantula had disobeyed his orders. Tarantula defeats Lady Vic, shooting her in the stomach.

During the Infinite Crisis, Lady Vic appeared as a member of Alexander Luthor Jr.'s Secret Society of Super Villains.

One Year Later, Lady Vic is hired by Doctor Psycho and Cheshire in an attempt to destroy the Secret Six. Together with Double Dare, she faces Deadshot in a park with his wife and child, who run away once the attackers appear. Unarmed, Deadshot is easily defeated by Double Dare and is about to be executed by Lady Vic when his wife throws him a gun, allowing him to get the upper hand. Deadshot considers killing his would-be assassins but allows them to escape, not wanting to shoot them in front of his daughter.

When not on a job, she rests easy in the company of her hulking manservant Bivens. Her drink of choice is Darjeeling tea. More recently, she was seen among the new Injustice League and is one of the villains featured in Salvation Run. She also appears chasing the Secret Six to obtain a valuable "Get Out of Hell Free" card.

Shortly after, Bane takes her on in his incarnation of the Six when the others leave. She is later shot in both knees by Deadshot and left to die in Skartaris.

In The New 52, Lady Vic makes her debut in the series Batwing. Vic would show up in DC Rebirth and after failing the reborn Heretic, she'd be killed.

Powers and abilities
"Talks like Jane Seymour, fights like Bruce Lee". - Nightwing
Elaine is a highly skilled martial artist and athlete, and equally skilled with firearms. She has a sentimental preference for a collection of antique weapons handed down by her ancestors, souvenirs of their colonial exploits: a matched pair of katar (कटार), a Japanese katana, a Thuggee strangling cloth, a Maasai javelin, and a Webley revolver.

Of the mercenaries regularly employed by Blockbuster, Elaine is one of the most skilled, certainly more skilled than Brutale, Stallion, or Electrocutioner. Though usually not on the level of opponents such as Nightwing or Batman, she has nearly beaten Nightwing. When Blockbuster decided to test Shrike's abilities by pitting him against all of his regular assassins at once, Elaine lasted the longest and was the only one to actually inflict a wound on him, almost killing him, before being knocked out. She also nearly defeated Nightwing in their first fight and had an upper hand in the battle. She also effortlessly defeated Tarantula in two separate encounters. These feats place Lady Elaine Marsh-Morton among the best martial artists in the DC universe.

Lady Vic also has qualities of determination and ruthlessness that set her apart from the others. Possibly this is because she desperately needs the money she earns for the sake of her family's continued standing and honor. As mentioned above, she was more than willing to kill a young girl to get paid; during the Hunt for Oracle storyline, when Black Canary escaped from a plane in which she was being held prisoner, Lady Vic astonished her by leaping into the sky after her without a parachute.

Other versions

Flashpoint
In the Flashpoint universe, Lady Vic joined with the Amazons' Furies.

In other media
Lady Vic appeared in Titans, portrayed by Kimberly-Sue Murray in season three episode "Lady Vic".

References

Characters created by Chuck Dixon
Comics characters introduced in 1997
DC Comics martial artists
DC Comics female supervillains
Fictional assassins in comics
Fictional female assassins
Fictional lords and ladies
Fictional English people
Fictional businesspeople
Dick Grayson

Lady Vic


SBS Essential was a Special Broadcasting Service television channel available to digital television viewers in Australia.  It began broadcasting on 14 October 2002, and was discontinued on 25 January 2007.

SBS Essential broadcast news headlines, sports headlines, weather and program information. The channel also made use of SBS' SMS Code schedule service, where viewers could SMS a program number to SBS, and when the program was soon to air, SBS would SMS the viewer back. The channel was automated, fed via RSS news from SBS' website.

SBS Sports +
SBS Sports + was a highlights loop service provided on SBS Essential during major sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup. The service allowed for digital television viewers to review specific moments, or to catch up on the progress of another game.

Criticisms
The Special Broadcasting Service was often criticised for broadcasting SBS Essential by HD Digital enthusiasts. This was mainly due to the channel consuming bitrate from SBS's other Digital Television services such as SBS TV, the SBS World News Channel, and SBS HD. Due to similar reasons the channel was removed from SBS' line-up in early 2007.

Closure
SBS ceased transmission of SBS Essential on 25 January 2007. The reasons for the closure include the fact that many of the services that were provided by SBS Essential, were available via the onscreen electronic program guide on SBS TV and elsewhere on the digital TV channel line-up. Also, SBS and the SBS World News Channel schedule are freely available in newspapers and on the internet.

Another major reason for the closure was that SBS Essential consumed about 10%–15% of SBS's national digital TV bandwidth, of which will now be available for other uses. It is speculated however, that subject to Government funding, SBS will introduce new digital services over the coming years.

Identity
SBS Essential's on-air look was changed several times, between the channels launch and closure. The channel previously had a blue and cream colour scheme, with an abstract design.

On 22 May 2006, SBS Essential had a revamp of its on-air presentation. The design was then simple, and allowed for higher text legibility, as the channel broadcast with a low bitrate.

See also
 Special Broadcasting Service
 SBS
 SBS 2
 SBS World News Channel

Special Broadcasting Service
Defunct television channels in Australia
English-language television stations in Australia
Digital terrestrial television in Australia
2002 establishments in Australia
2007 disestablishments in Australia
Television channels and stations established in 2002
Television channels and stations disestablished in 2007

SBS Essential


A skate video is a movie of or about skateboarding typically showing new tricks and a series of skateboarders in a montage set to music.

History
Released in 1965, the short film Skaterdater is credited as the first film to depict skateboarding and therefore the first skate video. In 2015, The Berrics campaigned for the film's acceptance into the National Film Registry. However, the Powell Peralta company is often credited as creating the first skate videos proper that were not a part of a fictional film or a documentary. Their first video, The Bones Brigade Video Show (1984), was expected to sell just 300 copies on VHS, but it sold 30,000.

From the invention of the skate video genre in the 1980s till the early 2000s, skate videos were distributed via VHS tapes sold primarily at skate shops. In the early 2000s skate videos transferred to DVDs along with the rest of the home video market. The advent of social media and new digital filmmaking tools such as Instagram and YouTube challenged skate video traditions, putting less emphasis on full videos and more emphasis on shorter clips. The conventions and styles of skate videos continue to evolve and redefine themselves alongside the sport of skateboarding.

Producers
There is a variety of skate videos that are produced, from independent individual filmmakers to those commissioned by skateboard companies who use the video to promote the brand. Additionally, small skate shops, magazines, websites, collectives, and independent skaters make skate videos for the love of skateboarding; as well as, promotional material.

411 Video Magazine was a popular bi-monthly video log published from the 1990s to the 2000s.

Film director Spike Jonze has shot several skate videos, including Blind's Video Days (1991) and Girl and Chocolate's Yeah Right! (2003).

Throughout the late 2010s and into the 2020s, filmmaker William Strobeck has developed a style of producing skate videos which goes against traditional skate video conventions such as the use of fisheye lenses and sequential sectioned parts in favour of a more experimental approach.

Many amateur skateboarders hold professional skate videos in high regard, and as authentic representations of skateboarding, and attempt to create their own videos. Amateur and professional skateboarding videos are often shared via social media.

Content and style
In most skate videos, skaters show their skills in sections called video parts, but other formats and techniques, such as montages, are used, and new tricks are often demonstrated. It is common to have the best highlight trick as the final trick in video parts, this is referred to as the ender.

Most videos feature "slam sections" of tricks that end up in failure and spectacular falls where the skateboarder is hurt. They are macabre yet popular because they serve as a reminder that skateboarding is a dangerous  sport. Another common feature is sections covering skateboarders off the board, covering their personalities.

Although skate videos vary in aesthetic style and content, there are several common denominators. They are usually anything from half an hour to an hour long, feature skateboarders performing tricks in urban environments, and are edited to include song-length segments. Ultimately, producers try to promote their idea of skate style, achieved by montage and editing.

One of the most common camera used to shoot skate videos in the late 90s and early 2000s was the Sony DCR-VX1000 which is still used today by some filmmakers. Often the videos are shot using a fisheye lens. Skate videos are also notable for featuring music soundtracks of punk rock, alternative rock, or hip-hop music.

Notable Skate Videos

1980's

 The Bones Brigade Video Show (Powell Peralta, 1984)
 Skatevisions (Vision Street Wear, 1984)
 Future Primitive (Powell Peralta, 1985)
 Wheels of Fire (Santa Cruz, 1987)
 The Search for Animal Chin (Powell Peralta, 1987)
 Sick Boys (Mack Dawg, 1988)
 H-Street - Shackle me not (H-Street, 1988)
 Speed Freaks (Santa Cruz, 1989)
 Streets on Fire (Santa Cruz, 1989)

1990's

 Video Days (Blind, 1991)
 Love Child (World Industries, 1992)
 Questionable (Plan B B1992)
 Mouse (Girl, 1996)
 Welcome to Hell (Toy Machine, 1996)
 Fulfill the Dream (Shortys, 1998)

2000's

 Menikmati (éS, 2000)
 Photosynthesis (Alien Workshop, 2000)
 Dying to Live (Zero, 2002)
 Sorry (Flip, 2002)
 PJ Ladd's Wonderful, Horrible, Life (Fancy Lad, 2002)
 The DC Video (DC, 2003)
 Yeah Right! (Girl, 2003)
 This Is Skateboarding (Emerica, 2003)
 Getting Nowhere Faster (Element, 2004)
 Cheese & Crackers (Almost, 2006)

2010's

 Skateboarding Is Forever (DC, 2010)
 Propeller (Vans, 2015)

References

Further reading

External links
Skate Video Site - An online skate video directory
From 'Thrashin'' to 'Kids' and Beyond: A History of Skateboarding Movies By Eric Ducker

Skateboarding videos
Film genres
Experimental film
Short films
Fisheye lenses
Sports films

Skate video


John Alexander Maclean, OAM (born 27 May 1966) is an Australian triathlete, rower, and motivational speaker. A promising rugby league player in his youth, he became a paraplegic after being knocked from his bicycle by a truck in 1988. He subsequently became the first paraplegic to finish the Ironman World Championship and the first to swim the English Channel. Later, he was part of the athletics team at both the Olympics and Paralympics in 2000, and won a silver medal in rowing at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. In 2014, he completed the Nepean Triathlon without using a wheelchair, after regaining some use of his legs through Ware K Tremor therapy. He is the founder of the John Maclean Foundation, which assists wheelchair users under the age of 18. As a motivational speaker, his clients have included eBay and Pfizer.

Early life
Maclean was born on 27 May 1966 in the Sydney suburb of Caringbah, as the youngest of three children. His parents had emigrated from Scotland in July 1965. His mother, Avril, had schizophrenia, and he was initially raised in foster homes; Avril's social worker wrote in relation to John that his mother "told sister she didn't mind the other children but can't bear the baby, aged 14 months". She committed suicide at The Gap when John was four. He grew up in the Sydney suburb of Tregear. As a young man, he played rugby as a reserve-grade player for the Penrith Panthers and competed in triathlons.

On 27 June 1988, while he was training for the Nepean Triathlon, an eight-ton truck hit his bicycle from behind; he was left with a broken back and pelvis, two broken arms, broken ribs and a punctured lung, and was rendered an incomplete paraplegic.

Sports career

In 1994 Maclean completed the Nepean Triathlon for which he had been training before the accident, becoming Australia's first paraplegic triathlete. Inspired by television footage of Jon Franks, a wheelchair competitor at the 1994 Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, he became the first paraplegic to complete the course in 1995. That year, he was also part of the Australia men's national wheelchair basketball team training squad for the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics, but withdrew to concentrate on the World Ironman Championship. He participated in the ironman competition twice more in 1996 and 1997, and became the first paraplegic to complete the course before the cut-off time for able-bodied competitors in the latter year. On 30 August 1998, McLean became the first paraplegic to swim the English Channel, with a time of 12 hours and 55 minutes; an attempt earlier in the month was aborted due to bad weather. The Channel Swimming Association initially refused to recognise his feat, but set up a committee to evaluate "special swims" once they were convinced that he was a serious swimmer. A documentary, Against Wind and Tide, was made about his channel crossing. He was the first man to both swim the English Channel and compete in the Ironman World Championship.

He participated in the demonstration wheelchair 1500 m event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but crashed  into the race. He competed as a T54 athlete at that year's Paralympics, where he was part of the Australian team in the 4x400 m relay, reached the semi-final of the 1500 m event, was disqualified in the semi-final of the 5,000 m event after a crash for "obstruction of the track", came ninth in the 10,000 m event, and was the best-placed Australian man in the marathon in his classification, finishing twelfth.

He participated in the 2001 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race as part of Team Aspect, which came second in its division. In 2006, he took part in the Ultraman endurance challenge in Hawaii. He took up rowing in 2007 and won the male single category in the national championships that year. He was partnered with the winner of the female singles championship, Kathryn Ross, and went on to win silver medals with her at the 2007 Munich World Rowing Championships and the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in the TA2x events. He retired from the sport after the Beijing Paralympics but returned with Ross in 2011, winning a bronze medal at that year's World Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia and two gold medals in the 2011 International Adaptive Regatta in Italy. He did not make it to the rowing team for the 2012 London Paralympics because Gavin Bellis was slightly faster than him at the Gavirate International Regatta in Italy in April 2012. In January 2013, he competed in the inaugural sprint-distance Australian Paratriathlon Championships, coming second in the TRI-1 classification behind TRI-1 World Champion Bill Chaffey.

On 26 October 2014, he completed the Nepean Triathlon without his wheelchair, with the aid of carbon-fibre leg braces and walking poles for the running component, after regaining some use of his legs through Ware K Tremor therapy. He plans to continue competing in running events without using his wheelchair.

Personal
Maclean lives in Penrith with his second wife, Amanda (née Roberts) and their son; the couple have been married since 2009. He was previously married to Michelle from 1990 to 1994. In 1998, he founded the John Maclean Foundation, which assists wheelchair users under the age of 18. He works as a motivational speaker; his clients have included eBay and Pfizer. He has written two memoirs: Sucking the Marrow out of Life: The John Maclean Story with Paul Connolly (2005) and Full Circle: One Life, Many Lessons with Lynne Cossare (2009).

Recognition
In 2000, Maclean received a Medal of the Order of Australia "for service to sport as a triathlete and swimmer, to the promotion of sport for people with disabilities, and the encouragement of junior wheelchair athletes". That year, he also received an Australian Sports Medal. He carried both the Olympic and Paralympic torches for the 2000 Sydney Games. In 2002, he became the first non-US citizen and the first paraplegic to be inducted into the Ironman Hall of Fame. In 2008, he was part of a Gatorade advertisement with such sportspeople as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, and Nadia Comăneci, that was first shown in the United States at that year's Super Bowl.

References

External links
Official website
John Maclean Foundation

1966 births
Australian male rowers
Australian male triathletes
English Channel swimmers
Australian motivational speakers
Australian male wheelchair racers
Olympic wheelchair racers for Australia
Paralympic wheelchair racers
Paralympic athletes for Australia
Paralympic rowers for Australia
Paratriathletes
Athletes (track and field) at the 2000 Summer Paralympics
Wheelchair racers at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Rowers at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
Medalists at the 2008 Summer Paralympics
Paralympic silver medalists for Australia
World Rowing Championships medalists for Australia
Paralympic medalists in rowing
Wheelchair category Paralympic competitors
People with paraplegia
Sportspeople from Sydney
Rowers from Sydney
Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia
Recipients of the Australian Sports Medal
Australian people of Scottish descent
Living people
Athletes from Sydney
Sportsmen from New South Wales

John Maclean (sportsperson)


Karen Engle (born 1962) is the Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law and Founder and Co-director of the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law. She is also an affiliated faculty member of Latin American Studies and of Women's and Gender Studies. She teaches courses and specialized seminars in public international law, international human rights law, and legal theory.

Professor Engle writes on the interaction between social movements and law, particularly in the fields of international human rights law, international criminal law, and Latin American law. She is author of numerous scholarly articles and of The Grip of Sexual Violence in Conflict: Feminist Interventions in International Law (Stanford University Press, 2020) as well as The Elusive Promise of Indigenous Development: Rights, Culture, Strategy (Duke University Press, 2010), which received the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association Section on Human Rights. She is co-editor of Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and After Identity: A Reader in Law and Culture (Routledge, 1995).

Professor Engle received her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and a B.A. with honors from Baylor University. Following law school, she clerked for Judge Jerre S. Williams on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and then served as a post-doctoral Ford Fellow in Public International Law at Harvard Law School. She was Professor of Law at the University of Utah prior to joining the University of Texas in 2002.

Engle received a Bellagio Residency Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation in 2009 and an assignment as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Bogotá in 2010. In 2016–17, she was the Deborah Lunder and Alan Ezekowitz Founders' Circle Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She has taught at a number of universities around the world and, most recently, was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in 2018.

References

1962 births
Living people
Texas lawyers
University of Texas at Austin faculty
Harvard Law School alumni
Baylor University alumni
University of Utah faculty

Karen Engle


Michael James Rowland (born 15 January 1964) is an Australian film director.

Early years
Prior to his screen career, Rowland studied graphic design at the North Adelaide School of Art in South Australia and started his early working life as a designer and illustrator specialising in the arts. His list of freelance clients grew to include Sony (US), Womad (International) and Peter Gabriel (UK). He also held the position of Art Director with the Adelaide Festival of Arts (1987–93) a job which saw him work with some notable artists, including Peter Brook, 7th Earl of Harewood, Cheek by Jowl, Jan Fabre, Sankai Juku, Andy Goldsworthy, Winton Marsalis, the Kronos Quartet, Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez. He has won numerous awards for his design and illustration, including the 1992 AADC's Master's Chair.

Cowboy Books
Michael established the graphic novella imprint Cowboy Books in 1990 with the publication of the awarding winning Ten Drawings of the Jungle. This first title was followed up two years later with The Existentialist Cowboys Last Stand (1992) and Life Advice for High-Plains Drifters (2000). Cowboy Books sell throughout Europe, North America and Australia.

Film school
Michael 'retired' from graphic design in 1994, relocating to Sydney to study for a BA in Film at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). In his first year as an undergraduate the screenrights to his novella The Existentialist Cowboy's Last Stand were bought and it was made into one of Australia's most successful short films of the 1990s, along the way earning Michael his first Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination. The second came with the Russian language, space-race short, Flying Over Mother (1996), cementing his reputation as an original screenwriter/director with a global audience.

First feature film
His first feature film, Lucky Miles (2007), is set in 1990 Western Australia. Unfolding as a traditional Australian tale of men lost in the desert, Lucky Miles packs a bold twist updating the genre with an ensemble cast including Kenneth Moraleda, Rodney Afif  and Srisacd Sacdapraseuth. Lucky Miles was chosen to be the highly successful opening night film of the 2007 Adelaide Film Festival and later that year beat out the cream of global cinema to win the audience award for Best Film at the 2007 Sydney Film Festival. Other awards include; the Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; Best Screenplay at the Vladivostok International Film Festival; the Black Pearl for Best New Director at the Middle East International Film Festival; the Grand Prix at the 9th Rencontres Internationales du Cinéma des Antipodes and Best Film at the Asian Festival of First Films.

In 2008, Australia's national broadcaster, ABC1, programmed Lucky Miles at 8:30 pm Sunday night on the Australia Day long-weekend holiday. Its contribution to the nation's celebration.

First television feature
In 2008, Rowland co-wrote and directed the one-hour ABC, RTÉ, BBC drama The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce. Set in 1824 Van Diemen's Land, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce tells the true story of an escape from the notorious British prison Sarah Island by eight convicts. Its Gothic narrative plots their privation and descent into cannibalism, through to the execution of the sole survivor, Alexander Pearce, for the murder of Thomas Cox. It was co-written and produced by Nial Fulton.

The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce drew TV industry nominations in both Europe and Australia. It was nominated for Best Telefeature at the 2009 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, Best Drama at the 2009 Irish Film & Television Academy (IFTA) Awards and Best Drama in the 2010 Rose D'Or awards, Switzerland. Reflecting its 'factual' funding, in 2009 The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce won Best Documentary at the IF Awards.

For his work, Michael was nominated in the Best Telemovie Director category at the Australian Directors Guild Awards 2009, composer Roger Mason won Best Music for a Telemovie at the 2009 Australian Screen Music Award and Designer Felicity Abbott and props master Paul Stewart were both recognised for their work on the film at the 2009 Newport International Film Festival.

In 2009 Australia's national broadcaster, ABC1, programmed The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce in prime time on Sunday night over the Australia Day long weekend. The previous year Lucky Miles had been programmed in the same 8:30 pm slot, making it the second year in a row the ABC had screened a Rowland feature to mark the nation's celebration.

Series Television
During 2010 and 2011 Michael directed 8 episodes of AFI and IF award winning series My Place, produced by Penny Chapman. He directed 3 episodes in the first series and was nominated for an Australian Directors Guild Award. He returned to the second series as set-up director and helmed a further 5 episodes.

Early in 2011 he directed two episodes of the genre breaking comedy/drama/romance Spirited, produced by Jacquelin Perske and Claudia Karvan. Mid year he directed three episodes of the ballet-teen-drama Dance Academy, produced by Werner Film Productions for ABC, and in the second half of the year directed three episodes of  the award winning Foxtel drama Tangle.

Notes

External links
 Official website Australian Film Television and Radio School
  The Internet Movie Database
  Adelaide Film Festival
  Variety
  Cowboy Books

Australian film directors
Mass media people from Adelaide
1964 births
Living people
Australian Film Television and Radio School alumni

Michael James Rowland