Eric Morecambe (John Eric Bartholomew, 14 May 1926 – 28 May 1984) and Ernie Wise (Ernest Wiseman, 27 November 1925 – 21 March 1999), known as Morecambe and Wise (and sometimes as Eric and Ernie), were an English comic double act, working in variety, radio, film and most successfully in television. Their partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambe's death in 1984. They have been described as "the most illustrious, and the best-loved, double-act that Britain has ever produced".

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The Morecambe and Wise Show was placed 14th. In September 2006, they were voted by the general public as number 2 in a poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars. Their early career was the subject of the 2011 television biopic Eric and Ernie, and their 1970s career was the subject of the television biopic Eric, Ernie and Me in 2017.

In 1976, Eric Morecambe and Wise were both awarded the OBE. In 1999, they were posthumously awarded the BAFTA Fellowship. In 2013, they were honoured with a blue plaque at Teddington Studios, where their last four series of The Morecambe and Wise Show were recorded.

History
Morecambe and Wise's friendship began in 1940 when they were each booked separately to appear in Jack Hylton's revue Youth Takes a Bow at the Nottingham Empire Theatre. At the suggestion of Eric's mother, Sadie, they worked on a double act. They made their double act debut in August 1941 at the Liverpool Empire. War service broke up the act but they reunited by chance at the Swansea Empire Theatre in 1946 when they joined forces again. They made their name in variety, appearing in a variety circus, the Windmill Theatre, the Glasgow Empire and many venues around Britain. After this they made their name in radio, first in Variety Fanfare (Ronnie Taylor, Hulme Hippodrome) made by the BBC in Manchester, and then with their own radio show, You're Only Young Once, first broadcast on 9 November 1953.

With national fame they transferred to television in 1954. Their debut TV show, Running Wild, was not well received and led to a damning newspaper review: "Definition of the week: TV set — the box in which they buried Morecambe and Wise." Eric apparently carried a copy of this review around with him ever afterward, and from then on the duo kept a tight control over their material. In 1956 they were offered a spot in the Winifred Atwell show with material written by Johnny Speight and this was a success. In 1959 they topped the bill in BBC TV's long-running variety show The Good Old Days in a Boxing Day edition of the programme. In later years the pair would become a Christmas TV institution in their own right.

They had a series of shows that spanned over twenty years, during which time they developed and honed their act, most notably after moving to the BBC in 1968, where they were to be teamed with their long-term writer Eddie Braben.  It is this period of their careers that is widely regarded as their "glory days". Their shows were:
 Running Wild (BBC, 1954) (Various writers)
 Two of a Kind (ATV, 1961–68) (Writers: Hills and Green)
 The Morecambe & Wise Show (BBC, 1968–77) (Writers: Hills and Green (1968), Eddie Braben (1969–77))
 The Morecambe & Wise Show (Thames Television, 1978–83) (writers: Barry Cryer and John Junkin (1978), Eddie Braben (1980–83))
 The Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Show (BBC Radio 2, 1975–78. Writer: Eddie Braben)

The pair starred in three feature films during the 1960s — The Intelligence Men (1965), That Riviera Touch (1966), and The Magnificent Two (1967). In 1983 they made their last film, Night Train to Murder. They were also guests on many television variety series; however, it was in a US series that they appeared as guests most frequently, featuring twelve times on The Ed Sullivan Show between 1963 and 1968 - more than any other British entertainers. The duo were featured in a comic book in 1977.

Style and performance
Morecambe and Wise started as a song-and-dance comedic team, with Morecambe playing the more bumbling comic role and Wise the affable straight man, but over time (and with new writers) the nature of the act changed. By the 1960s, the characters were more complex, with both Morecambe and Wise playing comedic characters who could set up each other for laughs, as well as garner big laughs with their many catchphrases, character bits and reactions.  In essence, the straight man/wacky comic dynamic shifted, so that both men were equally capable of fulfilling either role.  In the later and most successful part of their career, which spanned the 1970s, Morecambe and Wise were joined behind the scenes by Eddie Braben, a script writer who generated almost all their material (Morecambe and Wise were also sometimes credited as supplying "additional material") and defined what is now thought of as typical Morecambe and Wise humour. Together Morecambe, Wise and Braben were known as "The Golden Triangle", becoming one of the UK's all-time favourite comedy acts.

John Ammonds was also central to the duo's most successful period in the 1970s. As the producer of the BBC TV shows, it was his idea to involve celebrity guests. He also perfected the duo's familiar dance, which was based on a dance performed by Groucho Marx in the film Horse Feathers.

Ernest Maxin started choreographing the musical numbers in 1970, and succeeded John Ammonds as producer of the BBC TV shows in 1974. Maxin, who won a BAFTA for the Best Light Entertainment Show for the Morecambe and Wise 1977 Christmas Show, was also responsible for devising and choreographing many of their great musical comedy routines including "The Breakfast Sketch", "Singin' in the Rain", and the homage to South Pacific, "There is Nothing Like a Dame" featuring BBC newsreaders in an acrobatic dance routine.

Catchphrases and visual gags
Much of the material of the Morecambe and Wise shows consisted of their well-worn catch phrases that recurred like motifs throughout their career. Barely a show would go by without Eric referring to Ernie's "short, fat, hairy legs", or pointing out that "you can't see the join", where Ernie's supposed wig was attached. The wig sometimes appeared in the credits, with variations on "Mr Wise appears by kind permission of Rentawig". Eric never seemed to tire of offering his partner some "Tea, Ern?". This was a pun on "tea urn", a vessel for serving hot drinks used in workplaces. If anyone fluffed their line, Eric would usually say, "That's easy for you to say!"  or "You can say that again". When Ernie disagreed with him, Eric would say, "Just watch it, that's all!"; often said by Eric when grabbing Ernie by the lapels. If someone said a line whilst he was looking at somebody else, Eric would say, "You said that without moving your lips"; as if the non-speaker were a ventriloquist throwing his or her voice. Another ventriloquial allusion (probably quoting Arthur Worsley) was made when Eric said, should his intended listener be looking away, "Look at me when I'm talking to you!".

Some catch phrases developed from earlier sketches. When Eric played an incompetent 'Mr Memory', unable to remember anything without unsubtle prompting from Ernie, Ernie prompted Eric with "Arsenal!" disguised very badly as a cough. Later, whenever Ernie, or anyone else, coughed or sneezed, Eric would shout "Arsenal!".

The catchphrase "Hello folks, and what about the workers?" was developed by Eric from a similar saying by Harry Secombe in The Goon Show. For Secombe this was a simple greeting, while for Eric it expressed his great sexual interest in some pretty girl or female guest. It was often accompanied by him slapping the back of his own neck to recover his concentration.

Their treatment of their guest stars was terrible for effect. Eric and sometimes Ernie would often call an invited guest by the wrong name. So André Previn was "Andrew Preview", Ian Carmichael was Hoagy Carmichael, Elton John was Elephant John, Vanessa Redgrave was "Vanilla Redgrave" and when The Beatles appeared, Ringo Starr was "Bongo". Alternatively, one or both would seem not to recognise the famous guest artist at all. The pair would frequently make fun of their old friend, the singer and entertainer Des O'Connor in various disparaging ways.  A rhyming example was: "If you want me to be a goner, get me an LP by Des O'Connor". Another typical example was "There's only one thing wrong with Des O'Connor records. The hole in the middle isn't big enough". O'Connor actually appeared in the 1975 Christmas special and eavesdropped on these insults before Eric and Ernie noticed him. In reality some of these put-downs were suggested by Des himself.

Many of their catch phrases entered the language. Particularly when they were at their peak, people could be heard using them for humorous effect. The question: "What do you think of it so far?", said by Eric, who would use a prop—such as a statue or stuffed toy—to answer: "Rubbish!", was frequently heard. Morecambe said later that whenever Luton Town were playing away and he happened to be in the director's box, if Luton were behind at half-time the home fans would shout, "What do you think of it so far?". Other examples were: "There's no answer to that!", which was said by Eric after anything which could be construed as innuendo. He would also say "Pardon?" for a similar effect.

Schoolboys could be seen holding an open hand underneath a friend's chin while saying, "Get out of that!". When Eric did this to Ernie, it was meant to be a karate move that incapacitated the victim. It was often followed by "You can't, can you?". Also common was, "They can't touch you for it" (i.e., it is not illegal); a comment following a slightly obscure word, turning it into a double entendre. In addition, Eric would say "Be honest" directly to the audience if they had carried out what he thought was a particularly successful routine. If Ernie received a little applause for something, Eric would say "I see your fan's in", and whenever the doorbell rang in their shared flat, Eric would say to Ernie, "How do you do that?"

Another long-running - usually incomplete - gag was when Eric begins a story, 'There were two old men sitting in deckchairs. One turns to the other and says, "It's nice out today. Ernie usually closed down the gag at that point as it was obviously heading for a rude punchline. Occasionally, however, he would close it with "Well, put it away, there's a Policeman coming!" In a Christmas special when the duo were being interviewed by Sir David Frost, Eric concluded the story with "You're right, I think I'll get mine out".

During the shows in which Ernie's execrable plays were shown, a catch phrase for Ernie was developed. This was, "The play what I wrote", which also was used commonly elsewhere. Guest stars were conned into taking part in these plays and made to utter such grammatical monstrosities as when Glenda Jackson (at the time a noted Shakespearean actress) had to say, "All men are fools and what makes them so is having beauty, like what I have got", to the obvious smug satisfaction of the words' supposed author.

Several visual gags were often repeated.

Very frequently used, and copied by the public, was Eric slapping the shoulders and then both sides of Ernie's face. A particular affectation of Eric was him putting his glasses askew or waggling them up and down on his nose. As with André Previn, if they appeared uncooperative, Eric would grab a guest by the lapels and pull them to his face in a threatening manner. He would also grimace like Humphrey Bogart (or so he thought) if Ernie or a guest was particularly challenging.

Eric would often hold an empty paper bag in one hand, throw an imaginary coin, or other small object, into the air, watch it during its flight and then flick the bag with his finger giving the impression that the item had landed in the bag. Again, he would hold a paper cup in his mouth and over his nose to perform a brief impersonation of Jimmy Durante, singing, 'Sitting at my pianna the udder day...'

Ernie would appear on a curtained stage expecting Eric to join him from behind the curtain, but Eric would be unable to find the opening and have to fight his way on. This gag could be reversed with Eric trying to fight his way off, often asking Ernie if he had a key to unlock the curtain. Another curtain gag would have Eric standing in front of the stage curtains or at the side of the stage and pretending that an arm (his own) comes out from behind the curtain and seizes him by the throat. If Eric had his back to a guest, he would jerk his body as if the guest had goosed him.

Often, Eric would suddenly notice the camera and put on a fixed, cheesy grin. Ernie would frequently notice him doing this, stand behind Eric and grin a similar grin into the camera, over Eric's shoulder. Eric and Ernie would introduce the special guest facing stage-left with their arms out. However, the guest would enter from stage-right. Also, at the end of several shows, the duo would exit the stage by skipping while putting alternate hands behind their heads and backs.

Television series
Typical Morecambe and Wise programmes were effectively sketch shows crossed with a sitcom. The duo would usually open the show as themselves on a mock stage in front of curtains emblazoned with an M and W logo. Morecambe and Wise's comic style varied subtly throughout their career, depending on their writers. Their writers during most of the 1960s, Dick Hills and Sid Green, took a relatively straightforward approach, depicting Eric as an aggressive, knockabout comedian and Ernie as an essentially conventional and somewhat disapproving straight man. When Eddie Braben took over as writer, he made the relationship considerably deeper and more complex. The critic Kenneth Tynan noted that, with Braben as writer, Morecambe and Wise had a unique dynamic—Ernie was a comedian who wasn't funny, while Eric was a straight man who was funny. The Ernie persona became simultaneously more egotistical and more naïve. Morecambe pointed out that Braben wrote him as "tougher, less gormless, harder towards Ern." Wise's contribution to the humour is a subject of an ongoing debate. To the end of his life he would always reject interviewers' suggestions that he was the straight man, preferring to call himself the song-and-dance man. However, Wise's skill and dedication was essential to their joint success, and Tynan praised Wise's performance as "unselfish, ebullient and indispensable".

A central concept was that the duo lived together as close, long-term friends (there were many references to a childhood friendship) who shared not merely a flat but also a bed—although their relationship was purely platonic and merely continued a tradition of comic partners sleeping in the same bed that had begun with Laurel and Hardy. Morecambe was initially uncomfortable with the bed-sharing sketches, but changed his mind upon being reminded of the Laurel and Hardy precedent; however, he still insisted on smoking his pipe in the bed scenes "for the masculinity". The front room of the flat and also the bedroom were used frequently throughout the show episodes, although Braben would also transplant the duo into various external situations, such as a health food shop or a bank. Many references were made to Ernie's supposed meanness with money and drink (for example Eric telling Shirley Bassey of Ernie's dislike of her hit "Big Spender").

Another concept of the shows during the Braben era was Ernie's utterly confident presentation of amateurishly inept plays "wot I wrote". This allowed for another kind of sketch: the staged historical drama, which usually parodied genuine historical television plays or films (such as Stalag 17, Antony and Cleopatra, or Napoleon and Josephine). Wise's character would write a play, complete with cheap props, shaky scenery and appallingly clumsy writing ("the play what I wrote" became a catchphrase), which would then be acted out by Morecambe, Wise and the show's guest star. Guests who participated included many big names of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Dame Flora Robson, Penelope Keith, Laurence Olivier, Sir John Mills, Vanessa Redgrave, Eric Porter, Peter Cushing (who in a running gag would keep turning up to complain that he had not been paid for an earlier appearance) and Frank Finlay—as well as Glenda Jackson (as Cleopatra: "All men are fools. And what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got..."). Jackson had not previously been known as a comedian and this appearance led to her Oscar-winning role in A Touch of Class. Morecambe and Wise would often pretend not to have heard of their guest, or would appear to confuse them with someone else (former UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson returned the favour, when appearing as a guest at the duo's flat, by referring to Morecambe as "Mor-e-cam-by"). Also noteworthy was the occasion when the respected BBC newsreader Angela Rippon was induced to show her legs in a dance number (she had trained as a ballet dancer before she became a journalist and TV presenter). Braben later said that a large amount of the duo's humour was based on irreverence. A running gag in a number of shows was a short sequence showing a well-known artist in close-up saying "I appeared in an Ernie Wise play, and look what happened to me!". The camera would then pull back and show the artist doing some low-status job such as newspaper seller (Ian Carmichael), Underground guard (Fenella Fielding), dustman (Eric Porter), bus conductor (André Previn), or some other ill-paid employment. However, celebrities felt they had received the highest accolade in showbusiness by being invited to appear in "an Ernest Wide play" as Ernie once mispronounced it during a show's introduction involving "Vanilla" (Vanessa) Redgrave.

As a carry-over from their music hall days, Eric and Ernie sang and danced at the end of each show, although they were forced to abandon this practice when Morecambe's heart condition prevented him from dancing. The solution was that Eric would walk across the stage with coat and bag, ostensibly to wait for his bus, while Ernie danced by himself. Their peculiar skipping dance, devised by their BBC producer John Ammonds, was a modified form of a dance used by Groucho Marx. Their signature tune was Bring Me Sunshine. They either sang this at the end of each show or it was used as a theme tune during the credits (although in their BBC shows they used other songs as well, notably "Following You Around", "Positive Thinking" "Don't You Agree" and "Just Around the Corner"). A standard gag at the end of each show was for Janet Webb to appear behind the pair, walk to the front of the stage and push them out of her way. She would then recite:

Webb was never announced, and seldom appeared in their shows in any other role. According to a BBC documentary, this was a parody of George Formby's wife who used to come on stage to take the bows with him at the end of a show.

Another running gag involved an old colleague from their music hall days, harmonica player Arthur Tolcher. Arthur would keep appearing on the stage in evening wear and would play the opening bars of "España cañí" on his harmonica, only to be told "Not now, Arthur!" At the very end of the show, following the final credit, Arthur would sneak on stage and begin to play, only for the screen to cut to black.

In June 2007, the BBC released a DVD of surviving material from their first series in 1968, and the complete second series from 1969. In November 2011, Network DVD released the complete, uncut 13 episodes of the second ATV series of Two of a Kind from 1962. It was advertised as the first series due to the fact the original first series is completely missing from television archives.

In 2020, a black and white copy of an episode from October 1970, believed lost, was found in the attic of Morecambe's widow. It was restored for re-broadcast at Christmas 2021.

Christmas specials
With the exception of 1974, the show had end-of-year Christmas specials, which became some of the highest-rated TV programmes of the era. Braben has said that people judged the quality of their Christmas experience on the quality of the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special. From 1969 until 1980, except 1974, the shows were always broadcast on Christmas Day. Due to Eric Morecambe's heart attack, Christmas Day 1974 featured a highlights package of clips from previous shows rather than a new programme, introduced by Michael Parkinson, including a newly recorded interview with Morecambe & Wise.

The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show on BBC in 1977 scored one of the highest ever audiences in British television history with more than 20 million viewers (the cited figure varies between 21 and 28 million, depending on the source). The duo remain among the most consistently high-rating performers of all time on British television, regularly topping the in-week charts during their heyday in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Famous sketches
Grieg's Piano Concerto
Classic sketches from such shows often revolve around the guest stars. One example is the 1971 appearance of André Previn, who is introduced onstage by Ernie as Andrew Preview. Previn's schedule was extremely tight, and Morecambe and Wise were worried that he had very little time to rehearse: popular myth holds that Previn had to learn his lines in the taxi on the way from the airport, but in reality he had taken part in two days of rehearsals (out of a planned five) before having to fly to America to see his mother, who had been taken ill. The final result was described by their biographer as "probably their finest moment".

The sketch was a rework of one which appeared in Two of a Kind (Series 3, Episode 7) and written by Green and Hills.

Previn is initially enthusiastic as a guest, but he is perplexed by the news that he will not, after all, be conducting Yehudi Menuhin in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, but Edvard Grieg's A minor Piano Concerto with Eric as piano soloist:

At this point in the sketch Morecambe punches the air with his fist and ad-libs the line "Pow! He's in! I like him! I like him!". The television executive Michael Grade has observed that it was Previn's expert delivery of his lines that caused Morecambe to visibly relax: "Eric's face lights up as if to say, 'Oh, yes! This is going to be great!" Since Previn had little time to rehearse, his comic timing was a surprise to Morecambe, who had explained to Previn simply that "None of the three of us should believe that this is funny."

Eric goes on to treat Previn and the orchestra with his customary disdain ("In the Second Movement, not too heavy on the banjos") and produces his own score ("autographed copies available afterwards, boys") but consistently fails to enter on the conductor's cue. This is because, when the orchestra begins, Eric is standing right next to Previn. During the introductory bars, Eric has to descend from the conductor's rostrum, down to his place at the piano. This he cannot do in the time available—or rather, deliberately meanders so as to miss his cue. After failing twice to reach the piano, they decide he should be seated there at the start. Even then, he cannot see Previn when the conductor gestures for him to begin playing, because the piano lid obscures his view. Previn has to leap in the air at the appropriate time, so that Eric can see him. When he finally manages to enter on time, Eric's rendition of the piano part is so bizarre that Previn becomes exasperated and tells Eric that he is playing "all the wrong notes". Eric stands up, seizes Previn by the lapels and menacingly informs him "I'm playing all the right notes—but not necessarily in the right order." Previn demonstrates how the piece should be played but Eric, after a moment's reflection, delivers a verdict of "Rubbish!" and he and Ernie walk off in disgust. Previn starts playing Eric's version and the duo rush back, declare that Previn has finally "got it" and start dancing ecstatically. The sketch's impact can be assessed by the fact that twenty-five years later, London taxi drivers were still addressing André Previn as "Mr. Preview".

Singin' in the Rain
One of the famous Morecambe and Wise routines is their 1976 Christmas Show parody of the scene from the film Singin' in the Rain in which Gene Kelly dances in the rain and sings the song "Singin' in the Rain". This recreation features Ernie exactly copying Gene Kelly's dance routine, on a set which exactly copies the set used in the movie. Eric performs the role of the policeman. The difference from the original is that in the Morecambe and Wise version, there is no water, except for some downpours onto Eric's head (through a drain, or dumped out of a window, etc.). This lack of water was initially because of practical considerations (the floor of the studio had many electrical cables on it, and such quantities of water would be dangerous)—but Morecambe and Wise found a way to turn the lack of water into a comic asset. The sketch was devised and choreographed by Ernest Maxin.

The Breakfast Sketch
This 1976 sketch has become one of the duo's most familiar, and is a parody of a stripper routine where Eric and Ernie are seen listening to the radio at breakfast time. This sketch was not an original but was adapted from an earlier one Benny Hill performed on his own show during the mid-1960s. David Rose's tune "The Stripper" comes on and the duo perform a dance using various kitchen utensils and food items, including Ernie catching slices of toast as they pop out of the toaster, and finally opening the fridge door to be bathed in light, as if on stage, while they pull out strings of sausages which they whirl around to the music. The sketch was choreographed and produced by Ernest Maxin.

In December 2007, viewers of satellite channel Gold voted the sketch the best moment of Morecambe and Wise's shows.

Propellerheads parodied the sketch in the video for their 1998 single "Crash!" and it was parodied in two UK television commercials in 2008, for PG Tips and Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire Puddings.

Tribute album
Eric and Ernie often cited the earlier comedy team Flanagan and Allen as influences on their own work; although Morecambe and Wise never imitated or copied Flanagan and Allen, they did sometimes work explicit references to the earlier team into their own cross-talk routines and sketches. In 1971 they recorded a tribute album, Morecambe and Wise Sing Flanagan and Allen (Philips 6382 095), in which they performed some of the earlier team's more popular songs in their own style, without attempting to imitate the originals.

Films
 The Intelligence Men (1965)
 That Riviera Touch (1966)
 The Magnificent Two (1967)
 Night Train to Murder (TV film, 1985)

Personal lives
Eric Morecambe married Joan Bartlett in 1952; six weeks later, Ernie Wise married dancer Doreen Blythe, whom he had met in 1947. The Morecambes raised three children, but Wise resolved never to have a family; in Doreen's words, "Ernie always said that as soon as children are involved the wife stays home, and that's where trouble lies."

Morecambe had periods of poor health, and smoked and drank heavily. He suffered a heart attack in 1968, followed by another after bypass surgery in 1979; these compelled him to stop smoking and drinking, and he became a celebrity spokesman for heart research. His fatal heart attack, in 1984, struck during a curtain call of a performance is Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.

After Morecambe's death, Wise fell back on his song-and-dance skills and pursued a solo career, with limited success. He ultimately gave up performing and found new success as an elder statesman of British comedy, giving interviews, telling anecdotes, and appearing at awards ceremonies. Wise maintained a vacation home in Florida, where he suffered two heart attacks in November 1998. After triple bypass surgery, Wise returned to England and convalesced for five months at Nuffield Hospital in Berkshire, where he died peacefully.

Notes

References

External links

 Morecambe & Wise Eric And Ern - Keeping the Magic Alive (books, film, TV reviews, interviews)
 Morecambe & Wise biography, plus complete list of radio/television/film/book/record appearances at Laughterlog.com
 Morecambe & Wise in advert for Texaco with racing driver James Hunt, at YouTube
 Morecambe & Wise in advert for the Atari 2600 computer games console, at YouTube
 Morecambe & Wise Eric and Ernie letter unearthed, at BBC News 12 October 2009

English comedy duos
English male comedians
1941 establishments in England
1984 disestablishments in England

Morecambe and Wise


Kripa (), also known as Kripacharya (), is a figure in Hindu History. According to the epic Mahabharata, he was a council member of Kuru Kingdom and a teacher of the Pandava and Kaurava princes.

Born to warrior-sage Sharadvan and nymph Janapadi in an extraordinary manner, Kripa and his sister Kripi were adopted by King Shantanu of Kuru Kingdom. Kripa was trained by his birth father and became a great archer like him. Later in the epic, he fought on the Kauravas's side against the Pandavas in the Kurukshetra war and was among the few survivors of the war.

Kripa is considered as a Chiranjivi, an immortal being destined to live until the end of the Kali Yuga, the last yuga (age). According to some texts, he will also become one of the Saptarishi—the seven revered sages—in the next Manvantara, which is a cyclic period of time in Hindu cosmology.

Names
The Sanskrit word Kripa (Kṛpa) means 'pity' or 'mercy'. According to the Mahabharata (c. 700 BCE – 400 CE), he and his sister were named "Kripa" and "Kripi" as they were adopted by King Shantanu out of pity. Kripa was given the title "acharya" ('master') as he was an expert archer.

In the epic, Kripa is known by many other names including Gautama ('descendant of Gautama'), Sharadvata ('son of Sharadvan'), Sharadvanputra ('son of Sharadvan') and Bharatacharya ('teacher of the descendants of Bharat').

Birth and upbringing
According to the Adi Parva of the Mahabharata, a boy named Sharadvan was born to sage Gautama and his wife Ahalya. Contradictory to this account, some later Puranic scriptures such as Agni Purana mention him as Gautama's great-grandson. Sharadvan showed great passion in archery and as he matured, he became a great archer. He once did penance to become indomitable, but this threatened the devas, especially Indra. He then sent a beautiful apsara (celestial nymph), Janapadi, from heaven to distract the celibate saint. When Sharadvan saw her, he lost his control and ejaculated. Ashamed of his actions, he left his weapons and went deep into a forest. The semen fell on some weeds, dividing the weeds into two parts. A boy and a girl were born from the weeds.

Shantanu, the king of Kuru Kingdom, was hunting, when one of his soldiers spotted the twins and brought them to him. Shantanu became compassionate towards them that he adopted them and returned to his palace. The children were then named Kripa and Kripi. Sharadvan, who was performing tapas in the forest, heard of his children and went to the palace of Kuru. He revealed their identity to the king and taught Kripa the four branches of Dhanurveda (archery). Kripa became a great archer like his father and taught warfare to many warriors and kings.

Life before the Kurushetra War
The Adi Parva mentions that Kripa taught the Pandavas, Kauravas, Vrishnis and Yadavas about Dhanurveda.  Later, the Pandava and Kaurava princes studied under Drona, Kripi's husband who was born to Bharadvaja and apsara Ghritachi in the similar way like her. When the princes' training was over, a test was organised. Karna—the adopted son of a charioteer—challenged Arjuna in an archery match, but Kripa interfered and asked Karna to specify his lineage.

The Sabha Parva of the epic narrates that Kripa participated in the Rajasuya ritual of Yudhishthira, where he distributed dakshina (fees). In the Virata Parva, Kripa helped Duryodhana, the eldest Kaurava, by sending spies to find the Pandavas during their incognito period of exile.

Kurukshetra War and later life

In the Kurukshetra War between the Pandavas and Kauravas, Kripa supported Duryodhana and fought from his side. The Udyoga Parva of the  Mahabharata mentions that Bhishma, commander of the Kaurava army, declared Kripa as a mighty warrior. During the war, Kripa fought with many warriors including Brihatkshetra, Chekitana, Satyaki, Sahadeva, Arjuna, Bhima, Dhrishaketu and Vardhakshremi. He also defeated Shikhandi and Yudhamanyu, as well as killed Abhimanyu's guards, Suketu and Kalinda prince. The Shalya Parva mention that Kripa advised Karna to make peace with the Pandavas. On the 18th day of the war, the Kauravas side was defeated and Duryodhana was killed by Bhima. Kripa cried for him and along with Ashwatthama, he massacred the remaining Pandava army during that night and lit the fire at the camp.

The Stri Parva of the epic records Kripa returning to Dhritarashtra and Gandhari, the parents of the Kauravas, and telling them about the war. In the epic's Ashramavasika Parva, when Dhritarashtra decided to retire to the forest, Kripa wanted to accompany him. However, Dhritarashtra stopped him and advised Yudhishthira, the new emperor of Kuru Kingdom, to make Kripa a council member. When the Pandavas also retired to the Himalayas after many years, Kripa became the preceptor of Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna. It is believed that after fulfilling his duties, Kripa finally went to the forest for penance and lived the rest of his life.

Legacy
In Hinduism, Kripa, along with Ashwatthama, Bali, Vyasa, Hanuman, Vibhishana, Markandeya and Parashurama, are Chiranjivi, the "immortals" who will remain alive until the end of the Kali Yuga, the last of the four yugas (age). According to some scriptures, Kripa was blessed with immortality because of his discipline, loyalty and impartial nature.

According to the Vishnu Purana (c. 400 BCE – 900 CE), Kripa will become one of the Saptarishi, the seven most revered sages, in the next Manvantara, which is a cyclic period of time identifying the age of a Manu, the progenitor of mankind, in Hindu cosmology.

References

Citations

Sources

Characters in the Mahabharata
Chiranjivins
People in Hindu mythology

Kripa


The Battery is a landmark defensive seawall and promenade in Charleston, South Carolina. Named for a civil-war coastal defense artillery battery at the site, it stretches along the lower shores of the Charleston peninsula, bordered by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, which meet here to form Charleston harbor.

Location
Historically, it has been understood to extend from the beginning of the seawall at the site of the former Omar Shrine Temple (40-44 East Bay Street) to the intersection of what is now Murray Boulevard and King Street. The higher part of the promenade, paralleling East Battery, as the street is known south of Water Street, to the intersection of Murray Boulevard, is known as High Battery. Fort Sumter is visible from the Cooper River side (High Battery) and from the point, as are Castle Pinckney, the World War II aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10), Fort Moultrie, and Sullivan's Island.

In popular speech and in a number of unofficial guidebooks and Web sites, The Battery and White Point Garden are sometimes referred to as "Battery Park," but the park and seawall promenade are not regarded by the City of Charleston as a single entity, and the term "Battery Park" is not an official designation.

History
Fort Broughton (ca. 1735) and Fort Wilkins (during the American Revolution and War of 1812) occupied White or Oyster Point, so named because of the piles of bleached oyster shells on the point at the tip of the peninsula. In the 18th century, rocks and heavy materials were used to fortify the shore of the Cooper River on the eastern side of the peninsula. In 1838, this area along the seawall became a promenade. First used as a public park in 1837, the area now known as White Point Garden became a place for artillery during the American Civil War.

Colleton Bastion was located near the intersection of Water and Meeting Streets.  During the Siege of Charleston, the British had to contend with Fort Johnson, Broughton's Battery, Dorrell's Fort, Wilkins' Fort, and Gibbs' Fort (at the foot of King Street).  During the Quasi-War Fort Mechanic (ca. 1795) stood where the current Edmondston-Alston House is now located. During the Civil War, Battery Ramsay occupied White Point Garden.

Architecture
As a tourist destination, the Battery is famous for its stately, mainly antebellum homes. Included among the grand houses are the Louis DeSaussure House (1 East Battery), the Roper House (9 East Battery), the William Ravenel House (13 East Battery), the Edmondston-Alston House (21 East Battery), the Charles Drayton House (25 East Battery), the George Chisolm House (39 East Battery), the Villa Margherita (4 South Battery), the William Washington House (8 South Battery), the Col. John A.S. Ashe House (26 South Battery), the James Spear House (30 South Battery), and the Col. John Ashe House (32 South Battery).

The Battery today

In 2004, a structural report by the City of Charleston showed that the Battery was suffering serious problems and could fail to protect the southeastern portion of the city during hurricanes. In 2012, the City announced that a $3.2 million restoration project would soon commence at the juncture of High Battery (along East Battery) and Low Battery (along Murray Blvd.).

In August 2023, Tropical Storm Idalia breached the Battery and flooded portions of the downtown.

See also

 Charleston Battery, a professional men's soccer team in the Charleston area.

References

Parks in Charleston, South Carolina
South Carolina in the American Civil War
Battery

The Battery (Charleston)


Robert Remak (26 July 1815 – 29 August 1865) was a Polish embryologist, physiologist, and neurologist, born in Posen, Prussia, who discovered that the origin of cells was by the division of pre-existing cells. as well as several other key discoveries.

According to historian Paul Weindling, Rudolf Virchow, one of the founders of modern cell theory, plagiarized the notion that all cells come from pre-existing cells from Remak. Remak had concluded this after observing red blood cells from chicken embryos in various stages of division. He then confirmed that the phenomenon existed in the cell of every frog's egg immediately after fertilization, proving that this was a universal phenomenon and finally explaining the reason for the results of tests by Louis Pasteur which had previously proved that there exists no spontaneous generation of life.

Remak obtained his medical degree from Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin in 1838 specializing in neurology. He is best known for reducing Karl Ernst von Baer's four germ layers to three: the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. He also discovered unmyelinated nerve fibres and the nerve cells in the heart sometimes called Remak's ganglia. He studied under Johannes Müller at the University of Berlin.

Despite his accomplishments, because he was a Jew, he was repeatedly denied full professor status, and finally late in life was appointed assistant professor, being the first Jew to teach in that institute. Even then he was never fully recognized for his discoveries.

His son Ernst Julius Remak was also a neurologist and his grandson was the mathematician Robert Remak who died in Auschwitz in 1942.

References

External links
Biography
Scientific biography
 Short biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

1815 births
1865 deaths
19th-century German physicians
Jewish physicians
19th-century German Jews
German neurologists

Robert Remak


Carol Molnau (born September 17, 1949) is an American politician who served as the 46th lieutenant governor of Minnesota, from 2003 to 2011. She formerly served as head of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT). She is known for her opposition to state funding of the mass transit systems of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area.

Born in Carver County, Minnesota, she was elected as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1992 and served five terms. Molnau announced she would not run for re-election after she sold her farm to developers and would no longer be living in the area she represented.  She joined the Pawlenty ticket shortly thereafter, and was elected lieutenant governor in 2002 and re-elected in 2006.

Confirmation as Mn/DOT commissioner
The Minnesota Senate Transportation Committee voted in March 2004 to remove Molnau from her position as commissioner of Mn/DOT with some lawmakers citing that she lacked vision for the transportation needs of the state. The full senate later voted to confirm her. In Summer 2005, rumors began circulating that Governor Tim Pawlenty would drop Molnau from his ticket when he sought re-election in 2006, mainly because of their differences over state funding for the planned Northstar Commuter Rail linking St. Cloud and the Twin Cities. Pawlenty denied those rumors on August 1, 2005 and Molnau remained on the ticket, winning reelection on November 7, 2006. Then, in January 2007, as part of a renewed threat to remove her, Senator Steve Murphy opined that under Molnau the state's transportation infrastructure was "crumbling."

State Highway 62
In 2006, Molnau requested bids for a major highway reconstruction of Minnesota State Highway 62 and Interstate Highway 35W.  Molnau's office required applicants to pay all construction projects as they did the work, with the state reimbursing the contractor over the course of the project.  As a result, no contractors submitted bids and the project was shelved until new funding streams could be developed a year later.

I-35W bridge collapse
In 2007 the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapsed in Minneapolis. Molnau was unable to immediately assist in her capacity as Commissioner of Transportation because she was in China at the time. Molnau responded to complaints over her absence by stating she was presenting a paper on transportation.  Subsequently some state legislators blamed her for her role as transportation commissioner for failing to advocate for robust funding of the state's transportation infrastructure, while Governor Pawlenty continued to support her. Molnau was a controversial transportation commissioner; while she does not have a college degree and said she did not read bridge inspection reports, she frequently promoted herself as a transportation expert while refusing to ask for funding to fix hundreds of problem bridges in Minnesota. She defended her leadership, citing that three members of her leadership team were engineers. The bridge that collapsed was one of those problem bridges that inspectors found to be structurally deficient. The required repairs were not made before the tragedy. A plan to strengthen the fatiguing steel trusses under the bridge was scrapped, some claim in part due to the $2 million cost of those repairs, although Mn/DOT engineers "scoffed" at the suggestion that this was a major factor in the decision. From 2003 through August 2007, Mn/DOT had reduced its staff of 4,500 by 600. Her critics claim that her focus was on new roads—not maintenance of existing ones.  In September 2007 the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that Molnau's Director of Emergency Response was attending a class at Harvard on Emergency Response.  The Director did not return when the bridge collapsed, and proceeded to spend several days in Washington, DC before returning to Minnesota over a week later.  The Director was terminated after the outcome of an investigation by the State's Legislative Auditor and the Department of Transportation.

Removal as transportation commissioner
After the Interstate 35W bridge collapse some lawmakers publicly questioned her dual role as lieutenant governor and transportation commissioner. However, Molnau defended her roles, citing her predecessor, Mae Schunk, who was active in education throughout the state.

Fallout from the I-35W bridge collapse was evident in a January 2008 Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute poll, with only one in four Minnesotans approving of the job she was doing as Mn/DOT commissioner. State Senator Steve Murphy responded by saying that the Minnesota Senate would remove her if she does not step down from her post as Mn/DOT chief.

On February 28, 2008, Molnau was removed from her position as transportation commissioner by the State Senate by a party-line, 44–22 vote. Pawlenty considered her ouster a disappointing partisan move while legislators saw failures of leadership and management.

Molnau's farm sale
In addition to the criticism following the I-35W bridge collapse, Molnau was also criticized for the sale of her family's farm in 2000 near a highway improvement project she helped put on a fast track. Then-state Rep. Carol Molnau and her husband Steve Molnau sold a  parcel of land for 3.3 million dollars near the Highway 212 project she had backed passed through the House of Representatives.  Although the official sale date was May 23, 2000, 8 days after then-governor Jesse Ventura signed the Highway 212 project bill, Molnau stated that the sale had been in negotiations for several months.  Additionally, a Carver County clerk stated that the sale date as recorded reflected the actual date of the sale, not the day of the real estate closing or the filing date.

See also
List of female lieutenant governors in the United States

References

Minnesota Historical Society
Minnesota Legislators Past and present

1949 births
Living people
People from Waconia, Minnesota
American people of German descent
Republican Party members of the Minnesota House of Representatives
Lieutenant Governors of Minnesota
State cabinet secretaries of Minnesota
American Lutherans
Women state legislators in Minnesota
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians

Carol Molnau


This article is based in large part on a translation of the article :fr:Roger du Maine from the French Wikipedia on 18 June 2017.
Roger of Maine, who died circa 900, was Count of Maine from 886 to 893, and again from 895 to 900. He is the founder of the second house of Maine, sometimes called the "Hugonids".

His family is not identified in contemporary documents. Recent research has proposed several hypotheses. On onomastic considerations, he might be a descendant of the Roger, Count of Le Mans in the early 8th century, and hence possibly of Robertian blood. Were this the case, he would have come from the same stock as his Rorgonid rivals, with whom he disputed the county of Maine. Christian Settipani identifies him with a count Roger who intervened in 892 to the aid of his "uncle" Hughes, count of Bourges, and suggests that this Hughes was his maternal uncle. This presence of names Hugh and Roger is reminiscent of the counts of Laon, and he could be the brother of Hugh, Count of Bassigny and uncle Roger I, Count of Laon.

Roger was married to Rothilde, daughter of the French king Charles the Bald, and was thus close to the royal family. In 885, Ragenold, Margrave of Neustria and Count of Maine was killed by the Normans. The surviving Rorgonids were teenagers, and King Charles the Fat preferred to entrust the march of Neustria to one of his followers, Henry of Franconia, and the county of Maine to Roger.  As a consequence, the Rorgonids allied themselves with the Robertians and, after Odo became king of France, Roger was driven out of Le Mans in 893 and replaced by the Rorgonid Gauzlin II.  Roger was restored as count in 895, but was particularly violent towards his subjects and the Church, drawing complaint from the Bishop of Le Mans. He died shortly afterwards.

With his wife Rothilde, daughter of Charles the Bald and Richilde of Provence, he had:
 Hugh I, Count of Maine
 a daughter, married about 914 to Hugh the Great, Duke of the Franks
 perhaps a daughter named Rothildis, who was abbess at Bouxières-aux-Dames from 937 to 965

References

Sources

Christian Settipani, La Préhistoire des Capétiens (Nouvelle histoire généalogique de l'auguste maison de France, vol. 1), Villeneuve d'Ascq, ed. Patrick van Kerrebrouck, 1993, 545 p. ()

Counts of Maine
9th-century births
900s deaths
Year of birth unknown
Year of death uncertain
Date of birth unknown
Date of death unknown

Roger, Count of Maine


Sydney Floyd Landreth (March 27, 1885 – October 2, 1977) was an American lawyer, banker and Republican politician from Galax, Virginia who represented the 14th state senatorial district for two decades. He ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Virginia in 1945.

Early life and education
Landreth liked to claim he was born in a log cabin on March 27, 1885 in a community then known as Dipsey in Carroll County, Virginia. His father, Rev. James Jonathan Landreth (1861–1926; minister at the local Disciples of Christ Church that Landreth would attend the rest of his life) and his wife, the former Missouri Clementine Phillippi (1864–1939), also had six daughters. S. Floyd Landreth graduated from the local Woodlawn High School and then attended Washington and Lee University further up the Shenandoah Valley in Lexington, Virginia. He graduated in 1910 and began practicing law in his native Carroll County. He married Lola Lintecum and they had one daughter, Kathryn Franke, who also bore a son before her father's death.

Politics and career
Landreth practiced law at the Carroll County Courthouse in Hillsville, as well as in adjoining counties. In 1912, while still a young deputy clerk, he witnessed a courtroom shootout between convicted defendant Floyd Allen and his family and law enforcement, which wounded Landreth's boss but killed the judge, prosecutor, sheriff, jury foreman, and later a witness, as well as wounded seven spectators. Landreth participated as special prosecutor in the trials of two of the shooters, which were moved to Wytheville because of inflamed feelings in Carroll County.

Landreth also farmed and was president of the First National Bank of Galax for four decades. He served on the local Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Retail Merchants Association. He was active in his church (on a national level) as well as with the Masons, Rotary Club, Moose, Boy Scouts and various bar associations. He was also a trustee of Lynchburg College.

He unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Virginia in 1945, receiving only about half the number of votes of Byrd Organization Democrat William M. Tuck. Still, garnering 30% of the vote, was far more than previous Republican candidates, and unlike previous Republican candidates, Landreth actually campaigned across Virginia. A decade later, Tuck would become a crucial figure in the Massive Resistance movement to the United States Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education.

Landreth was chairman of the state Republican Party in 1952, and greeted President Dwight Eisenhower during his campaign stops in southern Virginia. During the Massive Resistance controversy, Landreth had been one of the token Republicans on both the Gray Commission and later the Perrow Commission, which were both designed to address (or avoid compliance with) Brown. Virginians' upset over Governor Thomas B. Stanley's closing of public schools, as well as census changes and changes in federal law (especially the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which the Democratic Byrd Organization vehemently opposed) eventually led to the revitalization of the state Republican Party and return of two-party democracy to the state with the election of Linwood Holton as Governor before Landreth's death.

Death and memorials

Landreth died at a nursing home in Galax on October 2, 1977, survived by his wife, daughter, four sisters, a grandson and great grandchildren. His papers are held by the Library of Virginia.

References

1885 births
1977 deaths
Republican Party Virginia state senators
20th-century American politicians
People from Galax, Virginia
People from Carroll County, Virginia
Republican Party of Virginia chairs

S. Floyd Landreth


Oakfield is a suburb of the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight, England. Historically part of the St Helens parish, it was absorbed into Ryde Borough in 1933 and in turn into Medina Borough in 1974. Oakfield largely consists of light industrial units and various developments of social housing.

The area bounded by High Street, School Street and Reed Street was re-developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with Victorian stone-built cottages demolished to make way for local authority flats and houses. Also demolished was the Oakfield Junior School, in High Park Square, built to a design by Thomas Hellyer. Earlier local authority housing (pre and post war) exists in Harding Road, and later council-built properties can be found in Slade Road. The most recent development is OakVale, whose metal-clad walls dominate views from many other parts of Ryde. Victorian properties remain in parts of High Street, St John's Hill, Wood Street and Meaders Road as well as in Upper and Lower Highland Roads.

In the 1960s Oakfield had its own butcher, a barbers shop, several pubs and the well-patronised Renown Fish Bar. June's greengrocer shop on the corner of Meaders Road and St Johns Hill was used as a location in the 1973 film That'll be the Day, featuring Ringo Starr and Rosemary Leach. Few of these businesses remain, although the chip shop survives under a different name.

The church of St John, also designed by Hellyer, whilst described as being in Oakfield, would generally be considered to be outside the area, understood as being bounded by Alexandra Road to the east, St Johns Hill to the north, the Ryde to Shanklin Railway to the west, and open countryside to the south.

See also
St. John's Church, Oakfield, Ryde

Villages on the Isle of Wight

Oakfield, Isle of Wight


Lieutenant General Jean-Louis-Alain Touzet du Vigier (1888–1980 was a French army officer during World War II and an advocate of military mechanization, particularly the motorization of the cavalry.

Early life
Touzet du Vigier was born in Chambéry on 10 October 1888.

Military career
In order to be accepted into the St. Cyr Special Military School, he served in the volunteers until 1913.  He failed a medical examination, however, which prevented him from entering the school and was assigned to an infantry regiment instead.  He managed to get the support of then-War Minister Millerand, a family friend, to get a transfer from the 33rd Infantry Regiment, though, and, after receiving his transfer, he was able to attend St. Cyr.  He graduated before the start of World War I and eventually became a lieutenant in the 9th Cuirassiers, stationed in Noyon.

Due to the characteristics of World War I's Western Front, the 9th Cuirassiers were effectively forced to serve as infantry, fighting in the trenches against German military forces holding similar lines in France.   By 1918, Touzet du Vigier had risen to the temporary rank of captain.  He was then sent to join the 2nd Regiment of Chasseurs d'Afrique in Morocco, but stayed only a few months before being transferred back to St. Cyr as an instructor.

Interwar Period
In 1920, Touzet du Vigier was assigned to the staff of General Henri Niessel, the head of the French military mission to newly independent Poland, which was involved in a war with Bolshevik Russia.  Touzet du Vigier's direct superior while training the Polish troops was future French president Charles De Gaulle.

Throughout the 1920s, Touzet du Vigier, now a permanent captain, served in the 18th Chasseurs and on various staffs, becoming a proponent of the motorization of cavalry.  In 1932, as a military instructor and major, he joined the 18th Dragoon Regiment, which was located in Reims, where the 1st Light Mechanized Division was being raised.  Touzet du Vigier, in his classes, began to speak more about the mechanization of the French army.

In 1936, he was reassigned to the Joint Tactical Studies Center at Versailles, where he was appointed head of the cavalry section.  He continued to lecture others on the importance of mechanized cavalry, and, promoted in 1938 to lieutenant colonel, he was constantly reassigned to areas where his technical knowledge would prove useful.

World War II
By 1940, he had been given command of the 2nd Armored Cuirassier Regiment.  His regiment attempted to block the German blitzkrieg in Belgium, but, like so many other French units, was forced to retreat. When France fell to the Nazis, Touzet du Vigier, now serving the Marshal Petain's Vichy regime, was chosen to head the cavalry department of the army headquarters in Versailles.  However, Touzet du Vigier secretly collaborated with the French resistance.  His superiors, who ignored his underground activities, sent him to Mascara, Tunisia, where he took command of a sub-division.  When the Allies invaded Africa, Touzet du Vigier switched sides to that of De Gaulle's Free French.

Temporarily promoted to brigadier general, Touzet du Vigier took command of the 1st Mechanized Brigade and then, in 1943, of the 1st Armored Division.  By now a major general, again temporarily, he served under the command of General Tassigny, the commander of the 1st French Army.

Touzet du Vigier's troops were some of the first to reach the Rhine.  In January 1945, he was placed in command of the fortress-city of Strasbourg, which was threatened by a German offensive.  The city did not fall, however, and Touzet du Vigier remained in this post until the end of the war.

Now a lieutenant general, Touzet du Vigier was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff to General de Tassigny and served in this position until 1947, when he reached the mandatory retirement age.

Touzet du Vigier died in Paris on 16 August 1980.

Notes

References
Forum in the Second World War (translated by Google)
Biography of Lieutenant General Jean-Louis-Alain Touzet du Vigier

1888 births
1980 deaths
French military personnel of World War II
French military personnel of World War I
Free French military personnel of World War II
French Fourth Republic
École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr alumni
Military personnel from Chambéry
French generals
People of Vichy France
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
Companions of the Distinguished Service Order

Jean Touzet du Vigier


Uttara (, ) is a 2000 Bengali language drama film thriller directed by Bengali poet Buddhadev Dasgupta. Based on a short story by Samaresh Bose, it stars Jaya Seal as Uttara, Tapas Paul, Shankar Chakraborty, Raisul Islam Asad as a Christian missionary.

The film contrasts violence, human vices and lawlessness in a seemingly peaceful setting, in a quiet village in Purulia district in Bengal.

Uttara premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 30 August 2000 and was the winner of the festivals' Special Director award. It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2000 and on 22 May it was shown in the US at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival The film was released in France on 13 June 2001 and won the Audience Award at the Nantes festival. It opened the Pusan Film Festival in South Korea.Buddhadeb Dasgupta won the National film awards for best direction for this movie.

Due to its homoerotic undertones, Uttara was shown at a number of gay and lesbian film festivals including the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

Plot

Overview of the film
The way the movie depicts the development of the plot conveys this violation of a peaceful world. The series of disjunctive shots of the threads of the story that follow the opening utopian shot disrupt any notions of linearity, making the audience feel the conflict of the forces that destroys the village. One of these scenes shows an army of dwarfs traversing mountains, plains, and rivers, suggesting the search for an alternative world. As the dwarf who tries to help Uttara explains, these people have grown weary of the world of 'tall people', which full of cruelty and despair, and seek an alternate world. This is a metaphor for the wider world plagued by inequality and corruption. The troupe of masked folk dancers, who meander through the village, function in a mythic framework, representing the continuity of culture and tradition, and act as a stabilizing force in the various conflicts that mar the idyllic world of the village.

The schism between the friends is illustrated in the wrestling, which gradually becomes an overpowering obsession. Instead of expressing bonding, it takes on the colour of a power-game between two equally physically strong and morally weak men. The wrestling irrespective of homoerotic undertones is a deliberate destruction where one aims to destroy the other, as each morally unjust man attempts to win the physical 'possession' of Uttara.

Although an allegorical, cautionary tale on religious fundamentalism, between Christianity and Hinduism, Uttara is also an incisive examination of the provincialism, anachronism, moral and social injustice, and inherent contradiction. Contradiction is very important element in the film, for example the Christian missionary Padre who dispenses of his food wastefully at a rural village ravaged by poverty in exchange for converting desperate (and undernourished) souls, and a band of Hindu zealots aggressively roaming the landscape in their off-road utility vehicle and behaving in a manner completely with disregard to others contrary to the Hindu faith.

Another important aspect of the film is the way in which the dwarfs don pagan masks and ritualistically perform an ancient parade through the village. The seemingly pantheistic ancient dance is intended to represent an instinctual connection to roots and tradition becoming a metaphor for the sense of duty that has become increasingly sublimated in an environment of self-interest, vanity, gluttony and strong jealousy and competition. It is this contrasted, parallel image of reverence for the cycle of nature that renders Buddhadeb Dasgupta's vision of Indian society as a complex and tragic one, illustrating that society is overcome by hypocrisy. The barbaric behaviour of the city-dwellers is also intended to reflect the deviance of human nature in modern urban society, as it becomes plagued by declining moral values and terrorized by the inhumanity of extremism.

Cinematography and audio
The film is shot strikingly with visual imagination of the rural pastoral landscapes, the solitary huts of the wrestlers and the isolated church, contrasted against the malignant presence of the three urban yobs and their brutality. Filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta employs a unique strategy of shooting where he consistently shot periods of Uttara just after dawn and before sunset to emphasise the natural lighting on the landscape and to create atmosphere. In addition, this is precisely matched with reverse angle shots and unusually deep focus for framing and blocking. The cumulative result of such a technique adds to the formal unease, in a world where distinct natural beauty and deadly human menace coexist in equal measure. The cinematography, with the increasing or diminishing light of day is intended to directly coincide with the volatile changes in the ambience and mood of the film. The intense sunrise in one of the scenes as tension surmounts attempts to exude a feeling of heat, giving reflecting the burning emotions between the two wrestlers who are overcome by lust and jealousy.

The sounds that accompany these images play into this reiteration of theme on a more abstract level, ranging from the eerie silence that accompanies the menacing presence of the three goons, to the death knell that sounds as a rock rolls down while the wrestlers fight to kill each other. The audio occasionally uses a lot of rhythm and beats, for instance during the escapades of the three yobs, but this is sometimes juxtaposed by images and sounds of tranquility, the shots of the orchard accompanied by a soothing tune, and the troupe of dancers with their folk culture, that signify hope for the future.

Cast
Jaya Seal as  Uttara
Tapas Paul as  Nemai
Shankar Chakraborty as Balaram
R.I. Asad as Padre
Tapas Adhikari as Railway Guard
Saurav Das as Matthew
Gautam Warshi as Militant
Masood Akhtar as Militant
Subrat Dutta as Militant

References

External links

Bengali-language Indian films
2000 films
2000 thriller films
Films directed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta
Films whose director won the Best Director National Film Award
Films that won the Best Audiography National Film Award
2000s Bengali-language films
2000 drama films
Films based on works by Samaresh Basu
Indian thriller films

Uttara (film)


The Teodoro Moscoso Bridge is a bridge in Puerto Rico. It works as an extension of PR-17, also known as the Jesus T. Piñero Expressway, connecting this road with the Román Baldorioty de Castro Expressway (PR-26). It crosses the San José Lagoon thereby linking sectors of Rio Piedras in San Juan to Isla Verde Carolina neighbor. The bridge has become the new entrance to the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. It was opened on February 28, 1994 under the administration of Governor Pedro Rosselló, this construction being the first to be held under a Public Private Partnership in Puerto Rico. The bridge consists of four lanes, electronic signs, a toll plaza with a fee of $3.65 in each direction,. The bridge has flagpoles on both sides with alternating American and Puerto Rican flags, as of July 2019. The bridge accepts AutoExpreso, Puerto Rico's toll transponder system.

Toll Plaza

Etymology
The bridge is named after Teodoro Moscoso, known as "the architect of Operation Bootstrap", a plan of economic expansion after World War II.

History
On the bridge is held one of the largest 10K races in the world; The World's Best 10K attracts thousands of local and international competitors each year. As of April 2016, the standard toll is $3.65 collected on the South Shore for southbound and northbound traffic, making it the most expensive toll fare in Puerto Rico. It is the first project of privatization of road on the island and across the United States. It measures  in length. It serves as the main entrance to Luis Munoz Marin International Airport. It connects the airport with the upscale Mall of San Juan (open since March 2015). It is one of the longest bridges in Puerto Rico. It was built with an investment of $126.8 million.

The bridge goes over the .

Gallery

See also
 List of bridges in the United States
 List of bridges by length
 Farmacias Moscoso

References

Bridges completed in 1994
Buildings and structures in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Carolina, Puerto Rico
Public–private partnerships in Puerto Rico
1994 establishments in Puerto Rico
Toll bridges in Puerto Rico
Transportation in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Teodoro Moscoso Bridge


Rockingham Bay is a bay in Far North Queensland, Australia.

The bay opens onto the Coral Sea, part of the South Pacific Ocean. Adjacent to the bay is the Girramay National Park, south of which is the town of Cardwell. Goold Island is a small island in the bay, and south of this is Hinchinbrook Island, a larger island.

Rockingham Bay was one of the Australian places named by James Cook during his voyage in HMS Endeavour northwards along the east coast in 1770; he named it on Friday 8 June 1770.

The bay was significant in the exploration of the Cape York peninsula by Edmund Kennedy in 1848. He was landed here with a group of twelve men, to begin the journey north. On the way, Kennedy left eight members of the expedition at Weymouth Bay, intending to pick them up later on the return by sea. However Kennedy and all but one member died later during the journey; all but two of the eight members left at Weymouth Bay died before they were relieved.

References

Bays of Queensland
Landforms of Far North Queensland

Rockingham Bay


Arc the Lad is a tactical role-playing video game developed by G-Craft and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation. It was the best-selling Japanese PlayStation game of 1995 with over a million copies sold.

The story begins as the young girl Kukuru goes to put out the Flame Cion. At the same time, the hero Arc begins his quest to search for his estranged father, who left him and his mother 10 years ago. The two meet after Kukuru has put out the flame and is attacked by monsters.

Despite a heavy push for a North American release from RPG fans, the video game media, and third-party publishers, Arc the Lad was never formally released outside of Japan. However, years later it was included in the North American compilation Arc the Lad Collection.

Gameplay

Arc the Lad is a tactical RPG. In battle, the player has an area where each character may move, much like Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre. The areas the player can move are marked by blue tiles, and when using a melee attack on an enemy, the player can attack an enemy at any side the player can reach, and a cursor will be above the enemy to let the player know that he can attack the enemy. If the player uses magic or special abilities to attack the enemy, there will be a red set of tiles that show the player the range in which the spell or attack will reach. Unlike Final Fantasy Tactics, Arc the Lad is not isometric, therefore all tiles are the same size and shape.

Outside of battle, the character must select given areas on a map to access them. For example, to reach a battlefield, dungeon, or castle, the player will be given a general world map, to which the player will select a continent, then a map of the continent will be displayed. The player then must select a highlighted area to enter it. The game will always prompt the player to save once the player has selected an area to go to. Virtually no towns can be selected in this game. Only dungeons, small areas, and fields may be selected.

Once a player has selected an area, depending on the area chosen, the character may have the ability to explore the entire area. Many areas, however, do not allow for such freedom. Often the player will select an area and this may trigger an event, such as dialogue or battles. Because of this, most of the plot is given through dialogue during events as there are very few non-playable characters, or NPCs, to give information on where the player must go to.

At the end of the game, the player can save after beating the final boss. This save data is actually cleared save game data that they can use to transport to a new game in Arc the Lad II. All their characters' stats and attributes and items will be transferred over to Arc  the Lad II.

Plot and setting

Story
The game begins with a girl named Kukuru who is a member of the Sacred Clan in Seirya (スメリア, Sumeria), a clan that protects the Flame Cion. She is sent by the mayor of her town to extinguish this flame, but once she does, a monster called an Ark Ghoul appears and Kukuru flees. Meanwhile, a boy named Arc prepares to look for his father Yoshua, who has been missing for ten years. He stumbles upon Kukuru and they both defeat the pursuing monsters. Arc makes a promise to Kukuru to re-ignite the flame for her, but he is quickly struck down by the powerful Ark Ghoul. As he lays defeated, Arc hears a voice call out to him. The voice is a Guardian, who revives Arc and tells him to re-ignite the flame. The Guardian also tells Arc that he will return here later to extinguish the flame so that he may retrieve the Ark, a mystical box that will aid him in protecting the world; the Guardian finally adds that Arc's father made an agreement with the Guardians of the planet to protect humanity by the fore-coming darkness. After hearing this, Arc re-ignites the fire and resealing the Ark Ghoul before it could kill Kukuru.

Days later, after hearing of Arc's abilities, the king of Seirya summons him to Palencia Castle. As Arc heads to Palencia, Kukuru decides that it is her destiny to help him. Arc explains to the king that the guardian at the mountain had granted him power.  In order to see if Arc truly is blessed by the guardians, the king's minister, Andel, insisted that they tests him. The two were sent to battle some monsters where the party meets Poco of the drum corps, who was the only survivor from their latest patrol.  After Arc returns, the king tells him that he must seek out the Ark in order to save humankind. The king recounts how his own brother, the former king, believed this story and has disappeared to find the Ark. He then tells Arc to seek an audience with the Forest Spirit of Toyoke Forest in Millmana.

Given a ride to Millmana on the king's airship, Arc meets with the current ruler, General Yagun.  The arrogant general tells them the forest has become very dangerous and that he doesn't believe that "sniveling children" should be sent there.  After passing Yagun's test (and trap) of strength, Arc and company seek out the Forest Spirit.  The spirit tells them that Arc's father, the crown prince of Seirya, had seen her ten years ago and vowed to protect humankind, also that Arc will be the key to saving humankind and the world. The Forest Spirit gives Arc the hero's crest before departing, saying to Arc to return home to await word from his father.

In Palencia, a warrior and former guard, Tosh, is being escorted to a prison for treason; Tosh tried to stop his fellow guards from slaughtering innocent people who were his clan.  Arc prepares to report to the king regarding Millmana, but the king has grown ill. Tosh meanwhile breaks out of his cell and attacks some guards, who have transformed into monsters. Arc, Kukuru, and Poco help him, and after the battle, Tosh thanks them and leaves before more guards arrived. Arc returns to the king and with the hero's crest proves that the king's brother is Arc's father. Arc says that he must wait for correspondence from his father to seek out the rest of the Guardians, so the king tells him that he will help Arc in any way possible.

They return to Arc's house in Touvil only to find that the town has been pillaged and ruined. A courier delivers a message from Arc's father, telling him to find the book in the Ancient Monolith, which will guide him to the Guardians and their Stones. At the Monolith, an old man named Gogen appears and reveals himself to be the "book" that Arc had been told to find. Gogen is an ancient wizard who had been imprisoned in the illusion world for over 3,000 years. He tells Arc that the first Guardian is in Alatos.

The four go to the king for transportation to Alatos, and he gives them his airship, the Silver Noah. As the party heads to the Silver Noah, Tosh is mourning at his father's grave. Suddenly, Tosh's sword reveals its spirit and speaks to him. The spirit tells Tosh to accompany Arc on his quest.

In Alatos, the party meets a merchant named Chongara, who was instructed by Yoshua to guide them to the Guardian of Light. He wanted them to get him the Summon Pot in exchange for the information.  After speaking with the Guardian of Light and getting the Light Stone, Gogen tells them the location of the next Guardian in Greyshinne. Before departing, Chongara boards the Silver Noah, telling Arc and company that he feels besieged to assist them in their quest.

In Greyshinne, the party heads to Amaidar Temple (ラマだ寺, Ramada Temple). The Archmonk of the temple instructs the monk, Iga, to deal with Arc. The party pleads with Iga until Gogen suggests that he and Arc duel in order to gain permission to access the mountain. After Arc wins, Iga and the party speak with the Archmonk. Kukuru senses with her magic mirror that the Archmonk is a monster, which then causes the Archmonk to flee into the fighting grounds. Arc and team give chase and defeat the Archmonk. On Mt. Amaidar, the Earth Guardian gives them the Earth Stone. When they return to the temple, Iga asks them if he may help them in their quest.

In Niedel, the party hears that a tournament is being held where the winner wins a Wind Orb. Believing this is related to the Wind Guardian, one member of the party enlists in the tournament. Once that person wins the tournament, the party discovers that the winners of each tournament are later killed by the organizers so that they can retain the Wind Orb. After defeating the crooked announcer, the party frees the Wind Guardian from the Wind Orb and received the Wind Stone.

The Water Guardian lies in Zariban, a desert land once fertile but rendered arid by the over-processing of energy stones. The party meet a clansman of the Saryu Tribe who by Yoshua's request leads them to his village. The village was suddenly destroyed by an attack by Kasadoll, a general and ruler of Zariban. He is after the Water Guardian and destroyed the village as the Saryu Tribe are holding the key to entering the Water Shrine.  They manage to defeat him and gain the Water Stone.  From the stone, they've learned that the last guardian is in Seirya.

When the group returns to Palencia, they find a police state run by Andel. Sneaking into the castle basement, they find the Fire Guardian held captive under Andel's command for energy experimentations. They free the Fire Guardian, who after much convincing, grants them the Fire Stone.  However, a dying engineer set the basement and the castle above to self-destruct.  They then find the king, who is dying as Andel flees. The king tells them that Andel was sent by Romalia to gain control of Seirya so he could retrieve the Ark for Romalia's plans of world conquest.  After confessing his regrets to his nephew about having stolen the crown and throne from Yoshua, the king then dies, and the group escapes on the Silver Noah before the explosion brought out the whole castle.

Andel branded Arc and friends as criminals for the king's death and the castle's destruction and puts a bounty on the party.  They disguise themselves when returning to Seirya to extinguish the Flame Cion. Arc and Kukuru extinguish the flame. The Ark Ghoul reappears and flees to the Ark, and Arc and Kukuru chase after him. The other party members join them and head to Sabatico Falls.  Inside Sabatico Falls, they find the Ark, which tests their power first by having them fight a doppelganger form of the party. After the Ark and the Guardians reveal that mankind's only saving grace will be their ability to love one another, Arc and Kukuru are given The Power of Bravery and Divine Power respectively.

As the party leaves, Andel appears and seizes the Ark.  Arc and his party were forced to be captured as Andel revealed that he's holding Arc's people captive, including his mother. The ground soon begins to split and the falls turns into the Sabatico Shrine as it emerges up high from the ground; the group use the quake to escape Andel's guards.  Gogen tells them that the shrine has appeared as the seal against the Dark One, the world's entity of darkness, grows weaker. Arc tells Kukuru to go to the Sabatico Shrine, who now has the power to strengthen the seal as the last means of protection from the Dark One. The rest of the party return to the Silver Noah to set off and Kukuru watches them as they fly away to continue their mission of saving the world.

Setting
This game was intentionally designed to be short. Therefore, in the first game, only the continents of Seirya, Millmana, Alatos, Zariban, and Niedel are accessible. In Arc the Lad II, the towns of these areas, fields, dungeons, etc. are accessible. Also, new continents are accessible in Arc the Lad II. In terms of time, the game begins 10 years after Yoshua's departure, and some years after the opening sequence in Arc the Lad II, but before the actual storyline of Arc II.

Music
The orchestrated pieces were recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Most tracks in this game are sequenced as well, though the orchestrated pieces and the ending are streamed.

Reception

On release, Famicom Tsūshin scored the PlayStation version of the game a 31 out of 40. A critic for Next Generation (a USA magazine reviewing the game as an import) gave it four out of five stars, applauding its "deeply-involved storyline", highly attractive graphics, attention to detail, "grand soundtrack which rivals any big-budget Hollywood production", and the overall sense of epic importance conveyed by the game's experience.

In Japan, Arc the Lad sold 697,000 units in 1995, making it the ninth best-selling game of 1995. Its budget re-release received a "Gold Prize" from Sony in May 1998, indicating sales above 500,000 units in Japan. The game sold a total of 1,587,253 units in Japan.

North American release
Despite the popularity of the game in Japan and considerable demand for a North American release, Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) opted not to localize the game. Two different third-party publishers in the USA offered to translate and publish the game, but SCEA refused to license the game for a release in North America. This decision prompted a deluge of letters and emails calling for a North American release, and in early 1996 SCEA caved and announced that Arc the Lad would be released in North America in the fourth quarter of 1996. As the planned release date approached, insiders said the North American release would contain both Arc the Lad and Arc the Lad II, with an end-of-game save being used to unlock the second game. This release was later cancelled.

However, a North American localization did eventually appear as part of Arc the Lad Collection in 2002. While the game remains mostly unchanged, the color during movie sequences was changed from 16-bit color to 24-bit color and DualShock vibration support was added. Other changes include Sumeria becoming Seirya, Ramada becoming Amaidar, and Alibarsha becoming Zariban.

Notes

References

External links
Midori Style (Japanese)

1995 video games
Arc the Lad
Super Dash Bunko
G-Craft games
Japan-exclusive video games
PlayStation (console) games
PlayStation (console)-only games
Video games developed in Japan
Video games scored by Masahiro Andoh
Video games set in castles
Single-player video games
Sony Interactive Entertainment games
Tactical role-playing video games
Japan Studio games

Arc the Lad (video game)


François Robert, born in Paris, France the 26th of January,  1951, is a French researcher specializing in isotope geochemistry and cosmochemistry. His work on the isotopes of hydrogen has enhanced the understanding of the origin of water and of organic matter in the solar system. He is famous for his work on lithium, beryllium and boron, light elements formed by the irradiation of interstellar matter. He received a Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society in 2011 for his work on the isotopic composition of stable nuclei.

Career
He began his thesis in 1975 in the CEA Saclay under the direction of Marc Javoy and Liliane Merlivat and edited by Samuel Epstein at Caltech, Pasadena, California. He joined the CNRS in 1980 at the Laboratory of stable isotope geochemistry at the University of Jussieu, where he defended his thesis on the isotopic compositions (H, C, N) of carbonaceous meteorites in 1982. Between 1983 and 1990, he worked successively with Liliane Merlivat in Saclay, Samuel Epstein at the California Institute of Technology and Marc Javoy at Jussieu.

In 1990 he became a Directeur de Recherche in the CNRS.

In 1992 he worked for a few months in Thiruvananthapuram, India, where he created a laboratory for isotopic analysis.

He was assigned in 1993 to the Laboratory of Mineralogy of the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) led by Professor Jacques Fabriès. Between 1993 and 2004, he collaborated with the Research Center for Petrology and Geochemistry in Nancy (CNRS / INPL). Under the leadership of Professor Stephen Roth he participated in the establishment of the French Society for Stable Isotopes of which he became the Senior Vice President in 1999.

In 1999, he undertook the determination of the molecular structure of the insoluble organic matter of meteorites in collaboration with the Laboratory of Organic and Inorganic Geochemistry of the Environment at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris.

In 2006, he became responsible for a consortium of French laboratories set up by CNES, which set itself the goal of analysis of samples from the halo of Comet Wild 2 captured by the U.S. Stardust space mission (NASA).

Between 2003 and 2011, he was successively elected member of the board of directors and the scientific council of the MNHN and chairman of the National Program of Planetology (PNP / CNRS-INSU). Since 2004 he has been Director of the Laboratory of Mineralogy and Cosmochemistry of the Museum, in which there is a NanoSims (Cameca) ion probe accessible to national and international researchers as part of the National Analysis Service of the INSU-CNRS.

References

External links
 http://www2.mnhn.fr/hdt205/leme/robert.php (in French)
 http://meteoriticalsociety.org/simple_template.cfm?code=home_awardees&CFID=18346688&CFTOKEN=96092849

1951 births
Living people
Scientists from Paris
French geochemists
Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research

François Robert


The construction industry of Japan is a large component of the Japanese economy in terms of economic output and employment. Its history is one that mirrors closely the overall economic path of the country, from establishment of the capital during the feudal era, through economic modernization and imperial rule, and until today with the recovery and great economic expansion of Japan's post-war years. More recently, the industry has been influenced by preparations for major events, most notably the 2020 Summer Olympics, and a push towards sustainability. Contemporary challenges include maintaining access to labor and combating political corruption.

History

Classical and feudal era
The first physical record of a construction industry in Japan is Horyuji, a Buddhist temple that was completed in 607 and is now the world's oldest wooden building. More comparable to a modern industry can be seen starting in Edo, now Tokyo, during the Edo Period. By the 17th century, Edo was the world's largest city, with a population of over one million. Edo carpenters benefited in particular from the Sankin-kōtai system, which required daimyo, feudal lords, to spend alternating years in Edo. The extent of the development this spurred in Osaka, Edo and traveling stations was such that regulations on logging had to be established to ensure a sustainable supply of construction materials. The typical housing for lower classes was all-wood buildings with the expectation of frequent reconstruction. Due to the frequency of large fires, rebuilding was an expected, and even celebrated as part of life in Edo.

Early modern and imperial era
In the Meiji Period, from 1867 to 1912, seeking to promote industrialization and adoption of Western practices, the government launched infrastructure programs that produced the first construction contractors in Japan, some of which still exist today as major construction firms. Engineers from Europe and the United States introduced Western building techniques, and buildings were constructed in Western architectural styles. During this period, public works projects were contracted to companies based on competitive bidding systems.

This period also saw the first formal studies in Japan of the architectural implications of its many earthquakes. Early efforts in the late 19th century were conducted by the country's pioneering seismological societies and architectural engineering students investigating the aftermath of earthquakes and their effects on buildings. Japan's first building code was enacted in 1919 and additions in later years would include provisions to help prevent earthquake and wind damage.

The following imperial period saw Japanese construction firms involved in building infrastructure in overseas colonial possessions, such as Korea and Manchukuo. These encompassed a vast array of projects, including roads, railroads, ports, and communication networks, as well as various industrial and military installations.

Post-war era
In 1945, immediately after World War II, the construction industry suffered under United States Occupation of Japan despite the scale of rebuilding needed in devastated Japanese cities. Industrial infrastructure was relocated from inside Japan to former enemy territories such as China and the Philippines as war reparations. Furthermore, building resources such as cement were subject to production limits or requisitioned for the construction of US military bases. By 1948, this approach was abandoned in favor of building up Japanese industry. Japan began receiving technology from the United States, and rebuilding of physical infrastructure and key industries expanded significantly, especially after the Korean War in 1950. This led to a construction boom where up to 40% of Japan's public budget went towards construction projects until the 1990s. Important projects during this period included dams, public housing, and transportation infrastructure.

The 1964 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic Games to be hosted in Asia, was a significant event for Japan in demonstrating its recovery after the war and the construction industry was heavily involved in its preparation. Thirty venues were used, and total spending to host the Olympics was approximately equal to the entire national budget that year. A number of infrastructure projects were also completed in anticipation of the event, including highways, the modernization of Haneda Airport, and the completion of the first route of the Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka.

Contemporary features

Economic impact
In 2018, the Japanese construction industry contributed 28.4 trillion Yen to Japan's GDP. Factors in the short-term growth in the industry around this time include preparations for the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Summer Olympics, stimulus spending, and disaster relief projects. During this period, capital expenditure in the industry was growing while significantly exceeding the growth in spending in other industries.

However, despite its size, Japan's construction industry suffers from a shortage of labor, making it one of Japan's least productive sectors. Causes for this include a small labor pool, and a high average age for the industry, where a fourth of skilled workers are over 60. This hampers the industry's potential for output growth. To counteract this, the industry has sought to invest in automation, such as robotics, and expand the labor pool by reaching out to younger workers or workers from overseas.

Sustainability
Energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a goal of the Japanese government, which has resulted in national standards for energy usage as well as emissions standards set by local governments. There have also been technological approaches, including prefabricated houses produced with minimal  emissions or more energy efficient construction materials.

Corruption
There are a number of interactions between the Japanese construction industry and its government that can be construed as corrupt. Observers note that companies have given political contributions or bribes to the government, particularly in the past when it was actively instituting protective measures or incentives to encourage industrial development. Very common especially in construction is  or bid-rigging to arbitrarily raise project costs, enriching contractors at the expense of taxpayers. Even the largest construction contractors in Japan have been found to participate in this type of collusion, which has been investigated by the Fair Trade Commission.

Notable companies
In 2018, the construction industry in Japan included 3.5 million employees working for 451,000 companies, notable among which are five major vertically integrated firms with extensive operations both domestically and overseas:

 Kajima Corporation
 Obayashi Corporation
 Shimizu Corporation
 Takenaka Corporation
 Taisei Corporation

See also
Japanese architecture
Transportation in Japan
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Japan)

References

Construction industry
Construction industry
Japan-related articles by quality
Japan-related articles by importance

Construction industry of Japan


Isola Bella (lit. 'beautiful island') is one of the Borromean Islands of Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy. The island is situated in the Borromean Gulf 400 metres from the lakeside town of Stresa. Isola Bella is 320 metres long by 400 metres wide and is divided between the Palace, its Italianate garden, and a small fishing village.

History

Until 1632 the island—known only as l'isola inferiore or isola di sotto—was a rocky crag occupied by a tiny fishing village: but that year Carlo III of the influential House of Borromeo began the construction of a palazzo dedicated to his wife, Isabella D'Adda, from whom the island takes its name. He entrusted the works to the Milanese Angelo Crivelli, who was also to be responsible for planning the gardens. The works were interrupted around midcentury when the Duchy of Milan was struck by a devastating outbreak of the plague.

Construction resumed when the island passed to Carlo's sons, Cardinal Giberto III (1615–1672) and Vitaliano VI (1620–1690); the latter in particular, with the financial backing of his elder brother, entrusted the completion of the works to the Milanese architect Carlo Fontana and turned the villa into a place of sumptuous parties and theatrical events for the nobility of Europe.

The completion of the gardens, however, was left to his nephew Carlo IV (1657–1734). They were inaugurated in 1671.

The island achieved its highest level of social success during the period of Giberto V Borromeo (1751–1837) when guests included Edward Gibbon, Napoleon and his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais, and Caroline of Brunswick, the Princess of Wales. It is said that Caroline, having fallen in love with the place, did her best to convince the Borromeo family to sell her Isola Madre or the Castelli di Cannero islands; her request being turned down, she established herself on the banks of Lake Como at Cernobbio in the Villa d'Este.

A conference of high representatives of Italy, France, and the United Kingdom was held in the palace at Isola Bella in April 1935, resulting in the agreement known as the Stresa Front.

The island today
Isola Bella is a popular tourist attraction, with a regular ferry service from Stresa, Laveno, Pallanza, and Intra. It plays host to the annual Stresa music festival.

Notes

References
 Storia dell'Isola Bella

Further reading

Islands of Lake Maggiore in Italy
Islands of Piedmont
Gardens in Piedmont
Italian Renaissance gardens
Baroque architecture in Piedmont
House of Borromeo

Isola Bella (Lago Maggiore)