Brazil is a 1985 sci-fi dystopian dark comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm.

The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low-ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazils satire of technocracy, bureaucracy, hyper-surveillance, corporate statism, and state capitalism is reminiscent of George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and it has been called Kafkaesque as well as absurdist.

Sarah Street's British National Cinema (1997) describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society", and John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies (2005) describes it as a "dystopian satire". Jack Mathews, a film critic and the author of The Battle of Brazil (1987), described the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving Gilliam crazy all his life". Despite its title, the film is not about the country Brazil nor does it take place there; it is named after the recurrent theme song, Ary Barroso's "Aquarela do Brasil", known simply as "Brazil" to British audiences, as performed by Geoff Muldaur.

Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North American release. It has since become a cult film. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted Brazil the 54th greatest British film of all time. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 24th best British film ever.

Plot
In a dystopian, polluted, hyper-consumerist, overbearing bureaucratic totalitarian future based on an amalgamation of the 20th century, Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee who frequently dreams of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress. One day, shortly before Christmas, an insect becomes jammed in a teleprinter, which misprints a copy of an arrest warrant it was receiving. This leads to the arrest and death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle instead of suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle.

Sam discovers the mistake when he discovers the wrong bank account had been debited for the arrest. He visits Buttle's widow to give her the refund where he catches a glimpse of her upstairs neighbour Jill Layton, a truck driver, and is astonished to discover that Jill resembles the woman from his dreams. Sam frantically tries to approach Jill, but she disappears before he can find her. Jill has been trying to help Mrs Buttle establish what happened to her husband, but her efforts have been obstructed by bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist accomplice of Tuttle for attempting to report the wrongful arrest of Buttle.

Meanwhile, Sam reports a fault in his apartment's air conditioning. Central Services are uncooperative, but then Tuttle unexpectedly comes to his assistance. Tuttle explains that he used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork, and now works illegally as a freelance heating engineer. Tuttle repairs Sam's air conditioning, but when two Central Services workers, Spoor and Dowser, arrive, Sam has to stall to let Tuttle escape.

Sam discovers that Jill's records have been classified and the only way to access them is to be promoted to Information Retrieval. He had previously turned down a promotion arranged by his high-ranking mother, Ida, who is obsessed with the rejuvenating plastic surgery of cosmetic surgeon Dr Jaffe. Sam retracts his refusal by speaking with Deputy Minister Mr Helpmann at a party hosted by Ida. After obtaining Jill's records, Sam tracks her down before she can be arrested. Sam clumsily confesses his love to Jill, and they cause mayhem as they escape government agents. They stop at a mall and are frightened by a terrorist bombing (part of a campaign that has been occurring around the city), then government agents arrive and take Sam. He awakens briefly detained in police custody.

At work, Sam is chastised by his new boss Mr Warrenn for his lack of productivity. Sam returns home to find that Spoor and Dowser have repossessed his apartment. Tuttle then appears in secret and helps Sam enact revenge on the two Central Services workers by filling their hazmat suits with raw sewage. Jill finds Sam outside his apartment and the two take refuge in Ida's unoccupied home, where they share their first kiss. Sam falsifies government records to indicate her death, allowing her to escape pursuit. The two have sex overnight, but in the morning are apprehended by the government at gunpoint. Sam is told that Jill was killed while resisting arrest. Charged with treason for abusing his new position, Sam is restrained in a chair in a large, empty cylindrical room, to be tortured by his old friend, Jack Lint.

As Jack is about to start the torture, Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry, shooting Jack, rescuing Sam, and blowing up the Ministry building. Sam and Tuttle flee together, but Tuttle mysteriously disappears amid a mass of scraps of paperwork from the destroyed building. Sam stumbles into the funeral of Ida's friend, who has died following botched cosmetic surgery. Sam discovers that his mother now resembles Jill, and is too busy being fawned over by young men to care about her son's plight. Government agents disrupt the funeral, and Sam falls into the open casket. Through a black void he lands in a street from his daydreams, and tries to escape police and monsters by climbing a pile of flex-ducts. Opening a door, he passes through it and is surprised to find himself in a truck driven by Jill. The two leave the city together. However, this "happy ending" is a delusion: it is revealed that Sam is still strapped to the torture chair. Realising that Sam has descended into irrecoverable insanity, Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room. Sam remains in the chair, smiling and humming "Aquarela do Brasil" to himself.

Cast

Main cast
 Jonathan Pryce as Sam Lowry. Pryce has described the role as the highlight of his career, along with that of Lytton Strachey in Carrington. Tom Cruise was also considered for the role.
 Kim Greist as Jill Layton. Gilliam's first choice for the part was Ellen Barkin; also considered were Jamie Lee Curtis, Rebecca De Mornay, Rae Dawn Chong, Joanna Pacuła, Rosanna Arquette, Kelly McGillis, and Madonna. Gilliam was reportedly dissatisfied with Greist's performance, and chose to cut or edit some of her scenes as a result.
 Robert De Niro as Archibald "Harry" Tuttle. De Niro still wanted a part in the film after being denied that of Jack Lint, so Gilliam offered him the smaller role of Tuttle.
 Katherine Helmond as Mrs Ida Lowry. According to Helmond, Gilliam called her and said, "I have a part for you, and I want you to come over and do it, but you're not going to look very nice in it." The make-up was applied by Gilliam's wife, Maggie. During production, Helmond spent ten hours a day with a mask glued to her face; her scenes had to be postponed due to the blisters this caused.
 Ian Holm as Mr Kurtzmann, Sam's boss
 Bob Hoskins as Spoor, a government-employed heating engineer who resents Harry Tuttle
 Michael Palin as Jack Lint. Robert De Niro read the script and expressed interest in the role, but Gilliam had already promised the part to Palin, a friend and regular collaborator. Palin described the character as "someone who was everything that Jonathan Pryce's character wasn't: he's stable, he had a family, he was settled, comfortable, hard-working, charming, sociable – and utterly and totally unscrupulous. That was the way we felt we could bring out the evil in Jack Lint."
 Ian Richardson as Mr Warrenn, Sam's new boss at Information Retrieval
 Peter Vaughan as Mr Eugene Helpmann, the Deputy Minister of Information

Supporting cast

Cameos
 Co-writer Charles McKeown as Harvey Lime, Sam's co-worker.
 Director Terry Gilliam as the smoking man at Shang-ri La Towers.

Production

Writing
Gilliam developed the story and wrote the first draft of the screenplay with Charles Alverson, who was paid for his work but was ultimately uncredited in the final film. For nearly 20 years, Gilliam denied that Alverson had made any material contribution to the script. When the first draft was published and original in-progress documents emerged from Alverson's files, however, Gilliam begrudgingly changed his story. This was too late for either credit on the film or a listing on the failed Oscar nomination for Alverson; he has said that he would not have minded the Oscar nomination, even though he didn't think much of the script or the finished film. Gilliam, McKeown, and Stoppard collaborated on further drafts. Brazil was developed under the titles The Ministry and 1984 ½, the latter a nod not only to Orwell's original Nineteen Eighty-Four but also to 8½ directed by Federico Fellini; Gilliam often cites Fellini as one of the defining influences on his visual style. During the film's production, other working titles floated about, including The Ministry of Torture, How I Learned to Live with the System—So Far, and So That's Why the Bourgeoisie Sucks, before settling with Brazil, relating to the name of its escapist signature tune.

In an interview with Salman Rushdie, Gilliam stated:

Gilliam sometimes refers to this film as the second in his "Trilogy of Imagination" films, starting with Time Bandits (1981) and ending with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). All are about the "craziness of our awkwardly ordered society and the desire to escape it through whatever means possible." All three movies focus on these struggles and attempts to escape them through imagination—Time Bandits, through the eyes of a child, Brazil, through the eyes of a man in his thirties, and Munchausen, through the eyes of an elderly man. In 2013, Gilliam also called Brazil the first instalment of a dystopian satire trilogy it forms with 1995's 12 Monkeys and 2013's The Zero Theorem (though he later denied having said this).

Gilliam has stated that Brazil was inspired by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four—which he has admitted never having read—but is written from a contemporary perspective rather than looking to the future as Orwell did. In Gilliam's words, his film was "the Nineteen Eighty-Four for 1984." Critics and analysts have pointed out many similarities and differences between the two, an example being that contrary to Winston Smith, Sam Lowry's spirit did not capitulate as he sank into complete catatonia. The film's ending bears a strong similarity to the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. The tragicomic tone and philosophy of the film bear many resemblances to absurdist drama, a genre for which Brazil co-writer Tom Stoppard is widely acclaimed.

Production design

Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice wrote, "Gilliam understood that all futuristic films end up quaintly evoking the naïve past in which they were made, and turned the principle into a coherent comic aesthetic." In the second version of the script, Gilliam and Alverson described the film's setting like this: "It is neither future nor past, and yet a bit of each. It is neither East nor West, but could be Belgrade or Scunthorpe on a drizzly day in February. Or Cicero, Illinois, seen through the bottom of a beer bottle." In the 1988 documentary The Birth of Brazil, Gilliam said that he always explained the film as taking place "everywhere in the 20th century, whatever that means, on the Los Angeles/Belfast border, whatever that means". Pneumatic tubes are a frequent sight throughout the film.

The result is an anachronistic technology, "a view of what the 1980s might have looked like as viewed from the perspective of a 1940s filmmaker" which has been dubbed "retro-futurism" by fellow filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. It is a mixture of styles and production designs derived from Fritz Lang's films (particularly Metropolis and M) or film noir pictures starring Humphrey Bogart: "On the other hand, Sam's reality has a '40s noir feel. Some sequences are shot to recall images of Humphrey Bogart on the hunt and one character (Harvey Lime) may be named as an homage to The Third Man Harry Lime." A number of reviewers also saw a distinct influence of German Expressionism, as the 1920s seminal, more nightmarish, predecessor to 1940s film noir, in general in how Gilliam made use of lighting and set designs. A brief sequence towards the end, in which resistance fighters flee from government soldiers on the steps of the Ministry, pays homage to the Odessa Steps sequence in Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925). Strong references exist to the overcomplicated humoristic machinery of British illustrator W. Heath Robinson, published between 1915 and 1942. The grotesque sets were based on George Grosz's paintings of 1920s Berlin.

The lighting and set design was coupled with Gilliam's trademark obsession for very wide lenses and tilted camera angles; going unusually wide for an audience used to mainstream Hollywood productions, Gilliam made the film's wide-angle shots with 14mm (Zeiss), 11mm, and 9.8mm (Kinoptik) lenses, the latter being a recent technological innovation at the time as one of the first lenses of that short a focal length that did not fish-eye. In fact, over the years, the 14mm lens has become informally known as "The Gilliam" among filmmakers due to the director's frequent use of it since Brazil.

Many of the film's exterior scenes are filmed in Les Espaces d'Abraxas in Noisy-le-Grand near Paris, a monumental apartment complex designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura.

The numbering of form , without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Central Services, is an allusion to George Orwell's flat at 27B Canonbury Square, London (up six half-flights of stairs), where he lived while writing parts of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Music
Geoff Muldaur performed a version of Ary Barroso's most famous 1939 song "Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of Brazil", often simply called "Brazil" in English). The song is a musical ode to the Brazilian motherland. Geoff Muldaur uses the song as a leitmotif in the film, although other background music is also used. Michael Kamen's arrangement and orchestration of Barroso's song for Brazil made it more pliable to late 20th-century tastes to the extent that film trailer composers often use it in contexts that have little to do with Brazil and more to do with Gilliam's dystopian vision. Kamen, who scored the film, originally recorded "Brazil" with vocals by Kate Bush. This recording was not included in the actual film or the original soundtrack release; however, it has been subsequently released on re-pressings of the soundtrack. Gilliam recalls drawing the inspiration to use the song as follows:

Sylvia Albertazzi, in her article "Salman Rushdie's 'The location of Brazil'. The Imaginary homelands of the Fantastic Literature", stresses even further the importance that the soundtrack had upon the movie's plot and meaning. She suggests "... the opening question 'where is Gilliam's Brazil?', may be answered, quite literally, 'in a song'; just as it is in a song that there is to be found that world where 'all fall down' in children's games".

Release

Battle for final cut
The film was produced by Arnon Milchan's company Embassy International Pictures. Gilliam's original cut of the film is 142 minutes long and ends on a dark note. This version was released in Europe and internationally by 20th Century Fox without issue; however, US distribution was handled by Universal, whose executives felt the ending tested poorly. Universal chairman Sid Sheinberg insisted on a dramatic re-edit of the film to give it a happy ending, and suggested testing both versions to see which scored higher. At one point, there were two editing teams working on the film, one without Gilliam's knowledge. As with the science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), which had been released three years earlier, a version of Brazil was created by the studio with a more consumer-friendly ending.

After a lengthy delay with no sign of the film being released, Gilliam took out a full-page ad in the trade magazine Variety urging Sheinberg to release Brazil in its intended version. Sheinberg spoke publicly of his dispute with Gilliam in interviews and ran his own advertisement in Daily Variety offering to sell the film. Gilliam conducted private screenings of Brazil (without the studio's approval) for film schools and local critics. On the same night Universal's award contender Out of Africa premiered in New York, Brazil was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards for "Best Picture", "Best Screenplay", and "Best Director". This prompted Universal to finally agree to release a modified 132-minute version supervised by Gilliam, in 1985.

Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Brazil, Terry Gilliam's visionary Orwellian fantasy, is an audacious dark comedy, filled with strange, imaginative visuals." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 84 based on 18 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan described the film as "the most potent piece of satiric political cinema since Dr. Strangelove". Janet Maslin of The New York Times was very positive towards the film upon its release, stating "Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a jaunty, wittily observed vision of an extremely bleak future, is a superb example of the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas, even solemn ones."

Roger Ebert was less enthusiastic in the Chicago Sun-Times, giving the film two out of four stars and claiming that it was "hard to follow". He felt the film lacked a confident grasp on its characters' roles in a story "awash in elaborate special effects, sensational sets, apocalyptic scenes of destruction and a general lack of discipline". Ebert wrote positively of certain scenes, especially one in which "Sam moves into half an office and finds himself engaged in a tug-of-war over his desk with the man through the wall. I was reminded of a Chaplin film, Modern Times, and reminded, too, that in Chaplin economy and simplicity were virtues, not the enemy."

Colin Greenland reviewed Brazil for Imagine magazine, and stated that it was "a daring, exorbitant Vision, sombrely funny and darkly true."

Accolades
In 2004, Total Film named Brazil the 20th-greatest British movie of all time. In 2005, Time film reviewers Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel included Brazil in an unordered list of the 100 best films of all time. In 2006, Channel 4 voted Brazil one of the "50 Films to See Before You Die", shortly before its broadcast on FilmFour. The film also ranks at number 83 in Empire magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time.

Wired ranked Brazil number 5 in its list of the top 20 sci-fi movies. Entertainment Weekly listed Brazil as the sixth-best science-fiction piece of media released since 1982. The magazine also ranked the film No. 13 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films".

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction (Norman Garwood, Maggie Gray).

According to Gilliam in an interview with Clive James in his online programme Talking in the Library, Brazil is – to his surprise – apparently a favourite film of the far right in America.

Home media
Brazil has been released several times by The Criterion Collection, as a five-disc LaserDisc set in 1996, a three-disc DVD set in 1999, and a two-disc Blu-ray set in 2012, all with the same special features: a 142-minute cut of the film (referred to by Gilliam as the "fifth and final cut"), Sheinberg's 94-minute "Love Conquers All" cut for syndicated television, and various galleries and featurettes.

Criterion also released a one-disc, movie-only edition in 2006, while the three-disc set was revised to be compatible with widescreen televisions.

A Blu-ray of the 132-minute US version of the movie was released in the US on 12 July 2011 by Universal Pictures. It contains only that version of the film and no extra features.

Legacy

Film
Other films which have drawn inspiration from Brazil cinematography, art design, and overall atmosphere include Jean-Pierre Jeunet's and Marc Caro's films Delicatessen (1991) and The City of Lost Children (1995), Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's Super Mario Bros. (1993), the Coen brothers' The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), and Alex Proyas's Dark City (1998).

The production design and lighting style of Tim Burton's Batman (1989) have been compared to Brazil. Tim Burton and production designer Anton Furst studied Brazil as a reference for Batman.

The ending of Neil Marshall's The Descent (2005) was greatly inspired by Brazil, as Marshall explained in an interview:

Jupiter Ascending (2015) features a scene deliberately designed to resemble the bureaucracy in Brazil, featuring Terry Gilliam in a cameo role and a reference to a "statute 27B-stroke-6".

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) was also heavily inspired by Brazil, both in its production design and its themes. The planet of Canto Bight is aesthetically similar to Brazil. Both films also share several themes, showing the ambivalence of the wealthy in the face of a world falling apart and a society unaware of the conflict surrounding them. A direct reference to the film can be heard when Finn and Rose are arrested for Parking Violation 27B/6, a nod to form 27B/6 without which no work can be done by repairmen of the Department of Public Works.

Television
Production design of the Time Variance Authority depicted in the Disney+ series Loki was inspired by the "fun sci-fi bureaucracy" and dystopian design elements of Brazil Ministry of Information.

Technology
The highly technological aesthetics of Brazil inspired the set design of Max Cohen's apartment in the film Pi. Brazil also served as an inspiration for the film Sucker Punch (2011), and has been recognised as an inspiration for writers and artists of the steampunk subculture.

The dystopian premise of the 2018 video game We Happy Few was largely inspired by Brazil.

See also
 BFI Top 100 British films
 List of films featuring surveillance
 List of films cut over the director's opposition

Notes

References

Further reading
 Bruce Krajewski, "Postmodernism, Allegory, and Hermeneutics in Brazil, in Traveling with Hermes: Hermeneutics and Rhetoric (1992), .
 Jack Mathews, The Battle of Brazil (1987), .

External links

 Brazil at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
 Wide Angle Closeup: The Terry Gilliam Files – Interviews and production stories on Brazil
 Brazil Screenplay, Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard & Charles McKeown, Daily Script website
 DGA magazine interview with Gilliam
 Hamel, James Keith. Modernity and Mise-en-scene: Terry Gilliam and Brazil, from Images: Journal of Film and Popular Culture
 Brazil: A Great Place to Visit, Wouldn't Want to Live There an essay by David Sterritt at the Criterion Collection

1985 black comedy films
1980s British films
1980s dystopian films
1980s English-language films
1980s political films
1980s satirical films
1980s science fiction comedy films
1985 films
20th Century Fox films
BAFTA winners (films)
British fantasy drama films
British neo-noir films
British political satire films
British satirical films
Films about bureaucracy
Films about dreams
Films about simulated reality
Films about terrorism
Films about totalitarianism
Films based on Nineteen Eighty-Four
Films directed by Terry Gilliam
Films produced by Arnon Milchan
Films scored by Michael Kamen
Films set in offices
Films set in the 20th century
Films with screenplays by Charles McKeown
Films with screenplays by Terry Gilliam
Films with screenplays by Tom Stoppard
Regency Enterprises films
Retrofuturism
Santa Claus in film
Surreal comedy films
Torture in films
Universal Pictures films

Brazil (1985 film)


Agnès Monique Ohsan Bellepeau GOSK (born 1942) is a Mauritian politician and was the fourth vice president of Mauritius from November 2010 to April 2016. She was acting president of Mauritius from 31 March 2012 to 21 July 2012 when Sir Anerood Jugnauth resigned up to the inauguration of Kailash Purryag to the office. She was again acting president from 29 May 2015 to 5 June 2015 when Kailash Purryag resigned up to the inauguration of Ameenah Gurib to the office.

Career
Monique Ohsan Bellepeau was a journalist and a news announcer on the national TV channel, the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation.

She won the parliamentary elections and was appointed as Vice President on 12 November 2010 following the death of Vice President Angidi Chettiar. She was elected unanimously by all members of the National Assembly to become the first female Vice President of Mauritius. Ohsan Bellepeau was a member of the Mauritian Labor Party and later became the President of the Party. She is the daughter of Bartholomée Ohsan, who was a founding member of the party.

On 30 March 2012, Mauritius president Anerood Jugnauth resigned after a feud with the country's prime minister, leaving the presidential chair to vice-president Ohsan Bellepeau. She was succeeded as President by Kailash Purryag on 21 July 2012.

On 29 May 2015, President Kailash Purryag resigned, leaving the presidential chair again to vice-president Ohsan Bellepeau. She was succeeded as President by Ameenah Gurib on 5 June 2015.

Private life
She was married to Yves Joseph Bellepeau, who was a businessman. He died on 16 November 2010, three days after she was sworn in as Vice President.

Honours and decorations
 :
  Grand Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean (2010)

References

|-

|-

1942 births
Living people
21st-century women politicians
Labour Party (Mauritius) politicians
Grand Officers of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean
Mauritian journalists
Mauritian women journalists
Mauritian women in politics
Presidents of Mauritius
Vice-presidents of Mauritius
Women television journalists
Women vice presidents in Asia
20th-century journalists
21st-century journalists
21st-century women journalists
Women presidents in Asia
First women presidents

Monique Ohsan Bellepeau


Phan Thiet is a municipality o Binh Thuan province, in Nam Trung Bo (Vietnam), 198 km north of Ho Chi Minh Ceety. Its population stands at aboot 350,000 fowk (2011). The ceety is locatit on the richt bank o the Ca Ti River. Phan Thiet is located at 1,530 km south o Hanoi.
Cam Ranh Airport is 180 km north of Phan Thiet.
Phan Thiet is a popular tourists destination with several beaches.

Ceeties in Vietnam

Phan Thiet


Green Is Blues is the second studio album by American singer and songwriter Al Green. Released by Hi Records on April 15, 1969, two days after Green's 23rd birthday, critics and fans alike consider the album his breakthrough release, following the lukewarm reception of his 1967 debut, Back Up Train. Green Is Blues marks the first collaboration of Green and musician Willie Mitchell, who also served as the album's main producer; the co-founder and President of Hi Records, Joe Cuoghi, acted as the recording supervisor.

Upon the album's '40th Anniversary' re-release, as a digital deluxe package in July 2009, noted soul writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning 'Blues & Soul' stated: "Significant for matching for the first time Green's soulful refined vocal brilliance with the skilful production of co-writer/producer Willie Mitchell and the tight arrangements of Memphis' renowned Hi Rhythm Section, the album ushered in a new era for "The Memphis Sound" – effectively kick-starting a studio partnership between Green and Mitchell that would see Al go on to become the premier soul superstar of the early Seventies – and arguably the last great Southern soul singer, period."

Track listing
 "One Woman" (Charles Chalmers, Sandra Rhodes) – 3:05
 "Talk to Me" (Joe Seneca) – 2:06
 "My Girl" (Smokey Robinson, Ronald White) – 2:55
 "The Letter" (Wayne Carson Thompson) – 2:28
 "I Stand Accused" (Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield, Billy Butler) – 3:18
 "Gotta Find a New World" (Carl Smith, Marion "Doc" Oliver) – 2:25
 "What Am I Gonna Do with Myself?" (Willie Mitchell, Marshall "Rock" Jones) – 2:27
 "Tomorrow's Dream" (Al Green, Willie Mitchell) – 2:19
 "Get Back Baby" (Al Green) – 2:16
 "Get Back" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 2:22
 "Summertime" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward) – 3:08

40th Anniversary Edition
The track listing for 40th anniversary edition, released 2009, includes four additional tracks:
  "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 2:20
 "Nothing Impossible With Love" (Jimmy Reed) – 2:37
 "Baby, What's Wrong with You" – 3:41
 "Memphis, Tennessee" (Chuck Berry) – 3:15

Later samples
"The Letter"
"L.A. L.A." by Capone-N-Noreaga from the album The War Report
"Long Kiss Goodnight" by The Notorious B.I.G. from the album Life After Death
"Creation & Destruction" by Immortal Technique from the album Revolutionary Vol. 1
"Somma Time Man" by Salt-N-Pepa from the album Very Necessary
"Gotta Find a New World"
"Iron Maiden" by Ghostface Killah from the album Ironman

References

Al Green albums
1969 albums
Hi Records albums
Albums produced by Willie Mitchell (musician)

Green Is Blues


Floris is a 1969 Dutch action television series starring Rutger Hauer and Jos Bergman, written by Gerard Soeteman, and directed by Paul Verhoeven.

Concept
The success of television series like the British Ivanhoe, the French Thierry La Fronde and the Flemish Johan en de Alverman inspired , manager of NTS (forerunner of NTR) to make a similar series, set in the Netherlands. It was written by Gerard Soeteman. The series was filmed in black and white, and has been aired in reruns through the years. It has also been shown in East Germany and (dubbed in English) in Scotland.

Storyline
In the early 16th century, during the Guelders Wars (1502-1543), the knight Floris van Roozemond (spelling varies with o/oo, s/z and d/dt), accompanied by the Indian Sindala (Bergman), returns home from a trip around the world only to find his castle occupied by Maarten van Rossum, the commander in chief of Charles, Duke of Guelders. Charles, who controls Guelders, is involved in a power struggle against Philip the Handsome who rules the Burgundian Netherlands, the rest of the Low Countries. Floris had so far been neutral due to his absence, but after he finds his castle stolen, he sides with Wolter van Oldenstein, who is allied with Burgundy against Charles. Charles and Maarten are aided by the Frisian pirate Greate Pier partly as an ally, and partly to do the dirty work.

Cast
 Rutger Hauer ... Floris
 Jos Bergman ... Sindala
 Ton Vos ... Wolter van Oldenstein
 Jacco van Renesse ... Rogier
 Hans Culeman ... Maarten van Rossem
 Tim Beekman ... Sergeant
 Pollo Hamburger ... Diederik
 Henk Admiraal ... Wilhelm
 Diana Dobbelman ... Ada
 Ida Bons ... Viola
 Hans Boskamp ... Lange Pier
 Sacco van der Made ... Aernout
 Nico Deegen ... Ubbe
 Peter Aryans ... Boer
 Frans Kokshoorn ... Molenaar
 Ad Hoeymans ... Barend van Hackfort
 Niek Engelschman ... Zweden
 Carola Gijsbers van Wijk ... Isabella
 Hans Kemna ... Govert
 Lex Schoorel ... Roland
 Eric Schuttelaar ... Wobbe
 Tony Verwey ... Waard
 Paul van Gorcum ... Priester
 Jan Apon ... Personal Physician
of the Duke of Guelders

Historicity
Apart from Sindala and Floris, all the characters are based on historical figures. A divergence from history is the presence of the pirate Greate Pier: although a contemporary, he was not active as a pirate before the death of Philip the Handsome. In the series, Pier is either guarded or surrounded by members of the Arumer Zwarte Hoop (called "Gelderse Friezen" in the series).

Although intended as a children's series, it was very popular with adults; for example, Floris's sword fight with two swords in the castle in the first episode looks surprisingly realistic. The series also had an educational element: customs, like timekeeping with bells, and the origin of words such as vernagelen ('to spike down'), are explained by example. While Floris is portrayed as a typical knight-hero – not too bright but a good swordsman – Sindala is the clever one, using Oriental scientific knowledge for practical applications (which also had educational value).

Locations included the medieval castles of Doornenburg, Loevestein and Hernen, all in the Dutch province of Gelderland (part of historical Guelders), and the Belgian cities Bruges and Ghent.

Production
Finding actors for the series was not easy because television was still regarded as inferior to the theatre. Hauer was introduced to Verhoeven as "maybe not such a good actor, but he will do and dare anything". Verhoeven was indeed worried about Hauer's lack of acting experience, but he looked good physically, could handle swords and ride horses well and did most of his stunts himself. The original name of the series was Floris and the Fakir and Verhoeven used two shot filming just in case. Hauer learned the TV acting fast enough.

For the time it was a major production with 80 actors and 2500 extras. Verhoeven overspent the budget of 355,000 guilders by more than 300% (the total production costs cannot be calculated exactly anymore, but are estimated to be ƒ1,200,000 or €545,000). When this became clear, it was already too late to stop the production because Verhoeven used "vertical planning", in which the filming was done per actor instead of per episode. Stopping the production would mean that all work was lost. As a TV production of this scale had never been done before in the Netherlands, there was a lot of pioneering. Recordings were usually made in the studio, but Floris was mostly shot outside. Everyone on the set, including Verhoeven, had to learn the trade as they went. Tasks were also not strictly delineated, like they are these days; everyone was a bit of a jack of all trades. "We didn't stand with our arms folded smoking a cigarette when it wasn't our turn." Ironically, finding good locations for this TV production was difficult because the popularity of television had resulted in transmitting antennas being ubiquitous.

Collaboration
The series was the first major undertaking of both Hauer and Verhoeven, as well as their first collaboration. It was followed by Turkish Delight (Turks Fruit) and Soldier of Orange (Soldaat van Oranje); ideas not used for the series were later included in the film Flesh and Blood, also directed by Verhoeven with Hauer in the lead role (which also proved to be their final collaboration).

Episodes
Het gestolen kasteel (The Stolen Castle)
 De koperen hond (The Copper Dog)
 De zwarte kogels (The Black Bullets)
 De man van Gent (The Man from Ghent)
 De harige duivel (The Hairy Devil)
 De vrijbrief (The Pass Papers)
 De drie narren (The Three Fools)
 De alruin (The Mandrake)
 Het brandende water (The Burning Water)
 De wonderdoener (The Miracle Man)
 De Byzantijnse beker: Het toernooi (The Byzantine Goblet: The Tournament)
 De Byzantijnse beker: De genezing (The Byzantine Goblet: The Healing)

Related media

Export
The series was sold for redubbing to channels in the UK and also to East Germany. In the UK, the series aired on Yorkshire Television in 1970 as The Adventures of Floris. None of the English dubbed episodes survive.

Audio plays
Two of the unproduced scripts were produced as audio plays; they seem to be the same adventures as #6 and #8 of the newspaper comic adventures and #7 and #10 of the German remake.

Text stories
Photo-illustrated text stories of two episodes were serialised in the short-lived comic magazine Jamin Junior during 1972. These were "De Wonderdoener" (Nummers 1–14) and "De Zwarte Kogels" (Nummers 15–26). As publication of Jamin Junior was terminated rather suddenly, it is believed the second adaptation remained unfinished.

Newspaper comics
Starting in 1972 15 scripts for the Floris series (not taken into production) were made into newspaper comics published in De Telegraaf by Gerrit Stapel. The art and dialogue were Stapel's, but the story Soeteman's, so the newspaper comics should be considered a canonical source of information about Floris's further adventures. Most important event in the comics is that Floris regains ownership of castle Rozenmondt in the 7th comics adventure.

German remake
1975 saw a West German remake of the series, Floris von Rosemund, again starring Rutger Hauer, but with German actor Derval de Faria as Sindala. This version, directed by Austrian director Ferry Radax, put much more emphasis on the comedic aspects of the stories and provided the female characters Ada and Viola with larger parts than the original. Strangely enough the East German dub of the original Dutch, black and white, series was made two years after this, in 1977.

DVD
The original series has been released on DVD, as has the German remake; neither edition has any other languages or subtitles. However, fan made English subtitles exist for the Dutch series and all of its documentaries.

Film adaptation

The movie Floris (2004) was shot in 2003. It was directed by Jean van de Velde and features Michiel Huisman as the grandson of the original Floris. The new side-kick is Pi, a role played by pop star Birgit Schuurman. Some of the footage from the 1969 series with Hauer and Bergman is included. Hauer was originally asked to play the father of young Floris, but he declined.

Recovery of unfinished episodes
Some material had been filmed for two episodes which were never completed after the project was ended: Het Gericht (the tribunal), and De Bouwmeester (The Architect). The former's screenplay had been used for the German remake as well. In 2016 the raw footage was found. While The architect amounted to only a few minutes, The tribunal was assembled, and ran just over 18 minutes when linked with panels from the newspaper comic strip and narration where necessary to make up for the missing material. It was then shown at Doornenburg Castle, one of the old locations. All the material of both unfinished episodes was later made available online through a regional Guelders broadcaster.

References

External links

1969 Dutch television series debuts
1969 Dutch television series endings
Dutch drama television series
Dutch children's television series
1960s Dutch television series
Dutch-language television shows
Television series set in the 15th century
Television shows adapted into films
Television shows adapted into comics
Black-and-white Dutch television shows
Television shows set in the Netherlands
Adventure television series
Fictional knights
Fictional Dutch people

Floris (TV series)


The historic prime meridian or Greenwich meridian is a geographical reference line that passes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in London, England. The modern IERS Reference Meridian widely used today is based on the Greenwich meridian, but differs slightly from it. This prime meridian (at the time, one of many) was first established by Sir George Airy in 1851, and by 1884, over two-thirds of all ships and tonnage used it as the reference meridian on their charts and maps. In October of that year, at the behest of US President Chester A. Arthur, 41 delegates from 25 nations met in Washington, D.C., United States, for the International Meridian Conference. This conference selected the meridian passing through Greenwich as the world standard prime meridian due to its popularity. However, France abstained from the vote, and French maps continued to use the Paris meridian for several decades. In the 18th century, London lexicographer Malachy Postlethwayt published his African maps showing the "Meridian of London" intersecting the Equator a few degrees west of the later meridian and Accra, Ghana.

The plane of the prime meridian is parallel to the local gravity vector at the Airy transit circle () of the Greenwich observatory. The prime meridian was therefore long symbolised by a brass strip in the courtyard, now replaced by stainless steel, and since 16 December 1999, it has been marked by a powerful green laser shining north across the London night sky.

Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers show that the marking strip for the prime meridian at Greenwich is not exactly at zero degrees, zero minutes, and zero seconds but at approximately 5.3 seconds of arc to the west of the meridian (meaning that the meridian appears to be 102 metres east). In the past, this offset has been attributed to the establishment of reference meridians for space-based location systems such as WGS 84 (which GPS relies on) or to the fact that errors gradually crept into the International Time Bureau timekeeping process. The actual reason for the discrepancy is that the difference between precise GNSS coordinates and astronomically determined coordinates everywhere remains a localized gravity effect due to vertical deflection; thus, no systematic rotation of global longitudes occurred between the former astronomical system and the current geodetic system.

History

Before the establishment of a common meridian, most maritime countries established their own prime meridian, usually passing through the country in question. In 1721, Great Britain established its own meridian passing through an early transit circle at the newly established Royal Observatory at Greenwich.  The meridian was moved around 10 metres or so east on three occasions as transit circles with newer and better instruments were built, on each occasion next door to the existing one. This was to allow uninterrupted observation during each new construction. The final meridian was established as an imaginary line from the north pole to the south pole passing through the Airy transit circle. This became the United Kingdom's meridian in 1851. For all practical purposes of the period, the changes as the meridian was moved went unnoticed.

Transit instruments are installed to be perpendicular to the local level (which is a plane perpendicular to a plumb line). In 1884, the International Meridian Conference took place in Washington, D.C. to establish an internationally recognised single meridian. The meridian chosen was that which passed through the Airy transit circle at Greenwich, and it became the prime meridian of the world.

At around the time of this conference, scientists were making measurements to determine the deflection of the vertical on a large scale. One might expect that plumb lines set up in various locations, if extended downward, would all pass through a single point, the centre of the Earth, but this is not the case, primarily due to the Earth being an ellipsoid, not a sphere. The downward extended plumb lines don't even all intersect the rotation axis of the Earth; this much smaller effect is due to the uneven distribution of the Earth's mass. To make computations feasible, scientists defined ellipsoids of revolution, more closely emulating the shape of the Earth, modified for a particular zone; a published ellipsoid would be a good base line for measurements. The difference between the direction of a plumb line or vertical, and a line perpendicular to the surface of the ellipsoid of revolution a normal to said ellipsoid at a particular observatory, is the deflection of the vertical.

When the Airy transit circle was built, a mercury basin was used to align the telescope to the perpendicular. Thus the circle was aligned with the local vertical or plumb line, which is deflected slightly from the normal, or line perpendicular, to the reference ellipsoid used to define geodetic latitude and longitude in the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (which is nearly the same as the WGS-84 system used by GPS). While Airy's local vertical, set by the apparent centre of gravity of the earth still points to (aligns with) the modern celestial meridian (the intersection of the prime meridian plane with the celestial sphere), it does not pass through the Earth's rotation axis. As a result of this, the ITRF zero meridian, defined by a plane passing through the Earth's rotation axis, is 102.478 metres to the east of the prime meridian. A 2015 analysis by Malys et al. shows the offset between the former and the latter can be explained by this deflection of the vertical alone; other possible sources of the offset that have been proposed in the past are smaller than the current uncertainty in the deflection of the vertical, locally. The astronomical longitude of the Greenwich prime meridian was found to be 0.19 ± 0.47 East, i.e. the plane defined by the local vertical on the Greenwich prime meridian and the plane passing through the Earth's rotation axis on the ITRF zero meridian are effectively parallel. Claims, such as that on the BBC website, that the gap between astronomical and geodetic coordinates means that any measurements of transit time across the IRTF zero meridian will occur precisely 0.352 seconds (or 0.353 sidereal seconds) before the transit across the "intended meridian" are based on a failure of understanding. The explanation by Malys et al. on the other hand is more studied and correct.

Meridian today

As of 2020 the Greenwich meridian passes through eight countries from north to south:

 United Kingdom (specifically, only England)
 France
 Spain
 Algeria
 Mali
 Burkina Faso
 Togo
 Ghana

It also passes through Antarctica (only touching Queen Maud Land, the territorial claim of Norway).

It crosses the maritime Exclusive Economic Zones of:
 Greenland (Denmark)
 Norway (via proximity to Svalbard, Jan Mayen Island and the Norwegian mainland in the North Atlantic and Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic)

See also
 180th meridian
 Prime meridian
 Greenwich Mean Time
 IERS Reference Meridian
 United Kingdom Ordnance Survey Zero Meridian

Notes

References

External links

 "Where the Earth's surface begins—and ends", Popular Mechanics, December 1930

 A pictorial catalogue of meridian markers

Named meridians
Geography of the Royal Borough of Greenwich
1884 establishments in the British Empire
English inventions
Prime meridians
1851 establishments in the United Kingdom
1721 establishments in Great Britain
Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Prime meridian (Greenwich)


The Lincoln MKT was a luxury crossover. This vehicle was first made in 2009 for the 2010 model year. The vehicle could seat six or seven people. The MKT was built on the Ford D4 platform and served as the luxury counterpart to the Ford Flex and the Ford Explorer. The MKT replaced the Lincoln Town Car as well as the midsize Aviator SUV and slots between the fullsize Navigator SUV and MKZ midsize crossover SUV. Sales of the model have been slow and production ended in 2019 without a replacement.

2010s automobiles
MKT

Lincoln MKT


Charles Lucas (16 September 17134 November 1771) was an Anglo-Irish apothecary, physician and politician. He sat as Member of Parliament for Dublin City and was known as the "Irish Wilkes" because of his radical views.

Early life
The Lucas family were established in Ireland when Colonel Benjamin Lucas, Charles' great-uncle, was granted lands in County Clare following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in the early 1650s. Charles Lucas was the younger son of Benjamin Lucas of Ballingaddy, County Clare. Benjamin Lucas died about 1727, leaving £937 to his family, of which Charles was to receive £80. Having served the usual apprenticeship as an apothecary, Lucas was admitted to the Guild of St. Mary Magdalene.

Apothecary
For many years Lucas kept a shop in Charles Street, Dublin. He married his first wife, Anne Blundell, in 1734. In conducting his business Lucas was struck with certain abuses connected with the sale of drugs, and in 1735 published A Short Scheme for Preventing Frauds and Abuses in Pharmacy, humbly offered to the Consideration of the Legislature. His pamphlet was resented by his fellow apothecaries, but was the cause of an act being passed for the inspection of medicines.

In 1741, he published his Pharmacomastix, or the Office, Use, and Abuse of Apothecaries Explained, and had the satisfaction of seeing the former act renewed.

Political career

In this year Lucas was chosen as one of the representatives of his corporation on the Common Council of the City of Dublin. He soon came to the conclusion that the board of Aldermen had illegally usurped many of the powers belonging of right to the entire corporation.

Aided by James La Touche, a prominent merchant of the city, he secured the appointment of a committee, with Latouche as chairman, to inspect the charters and records of the city. The Aldermen strenuously resisted reform, and in 1743 he published A Remonstrance against certain Infringements on the Rights and Liberties of the Commons and Citizens of Dublin, arguing that the right of electing Aldermen lay with the entire corporation.

His argument was disputed by Recorder Stannard, and in the following year Lucas published his closely reasoned and temperate Divelina Libera: an Apology for the Civil Rights and Liberties of the Commons and Citizens of Dublin. During the year the controversy continued with unabated zeal on both sides (see The Proceedings of the Sheriffs and Commons, &c., Dublin, 1744, and A Message from the Sheriffs and Commons to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen... protesting against the Election of George Ribton, Dublin, 26 Sept. 1744). By Lucas's efforts a fund was raised by voluntary subscription, and a suit commenced on 7 November 1744 against the Aldermen in the court of king's bench. But after a hearing of two days, permission was refused by the judge to lodge information, and the victorious Aldermen struck out the names of Lucas and his supporters from the following triennial return of the Common Council.

On 25 December 1747 Lucas presented a printed statement of the case, entitled The Complaints of Dublin, to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Harrington, but Harrington declined to move in the business.

When in August 1748 a vacancy occurred in the parliamentary representation of the city of Dublin, Lucas offered himself as a candidate. Alderman Sir Samuel Cooke and James La Touche also came forward, and although the views of Lucas and Latouche were practically identical, neither would withdraw. To advance his candidature, Lucas in 1748-9 published twenty political addresses to his fellow citizens, explaining his views on the constitution, reflecting severely on the corruption prevailing in the House of Commons, and advocating the principles expounded by William Molyneux in favour of parliamentary independence. He rejected the claim that Ireland was a conquered colony dependent on the government and parliament of Great Britain. He continued "...it must now be confessed that there was no general rebellion in Ireland, since the first British invasion, that was not raised or fomented by the oppression, instigation, evil influence or connivance of the English." These addresses and a certain paper called The Censor, or Citizen's Journal, offended not only the court party, but also the friends of La Touche, whose character was roughly handled by Lucas, especially in his fourteenth address. In counter addresses and pamphlets Lucas was stigmatised as a needy adventurer, a man of no family, and a political firebrand.

While the election was still pending, the death of Alderman Nathaniel Pearson in May 1749 caused a second vacancy in the representation, and Lucas and La Touche became partly reconciled in opposing Cooke and the second aldermanic candidate, Charles Burton. Shortly afterwards, the corporation having resolved to farm the revenues of the city to a certain Alderman, Lucas denounced the affair as a job, and the council in which the resolution had been passed as packed. The corporation voted the charge false and malicious, and refused to hear Lucas in his defence. The censure was confirmed at a subsequent meeting, and a vote of thanks passed to the author of a pamphlet entitled Lucas Detected, conjectured to have been Edmund Burke, at that time a student at Trinity College. But an appeal by Lucas to the corporation secured fifteen votes out of the twenty-five in his favour.

About the same time he printed, with a translation and notes, The Great Charter of the City of Dublin. The lords justices refused (15 May 1749) his request to transmit it to the king, with a "Dedication to his Majesty." But on the return of Lord Harrington, Lucas waited on him at the castle on 8 October, and gave him a copy, together with a collection of his political addresses. Lucas was favourably impressed with his reception. Two days later (5 October), however, he attended a levee, and was peremptorily required to leave the castle. The next day he published the story in a newspaper, "with thanks to his excellency for the honour he did him," and on the day following, 7 October, issued An Address to his Excellency... with a Preface to the Free and Independent Citizens of Dublin, commenting on his treatment.

The date of the parliamentary election was approaching, and the government resolved to prevent Lucas from proceeding to the poll. When Parliament assembled on 10 October, the lord-lieutenant in his speech from the throne animadverted on certain bold attempts to create jealousies between the two kingdoms. The reference to Lucas was unmistakable, and the commons, on a motion of Sir Richard Cox, ordered Lucas and his printer to appear at the bar of the house. Esdall, Lucas's publisher, absconded; but the copy of his publications presented to the lord-lieutenant was put in evidence against him. The feeling of the house ran strongly against him, although the people of Dublin were hotly in his favour. Being ordered to withdraw, a series of resolutions was passed declaring him to be an enemy to his country, calling upon the attorney-general to prosecute him for his offence, and ordering his immediate imprisonment in Newgate. Esdall's wife, Anne, was called in her husband's absence to be questioned by the Irish house of commons about Lucas' writings.

Physician
His first intention was to submit quietly to his punishment; but finding that he was to be treated with scant decency, he escaped to the Isle of Man, and thence to London. After his flight he was presented by the grand juries of the county and city of Dublin as a common libeller, following a ferocious charge demanding his indictment by Thomas Marlay, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

A proclamation was issued by the lord-lieutenant, at the request of the House of Commons, for his apprehension, and an engraver who advertised a mezzotint of him, as "an exile for his country, who seeking for liberty lost it", was committed to prison by order of the House of Commons. Finally, at the Christmas assembly of the Dublin Corporation, he was disfranchised. Meanwhile, Cooke and Latouche had been elected to represent Dublin in parliament.

After a short residence in London, Lucas proceeded to the continent for the purpose of studying medicine. At Paris he studied under Petit, and after visiting Rheims proceeded to Leyden, where he graduated M.D. on 20 December 1752.

The title of his thesis was De Gangrena et Sphacelo, written in Latin. Не then visited Spa, Aachen, and other baths for the purpose of investigating the composition of their mineral waters. He returned to England in 1753, proceeding to Bath, and after a series of elaborate experiments conducted in public he went to London, where he established himself in practice. In 1756 he published An Essay on Waters. In three Parts: (i) of Simple Waters, (ii) of Cold Medicated Waters, (iii) of Natural Baths. This treatise, reviewed by Dr. Johnson, gave great offence to the faculty at Bath, and having occasion to visit that place in 1757 he became involved in an acrimonious controversy with the heads of the profession there owing to their refusal to consult with him.

But the book garnered him considerable reputation, and enabled him, it is improbably said, to make an annual income of £3,000 by his profession. On 25 June 1759, he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London, and he established a successful practice in London.

Return to Ireland
In view of the general election at the accession of George III, Lucas published in November 1760 a pamphlet entitled Seasonable Advice to the Electors... of Ireland in general, to those of Dublin in particular. In the same month, he determined to offer himself as a candidate for the city of Dublin, notwithstanding the consequent loss of his practice in London. After assuring himself that the electors of Dublin "were warmed with the same sentiments in which he left them," he obtained a personal interview with the king in order to petition for pardon, and being favourably received was enabled to return to Dublin, 15 March 1761, on a nolle prosequi. His return was the occasion of great popular rejoicing; the order for his disfranchisement was annulled at the midsummer assembly of the corporation; and in July the degree of Doctor of Physic was conferred upon him by Trinity College, Dublin. During the election, Lucas's colleague, Colonel Dunn, withdrew his candidature in order to insure Lucas's return, which was strongly opposed by the aldermanic party. After a thirteen days' poll he and Recorder Grattan, father of Henry Grattan, were elected, and he continued to represent Dublin City till his death in 1771.

In parliament Lucas does not appear to have shone as an orator; but by assiduously bringing every question of importance before the public, he had the merit of reviving "that constitutional connection which ought to subsist between the constituents and their representative." On the first day of the session, 22 October 1761, he obtained leave to bring in the heads of a bill for shortening the duration of parliaments, which he presented to the house on 28 October; but on a motion to have it transmitted to England, it was defeated by a majority of sixty-five. Shortly afterwards he presented the heads of two new bills for securing the freedom of parliament. In 1763 the Freeman's Journal, a biweekly newspaper, was started by three Dublin merchants under the management of Henry Brooke (1703?-1783). Lucas contributed to it from its commencement, sometimes anonymously, but generally under the signature of "A Citizen" or "Civis." Small as were its literary merits, the paper enjoyed at first great popularity, owing to the gratuitous contributions of Lucas and its strenuous assertion of Irish Protestant privileges.

In 1766 Lucas unsuccessfully opposed a bill to prevent the exportation of grain, on the ground that certain alterations made in it by the English privy council were detrimental to the rights of the Irish parliament. He justified his conduct in An Address to the Lord Mayor and Citizens of Dublin, and replied to further censure in A Second Address to the Lord Mayor. Several guilds, and among them the Guild of Merchants, presented addresses of thanks to him, and it was even proposed to grant him a salary of £365 a year out of the city treasury as a public acknowledgement of his services in parliament. The proposal was rejected by the Aldermen, and its rejection led to a renewal of the old quarrel between them and the commons, and to fresh manifestations of public sympathy with Lucas.

In 1768 Lucas strongly opposed the scheme for the augmentation of the army, on the ground partly that he favoured the establishment of a national militia, but chiefly because in his opinion, "Standing parliaments and standing armies have ever proved the most dangerous enemies to civil liberty." In this year he caused a considerable sensation by trying to institute a parliamentary inquiry into the case of a soldier whom he regarded as the victim of military discipline. His efforts in parliament proving unsuccessful, he published a pamphlet entitled A Mirror for Courts-Martial: in which the Complaints, Trial, Sentence, and Punishment of David Blakeney are examined. It is probably to his conduct on this occasion that Lord Townshend referred in a letter to the Marquess of Granby, "Here is a Doctor Lucas, the Wilkes of Ireland, who has been playing the devil here and poisoning all the soldiery with his harangues and writings; but I have treated this nonsensical demagogue as he deserves, with his mob at his heels." Lord Townshend's protest against the right of the Irish House of Commons to originate money bills, and his sudden prorogation of parliament in December 1769 drew from Lucas early in 1770 a pamphlet entitled The Rights and Privileges of Parliament asserted upon constitutional Principles. It was announced in the newspapers that an answer, "published by authority," entitled The Usage of holding Parliaments and of preparing Bills of Supply in Ireland, stated from Record, would shortly appear. The book appeared on the day announced, but was instantly suppressed. A copy, however, came into Lucas's possession, and finding that it told more against than for the government he immediately republished it, with a sarcastic introduction and commentary.

From his earliest years, Lucas had been a martyr to hereditary gout, which rendered him a complete cripple, and latterly obliged him to be carried to the House of Commons. Nevertheless, says an eye-witness, "the gravity and uncommon neatness of his dress, his grey, venerable locks, blending with a pale but interesting countenance, in which an air of beauty was still visible, altogether excited attention, and I never saw a stranger come into the house without asking who he was." He died at his residence in Henry Street, Dublin, on Monday 4 November 1771. His remains were honoured with a public funeral of imposing solemnity. He was interred in the family burial ground in St. Michan's churchyard. Lucas's son Henry and other relatives were in attendance at his funeral, as were his friends Lord Charlemont, Flood and Adderley. The mourners also included officers and many hundred brethren of the guilds and the Lord Mayor with representatives of the Corporation and the Vice-Provost and scholars of Trinity College.

Notes
Note: citations prefixed with "via DNB" were copied from the DNB article and have not been independently verified.

References

 Thomas, Peter D.G. George III: King and Politicians, 1760-1770. Manchester University Press, 2002.

Bibliography
http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/MuseumsGalleriesandTheatres/CityHall/Documents/DCCH03[1].pdf

External links

1713 births
1771 deaths
18th-century Irish medical doctors
Irish MPs 1761–1768
Irish MPs 1769–1776
Politicians from County Clare
Politicians from County Dublin
Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Dublin constituencies
Medical doctors from County Clare

Charles Lucas (politician)


In baseball and softball, an uncaught third strike (sometimes referred to as dropped third strike or non-caught third strike) occurs when the catcher fails to cleanly catch a pitch for the third strike of a plate appearance. In Major League Baseball (MLB), the specific rules concerning the uncaught third strike are addressed in Rules 5.05 and 5.09 of the Official Baseball Rules:

On an uncaught third strike with (1) no runner on first base, or (2) with a runner on first base and two outs, the batter immediately becomes a runner. The strike is called, but the umpire does not call the batter out. The umpire may also signal that there is "no catch" of the pitch. The batter may then attempt to reach first base and must be tagged or forced out. With two outs and the bases loaded, the catcher who fails to catch the third strike may, upon picking up the ball, step on home plate for a force-out or make a throw to any other base in an effort to force out a runner. An "uncaught" strike includes not only pitches dropped by the catcher, but also pitches that hit the ground before the catcher attempts to catch it.

The purpose of the "no runner on first base or two outs" qualification is to prevent the catcher from deliberately dropping a third-strike pitch and then initiating an unfair double or triple play with possible force plays at second base, third base, or home plate, in addition to putting the batter out at first base. The logic of the situation is similar to that which led to the infield fly rule.

Regardless of the outcome of an uncaught third strike, the pitcher is statistically credited with a strikeout, and the batter is statistically charged with one. In an infamous example, Kole Calhoun reached base on Justin Verlander's 3000th career strikeout, and then scored on Andrelton  Simmons's home run immediately thereafter. Because of the uncaught third strike rule, it is possible for a pitcher to register more than three strikeouts in an inning. Numerous pitchers have recorded four strikeouts in an inning in an MLB game, though no five-strikeout innings have ever occurred.

In Little League, in the Tee-Ball and Minor League divisions, the batter is out after the third strike regardless of whether the pitched ball is caught cleanly by the catcher. In Little League (or the Major Division), Junior, Senior, and Big League divisions, a batter may attempt to advance to first base on an uncaught third strike. Little League Major Division Softball and many other youth baseball leagues (such as the USSSA) also follow the rule.

History
The uncaught third strike rule is one of the oldest in baseball, being codified in the Knickerbocker Rules of 1845: "Three balls being struck at and missed and the last one caught, is a hand-out."

The rule goes back even further, though. A 1796 German book on recreational games for youth contained a chapter on "English Base-ball" which describes a similar rule. The point then was that even an inept batter who failed to hit the softly-tossed ball on three swings would be given a chance to run the bases anyway, so the ball was in play after his third miss and he could make for first base. There might be no catcher in the game, and if there was he would stand well behind the batter and catch strikes on the bounce, so there was no question of the ball being caught; rather it would be fielded and put into play. There were no fielding gloves, and errors were common, so the batter's chance of reaching first base safely was not negligible.

This rule continues in baseball today, but catcher became a required position, and starting in the mid-19th century, catchers began moving up to their current position directly behind home plate, so the rule became mostly vestigial and its original children's-game purpose forgotten. Still today a third strike is treated as if in play, but now only for a short time before the catcher fields it. This is why the catcher is given credit on the putout in strikeouts, as with any fielder who catches a ball in play on the fly. But if the catcher drops it, the ball is still in play like any other ball dropped by a fielder.

2006 rule change
Following a controversial play involving this rule in the ninth inning of Game 2 of the 2005 American League Championship Series, the application of the rule was changed when a comment was added in 2006 to Rule 6.09(b) (After rule numbering changes, Rule 5.09(a)(2) Comment):

Rule 5.05(a)(2) Comment: A batter who does not realize his situation on a third strike not caught, and who is not in the process of running to first base, shall be declared out once he leaves the dirt circle surrounding home plate.

This comment represents the official interpretation of the application of the rule. Prior to this rule change, a batter was able to try for first at any time before entering the dugout. The new rule would not have affected the controversial play referenced above, as the batter had not left the dirt circle.

References

Baseball rules
Baseball terminology
Catching statistics

Uncaught third strike


Vapor-compression evaporation is the evaporation method by which a blower, compressor or jet ejector is used to compress, and thus, increase the pressure of the vapor produced. Since the pressure increase of the vapor also generates an increase in the condensation temperature,  the same vapor can serve as the heating medium for its "mother" liquid or solution being concentrated, from which the vapor was generated to begin with. If no compression was provided, the vapor would be at the same temperature as the boiling liquid/solution, and no heat transfer could take place.

It is also sometimes called vapor compression distillation (VCD).  If compression is performed by a mechanically driven compressor or blower, this evaporation process is usually referred to as MVR (mechanical vapor recompression). In case of compression performed by high pressure motive steam ejectors, the process is usually called thermocompression, steam compression or ejectocompression.

MVR process

Energy input
In this case the energy input to the system lies in the pumping energy of the compressor. The theoretical energy consumption will be equal to
, where
 E is the total theoretical pumping energy
 Q is the mass of vapors passing through the compressor
 H1, H2 are the total heat content of unit mass of vapors, respectively upstream and downstream the compressor.
In SI units, these are respectively measured in kJ, kg and kJ/kg.

The actual energy input will be greater than the theoretical value and will depend on the efficiency of the system, which is usually between 30% and 60%. For example, suppose the theoretical energy input is 300 kJ and the efficiency is 30%. The actual energy input would be 300 x 100/30 = 1,000 kJ.

In a large unit, the compression power is between 35 and 45 kW per metric ton of compressed vapors.

Equipment for MVR evaporators
The compressor is necessarily the core of the unit. Compressors used for this application are usually of the centrifugal type, or positive displacement units such as the Roots blowers, similar to the (much smaller) Roots type supercharger. Very large units (evaporation capacity 100 metric tons per hour or more) sometimes use Axial-flow compressors. The compression work will deliver the steam superheated if compared to the theoretical pressure/temperature equilibrium. For this reason, the vast majority of MVR units feature a desuperheater between the compressor and the main heat exchanger.

Thermocompression

Energy input

The energy input is here given by the energy of a quantity of steam (motive steam), at a pressure higher than those of both the inlet and the outlet vapors.
The quantity of compressed vapors is therefore higher than the inlet :

Where Qd is the steam quantity at ejector delivery, Qs at ejector suction and Qm is the motive steam quantity. For this reason, a thermocompression evaporator often features a vapor condenser, due to the possible excess of steam necessary for the compression if compared with the steam required to evaporate the solution.
The quantity Qm of motive steam per unit suction quantity is a function of both the motive ratio of motive steam pressure vs. suction pressure and the compression ratio of delivery pressure vs. suction pressure. In principle, the higher the compression ratio and the lower the motive ratio the higher will be the specific motive steam consumption, i. e. the less efficient the energy balance.

Thermocompression equipment
The heart of any thermocompression evaporator is clearly the steam ejector, exhaustively described in the relevant page. The size of the other pieces of equipment, such as the main heat exchanger, the vapor head, etc. (see evaporator for details), is governed by the evaporation process.

Comparison
These two compression-type evaporators have different fields of application, although they do sometimes overlap.
 An MVR unit will be preferable for a large unit, thanks to the reduced energy consumption. The largest single body MVR evaporator built (1968, by Whiting Co., later Swenson Evaporator Co., Harvey, Ill. in Cirò Marina, Italy) was a salt crystallizer, evaporating approximately 400 metric tons per hour of water, featuring an axial-flow compressor (Brown Boveri, later ABB). This unit was transformed around 1990 to become the first effect of a multiple effect evaporator. MVR evaporators with 10 tons or more evaporating capacity are common.
 The compression ratio in a MVR unit does not usually exceed 1.8. At a compression ratio of 1.8, if the evaporation is performed at atmospheric pressure (0.101 MPa), the condensation pressure after compression will be 0.101 x 1.8 = 0.1818 [MPa]. At this pressure, the condensation temperature of the water vapor at the heat exchanger will be 390 K. Taking into account the boiling point elevation of the salt water we wish to evaporate (8 K for a saturated salt solution), this leaves a temperature difference of less than 8 K at the heat exchanger. A small ∆T leads to slow heat transfer, meaning that we will need a very large heating surface to transfer the required heat. Axial-flow and Roots compressor may reach slightly higher compression ratios.
 Thermocompression evaporators may reach higher compression ratios - at a cost. A compression ratio of 2 is possible (and sometimes more) but unless the motive steam is at a reasonably high pressure (say, 16 bar g - 250 psig - or more), the motive steam consumption will be in the range of 2 kg per kg of suction vapors. A higher compression ratio means a smaller heat exchanger, and a reduced investment cost. Moreover, a compressor is an expensive machine, while an ejector is much simpler and cheap.
As a conclusion, MVR machines are used in large, energy-efficient units, while thermocompression units tend to limit their use to small units, where energy consumption is not a big issue.

Efficiency
The efficiency and feasibility of this process depends on the efficiency of the compressing device (e.g., blower, compressor or steam ejector) and the heat transfer coefficient attained in the heat exchanger contacting the condensing vapor and the boiling "mother" solution/liquid. Theoretically, if the resulting condensate is subcooled, this process could allow full recovery of the latent heat of vaporization that would otherwise be lost if the vapor, rather than the condensate, was the final product; therefore, this method of evaporation is very energy efficient.  The evaporation process may be solely driven by the mechanical work provided by the compressing device.

Some uses

Clean water production (Water for injection)
A vapor-compression evaporator, like most evaporators, can make reasonably clean water from any water source. In a salt crystallizer, for example, a typical analysis of the resulting condensate shows a typical content of residual salt not higher than 50 ppm or, in terms of electrical conductance, not higher than 10 μS/cm. This results in a drinkable water, if the other sanitary requirements are fulfilled. While this cannot compete in the marketplace with reverse osmosis or demineralization, vapor compression chiefly differs from these thanks to its ability to make clean water from saturated or even crystallizing brines with total dissolved solids (TDS) up to 650 g/L.  The other two technologies can make clean water from sources no higher in TDS than approximately 35 g/L.

For economic reasons evaporators are seldom operated on low-TDS water sources.  Those applications are filled by reverse osmosis.  The already brackish water which enters a typical evaporator is concentrated further. The increased dissolved solids act to increase the boiling point well beyond that of pure water. Seawater with a TDS of approximately 30 g/L exhibits a boiling point elevation of less than 1 K but saturated sodium chloride solution at 360 g/L has a boiling point elevation of about 7 K. This boiling point elevation represents a challenge for vapor-compression evaporation in that it increases the pressure ratio that the steam compressor must attain to effect vaporization.  Since boiling point elevation determines the pressure ratio in the compressor, it is the main overall factor in operating costs.

Steam-assisted gravity drainage

The technology used today to extract bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands is the water-intensive steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) method. In the late 1990s former nuclear engineer Bill Heins of General Electric Company's RCC Thermal Products conceived an evaporator technology called falling film or mechanical vapor compression evaporation. In 1999 and 2002 Petro-Canada's MacKay River facility was the first to install 1999 and 2002 GE SAGD zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) systems using a combination of the new evaporative technology and crystallizer system in which all the water was recycled and only solids were discharged off site. This new evaporative technology began to replace older water treatment techniques employed by SAGD facilities which involved the use of warm lime softening to remove silica and magnesium and weak acid cation ion exchange used to remove calcium. The vapor-compression evaporation process replaced the once-through steam generators (OTSG) traditionally used for steam production. OTSG generally ran on natural gas which in 2008 had become increasingly valuable. The water quality of evaporators is four times better which is needed for the drum boilers. The evaporators, when coupled with standard drum boilers, produce steam which is more "reliable, less costly to operate, and less water-intensive." By 2008 about 85 per cent of SAGD facilities in the Alberta oil sands had adopted evaporative technology. "SAGD, unlike other thermal processes such as cyclic steam stimulation (CSS), requires 100 per cent quality steam."

See also
 Cristiani compressed steam system
 Slingshot (water vapor distillation system)
 Vapor-compression refrigeration
 Vapor-compression desalination

References

Evaporators
Chemical processes
Unit operations
Water treatment
Water technology

Vapor-compression evaporation


Argilophilus is a genus of western North American earthworms of the family Megascolecidae that are characteristically found under native vegetation.

The genus also occurs in subcontinental India, however, the single Australian report of the type species, Argilophilus marmoratus, is erroneous.

One enigmatic species, Argilophilus hyalinus Eisen, 1900, is reported from Guatemala - known only from the description of a single, macerated specimen.

Argilophilus and several other native genera form a close-knit group with nearest relatives apparently in Australia and Southeast Asia.

References

Haplotaxida
Annelid genera
Invertebrates of North America
Invertebrates of Asia

Argilophilus


Anderson Live, known in its first season as Anderson, is an American syndicated talk show that was hosted by CNN anchorman Anderson Cooper, who also served as executive producer in his first foray into daytime talk television. It debuted on September 12, 2011, and was distributed by Warner Bros. Television in the United States and Canada. The series' final new episode aired on May 20, 2013, with reruns continuing until September 2013.

History

2010–12: Anderson
In September 2010, it was announced that Cooper had signed a deal with Warner Bros. and Telepictures to host a nationally syndicated talk show. As part of negotiations over the talk show deal, Cooper signed a new multi-year contract with CNN to continue as the host of Anderson Cooper 360°.  According to Cooper, the program would be a lot different from AC360°, saying that it's "not a news program," and he added that "We think this will be the only show on the air that covers a broad spectrum of topics." However, in December 2011 the program was declared a "news program" by the Federal Communications Commission at the insistence of the show's producers to exclude it from equal time provisions ahead of the 2012 presidential election cycle. The show was taped at Jazz at Lincoln Center's The Allen Room, inside Manhattan's Time Warner Center, the complex where Cooper also hosts AC 360°.

2012: Anderson Live
After the first season, it was announced that the show would be relocated to the CBS Broadcast Center for season two, moving into Studio 42 where The Nate Berkus Show was taped prior to its cancellation. On July 31, 2012, it was also announced that an "overhaul" of the show would start in the second season, with the series being renamed Anderson Live and a switch to a format featuring a live studio audience, interactive social media and adding guest co-hosts, a formula that worked well in the May 2012 ratings sweeps.

Cancellation
On October 29, 2012, it was announced that Anderson Live would not return for a third season; it aired new episodes until May 2013.

See also
 Anderson Cooper 360°

References

External links

2010s American television talk shows
2011 American television series debuts
2013 American television series endings
Anderson Cooper
English-language television shows
First-run syndicated television programs in the United States
Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios
Television series by Telepictures

Anderson Live


Sir William de la Pole (died before 1319) was the fourth son of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn and would have inherited the principality of Powys Wenwynwyn, if it had continued to descend in the male line according to Welsh law, instead of having been surrendered to Edward I and regranted to his father as a marcher lordship.  This descended (according to English law) to William's elder brother Owen de la Pole, and after the death of his son without issue to his daughter Hawise Gadarn, Lady of Powys, wife of John Charleton, 1st Baron Cherleton.  Contrary to a few reports, there is no evidence of any relationship to William de la Pole of Hull, merchant and financier to Edward III.

Owen endowed his brothers with portions of his lordship (as his own feudal tenants), but all these reverted to Hawise, except what Sir William de la Pole had.   This was the Lordship of Mawddwy, consisting of Mawddwy and most of Mallwyd.  Sir William was succeeded in this lordship by his son Gruffydd (who was of age in 1319), his son, another William, and his son John. John's son Fulk predeceased his father without issue in about 1414.  Accordingly, Mawddwy then passed to Fulk's sister Elizabeth, who married Hugh Burgh.  Hugh Burgh's son John (1414–1471) owned the lordship, but only left four daughters who were John's coheiresses.

One of Sir John Burgh's daughters, Elisabeth (Isabella) de Burgh (died 1522) married Sir John Lingen (died 1505), buried in Aymestrey, Herefordshire, and an ancestor of the Sir Henry Lingen of Lingen, Sutton and Stoke Edith (died 1662), the family of Burton-Lingen of Longnor Hall which included 1st Baron Lingen (died 1905, buried Brompton Cemetery, London).

Another daughter, Anchoretta de Burgh, married John Leighton of StreTton, later of Wattlesborough and Loton, Sheriff of Shropshire (d 1493).

References
 G. T. O. Bridgeman, 'The Princes of upper Powys', Montgomeryshire Collections I (1868), 52 59 77ff.

1310s deaths
People from Dinas Mawddwy
Year of birth unknown
People from Mallwyd

William de la Pole (of Mawddwy)


YinzCam is an American software company that builds mobile applications, IPTV platforms and augmented-reality experiences.  It specializes in creating applications for professional sports organizations. As of 2018, YinzCam's software had been downloaded over 55 million times and used by 170+ sports properties, including NFL clubs, NBA/WNBA teams, AFL clubs (Australia), La Liga clubs (Spain), as well as in the La Liga official league app and the NBA's G League app and the NBA2k app. The applications generally offer real-time statistics, multimedia, streaming radio, social media. The live video technology offering instant replay, including NFL RedZone, is offered within NFL stadiums.

YinzCam was founded by Priya Narasimhan, a Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She is a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The company is a spin-off from the university. Narasimhan has incorporated YinzCam into her Sports Technology course at Carnegie Mellon University.

Official mobile apps for professional sports
The first version of YinzCam's sports app was available in 2008 in limited portions of Civic Arena in 2008. That version of the software allowed users to view the game, replays and real-time game statistics. With the opening of Consol Energy Center in 2010, YinzCam was made available throughout the arena. In October 2010, YinzCam released an official application for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Partnerships with the New England Patriots and the San Francisco 49ers followed. By March 2012, YinzCam had added applications for 3 National Hockey League teams and more than 16 additional National Football League teams.

As of 2018, YinzCam is the developer of the official team apps for professional sports teams in the National Football League (NFL), the Australian Rules Football League (AFL), La Liga (Spain), the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), Major League Soccer (MLS), as well as for teams in the Canadian Football League (CFL).  YinzCam is also the developer of the official league apps for La Liga, National Rugby League (Australia), NBA G League, and the AFL Women's League (Australia). YinzCam also developed official venue apps for the Gillette Stadium, the Barclays Center, the United Center, CenturyLink Field, and other stadiums.

Augmented reality
YinzCam has also worked with professional sports teams to launch unique augmented-reality (AR) experiences, including a virtual pop-a-shot interactive game for basketball fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors. Fans could play against each other on the video board inside these basketball arenas and also earn badges and other achievements for being the top scorer. The Hawthorn Hawks (AFL) also launched an interactive version of this game for footy fans, allowing them to compete against other to score goals. Other AR sports experiences developed by YinzCam include an interactive Hall of Fame for Pittsburgh Steelers fans at Heinz Field.

iBurgh
In July 2009, Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto, with the support of Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, announced their intention for the city of Pittsburgh to become the most tech-friendly city in the United States. A number of Pittsburgh technology firms and personalities were present at the announcement, including Priya Narasimhan. By August 2009, YinzCam had produced iBurgh, an iPhone application to allow citizens to report complaints to the city's departments via smartphone. The app sends complaints, coupled with photos and Global Positioning System data to city departments. It was the first iPhone application to permit such complaints to municipal authorities.

In February 2010, YinzCam developed a follow-up program, CityZenMobile, to allow crowd-sourcing of road conditions. It was released amid the February 9–10, 2010 North American blizzard that left much of Pittsburgh impassable.

Notes

References

Mobile software
Yinz
Companies based in Pittsburgh

YinzCam


Wegde (Amharic:  ወግዲ) is one of the woredas in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Debub Wollo Zone, Wegde is bordered on the south by the Walaqa River which separates it from the Oromia Region, on the west by the Abay River which separates it from the Misraq Gojjam Zone, on the north by Borena, on the northeast by Legambo, and on the east by Kelala. The major town in Wegde is Mahdere Selam.

Wegde lies on the lower portion of a spur running from Mount Amba Ferit southwest to the confluence of the Walaqa with the Abay; altitudes range from 500 meters above sea level to 2700 meters at the northeast point of the woreda. Rivers include the Taqat, and Yashum.

Wegde had been part of the neighboring woreda Debre Sina until the two were separated in the summer of 1994.

Demographics
Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this woreda has a total population of 135,240, an increase of 33.21% over the 1994 census, of whom 66,763 are men and 68,477 women; 4,519 or 3.34% are urban inhabitants. With an area of 1,110.69 square kilometers, Wegde has a population density of 121.76, which is less than the Zone average of 147.58 persons per square kilometer. A total of 31,933 households were counted in this woreda, resulting in an average of 4.24 persons to a household, and 30,886 housing units. The majority of the inhabitants were Muslim, with 84.24% reporting that as their religion, while 15.67% of the population said they practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.

The 1994 national census reported a total population for this woreda of 101,521 in 24,495 households, of whom 50,179 were men and 51,342 were women; 1,678 or 1.65% of its population were urban dwellers. The two largest ethnic groups reported in Wegde were the Amhara (83.6%), and the Oromo (16.29%); all other ethnic groups made up 0.11% of the population. Amharic was spoken as a first language by 93.01%, and 6.93% spoke Oromiffa; the remaining 0.06% spoke all other primary languages reported. The majority of the inhabitants were Muslim, with 85.95% of the population reported as practicing that belief, while 14.05% of the population said they professed Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.

Notes

Districts of Amhara Region

Wegde


QVC UK is a television shopping channel broadcast from the United Kingdom to the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was formed in 1993 when QVC, Inc. agreed to a deal with Sky TV to create a UK version of the US channel. "QVC – The Shopping Channel" first broadcast in the UK on 1 October 1993.

History
The original US channel was founded in 1986 in West Chester, Pennsylvania by Joseph Segel. It grew into a multinational corporation, specialising in televised home shopping. It now broadcasts in five countries to 141 million consumers. The name is an initialism—standing for Quality, Value, Convenience. However, unlike in the US, the expansion of the initialism is no longer used on air in the UK.

The UK venture launched on 1 October 1993, becoming the UK's first full-time home shopping channel, and in 1998 the UK venture turned its first net profit (£12.5 million), against a loss of £228,000 in 1997. Originally 20% owned by Sky, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of the US broadcaster in 2004.

In 2008 QVC UK launched a multiscreen video service accessible via the interactive television layer, making three video streams available to Sky viewers via the red button:
QVC Live
QVC+1 (a time delayed service)
Today's Special Value presentation

In February 2020, QVC UK had a whole new rebrand with a whole new logo.

QVC Beauty
On 26 October 2010 a second channel was launched in the UK, QVC Beauty, available to viewers of Freeview, Sky and Freesat.

The channel broadcasts from 4:00 am to 2:00 am daily on Freeview channel 35. 2:00 am QVC Beauty HD on Freeview channel 112 only broadcasts from 2:00 am to 4:00 am daily due to the channels over rating.

QVC Beauty HD ceased broadcasting on Freeview with the closure of the COM7 multiplex, followed by the SD version on June 21st 2023.

QVC HD, QVC Extra and QVC Style
QVC had planned to begin broadcasting in high-definition from September 2012, to be followed by the launch of two new 24-hour channels on Sky. On 11 February 2013 Sparkle TV and Twinkle TV launched on Sky. On 1 July 2013, Twinkle TV was renamed QVC Style. Sparkle TV became QVC Extra on 12 August 2013, with both channels added to Freesat. The following day saw the channels relaunch with availability expanded to Freeview via the connected red button on QVC Beauty. In July 2014, QVC Extra launched on Freeview channel 57, but closed in 2015, while QVC Style launched on Freeview channel 36 in August 2016, replacing QVC +1. QVC Style changed its hours to 2:00 am to 4:00 am on 31 March 2020, allowing QVC Beauty to extend its hours. On 21 April 2015, QVC +1 HD launched on Freeview channel 111, becoming the second high-definition timeshift service in the UK (after Channel 4 +1 HD). From 2016 to 2018, QVC Extra was temporarily rebranded as QVC Christmas. QVC Extra launched on Virgin Media on 27 July 2021. QVC HD ceased broadcasting on Freeview with the closure of the COM7 multiplex. QVC HD was later launched on Freesat and Sky in April 2022.

QVC Style ceased broadcasting on Freeview on June 21st 2023, though it continues on other platforms.

QVC Active
QVC Active was an interactive television service made accessible using the red button on QVC UK's cable, Sky and digital terrestrial services. Across each enhanced television platform, QVC provided information including a 24-hour TV Guide, bestselling products of that day and an ability for the viewer to interact with QVC UK's inventory. Customers viewing the Sky and cable TV platforms could buy products using their set-top box. On 13 August 2013, QVC Active closed as a result of more customers using mobile devices for ordering.

QVC2
The UK version of QVC2 launched exclusively on Freeview on June 21st 2023, replacing QVC Beauty and QVC Style. On other platforms QVC Beauty and QVC Style continue as separate services.

The structure of the QVC channels in the UK is different than in the US, so the role that QVC2 plays is somewhat different. QVC2 in the US shows repeats of QVC's programming, while QVC2 in the UK shows fashion, beauty, home, and garden-related programmes.

Operation in the UK
QVC UK operates from two main sites. From launch until June 2012, its headquarters and broadcasting facilities were at Marco Polo House, the former British Satellite Broadcasting headquarters in Battersea, London. These operations then moved to Chiswick Park, a 'campus'-style development on the site of a former derelict London Transport bus depot in West London. Its call centre and distribution warehouse is located in Kirkby, Knowsley, in Merseyside. These facilities were moved in 1998 from Liverpool's Harrington Dock. The company also has outlet stores in Warrington and Shrewsbury.

In June 2011, it was reported that QVC UK had begun carrying out trials of 3D broadcasting. This was merely an experiment, a spokesperson said.

The channel broadcasts live from 9:00 am to 1:00 am (the remainder being repeated content) year round. QVC UK claims a market penetration of 15.4 million homes on cable, satellite, and digital terrestrial TV. The Astra 2E footprint also takes in much of Western Europe. Retail sales for the year 2008 reached £360+ million.

Products
QVC organises its product range into nine distinct categories:

 Beauty
 Fashion
 Shoes & Accessories
 Jewellery
 Home & Kitchen
 Electronics
 Garden & Leisure
 Health & Wellbeing
 Gifts
QVC also stock a wide range of Christmas Products, with Christmas items available from July 25 when the Channel Celebrates "Christmas in July".

Current presenters

 Simon Biagi
 Charlie Brook
 Anne Dawson
 Ophelia Dennis
 Chloe Everton
 Debbie Flint
 Dale Franklin
 Jill Franks
 Kathryn Goldsmith
 Pipa Gordon
 Will Gowing
 Jilly Halliday
 Catherine Huntley
 Laura Crombie
 Jackie Kabler
 Alex Kramer
 Miceal Murphy
 Eilidh Nairn
 Katy Pullinger
 Julia Roberts
 Craig Rowe
 Alison Young
 Laura Fleming
 Rezzy Ghadjar
 Victoria Fitz-Gerald

Regular current guests

 Rylan Clark-Neal
 Amanda Holden
 Richard Jackson
 Ruth Langsford
 Cait Penfold
 Michael Perry
 Andi Peters
 Rosa Speyer
 Rick Stein
 Gok Wan
 Lee Hohbein
 Gail Samways
 James Murden
 Leanne Stott
 Julien MacDonald
 Beverley Cressman
 Gill Gauntlett
 Lorna Ko
 Anne Dorrington
 Mark lane
 Lucy Piper
 Shaun Ryan

Past presenters

 Kara Baker
 Julian Ballantyne
 Sophia Barnes
 Jon Briggs
 Suzanne Evett
 Harry Greene
 Debbie Greenwood
 Anthony Heywood
 Katy John
 Paul Lavers
 Rob Locke
 Claudia Sylvester
 Kara Tritton
 Steve Whatley
 Carmel Thomas
 Anna Cookson
 Michaela Hyde
 Tim Goodwin
 Claire Sutton
 Kathy Tayler
 Alison Keenan
 Simon Browne

References

External links
Official site

Shopping networks in the United Kingdom
Television channels and stations established in 1993
1993 establishments in the United Kingdom
UK

QVC (British TV channel)