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Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras or Sydney Mardi Gras is an event in Sydney, New South Wales attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas. One of the largest LGBT festivals in the world, Mardi Gras is the largest Pride event in Oceania. It includes a variety of events such as the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade and Party, Bondi Beach Drag Races, Harbour Party, the academic discussion panel Queer Thinking, Mardi Gras Film Festival, as well as Fair Day, which attracts 70,000 people to Victoria Park, Sydney.

The Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is one of Australia's biggest tourist drawcards, with the parade and dance party attracting many international and domestic tourists. It is New South Wales' second-largest annual event in terms of economic impact, generating an annual income of about A$30 million for the state.

The event grew from gay rights parades held annually since 1978, when numerous participants had been arrested by New South Wales Police Force. The Mardi Gras Parade maintains a political flavour, with many marching groups and floats promoting LGBTQIA+ rights issues or themes. Reflecting changes since the first Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, participants in the Mardi Gras Parade now include groups of uniformed Australian Defence Force personnel, police officers from New South Wales Police Force, as well as interstate and federal police officers, firefighters and other emergency services personnel from the Australian LGBTQIA+ communities. Marriage equality was a dominant theme in the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade with at least 15 floats lobbying for same-sex marriage.

In 2019 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras submitted a bid to host WorldPride 2023 competing against Montreal, Canada and Houston, Texas. InterPride chose Sydney, Australia to host WorldPride 2023 at their Athens October 2019 Annual General Meeting of three hundred delegate organizations, the first time WorldPride will be held in the Southern Hemisphere or Asia Pacific region.

The term Mardi Gras
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras or Sydney Mardi Gras is a celebration of LGBTQIA+ history and culture.

The term Mardi Gras derives from the celebration on Mardi (French for "Tuesday") when Gras (French for "fat") is eaten prior to the Christian abstinence period of Lent preceding Easter.

1970s
On 24 June 1978 at 10 pm as a night-time celebration following a morning protest march and commemoration of the Stonewall riots organised by the Gay Solidarity Group more than 500 people gathered on Oxford Street, in a planned street "festival" calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment and housing, an end to police harassment and the repeal of all anti-homosexual laws. The figure rose to around 2,000 as revellers out for the Saturday night at Oxford Street bars and clubs responded to the call "Out of the bars and into the streets!". Although the organisers had obtained permission, this was revoked, and the parade was broken up by the police. After the parade was dispersing in Kings Cross, 53 of the participants were arrested. Although most charges were eventually dropped, The Sydney Morning Herald published the names of those arrested in full, leading to many people being outed to their friends and places of employment, and many of those arrested lost their jobs as homosexuality was a crime in New South Wales (NSW) until 1984. Only two people who were arrested were fined. The rest were released without bail and the charges dismissed. The police response to a legal, local minority protest transformed it into a nationally significant event which stimulated gay rights and law reform campaigns. A documentary, Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters, produced by Digby Duncan in 1980 tells the story of the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

The second Mardi Gras Parade occurred in 1979 despite opposition by gay media, businesses and groups. The 1979 parade, in recognition of the Stonewall Riots and commemorating the riot of the previous year, was attended by 3,000 people. In that same year, the Labor Government of New South Wales, led by Neville Wran, repealed the under which the arrests in 1978 were made. The second Mardi Gras had the theme of Power in the Darkness. While there was a large police presence, there were no arrests made.

1980 to 1999
In 1980, after the third successful Mardi Gras parade, at community consultations, decisions were made to move the parade to the summer. In 1981, the parade was shifted to February, with the name changed to the "Sydney Gay Mardi Gras". An increasingly large number of people not only participated in the now summertime event, but a crowd of 5,000 came to watch it. 1981's event saw a split develop between lesbian and gays over the inclusion of floats representing businesses. For most of the decade many lesbians excluded themselves from the event. A large post-parade party was held in 1982, which 4,000 people attended. This would continue to become an integral part of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. 1983 saw 44 floats participate with 20,000 onlookers. Footage of the 1984 event appeared in the music video for the Cold Chisel song "Saturday Night". In 1987, an estimated 100,000 people came to watch the parade. The mid-1980s saw considerable pressure placed to the Mardi Gras Committee following media controversy regarding AIDS. Despite calls for the parade and the party to be banned, the 1985 parade went ahead with the theme Fighting for Our Lives. In 1988 the parade was renamed the "Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras" at an Extraordinary General Meeting.

1991 saw the eighth annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Film festival, a Mardi Gras event, included in a national film festival for the first time. In this year the parade had become the largest ever held in Australia. In 1992, the festival lasted for four weeks, making it the largest gay and lesbian festival in the world. Also in 1992, Fiona Cunningham-Reid filmed a documentary about the history of the Mardi Gras called "Feed Them to the Cannibals!". By 1993, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade had become the largest night time outdoor parade in the world. Mardi Gras' Economic Impact Study found that the total Mardi Gras impact into the Australian economy was around A$38 million. In February 1993 an Umbrella Event of the festival was the play "Nothing Personal" designed by Arthur Dicks. In 1994, Mardi Gras Festival adopted the theme We are Family, a nod to it being International Year of the Family. That year there were 137 floats in the parade with 600,000 spectators. For the first time, the parade was filmed by the ABC TV and shown on Sunday 6 March at 8.30 pm. It won its time slot and earned ABC TV its highest ratings in history. The 1997 parade was covered by Libbi Gorr's current affairs show McFeast on ABC TV.

In 1988, Aboriginal Australian dancers Malcolm Cole (1949-1995) and Rodney Junga-Williams (1962-2011), in collaboration with artist Panos Couros, enacted the story of the First Fleet, with Cole as Captain Cook, and Junga-Williams as Joseph Banks – the first ever Aboriginal float entry in the parade. A boatful of black sailors was pulled by a white man, with this leading float commemorating 218 years after Cook's landing and claim on the land. Cole died of HIV/AIDS, and in 2024 his twin brother Robert recreated his costume in order to march again in the parade to commemorate his life.

Criticism of the Sydney Mardi Gras was perhaps at its strongest during the early years of the AIDS crisis, and flared again when in 1994 the national broadcaster ABC telecast the parade for the first time.

In 1996 there was criticism over the inclusion of bisexuals and heterosexuals as members of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was claimed that the subsequent requirement for those people to correctly answer specific questions, created two classes of membership – namely (1) gays, lesbians and transgender people and (2) bisexuals and heterosexuals.

In 1997 a small group of people who were part of the 1978 events contributed to planning the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Sydney Mardi Gras parade in 1998. This group became known as the 78ers and has led each year's Mardi Gras parade since 1998.

2000 to 2009
The 2001 Parade was broadcast on Network Ten and had a theme of gay and lesbian parenting. The 2002 event saw a loss of A$400,000. In August the organising company was bankrupt. In 2003, the festival organisers responded to claims that the event was becoming too commercialised by implementing a scaled-down, grassroots approach. The 2009 performance figures indicated about 9,500 participants and 134 floats were part of the parade, making it the largest ever. Up to 300,000 spectators from Australia and overseas turned out in 2011 for the celebrations.

Mardi Gras, at different times, has attracted criticism from its own members, LGBTQIA+ communities, and a variety of religious and political groups. Some argue Mardi Gras is inherently subversive to traditional Christian, Islamic and Jewish values. Each year the event is held, Fred Nile, a former member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and a former minister of the Uniting Church in Australia, leads a prayer for rain on the event.

In January 2008 Robert Forsyth, the Anglican bishop of South Sydney, condemned Corpus Christi for opening the Mardi Gras because it depicted Judas seducing a gay Jesus as well as Jesus' administration of gay marriage between two apostles. Director Leigh Rowney accepted that it would generate discussion on Homosexuality and Christianity and stated: "I wanted this play in the hands of a Christian person like myself to give it dignity but still open it up to answering questions about Christianity as a faith system." Playwright Terrence McNally, a gay man, received death threats when it was played in the United States.

2010 to 2015
In early 2011, members of the organisation unanimously voted to include intersex formally into the organisation at the Annual General Meeting and adopt the formal use of the LGBTQIA+ acronym. To allow for greater inclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community it represents (including those identifying as bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual), on 17 November 2011 the festival and event organisers changed the event name to "Sydney Mardi Gras". On the same date the organisation reverted to its former name, "Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras" (from "New Mardi Gras"), as more than 9,100 participants joined in the 2012 Parade, on 134 floats.

In 2011 Mardi Gras came under fire from LGBTQIA+ communities for removing the words "Gay and Lesbian" from the festival's name. The organisation's board confessed that they did not adequately consult the community in such an important decision. The organisation was also criticised for focusing on the requests of corporate sponsors, and allowing their floats rather than maintaining its original sense of identity. This followed the 2010 season in which the Mardi Gras Parade and Party were held on separate dates for the first time in history.

During the rebranding in 2011, Mardi Gras Chairman Peter Urmson said "I think that whilst we are first and foremost a GLBTQI community organisation, we also are very open to all of our friends that do not necessarily identify within that alphabet soup." Many community members were offended by the change, including former Mardi Gras president Richard Cobden, who said that the group did not have the authority to make such a change, adding "For 20-plus years we have been able to force the mainstream media to call it the 'Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.' They had to say the words. For a long time they did not want to but we made them. That has been thrown away".

The name of the festival was subsequently restored as the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

In 2013, the New South Wales Police were accused of police brutality after a video shot by a bystander and uploaded to YouTube showed a handcuffed man thrown to the ground twice by an officer. The man repeatedly kicked police officers before being handcuffed. By 2014, all charges against the bystander were withdrawn by police and the officer concerned was facing disciplinary proceedings. Disciplinary proceedings against the officer were withdrawn.

On a number of occasions, there have been controversies with, and bans of, the UFO-related Raelians participation in the parade. A Raelian spokesman said the bans were unfair as the Raelians support non-discrimination and have gay and lesbian members.

In 2012 Mardi Gras organisers faced the issue of having a Sydney Polyamorists float in the parade, whilst also promoting same-sex marriage for couples. Particularly, as the 2012 Mardi Gras theme was "universal and infinite love", some polyamorists felt discriminated against. The issue was resolved with a polyamory float, based on the theme, "Queer Polyamory". In the 2014 Mardi Gras there was another float, "Polyamory Sydney 'Birds of a Feather, love together' – the infinite love Nest".

In 2015, some members of the LGBTIQ community argued that the Mardi Gras perpetuates gay stereotypes and excludes other members of the LGBTIQ community.

2020s
In 2020, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras was held just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. NSW Health advised there was no evidence of community transmission of the virus at that time. British singer Dua Lipa debuted her single Physical at the event.

In 2021, as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the parade, held on 6 March 2021, was relocated to the nearby Sydney Cricket Ground as a paid, ticketed event with 36,000 spectators and was televised live on the Special Broadcasting Service.

In 2023, independent senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe disrupted the parade in an attempt to raise awareness about intractable social issues such as Indigenous rates of incarceration and the role of police in that process.

In 2024, after the alleged murder of Jesse Baird and his partner Luke Davies around 20 February 2024 by serving NSW Police officer Beau Lamarre, the Mardi Gras board decided to ban members of the force from participating in Mardi Gras. Owing to sensitivities in the LGBTQIA+ community and recollections of past poor treatment by NSW Police. However this decision was reversed on 28 February 2024, and it was agreed by both the board and Police Commissioner Karen Webb that the Force could participate, but not in uniform. They would march as a group, without a float.

Additionally in 2024, Malcolm Cole's twin brother Robert recreated his 1988 Captain Cook costume, in order to wear it in the parade to commemorate Malcolm's life.

Resources
The Australian Queer Archives, City of Sydney Archives, Pride History Group, and the State Library of New South Wales hold an extensive collections of material related to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, including oral history interviews, organisational records, personal papers, posters, clippings, and photographs.

Mardi Gras Parade
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival culminates in the renowned Sydney Mardi Gras Parade, an LGBTQIA+ rights protest and celebration of sexuality. The parade features more than 12,500 entrants in colourful costumes and elaborate floats, who represent a community group, topical theme or political message. Parade entrants include members of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the Australian Defence Force, Amnesty International Australia, Australian Marriage Equality, City of Sydney, Fire & Rescue New South Wales, Taronga Conservation Society and DNA among many others.

Each parade starts with approximately 200 Dykes on Bikes riding up Oxford Street. It is often accompanied by fireworks displays, which are launched from the rooftops of buildings along the parade route. Approximately 300,000 spectators watch the Parade as it snakes 1.7 km from the Sydney central business district to Darlinghurst.

The parade travels along Oxford Street before turning into Flinders Street and finally into the bus lane that runs parallel to Anzac Parade – to the parade end. These roads and others including some around Hyde Park, are closed to traffic for the duration of the parade and for a few hours after as clean-up operations proceed.

Each year, a Chief of Parade (Grand Marshal), is chosen by the organisation New Mardi Gras as someone who represents the values and spirit of Mardi Gras. This honourable title has previously been awarded to:
 * 2004 – Monica Hingston, former nun and cousin of Cardinal George Pell
 * 2007 – Rupert Everett, gay actor
 * 2008 – Margaret Cho, bisexual American comedian
 * 2009 – Matthew Mitcham, Australian Olympic gold-medalist, world record holder and 2008 Australian Sports Performer of the Year
 * 2010 – Amanda Lepore, transgender model/performer
 * 2011 – Instead of a single Chief of Parade leading the march, eight high-profile heroes were chosen to lead the Parade. These were Lily Tomlin, lesbian actress and comedian; Peter Tatchell, a world-renowned gay rights campaigner; Don Baxter, Executive Director of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations at that time; Bev Lange, chief executive officer of the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation at the time, a former President of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and a former co-chair of the Sydney Gay Games; Lex Watson and Sue Wills, Campaign Against Moral Prosecution's (CAMP) first Co-Presidents; and Hannah Williams and Savannah Supski, who had recently protested against the ban against same-sex couples at Hannah's Melbourne school formal. The same year, Ignatius Jones consulted as Artistic Director to oversee the creative production of the Parade.
 * 2012 – Shelley Argent, the national spokesperson for Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and 2011 Queensland Senior Australian of the Year

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade is extensively covered by the media. In 2011, it was broadcast on radio by Joy 94.9 FM Melbourne and 2SER 107.3 FM Sydney. The Parade was also shown live on Foxtel's Arena in its entirety. The Arena broadcast was presented by hosts Louie Spence of Pineapple Dance Studios, Charlotte Dawson, Ruby Rose and Matthew Mitcham. The Parade was also broadcast on radio live by various community radio stations, via the CBAA's Community Radio Network satellite. In 2012, Optus, a corporate sponsor, broadcast a delayed and edited highlights of the parade via www.mardigrastv.org.au. In 2014, SBS TV broadcast delayed and edited coverage of the parade highlights, hosted by Tom Ballard, Patrick Abboud and Heather Peace.

Despite its name, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is not held on Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) or indeed, on a Tuesday at all. In recent years, the Mardi Gras Parade has been on the first Saturday of March, with a festival of events going for approximately three weeks preceding it.

The parade running order for 4 March 2017.

Mardi Gras Party (Post Parade)
The post parade party is one of the largest ongoing party events in the country. Mardi Gras Party attendances at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion / Royal Hall of Industries peaked in 1998 with 27,000 tickets sold. In the years since 17,000 to 20,000 tickets are consistently sold, an increase over the first Parade Ball held in 1980 at the Paddington Town Hall, a BYO event which attracted 700 guests. Although, by the late first decade of the 21st century, ticket sales has begun to fall, with the 2012 post parade party selling out at 15,300 tickets; and ticket sales a little lower again in 2013.

The 2010 party was not held on the night of the parade and was later described by the organisers as human error during scheduling.

Several well known local and international artists have performed at the Party and include:

 * 1990 – Sam Backo, Marcia Hines
 * 1991 – Tina Arena
 * 1994 – John Paul Young, Kylie Minogue
 * 1995 – Boy George
 * 1996 – Trudi Valentine, Thelma Houston
 * 1997 – Chaka Khan, Village People
 * 1998 – Jimmy Somerville, Kylie Minogue, Dannii Minogue
 * 1999 – Dannii Minogue, Marcia Hines, Erin Hamilton, Jimmy Barnes
 * 2001 – Vanessa Amorosi, Sheena Easton, Christine Anu
 * 2002 – Human Nature, Bardot, Deborah Cox, Lorna Luft
 * 2003 – Suzanne Palmer, Joan Rivers, Brandon Gaukel
 * 2005 – Tina Arena, Nicki French, Darren Hayes, Courtney Act
 * 2006 – Baby Marcelo, Jimmy Somerville, Mary Kiani, Xenza
 * 2007 – Young Divas, Boy George, Dannii Minogue, Log Log Binks
 * 2008 – Cyndi Lauper, Walter Hanna, Olivia Newton-John
 * 2009 – Alison Jiear, Tina Arena, Miami Horror
 * 2010 – George Michael, Kelly Rowland, Adam Lambert, Amanda Lepore
 * 2011 – Wynter Gordon, Calvin Harris, Alexis Jordan, Frankie Knuckles, Larry Tee, Bob Downe
 * 2012 – Kylie Minogue, RuPaul, Sneaky Sound System, Shauna Jensen, Sam Sparro
 * 2013 – Loreen, Delta Goodrem, Heather Small, The Presets, Jake Shears
 * 2014 – Tina Arena, Courtney Act, Samantha Jade, Marcia Hines, Nathan Mahon, Adam George
 * 2015 – Dannii Minogue, Nick Jonas, Jessica Mauboy, Jake Shears, Betty Who, Rufus Wainwright, Courtney Act
 * 2016 – Conchita Wurst, Deborah Cox, Courtney Act
 * 2017 – Client Liaison, The Veronicas, Steve Grand, Nat Conway, Greg Gould
 * 2018 – Cher, Starley, Seann Miley Moore
 * 2019 – Kim Petras, Jake Shears, Leiomy Maldonado, PNAU, Courtney Act, Paul Capsis.
 * 2020 – Dua Lipa, Kesha, Pabllo Vittar, Sam Smith
 * 2021 – Rita Ora
 * 2022 – Darren Hayes, Vanessa Amorosi
 * 2023 – Sugababes, Agnes

Mardi Gras Festival
By 1987 the festival included 35 events. The 1998 festival was estimated to contribute $99 million to the Sydney economy.

Multi-disc Mardi Gras compilation albums were released in 1995, 1997, 2002 and 2003.

The festival's live entertainment includes cabaret, comedy, music and theatre. The Mardi Gras Film Festival showcases international and local gay and lesbian films. There are many literature and arts events, forum and conferences to attend between the many social activities. Individual and team sports have always been a big part of the festival.

Mardi Gras Fair Day
In 1979 an 'Alternative Lifestyle Fair' as part of a week of activities around International Gay Solidarity Day. During the early 1980s the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Business Association held an annual Fair Day, which was brought into the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras program in 1985. From 1985 to 1988 the Business Association continued to run the Fair, which was subsequently run by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras from 1989. The event is the kick off event for the official Mardi Gras season in Victoria Park, Sydney for Sydney's wider LGBTQIA+ communities and their friends and family. Up to 70,000 people routinely turn out to sit on the grass, browse the stalls and catch up with old friends or make some new ones. Fair Day 2011 saw record numbers of attendees. Entertainment came from the Foxtel Main Stage and included a set from Zoe Badwi and Garçon Garçon, and one of the biggest ever "Mr and Mrs Fair Day" competitions. Approximately 250 volunteers assisted with 220 stalls made up of many LGBTQIA+community groups.

In 2017, Mardi Gras Fair Day was held at Camperdown Memorial Rest Park on Sunday 19 February.

Mardi Gras Awards
The Mardi Gras Awards are presented to organisations and individuals who made an outstanding contribution to Mardi Gras and the gay and lesbian community.

WorldPride Sydney 2023
InterPride, at their October 2019 Annual General Meeting of three hundred delegate organizations, held in Athens, Greece chose Sydney, Australia to host WorldPride 2023, the first time WorldPride will be held in the Southern Hemisphere or Asia Pacific region. Sydney received 60% of the vote ahead of the other bid contenders Montreal, Canada (36%) and Houston, Texas (3%).

WorldPride 2023 coincided with the 50th Anniversary of the first Australian Gay Pride Week, 45th Anniversary of the first Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras and 5th Anniversary of Marriage Equality in Australia. According to the bid document the stated objective of WorldPride Sydney 2023 is to celebrate the diversity of culture and identity in the Asia Pacific region, while shining a light on widespread human rights abuses.

WorldPride Sydney 2023 was held between 16 February and 4 March during Australia's summer and consisted of a 17-day combined 45th Anniversary Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras/WorldPride 2023 Festival. The centrepiece was a three-day LGBTQIA+ Human Rights and Health Conference focusing on LGBTQIA+ people's experiences of violence, torture, abuse, discrimination and persecution in the Asia Pacific region and more broadly. Other stated signature events included:

• Aboriginal Smoking Ceremony and Welcome to Country

• WorldPride Opening Ceremony

• 45th Anniversary Mardi Gras Parade

• 45th Anniversary Mardi Gras Party

• Interpride Reception

• Bondi Beach Party

• Mardi Gras International Arts Festival

• 30th Anniversary Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival

• WorldPride First Nations Gala Concert

• Sissy Ball Grand Final

• WorldPride March

• WorldPride Closing Ceremony

Support
Political support has come from a number of local and federal politicians such as former Australian Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja and current Labor Senator Penny Wong, Members of the House of Representatives Tanya Plibersek and current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, former Leader of the Opposition and Labor Party Bill Shorten Former Premier Barry O'Farrell as well as the present Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore. In 2023 Albanese became the first Prime Minister to march in Mardi Gras while in office. In 2024 Chris Minns became the first Premier of New South Wales to march in Mardi Gras.

As Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull attended the 2016 Mardi Gras but did not march. There was a movement by some Mardi Gras members to disinvite him in 2017 due to "lack of action" on same-sex marriage and his cuts to the Safe Schools program however the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras board subsequently rejected the move.

Hundreds of thousands of Australians and international guests come out in support of the Parade, with many lining up for a viewing spot from early in the afternoon. By the 7.45 pm Parade kick-off, crowds are usually ten-people deep. Though it has rained on several Mardi Gras parades (notably with heavy downpours prior to, and drizzle during, the parade in 1995, and heavy rainfall during the parade in 2004), this has never stopped the parade.

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is regarded internationally as one of the world's biggest and best LGBTQI marches and festivals, and has been described as an "absolute once-in-a-lifetime must for every travelling gay man". Mardi Gras is featured in the programmes of tour operators which target the gay market.

In the 2000s the Mardi Gras organisation struck financial trouble, and collapsed. This was attributed at the time to poor financial management and a downturn in international tourism following the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, while another explanation was given as Australia's ongoing public liability crisis, which has seen massive insurance premiums impose a significant burden on community and public events, if not preventing them. As a consequence of the impending collapse of the organisation, there was a groundswell of concern and support within Sydney's LGBTQI communities for the continuation of the work and events of Mardi Gras. A series of crisis meetings culminated in the creation of a reformed organisation "New Mardi Gras" being formed to continue the Parade, the Festival & the Party.

In 2008, it was announced that the Government of New South Wales would provide funding for Mardi Gras as it had become part of the state's Master Events Calendar. Limited funds have also been sourced from the Sleaze Ball party held in Sydney towards the end of the year. Mardi Gras still receives significant public support and the event now receives some limited government funding.

In 2013, a temporary rainbow crossing was created by City of Sydney Council as part of the 35th anniversary celebrations. The rainbow crossing proved popular with tourists and when it was removed as part of a condition with Roads & Maritime Services when the rainbow crossing was built, DIY rainbow crossings, emerged and was picked up by the local and international media. In 2018 the rainbow crossing was reinstated.

title: Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras


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Cangin languages

The Cangin languages are spoken by 200,000 people (as of 2007) in a small area east of Dakar, Senegal. They are the languages spoken by the Serer people who do not speak the Serer language (Serer-Sine). Because the people are ethnically Serer, the Cangin languages are commonly thought to be dialects of the Serer language. However, they are not closely related; Serer is closer to Fulani than it is to Cangin.

Languages
The Cangin languages are:

Lehar and Noon are particularly close, as are Ndut and Palor, though not quite to the point of easy intelligibility. Safen is transparently closer to Lehar–Noon than to Palor–Ndut.

Reconstruction
Merrill (2018: 451) reconstructs Proto-Cangin as follows.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Cangin languages


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Transatlantic (band)

Transatlantic is a multinational progressive rock supergroup consisting of Neal Morse (ex–Spock's Beard), Roine Stolt (Kaipa, the Flower Kings), Pete Trewavas (Marillion, Edison's Children) and Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater). They formed in 1999 as a side project to their full-time bands, but disbanded in 2002. They then reunited in 2009.

Despite not being an official member and only appearing on one studio album, Daniel Gildenlöw (Pain of Salvation) has often joined the band during live shows. However, due to illness, Ted Leonard (Spock's Beard, Enchant, Thought Chamber) stood in for him during the 2014 tour. Leonard also joined the band during the 2022 tour.

Formation
Originally intending to include Fates Warning guitarist Jim Matheos, Morse and Portnoy tapped Flower Kings guitarist/vocalist Roine Stolt when Matheos was unable to participate. The band completed their lineup by adding bassist and progressive rock veteran Pete Trewavas from the group Marillion and Edison's Children. Before Transatlantic, the first moniker the band came up with was "Second Nature".

SMPT:e and Bridge Across Forever (2000–2002)
Their first album, 2000's SMPT:e (a play on words, as both a combination of the members' last initials, as well as a common machine time protocol used in high end recording studios) received strong critical reviews, including "some of the best progressive rock music ever written" (Robert Taylor in AllMusic).

A subsequent tour of the United States led to a double live CD, Transatlantic Live in America, and a video of the same name. The band showed their musical heritage on the live CD, presenting covers of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever", as well as a medley of Genesis' epic "Watcher of the Skies" and "Firth of Fifth". The band also released another double live CD/DVD called Live in Europe in 2003; one standout is the version of "Suite Charlotte Pike" that includes covers of tracks from The Beatles Abbey Road album.

Though SMPT:e contained the 31-minute opus "All of the Above", the band's second studio album, 2001's Bridge Across Forever, found the band flexing their muscles further in the long form for which progressive rock is known. The CD contained just four tracks, the 26-minute "Duel With the Devil", the 14-minute "Suite Charlotte Pike", and the 26-minute "Stranger in Your Soul" making up the bulk of the disc, with the title track coming in at a relatively scant five minutes. The limited edition also contains a cover of Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond". In November 2001, the band toured Europe. As an added bonus for progressive metal fans, Daniel Gildenlöw of the band Pain of Salvation sat in throughout the tour, playing keyboards, guitars, percussion, and vocals.

Years of hiatus (2002–2009)
Morse left his regular band Spock's Beard in October 2002, stating "God wants me to do something else," which meant leaving the mainstream prog scene to launch a new career as a Christian musician. This move also included ending his activities for Transatlantic. Portnoy reacted: "This spells the end of Transatlantic as I wouldn't possibly consider continuing it without him." A live DVD of the tour was released in late 2003.

In the years to follow Morse continued to collaborate with Portnoy both in the studio and on stage. Morse' concerts frequently included one or more Transatlantic songs. A three-quarter reunion took place on 23 August 2008, when Stolt and Portnoy joined Morse at the Three Rivers Prog Fest in Pittsburgh for "We All Need Some Light" and "Stranger in Your Soul".

Reunion and The Whirlwind (2009–2013)
On 16 April 2009, it was officially announced that the band had reunited and begun work on a third studio album. The album was released in October 2009 and consisted of a single 77-minute title-track The Whirlwind. A special edition of the album was also released, including a second disc with four additional original tracks and four cover tracks. Additionally, a deluxe edition was released, which included a DVD documenting the making of the album. The album reached No. 21 on the U.S. Billboard Heatseekers chart.

The band toured North America and Europe in April–May 2010 in support of The Whirlwind. Dubbed the Whirld Tour, the band was again joined by Daniel Gildenlöw on stage.

In February 2013, the new Neal Morse band (with Mike Portnoy) and the Flower Kings started a European tour together which was followed by a gig in Los Angeles in May. Each band performed a set with their own songs and the encore set featured Transatlantic songs performed by Morse, Portnoy and Stolt supported by members of the two bands with special guests Jonas Reingold and Randy George alternating on bass. The encore ends with eleven musicians on the stage.

On 10 March 2013, Pete Trewavas announced at the Marillion Weekend Convention in Port Zélande, the Netherlands, that he would be going to Nashville in the Summer to record new material with Transatlantic. Neal Morse confirmed this to DPRP.

Kaleidoscope (2014)
On 30 May 2013, Mike Portnoy announced that they had finished writing a new Transatlantic album. It featured five songs (two epics and three 'normal length' ones) plus eight covers for the bonus disc. The album was released in January 2014. A world tour of the United States and Europe followed, including a performance on the "Progressive Nation at Sea" cruise created by Mike Portnoy. The band played two shows, with the first featuring the entire Kaleidoscope album and the second including guest performances by famous progressive rock artists such as Jon Anderson of Yes. On 11 September 2014, Kaleidoscope won Album of the Year at the third annual Progressive Music Awards.

The Absolute Universe (2019–2022)
Transatlantic recorded its fifth album, The Absolute Universe, and released it on 5 February 2021.

On 5 June 2021, Mike Portnoy announced on his Twitter feed that Transatlantic would be playing at Morsefest 2022 outside of Nashville, TN on 29–30 April 2022 as a warmup gig for Cruise To The Edge. It was subsequently announced that both The Absolute Universe and The Whirlwind would be played in their entirety at these shows.

Members

 * Neal Morse – keyboard, vocals, guitar
 * Mike Portnoy – drums, vocals
 * Roine Stolt – guitar, vocals, keyboards
 * Pete Trewavas – bass, vocals

Touring and guests members

 * Daniel Gildenlöw – guitar, vocals, keyboards (2001 & 2010 tours, 2014 show, 2017 show)
 * Ted Leonard – guitar, vocals, keyboards (2014 tour, 2017 show, 2022 tour)
 * Bill Hubauer – guitar, vocals, keyboards (2017 show)

title: Transatlantic (band)


text:
User:Ct

Just another Wikipedian trying to get my bearings.

title: User:Ct


text:
Wagonway

Wagonways (also spelt Waggonways), also known as horse-drawn railways and horse-drawn railroad consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded steam-powered railways. The terms plateway, tramway, dramway, were used. The advantage of wagonways was that far bigger loads could be transported with the same power.

Ancient systems
The earliest evidence is of the 6 to 8.5 km long Diolkos paved trackway, which transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece from around 600 BC. Wheeled vehicles pulled by men and animals ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element, preventing the wagons from leaving the intended route. The Diolkos was in use for over 650 years, until at least the 1st century AD. Paved trackways were later built in Roman Egypt.

Wooden rails
Such an operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola (image right) in his work De re metallica. This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde ("dogs") from the noise they made on the tracks.

Around 1568, German miners working in the Mines Royal near Keswick used such a system. Archaeological work at the Mines Royal site at Caldbeck in the English Lake District confirmed the use of "hunds".

In 1604, Huntingdon Beaumont completed the Wollaton Wagonway, built to transport coal from the mines at Strelley to Wollaton Lane End, just west of Nottingham, England. Wagonways have been discovered between Broseley and Jackfield in Shropshire from 1605, used by James Clifford to transport coal from his mines in Broseley to the Severn River. It has been suggested that these are somewhat older than that at Wollaton.

The Middleton Railway in Leeds, which was built in 1758 as a wagonway, later became the world's first operational railway (other than funiculars), albeit in an upgraded form. In 1764, the first railway in the America was built in Lewiston, New York as a wagonway.

Wagonways improved coal transport by allowing one horse to deliver between 10 and 13 LT of coal per run— an approximate fourfold increase. Wagonways were usually designed to carry the fully loaded wagons downhill to a canal or boat dock and then return the empty wagons back to the mine.

Metal rails
Until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, rails were made of wood, were a few inches wide and were fastened end to end, on logs of wood or "sleepers", placed crosswise at intervals of two or three feet. In time, it became common to cover them with a thin flat sheathing or "plating" of iron, in order to add to their life and reduce friction. This caused more wear on the wooden rollers of the wagons and towards the middle of the 18th century, led to the introduction of iron wheels. However, the iron sheathing was not strong enough to resist buckling under the passage of the loaded wagons, so rails made wholly of iron were invented.

In 1760, the Coalbrookdale Iron Works began to reinforce their wooden-railed tramway with iron bars, which were found to facilitate passage and diminish expenses. As a result, in 1767, they began to make cast iron rails. These were probably 6 ft long, with four projecting ears or lugs 3 in by 3+3/4 in to enable them to be fixed to the sleepers. The rails were 3+3/4 in wide and 1+1/4 in thick. Later, descriptions also refer to rails 3 ft long and only 2 in wide.

Plateways, flangeways
A later system involved L-shaped iron rails or plates, each 3 ft long and 4 in wide, having on the inner side an upright ledge or flange, 3 in high at the centre and tapering to 2 in at the ends, for the purpose of keeping the flat wheels on the track. Subsequently, to increase strength, a similar flange might be added below the rail. Wooden sleepers continued to be used—the rails were secured by spikes passing through the extremities—but, circa 1793, stone blocks began to be used, an innovation associated with Benjamin Outram, although he was not the originator. This type of rail was known as the plate-rail, tramway-plate or way-plate, names that are preserved in the modern term "platelayer" applied to the workers who lay and maintain the permanent way. The wheels of flangeway wagons were plain, but they could not operate on ordinary roads as the narrow rims would dig into the surface.

Edgeways
Another form of rail, the edge rail, was first used by William Jessop on a line that was opened as part of the Charnwood Forest Canal between Loughborough and Nanpantan in Leicestershire in 1789. This line was originally designed as a plateway on the Outram system, but objections were raised to laying rails with upstanding ledges or flanges on the turnpike. This difficulty was overcome by paving or "causewaying" the road up to the level of the top of the flanges. In 1790, Jessop and his partner Outram began to manufacture edge-rails. Another example of the edge rail application was the Lake Lock Rail Road in the West Riding of Yorkshire (now West Yorkshire) used primarily for coal transport. The railway charged a toll and opened for traffic in 1798, making it the world's oldest public railway. The route started at Lake Lock, Stanley, on the Aire & Calder Navigation, running from Wakefield to Outwood, a distance of approximately 3 mi. Edge-rails (with a side rack) were used on the nearby Middleton-Leeds rack railway (a length of this rail is on display in Leeds City Museum). The wheels of an edgeway have flanges, like modern railways and tramways. Causewaying is also done on modern level crossings and tramways.

These two systems of constructing iron railways continued to exist until the early 19th century. In most parts of England the plate-rail was preferred. Plate-rails were used on the Surrey Iron Railway (SIR), from Wandsworth to West Croydon. The SIR was sanctioned by Parliament in 1801 and finished in 1803. Like the Lake Lock Rail Road, the SIR was available to the public on payment of tolls; previous lines had all been private and reserved exclusively for the use of their owners. Since it was used by individual operators, vehicles would vary greatly in wheel spacing (gauge) and the plate rail coped better. In South Wales again, where in 1811 the railways were connected with canals, collieries, ironworks, and copper works, and had a total length of nearly 150 mi, the plateway was almost universal. But in the North of England and in Scotland the edge-rail was held in greater favor, and soon its superiority was generally established. Wheels tended to bind against the flange of the plate rail and mud and stones would build up.

The manufacture of the rails themselves was gradually improved. By making them in longer lengths, the number of joints per mile was reduced. Joints were always the weakest part of the line. Another advance was the substitution of wrought iron for cast iron, though that material did not gain wide adoption until after the patent for an improved method of rolling rails was granted in 1820 to John Birkinshaw, of the Bedlington Ironworks. His rails were wedge-shaped in section, much wider at the top than at the bottom, with the intermediate portion or web thinner still. He recommended that they be made 18 ft long, suggesting that several might be welded together end to end to form considerable lengths. They were supported on sleepers by chairs at intervals of 3 ft, and were fish-bellied between the support points. As used by George Stephenson on the Stockton & Darlington, and Canterbury & Whitstable lines, they weighed 28 lb/yd. On the Liverpool and Manchester Railway they were usually 12 or long and weighed 35 lb/yd and were fastened by iron wedges to chairs weighing 15 or each. The chairs were in turn fixed to the sleepers by two iron spikes, half-round wooden cross sleepers employed on embankments and stone blocks 20 in square by 10 in deep in cuttings. The fish-bellied rails were found to break near the chairs and starting in 1834, they were gradually replaced with parallel rails weighing 50 lb/yd.

Steam power

In 1804, Richard Trevithick, in the first recorded use of steam power on a railway, ran a high-pressure steam locomotive with smooth wheels on an 'L' section plateway near Merthyr Tydfil, but it was more expensive than horses. He made three trips from the iron mines at Penydarren to the Merthyr-Cardiff Canal and each time broke the rails that were designed for horse wagon loads. There was general doubt at the time that smooth wheels could obtain traction on smooth rails. This resulted in proposals using rack or other drive mechanisms.

Mr Blenkinsop of Middleton Colliery patented the use of cogged wheels in 1811 and in 1812, the Middleton Railway (edgeway, rack rail) successfully used twin cylinder steam locomotives made by Matthew Murray of Holbeck, Leeds. George Stephenson made his first steam locomotive in 1813 (patented 1815) for the Killingworth colliery, and found smooth wheels on smooth rails provided adequate grip. Although he later recounted that they called this locomotive 'My Lord' as it was financed by Lord Ravensworth, it seems that it was known at the time as Blücher. In 1814 William Stewart was engaged by Parkend Coal Co in the Forest of Dean for the construction of a steam locomotive, which when trialled was reported to be successful. Stewart did not receive his expected reward and the two parties parted on bad terms. Stewart was 'obliged to abandon the engine to that Company'. In 1821, a wagonway was proposed to connect the mines at West Durham, Darlington and the River Tees at Stockton, George Stephenson successfully argued that horse-drawn wagonways were obsolete and a steam-powered railway could carry 50 times as much coal. In 1825 he built the locomotive Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in England's northeast, which became the world's first public steam railway in 1825, via both horse power and steam power on different runs.

Stationary steam engines for mining were generally available around the middle of the 18th century. Wagonways and steam-powered railways had steep uphill sections and would employ a cable powered by a stationary steam engine to work the inclined sections. British troops in Lewiston, New York used a cable wagonway to move supplies to bases before the American Revolutionary War. The Stockton and Darlington had two inclined sections powered by cable. The transition from a wagonway to a fully steam-powered railway was gradual. Railways up to the 1830s that were steam-powered often made runs with horses when the steam locomotives were unavailable. Even in the steam age, it was convenient to use horses in station yards to shunt wagons from one place to another. Horses do not need lengthy times to raise steam in the boiler, and can take shortcuts from one siding to another. At Hamley Bridge tenders were called for the supply of horses, in part because normal railway staff lacked horse handling skills.

Pole road
Wooden rails continued to be used for temporary railroads into the twentieth century. Some timber harvesting companies in the southeastern United States created pole roads using unmarketable logs, which were effectively free, to create tracks at a cost of between $100 and $500 per mile. Permanence was not an issue, as the lumberjacks moved on to other stands of timber as each area was cleared. At least one such pole road system reportedly extended some 20 mi.

Typically the pole rails were logs of 8 to 12 in diameter, laid parallel directly on the ground without cross-ties, and joined end-to-end with lap joints and wooden pegs. Rolling stock typically had wheels either with concave rims that hugged the top of the pole rails, or un-flanged wheels with separate guide wheels running against the side of each rail. Steam traction engines and some purpose-built locomotives were successfully used for hauling trains of logs. For example, Perdido was built by Adams & Price Locomotive and Machinery Works of Nashville, Tennessee in 1885 for the Wallace, Sanford and Company sawmill at Williams Station, Alabama, where it hauled up to seven cars of 3 or 4 logs each. This was a geared engine (4.5 to 1 gear ratio), driving four individually-rotating concave-rim wheels on stationary axles via chain drives; powerful but running less than 5 mph. Still later, modified semitrailer tractors have been used.

Decline
As steam power gradually replaced horse power throughout the 19th century, the term "wagonway" became obsolete and was superseded by the term "railway". , very few horse or cable freight railways are operating, notable examples being the cable-hauled St Michael's Mount Tramway and the Reisszug, which has been in continuous operation since around 1500. A few passenger lines continue to operate, including the horse-hauled Douglas Bay Horse Tramway and the cable-hauled San Francisco cable cars.

title: Wagonway


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Paul Shaffer

Paul Allen Wood Shaffer (born November 28, 1949) is a Canadian  singer, keyboardist, composer, actor, author, comedian, and musician who served as David Letterman's musical director, band leader, and sidekick on the entire run of both Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993) and Late Show with David Letterman (1993–2015).

Early years
Shaffer was born in 1949 in Toronto, and raised in Fort William (now part of Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada, the son of Shirley and Bernard Shaffer. He was raised in the Jewish faith; his mother volunteered with local charities, and donated to Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America. His father, a lawyer, was a jazz aficionado while his mother loved show tunes. When Shaffer was 12, his parents took him on a trip to Las Vegas where they took in Nat King Cole and other shows; this was an experience Shaffer described later as "life changing" and led to his decision to become a performer. As a child, Shaffer took piano lessons, and in his teenage years played the organ in a band called Fabulous Fugitives with his schoolmates in Thunder Bay. Later, he performed with the "Flash Landing Band" at different venues around Edmonton and the interior of British Columbia. Educated at the University of Toronto, he began playing with jazz guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, performing in bands around the bars there, where he found an interest in musicals, and completed his studies, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology in 1971.

Shaffer appears briefly, playing an organ at an outdoor wedding, in North of Superior (1971), an early IMAX documentary shot in northern Ontario.

Godspell to Saturday Night Live
Shaffer began his music career in 1972 when Stephen Schwartz invited him to be the musical director for the Toronto production of Godspell, starring Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, and Andrea Martin. He went on to play piano for the Schwartz Broadway show The Magic Show in 1974, then became a member of the house band on NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program from 1975 to 1980 (except for a brief departure in 1977). Though Shaffer was at the piano and appeared to be directing the band's actions, Howard Shore was credited as SNL's musical director, eventually turning the actual conducting of the band to Howard Johnson. Shaffer also regularly appeared in the show's sketches, notably as the pianist for Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer character, and as Don Kirshner. He also appeared as a keyboardist on the 1978 album Desire Wire, recorded by pop/rock star, musician, and backing vocalist Cindy Bullens.

Shaffer occasionally teamed up with the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players off the show, as well, including work on Gilda Radner's highly successful Broadway show and as the musical director for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd whenever they recorded or performed as the Blues Brothers. Shaffer was to appear in the duo's 1980 film, but as he revealed in October 2009 on CBS Sunday Morning, Belushi dropped him from the project. In a memo to fellow SNL colleagues, Belushi said that he was unhappy that Shaffer was spending so much time on a studio record for Radner. Belushi said that he had tried to talk Shaffer out of working on the album in the first place to avoid sharing Shaffer's talents with another SNL-related project. Shaffer later reported that he was in (unrequited) love with Radner. He went on to appear in 1998's Blues Brothers 2000.

In 1977, Shaffer played on the Mark & Clark Band's hit song "Worn Down Piano".

Shaffer left SNL in 1977 for a few months to co-star with Greg Evigan in A Year at the Top, a short-lived CBS sitcom in which Shaffer and Evigan play two musicians from Idaho who relocate to Hollywood, where they are regularly tempted by a famous promoter (who is actually the devil's son), played by Gabriel Dell, to sell their souls in exchange for a year of stardom. Though the series only lasted a few episodes, a soundtrack album was released.

Following the series' cancellation, Shaffer returned to SNL. In the spring of 1980, Shaffer became the first person to say "fuck" on SNL. That year, SNL parodied The Troggs Tapes with a medieval musical sketch featuring Shaffer, Bill Murray, Harry Shearer, and a "special guest appearance" by John Belushi (who had left the show the previous year). In the middle of a long tirade that featured repeated use of the word "flogging", Shaffer inadvertently uttered the forbidden word. It not only escaped the censors in the live broadcast and the West Coast taped airing, but also reappeared in the summer rerun, and even in the syndicated versions of the show for several years. Shaffer, at Letterman's urging, related the story on the first episode of Late Night. In February 2015, Shaffer appeared on the 40th-anniversary special of SNL, playing music to Bill Murray's lounge-singer character, a love song from the movie Jaws.

Collaboration with David Letterman
Beginning in 1982, Shaffer served as musical director for David Letterman's late night talk shows: as leader of "The World's Most Dangerous Band" for Late Night with David Letterman (1982–1993) on NBC, for which he also composed the theme song, and as leader of the CBS Orchestra for the Late Show with David Letterman (1993–2015) on CBS. Letterman consistently maintained that the show's switch to CBS was because NBC "caught Paul stealing pens" or some other trivial reason. Shaffer guest-hosted the show four times when Letterman was unavailable: February 9 and 11, 2000, during Letterman's recovery from his quintuple heart bypass surgery; March 24, 2003, when Letterman was suffering from shingles; and January 19, 2005, when Letterman went to receive an award for his racing team's victory in the 2004 Indianapolis 500.

Shaffer wrote and performs the bridging music on Letterman's Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman which premiered in 2018. After Netflix announced publicly that it had given the series an order, Shaffer received a phone call from Letterman asking him to work on the show. Soon after, Shaffer began to receive cuts of episodes from the first season and he started to put music in afterwards where the director thought it was needed. In developing the sound of the show's music, Shaffer initially looked to Letterman for guidance. Finding none, he remembered his and Letterman's shared love for the sort of music produced at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, describing it as "the honesty you hear, the southern soul feeling". The score initially included drums, but the show's producers and director thought that the music should "feel like it's Dave's old friend Paul playing," so it was ultimately stripped down to solely include piano and organ.

Musical collaboration
Shaffer recorded the synthesizer solo in the 1982 song "Goodbye to You" by the band Scandal. He used his Oberheim OB-Xa to emulate a 1960s organ sound.

In 1984, Shaffer played keyboards for The Honeydrippers, a group formed in 1981 by former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, on their only studio album, The Honeydrippers: Volume One. The album included the hit single "Sea of Love" which reached number one on Billboard's adult contemporary chart in 1984 and number three on its Hot 100 chart in 1985.

He released two solo albums, 1989's Coast to Coast, and 1993's The World's Most Dangerous Party, produced by rock musician Todd Rundgren. Shaffer has also recorded with a wide range of artists, including Donald Fagen, Ronnie Wood, Grand Funk Railroad, Diana Ross, B.B. King, Asleep at the Wheel, Cyndi Lauper, Carl Perkins, Yoko Ono, Blues Traveler, Jeff Healey, Cher, Barry Manilow, Chicago, Luba, Robert Burns, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Nina Hagen, Robert Plant, Peter Criss, Scandal, Brian Wilson, Late Show regular Warren Zevon, jazz trumpeters Miles Davis and Lew Soloff, jazz saxophonist Lou Marini, and bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs. In 1982, he co-wrote "It's Raining Men" with Paul Jabara. It was number one on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play charts, a number-two hit in the UK for The Weather Girls in 1984, and a UK number-one remake for Geri Halliwell in 2001. Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band performed the Chuck Berry song "Roll Over Beethoven" for the 1992 film Beethoven.

Shaffer has served as musical director and producer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony since its inception in 1986 and filled the same role for the 1996 Olympic Games closing ceremonies from Atlanta, Georgia. Shaffer also served as musical director for Fats Domino and Friends, a Cinemax special that included Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Ron Wood.

Shaffer has hosted Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum induction concert and ceremonies.

In 2017, Shaffer reunited with his band, resuming its previous name, and recorded the self-titled album Paul Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band. Shaffer and the band released their album in March and then went on tour, as well, as making appearances on both Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, for which Shaffer and the band returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater for the first time since Letterman's finale two years earlier. In 2023, the band returned to 30 Rockefeller Plaza to act as the house band for one episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon while the regular band, The Roots, prepared for the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Movie appearances
Shaffer has appeared in a number of motion pictures over the years, including a small role (Artie Fufkin of Polymer Records) in Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap, Blues Brothers 2000, a scene with Miles Davis in the Bill Murray film Scrooged, and as a passenger in John Travolta's taxicab in Look Who's Talking Too. In addition, Shaffer lent his voice to Disney's animated feature and television series Hercules, as the character Hermes.

Around 1998, Shaffer was on Hollywood Squares.

The following year, he appeared in Blues Traveler's video for the song "Hook".

Other television and radio appearances
He hosted Happy New Year, America in 1994 on CBS.

Shaffer was considered for the role of George Costanza in Seinfeld, but never returned the call from Jerry Seinfeld that offered him the role. In 2001, Shaffer hosted the VH1 game show Cover Wars with DJ/model Sky Nellor. The show featured cover bands competing for the ultimate series win. Each week, Shaffer signed off with, "Just because you're in a cover band, it doesn't mean you're not a star." The show lasted 13 episodes and featured celebrity judges including Kevin Bacon, Nile Rodgers, Cyndi Lauper, and Ace Frehley.

Shaffer served as musical director for 2001's The Concert for New York City, and accompanied Adam Sandler's "Opera Man" sketch and the Backstreet Boys' "Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)".

In 2002, he hosted the infamous Friars Club Roast of Chevy Chase on Comedy Central in which the presenters' insults directed at the comedian were so vicious, Shaffer reportedly had to console him afterwards.

Shaffer hosts the 60-second radio vignettes called "Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock". These audio shorts were first produced for Envision Radio Networks and debuted in 2007 on New York station WAXQ-FM.

In 2008, Shaffer made a cameo appearance at the beginning of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent season-seven episode "Vanishing Act".

In February 2013, he appeared in an episode of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother titled "P.S. I Love You", in which the character of Robin (Cobie Smulders) is revealed to have been obsessed with him. The letters "P.S." in the episode title refer to Paul Shaffer.

Shaffer was the musical director for A Very Murray Christmas, a 2015 Netflix variety special starring Bill Murray in which Shaffer also appears and performs extensively.

In October 2017, Shaffer returned to the late-night stage to perform with the band on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

In December 2018, he made a cameo appearance in an episode of the Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek, during which he played the piano at a Christmas party. The episode, titled "Merry Christmas, Johnny Rose," also reunited him with his former Godspell colleague Eugene Levy.

Shaffer competed on the second season of the TV series The Masked Singer as "Skeleton".

In 2019, Shaffer began hosting Paul Shaffer Plus One, a monthly talk show on SiriusXM and AXS TV that featured Shaffer interviewing colleagues in the music industry such as Sammy Hagar, Graham Nash, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan.

Charity work
Since 2002, he has been the national spokesperson for Epilepsy Canada. On September 29, 2005, Shaffer made a major contribution to Lakehead University to dedicate the fifth-floor ATAC boardroom to his father Bernard Shaffer, inaugural member of the board of governors. In June 2006, he received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.

In 2005, along with Steven Van Zandt, he organized a benefit for Mike Smith (formerly of The Dave Clark Five), who had suffered a paralysing fall at his home in Spain. Shaffer cites Mike Smith as an early influence.

In 2012, Shaffer appeared in 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, where Shaffer accompanied Adam Sandler. The concert raised money for the people who were affected by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Later in 2012, Shaffer appeared in a skit of SNL Christmas, which aired on Saturday, December 15, 2012. He appeared playing the piano and singing for the host Martin Short.

Shaffer is a member of Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.

Memoir
Shaffer's memoir, We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin' Show-biz Saga (co-authored by David Ritz) was published on October 6, 2009. The same day, he made an appearance as a guest on The Late Show.

Honours
The National Black Sports and Entertainment Hall of Fame inducted Shaffer in 2002 for his part in opening doors in the entertainment industry for African-Americans.

Shaffer was inducted into the Order of Canada, Canada's highest honour, in 2007.

In May 2015, the Ride of Fame honoured Shaffer with a double-decker sightseeing bus in New York City to commemorate his long run as the leader of the CBS Orchestra for the Late Show with David Letterman.

In 2010, Shaffer appeared with Bachman & Turner at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. His appearance was included on the live album recorded on that date.

In 2002, a street that surrounds the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium in his hometown was renamed Paul Shaffer Drive. Shaffer has also received two honorary doctorates, including one from Lakehead University.

Personal life
Shaffer has been married to Cathy Vasapoli, a former talent booker on Good Morning America, since 1990. They have two children, Victoria and Will.

Discography

 * 1989: Coast to Coast
 * 1993: The World's Most Dangerous Party
 * 2017: Paul Shaffer & The World's Most Dangerous Band (Sire Records)

title: Paul Shaffer


text:
Talk:George Harrison

Semi-protected edit request on 8 April 2024
2nd sentence of final paragraph of Legacy section says "... a mural instillation...". It should be 'installation' instead. SRC0933 (talk) 14:22, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅  (talk | contribs) 14:25, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 June 2024
Bold text 71.243.130.223 (talk) 13:39, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Born          25 February 1943 Liverpool, England Died          29 November 2001 (aged 58) Los Angeles, California, US Occupations    Musician • singer • songwriter • music and film producer Years active    1958-2001 Spouses         Pattie Boyd (m. 1966; div. 1977) Olivia Arias (m. 1978)

Musical career

Genres          Rock • pop • Indian classical Instruments     Guitar • vocals • sitar • keyboards Labels           Parlophone • Capitol • Swan • Apple • Vee-Jay • Dark Horse • Gnome Formerly of      The Quarrymen • The Beatles • Plastic Ono Band • Delaney & Bonnie and Friends • Traveling Wildburys Website          georgeharrison.com

فأفصففءنءءهءءنإءهءءنفإيىنءءنأṣḍšġẖḏʾāاأيفغةفظينقأءلءإمإمفمصإسإءلىلى
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Liu1126 (talk) 18:16, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:George Harrison


text:
User talk:Ct

Hello there Ct, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you ever need editing help visit How does one edit a page and experiment at Sandbox. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. BTW, nice work on TransAtlantic (band). Cheers! --maveric149

Proposed deletion of Spock's Beard
Hello, Ct, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia!

I wanted to let you know that I’m proposing an article that you worked on, Spock's Beard, for deletion because I don't think it meets our criteria for inclusion. If you don't want the article deleted:

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It helps to explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page. If you have any questions, feel free to ask on the Help Desk. Thanks again for contributing! Mythpage88 (talk) 08:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Spock's Beard for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Spock's Beard is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Spock's Beard until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Mythpage88 (talk) 09:15, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ct


text:
Talk:Red Guards (disambiguation)

Untitled
While I don't want to defend the Cultural Revolution, and I don't have enough knowledge to edit this article, it really isn't NPOV at all, and needs massive repair. Graft

Red Guards in Russia should also be mentioned. Wshun

About the NPOV:

It is NPOV, since the abuses commited by the Red Guards are real and well documented, and China did get mired in a state of chaos during the Cultural Revolution.

Maybe the wording makes look the article biased or one-sided, but the facts are real and, in practice, the article is neutral.

Disambiguation link repair done! JYOuyang 00:27, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

What about the German Red Guards during the Weimar Republic? Invmog (talk) 03:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Red Guards (China) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:59, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 21 August 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) TheSandDoctor (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Red Guard (disambiguation) → Red Guard – Shouldn't this go here per WP:MALDAB and WP:DABNAME? I can't just move it per consensus reached here. Would this cause confusion with Red Guards? Adam9007 (talk) 16:56, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

 * Oppose following 02:04, 28 July 2017 Alex Shih (talk | contribs) moved page Red Guard to Red Guard (disambiguation) without leaving a redirect (per RM discussion) (revert) Red Guard should probably redirect to Red Guards In ictu oculi (talk) 06:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Red Guard should redirect to the plural form Red Guards. The red link was likely an oversight, which has now been fixed by . -Zanhe (talk) 04:41, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

title: Talk:Red Guards (disambiguation)


text:
User:PhilipMW

Hello; my name is Philip White. My username used to be Cluster, but I changed it to PhilipMW on May 6, 2007.

For more information about me, please see my web site at http://www.qnan.org/~pmw/.

title: User:PhilipMW


text:
User talk:PhilipMW

Do you happen to know the Church Slavonic for the Pascha greeting?
 * Slavonic? I am not sure what you mean. --Cluster 03:15, May 12, 2004 (UTC)

 * Church Slavonic is the language used by the Serbian, Russian, and other Orthodox Churches of east and south Slav cultures for liturgical purposes (or at least up through the 20th century). It was developed along with the "Cyrillic" writing system used by these cultures.  In the present day, liturgies have started to be done in the local languages (Russian in Russia, etc.), but Slavonic is still used.

 * Ah, no. All I know is that when I was little, and my mother and I walked in the street, we definitely used "voskres".  "Voskresi" makes no sense whatsoever -- the language itself makes it illogical.

 * It is, in fact, "Christos Voskrese!". See: http://orthodoxwiki.org/Paschal_greeting Note that local usage and pronunciation varied somewhat across Slavic speaking lands, and the "accent" for Church Slavonic words might be quite different in Ochrid versus Sofia versus Pskov. Jerry picker 18:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Please disambiguate "Java" on your user page. For example, Java. Thanks. RedWolf 00:57, May 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks. --Cluster 15:15, May 16, 2004 (UTC)

Hi - it's fine, you can use the image without any attribution. Evercat 20:57, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The fruits of your labor now grace the Go Club @ UTD. —Cluster 22:40, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi. A while ago, you added a one-sentence summary on Kerberos. You mentioned in a comment that you were not sure it was right. I think it was wrong because the TGS does not make authorization decisions; only authentication. I've replaced your summary with one that is longer but I believe correct. I'd appreciate if you would take look and see if we can tighten it up any. SamHartman 15:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

"Chinese" box
Hello, Cluster.

It's indeed patent nonsense to state that the "Chinese were fond of" doing these horrible things during "the last two centuries". "A colorful assortment of stinging and venomous bloodsuckers" ? The "head protruding through a hole at the top so that the depraved observers could behold his evolving facial expressions" ? Give me a break. The article Chinese box really sounds insane to me. Hence, the tag.

The worst things I have ever heard of, about mistreating prisoners in Chinese history, took place during the Qing dynasty, which was longer than two centuries, and it was not the past two centuries. The closest thing I have ever heard of might be chopping off the limbs and placing the rest of the body in a giant jar, with the head sticking out. This was, allegedly, done by the governing Northerners to insurgents from the South who supported the previous dynasty, as an extremely abusive interrogation to extract information about collaborators. This is probably folklore or urban legend, the Chinese-style. Another possibility would be the bamboo cages (normally for carrying pigs to the market) used to drown sex offenders in the rural areas. Neither is close to what is depicted in the article Chinese box. (The actual use of the cage is questionable, but the Cantonese expression "drowning in a pig cage" is somewhat common in historical TV drama. Picture this: some fornicators or a pregnant teenage runaway, etc. were caught and brought to the elders in the village, a crowd gathers, some angry, uptight, old maid in the crowd suggests drowning the accused in pig cages as punishment, the crowd roars, a sage elder tries to calm everyone and asks for an investigation .... it's typical.)

However, I have indeed heard of the expression 'Chinese box' to mean a water-torture device. It's somewhat mythological, but I thought the article can be salvaged and re-written about this expression. I don't know the origin of this expression, but someone like you may know. I wanted to replace the tag with the  tag, but I did a bad job copying and pasting it from Template messages. Instead of over the old tag, I put the tag next to it. I was about to fix it, but then I decided to leave the tag, as the current content is indeed silly and disputable.

Please feel free to make any edits to the article, but please make it more credible.

Many thanks.

-- PFHLai 20:08, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC)

 * Thank you for your kind words at my talk page, Cluster. People usually leave out the "et" when they call me that.  :-)
 * -- PFHLai 05:15, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)

I disambiguated "Cantonese" in the above, if you were wondering. Flowerparty talk 02:20, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Stalin edit
Not that I disagree that it's stylistically nicer in the instance you edited, but "however" does mean exactly the same thing as "but" and works fine as a coordinating conjunction. The fact that it's not in "FANBOYS" does not mean it doesn't work. siafu 07:27, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

British spelling

 * > ...poor taste to convert American spelling to British spelling without reason,
 * > such as changing from "neighbors" to "neighbours" in Parallel parking
 * > The article in question is written predominantly for those who drive on the right
 * > side of the road, which is explicitly not Britain.
 * > side of the road, which is explicitly not Britain.

 * All of Europe, except the UK, drives on the right side of the road. Parallel parking also applies to Europe. If in Europe we use English, we use British English.

 * > As the primary author of that article, I am not bothered by this
 * Neither am I. I -am- bothered by using non SI units. BTW, there is no 'primary autor', Wikipedia belongs to all of us. I refer you to the bottom lines of the edit page; If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it.

User Categorisation
You were listed on the Wikipedians/Ukraine page as living in or being associated with Ukraine. As part of the User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in Ukraine for instructions.--Rmky87 05:04, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Articles for deletion nomination of Jasin Todd
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Articles for deletion nomination of Bryan Smith
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Nomination of Magic Wand (software) for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Magic Wand (software) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Magic Wand (software) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Msnicki (talk) 15:53, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Aegis (management software)

The article Aegis (management software) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:
 * Non-notable management software.

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You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

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Proposed deletion of Tombstone (programming)

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Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Rusf10 (talk) 02:07, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

title: User talk:PhilipMW


text:
Jervis Bay Territory

The Jervis Bay Territory (JBT)  is an internal territory of Australia. It was established in 1915 from part of New South Wales (NSW), in order to give the landlocked Australian Capital Territory (ACT) access to the sea.

It was administered by the Department of the Interior (and later by the Department of the Capital Territory) as if it were part of the ACT, although it has always been a separate Commonwealth territory. The perception that it is part of the ACT stems from the fact that under the terms of the Jervis Bay Territory Acceptance Act 1915, the laws of the ACT apply to the Jervis Bay Territory. In 1989, when the ACT achieved self-government, the Department of the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories took over responsibility for the JBT's administration; it has since been administered by various Commonwealth departments responsible for territories.

History
Jervis Bay has a long history of Aboriginal Australian settlement.

Booderee, the name of the national park that covers the majority of the Jervis Bay Territory, means 'bay of plenty' or 'plenty of fish' in the local Aboriginal language. The Yuin people have a strong and continuing connection to the Jervis Bay area and in December 2016 applied for recognition of their native title, in part to recognise this.

The bay was sighted by Lieutenant James Cook aboard HMS Endeavour on 25 April 1770 (two days after Saint George's Day) and he named the southern headland Cape St George.

In August 1791, the bay was entered and named by Lieutenant Richard Bowen aboard the convict transport ship Atlantic of the Third Fleet in honour of Admiral John Jervis, under whom he had served. In November 1791 Master Matthew Weatherhead aboard the Matilda entered the bay to undertake repairs. Survivors of the Sydney Cove shipwreck in 1797 reached the area by foot, heading to Port Jackson.

Explorer George Bass entered the bay on 10 December 1797. He named Bowen Island. John Oxley, an English explorer and surveyor, travelled from Sydney by sea to explore the bay in 1819. During the negotiations that led to Federation, three major agreements were reached regarding proposed federal territories, including (in particular) the capital city of the proposed federation. First, it was decided that a new, purpose-built city, located within the borders of New South Wales (NSW), should become the federal capital.

Second, to allay fears that such a location would give NSW too much influence on federal politics, it was also agreed that an area including the new city would be exclaved from NSW – to become a small, separate federal territory. Third, it was also considered desirable, at the time, that the responsibilities and powers of the federal government should include direct control of, and jurisdiction over, at least one port and, therefore, an area of coastline.

Although the site of the capital city was not decided until 1908, most of the proposed sites were relatively long distances from the sea; hence it was also acknowledged (if only implicitly) that the capital and the port would be in separate, non-contiguous areas. In other words, it would have been onerous and unreasonable for NSW to have surrendered a single, contiguous area large enough to accommodate both port and capital. It was decided subsequently that Jervis Bay was the most practical location for a federally-controlled port. Ownership of Crown land in the area was transferred from the New South Wales government to the federal government in 1909 (at the same time that ownership of the site of Canberra and the surrounding area was also relinquished by NSW).

In 1915, jurisdiction over the Jervis Bay Territory was also transferred from NSW to the Commonwealth. To reduce the practical difficulties presented by the physical separation of the two territories, although this was never implemented.

At the, 310 people lived in the territory, with about 12% working in the military as of 2021.

The area of land and water owned by the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council in the JBT is approximately 68 km2, which is about 90% of the land. The remaining land in the JBT is managed by the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities. There is an Aboriginal community at Wreck Bay Village in Booderee National Park. That Council not only holds the majority of land in the Territory, it exercises certain governance and representation functions for its community under the Aboriginal Land Grant (Jervis Bay Territory) Act 1986

Vincentia is the nearest town, roughly 3 km north of the border.

Administration
The Jervis Bay Territory is administered by the federal Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities. However, it is counted as part of the ACT for the purpose of the ACT's representation in the Senate; it forms part of the Division of Fenner for House of Representatives purposes.

For most purposes, the territory is governed under the laws of the Australian Capital Territory, by the Jervis Bay Administration, which handles matters normally concerned with local or state government. It also provides primary school teachers and Australian Federal Police staffing. Residents have access to the courts of the ACT, but are not separately represented in the ACT Legislative Assembly. Although they are subject to ACT law and some services are contracted by the Australian Government to nearby (New South Wales) councils, Jervis Bay Territory residents have no voting rights at ACT Assembly or NSW local elections. They do however have access to the decision-making process through community organisations. Further, Aboriginal persons who are registered members of the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council have voting rights both at meetings of the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council, and to elect the executive of that Council.

Section 61 of the Defence Force Discipline Act (DFDA) makes all Australian Defence Force members and "Defence Civilians" subject to the criminal laws of the Jervis Bay Territory regardless of where the offence occurred. This is a legal mechanism that makes Defence personnel subject to the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) and offences against the criminal law of the ACT, as military law, even if the offence is committed elsewhere outside Australia.

The Commonwealth contracts the ACT government to provide various services like courts, education and welfare, the Government of New South Wales for rural fire services and community health, Shoalhaven City Council for waste collection and library services, and commercial providers for electricity and water supplies.

Geography
Having 65.7 km2 of land and 8.9 km2 marine reserve, Jervis Bay Territory is the smallest of all the mainland states and territories of Australia. Jervis Bay is a natural harbour 16 km north to south and 10 km east to west, opening to the east onto the Pacific Ocean. The bay is situated about 198 km south of the city of Sydney, on the southern coast of New South Wales. The nearest city is Nowra, about 40 km on the Shoalhaven River to the north. The majority of Jervis Bay embayment is part of Jervis Bay Marine Park (NSW State) but the waters within JB Territory are part of Booderee National Park (Commonwealth). Booderee National Park was formerly known as Jervis Bay National Park (Commonwealth).

A wide variety of flora and fauna are native to the Booderee (Aboriginal: bay of plenty) National Park with approximately 206 species of birds, 27 species of mammals, 15 species of amphibians, 23 species of reptiles and 180 species of fish native to the area. The park itself encompasses approximately 90% of the territory of Jervis Bay and covers the overlap between Australia's northern and southern climatic zones. Ancient sand dunes overlay the sedimentary bedrock formations formed from upheaval of the surrounding marine environment 280–225 million years ago.

There are three small lakes within the territory: Lake Windermere, the largest, with an area of 31 ha, Lake Mckenzie, 7 ha, as well as Blacks Waterhole 1.4 ha.

Bowen Island, at the entrance to the bay 230 m north of Governors Head, is 51 ha in area. It has rookeries for the little penguin Eudyptula minor.

Villages
There are two villages in the Jervis Bay Territory. They are both covered by postcode 2540. Listed from north to south, they are:

 * Jervis Bay Village (pop. 189)
 * Wreck Bay Village (pop. 152)

There are four private leasehold properties in the Jervis Bay Territory, within but not part of Booderee National Park.

Among these leasehold properties is the historical, heritage-listed Christian's Minde settlement, which was founded in 1880 by the Ellmoos family from Denmark. Christian's Minde was the first guesthouse on the NSW south coast between Port Hacking and Twofold Bay. The properties Christian's Minde, Kullindi and Ellmoos have been consistently inhabited and looked after by descendants and relatives of the first settlers. Many members of the family are buried in a cemetery on a hill, surrounded by dense bush near the settlement.

HMAS Creswell
Within the Booderee National Park is HMAS Creswell, the Royal Australian Navy College named after Sir William Rooke Creswell, the Director of the Commonwealth Naval Forces which later became the RAN. The Jervis Bay Airfield is adjacent, operated by the RAN to support its BAE Systems Kalkara (Storm Petrel) pilotless target aircraft. Kalkaras are launched from the airfield and later recovered by parachute into the water and thence by boats maintained at HMAS Creswell, after target-towing exercises off the coast with ships or aircraft. Control equipment is sited at Bherwerre Ridge overlooking the sea to the east.

Proposed reactor site
The territory was once the proposed location for a nuclear power plant. The project, which was to be on the south east corner of the Bay near Murray's Beach, was cancelled in 1971. This was after preparatory excavation and levelling had been done and an access road constructed between the site and the territory border. The levelled area is now the car park for Murray's Beach and its adjacent boat ramp.

title: Jervis Bay Territory