text:
Talk:Sunoco

TrackerTV
I cleaned up a badly written, un-wikified segment about the parody of Sunoco in Cars that was below the template. It had problems with wiki formatting, grammar, and placement. I have since changed the segment to "References to Sunoco in popular culture", with the same parody. It's also better formatted and wikified. - Tracker  TV  20:46, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Noco
I have seen Sunoco gas stations branded as "Noco" instead, should it be mentioned? --66.67.187.203 20:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Noco is a different company. http://www.noco.com/[Special:Contributions/72.37.171.60|72.37.171.60]] (talk) 17:08, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Technology Development and Commercialization
An important aspect of Sunoco/Sun Company is ignored in this article. Sun Company developed, and codeveloped a number of technologies in its laboratories at Marcus Hook, PA related to production of chemicals and fuels and commercialized and in-licensed or out-licensed others. Since a few of these technologies are precedent-setting in the history of refinery and petrochemical technology development, at least a sampling should be enumerated in this article or aignificant patent references provided.Scion Tist (talk) 01:43, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

 * One of these is a gasolines was known as DX Boron. I cannot find any information on Wikipedia about this.  There are a number of YouTube '50's commericals about this product.  Sun Company claimed that Boron was used in Rockets, and that they incorporated this product in their gasoline.  There was a Morgan Silver Dollar coin I say today advertising DX Boron on the encasement.  I cannot find any Wikipedia article talking about this gasoline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8g2xpzr7UA     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8v4lTP54U     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nP-o2uuH-k Easeltine (talk) 16:12, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

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Requested move 1 November 2020

 * 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. Closing early per WP:SNOW. -- Calidum 14:43, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Sunoco LP → Sunoco – The WP:COMMONNAME for the company is just "Sunoco", as demonstrated in reliable sources:, ,. Conifer (talk ) 18:32, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 00:39, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Speedy support to revert an undiscussed move contrary to WP:NCCORP. — BarrelProof (talk) 14:28, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That move Sunoco to Sunoco LP was made at 21:10, 24 January 2020 by Anthony Appleyard as requested by User:206.55.187.46 at WP:RM/TR with reason "Sunoco LP is the parent company's proper name. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:56, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Support, per nom.--Hippeus (talk) 14:24, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Article Correction: 10.27.22
I am looking to make the appropriate corrections within the Environmental Record section. The first two paragraphs under that header apply to Sunoco Logistics. Sunoco Logistics Partner LP (SXL) is a different company than Sunoco LP (SUN) which this page is for. And they trade separately on the stock exchange.

Sunoco Logistics was sold in 2012 and is an entirely separate company under Energy Transfer. Information below.

https://ir.energytransfer.com/news-releases/news-release-details/energy-transfer-partners-acquire-sunoco-53-billion-transaction

The first two paragraphs (2017 and 2016 history) are applicable to Sunoco Logistics and should not live on the Sunoco (SUN) page. Mgdoscher (talk) 22:07, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sunoco


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Chariot racing

Chariot racing (ἁρματοδρομία, harmatodromía; ludi circenses) was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine sports. In Greece, chariot racing played an essential role in aristocratic funeral games from a very early time. With the institution of formal races and permanent racetracks, chariot racing was adopted by many Greek states and their religious festivals. Horses and chariots were very costly. Their ownership was a preserve of the wealthiest aristocrats, whose reputations and status benefitted from offering such extravagant, exciting displays. Their successes could be further broadcast and celebrated through commissioned odes and other poetry.

In standard Greek racing practise, each chariot held a single driver and was pulled by four horses, or sometimes two. Drivers and horses risked serious injury or death through collisions and crashes; this added to the excitement and interest for spectators. Most charioteers were slaves or contracted professionals. While records almost invariably credit victorious owners and their horses for winning, their drivers are often not mentioned at all. In the ancient Olympic Games, and other Panhellenic Games, chariot racing was one of the most important equestrian events, and could be watched by unmarried women. Married women were banned from watching any Olympic events but a Spartan noblewoman is known to have trained horse-teams for the Olympics and won two races, one of them as driver.

In ancient Rome, chariot racing was the most popular of many subsidised public entertainments, and was an essential component in several religious festivals. Roman chariot drivers had very low social status, but were paid a fee simply for taking part. Winners were celebrated and well paid for their victories, regardless of status, and the best could earn more than the wealthiest lawyers and senators. Racing team managers may have competed for the services of particularly skilled drivers and their horses. The drivers could race as individuals, or under team colours: Blue, Green, Red or White. Spectators generally chose to support a single team, and identify themselves with its fortunes. Private betting on the races raised large sums for the teams, drivers and wealthy backers. Generous imperial subsidies of "bread and circuses" kept the Roman masses fed, entertained and distracted. Organised violence between rival racing factions was not uncommon, but it was generally contained. Roman and later Byzantine emperors, mistrustful of private organisations as potentially subversive, took control of the teams, especially the Blues and Greens, and appointed officials to manage them.

Chariot racing faded in importance in the Western Roman Empire after the fall of Rome; the last known race there was staged in the Circus Maximus in 549, by the Ostrogothic king, Totila. In the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the traditional Roman chariot-racing factions continued to play a prominent role in mass entertainment, religion and politics for several centuries. Supporters of the Blue teams vied with supporters of the Greens for control of foreign, domestic and religious policies, and Imperial subsidies for themselves. Their displays of civil discontent and disobedience culminated in an indiscriminate slaughter of Byzantine citizenry by the military in the Nika riots. Thereafter, rising costs and a failing economy saw the gradual decline of Byzantine chariot racing.

Early Greece
Images on pottery show that chariot racing existed in thirteenth century BC Mycenaean Greece. The first literary reference to a chariot race is in Homer's poetic account of the funeral games for Patroclus, in the Iliad, combining practices from the author's own time (c. 8th century) with accounts based on a legendary past. The participants in this race were drawn from leading figures among the Greeks; Diomedes of Argos, the poet Eumelus, the Achaean prince Antilochus, King Menelaus of Sparta, and the hero Meriones. The race, which was one lap around the stump of a tree, was won by Diomedes, who received a slave woman and a cauldron as his prize. A chariot race also was said to be the event that founded the Olympic Games; according to one legend, mentioned by Pindar, King Oenomaus challenged suitors for his daughter Hippodamia to a race, but was defeated by Pelops, who founded the Games in honour of his victory.

Olympic Games
The Olympic Games were traditionally founded in 776 BC, by the Eleans, a wealthy, prestigious horse-owning aristocracy. Pindar, the earliest source for the Olympics, includes chariot racing among their five foundation events. Much later, Pausanias claims that chariot races were added only from 680 BC, and that the games were extended from one day to two days to accommodate them. In this tradition, the foot race of a stadion (approximately 600 feet) offered the greater prestige. Votive offerings associated with Olympic victories include horses and chariots. The single horse race (the ) was a late arrival at the games, dropped early in their history. The major chariot-races of the Olympic and other Panhellenic Games, were four-horse (, τέθριππον) and two-horse (, συνωρὶς) events.

Pausanias describes the Olympic hippodrome of the second century AD, when Greece was part of the Roman Empire. The perimeter groundplan, southeast of the sanctuary itself, was approximately 780 meters long and 320 meters wide. Competitors raced from the starting-place counter-clockwise around the nearest (western) turning post, then turned at the eastern turning post and headed back west. The number of circuits varied according to the event. Spectators could watch from natural embankments to the north, and artificial embankments to the south and east. A place on the western side of the north bank was reserved for the judges. Pausanias does not describe a central dividing barrier at Olympia, but archaeologist Vikatou presumes one.

Pausanias offers several theories regarding the origins of an object named Taraxippus ("Horse-disturber"), an ancient round altar, tomb or Heroon embedded within one of the entrance-ways to the track. It was thought to be malevolent, as it terrified horses for no apparent reason when they raced past it, and was a major cause of crashes. Pausanias reports that consequently "the charioteers offer sacrifice, and pray that Taraxippus may show himself propitious". It might simply have marked the most dangerous and difficult section of track, at the semi-circular end. Pausanias describes very similar, identically named places in other Greek hippodromes. Their name may have been an epithet of Poseidon, patron deity of horses and horse-racing. Races began with a procession into the hippodrome, while a herald announced the names of the drivers and owners. The tethrippon consisted of twelve laps. The most immediate and challenging aspect of the races for drivers, judges and stewards was ensuring a fair start, and keeping false starts and crushes to a minimum. Then as now, the marshalling of over-excited racehorses could prove a major difficulty. Various mechanical devices were used to reduce the likelihood of human error. Portable starting gates (hyspleges, singular: hysplex), employed a tight cord in a wooden frame, loosened to drop forwards and start the race. According to Pausanias, the chariot furthest from the start-line began to move, followed by the rest in sequence, so that when the final gate was opened, all the chariots would be in motion at the starting line. A bronze eagle (a sign of Zeus, who was patron of the Olympic games) was raised to start the race, and at each lap, a bronze dolphin (a sign of Poseidon) was lowered. The central pair of horses did most of the heavy pulling, via the yoke. The flanking pair pulled and guided, using their traces. Horse teams were highly trained, and tractable. Greek aficionadoes thought mares the best horses for chariot racing.

Owners and charioteers
In most cases, the owner and the driver of the Greek racing chariot were different persons. In 416 BC, the Athenian general Alcibiades had seven chariots in the race, and came in first, second, and fourth; evidently, he could not have been racing all seven chariots himself. Chariot teams were costly to own and train, and the case of Alcibiades shows that for the wealthy, this was an effective and honourable form of self-publicity; they were not expected to risk their own lives. On the other hand, they were not necessarily dishonoured when they did. The poet Pindar praised Herodotes for driving his own chariot, "using his own hands rather than another's".

Entries were exclusively Greek, or claimed to be so. Philip II of Macedon, pre-eminent through his conquest of most Greek states and self-promotion as a divinity, entered his horse and chariot teams in several major pan-Hellenic events, and won several. He celebrated the fact on his coinage, claiming it as divine confirmation of his legitimacy as Greek overlord.

Women could win races through ownership, though there was a ban on the participation of married women as competitors or even spectators at the Olympics, supposedly on pain of death; this was not typical of Greek festivals in general, and there is no consistent record of this ban, or the penalty's enforcement. The Spartan Cynisca, daughter of Archidamus II, entered and won the Olympic chariot race, twice as owner and trainer, and at least once as driver.

Most charioteers were slaves or hired professionals. Drivers and their horses needed strength, skill, courage, endurance and prolonged, intensive training. Like jockeys, charioteers were ideally slight of build, and therefore often young, but unlike jockeys, they were also tall. The names of very few charioteers are known from the Greek racing circuits, Victory songs, epigrams and other monuments routinely omit the names of winning drivers.

The chariots themselves resembled war chariots, essentially wooden two-wheeled carts with an open back, though by this time chariots were no longer used in battle. Charioteers stood throughout the race. They traditionally wore only a sleeved garment called a xystis, which would have offered at least some protection from crashes and dust. It fell to the ankles and was fastened high at the waist with a plain belt. Two straps that crossed high at the upper back prevented the xystis from "ballooning" during the race The body of the chariot rested on the axle, so the ride was bumpy. The most exciting parts of the chariot race, at least for the spectators, were the turns at the ends of the hippodrome. These turns were dangerous and sometimes deadly. In a full-sized racing stadium, the chariots could reach high speeds along the straights, then overturn or be crushed along with their horses and driver by the following chariots as they wheeled around the post. Driving into an opponent to make him crash was technically illegal, but most crashes were accidental and often unavoidable. In Homer's account of Patroclus' funeral games, Antilochus inflicts such a crash on Menelaus.

Pan-Hellenic festivals
Race winners were celebrated throughout the Greek festival circuit, both on their own account and on behalf of their cities. In the classical era, other great festivals emerged in Asia Minor, Magna Graecia, and the mainland, providing the opportunity for cities to compete for honour and renown, and for their athletes to gain fame and riches. Apart from the Olympics, the most notable were the Isthmian Games in Corinth, the Nemean Games, the Pythian Games in Delphi, and the Panathenaic Games in Athens, where the winner of the four-horse chariot race was awarded 140 amphorae of olive oil, a highly valued commodity. Prizes elsewhere included corn in Eleusis, bronze shields in Argos, and silver vessels in Marathon. Winning Greek athletes, no matter their social status, were greatly honoured by their own communities. Chariot racing at the Panathenaic Games included a two-man event, the apobatai, in which one of the team was armoured, and periodically leapt off the moving chariot, ran alongside it, then leapt back on again. The second charioteer took the reins when the apobates jumped out; in the catalogues of winners, the names of both these athletes are given. Images of this contest show warriors, armed with helmets and shields, perched on the back of their racing chariots. Some scholars believe that the event preserved traditions of Homeric warfare.

Roman chariot racing

The Romans probably borrowed chariot technology and racing track design from the Etruscans, who in turn had borrowed them from the Greeks. Rome's public entertainments were also influenced directly by Greek examples. Chariot racing as a feature of Roman ludi is attested in Rome's foundation myths, and on 66 of the 177 days of religious festival games scheduled in a late Roman Calendar of 354. Races were held as part of triumphal processions, foundation anniversary rites and funeral games subsidised by magnates during the Regal and Republican eras, and by the emperors during the Imperial era. According to Roman legend, Rome in its earliest days was faced with a lack of marriagable women. Romulus, the city's founder, invited the Sabine people to celebrate the Consualia, honouring the grain-god Consus with horse races and chariot races at the Circus Maximus. While the Sabines were enjoying the spectacle, Romulus and his men seized the Sabine women. The women eventually married their captors, and were instrumental in persuading Sabines and Romans to unite as one people. Chariot racing thus played a part in Rome's foundation myth and local politics.

Consuls were obliged to subsidise races at the beginning and end of their annual terms, as a sort of tax on their office and a gift to the people of Rome. Races on January 1 accompanied the renewal of loyalty vows; emperors gave annual games on the anniversary of their succession, and on their own and other Imperial birthdays.

Chariot races were preceded by a parade (pompa circensis) that featured the charioteers, music, costumed dancers, and gilded images of the gods, headed by Victoria, goddess of victory. These images were placed on dining couches, which were arranged on a viewing platform (pulvinar) to observe the races, which were nominally held in their honour. The sponsor or editor of the races shared the pulvinar with these divine images. In the Imperial era, the pulvinar in the Circus Maximus was directly connected to the imperial palace, on the Palatine Hill.

Several deities had permanent temples, shrines or images on the dividing barrier (spina or euripus) of the circus. While the entertainment value of chariot races tended to overshadow any sacred purpose, in late antiquity the Church Fathers still saw them as a traditional "pagan" practice and advised Christians not to participate. Soon after the end of the Roman Empire in the West, the influential Christian scholar, administrator and historian Cassiodorus describes chariot racing as an instrument of the Devil.

Roman circuses

Most cities had at least one dedicated chariot racing circuit. The city of Rome had several; its main centre was the Circus Maximus which developed on the natural slopes and valley (the Vallis Murcia) between the Palatine Hill and Aventine Hill. It had a vast seating capacity; Boatwright estimates this as 150,000 before its rebuilding under Julius Caesar, and 250,000 under Trajan. According to Humphrey, the higher seating estimate is traditional but excessive, and even at its greatest capacity, the circus probably accommodated no more than about 150,000. It was Rome's earliest and greatest circus. Its basic form and footprint were thought more or less coeval with the city's foundation, or with Rome's earliest Etruscan kings. Julius Caesar rebuilt it around 50 BC to a length of about 650 m and width of 125 m. It had a semi-circular end, and a semi-open, slightly angled end where the chariots lined up across the track to begin the race, each enclosed within a cell known as a carcere ("prison") behind a spring-loaded gate. These were functionally equivalent to the Greek hysplex but were further staggered to accommodate a median barrier, known originally as a euripus (canal) but much later as the spina (spine). When the chariots were ready the editor, usually a high-status magistrate, dropped a white cloth; all the gates sprang open at the same time, allowing a fair start for all participants. Races were run counter-clockwise; starting positions were allocated by lottery.

The spina carried lap-counters, in the form of eggs or dolphins; the eggs were suggestive of Castor and Pollux, the mythic dioscuri, one human and one divine. They were born from an egg, divine patrons of horsemen and the Equestrian order. Dolphins were thought to be the swiftest of all creatures; they symbolised Neptune, god of the sea, earthquakes and horses.

The spina bore water-feature elements, blended with decorative and architectural features. It eventually became very elaborate, with temples, statues and obelisks and other forms of art, though the addition of these multiple adornments obstructed the view of spectators on the trackside's lower seats, which were close to the action. At each end of the spina was a meta, or turning point, consisting of three large gilded columns.

Spectators
Mosaic white charioteer Massimo.jpg of the third century AD, exhibited in the Museo Nazionale Romano.

]] Seats in the Circus were free for the poor, and either free or subsidised for the mass of citizens (plebs), whose lack of involvement in late Republican and Imperial politics was compensated, as far as Juvenal was concerned, by an endless supply of handouts and entertainments, or panem et circenses ("bread and circuses"). The seating nearest the track was reserved for senators, the rows behind them for equites and the remainder for everyone else. The better-off could pay for shaded seats with a better view. The Vestal virgins occupied their own privileged seating, close to the track. Men and women were supposed to occupy segregated seating but the "law of the place" allowed most to sit together, which for the Augustan poet Ovid presented opportunities for seduction. The circus was one of few places where the populace could assemble in vast numbers, and exercise the freedom of speech associated with theatre factions and claques, voicing support or criticism of their rulers and each other.

The races
The charioteers had to keep to their own lanes for the first two laps. Then they were free to jockey for position, cutting across the paths of their competitors, moving as close to the spina as they could, and whenever possible forcing their opponents to find another, much longer route forwards. Every team included a hortator, who rode horseback and signalled their faction's charioteers to help them navigate the dangers of the track. Roman drivers wrapped the reins round their waist, and steered using their body weight; with the reins looped around their torsos, they could lean from one side to the other to direct the horses' movement while keeping the hands free "for the whip and such". A driver who became entangled in a crash risked being trampled or dragged along the track by his own horses; charioteers carried a curved knife (falx) to cut their reins, and wore helmets and other protective gear. Spectacular crashes in which the chariot was destroyed and the charioteer and horses were incapacitated were called naufragia, (a "shipwreck").

The best charioteers could earn a great deal of prize money, in addition to their contracted subsistence pay. The prize money for up to fourth place was advertised beforehand, with first place winning up to 60,000 sesterces. Detailed records were kept of drivers' performances, and the names, breeds and pedigrees of famous horses. Betting on results was widespread, among all classes. Most races involved four-horse chariots (quadrigae), or less often, two-horse chariots (bigae). Just to display the skill of the driver and his horses, up to ten horses could be yoked to a single chariot. The quadriga races were the most important and frequent.

Frequency and laps
Magnates and emperors courted popularity by staging and subsidising as many races as they could, as often as possible. In Rome, races usually lasted 7 laps, or even 5, rather than the typical 12 laps of the Greek race. Some emperors were spendthrift enthusiasts; Caligula sponsored 10–12 races a day, Nero sponsored 20–24 a day. Commodus once held and subsidised 30 races in just 2 hours of a single afternoon; Dio Cassius predicted that such extravagance could only lead to Imperial bankruptcy. In a previous century, the emperor Domitian had managed to squeeze an extraordinary 100 races into a single afternoon, presumably by drastically lowering the number of laps from the standard 7. Twenty four races in a single day became the norm, until the slow collapse of Rome's economy in the West, when costs rose, sponsors were lost and racetracks were abandoned. In the 4th century AD, 24 races were held every day on 66 days each year. By the end of that century, public entertainments in Italy had come to an end in all but a few towns. The Circus Maximus was still adequately maintained for use, though for what purposes is uncertain. The last known beast-hunt there was in 523. The last recorded race there was in 549 AD, staged by the Ostrogothic king, Totila; whether this was a display of horsemanship or a chariot-race is not known

Factions
Most Roman chariot drivers, and many of their supporters, belonged to one or another of four factions, social and business organisations that raised money to sponsor the races. The factions offered security to members in return for their loyalty and contribution and were headed by a patron or patrons. Each faction employed a large staff to serve and support their charioteers. Every circus seems to have independently followed the same model of organisation, including the four-colour naming system: Red, White, Blue, and Green. Senior managers (domini factionum) were usually of equestrian class. Investors were often as wealthy, but of lower social status; driving a racing chariot was thought a very low class occupation, beneath the dignity of any citizen, but making money from it was truly disgraceful, so investors of high social status usually resorted to negotiations discreetly, through agents, rather than risk loss of reputation, status and privilege through infamia. No contemporary source describes these factions as official, but unlike many unofficial organisations in Rome, they were evidently tolerated as useful and effective rather than feared as secretive and potentially subversive.

Tertullian claims that there were originally just two factions, White and Red, sacred to winter and summer respectively. By his time, there were four factions; the Reds were dedicated to Mars, the Whites to the Zephyrus, the Greens to Mother Earth or spring, and the Blues to the sky and sea or autumn. Each faction could enter up to three chariots in a race. Members of the same faction often collaborated against the other entrants, for example to force them to crash into the spina (a legal and encouraged tactic). The driver's clothing was color-coded in accordance with his faction, which would help distant spectators to keep track of the race's progress.

The emperor Domitian created two new factions, the Purples and Golds, but they vanished from the record very soon after his death. The Blues and the Greens gradually became the most prestigious factions, supported by emperors and the populace alike. Blue versus Green clashes sometimes broke out during the races. The Reds and Whites are seldom mentioned in the literature, but their continued activity is documented in inscriptions and in curse tablets.

Roman charioteers
Charioteers occupied a peculiar position in Roman society. If originally citizens, their chosen career made infames of them, denying them many of the privileges, protections and dignities of full citizenship. Undertakers, prostitutes and pimps, butchers, executioners, and heralds were considered infamous, for various reasons; but although gladiators, actors, charioteers and any others who earned a living on stage, arena or racetrack were infames, the best of them could earn popular and elite support that verged on adoration, and near-fabulous wealth if not respectability. Juvenal bewailed that the earnings of the charioteer Lacerta were a hundred times more than a lawyer's fee. Emperors who took the reins as charioteer, or promoted drivers to elite status or freely mixed with arenarii—as did Caligula, Nero and Elagabalus, for example—were also notoriously "bad" rulers. Two jurists of the later Imperial era, and some modern scholars, argue against the legal status of charioteers as infames, on the grounds that athletic competitions were not mere entertainment but "seemed useful" as honourable displays of Roman strength and virtus.

Most Roman charioteers started their careers as slaves, who had neither reputation nor honour to lose. Of more than 200 dedications to named charioteers catalogued by Gerhard Horsmann, more than half are of unknown social status. Of the remainder, 66 are slaves, 14 are freedmen, 13 either slaves or freedmen and only one a freeborn citizen.

All race competitors, regardless of their social status or whether they completed the race, were paid a driver's fee. Slave-charioteers could not lawfully own property, including money, but their masters could pay them regardless, or retain all or some accumulated driving fees and winnings on their behalf, as the price of their eventual manumission. While most freed slave-charioteers would have become clients of their former master, some would have earned more than enough to buy their freedom outright, assuming they survived that long. Scorpus won over 2,000 races before being killed in a collision at the meta when he was about 27 years old. The charioteer Florus' tomb inscription describes him as infans (not adult). Gaius Appuleius Diocles won 1,462 out of 4,257 races for various teams during his exceptionally long and lucky career. When he retired at the age of 42, his lifetime winnings reportedly totalled 35,863,120 sesterces (HS), not counting driver's fees. His personal share of this is unknown but Vamplew calculates that even if Diocles' personal winnings were only a tenth part of the declared prize money, this would have yielded him an average annual income of 150,000 HS. Most races and wins were team efforts, results of co-operation between charioteers of the same faction, but victories won in single races were the most highly esteemed by drivers and their public. Charioteers followed a ferociously competitive, charismatic profession, routinely risked violent death, and aroused a compulsive, even morbid reverence among their followers. A supporter of the Red faction is said to have thrown himself on the funeral pyre of his favourite charioteer. More usually, some charioteers and supporters tried to enlist supernatural help by covertly burying curse tablets at or near the track, appealing to spirits and deities of the underworld for the success of their favourites or disaster for their opponents; a common practise among Romans of all classes though like all magic, strictly illegal, and punishable by death.

Some of the most talented and successful charioteers were suspected of winning through the illicit agency of dark forces. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing during Valentinian's reign (AD 364–375), describes various cases of chariot drivers prosecuted for witchcraft or the procurement of spells. One charioteer was beheaded for having his young son trained in witchcraft to help him win his races; and another burnt at the stake for practising witchcraft.

Horses
The horses, too, could become celebrities; they were purpose-bred and were trained relatively late, from 5 years old. The Romans favoured particular native breeds from Hispania and north Africa. One of Diocles' horses, named Cotynus, raced with him in various teams 445 times, alongside Abigeius, a treasured "trace" horse. A chariot's "trace" horses partly pulled the chariot and partly guided it, as flankers to the central pair, who were yoked to the chariot and provided both speed and power. A left-side trace horse's steady performance could mean the difference between victory and disaster; mares were thought the steadiest. Left-side trace horses were the closest to the spina, and are most likely to be named in the race record. Another key performer in a standard quadriga race was the right-hand yoke-horse. Celebrity horses named in Diocles' extraordinary record of 445 races and more than 100 wins in a year include Pompeianus, Lucidus and Galata.

Byzantine context
Constantine I (r. 306–337) refounded the eastern Greek city of Byzantium as a "New Rome", to serve as the administrative center of the eastern half of the Empire, and renamed it Constantinople. He replaced or restored the city's chariot-racing circuit (hippodrome), which had been provided by Septimius Severus. As a Christian emperor, or at least one with Christian leanings, Constantine supported and financed Constantinople's chariot racing infrastructure and overheads in preference to gladiatorial combat, which he considered a vestige of paganism. A possibility of spiritual damage through the witnessing of traditional public spectacles had concerned Christian apologists since at least Tertullian's time. The Olympic Games were eventually ended by Emperor Theodosius I (r. 379–395) in 393, perhaps in a move to suppress paganism and promote Christianity. Gladiator contests were eventually abandoned, but chariot racing and theatrical entertainments remained popular. The Church did not, or perhaps could not, prevent them, although prominent Christian writers attacked them.

Justinian I's reformed legal code specifically prohibits drivers from placing curses on their opponents, and invites their co-operation in bringing offenders before the authorities, rather than acting like assassins or vigilantes. This not only reiterates a very longstanding prohibition of witchcraft throughout the Empire but confirms a reputation that charioteers had for living at the very edge of the law, for violent thefts, blackmail and bullying as debt collectors on their masters' behalf, and an easy-going criminality that could extend to the murder of opponents and enemies, disguised as rough but rightful justice.

A sixth-seventh century Byzantine graffito in the Hagia Sophia shows a charioteer named Samonas, performing a victory lap. The graffito, no earlier than 537, includes an engraved cross to seek God's help for the charioteer. Samonas is otherwise unknown. Several earlier Byzantine charioteers are known by name or race records, six of them through short, laudatory verse epigrams; namely, Anastasius; Julianus of Tyre; Faustinus and his son Constantinus; Uranius; and Porphyrius. Among these, the single epigram to Anastasius offers very little personal information, but Porphyrius is the subject of thirty-four. He is described as the best charioteer of his time; and as the only charioteer known to have won the diversium twice in one day. The diversium was unique to Byzantine chariot racing, a formal rematch between the winner and a loser, in which the competing charioteers drove each other's team and chariot. A winning charioteer could thus win twice over, driving the same horse team that he had defeated earlier, virtually eliminating mere chance or better horses as the deciding factors in both victories. In Byzantine chariot racing, the expected standards of professional athleticsm were very high. Competitors were sometimes assigned to age categories, though very loosely; youths under approximately 17 (described as "beardless"), young men (17-20), and adult men over 20; but skill counted more than age, or stamina. In some circumstances, the charioteers themselves performed formal, ritualised mimes, or dances, which won them fame and adulation Preparation for races could involve ritualised public dialogues between charioteers, imperial officials and emperors, a prescribed liturgy of questions, answers, and processional orders of precedence. Each race required the emperor's consent.

Byzantine racing factions
In the eastern provinces, and Constantinople itself, the earliest evidence for colour factions is from AD 315, coincident with the extension of Imperial authority into local government and public life. The cost of financing the races was split between the factions, the state, the Emperors, and senior officials. The annually appointed consuls were obliged to personally fund their own inaugural games.

Members of racing factions (known as demes), were a minority among chariot racing enthusiasts as a whole. In Byzantium as elsewhere, racing fans cheered on their favorite charioteers, and sought out the company of like-minded supporters. Charioteers could change their factional allegiance but their fans did not necessarily follow them. Semi-permanent alliances of Blues (Βένετοι, Vénetoi) and Greens (Πράσινοι, Prásinoi) overshadowed the Whites (Λευκοὶ, Leukoí) and Reds (Ῥούσιοι, Rhoúsioi). In the 5th century, the outstanding Byzantine charioteer Porphyrius raced as a "Blue" or a "Green" at various times and was celebrated by each faction, by the reigning Emperor, and as the subject of several imperially subsidised monuments on a grand scale in the Hippodrome. While the racing factions, their supporters and the populace at large were overwhelmingly composed of commoners, as in Rome, Cameron (1976) sees no justification for the description of any Byzantine racing faction, racing sponsor or factional ideology as "populist", nor the conflicts between factions and authorities as expressions of "class conflict" or religious squabling on a grand scale. The urban mass disturbances that characterise much of Byzantium's early history were not associated with racing factions until the 5th century, when the Imperial government appointed managers of both the Circus races and the Theatres, responsible for the production and performance of the chants, theatrical displays and lavish religious ceremonies that accompanied Imperial court rituals and chariot races. The acclamations of emperors and of winning charioteers employed much the same triumphalist language, symbolism, honours and pledges of allegiance. From around the mid-fifth century, the support and approval of the factions in confirming the legitimacy of emperors became a formal requirement. The factions were represented as loyal commoners, or "the people".

Social discontent and disturbances in Constantinople tended to focus on the Hippodrome, which was not only ideal for racing but by far the largest and most conveniently designed space for mass meetings and their containment. In 498, the crowd showed its dissatisfaction with the emperor Anastasius by launching a hail of stones at the kathisma; during a near-revolutionary riot of 512 at the Hippodrome, the same emperor feared for his life, and offered to abdicate; the crowd, apparently seeing this offer as both humble and magnanimous, found something like a "popular voice" and shifted their collective posture from opposition to support. Byzantium's theatre claques, which already had a reputation for well-organised violence, were now identified with the racing factions, and were thought to represent the rowdiest, most uncontrollable elements among the Blues and Greens. Blue–Green rivalry increasingly erupted into armed and lethal gang warfare. Justin I (r. 518–527) took severe, but apparently indiscriminate, misdirected and ultimately ineffective measures against urban violence after a citizen was murdered in the church of Hagia Sophia. Long-running factional disorder culminated in the Nika riots of 532 AD, against the backdrop of scheduled chariot races on the Ides of January, and factional "discontent" at political corruption and mismanagement. The Blues and Greens united and attempted but failed to overthrow the emperor; thousands were killed by the Byzantine military in retribution, including many ordinary citizens. The Byzantine historian Procopius saw the entire affair as a failure of the Emperor and his authorities to manage their Imperial troops and govern their people, and the almost complete lack of a dedicated police force.

Civil law reforms enacted by Justinian I in 541 ensured that only emperors or their representatives could subsidise the races; soon after, the emperor Tiberius II Constantine curbed imperial spending on the factions, which further reduced their power and influence. Chariot racing declined further in the course of the seventh century, in line with the Empire's dwindling economy and loss of territory. After the Nika riots, the factions had become less antagonistic to imperial authority as their importance and roles in imperial ceremony were increased. The iconoclast emperor Constantine V (r. 741–775) deployed both Green and Blue "rowdies" in his anti-monastic campaigns, staging theatrical shows in which monks and nuns were exposed to public ridicule, abuse and forced marriages. The number of races per race-day declined sharply to eight in the 10th century. The racing factions in Byzantium continued their activity, though much reduced, until the imperial court was moved to Blachernae during the 12th century.

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

title: Chariot racing


text:
Pierrot lunaire

Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire" ("Three times Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire), commonly known simply as Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21 ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of 21 selected poems from Albert Giraud's cycle of the same name as translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. The work is written for reciter (voice-type unspecified in the score, but traditionally performed by a soprano) who delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble. Schoenberg had previously used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment, called "melodrama", in the summer-wind narrative of the Gurre-Lieder, which was a fashionable musical style popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Though the music is atonal, it does not employ Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, which he did not use until 1921.

Pierrot lunaire is among Schoenberg's most celebrated and frequently performed works. Its instrumentation – flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano with standard doublings and in this case with the addition of a vocalist – is an important ensemble in 20th- and 21st-century classical music and is referred to as a Pierrot ensemble.

The piece was premiered at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on October 16, 1912, with Albertine Zehme as the vocalist. A typical performance lasts about 35 to 40 minutes. The American premiere took place at the Klaw Theatre, on Broadway, New York, on 4 February 1923 as part of a series of concerts organised by the International Composers' Guild.

History
The work originated in a commission by Albertine Zehme, a former actress, for a cycle for voice and piano, setting a series of poems by the Belgian writer Albert Giraud. The verses had been first published in 1884 and later translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. Zehme had previously performed a 'melodrama' by composer Otto Vrieslander based on the translated poems. But, according to Eduard Steuermann, student of Schoenberg and pianist of the premiere, "the music was not strong enough, and someone advised her to approach Schoenberg."

Schoenberg began work on March 12 and completed the piece on July 9, 1912, having expanded the forces to an ensemble consisting of flute (doubling on piccolo), clarinet in A (doubling on bass clarinet and clarinet in B♭), violin (doubling on viola), cello, and piano.

After forty rehearsals, Schoenberg and Zehme (in Columbine dress) gave the premiere at the Berlin Choralion-Saal on October 16, 1912. Reaction was mixed. According to Anton Webern, some in the audience were whistling and laughing, but in the end "it was an unqualified success". According to eyewitness Salka Viertel, the sister of the premiere's pianist Eduard Steuermann, "When she appeared in a Pierrot costume, her painted, frightened face framed by a ruff, her aging ankles in white stockings, she was greeted by an ominous murmur from the audience. One could not help admiring her courage, as she went on from poem to poem, disregarding the hissing, booing and insulting invective shouted at her and Schoenberg. There were also fanatical ovations from the young generation, but the majority were outraged.  A well-known virtuoso, his face purple with rage, shouted:  'Shoot him.  Shoot him,' meaning Schoenberg, not the poor, undaunted Pierrot."

There was some criticism of blasphemy in the texts, to which Schoenberg responded, "If they were musical, not a single one would give a damn about the words. Instead, they would go away whistling the tunes."

Structure
Pierrot lunaire consists of three groups of seven poems. In the first group, Pierrot sings of love, sex and religion; in the second, of violence, crime, and blasphemy; and in the third of his return home to Bergamo, with his past haunting him.

Schoenberg, who was fascinated by numerology, also makes great use of seven-note motifs throughout the work, while the ensemble (with conductor) comprises seven people. The piece is his opus 21, contains 21 poems, and was begun on March 12, 1912. Other key numbers in the work are 3 and 13: each poem consists of 13 lines (two four-line verses followed by a five-line verse), while the first line of each poem occurs three times (being repeated as lines 7 and 13).

Music and text
Though written in a freely atonal style, Pierrot lunaire uses a variety of classical forms and techniques, including canon, fugue, rondo, passacaglia, and free counterpoint.

The instrumental combinations (including doublings) vary between most movements. The entire ensemble is used only in Nos. 6, 11, 14, 15 (end), 16, 18, 19 (end), 20, and 21. Musicologist Alan Lessem states about the work that "on the whole instrumental textures tend to become fuller as the work progresses" and that, in general, "the piano is the leading [instrumental] protagonist of the melodramas."

The poetry is a German version of a rondeau of the old French type with a double refrain. Each poem consists of three stanzas of 4 + 4 + 5 lines, with the first two lines of the first stanza (1,2) repeated as the last two lines of the second stanza (7,8), and line 1 additionally repeated (13) to close the third stanza and the poem. The first poem is shown below.

Sprechstimme / Sprechgesang
The atonal, expressionistic settings of the text, with their echoes of German cabaret, bring the poems vividly to life. Sprechstimme is a style in which the vocalist uses the specified rhythms and pitches but does not sustain the pitches, allowing them to drop or rise, in the manner of speech. Schoenberg describes the technique in a foreword to the score:

""

In the score, Sprechstimme is indicated with small x's through the stems of notes. Though Sprechstimme is used throughout the piece, Schoenberg also occasionally indicates that certain passages are to be sung (gesungen).

Notable recordings
Notable recordings of this composition include:

Arnold Schoenberg himself made test recordings of the music with a group of Los Angeles musicians, nearly all European immigrants, from September 24 to 26, 1940. These recordings were eventually released on LP by Columbia Records in 1949, and reissued in 1974 on the Odyssey label.

The jazz singer Cleo Laine recorded Pierrot lunaire in 1974. Her version was nominated for a classical Grammy Award. Another jazz singer who has performed the piece is Sofia Jernberg, who sang it with Norrbotten NEO.

The avant-pop star Björk, known for her interest in avant-garde music, performed Pierrot lunaire at the 1996 Verbier Festival with Kent Nagano conducting. According to the singer in a 2004 interview, "Kent Nagano wanted to make a recording of it, but I really felt that I would be invading the territory of people who sing this for a lifetime [sic]." Only small recorded excerpts (possibly bootlegs) of her performance have become available.

The American mezzo-soprano Mary Nessinger has performed Pierrot lunaire extensively with organizations such as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Northwest, and Sequitur at venues including Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

In March 2011, Bruce LaBruce directed a performance at the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre in Berlin. This interpretation of the work included gender diversity, castration scenes and dildos, as well as a female to male transgender Pierrot. LaBruce subsequently filmed this adaptation as the 2014 theatrical film Pierrot lunaire.

Legacy as a standard ensemble
The quintet of instruments used in Pierrot lunaire became the core ensemble for The Fires of London, who formed in 1965 as "The Pierrot Players" to perform Pierrot lunaire, and continued to concertize with a varied classical and contemporary repertory. This group performed works arranged for these instruments and commissioned new works especially to take advantage of this ensemble's instrumental colors, up until it disbanded in 1987.

Over the years, other groups have continued to use this instrumentation professionally (current groups include Da Capo Chamber Players, eighth blackbird and the Finnish contemporary group Uusinta Lunaire ) and have built a large repertoire for the ensemble.

title: Pierrot lunaire


text:
Sid and Nancy

Sid and Nancy (also known as Sid and Nancy: Love Kills) is a 1986 British biographical film directed by Alex Cox, co-written with Abbe Wool, and starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. The film portrays the life of Sid Vicious, bassist of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and his destructive relationship with girlfriend Nancy Spungen. The film also features supporting performances from David Hayman, Xander Berkeley, and Courtney Love.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1986, and was released theatrically in the United States in November of that same year. Although it failed to recoup its production budget at the box office, the film was received positively by most critics and developed a cult following.

Plot
On 12 October 1978, police are summoned to the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, where they find Nancy Spungen dead. Her boyfriend, Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, is taken into custody. Sid is driven to a police station and told to describe what happened.

A little more than a year earlier, in 1977, close friends and band members Sid and Johnny Rotten meet Nancy, a heroin-addicted American groupie who had come to London to bed the Sex Pistols. Sid dismisses her at first, as her intentions are obvious, but begins dating her after feeling sympathy for the rejection she faces from fellow punk performers. The two swiftly bond over heroin use, and it is implied that Nancy introduces Sid to the drug.

Sid and Nancy fall deeply in love, but their self-destructive, drug-fueled relationship frays Sid's relationship with the rest of the band. Nancy is distraught when Sid departs on a month-long American tour without her. The tour is notably disastrous, with Sid strung out of his mind, often drunk or on methamphetamine, and physically violent. Phoebe, Sid's friend and road manager, unsuccessfully attempts to help him stop drinking. Meanwhile, Nancy remains in London, staying with her friend Linda, a dominatrix. Although several of Sid's friends and acquaintances warn him of Nancy's devastating effect on his life, Sid stubbornly ignores these warnings. On 17 January 1978, in the midst of the group's American tour, the band breaks up.

Sid reunites with Nancy in New York City, and he attempts to start a solo career with Nancy as his manager. The two visit Paris to begin recording sessions, but the trip is unfruitful. Sid is quickly dismissed in the music industry as a has-been, and he and Nancy descend deeper into heroin addiction; Nancy also begins suffering from severe depression, and the couple eventually make a suicide pact. Nancy brings Sid to Philadelphia to meet her family, who are horrified by the couple's reckless behavior and physical state. Sid and Nancy return to New York and settle in the Hotel Chelsea, where they live in squalor and depend on opiates supplied by their drug dealer, Bowery Snax.

Their love affair ends tragically one night when, during an argument in which Sid announces his plans to stop using heroin and return to England to restart his life, a suicidal Nancy begs him to kill her. She attacks him and they fight in a drug-induced haze, leading to him stabbing her, although whether it was intentional is left to interpretation. They fall asleep and later Nancy awakes and stumbles into the bathroom, where she collapses and dies, calling Sid for help. Sid is bailed out temporarily by his mother, who is also a heroin addict. After Sid wanders to a restaurant, some street kids convince him to dance with them. A taxi appears and picks Sid up, and he believes he finds Nancy alive in the back seat. The two embrace as the cab drives off.

A postscript says that Vicious died of a heroin overdose, and lastly reads: "R.I.P. Nancy and Sid."

Development
The idea for the film began with a 1980 screenplay entitled 'Too Kool to Die'; a fictional story inspired by Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious, featuring refences to current English politics which Cox realised would make it unlikely to be financed. Four years later, after his directorial debut with Repo Man, Cox heard rumour of the possibility of a Hollywood film documenting the relationship of Spungen and Vicious, with Madonna and Rupert Everett in the lead roles - "For anyone who had been vaguely into the Punk movement, this was a troubling idea indeed" Cox wrote in his 2008 autobiography, and it motivated him to re-work his earlier script. “I felt an obligation to struggle against that project, fearing it would be even worse than mine.”

Cox's film, originally titled Love Kills, is based on the mutually destructive, drug and sex filled relationship between Sid and Nancy. Nancy's parents, Deborah and Frank Spungen, wanted no part in a film depicting their child's death. Sid's mother, Anne Beverley, initially tried to prevent the film from being made, but after meeting with director Cox decided to help the production, even lending Vicious' own heavy metal chain and padlock for Oldman to wear in the film. Some of the supporting characters are composites, invented to streamline the plot.

Work on the film was almost complete when the financers received a letter from a party claiming to own the title 'Love Kills' and threatening legal action. Cox reluctantly changed it at lawyers' insistence, later describing the title 'Sid and Nancy' as "bland". He apparently did like the title given the Mexican video version; 'Two Lives Destroyed by Drugs'.

Casting
According to director Cox, he had originally considered Daniel Day-Lewis for the part of Sid Vicious; however, Cox offered Oldman the part of Vicious after seeing him play the lead role of Scopey in a 1984 production of Edward Bond's The Pope's Wedding. Oldman twice turned down the role before accepting it, because, in his own words: "I wasn't really that interested in Sid Vicious and the punk movement. I'd never followed it. It wasn't something that interested me. The script I felt was banal and 'who cares' and 'why bother' and all of that. And I was a little bit sort-of with my nose in the air and sort-of thinking 'well the theatre – so much more superior' and all of that." He reconsidered based on the salary and the urging of his agent. - "My agent at the time put a lot of pressure and bullied me into it", according to an Oldman interview, included in an early DVD version of the film. He lost weight to play the emaciated Vicious by eating nothing but "steamed fish and lots of melon", and was briefly hospitalised when he lost too much. Oldman later dismissed his performance, saying: "I don't think I played Sid Vicious very well".

Courtney Love rang co-writer Abbe Wool and recorded a video audition for the role of Spungen. Cox was impressed by Love's audition, but has said the film's investors insisted on an experienced actress for the co-leading role. Therefore, instead, Cox wrote the minor role of Gretchen, one of Sid and Nancy's New York junkie friends, specifically for her benefit. Cox would later cast Love as one of the leads in Straight to Hell (1987). Chloe Webb, who had appeared in several small television roles at the time, was instead cast in the role of Spungen.

In his 2007 autobiography, Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash revealed that the casting director hired all five members of Guns N' Roses as extras for a club scene, having coincidentally scouted them in different locations without their knowledge. He said "all of us showed up to the first day of casting, like 'Hey...what are you doing here?'" However, Slash was the only one in the group to stay for the entire shoot.

Webb and Oldman improvised the dialogue heard in the scene leading up to Spungen's death but based it on interviews and other materials available to them. The stabbing scene is fictionalized and based only on conjecture. Cox told the NME: "We wanted to make the film not just about Sid Vicious and punk rock, but as an anti-drugs statement, to show the degradation caused to various people is not at all glamorous."

The original music is by Pray for Rain, Joe Strummer, and The Pogues. A track by Tears for Fears ("Swords and Knives") was also recorded for the film but was rejected by the filmmakers for not being "punk" enough. The track later appeared on the band's Seeds of Love album in 1989.

Prominent musicians made appearances in the film including Circle Jerks, Love, Iggy Pop, Nico and Edward Tudor-Pole of Tenpole Tudor.

Filming
The film was primarily shot in London and New York City, though additional photography (particularly the sequences of the Sex Pistols' North American tour) was completed in Los Angeles and El Centro, California.

Critical reception
From the 65 reviews collected by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an overall approval rating of 88%, with the consensus: "Visceral, energetic, and often very sad, Sid & Nancy is also a surprisingly touching love story, and Gary Oldman is outstanding as the late punk rock icon Sid Vicious." Roger Ebert gave Sid and Nancy four-out-of-four in his review for The Chicago Sun-Times, writing that Cox and his crew "pull off the neat trick of creating a movie full of noise and fury, and telling a meticulous story right in the middle of it." Appearing on The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, Ebert said, to agreement from Rivers and applause from the audience, that Oldman "definitely won't be [Oscar] nominated – and should be", this being for the reason that "Hollywood will not nominate an actor for portraying a creep, no matter how good the performance is". In a subsequent article on Oldman, Ebert referred to the movie's titular couple as "punk rock's Romeo and Juliet."

In his book Sid Vicious: Rock N' Roll Star, Malcolm Butt describes Webb's performance as Spungen as "intense, powerful, and most important of all, believable." Oldman's portrayal of Vicious was ranked #62 in Premiere magazine's "100 Greatest Performances of All Time". Uncut magazine ranked Gary Oldman as #8 in its "10 Best actors in rockin' roles" list, describing his portrayal as a "hugely sympathetic reading of the punk figurehead as a lost and bewildered manchild." In 2011, Total Film said of the performance: "It's an early high point in Oldman's varied career that showed just what the young actor was made of. Playing the part of an icon known and beloved by many comes with its own demands and risks, but Oldman more than rises to the challenge, completely transforming into the troubled punk bassist." The magazine described Oldman's rendition of "My Way" as "fantastic – [it] might even be better than Sid's original version." In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked Sid and Nancy as the third-best rock movie ever made, and in 2014, ShortList named it the ninth-greatest music biopic of all time.

Not all reviews of the film were positive. Leslie Halliwell reiterated a line from a review that appeared in Sight & Sound: "Relentlessly whingeing performances and a lengthy slide into drugs, degradation and death make this a solemnly off-putting moral tract."

Andrew Schofield was ranked #1 in Uncut magazine's "10 Worst actors in rockin' roles", which described his performance as Sex Pistols lead singer Johnny Rotten (real name John Lydon) as a "short-arse Scouse Bleasdale regular never once looking like he means it". Commentary on the Criterion DVD dismisses the film's portrayal of Lydon as wholly inaccurate. Paul Simonon of The Clash also criticised the movie for portraying Lydon as "some sort of fat, bean-slurping idiot."

Although not a box office success (generating $2,826,523 in the U.S. on a $4 million budget), Sid and Nancy has become a cult hit; Yahoo! Movies described the film as a "poignant and uncompromising cult classic".

John Lydon's reaction
Lydon commented on the film in his 1994 autobiography, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs:

"I cannot understand why anyone would want to put out a movie like Sid and Nancy and not bother to speak to me; Alex Cox, the director, didn't. He used as his point of reference – of all the people on this earth – Joe Strummer! That guttural singer from The Clash? What the fuck did he know about Sid and Nancy? That's probably all he could find, which was really scraping the bottom of the barrel. The only time Alex Cox made any approach toward me was when he sent the chap who was playing me over to New York where I was. This actor told me he wanted to talk about the script. During the two days he was there, he told me that the film had already been completed. The whole thing was a sham. It was a ploy to get my name used in connection with the film, in order to support it.

To me this movie is the lowest form of life. I honestly believe that it celebrates heroin addiction. It definitely glorifies it at the end when that stupid taxi drives off into the sky. That's such nonsense... It was so off and ridiculous. It was absurd. Champagne and baked beans for breakfast? Sorry. I don't drink champagne. He didn't even speak like me. He had a Scouse accent. Worse, there's a slur implied in the movie that I was jealous of Nancy, which I find particularly loathsome. There is that implication that I feel was definitely put there. I guess that's Alex Cox showing his middle class twittery. It's all too glib, it's all too easy."

Strummer claimed to have met with Alex Cox for the first time after the completion of the film, at a wrap party, but this is not entirely accurate. The wrap party was the conclusion of the London phase of the filming, which was followed by filming in Los Angeles and New York City, performed by a largely different crew. The pair's meeting involved discussion over soundtrack work for the film, not the film's script.

In a later interview, Lydon was asked the question, "Did the movie get anything right?" to which he replied: "Maybe the name Sid." Cox's attitude toward his subjects was negative; one of the reasons he was attracted to the project was that he was afraid that if someone else made it, it would portray its subjects as "real exemplars of Punk, rather than sold-out traitors to it." He acknowledged that Lydon's hatred of the movie was "understandable, given that it was based on incidents from his life and centred around one of his friends." Lydon claimed that drummer Paul Cook was more upset over the movie than he was, though the latter has not spoken publicly about it. In a 1987 interview on The Late Show when asked by interviewer Elayne Boosler about his thoughts on the movie, guitarist Steve Jones said: "For someone who didn't know anything about the Sex Pistols I guess it was a good way of describing it, but it's really hard for me to be judgemental of it because I was actually there at the time. I mean I didn’t like the guy who played me. […] The only thing I liked about it was the way they portrayed where and how drugs take you. That was the best thing I thought about the movie”.

In Cox's own, 2008, autobiography he refuted Lydon's claim about not meeting before the film, stating that they enjoyed a 90-minute, alcohol-fuelled, discussion about the script, who should play 'Johnny Rotten', and other aspects of production. Cox stated that Andrew Schofield (who played Lydon in the film) also met with Lydon; and when Lydon noticed Schofield was a Liverpudlian, rather than a Londoner like himself, he encouraged Schofield to play the part as a Scouser, which Cox took as a sign that they agreed it would be better to portray a more fictionalised version of the characters, rather than a strictly accurate re-telling of facts. Cox said he then offered the role to Schofield the following day. He suggested that Lydon's alcohol consumption at the meeting could explain why Lydon did not recall the event.

Soundtrack
The official soundtrack contains no songs by either the Sex Pistols or Sid Vicious. Much of the film's soundtrack (as opposed to soundtrack album) was composed by Dan Wool (of Pray for Rain) and Joe Strummer, who was contractually limited to contribute only two songs. Strummer continued to contribute more (unpaid) work because of his interest in the project and composing for film in general. This additional material was credited to fictitious bands in the credits, so as to keep Strummer's label, Epic Records, from knowing what he had done. Another large portion of the music was composed by The Pogues.

Home media
Sid and Nancy was first released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in the late 1990s; this version has since gone out of print. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (the video distributor of the catalog of Embassy Pictures, which released the film on VHS) released the film on DVD in 2000. The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD on 24 August 2017.

title: Sid and Nancy


text:
Palladium hydride

Palladium hydride is palladium metal with hydrogen within its crystal lattice. Despite its name, it is not an ionic hydride but rather an alloy of palladium with metallic hydrogen that can be written PdH$x$. At room temperature, palladium hydrides may contain two crystalline phases, α and β (also called α′). Pure α-phase exists at x < 0.017 while pure β-phase exists at x > 0.58; intermediate x values correspond to α-β mixtures.

Hydrogen absorption by palladium is reversible and therefore has been investigated for hydrogen storage. Palladium electrodes have been used in some cold fusion experiments, under the theory that hydrogen can be "squeezed" between palladium atoms to help it fuse at lower temperatures than normal.

History
The absorption of hydrogen gas by palladium was first noted by T. Graham in 1866 and absorption of electrolytically produced hydrogen, where hydrogen was absorbed into a palladium cathode, was first documented in 1939. Graham produced an alloy with the composition PdH$0.75$.

Making palladium hydride
The hydrogen atoms occupy interstitial sites in palladium hydride. The H-H bond in H$2$ is cleaved. The ratio in which H is absorbed on Pd is defined by $$x=\frac{[H]}{[Pd]}$$. When Pd is brought into a H$2$ environment with a pressure of 1 atm, the resulting concentration of H reaches x ~ 0.7. However, the concentration of H to obtain superconductivity is higher, in the range x > 0.75. This is done via three different routes, with measures to prevent the ready desorption of the hydrogen from the palladium.

The first route is loading from gas phase. A Pd sample is placed into a high-pressure cell of H$2$, at room temperature. The H$2$ is added through a capillary. To maintain the high absorption, the pressure cell is cooled to liquid N$2$ temperature (77 K). The resulting concentration may be as high as [H]/[Pd] = 0.97.

The second route is electrochemical bonding. This is a method where the critical concentration for superconductivity can easily be exceeded without using a high-pressure environment, via a reaction as equilibrium between H in an electrochemical phase and H in a solid phase. The hydrogen is added to Pd and Pd–Ni alloys by an H concentration of ~0.95. Thereafter, it has been loaded into electrolysis of 0.1n-H$2$SO$4$ with a current density of 50 to 150 mA/cm$3$. Finally, after lowering the loading temperature to ~ 190 K, a H concentration of x ~ 1 has been reached.

The third route is known as ion implantation. Before the implantation of H ions into Pd, the Pd foil was pre-charged with H. This is done in H$2$ high-temperature gas. This shortens the implantation time which follows. The concentration reached is about x ~ 0.7. Afterwards the foil is cooled to a temperature of 77 K to prevent a loss of H before the implantation can take place. The implantation of H in PdH$x$ happens at a temperature of 4 K. The H ions penetrate in an H$2$$+$-beam. This results in a high concentration layer of H in a Pd foil.

Chemical structure and properties
Palladium is sometimes metaphorically called a "metal sponge" (not to be confused with literal metal sponges) because it soaks up hydrogen "like a sponge soaks up water". At standard temperature and pressure, palladium can absorb up to 900 times its own volume of hydrogen. Hydrogen can be absorbed into the metal hydride and then desorbed back out for thousands of cycles. Researchers look for ways to extend the useful life of palladium storage.

Size effect
The absorption of hydrogen produces two different phases, both of which contain palladium metal atoms in a face-centered cubic (fcc, rocksalt) lattice, which is the same structure as pure palladium metal. At low concentrations up to PdH$0.02$ the palladium lattice expands slightly, from 388.9 pm to 389.5 pm. Above this concentration the second phase appears with a lattice constant of 402.5 pm. Both phases coexist until a composition of PdH$0.58$ when the alpha phase disappears. Neutron diffraction studies have shown that hydrogen atoms randomly occupy the octahedral interstices in the metal lattice (in an fcc lattice there is one octahedral hole per metal atom). The limit of absorption at normal pressures is PdH$0.7$, indicating that about 70% of the octahedral holes are occupied. When x=1 is reached, the octahedral interstices are fully occupied. The absorption of hydrogen is reversible, and hydrogen rapidly diffuses through the metal lattice. Metallic conductivity reduces as hydrogen is absorbed, until at around PdH$0.5$ the solid becomes a semiconductor.

This formation of the bulk hydride does depend on the size of the catalyst Pd. When Pd becomes smaller than 2.6 nm, hydrides are not formed anymore.

Hydrogen dissolved in the bulk differ from hydrogen dissolved on the surface. When the particles of palladium decrease in size, less hydrogen dissolves in these smaller pd particles. Therefore, relatively more hydrogen adsorbs on the surface of the small particles. This hydrogen adsorbed onto the particles do not form an hydride. Therefore, bigger particles have more places available for the formation of hydrides.

Electron and phonon band
The most important property of the band structure of PdH(oct) is that filled Pd states are lowered with the presence of hydrogen. Also, the lowest energy levels, which are the bonding states, of PdH are lower than that of Pd.

Additionally, empty Pd states, that are below the fermi energy, are also lowered with the presence of H.

Palladium prefers to be with hydrogen due to the interaction between the s state of hydrogen and the p states of palladium. The energy of an independent H atom lies in the energy range of the dominating p-states of the Pd bands.

Therefore, these empty states under the fermi-energy and holes in the d-band are filled.

Additionally, the hydride formation raises the fermi level above the d band. Empty states, above the d-band, are also filled. This results in filled p-states and shifts the ‘edge’ to a higher energy level.

Superconductivity
PdH$x$ is a superconductor with a transition temperature T$c$ of about 9 K for x = 1. (Pure palladium is not superconducting.) Drops in resistivity vs. temperature curves were observed at higher temperatures (up to 273 K) in hydrogen-rich (x ~ 1), nonstoichiometric palladium hydride and interpreted as superconducting transitions. These results have been questioned and have not been confirmed thus far.

A great advantage of palladium hydride over many other hydride systems is that palladium hydride does not need to be highly pressurized to become superconducting. This makes measurements easier and gives more opportunity for different kinds of measurements (many superconducting materials require extreme pressure in order to superconduct, on the order of 100 GPa). Palladium hydride could therefore also be used to explore the role that hydrogen plays in these hydride systems being superconductors.

Susceptibility
One of the magnetic properties of Palladium hydride is susceptibility. The susceptibility of PdH$x$ varies largely when changing the concentration of H. This is due to the 𝛽-phase of PdH$x$. The 𝛼-phase of PdH lies in the same range of the fermi surface as Pd itself, therefore 𝛼-phase does not influence the susceptibility. However, the 𝛽-phase of PdH$x$ is characterized by s-electrons filling the d-band. Therefore, the susceptibility of the 𝛼-𝛽 mixture decreases at room temperature with an increasing concentration of H. Finally, when the spin fluctuations of pure Pd are decreased, the superconductivity will occur.

Specific heat capacity
Another metallic property is the electronic heat coefficient 𝛾. This coefficient depends on the density of states. For pure Pd the heat coefficient is 9.5 mJ(mol∙K^2). When H is added to the pure Pd, the electronic heat coefficient drops. For the range of x=0.83 to x=0.88 𝛾 is observed to be six times smaller than for pure Pd. This region is the superconducting region. However, Zimmerman et al. also measured the heat coefficient 𝛾 for a concentration of x=0.96. A broadening of the superconducting transition was observed at this concentration. One of the reasons for this could be explained by an inhomogeneity of the macroscopic structure of PdH$x$. 𝛾 at this value of x has a large fluctuation and is therefore uncertain.

The critical concentration for superconductivity to happen is estimated at x ~ 0.72. The critical temperature or the superconducting transition temperature is estimated at 9 K. This was achieved at a stoichiometric concentration of x = 1.

Pressure also influences the critical temperature. It is shown that an increase in the pressure on PdH$x$ decreases T$c$. This can be explained by a hardening of the phonon spectrum, which includes a decrease in the electron-phonon constant 𝜆.

Surface absorption process
The process of absorption of hydrogen has been shown by scanning tunnelling microscopy to require aggregates of at least three vacancies on the surface of the crystal to promote the dissociation of the hydrogen molecule. The reason for such a behaviour and the particular structure of trimers has been analyzed.

Uses
The absorption of hydrogen is reversible and is highly selective. A palladium-based diffuser separator is used, although they are not employed industrially. Impure gas is passed through tubes of thin walled silver-palladium alloy as protium and deuterium readily diffuse through the alloy membrane. The gas that comes through is pure and ready for use. Palladium is alloyed with silver to improve its strength and resistance to embrittlement. To ensure that the formation of the beta phase is avoided, as the lattice expansion noted earlier would cause distortions and splitting of the membrane, the temperature is maintained above 300°C.

Another use of palladium hydride is increased adsorption of H$2$-molecules with respect to pure palladium. In 2009, a study was conducted which tested this fact. At a pressure of 1 bar, the probability was measured of Hydrogen molecules sticking to the surface of Palladium versus the probability of sticking to surface of palladium hydride. The sticking probability of Palladium was found to be greater at temperatures where the phase of the used Palladium and hydrogen mixture was pure β-phase, which is in this context corresponds to palladium hydride (at 1 bar this means temperatures greater than roughly 160 degrees Celsius), as opposed to temperatures where β- and α-phases coexist and even lower temperatures where there is pure α-phase (α-phase here corresponds to a solid solution of Hydrogen atoms in Palladium). Knowing these sticking probabilities enables one to calculate the rate of adsorption $$r_a$$ by virtue of the equation

$$r_a = S\Phi_H$$

where $$S$$ is the aforementioned sticking probability and $$\Phi_H$$ is the flux of Hydrogen molecules in the toward the surface of the Palladium/Palladium-hydride.

When the system is in a steady state, we must have that the rate of adsorption and, oppositely, the rate of desorption ($$r_d$$) are equal. This gives

$$r_a = r_d$$

The rate of desorption is assumed to be given by a Boltzmannian distribution, i.e.

(*)$$r_d = e^{-\frac{E_d}{k_BT}}$$

where $$C$$ is some unknown constant,$$E_d$$ is the desorption energy, $$k_B$$ is Boltzmann's constant and $$T$$ is the temperature.

The relation (*) can be fitted to find the value of $$E_d$$. It was found that, within the uncertainty of their experiment, the values for of Palladium and Palladium hydride respectively were roughly equal. Thus palladium hydride has as higher average adsorption rate than Palladium, while the energy required for desorption is the same.

Density functional theory was performed to find an explanation for this fact. It was found that the bond of hydrogen with the palladium hydride surface is weaker than the bond with the palladium surface and that the desorption activation barrier is lower by a small amount for Palladium hydride than for palladium, although the adsorption barriers are comparable in magnitude. Moreover, the heat of adsorption is lower for palladium hydride than for Palladium, which leads to lower equilibrium surface coverage of H. This means that the surface of palladium hydride would be less saturated, which leads to greater opportunity for sticking, i.e. a higher sticking probability.

The reversible absorption of palladium is a means to store hydrogen, and the above findings indicate that even in the hydrogen-absorbed state of palladium, there is further opportunity for hydrogen storing.

title: Palladium hydride


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Nickel hydride

Nickel hydride is either an inorganic compound of the formula NiH$x$ or any of a variety of coordination complexes. It was discovered by Polish chemist Bogdan Baranowski in 1958.

Binary nickel hydrides and related materials
"The existence of definite hydrides of nickel and platinum is in doubt". This observation does not preclude the existence of nonstoichiometric hydrides. Indeed, nickel is a widely used hydrogenation catalyst. Experimental studies on nickel hydrides are rare and principally theoretical.

Hydrogen hardens nickel (as it does most metals), inhibiting dislocations in the nickel atom crystal lattice from sliding past one another. Varying the amount of alloying hydrogen and the form of its presence in the nickel hydride (precipitated phase) controls qualities such as the hardness, ductility, and tensile strength of the resulting nickel hydride. Nickel hydride with increased hydrogen content can be made harder and stronger than nickel, but such nickel hydride is also less ductile than nickel. Loss of ductility occurs due to cracks maintaining sharp points due to suppression of elastic deformation by the hydrogen, and voids forming under tension due to decomposition of the hydride. Hydrogen embrittlement can be a problem in nickel in use in turbines at high temperatures.

In the narrow range of stoichiometries adopted by nickel hydride, distinct structures are claimed. At room temperature, the most stable form of nickel is the face-centred cubic (FCC) structure α-nickel. It is a relatively soft metallic material that can dissolve only a very small concentration of hydrogen, no more than 0.002 wt% at 1455 C, and only 0.00005% at 25 C. The solid solution phase with dissolved hydrogen, that maintains the same structure as the original nickel is termed the α-phase. At 25°C, 6 kbar of hydrogen pressure is needed to dissolve in β-nickel, but the hydrogen desorbs at pressures below 3.4 kbar.

Surface
Hydrogen dissociates on nickel surfaces. The dissociation energies on Ni(111), Ni(100), and Ni(11O) crystal faces are respectively 46, 52, and 36 kJ/mol. The H$2$ dissociates from each of these surfaces at distinct temperatures: 320–380, 220–360, and 230–430 K.

High pressure phases
Crystallographically distinct phases of nickel hydride are produced with hydrogen gas at 600 MPa; or electrolytically. The crystal form is face-centred cubic or β-nickel hydride. Hydrogen to nickel atomic ratios are up to one, with hydrogen occupying an octahedral site. The density of the β-hydride is 7.74 g/cm$3$. It is grey. At a current density of 1 amp per square decimeter, in 0.5 mol/liter of sulfuric acid and thiourea a surface layer of nickel will be converted to nickel hydride. This surface is replete with cracks up to millimeters long. The direction of cracking is in the {001} plane of the original nickel crystals. The lattice constant of nickel hydride is 3.731 Å, which is 5.7% more than that of nickel.

The near-stoichiometric NiH is unstable and loses hydrogen at pressures below 340 MPa.

Molecular nickel hydrides
A large number of nickel hydride complexes are known. Illustrative is the complex trans-NiH(Cl)(P(C$6$H$11$)$3$)$2$.

title: Nickel hydride


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User talk:Littlemaggie

Hi! Welcome to the 'pedia. Thanks for helping on the Sid and Nancy page; it's good to remember that wiki doesn't work exactly like HTML though. There are some good pointers on syntax etc. here. - Hephaestos 21:48 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Anne Beverley
Anne Beverley, an article you created, has been nominated for deletion. We appreciate your contributions. However, an editor does not feel that Anne Beverley satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in the nomination space (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and the Wikipedia deletion policy). Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Articles for deletion/Anne Beverley and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of Anne Beverley during the discussion but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Jmlk 1  7  11:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:Littlemaggie


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Talk:Super Dimensional Fortress

Is there a history or something behind name "Super Dimensional Fortress"? What is it's origin? What does it mean?

Actually, I've been dying to know for years.

If someone happens to know, maybe it'd be an idea to add it..

Belgarat 21:56 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * It's almost certainly from the Macross/Robotech anime, but absent official acknowledgment I'm hesitant to put it in the main entry.

 * I haven't logged in here for a while, sorry. ^_^  Let's see... The original title of the show was supposed to be Battle City Megaroad.  That's a joke - Megaroad, because they're on a long journey, and megaload, because they're hauling an entire city and they have Japanese accents.  It was meant to be a bit more lighthearted than the final result.  Ideas for the series got kicked around, and the original studio that was working on it, the Uizu Corporation, dissolved in 1981, dumping into Srudio Nue's laps, who were interested in harder SF, and the name got changed to SDF Macross.  The "Macross" bit was somehow derived from Shakespeare, but I don't have the sources handy to back that up.  The rest of what I've written largely came from Robotech Art 1, ISBN 0-89865-412-2.

 * I've put the derivation in now, because according to the SDF FAQ, the original BBS was "a Japanese Anime SIG", and "known as the SDF-1" - pretty firmly linking it to The Super Dimension Fortress Macross in my mind. Or rather, "IMO", since that way I get to add another TLA or two ;-) -- IMSoP 08:58, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * A few quick corrections on the above description of the origin of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross. The original studio was Studio Nue from the very beginning; Wiz Corporation (not Uizu) was just the sponsor. Wiz went through financial trouble during pre-production, and Big West stepped in as the sponsor. The project did incorporate more "hard" science fiction as an indirect result of this new sponsorship. (Wiz wanted to capitalize on parodying such anime works as Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam.) —Egan Loo 02:59, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Super Dimensional Fortress


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Calamity James

Calamity James is a comic strip in the UK comic The Beano. It is about a boy, named Calamity James (a pun on Calamity Jane), who has disastrous luck. He first appeared on 1 November 1986, in issue no. 2311. A copy of his first strip is viewable here. His strip replaced Biffo the Bear and Little Plum, which had both been reduced to a half-page by this time. He has a pet called Alexander Lemming, (a pun on Alexander Fleming).

Creation and Concept
There were several variations of the visual appearance of Calamity James before a final image was decided on. Calamity James has black hair, wears black trousers, and has a red jumper with the number 13 on it. He has big eyes, and many buck teeth, but he originally had small eyes and only two buck teeth. In earlier strips, he was also shown under a permanent black rain cloud. According to the 4 December 2014 issue of the Beano, he has a crush on Minnie the Minx and hopes to become her boyfriend one day.

The strip features much surreal and incidental background detail, with various recurring themes: notably the "Little Squelchy Things" which appear in a wide variety of guises and tend to be visual gags, though they may take part in the story (for instance, James may trip over one), randomly placed smelly socks and a constant scatter of winning lottery tickets, notes with a large sum of money on them, diamonds, gold bars, and bags with 'Vast Dosh' written on them which James walks past yet somehow never manages to notice. Once, when he was complaining about his lack of money, Alex told him to look around (he was surrounded by one of each of the above), as if he had just noticed them, but then it turns out he was referring to busking. Another recurring feature is the appearance of bizarrely-named factories and other buildings, such as "Lumpy Custard Factory" and "Knicker Elastic Testing Sheds", that appear in the background throughout the strips (all accompanied by appropriate sounds).

Tom Paterson has been the main artist for the strip, although Steve Bright has drawn it on occasions, and Bob Dewar ghosted the strip in the 1980s. John Geering and Henry Davies drew some preliminary sets for the character before he first appeared in the comic. He hasn't appeared as regularly as some other characters, as Paterson has also drawn other strips for the same comic including Minnie the Minx, The Numskulls and Dennis the Menace.

Alexander Lemming
James' long-suffering lemming friend and pet, who rarely has as much bad luck as his owner. One of Alexander's hobbies is plummeting from great heights, which often helps James overcome his fate. He also tends to anoint James with balm or ointment if he gets hurt. In one strip, James gave his shirt to Alexander Lemming, and he had a day of bad luck and James had a day of good luck. Soon, Alexander got fed up with the jumper and gave it back. This credits the belief that James' number 13 is a source of his bad luck.

As loyal a friend as he seems to be, he rather seems to enjoy watching his friend suffer. His name is a play on "Alexander Fleming", the famous biologist and discoverer of penicillin.

Timeline
 1 November 1986 Calamity James debuts in the comic. Issue No. 2311

 22 November 1986 James' pet, Alexander Lemming, debuts. Issue No. 2314

 29 October 1988 "Little Squelchy Things" debut. Issue No. 2415

c.1989 James' eyes were enlarged and he was given more buckteeth.

1993 The strip is rendered in full colour

1997 the strip is digitally rendered in brighter, shinier colour

2001 Tom Paterson takes over Minnie the Minx. By 2003 this, and Paterson's other work for D.C. Thomson, means that James begins to appear on an increasingly infrequent basis.

2004 Steve Bright draws several strips during the year. Of the James strips in 2004, 11 were drawn by Paterson and 8 were drawn by Bright.

2007 the strip is retired, as Tom Paterson starts drawing Dennis the Menace. His final appearance in the weekly comic came in Issue No. 3375.

31 October 2009 James's strip makes a surprise reappearance in the weekly Beano. Issue No. 3507.

7 November 2012 James' strip returns permanently. Issue No. 3660.

Reception and legacy
Due to the artwork and humour of the character, as well as his relatability, Calamity James has been regarded as a classic British Comic character. The scripts behind the strip commonly satirise consumerist values, which may be held by the writer. Some readers, such as George Gale see James' misfortunes as a cruel punishments for him being poor, ugly and stupid, whilst others relate to his misfortunes and can see themselves in such positions. James can be seen as a symbol of inspiration, because even though everything in his life seems to end badly, he always tries to lead a normal life.

As the Beano editor Alan Digby was not keen on the strip, Calamity James gradually appeared less frequently, became reprints and was eventually dropped. However, ex-Beano editor Euan Kerr, who had played a significant role in the creation of the character, was editing the monthly BeanoMax, which he continued to appear in, although Digby has since become editor of that publication. He has appeared as reprints, both in the weekly Beano and BeanoMax and returns in new strips in the Beano Annuals.

Because of his goalkeeping mishaps, English goalkeeper David James has been nicknamed after the character.

TV adaptation
The comic strip was loosely adapted for television as a BBC Three short film in 2023, starring Dylan Blore in the title role and Mark Bonnar as his father.

title: Calamity James


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Chloe Webb

Chloe Webb (born June 25, 1956) is an American actress, best known for her roles in the films Sid and Nancy (1986), The Belly of an Architect (1987), Twins (1988), and Heart Condition (1990). She also was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her role as Laurette Barber in the ABC drama series China Beach, and had a recurring role as Monica Gallagher on the Showtime comedy-drama Shameless.

Early life
Webb was born June 25, 1956, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. She spent her youth in various locations on the East Coast, depending on where her father, a bridge and road designer, was employed, though she was primarily raised in Syracuse, New York, where she attended Bishop Grimes High School. At age sixteen, she enrolled at The Boston Conservatory and later, Berklee College of Music. Originally, she pursued her passion for singing by singing in bars despite being underaged; she realized that even though she greatly enjoyed singing, she was better at acting.

Career
In April 1982, Webb joined Forbidden Broadway, an Off-Broadway revue parodying musical theatre, particularly Broadway musicals. Four years later, she made her film debut in Alex Cox's Sid & Nancy (1986); she portrayed Nancy Spungen, the mentally ill, heroin-addicted girlfriend of punk rock singer Sid Vicious. Her performance garnered best actress awards from the National Society of Film Critics, the Boston Film Critics and the San Francisco Film Critics.

She also appeared as Brian Dennehy's estranged socialite girlfriend in Peter Greenaway's 1987 drama film The Belly of an Architect and as Laurette, a young woman from Paoli, Pennsylvania who dreams of becoming a successful singer, in ABC's drama television series China Beach. Other roles include the eccentric girlfriend of Danny DeVito's character in the Ivan Reitman comedy Twins (1988), and a cameo as a woman convinced that she had been abducted by aliens in Ghostbusters II (1989). Between roles in motion pictures and television series, Webb frequently appeared in several Los Angeles based stage productions: The House of Blue Leaves, for which she won a Drama-Logue Award, and The Model Apartment; her performance earned her a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and another Drama-Logue Award.

Webb co-starred alongside Denzel Washington and Bob Hoskins in Heart Condition (1990). In 1991, she played a hairdresser in Queens Logic and a woman with a developmental disability who wins the lottery in ABC's made-for-TV film Lucky Day.

Other roles included the eccentric Mona Ramsey in the first season of Armistead Maupin miniseries Tales of the City (1993).

Webb has appeared on several television series: CBS's Judging Amy (2003), FOX's House (2005), CBS's Two and a Half Men (2005), NBC's Medium (2005), and CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008). Webb reunited with Cox in 2009 for his film Repo Chick; she played Sister Duncan.

Her most recent role was as Monica Gallagher, William H. Macy's character's estranged and unstable wife in Showtime's comedy-drama TV series Shameless; her performance earned her a nomination for Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series.

title: Chloe Webb


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Micromouse

Micromouse is an event where small robotic mice compete to solve a 16×16 maze. It began in the late 1970s. Events are held worldwide, and are most popular in the UK, U.S., Japan, Singapore, India, South Korea and becoming popular in subcontinent countries such as Sri Lanka.

The maze is made up of a 16×16 grid of cells, each 180 mm square with walls 50 mm high. The mice are completely autonomous robots that must find their way from a predetermined starting position to the central area of the maze unaided. The mouse needs to keep track of where it is, discover walls as it explores, map out the maze and detect when it has reached the goal. Having reached the goal, the mouse will typically perform additional searches of the maze until it has found an optimal route from the start to the finish. Once the optimal route has been found, the mouse will traverse that route in the shortest achievable time.

Competitions and conferences are run regularly.

Half-Size Micromouse
A version of Micromouse called the Half-Size Micromouse was introduced at the 30th All Japan Micromouse Competition in 2009. Instead of a 16×16 maze, the Half-Size competition uses up to a 32×32 maze. Cell and wall dimensions have been reduced by half, providing a new challenge.

There have been half-size competitions in Europe in Hungary in 2015 and the UK in 2018.

Maze solving
Mice used in competitions employ the fundamental elements of robot navigation, including mapping, planning, and localization. Additionally, they optimize their path through the maze using various search algorithms. Common search algorithms use variations of the Bellman flood-fill method, Dijkstra's algorithm, A* search algorithm, among various graph traversal and tree traversal algorithms.

Performance
Mice can run at over three meters per second, depending on the maze design. Some of the best micromouse builders are Yusuke Kato, Ng Beng Kiat and Fumitaka Nakashima. The current world record is 3.921 seconds and is held by Ng Beng Kiat.

Performance in recent years has improved considerably. As of 2015, winning mice are likely to run with forward acceleration and braking well over 10 m/s2. Cornering with centripetal acceleration as high as 2g is possible. Micromice are among the highest-performing autonomous robots.

Most recently, robots are being equipped with a fan to create a partial vacuum under the mouse while it is running. The additional downforce available has made possible a huge improvement in performance. Compared to a non-fan mouse, the newer robots are likely to be able to achieve centripetal accelerations of 6g or more. Straight line accelerations can easily exceed 2.5g.

title: Micromouse