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Nikos Skalkottas

Nikos Skalkottas (Νίκος Σκαλκώτας; 21 March 1904 – 19 September 1949) was a Greek composer of 20th-century classical music. A member of the Second Viennese School, he drew his influences from both the classical repertoire and the Greek tradition. He also produced a sizeable amount of tonal music in the last phase of his musical creativity.

Biography
Skalkottas was born in Chalcis on the island of Euboea. He started violin lessons with his father and uncle Kostas Skalkottas at the age of five, three years after his family moved to Athens because Kostas had lost the post of town bandmaster in 1906 due to political and legal intrigues. He continued studying violin with Tony Schulze at the Athens Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1920 with a diploma of high distinction. The following year a scholarship from the Averoff Foundation enabled him to study abroad. From 1921 to 1933 he lived in Berlin, where he first took violin lessons at the Prussian Academy of Arts with Willy Hess. Deciding in 1923 to give up his career as a violinist and become a composer, he studied composition with Robert Kahn, Paul Juon, Kurt Weill and Philipp Jarnach. Between 1927 and 1932 he was a member of Arnold Schoenberg's Masterclass in Composition at the Academy of Arts, where his fellow pupils included Marc Blitzstein, Roberto Gerhard and Norbert von Hannenheim. Skalkottas had been living for several years with the Russian-Jewish violinist Matla Temko ; they had two children, though only the second, a daughter, survived infancy, and the end of their relationship increased his already-present feelings of self-doubt and insecurity. In 1930 Skalkottas devoted considerable effort to having some of his works performed in Athens, but they were met with incomprehension, and even in Berlin his few performances did not make much better headway. In 1931 he seems to have had a personal and artistic crisis: his relationship with Temko came to an end and he is also reported to have fallen out with Schoenberg, though the nature of their disagreement is unclear and Schoenberg continued to rate him highly as a composer. In any event Skalkottas seems to have composed nothing for at least two years.

In March 1933 he was forced by poverty and debt to return to Athens, intending to stay a few months and then return to Berlin. However, he suffered a nervous breakdown and his passport was confiscated by the Greek authorities (apparently because he had never done military service) and in fact remained in Greece for the rest of his life. Among the various possessions he left behind were a large number of manuscripts; many of these were then lost or destroyed (although some were found in a secondhand bookshop in 1954). According to another account, his manuscripts were sold by his German landlady shortly after he left Berlin. In Athens Skalkottas sought other means of funding through scholarships or paid work as an orchestral player, but he was quickly disillusioned with the state of musical affairs in Athens at the time. Until his death he earned a living as a back-desk violinist in the Athens Conservatory, Radio and Opera orchestras. In the mid-1930s he worked at the Folk Music Archive in Athens, and did transcriptions of Greek folk songs into Western-music scores for the musicologist Melpo Merlier.

As a composer he worked alone, but wrote prolifically, mainly in his very personal post-Schoenbergian idiom that had little chance of being comprehended by the Greek musical establishment. He did secure some performances, especially of some of the Greek Dances and a few of his more tonal works, but the vast bulk of his music went unheard. During the German occupation of Greece he was placed in an internment camp for some months. In 1946 he married the pianist Maria Pangali; they had two sons. In 1949, at the age of 45 and shortly before the birth of his second son, he died of what appears to have been the rupture of a neglected common hernia, leaving some symphonic works with incomplete orchestration, and many completed works that were given posthumous premieres.

Music
Skalkottas's early works, most of which he wrote in Berlin, are lost, as are some of those written in Athens. The earliest of his works available to us today date from 1922–24; these are piano compositions as well as the orchestration of Cretan Feast by Dimitri Mitropoulos. Among the works written in Berlin are the sonata for solo violin, several works for piano, chamber music and some symphonic works. Although during the period 1931–34 Skalkottas did not compose anything, he resumed composing in Athens and continued until his death. His output comprised symphonic works (36 Greek Dances, the symphonic overture The Return of Ulysses, the fairy drama Mayday Spell, the Second Symphonic Suite, the ballet The Maiden and Death, works for wind orchestra and several concertos), chamber, vocal and instrumental works including the huge cycle of 32 Piano Pieces.

Besides his musical work, Skalkottas compiled an important theoretical work, consisting of several "musical articles", a Treatise on Orchestration, musical analyses, etc. Skalkottas soon shaped his personal features of musical writing so that any influence of his teachers was soon assimilated creatively in a manner of composition that is absolutely personal and recognizable.

Throughout his career Skalkottas remained faithful to the neo-classical ideals of Neue Sachlichkeit and 'absolute music' proclaimed in Europe in 1925. Already in Berlin he was taking an interest in jazz and at the same time developing a very personal form of the twelve-note method, making use of not one but several tone-rows in a work and organizing these rows to define different thematic and harmonic areas. (For example, the Largo Sinfonico employs no fewer than 16 twelve-tone rows.) Like Schoenberg, he persistently cultivated classical forms (such as sonata, variations, suite), but his opus is divided between atonal, twelve-tone and tonal works, all three categories spanning his entire composing career. Such apparent variety could have been intensified by a love of Greek folk music. The most striking example of his commitment to Greek folk music is the series of 36 Greek Dances composed for orchestra between 1931 and 1936, arranged for various different ensembles in the ensuing years and in part radically re-orchestrated in 1948–49. About two-thirds of these dances are based on genuine Greek folk themes from different parts of the Greek mainland and islands, but the other third use material of Skalkottas's own composition in folk style.

The other outstanding tonal work from this period is his ballet suite The Maiden and Death (1938). It is based on a well known Greek folk-poem in which the dead love interest of young Konstantis weighs heavily on his mind. Like Orpheus, he is determined to fight destiny and unite with her. She remains in the land of the dead until Konstantis arrives at the end of the work and takes her back to the world of the living. According to the Gramophone Musical Guide (2010), which reviewed a recording with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Nikos Christodoulou, "Here Skalkottas's brilliant orchestration shines through in what's much more than a pre-run of The Mayday Spell. The idiom is less fragmentary than the latter; indeed, it suggests a Greek Miraculous Mandarin, if less overtly spectacular in sound or scandalous in plot." Even more enthusiastically, music critic David Hurwitz reviewed it with the phrase "The piece is drop-dead gorgeous, and will thrill fans of late-Romantic Nationalist music." It too was later orchestrated for a full symphonic orchestra (1948).

Nevertheless, he remained skeptical of the attempts of his Greek contemporaries to integrate folk music into the modern symphonic style, and only juxtaposed and mixed folk, atonal and 12-note styles in a few works such as the incidental music to Christos Evelpides's 1943 fairy-tale drama Mayday Spell. Skalkottas was evidently reluctant to deploy the kind of structural and stylistic tensions that would have betrayed the integrationist ideals of his Schoenbergian inheritance. This could be seen (in terms of a comprehensive connecting impulse) as a link between the Second Viennese, Busoni, Stravinsky and Bartókian schools. Around 1945 he seems to have reappraised his aesthetic direction to some extent and written several works in a more conventionally tonal idiom - many of these have key signatures, for instance, yet the general level of dissonance is not significantly lessened. His most impressive tonal works in this last period of creativity are his Classical Symphony in A (1947), the astonishingly atmospheric The Sea (1948-1949), a ballet suite, which even includes a musical reference to the legendary sister of Alexander the Great, who roams the sea as a mermaid; a Sinfonietta in B Flat Major (1948); and the programmatic Four Images (1948-1949), which comes from the dance suite The Land and the Sea of Greece (1948) for solo piano.

Posthumous reputation
It was only after his death that Skalkottas' music began to be played, published or critically estimated to a great extent, partly due to the efforts of friends and disciples such as John G. Papaioannou and George Hadjinikos.

In 1988 a short documentary (60 mins) about his life and work was filmed with funding from the local authorities of Skalkottas' birthplace (the isle of Euboea) as well as the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Between the years 1998 and 2008, the Swedish record label BIS records released recordings of his works.

title: Nikos Skalkottas


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A Thousand and One Nights

One Thousand and One Nights is an Arabic collection of folk tales. A Thousand and One Nights may refer to:

 * Tausend und eine Nacht (English: Thousand and One Nights) (1871), a waltz composed by Johann Strauss II
 * A Thousand and One Nights (1945 film) a Tongue-in-Cheek Technicolor American adventure fantasy film
 * A Thousand and One Nights with Toho, a 1947 black-and-white Japanese film
 * Las mil y una noches, a 1958 Mexican film
 * A Thousand and One Nights (1969 film) a 1969 adult Japanese anime feature film
 * "A Thousand and One Nights" (Systems in Blue song) a single by German pop band Systems in Blue from their 2005 album Point of No Return
 * "A Thousand and One Nights" (Smash song)
 * A Thousand Nights (novel)

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

title: A Thousand and One Nights


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Dukinfield

Dukinfield is a town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England, on the south bank of the River Tame opposite Ashton-under-Lyne, 6.3 mi east of Manchester. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 19,306.

Within the boundaries of the historic county of Cheshire, the town developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution when it became the site of coal mining and cotton manufacturing.

Early history
The earliest evidence of human activity around Dukinfield comes from a collection of four flints from the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age. The artifacts were discovered on the site of Dukinfield Hall and have been taken as evidence of a prehistoric settlement on the site. There is no further evidence of activity in the area until the Roman period. A 3rd century bronze Roman coin, from the reign of Emperor Tetricus I was discovered in the town.

Dukinfield means "Raven of the Field" and derives from the Old English duce and feld.

Early records show the township was included in the fee of Dunham Massey. It was held by Matthew de Bramhall in about 1190, and after that by a family who took the name "De Dokenfeld". The family lived at the moated Dukinfield Old Hall, which originated from after the Norman conquest and was rebuilt in Tudor times, remaining the home of the Dukinfields till the 18th century, after which it became derelict. During the English Civil War, Colonel Robert Duckenfield of Dukinfield Hall was a noted commander in the New Model Army. The Dukinfield of Dukinfield, Cheshire baronetcy was created in 1665 for Robert Dukinfield, son of Colonel Robert Dukinfield.

The Dukinfields held the manor for five centuries until the widow of Sir William Dukinfield Daniel married John Astley in 1767, and he inherited the estate when she died. John Astley was an artist and architect, and he designed and built Dukinfield Lodge on a hill overlooking the River Tame as a new seat for the family, replacing the old wooden hall. His son Francis Dukinfield Astley succeeded him as lord of the manor in 1787, and then his son, Francis Dukinfield Palmer Astley, followed in 1825.

Industrial Revolution
Industrialisation – particularly the cotton trade – helped shape the town, but its rapid development destroyed its former pasture and meadow land. Two cotton mills were built before 1794 and by 1825 there were seven. The industry continued to expand and by the end of the 19th century 14 spinning mills of varying sizes were in operation. The largest mills were built in brick during the 1890s with four or five storeys, large windows, ornamental towers, engine houses and tall brick built chimneys. They included Tower, Tame Valley, River, Park Road and Queen Mills. Most of the cotton mills have now been demolished, but some have been preserved and converted into flats.

Coal pits exploiting the underlying coal measures to the south of the Lancashire Coalfield were a major part of Dukinfield's industrial history. One pithead was located on Birch Lane, now the site of All Saints' Catholic College, with another near the northern border with Ashton-under-Lyne. Francis Dukinfield Astley first started developing collieries in the town around 1820, and his son Francis Dukinfield Palmer Astley continued to develop the two most notable mines after his father's death in 1825—Dukinfield and Astley Deep Pit—both of which suffered explosions which killed many workers:

 * Dukinfield Colliery (also known as Lakes Pit or Victoria Colliery) was owned by Astley's Dukinfield Colliery Company. The colliery had two shafts, the downcast was 1,020 feet deep to the Black mine (coal seam) and was connected to the upcast ventilation shaft. On 4 June 1867, 38 men and boys died of suffocation following an explosion caused by a faulty safety lamp and poor management.
 * Astley Deep Pit, was off King's Street opposite Brownlea Avenue was developed by Astley but by 1874 was owned by Benjamin Ashton. The colliery's downcast shaft was 2,058 feet deep and its workings extended over a mile to the south and about 1,300 yards to the north of the shaft. This colliery was reported to be at one time, the deepest coal mine in the world, at 2,100 feet (640 metres) and had three shafts. On 14 April 1874 an underground gas explosion killed 54 men. After the pit closed in 1901 the shafts were filled in and left to stand for many years before being built on. It is now the site of a development of houses comprising Angel Close, Oval Drive and Silver Close.

Samuel Robinson—a Unitarian, industrialist, and scholar—founded the village library in 1833 and was dubbed the "foremost promoter of education in the district" before his death in 1884. Daniel Adamson a mechanical engineer became the first chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal Company. He owned an engineering works producing Lancashire boilers at Newton Wood beside the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. He died on 13 January 1890. The Adamson Military Band, named after Adamson is based in Dukinfield. The MS&LR's successor, the Great Central Railway, moved its carriage and wagon works to Dukinfield in 1910.

Dukinfield and its surrounding towns were major centres of civil revolt during the 19th century and briefly the area was a hotbed of Chartism, the popular movement calling for universal suffrage via a "People's Charter". Chartist leader, Reverend Joseph Rayner Stephens is buried in St John's Churchyard.

Governance
In the Middle Ages, Dukinfield was part of the parish of Stockport in the Macclesfield Hundred. It became a civil parish in 1866 and in 1894 those parts not already included in the Municipal Borough of Stalybridge became an urban district in the administrative county of Cheshire. The town was granted municipal borough status in 1899 under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882, and was expanded in 1936, gaining part of the civil parish of Matley, which had been abolished.

In 1974, the Municipal Borough of Dukinfield was abolished, and its territory amalgamated into the newly created Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester.

Dukinfield is currently represented by the occupants of 6 of the 57 seats on Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. These seats are spread over two wards: Dukinfield and Dukinfield Stalybridge. Dukinfield currently has five Labour councillors and one Conservative councillor.

Andrew Gwynne is Dukinfield's Member of Parliament. He was elected in 2005 to represent the Denton and Reddish constituency, of which the town of Dukinfield is a part. Between 1918 and 1997 Dukinfield was part of the Stalybridge and Hyde constituency.

Geography and geology
At 53.47782°N, -2.09258°W (53.477818° -2.092584°), and 159 mi north-northwest of London, Dukinfield's borders are defined to the north and west by the River Tame.

The town is situated at the edge of the Cheshire Plain where it meets the Pennines, and Dukinfield is the first town on the hill. The park is situated approximately a quarter of a mile from the town hall along King Street towards Hyde in the south. Because of the quite steep rise out of the plain, the park is terraced and is over 90 feet higher at the top. The hill flattens out slightly before rising steeply again towards the east, where the library is situated. The town hall is also at the base of the same hill with Astley Street rising steeply along its shorter southern side before climbing some 120 feet to the crest of the ridge. The local soil is mainly clayey with some alluvial deposits.

The underlying geology is the middle coal measures, which run north–south under Tameside. Dukinfield is situated on the site of a vast ancient lake or swamp that covered the area. This ancient lake is the reason coal is found in the area. The layers of shale and coal are laid on top of each other in bands, only 20 or 30 feet thick. The coal deposits fall away at a 20-degree or so angle, and runs eight or nine miles from the base of the hill out under the plain. The coal deposits are known as the Dukinfield Marine Band and form a V shape running out from here towards Stockport in the south and Ashton Moss in the north-east. Dukinfield had several mines of which Astley Deep Pit had the best coal. There are many seams or mines of coal found here. Dukinfield coal was known to be the best for heating and steam generation. Only a mile to the south along Hyde Road is another large mine, the Dewsnap Colliery, which was of a lower quality and so was not in as much demand. The Dukinfield Marine Band outcrops at Dukinfield, and continues up the hill towards the top of the ridge, some 140 feet above the level of the plain where it flattens out and a third mine was situated.

Demography
According to the Office for National Statistics, at the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001, Dukinfield had a population of 18,885. The 2001 population density was 9922 PD/sqmi, with a 100 to 93.9 female-to-male ratio. Of those over 16 years old, 29.1% were single (never married), 42.1% married, and 9.4% divorced. Dukinfield's 8,072 households included 31.2% one-person, 36.8% married couples living together, 9.9% were co-habiting couples, and 10.5% single parents with their children. Of those aged 16–74, 35.1% had no academic qualifications.

At the 2001 UK census, 79.0% of Dukinfield's residents reported themselves as Christian, 0.9% Hindu, 0.8% Muslim, and 0.1% Buddhist. The census recorded 12.2% as having no religion, 0.1% had an alternative religion and 6.8% did not state their religion.

Population change
Dukinfield grew from a small village just south of Ashton-under-Lyne with open land to the south and east, the gap between it and the surrounding towns of Hyde and Matley being a semicircle around 1.5 miles wide, to fill the gap entirely by the late 1940s. In its early days from 1801, and previously, the population was small but boomed during the days of the cotton industry and later the coal industry with its major rail junction adding to its prosperity and growth.

The industries which sustained it died out by the turn of the 1900s, leaving only the Daniel Adamson Ltd works but it managed to maintain its population and has only declined by 2000 since 1921. One reason is that it has a central location on the main road from Stockport to Ashton-under-Lyne and is within easy commuting distance of Manchester.

Economy
According to the 2001 UK census, the industry of employment of residents of Dukinfield aged 16–74 was 24.4% manufacturing, 19.3% retail and wholesale, 10.0% health and social work, 9.5% property and business services, 7.2% construction, 6.5% transport and communications, 5.7% education, 4.7% public administration, 4.4% finance, 3.4% hotels and restaurants, 1.0% energy and water supply, 0.3% agriculture, 0.1% mining, and 3.6% other. Compared with national figures, the town had a relatively high proportion of people working in manufacturing, and low levels of people working in agriculture, public administration, and education. The census recorded the economic activity of residents aged 16–74, 2.1% students were with jobs, 2.8% students without jobs, 4.9% looking after home or family, 7.9% permanently sick or disabled, and 2.7% economically inactive for other reasons.

Landmarks
Dukinfield Town Hall was built in the late 1890s and opened in 1901. It was built by raising funds from the inception of the Borough of Dukinfield. The park was also made and cost the same amount of money as the town hall. There is an 80 ft difference between the King Street lower side and the rear of the park, being the first hill off the Cheshire Plain, and on a clear day it is possible to stand at the top of the steps and see Manchester city centre.

Old Hall Chapel is an old historic church, claiming to be the first independent church in the 17th century. It was built during the late 15th century but is unfortunately partially derelict due to fire in the 1970s which destroyed much of the superstructure of the roof.

Transport
Public transport is co-ordinated by Transport for Greater Manchester.

Buses
Bus services in the area are provided by Stagecoach Manchester, First Group and a variety of smaller operators. The following routes serve Dukinfield:

 * 220: Manchester city centre - Stalybridge, via Openshaw and Audenshaw.
 * 221: Dukinfield - Manchester city centre, via Audenshaw and Openshaw.
 * 330: Ashton-under-Lyne - Stockport, via Hyde, operating generally every ten minutes.
 * 335: Ashton-under-Lyne - Denton.
 * 343: Hyde - Oldham, via Stalybridge, Carrbrook, Mossley and Lees.
 * 345: Ashton-under-Lyne - Denton, via Audenshaw.
 * 346: Ashton-under-Lyne - Gee Cross, via Newton and Hyde.
 * 389: Ashton-under-Lyne - Yew Tree, via Stalybridge.

Railway
Dukinfield Central railway station, which was closed in 1959, provided local and national rail services. The nearest railway stations are now Stalybridge, Hyde North and Ashton-under-Lyne.

Tram
The second-generation tramway Manchester Metrolink terminates currently at nearby Ashton-under-Lyne for connections via Droylsden to the city centre and beyond. A tram network operated by the SHMD Joint Board ran lines through Dukinfield from 1904 to 1945, until their replacement by buses.

Air
Manchester Airport is located around 8 miles from the town and can be easily accessed by road and public transport.

Waterways
Dukinfield Junction is a canal junction which is the meeting point of the Peak Forest, Ashton and Huddersfield Narrow Canals.

Education
There are numerous primary schools and nurseries in the town for 5- to 11-year-olds.

There are secondary schools but no dedicated facility in Dukinfield for further education, the nearest establishment being Tameside College in Ashton-under-Lyne or Hyde.

All Saints Catholic College provides education for 16- to 18-year-olds. Since 1998, the sixth form facility has been provided for in a purpose-built extension to the main school.

Media
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North West and ITV Granada. Television signals are received from the Winter Hill TV transmitter.

Local radio stations are BBC Radio Manchester on 95.1 FM, Capital Manchester and Lancashire on 102.0 FM, Heart North West on 105.4 FM, Smooth North West on 100.4 FM, XS Manchester on 106.1 FM, Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West on 96.2 FM, and Tameside Radio, a community based station which broadcast from the town on 103.6 FM.

The local newspaper is the Tameside Reporter, published on Thursdays.

Religion
The Moravian Church began their work in Dukinfield in 1751. They built a Moravian Settlement off of Old Road, where Moravian Close now is situated. God's Acre (the Moravian Burial Ground) still exists in Moravian Close, but was closed to further burials in 1973, when the work of the Moravians moved to Yew Tree Lane, where the Moravian Church is now situated. The parish church dedicated to St. John the Evangelist is a Commissioners' church built between 1840 and 1841 and consecrated the following year. A second parish was formed in 1846 and its church dedicated to St Mark was begun in 1847.

A number of Protestant and Catholic churches are based in the municipality, with the nearest mosque being in Ashton-under-Lyne, a short distance to the north of the town.

Sport
Dukinfield Cricket Club, founded in 1870, is a member of the Lancashire County League. For several seasons, Paul Turner was the club's "professional" player, leaving at the end of the 2005 season. In 2015, the club signed Marty Kain (New Zealand) and Chris Marrow (South Africa). Martin Vidler is the club's youth coach.

Dukinfield Rugby Union Football Club currently plays in the South Lancashire & Cheshire 2 League of the Northern Division. The club plays its home games at Blocksages Playing Fields and is one of the oldest rugby teams from the historic county of Cheshire, having been founded in 1880. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mike Ford was head coach gaining 2 league promotions in 3 seasons. He left Dukinfield RUFC for a brief spell at Oldham RUFC but then left to take over as Defensive coordinator of Ireland (January 2002 – September 2005). In September 2004, he started working as Defence and Skills coach at Saracens in the Guinness Premiership before taking over as head coach. He had a spell as the defence coach of the England national rugby union team and is now head coach at the Belgian national side.

Dukinfield Town AFC, founded in 1948, plays in the Bridgewater Office Supplies Manchester League and has a ground at Blocksage's Playing Fields, Birch Lane, next to Dukinfield Rugby Club. Dukinfield Town were winners of the Manchester Senior Cup in 1971, the final was played at Maine Road. Manchester Senior Cup archive.

It is the home of Dukinfield Central Bowling Club who play in the Tameside Mens Crown Green Bowling League and have won the premier division title in 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Public services
Dukinfield's town hall provides some limited civic facilities, including a police station and registry office, with the majority of local administration being based at Tameside Council headquarters, in Ashton-under-Lyne.

Dukinfield has a public library which is situated in Concord Way, as part of a small shopping precinct. Morrisons have a supermarket in the town. The old library was situated on Town Lane on land donated by the Astley family who donated money towards the building. There is a park, around a quarter-mile from the town hall, providing gardens, a play area and leisure facilities.

A public swimming pool is now closed and has been turned into a fitness centre with an indoor running track. It is available as part of the borough facilities offered by Tameside Sport, as well as two full-size sports pitches, these are currently used by the town's rugby and football teams. Rayner Stephens High School provides artificial multi-sports pitches, which can be reserved for use by the general public, outside school hours.

Sportsmen

 * First-class cricketer Norman 'Buddy' Oldfield (1911-1996) was born in Dukinfield. He played first class cricket for Lancashire and Northamptonshire from 1935 to 1954, and for England in 1939.
 * Tony Brooks (1932-2022), 1950s Formula One driver with six Grand Prix victories.
 * Tony Durose was born in Dukinfield and played first-class cricket for Northamptonshire from 1964 to 1969.

Actors and actresses

 * Kathy Staff (1928–2008)
 * Shirley Stelfox (1941–2015)
 * John Normington (1937–2007)

Musicians

 * John Lever, drummer with the Chameleons, the Sun & the Moon, later Red Sided Garter Snakes.
 * Ronnie Hazlehurst, celebrated composer and arranger of TV and radio theme music.
 * Kevin Parrott, record producer, musician. Producer of "Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs" by Brian and Michael, and the "Brian" of the said act.

Politicians

 * Carole James, Canadian politician and former Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia

Scientists

 * Peter Daszak, zoologist
 * Dennis Walsh, astronomer

Business

 * Roderick Jones (1877–1962), head of Reuters, was born at Dukinfield.
 * Wayne Griffiths - President of SEAT

Twin towns and sister cities
Champagnole is the twin town of Dukinfield since 1958. It is situated in Jura, France.

title: Dukinfield


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Out-group homogeneity

The out-group homogeneity effect is the perception of out-group members as more similar to one another than are in-group members, e.g. "they are alike; we are diverse". Perceivers tend to have impressions about the diversity or variability of group members around those central tendencies or typical attributes of those group members. Thus, outgroup stereotypicality judgments are overestimated, supporting the view that out-group stereotypes are overgeneralizations. The term "outgroup homogeneity effect", "outgroup homogeneity bias" or "relative outgroup homogeneity" have been explicitly contrasted with "outgroup homogeneity" in general, the latter referring to perceived outgroup variability unrelated to perceptions of the ingroup.

The outgroup homogeneity effect is sometimes referred to as "outgroup homogeneity bias". Such nomenclature hints at a broader meta-theoretical debate that is present in the field of social psychology. This debate centres on the validity of heightened perceptions of ingroup and outgroup homogeneity, where some researchers view the homogeneity effect as an example of cognitive bias and error, while other researchers view the effect as an example of normal and often adaptive social perception. The out-group homogeneity effect has been found using a wide variety of different social groups, from political and racial groups to age and gender groups.

The out-group homogeneity effect is part of a broader field of research that examines perceived group variability. This area includes in-group homogeneity effects as well as out-group homogeneity effects, and it also deals with perceived group variability effects that are not linked to in-group/out-group membership, such as effects that are related to the power, status, and size of groups. The out-group homogeneity effect has been found using a wide variety of different social groups, from political and racial groups to age and gender groups. The implications of this effect on stereotyping have been noted.

Empirical support
An example of this phenomenon comes from a study where researchers asked 90 sorority members to judge the degree of within-group similarity for their own and 2 other groups. It was found that every participant judged their own sorority members to be more dissimilar than the members of the other groups.

Racial investigation
In an experiment, researchers revealed that people of other races do seem to look more alike than members of one's own race. When white students were shown faces of a few white and a few black individuals, they later more accurately recognized white faces they had seen and often falsely recognized black faces not seen before. The opposite results were found when subjects consisted of black individuals.

Explanations
This bias was found to be unrelated to the number of group and non-group members individuals knew. One might think that people thought members of their own groups were more varied and different simply because they knew them better and thus have more information about ingroups, but this is actually not the case. The out-group homogeneity bias was found between groups such as "men" and "women" who obviously interact frequently.

Elsewhere, this difference is attributed to differences in how people store or process in-group versus out-group information. However, this concept has been challenged due to some cases in which in-groups view themselves as homogeneous. Researchers have postulated that such an effect is present when viewing a group as homogeneous helps to promote in-group solidarity. Experiments on the topic found that in-group homogeneity is displayed when people who highly identify with a group are presented with stereotypical information about that group.

Self-categorization theory
Self-categorization theory attributes the outgroup homogeneity effect to the differing contexts that are present when perceiving outgroups and ingroups. For outgroups, a perceiver will experience an intergroup context and therefore attend to differences between the two groups. Consequently, less attention is paid to differences between outgroup members and this leads to perceptions of outgroup homogeneity. When perceiving ingroup members a perceiver may experience either an intergroup context or an intragroup context. In an intergroup context the ingroup would also be predicted to be seen as comparatively homogeneous as the perceiver attends to the differences between "us" and "them" (in other words, depersonalization occurs). However, in an intragroup context the perceiver may be motivated to attend to differences with the group (between "me" and "others in the group") leading to perceptions of comparative ingroup heterogeneity. As perceivers are less often motivated to perform intra-group outgroup comparison, this leads to an overall outgroup homogeneity effect.

The self-categorization theory account is supported by evidence showing that in an intergroup context both the ingroup and outgroup will be perceived as more homogenous, while when judged in isolation the ingroup will be perceived as comparatively heterogeneous. The self-categorization theory account eliminates the need to posit differing processing mechanisms for ingroups and outgroups, as well as accounting for findings of outgroup homogeneity in the minimal group paradigm.

Social identity theory
Another body of research looked at ingroup and outgroup homogeneity from the perspective of social identity theory. While complementary to the self-categorization theory account, this body of research was concerned more with specific homogeneity effects associated with the motivations of perceivers. They derived from social identity theory the prediction that comparative ingroup homogeneity will at times arise due to demands to establish a positive and distinct social identity. For example, members of minority groups would be particularly likely to accentuate intragroup solidity through the emphasis of ingroup homogeneity. This is because minority group members, due to their minority status, are likely to experience threat to their self-esteem. This was empirically supported.

Within the same tradition it was also hypothesised that an ingroup homogeneity effect would emerge on ingroup defining dimensions for both minority and majority group members. This too was empirically supported. Recent research also has reaffirmed that this effect of in-group homogeneity on in-group defining dimensions and out-group homogeneity on out-group defining dimensions may occur because people use their ratings of perceived group variability to express the extent to which social groups possess specific characteristics. Like the self-categorization theory account, this recent research also suggests that the effect may occur independent of the motivational concerns described in social identity theory.

title: Out-group homogeneity


text:
Talk:International Maritime Organization

NPOVing
This needs NPOVing. It reads like a US government press release. Secretlondon 21:41, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree that this reads like a press release, but whether by the US government or not is irrelevant. The following statement is evident enough: "Of course, the numbers will never be known, but IMO has protected countless lives, saved enormous amounts of money, and prevented numerous environmental disasters over the years." --194.204.104.117 23:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I don't know whether or not the USA is really dominant in IMO decisions, though; it seems doubtful to me. Isn't most of the worldwide merchant shipping fleet European and Chinese by ownership, Panamanian and Liberian by flag?Gigacannon 14:33, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't have the exact numbers, but most of the ships that cross my desk are built in Malaysia, China, Korea, Singapore or Vietnam. The US shipbuilding industry is a footnote and a drop in the bucket in comparision.  Most vessels are flagged as Malaysian, Vanautu, Bahamas, Singapore, or other tax-friendly country.  US flagged vessels, while there are a few of them- are a very small percentage.  Who runs the IMO?  I don't know, but if this article is a press release, I doubt very much it is a US government one.--Dj245 00:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Titanic disaster
I do not believe that "By modern standards, the design of Titanic made her appallingly vulnerable". As someone directly involved with shipping I have heard stability and ship construction experts saying that the Titanic and her sister ships the Olympic and the Britannic surpassed the stability and damage control criteria of modern cruise ships. Who owns the IMO? It is part of the United Nations. Welkinridge (talk) 18:45, 1 October 2008
 * Welkinridge -- In response to your constructive observation, I been bold in moving the unsourced text here pending further development:
 * "The concept of IMO was born after the RMS Titanic disaster. By modern standards, the design of Titanic made her appallingly vulnerable. Her "watertight" bulkheads, by design, did not extend all the way to the overhead because the engineers calculated that it was impossible for the ship to take on a trim or list sufficient for water to cascade over their tops if the bulkheads were of a certain height."

 * "When Titanic struck the iceberg, these calculations were proven dismally incorrect. When people began abandoning ship, it became obvious that not nearly enough lifeboats were available. Many lives were lost in this tragedy."

 * Until that time, each nation had made its own rules about ship design, construction, and safety equipment."
 * If anyone can provide credible sources which support the analysis in this article's context, it could become a welcome addition to this article. --Tenmei (talk) 19:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Article needs major revision
This article still needs fairly major revision. I have made a start with the Introduction and History sections, and added a list of secretaries-general. The Legal Instruments section probably needs some major expansion. The Current Issues is not only out of date but seems to be a US-originated statement referring that nation's perspective on its work (with no mention of initiatives by other countries) - the connection with "Maritime Domain Awareness" is tenuous and should not be mentioned here. Davidships (talk) 16:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

List of member states
Does the article really need a complete list of IMO member states? Since most countries in the world are IMO members the list is quite long while carrying very little information. Also the map IMO Participation.svg is in the info box and has the same information in a much more accessible way. I don't like deleting other people's work, but unless someone objects here, I'll remove the list of member states in a few days. Jaho (talk) 12:56, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Done so now. As an alternative I've linked the original list on www.imo.org in the external links section. Jaho (talk) 15:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the map needs improving. At the standard scale, the bright-green of the associate states is indistinguishable from the medium-green of the members (and it's not much better even if you click on the image to look at the full-size version).  A contrasting colour (e.g. red) would be much better. Wardog (talk) 15:55, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

'United Nations' is a name
'United Nations' is a name, not a description. 'International Business Machines' is another example of a name (as opposed to a description). The expression 'the United Nations' is therefore confused language, like it also would be mistaken to refer to IBM as 'the International Business Machines'. It would improve the language of this article if United Nations were properly referred to by using its name as just that, a name. That is to say one should refer to UN as simply 'United Nations', and avoid referring to it as 'the United Nations'. Of course this also applies to 'International Maritime Organization' (a name, not a description). --62.16.186.44 (talk) 03:07, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You are right - it is indeed a name.
 * But in idiomatic English many names, particularly of this type of construct, commonly carry the definite article: United States of America, Tower of London, Pacific Ocean, House of Lords...
 * If you insist, I suggest that you try it on Talk:United Nations first. Davidships (talk) 02:18, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Environmental issues
The IMO's role for environment protection is mentioned only briefly, with a climate change paragrah in the "Current issues" section and a bullet point about the Marine environment Protection Committee (MEPC). Wärtsiläìs annual report 2015 (p. 74) mentions IMO as one of the main sources of legal requirements for environmental protection (together with World Bank guidelines and national/regional legislation), so this aspect might be currently underdeveloped in the article. I am not sure because I've not yet checked additional sources.

"The majority of the international environmental policies and requirements for Wärtsilä’s products and solutions are set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe), and the World Bank. On the national or regional level, organisations such as the U.S. EPA, the European Commission and market areas such as Germany, Japan, and India are considered the most important policy and regulatory directors for Wärtsilä products.

The IMO is responsible for adopting its own standards for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention and control of marine pollution and emissions from vessels. The IMO regulates nitrogen and sulphur oxide emissions as well as ballast water treatment procedures and limitations. The World Bank/IFC (International Finance Corporation) provides general and industry specific instructions of good international practices such as the thermal power plants' EHS (Environmental, Health, and Safety) guideline, which is today the minimum environmental standard in global power plant projects. It is adhered to in most of the finance activities for projects in emerging markets. In the European Union, the EU Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) sets the requirements to minimise pollution from different industrial sources throughout the EU."

--91.158.61.189 (talk) 13:53, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

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Guinea-Bissau
Why is Guinea-Bissau missing from the map of member states, although it is listed in as having joined the organisation in 1977. Did it leave, and if so, why is this not mentioned anywhere?

Keep on the good work! Chesteroy (talk) 13:37, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * And if the map is to be modified, may I request that a different colour is used for the three Associate members, their little dots are too similar to the main colour. - Davidships (talk) 21:25, 3 January 2024 (UTC)


text:
Baudolino

Baudolino is a 2000 novel by Umberto Eco about the adventures of a man named Baudolino in the known and mythical Christian world of the 12th century.

Baudolino was translated into English in 2001 by William Weaver. The novel presented a number of particular difficulties in translation, not the least of which is that there are ten or so pages written in a made-up language that is a mixture of Latin, medieval Italian and other languages (intended to reconstruct how a barely-literate Italian peasant boy of the 12th century would have tried to write in the vernacular).

Saint Baudolino, a historically-attested hermit of the eighth century, is the Patron Saint of Alessandria, and thus it would be natural for a boy born there to bear his name.

Plot summary
In the year of 1204, Baudolino of Alessandria enters Constantinople, unaware of the Fourth Crusade that has thrown the city into chaos. In the confusion, he meets Niketas Choniates and saves his life. Niketas is amazed by his language genius, speaking many languages he has never heard, and Baudolino begins to recount his life story to Niketas.

His story begins in 1155, when Baudolino – a highly talented Italian peasant boy – is sold to and adopted by the emperor Frederick I. At court and on the battlefield, he is educated in reading and writing Latin and learns about the power struggles and battles of northern Italy at the time. He is sent to Paris to become a scholar.

In Paris, he gains friends (such as the Archpoet, Abdul, Robert de Boron and Kyot, the purported source of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival) and learns about the legendary kingdom of Prester John. From this event onward, Baudolino dreams of reaching this fabled land.

The earlier parts of the story follow the general historical and geographical outlines of 12th-century Europe, with special emphasis on the Emperor Frederick's futile efforts to subdue the increasingly independent and assertive city states of Northern Italy. Baudolino, both a beloved adopted son to the Emperor and a loyal native of the newly founded and highly rebellious town of Alessandria, plays a key role in reconciliation between the Emperor and the Alessandria townspeople, who are led by Baudolino's biological father; a way is found for the Emperor to recognize Alessandria's independence without losing face. (It is no accident that Alessandria is Umberto Eco's own hometown.) During the siege, Baudolino works on the side of Frederick Barbarossa, but concocts a plan to help win the Alessandrian townspeople independence. He attempts to convince the emperor's forces that Alessandria is more prepared for a siege than them through stuffing a cow with the last of Alessandria's wheat and sends the cow out to the Emperor's forces. When the cow is cut open, it reveals a full belly of wheat. The emperor's forces are convinced that Alessandria is not worth besieging, and thus leave.

The incident of the death of Emperor Frederick, while on the Third Crusade, is a key element of the plot. This part involves an element of secret history – the book asserts that Emperor Frederick had not drowned in a river, as history records, but died mysteriously at night while hosted at the castle of a sinister Armenian noble. This part also constitutes a historical detective mystery – specifically, a historical locked room mystery – with various suspects suggested, each of whom had a clever means of killing the Emperor, and with Baudolino acting as the detective.

After the Emperor's death, Baudolino and his friends set off on a long journey, encompassing 15 years, to find the Kingdom of Prester John. From the moment when they depart eastwards, the book becomes pure fantasy – the lands which the band travels bearing no resemblance to the continent of Asia at that or any other historical time, being rather derived from the various myths which Europeans had about Asia – including the aforementioned Christian myth of the Kingdom of Prester John, as well as the Jewish myth of the Ten Lost Tribes and the River Sambation, and some earlier accounts provided by Herodotos. Baudolino meets eunuchs, unicorns, Blemmyes, skiapods and pygmies. At one point, he falls in love with a female satyr-like creature who recounts to him the full Gnostic creation myth (Gnosticism is a pervasive presence in another of Eco's novels, Foucault's Pendulum). Philosophical debates are mixed with comedy, epic adventure and creatures drawn from medieval bestiaries.

After many disastrous adventures, the destruction of Prester John's Kingdom by the White Huns followed by a long stint of slavery at the hands of the Old Man of the Mountain, Baudolino and surviving members of his band of friends return to Constantinople undergoing the agony of the Fourth Crusade – the book's starting point. Niketas Choniates helps Baudolino discover the truth about how the Emperor Frederick died – with shattering results for Baudolino and his friends.

Characters in Baudolino

 * Invented by Eco
 * Baudolino – young man of Alessandria, protagonist, apparently a reference to the patron saint.
 * The monopod Gavagai, a reference to Quine's example of indeterminacy of translation.
 * The putative successors of Hypatia of Alexandria
 * Deacon John, leprous sub-ruler of Pndapetzim, apparently based on Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.

 * Other fictional or legendary beings
 * Kyot
 * Gagliaudo Aulari, legendary saviour of Alessandria, and his wife, who are Baudolino's biological parents
 * Prester John
 * Basilisk
 * Manticore
 * Chimera
 * Satyrs
 * Blemmyes
 * Panotti
 * Unicorn
 * Cynocephaly
 * Roc

 * Historical
 * Frederick Barbarossa
 * Niketas Choniates
 * Rainald of Dassel
 * The Old Man of the Mountain
 * Pope Alexander III
 * Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy
 * The Archpoet (unknown except through his poetry)
 * Otto of Freising
 * Rahewin
 * A member of the ancient Artsruni noble clan
 * Andronicus I Comnenus
 * Stephen Hagiochristophorites
 * Isaac II Angelos
 * The Venerable Bede
 * White Huns
 * Enrico Dandolo
 * Robert de Boron

Release details

 * 2000, Italy, Bompiani (ISBN 88-452-4736-8), Pub date ? ? 2000, hardback (First edition, Italian)
 * 2001, Brazil, Editora Record (ISBN 85-01-06026-7), Pub date ? ? 2001, paperback (Portuguese edition)
 * 2002, UK, Secker & Warburg (ISBN 0-436-27603-8), Pub date 15 October 2002, hardback
 * 2002, USA, Harcourt (ISBN 0-15-100690-3), Pub date 15 October 2002, hardcover
 * 2002, France, Grasset and Fasquelle (ISBN 2-246-61501-1), Pub date 12 February 2002, paperback (French edition)
 * 2002, USA, Recorded Books (ISBN 1-4025-2814-0), Pub date ? October 2002, audiobook (cassette edition)
 * 2003, Italy, Fabbri - RCS Libri (ISBN 88-452-5195-0), Pub date ? January 2003, paperback (Italian edition)
 * 2003, USA, Harvest Books (ISBN 0-15-602906-5), Pub date 6 October 2003, paperback

title: Baudolino


text:
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title: Template:Monty Python