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Hamzanama

The Hamzanama (Persian/Urdu: حمزه‌نامه Hamzenâme, lit. 'Epic of Hamza') or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza (Persian/Urdu: داستان امیر حمزه, Dâstân-e Amir Hamze, lit. 'Adventures of Amir Hamza') narrates the legendary exploits of Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib, an uncle of Muhammad. Most of the stories are extremely fanciful, "a continuous series of romantic interludes, threatening events, narrow escapes, and violent acts". The Hamzanama chronicles the fantastic adventures of Hamza as he and his band of heroes fight the enemies.

The stories, from a long-established oral tradition, were written down in Persian, the language of the courts of Persianate societies, in multiple volumes, presumably in the era of Mahmud of Ghazni (r. 998–1030). In the West, the work is best known for the enormous illustrated manuscript, the Akbar Hamzanama, commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar about 1562. The written text augmented the story as traditionally told orally in dastan performances. The dastan (storytelling tradition) about Amir Hamza persists far and wide up to Bengal and Arakan, as the Mughal Empire controlled those territories. The longest version of the Hamzanama exists in Urdu and contains 46 volumes comprising over 45,000 pages.

Iranian origins
In Persian, dastan and qissa both mean "story," and the narrative genre they refer to goes back to medieval Iran. William L. Hanaway, who has made a close study of Persian dastans, describes them as "popular romances" that were "created, elaborated, and transmitted" by professional storytellers. At least as early as the ninth century, the dastan was a widely popular form of story-telling. Dastan-narrators told tales of heroic romance and adventure—stories about gallant princes and their encounters with evil kings, enemy champions, demons, magicians, jinns, divine emissaries, tricky secret agents called ayyars, and beautiful princesses who might be human or of the Pari ("fairy") race. Their ultimate subject matter was always simple: "razm o bazm," the battlefield and the elegant courtly life, war and love. Hanaway mentions five principal dastans surviving from the pre-Safavid period (that is, from the fifteenth century and earlier): those that grew up around the adventures of the world-conqueror Alexander, the great Persian king Darius, the Prophet Muhammad's uncle Hamza, the legendary king Firoz Shah, and a trickster-hero named Samak the Ayyar. Of all the early dastans, the Hamza romance is thought to be the oldest.

The romance of Hamza claims to go back to the life of its hero, Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib, the paternal uncle of the Prophet, who was slain in the Battle of Uhud (625 CE) by a slave instigated by a woman named Hind bint Utbah, whose relatives Hamza had killed at Badr. Hind bint Utbah then went to the battlefield and mutilated the dead Hamza's body, cutting off his ears and nose, cutting out his liver and chewing it to fulfill the vow of vengeance she had made. Later, when the Prophet conquered Mecca, Hind bint Utbah accepted Islam, and was pardoned.

It has been argued that the romance of Hamza may actually have begun with the adventures of a Persian namesake of the original Hamza: Hamza ibn Abdullah, a member of a radical Islamic sect called the Kharijites, who was the leader of a rebel movement against the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his successors. This Persian Hamzah lived in the early ninth century, and seems to have been a dashing rebel whose colorful exploits gave rise to many stories. He was known to have fought against the Abbasid caliph-monarch, and the local warriors from Sistan, Makran, Sindh and Khorasan are said to have joined him in the battle, which lasted until the Caliph died. After the battle, Hamza left, inexplicably, for Sarandip (Ceylon) and China, leaving behind 5000 warriors to protect the powerless against the powerful. His disciples wrote the account of his travels and expeditions in a book Maghazi-e-Amir Hamza, which was the original source of Dastan-e-Amir Hamza. As these stories circulated, they eventually transferred to the earlier Hamza, who was an orthodox Muslim champion acceptable to all.

The seventeenth-century Zubdat ur-rumuz actually gives two conflicting origin-stories for the Hamzanama. The first is that after Hamza's death, ladies living near the Prophet's house told praising anecdotes to get the Prophet's attention; one Masud Makki then produced the first written version of these stories to divert the Meccans from their hostility to the Prophet. The second is that wise courtiers devised the romance to cure a brain fever suffered by one of the Abbasid caliphs. The 1909 Indo-Persian version also gives two conflicting sources. The first is that the dastan was invented by Abbas, who used to tell it to the Prophet, his nephew, to cheer him up with stories of his other uncle's glory. The second is that the dastan was invented during the reign of Muawiyah I (661–79) to keep loyalty to the Prophet's family alive among the people, despite official hostility and vilification.

In his study of the Arabian epic, Malcolm Lyons discusses Sirat Hamzat al-Pahlawan, which is a parallel cycle of tales about Amir Hamza in Arabic, with similarities of names and places to the Hamzanama: thus Anushirwan corresponds to Nausheravan, the vizier Buzurjmihr is synonymous to Buzurjmehr, and there are parallels for the Persian capital Midan and also jinn of Jabal Qaf. But it is difficult to prove who has borrowed from whom.

Spread down to the 15th century
The Hamza story soon grew, ramified, traveled and gradually spread over immense areas of the Muslim world. It was translated into Arabic (Sīrat Amīr Ḥamza); there is a twelfth-century Georgian version, and a fifteenth-century Turkish version twenty-four volumes long. Moreover, even in Iran the story continued to develop over time: by the mid-nineteenth century the Hamza romance had grown to such an extent that it was printed in an edition comprising about twelve hundred very large pages. By this time the dastan was often called Rumuz-e Hamza (The Subtleties of Hamza), and had also made itself conspicuously at home in India.

Persian

Annemarie Schimmel judges that the Hamza story must have been popular in the Indian subcontinent from the days of Mahmud of Ghazni in the early eleventh century. The earliest solid evidence, however, seems to be a late-fifteenth-century set of paintings that illustrate the story; these were crudely executed, possibly in Jaunpur, perhaps for a not-too-affluent patron.

In 1555, Babur noted with disapproval that the leading literary figure of Khurasan had recently "wasted his time" in composing an imitation of the cycle. The great emperor Akbar (1556–1605), far from sharing his grandfather's attitude, conceived and supervised the immense task of illustrating the whole romance, producing a manuscript now known as the Akbar Hamzanama. As Akbar's court chronicler tells us, Hamza's adventures were "represented in twelve volumes, and clever painters made the most astonishing illustrations for no less than one thousand and four hundred passages of the story." The illustrated manuscript thus created became the supreme achievement of Mughal art: "of all the loot carried off from Delhi by Nadir Shah in 1739 (including the Peacock Throne), it was only the Hamza-nama, 'painted with images that defy the imagination,' that Emperor Muhammad Shah pleaded to have returned."

The Hamza story left traces in the Deccan as well. One Persian romance-narrator, Haji Qissah-Khvan Hamadani, records his arrival in 1612 at Hyderabad, at the court of Sultan Abdullah Qutb Shah (1611-72) of Golconda. The Haji writes, "I had brought with me a number of manuscripts of the Rumuz-e Hamza. When I presented them in the king's service, I was ordered, 'Prepare a summary of them.' In obedience to this order this book Zubdat ur-rumuz (The Cream of the Rumuz) has been prepared." At least two other seventeenth-century Indo-Persian Hamza manuscripts survive, dated 1096 AH [1684–85 CE] and 1099 AH [1687–88 CE], as well as various undated and later ones.

In the course of countless retellings before faithful audiences, the Indo-Persian Hamza story seems to have grown generally longer and more elaborate throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By the eighteenth century, the Hamza story was so well-known in India that it inspired an indigenous Indo-Persian imitation, the massive Bostan-e Khiyal (Garden of "Khiyal") by Mir Muhammad Taqi. By the nineteenth century, however, Persian was in a slow decline as an Indian language, for its political and cultural place was being taken by Pashto and the Indic languages. It is in these languages that the dastan found a hospitable environment to survive and flourish.

Urdu
The Hamza romance spread gradually, usually in its briefer and less elaborate forms, into a number of the modern languages of South Asia. Pashto and Sindhi were particularly hospitable to the Hamza story, and at least in Pashto it continues to flourish today, with printed pamphlet versions being produced. In Bengali it was popular among Muslims as early as the eighteenth century, in a long verse romance called Amirhamjar puthi, which its authors, Fakir Garibullah and Saiyad Hamja, described as a translation from the Persian. This romance was printed repeatedly in pamphlet form in the nineteenth century, and even occasionally in the twentieth. Various Hindi versions were produced too—but above all, the story of Hamza flourished in Urdu.

The earliest Hamza retelling in Urdu exists in a late Dakhani prose version called Qissa-e jang-e amir Hamza (Qissa of the War of Amir Hamza) (1784). Very little is known about this work's background. It was probably translated from a Persian text. In 1801, Khalil Ali Khan Ashk, a member of the Hindustani department of the famous Fort William College in Calcutta, composed the earliest printed version of the dastan in Urdu: the 500-page Dastan-e amir Hamza, consisting of twenty-two dastans, or chapters, grouped into four "volumes."

Ashk claims that the story he is telling goes back to the time of Mahmud of Ghazni, in the early eleventh century; he implies that his present text is a translation, or at least a rendering, of the written, presumably Persian text that the distinguished dastan-narrators of Mahmud's court first set down. Ashk also claims that his sources, the narrators of Mahmud's court, compiled fourteen volumes of Hamza's adventures. However, we have no evidence that Mahmud of Ghazni ever sponsored the production of such a work. Gyan Chand Jain thinks that in fact Ashk based his version on the Dakhani Qissa-e jang-e amir Hamza because his plot agrees in many important particulars with the early Persian Qissa-e Hamza, though it disagrees in many others.

However, the most popular version of the dastan in Urdu was that of Aman Ali Khan Bahadur Ghalib Lakhnavi published by Hakim Mohtasham Elaih Press, Calcutta in 1855. In the 1860s, one of the early publications of Munshi Nawal Kishore, the legendary publisher from Lucknow, was Ashk's Dastan-e amir Hamza. Nawal Kishore eventually replaced Ashk's version with a revised and improved Dastan-e amir Hamza (1871), explaining to the public that the Ashk version was marred by its "archaic idioms and convoluted style." Munshi Nawal Kishore commissioned Maulvi Syed Abdullah Bilgrami to revise Ali Khan Bahadur Ghalib's translation and published it in 1871. This version proved extraordinarily successful. The Bilgrami version has almost certainly been more often reprinted, and more widely read, than any other in Urdu. In 1887 Syed Tasadduq Husain, a proofreader at Nawal Kishore Press, revised and embellished this edition. In the twentieth century, Abdul Bari Aasi adapted this version by removing all the couplets from it and toning down the melodramatic scenes.

Owing to the popularity of the Ashk and Bilgrami versions in Urdu, Nawal Kishore also brought out in 1879 a counterpart work in Hindi called Amir Hamza ki dastan, by Pandits Kalicharan and Maheshdatt. This work was quite an undertaking in its own right: 520 large pages of typeset Devanagari script, in a prose adorned not with elegant Persian expressions but with exactly comparable Sanskritisms, and interspersed not with Persian verse forms but with Indic ones like kavitt, soratha, and chaupai. The Amir Hamza ki dastan, with its assimilation of a highly Islamic content into a self-consciously Sanskritized form, offers a fascinating early glimpse of the development of Hindi. The heirs of Nawal Kishore apparently published a 662-page Hindi version of the dastan as late as 1939.

During this same period Nawal Kishore added a third version of the Hamza story: a verse rendering of the romance, a new masnavi by Tota Ram Shayan called Tilism-e shayan ma ruf bah dastan-e amir Hamza published in 1862. At 30,000 lines, it was the longest Urdu masnavi ever written in North India, with the exception of versions of the Arabian Nights. Yet Shayan is said to have composed it in only six months. This version too apparently found a good sale, for by 1893 Nawal Kishore was printing it for the sixth time.

1881–1905 Kishore Dastan-e amir Hamza
In 1881, Nawal Kishore finally began publishing his own elaborate multi-volume Hamza series. He hired Muhammad Husain Jah, Ahmad Husain Qamar, and Tasadduq Husain, the most famous Lucknow dastan-narrators, to compose the stories. This version of the Dastan-e amir Hamza was an extraordinary achievement: not only the crowning glory of the Urdu dastan tradition, but also surely the longest single romance cycle in world literature, since the forty-six volumes average 900 pages each. Publication of the cycle began with the first four volumes of Tilism-e hoshruba ("The Stunning Tilism") by Muhammad Husain Jah; these volumes were published between 1883 and 1890, after which Jah had differences with Nawal Kishore and left the Press. These four volumes by Jah proved immensely popular, and are still considered the heart of the cycle. After Jah, the two main architects of the cycle, Ahmad Husain Qamar (nineteen volumes) and Tasadduq Husain (nineteen volumes) took over the work from 1892 to its completion around 1905.

These writers were not the original creators of the tales and by the time the Nawal Kishore Press began publishing them, they had already evolved in their form and structure. As these dastans were mainly meant for oral rendition, the storytellers added local colour to these tales. Storytelling had become a popular craft in India by nineteenth century. The storytellers narrated their long winding tales of suspense, mystery, adventure, magic, fantasy, and the marvellous rolled into one to their inquisitive audiences. Each day, the session would end at a point where the curious public would be left to wonder as to what happened next. Some of the most famous storytellers of Hamza dastan were Mir Ahmad Ali (who belonged to Lucknow but later moved to Rampur), Mir Qasim Ali, Hakim Sayed Asghar Ali Khan (who came to Rampur during the tenure of Nawab Mohammad Saeed Khan i.e. 1840–1855), Zamin Ali Jalal Lucknowi, Munshi Amba Prasad Rasa Lucknowi (a disciple of Mir Ahmad Ali who later converted to Islam and was rechristened Abdur Rahman), his son Ghulam Raza, Haider Mirza Tasawwur Lucknowi (a disciple of Asghar Ali), Haji Ali Ibn Mirza Makkhoo Beg, his son Syed Husain Zaidi and Murtuza Husain Visaal.

The final arrangement of the cycle was into eight daftars or sections. The first four daftars—the two-volume Naushervan nama (The Book of Naushervan); the one-volume Kochak bakhtar (The Lesser West); the one-volume Bala bakhtar (The Upper West); and the two-volume Iraj nama (The Book of Iraj)—were closer to the Persian romance, and were linked more directly to Hamza's own adventures, especially those of the earlier part of his life. Then came the fifth daftar, the Tilism-e hoshruba itself, begun by Jah (four volumes) and completed by Qamar (three volumes). The remaining three daftars, though they make up the bulk of the cycle in quantity, emphasize the adventures of Hamza's sons and grandsons, and are generally of less literary excellence. Though no library in the world has a full set of the forty-six volumes, a microfilm set at the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago is on the verge of completion. This immense cycle claims to be a translation of a (mythical) Persian original written by Faizi, one of the great literary figures of Akbar's court; this claim is made repeatedly on frontispieces, and here and there within the text. Like this purported Persian original, the Urdu version thus contains exactly eight daftars—even though, as the Urdu cycle grew, the eighth daftar had to become longer and longer until it comprised twenty-seven volumes.

This astonishing treasure-house of romance, which at its best contains some of the finest narrative prose ever written in Urdu, is considered the delight of its age; many of its volumes were reprinted again and again, well into the twentieth century. Although towards the end of the nineteenth century dastans had reached an extraordinary peak of popularity, the fate of dastan literature was sealed by the first quarter of the twentieth century. By the time of the great dastan-narrator Mir Baqir Ali's death in 1928, dastan volumes were being rejected by the educated elite in favor of Urdu and Hindi novels—many of which were in fact very dastan-like.

Indonesian versions
The Hikayat Amir Hamzah is the classical Malay version translated directly from the Persian originally written on traditional paper in old Jawi script. Versions are also found in other languages of Indonesia, including Javanese (Serat Menak), Sundanese (Amir Hamjah), Bugis, Balinese and Acehnese.

Modern translations
Two English-language translations have been published based on the 1871 Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami version published by Munshi Nawal Kishore press. The first is an abridged translation called The Romance Tradition in Urdu by Frances Pritchett of Columbia University. It is available in an expanded version on the website of the translator. In 2008 Musharraf Ali Farooqi, a Pakistani-Canadian author, translated the Lakhnavi/Bilgrami version into English as The Adventures of Amir Hamza: Lord of the Auspicious Planetary Conjunction. He took seven years to translate this thousand-page adventure, producing a very close translation, without abridging the ornate passages.

A Pakistani author, Maqbool Jahangir, wrote Dastan-e-Amir Hamza for children in the Urdu language. His version contains 10 volumes and was published by Ferozsons (also Ferozsons Publishers).

Dastan-e-Amir Hamza
The collection of Hamza stories begins with a short section describing events that set the stage for the appearance of the central hero. In this case, the place is Ctesiphon (Madain) in Iraq, and the initial protagonist is Buzurjmehr, a child of humble parentage who displays both a remarkable ability to decipher ancient scripts and great acumen in political affairs. By luck and calculated design, Buzurjmehr displaces the current vizier, and attaches himself first to the reigning king, Kobad, and then to his successor, Naushervan.

Nonetheless, a bitter rivalry has been seeded, for the widow of the wicked dead vizier bears a son she names Bakhtak Bakhtyar, and he in turn becomes a lifelong nemesis of both Hamza and Buzurjmehr. The latter soon relates a vision to Naushervan that a child still in embryo in Arabia will eventually bring about his downfall; Naushervan responds in Herod-like fashion, dispatching Buzurjmihr to Arabia with an order to kill all pregnant women. Emerging unscathed by this terrible threat are Hamza and Amar Umayya, who is destined to be Hamza's faithful companion. Unlike most Persian heroes, Hamza is not born to royalty, but is nonetheless of high birth, the son of the chief of Mecca. An auspicious horoscope prophesies an illustrious future for him. Hamza shows an early aversion to idol-worship, and with the aid of a supernatural instructor, develops a precocious mastery of various martial arts. He soon puts these skills to good use, defeating upstart warriors in individual combat, preventing the Yemeni army from interdicting tribute to Naushervan, and defending Mecca from predatory – but not religious – foes. Naushervan learns of these sundry exploits, and invites Hamza to his court, where he promises him his daughter Mihr Nigar in marriage. The girl is thrilled at this match, for she has long yearned for Hamza, and has had one soulful but chaste evening with him.

First, however, Naushervan sends Hamza to Ceylon to fend off a threat from Landhaur, and thence onto Greece, where Bakhtak Bakhtyar has insidiously poisoned the kings against him. Hamza, of course, proves his mettle in these and other tests, but his marriage to Mihr Nigar is forestalled by the treacherous Gostaham, who arranges her nuptials with another. Hamza is seriously wounded in battle with Zubin, Mihr Nigar's prospective groom, and is rescued by the vazir of the Pari king Shahpal, ruler of the realm of Qaf. In return for this act of kindness, Hamza gallantly agrees to subdue the rebellious elephant-eared Devs who have seized Shahpal's kingdom. The whole expedition to Qaf is to take eighteen days, and Hamza insists on fulfilling this debt of honor before his wedding. However, he is destined to be detained in Qaf not for eighteen days, but for eighteen years.

At this point, the shape of the story radically changes: adventures take place simultaneously in Qaf and on earth, and the dastan moves back and forth in reporting them. While Hamza in Qaf is killing Devs, trying to deal with Shahpal's powerful daughter Asman Pari whom he has been forced to marry, and looking desperately for ways to get home, Amar in the (human) World is holding Hamza's forces together, moving from fort to fort, and trying to defend Mihr Nigar from Naushervan's efforts to recapture her.

While Hamza and his allies navigate various shoals of courtly intrigue, they also wage a prolonged war against infidels. Although the ostensible goal of these conflicts is to eradicate idolatry and convert opponents to Islam, the latter is usually related with little fanfare at the end of the episode. Champions often proclaim their faith in Allah as they take to the battlefield, and sometimes reproach unbelievers for failing to grasp that the Muslims' past military success is prima facie evidence of the righteousness of their cause.

After eighteen years, much suffering, and more divine intervention, Hamza does finally escape from Qaf; he makes his way home, and is reunited with his loyal companions. In the longest and most elaborate scene in the dastan, he marries the faithful Mihr Nigar. But by this time, the story is nearing its end. About two-fifths of the text deals with Hamza's early years, about two-fifths with the years in Qaf, and only one-fifth with the time after his return. The remaining years of Hamza's long life are filled with activity; some of it is fruitful, but usually in a kind of equivocal way. Hamza and Mihr Nigar have one son, Qubad, who is killed at an early age; soon afterwards, Mihr Nigar herself is killed.

Hamza, distraught, vows to spend the rest of his life tending her tomb. But his enemies pursue him there, kidnap him, and torment him; his old companions rally round to rescue him, and his old life reclaims him. He fights against Naushervan and others, travels, has adventures, marries a series of wives. His sons and grandsons by various wives appear one by one, perform heroic feats, and frequently die young. He and Amar have a brief but traumatic quarrel. Toward the very end of his life he must enter the Dark Regions, pursuing a series of frightful cannibal kings; while their incursions are directly incited by Naushervan, Amar's own act of vicarious cannibalism seems somehow implicated as well. Almost all Hamza's army is lost in the Dark Regions, and he returns in a state of grief and desolation. Finally, he is summoned by the Prophet, his nephew, back to Mecca to beat off an attack by the massed infidel armies of the world. He succeeds, losing all his companions except Amar in the process, but dies at the hands of the woman Hindah, whose son he had killed. She devours his liver, cuts his body into seventy pieces, then hastily accepts Islam to save herself. The Prophet and the angels pray over every piece of the body, and Hamzah is rewarded with the high celestial rank of Commander of the Faithful.

Tilism-e hoshruba

In this new tale, Amir Hamza's adventures bring him to Hoshruba, a magical world or "tilism". The tilism of Hoshruba was conjured by sorcerers in defiance of Allah and the laws of the physical world. However, being a creation of magic, Hoshruba is not a permanent world. At the moment of its creation a person was named who would unravel this magical world at an appointed time using the tilism key. With the passage of time, the whereabouts of the tilism key were forgotten, and the usurper Afrasiyab became the Master of the Tilism and Emperor of Sorcerers. Afrasiyab and his sorceress Empress Heyrat ruled over Hoshruba's three regions named Zahir the Manifest, Batin the Hidden, and Zulmat the Dark, which contained countless dominions and smaller tilisms governed by sorcerer kings and sorceress queens, and where the dreaded Seven Monsters of the Grotto lurked.

Emperor Afrasiyab was among the seven immortal sorcerers of Hoshruba who could not be killed while their counterparts lived. His fortune came to reveal itself on the palms of his hands. His left hand warned him of inauspicious moments and the right hand revealed auspicious ones. Whenever anyone called out his name in the tilism, Afrasiyab's magic alerted him to the call. He possessed the Book of Sameri that contained an account of every event inside and outside the tilism. Afrasiyab used a magic mirror that projected his body into his court during his absence, and many magic doubles who replaced him when he was in imminent danger. Besides sorcerers and sorceresses, the emperor also commanded magic slaves and magic slave girls who fought at his command and performed any and all tasks assigned them.

As Hoshruba's time neared its end, Emperor Afrasiyab resolved to defend his empire and tilism, and foil the conqueror of the tilism when he appeared. The story of Hoshruba opens where the false god Laqa—an eighty-five-foot-tall, pitch-black giant – and one of Amir Hamza's foremost enemies – is in flight after suffering a fresh defeat at Amir Hamza's hands. He and his supporters arrive near Hoshruba and solicit the aid of the Emperor of Sorcerers.

Before long, Amir Hamza's armies pursuing Laqa find themselves at war with Afrasiyab and his army of sorcerers. When hostilities break out Amir Hamza's grandson, Prince Asad, is the designated conqueror of the tilism of Hoshruba. Prince Asad sets out at the head of a magnificent army to conquer Hoshruba. With him are five matchless tricksters headed by the prince of tricksters, the incomparable Amar Ayyar, whose native wit, and wondrous talents are a match for the most powerful sorcerer's spells.

Upon learning of Prince Asad's entry into the tilism with his army, Afrasiyab dispatches a number of sorcerers and five beautiful trickster girls to foil his mission. When the trickster girls kidnap the prince, Amar Ayyar and his band of misfits continue the mission of the conqueror of the tilism with the help of Heyrat's sister, Bahar Jadu, a powerful sorceress of the tilism, who Afrasiyab had banished from his court to please his wife.

Cultural Influence
The immense popularity of the dastan had a long-lasting effect on other forms of fictional narratives. The earliest novels in Urdu as well as Hindi often seem nothing more than simplified or bowdlerized forms of Dastans. Babu Devaki Nandan Khatri's Chandrakanta and Chandrakanta Santati and Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar's Fasana-e-Azad are only the two most stellar examples of this genre. Chandrakanta bears the direct influence of dastans as witnessed in the case of eponymous protagonist Chandrakanta who is trapped in a tilism and the presence of notable ayyars. The dastan also influenced Munshi Premchand (1880-1936) who was fascinated and later on inspired by the stories of Tilism-e hoshruba that he heard at the tobacconist shop in his childhood days. The conventions of the dastan narrative also conditioned Urdu theatre: the trickster Ayyar, permanent friend of Hamza provided the convention of the hero's [comic] sidekick that achieved culmination in the Hindi cinema of the sixties.

The story is also performed in Indonesian puppet theatre, where it is called Wayang Menak. Here, Hamza is also known as Wong Agung Jayeng Rana or Amir Ambyah.

Frances Pritchett's former student at Columbia University, Pasha Mohamad Khan, who currently teaches at McGill University, researches qissa/dastan (romances) and the art of dastan-goi (storytelling), including the Hamzanama.

title: Hamzanama


text:
James S. Forrester

James S. Forrester may refer to:

 * James Forrester (politician) (James Summers Forrester, 1937–2011), member of the North Carolina General Assembly
 * James S. Forrester (cardiologist) (born 1937), American cardiologist

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

title: James S. Forrester


text:
The Circus, Bath

The Circus is a historic ring of large townhouses in the city of Bath, Somerset, England, forming a circle with three entrances. Designed by architect John Wood, the Elder, it was built between 1754 and 1768, and is regarded as a pre-eminent example of Georgian architecture. "Circus" means a ring, oval or circle in Latin. The construction has been designated as a Grade I listed building.

The Circus is divided into three segments of equal length, with a lawn in the centre. Each segment faces one of the three entrances, ensuring a classical façade is always presented straight ahead.

History
The Circus, originally called the King's Circus, was designed by the architect John Wood, the Elder. Convinced that Bath had been the principal centre of Druid activity in Britain, Wood surveyed Stonehenge, which has a diameter of 325 ft at the outer earth bank, and designed the Circus with a 318 ft diameter to mimic this.

Wood died less than three months after the first stone was laid; his son, John Wood, the Younger, completed the project to his father's design. The initial leases for the south west segment were granted in 1755–1767, for the south east segment in 1762–1766, and for the north segment in 1764–1766.

The Circus was part of John Wood the Elder's grand vision to recreate a classical Palladian architectural landscape for the city. Other projects included nearby Queen Square and the never-built Forum. The culmination of Wood's career, the Circus is considered his masterpiece.

The painter Thomas Gainsborough lived in Number 17 between 1758 and 1774, using part of its space as his portrait studio. Number 15 was home to Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton and his family in the first half of the 19th century.

During the Bath Blitz of 25/26 April 1942, one of the Baedeker Blitz retaliatory raids on England following the Royal Air Force's raid on Lübeck, a bomb fell into the Circus, demolishing several of the houses. These have since been reconstructed in the original style.

Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank selected the Circus as one of his five choices for the 2002 BBC television documentary series Britain's Best Buildings.

Design
Three Classical orders (Greek Doric, Roman/Composite and Corinthian) are used, one above the other, in the elegant curved facades. The frieze of the Doric entablature is decorated with alternating triglyphs and 525 pictorial emblems, including serpents, nautical symbols, devices representing the arts and sciences, and Masonic symbols. The parapet is adorned with stone acorn finials.

When viewed from the air, the Circus, along with Queens Square and the adjoining Gay Street, form a key shape, which is a masonic symbol similar to those that adorn many of Wood's buildings.

The central area was originally paved with stone setts, covering a reservoir in the centre that supplied water to the houses. In 1800 the Circus residents enclosed the central part of the open space as a garden. Now, the central area is grassed over and is home to a group of five large plane trees, which are believed to date to around 1820. They are contributing factors to the Grade I listing of The Circus.

title: The Circus, Bath


text:
Talk:Accipitriformes

"Little Eagle"?
The image caption on this page says "Little Eagle". Using Google, I can't seem to find any indication that a species with that name exists. Does it? — Timwi 18:28, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes. Hieraaetus morphnoides. They are quite common - and "little" only by comparison with the Wedge-tailed Eagle. Tannin 10:53, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Diverse size
"If the New World vultures are included, the Accipitriformes are among the most diverse orders in size, from the small sparrowhawks to the condors." I don't see why the condors are so critical to size diversity. Most old-world vultures and some eagles are bigger than most Cathartid vultures and some of their biggest species like Steller's Eagle, Harpy Eagle and Phillipines' Eagle are of comperable size with the Condors. Himalayan, Griffon, Lappet-face and Cinereous Vultures are of the same size with the Californian Condor, have a maximum slightly less than the Andean Condor's and fall well within its average size. Only if we were to include the extinct Teratornithids it would make a difference.--Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. I took a shot at it, but of course you can be bold and work on it yourself. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 05:59, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

New World Vultures
I would argue that it since the 1990's has been clearified that Condors are not at all related to Vultures. And that Falcons are less related to other birds of prey, such as eagles, kites, harriers, buzzards, hawks and the osprey. Wikipedia ought to follow the mainstream of science in these matters. Boeing720 (talk) 00:40, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

 * Are you saying that Gymnogyps and Vultur are not at all related to Coragyps, Cathartes and Sarcorhamphus? If so, then please provide references.
 * If you are saying that Cathartidae are not related to Aegypiinae or Gypaetinae, then I think most of the relevant articles do make this clear.
 * As to your point about falcons, forest falcons and caracaras (Falconidae sensu stricto) being unrelated to Accipitriformes, I agree – see below.
 * Pelagic (talk) 20:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Accipitriformes vs. Falconiformes, and taxoboxes
It's been 6 years since Haring's research was published. Hunting down references for this article, I was impressed to see that all the major ornithological societies now accept separating the Falconiformes and placing them before Psicattiformes in taxonomic order.

Clements checklist generally follows NACC, now that it's maintained by Cornell (I haven't searched the revisions yet, though). Unfortunately, I don't have access to Howard and Moore 4th ed.: is there someone who can check their treatment of the Orders? Can anybody think of another checklist or major reference that would have been revised since 2008?

It's also been nearly six years since (in Dec 2008) hhhh4444 tried updating the taxoboxes of Accipitridae to say "ordo = Accipitriformes", and this was modified by JerryFriedman to "ordo = Falconiformes (or Accipitriformes, q.v.)". That was a good compromise, given the newness of the research at the time.

Looking through the various articles, there is a mixture of different orders given:

 * Falconiformes
 * Falconiformes (but see there)
 * Falconiformes (or Accipitriformes, q.v.)
 * Accipitriformes

I suggest that we can now safely direct the reader to this article (Acciptriformes), which provides a good explanation of the split. If interested, the reader can then follow the link from here to Falconiformes.

I have started boldly updating the taxoboxen to make them uniformly say "Order: Accipitriformes".

If you have an opinion on this, please post below.

Pelagic (talk) 20:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable. Worth posting a note on birds wikiproject discussion page. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

 * Yes, I think it's fine for Wikip to go along with the ornithological societies, now that a consensus seems to have emerged (or maybe somewhat after the consensus emerged).
 * Perhaps someone would like to find some way to remove the word "proximodorsal" from the article. Even "basal", too. —JerryFriedman  (Talk) 23:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

 * Thanks, Cas and Jerry!
 * I hope that I didn't blow up too many watchlists with all the edits (did agonize about whether or not to mark them "minor").
 * [I had a long paragraph here about options for rewording the "proximodorsal" bit, but lost it when my wireless connection reset before saving. Grrr. Will just make the change without presenting rationale.]
 * Pelagic (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Accipitriformes


text:
Curiosity Killed the Cat

Curiosity Killed the Cat were a British pop band formed in London in 1984, comprising singer Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot, guitarist Julian Godfrey Brookhouse, bassist Nick Thorpe and drummer Migi Drummond. The band achieved success in the UK in the late 1980s, with their debut album Keep Your Distance reaching No. 1 in 1987 and producing three top 20 hit singles in "Down to Earth", "Misfit" and "Ordinary Day". This was followed by Getahead in 1989, with another UK top 20 single "Name and Number". In 1991, Thorpe left the band, with the remaining three members continuing under the shortened name Curiosity for their third and final album, 1994's Back to Front, which included the UK top 5 single "Hang On in There Baby". The band split in 1994 although there have been occasional temporary reunions.

Career
The band played soulful, jazzy and funky pop music, and was initially signed to Mercury Records. They first came to notice of the UK music press when they worked with Andy Warhol for the video of their 1986 single "Misfit". This featured the band in New York City and at one point featured frontman Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot dancing down a side street whilst Andy Warhol referenced Bob Dylan's 1965 long-form promotional film for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" by dropping pieces of white card in time to the music.

The single was initially unsuccessful but the release of their next single, "Down to Earth", gave the band a top 3 hit in early 1987. The band's first album, Keep Your Distance, entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 1 in April 1987, and stayed in the top ten for 13 weeks. Further singles included "Ordinary Day" (UK No. 11), "Free" (UK No. 56) and a re-release of "Misfit" (UK No. 7). "Misfit" was also their only U.S. charting single, peaking at No. 42.

The band's second album, Getahead, was released in 1989, led by the single "Name and Number" (UK No. 14), and its "hey how you doin'" refrain found itself in the top 10 two years later as part of the De La Soul song "Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)". The album, however, was not as successful in comparison to their first album, peaking at No. 29.

After the lacklustre performance of Getahead and its second single "First Place", the band shortened their name to 'Curiosity' but were dropped by Mercury Records. Bass player Nick Thorpe then left the band. However, in 1992, the band (now a three-piece and signed to RCA Records) returned to the UK Top 3 with a cover of Johnny Bristol's "Hang On in There Baby". Despite this, the band's follow up singles (covers of "I Need Your Lovin'" and "Gimme the Sunshine") were unsuccessful, which resulted in the album Back to Front only being released in Japan and selected overseas markets in 1994. The band then split up.

In 2001, the band reformed for an appearance on a National Lottery midweek show on BBC 1, and since then Volpeliere has toured under the name Curiosity Killed the Cat, on a number of 1980s revival packages.

In November 2015, a compilation album, called 80's Recovered featured many groups. Curiosity Killed the Cat did a cover of the Doobie Brothers track "Long Train Runnin'", with a regular version, and a remix.

Band members

 * Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot – vocals (born Martin Benedict Volpeliere-Pierrot, 19 May 1965, Earls Court, London)
 * Julian Godfrey Brookhouse – guitar (born 15 May 1963, Putney, London)
 * Nick Thorpe – bass guitar, keyboards (born Nicholas Bernard Thorp, 25 October 1964, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex)
 * Migi Drummond – drums (born Miguel John Drummond, 27 January 1964, Strawberry Hill, Middlesex)

Lead singer Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot was best known for wearing a beret in most pictures of the band. He later revealed it was in fact a peaked fisherman's hat, turned round with the peak to the rear so that it resembled a beret. Ben VP (as he was billed on a number of solo singles in the mid-1990s) was frequently referred to as 'Ben Vol-au-vent Parrot' in Smash Hits magazine, with 'Bendy Ben' (or 'Boozy Ben') also used. He also appeared as a model on the front of Mike Read's Pop Quiz board game.

In 1995, Migi Drummond and Nick Thorp set up Naked Records which was acquired a year later by software maker Eidos Plc.

Toby Andersen co-wrote all tracks and played keyboards on the album Keep Your Distance. Session guitarist/keyboard player Mike McEvoy (Michael J McEvoy) co-wrote the songs on their Getahead album and Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro played on three tracks ("Cascade", "Can't Grow Trees on Money" and "Who Are You").

title: Curiosity Killed the Cat


text:
Esparto

Esparto, halfah grass, or esparto grass is a fiber produced from two species of perennial grasses of north Africa, Spain and Portugal. It is used for crafts, such as cords, basketry, and espadrilles. Stipa tenacissima and Lygeum spartum are the species used to produce esparto.

Stipa tenacissima (Macrochloa tenacissima) produces the better and stronger esparto. It is endemic to the Western Mediterranean (growing in Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya). Another name in Spanish for the plant is "atocha", a pre-Roman word. "Esparto" or σπάρτο in Greek may refer to any woven products of sedge or broom, including cords and ropes. This species grows forming a steppic landscape – esparto grasslands – which covers large parts of Spain and Algeria.

History
Esparto leaves have been used for millennia. The oldest baskets of esparto, dating back 7,000 years, were found in a cave in southern Spain (Cueva de los Murciélagos, Albuñol, Granada). This collection is now in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain. There are many esparto remains in archaeological settlements from as long ago as the Neolithic period, including rugs, ropes, clothes, etc. Iberians used esparto rugs as floor coverings. For Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans, esparto was the best raw material for boat ropes. For centuries, esparto grasslands have been managed by local populations in order to boost the harvest, due to its economic value. In southern Spain there is an "Esparto culture": a deep knowledge about the many uses of this fiber forms part of the traditions of these communities. After the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), esparto was declared a "national fiber"; there was even a National Esparto Service. The opening of markets to other fibers and plastics eventually led to the decline of the esparto industry.

Application
Esparto leaves are traditionally harvested with a stick; usually of wood or iron, but in ancient times, of bone. The stick is used to pull up a handful of leaves at a time. The esparto is not normally used immediately after harvesting. Instead, the leaves are left to dry in the sun until they turn yellowish. This is the raw esparto, which is used for different basketry techniques. An alternative is to soak the leaves in water for about a month, before drying and then crushing them. This material is known as "crushed esparto", which is stronger and easier to weave. The main techniques are: All techniques involve working with an odd number of strands, from 5 to 31 or more.
 * Plaited esparto: people weave a long strip of raw esparto or crushed esparto. The artifact is made by sewing this strip in different ways. Every kind of plait has a different name. Examples (in Spanish) include the "pleita" (with raw esparto) and the "recincho" (with crushed esparto), but there is a rich Spanish vocabulary for the techniques and artifacts of the esparto craft. In many cases, different terms are used in different regions. Mainly, this vocabulary belongs to the Castilian and Catalan dialects of Valencia.
 * Coiled esparto: sewing many esparto leaves into a spiral, every turn over the former one.
 * Twinning esparto: similar to wicker basketry.
 * Cofin braiding: a typical stitch to make "cofines", a swallow basket used formerly in the olive oil mills to press the olive mass
 * Snail basket stitch: this is a special stitch to make snail baskets, a specific basket to pick snails.
 * Espadrilles: the former peasant footwear of southern Spain. These are made with crushed esparto.

There are many complementary techniques to end the baskets, square braids, cord edging, crown sinnet, points, etc. In the finest pieces, all leaves used must be the same size and diameter, and must always be joined in parallel.

Traditionally, esparto basketry has not been a professional product. Shepherds, farmers and other people of the countryside used to plait esparto on rainy days or in times not suitable for working.

Most craft tools and artifacts in the southern Spanish countryside for farming and livestock were made with esparto, such as harvesting baskets, items for the home, and containers/sacks for carts, horses, and donkeys. There is a huge variety of items, many of which are well known and have a specific use, but others are the product of a special personal need or a free creation, such as toys for children or animals. Every kind of basket has a special name that describes its use. For example, a "cesto rosero" is a basket used traditionally to gather saffron flowers.

A special esparto basketry piece is the esparto canteen. Made with crushed esparto and waterproofed with pine pitch, they were used by the shepherds of southeastern Spain to carry water in the mountains. The Archaeological Museum of Cartagena has an example of a Roman esparto canteen two thousand years old. Esparto was also used for making slingshots. In ancient times these were used as weapons of war, but could also be used for hunting or by shepherds to protect their livestock.

A wide strip of plaited raw esparto, named "pleita" in Spanish, is the traditional mold for Manchego cheese.

Another important use of esparto is in rope-making. Ropes could be made with raw esparto, crushed esparto or raked esparto (after crushed). A special rope was used to tie cereal bunches in harvest time. Other were used in vernacular architecture to tie reeds to the timber in roof building.

Paper
Esparto grass is known for its use in papermaking. The fiber makes a high quality paper often used in book manufacturing. First used in Great Britain in 1850 by Thomas Routledge who imported it from southern Spain, and it was greatly exploited by Edward Lloyd at his paper mills at Bow-Bridge and Sittingbourne from the 1860s. Lloyd imported his raw materials from Oran and Arzew in Algeria. It has been extensively used in the UK and Europe, but due to transportation costs, it is rarely found in the United States. Most paper made from esparto is usually combined with 5% to 10% wood pulp.

The fibers are fairly short in relation to their width, yet do not create any significant amount of dust. Because of the short fiber length, the tensile strength of the paper is less than that of many other papers, but its resistance to shrinkage and stretching is superior, and the paper is a well-filled, dense paper with excellent inking qualities. It also has very good folding properties.

Some manufacturers of rolling paper may use esparto, which might lead to a slightly higher carcinogen level when burned.

Other uses
The old leaves, which are under the plant, were used to make the traditional torches of southern Spain, named "hachos". They are also used by beekeepers to produce smoke while taking honey from the hives. Shepherds would sometimes weave a makeshift spoon from esparto leaves to eat curdle.

title: Esparto


text:
WALR-FM

WALR-FM (104.1 MHz Kiss 104.1) is a commercial radio station licensed to Palmetto, Georgia and serving Metro Atlanta. It is owned by the Cox Media Group and airs an urban adult contemporary radio format. The studios are co-located with other Cox-owned radio stations and WSB-TV in Midtown Atlanta on West Peachtree Street.

WALR-FM is a Class C1 station with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100,000 watts. The transmitter is on Duncan Memorial Highway (Route 166) in Winston, Georgia. WALR-FM broadcasts in the HD Radio hybrid format. Its HD2 digital subchannel carries a dance music format known as "The Surge."

Programming
Mornings begin with Atlanta radio legend Frank Rodriguez, known professionally as Frank Ski. When it is midday, Dyron Ducati is heard, followed by British rapper Monie Love in afternoons. In the evening, a "Slow Jamz" show is heard until midnight. Sunday mornings, ordained minister Twanda Black hosts an urban gospel program. In 2018, Terri Avery became the Program Director.

Early years
On September 1, 1947, the station first signed on as WLAG-FM. Its city of license was LaGrange, Georgia, about 40 mi southwest of Atlanta and near the Alabama border. It was the FM counterpart to WLAG 1240 AM, owned by the LaGrange Broadcasting Company. Both stations simulcast a country music format. WLAG-FM's power was 29,500 watts and the antenna height was 220 ft, so it was not heard in the Atlanta area. The station changed its call sign to WWCG in 1977 and continued with a country format.

In the early 1980s, the station got a big boost in power. It increased to 100,000 watts, using a tower taller than the Empire State Building, giving it coverage of much of the Atlanta radio market. It began broadcasting Al Ham's syndicated "Music Of Your Life" adult standards format with call signs WJYF and WJYA-FM, a simulcast partner with WJYA (1080 AM).

In 1985, it was acquired by Zapis Communications, headed by Lee Zapis. In 1987, he switched the format to urban contemporary as WEKS, "Urban Kiss 104."

Zapis then sold the station to NewCity Communications in 1989. NewCity had a plan to pair two different FM stations surrounding Atlanta to create one facility covering the market. To bring attention to the change, on June 21, WEKS went silent. The station signed back on the air on June 28, and began stunting with music played by local celebrities, including then-Atlanta mayor Andrew Young. Finally, at 3 p.m. on June 30, WEKS switched back to country music as WYAI ("Y104"), simulcasting with WYAY FM (Y106.7) on the other side of Atlanta. The two stations began competing with long-time Atlanta country leader WKHX.

On January 1, 1994, the simulcast ended, with 104.1 flipping to a smooth jazz format as "Jazz Flavors 104.1". In addition, the station changed calls to WJZF to match the new branding.

Cox Enterprises, owner of WSB, WSB-FM, WSB-TV and two newspapers, entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with WJZF. Cox tried to buy the station in 1995. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) denied the request when challenged by Jacor Broadcasting, even though Cox intended to make changes to the WJZF signal "to avoid cross-ownership conflicts."

WALR "Kiss 104"
The station that would later migrate to this frequency began in 1964 in Athens, Georgia as WDOL-FM at 104.7 MHz. At first it simulcast its AM sister station, 1370 WDOL. It later began airing separate programming, first as "Love 104," then as "Kiss 104.7", an urban contemporary station. (This new "Kiss" on 104.7 was a resurrection of the previous incarnation from WEKS mentioned above, although it only covered the eastern suburbs of the Atlanta market, from its Athens tower.)

On August 30, 2000, Cox and Salem Communications swapped frequencies. "Kiss 104.7" migrated to the 104.1 frequency, previously a Christian Contemporary music station known as "The Fish." The former WALR-FM at 104.7 became "104.7 the Fish" WFSH-FM and the 104.1 frequency became Hot Urban AC, "Kiss 104.1," taking the WALR-FM call sign. The smooth jazz format was picked up the following year by WJZZ (now WAMJ). Also, the AM simulcast on what is now WIFN ceased shortly after the switch although it continued to carry the WALR call sign under a changed format for some time. In Atlanta, the rights to the "Kiss FM" brand had been grandfathered; thus Clear Channel Communications (later iHeart), which trademarked the brand for its Top 40 stations, heard in many U.S. cities such as Los Angeles and Boston, did not attempt to take legal action against Cox.

Switch to urban oldies
On February 21, 2003, WALR-FM switched to Urban Oldies, while retaining the "Kiss" branding. Cox wanted to draw a distinction between "Kiss" and co-owned WFOX (97.1 FM). At the time, WFOX experimented with a format consisting of R&B, hip hop and rap music from the 1980s to present. With the format shift, WALR-FM's longtime slogan changed from Atlanta's R&B Station to Atlanta's Old School R&B Station.

In late 2004, WALR switched to a new tower, closer to Atlanta. It also began broadcasting in IBOC digital radio, using the HD Radio system from iBiquity.

WALR-FM became the last Atlanta station owned by Cox Radio targeting the African-American audience. On August 16, 2010, co-owned WBTS flipped from rhythmic contemporary to WSBB-FM, a news-talk simulcast of WSB. Previously, co-owned WFOX had played urban contemporary music as "97.1 Jamz" until 2006, when it flipped to classic hits and classic rock as WSRV "The River."

Return to urban AC
In June 2011, WALR-FM shifted back to urban AC; the station added more contemporary R&B music and dropped some of the older titles, after spending eight years as a classic and gold-based R&B and soul music format. This helped WALR-FM increase its listeners, especially against longtime CBS-owned WVEE and direct format rival WAMJ/WUMJ. WALR-FM's logo and slogan were modified as well from Atlanta's Old School R&B Station to Atlanta's R&B; in addition, the station's branding was shortened to simply Kiss 104, omitting the ".1". At the same time, WALR-FM dropped all weekend mix shows, and expanded its nighttime slow jams show. As of February 2012, the station has not been listed on the Mediabase urban AC add board.

In 2017, WALR-FM changed its city of license from LaGrange to Palmetto, Georgia, a suburban community about 15 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta. WALR-FM had been the longtime Atlanta affiliate for "The Tom Joyner Morning Show" and also carried the syndicated "Michael Baisden Show" in afternoons. The morning drive time show was replaced with Art Terrell and comedian Roy Wood Jr. on November 27, 2017. Wood decided to concentrate on his TV appearances and was replaced by Cory "Zooman" Miller. Baisden's show was replaced by Sasha the Diva, who in turn was replaced by British rapper Monie Love in afternoons.

title: WALR-FM


text:
Robert Markham

Robert Markham is a pseudonym used by author Kingsley Amis to publish Colonel Sun in March 1968. The book was the first continuation James Bond novel following the death of Bond's creator, Ian Fleming.

Kingsley Amis
Following the death of Ian Fleming on 12 August 1964, the rights to the Bond novels were held by Glidrose Publications (now Ian Fleming Publications). After Glidrose released the remaining Fleming works—The Man with the Golden Gun and Octopussy and The Living Daylights —they decided to commission a sequel in order to retain rights in the Bond product. They chose Amis to write the first continuation Bond novel; Amis had previously produced The James Bond Dossier—a critical analysis of the Bond books—under his own name, and The Book of Bond, a tongue-in-cheek manual for prospective agents, using the pseudonym Lt.-Col. William ("Bill") Tanner.

For the pseudonym, Peter Fleming - Ian Fleming's brother - initially suggested "George Glidrose". Jonathan Cape rejected this name, claiming that it had no selling or publicity power. Markham was then chosen. Despite this, Amis's involvement as continuation author was not a secret; American editions of the book identified Amis as the author, though the main Robert Markham credit remained.

Future ideas
Amis had unhappily visited Mexico in January 1968. From this experience grew the idea for another Bond story. According to the New York Times Book Review, "Mr. Amis never moves about by air, and cultivated his own deficiencies - his phrase - he went from St. Louis to Mexico City by train. En route, he remembered that Bond loved trains (From Russia, with Love) and found himself plotting an assassination on a train. Then as his train moved on, there occurred the inevitable sentence, Bond had never liked Acapulco." The plot would centre around tensions between British Honduras and Guatemala over rival claims to Mexico. A syndicated Associated Press story also implied that Amis may kill Bond off for good. According to the article, a bazooka-wielding bartender would blast Bond on a train in Mexico.

Amis was inconsistent if this would result in a novel or a short story. The 1970 Associated Press story claimed it would be Amis's next book. However, in a 1968 letter to Robert Conquest, Amis clearly states that it would only be a short story. Amis also approached Glidrose with an idea for a Bond short story that would have featured a 70-year-old Bond coming out of retirement for one final mission, but permission was not granted.

title: Robert Markham


text:
Peter W. Rodino

Peter Wallace Rodino Jr. (June 7, 1909 – May 7, 2005) was an American politician who was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1989. A liberal Democrat, he represented parts of Newark, New Jersey and surrounding Essex and Hudson. He was the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives from New Jersey until passed by Chris Smith in 2021.

Rodino rose to prominence as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, where he oversaw the 1974 impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon that eventually led to the president's resignation.

Early life
Rodino was born Pelligrino Rodino Jr. in the North Ward of Newark, New Jersey, on June 7, 1909. His father, Pelligrino Rodino (1883–1957), was born in Atripalda, a town in the province of Avellino, in a region of southern Italy known as Campania. Rodino Sr. emigrated to the United States around 1900 and worked as a machinist in a leather factory, as a cabinet maker and carpenter, and for thirty years as a toolmaker for General Motors (Hyatt Roller Bearing). His mother, Giuseppina (Margaret) Girard (1884–1913), was born in Newark. Pelligrino and Giuseppina were married in 1900. Pelligrino Rodino Jr., whose name was later Americanized to Peter, was the youngest of three children. Giuseppina Rodino died in 1913 of tuberculosis, when Rodino was 4; his father later married Antonia (Gemma) DeRobertis (Died 1944), the widow of Michael Paladino.

He attended McKinley Grammar School, graduating in February 1922. He attended Barringer High School. He went to college at the University of Newark and earned a law degree at the Newark Law School; both are now part of Rutgers University. His speech was badly affected by a childhood bout of diphtheria, and he conducted his own speech therapy, spending hours "reciting Shakespeare through a mouth full of marbles". Rodino endured ten years of menial jobs while studying at night for a law degree at the New Jersey Law School. He worked for the Public Service Railroad and Transportation Company. Rodino worked as an insurance salesman and at Pennsylvania Railroad. He also worked at Ronson Art Metal Works making cigarette lighters. He taught public speaking and citizenship in Newark. He also worked as a songwriter.

Rodino served in the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt as an appeals agent for the Newark Draft Board. While the post exempted Rodino from the draft, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1941, and served from 1942 to 1946. Rodino attended the British Officers Training University of England and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was assigned to the First Armored Division in North Africa, and later in Italy with the Military Mission Italian Army, a joint Allied force. Due to his fluency in Italian, he was named the adjutant to the Commanding General of Rome. He earned a Bronze Star for service in Italy and North Africa; he was discharged with the rank of captain.

State assembly candidate
In 1940, Rodino made his first bid for public office as a Democratic candidate for the New Jersey General Assembly from Essex County. He lost the general election.

U.S. Congressman
In 1946, after World War II, Rodino ran for Congress against nine-term Republican incumbent Fred A. Hartley Jr. Hartley was nationally prominent as the House sponsor of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, known as Taft–Hartley. Hartley won by 5,730 votes, 44,619 (52.48%) to 38,889 (45.74%).

Hartley declined to seek re-election in 1948 and Rodino became a candidate for the open 10th district congressional seat. He was unopposed in the Democratic primary. In the general election, he faced Republican Anthony Giuliano, who had served as a State Assemblyman and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. Rodino had the benefit of running on a ticket with president Harry Truman, who carried Essex and Hudson counties. Truman, campaigning in Newark on October 6, 1948, endorsed Rodino, saying: "That means that here in Newark you're going to send Rodino to the Congress, and Hugh Addonizio and Harry Dudkin to the House of Representatives. Every one of these men deserves your support. They will fight your battle in Washington, and how that fight needs to be made nobody knows better than I do. They will fight your battle there, and men like them all over the Nation will be fighting that battle—and will win that battle if you're behind us—the battle for the people, a fight which started with Jefferson, continued with Jackson, was won by Franklin Roosevelt in 1934." Rodino won by 5,800 votes, 58,668 (50.72%) to 52,868 (45.70%).

Seeking a second term in 1950, Rodino faced Republican William H. Rawson, a six-term Essex County Freeholder. Rodino won by 21,819 votes: 60,432 (61.02%) to 38,613 (38.99%).

In 1952, Rodino faced a national political environment that was decidedly Republican, and GOP presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower carried Rodino's district by a large margin. But Rodino won a third term by 20,872 votes against Republican Alexander Matturri, 78,612 (56.87%) to 57,740 (41.77%).

Rodino defeated Republican William E. McGlynn, a two-term Councilman from Kearny, New Jersey who described himself as a "middle of the road Eisenhower Republican" by 26,328 votes, 62,384 (63.37%) to 36,056 (36.63%) in 1954.

In 1956, Rodino was re-elected by 15,550 votes, 71,311 (56.12%)	to 55,761 (43.88%), against Republican G. George Addonizio, a first time candidate who had the same last name as a popular Democratic Congressman who was seeking re-election in a neighboring Essex County congressional district; George Addonizio and Hugh Addonizio were not related. George Addonizio cast himself as an Eisenhower Republican in a year the popular Republican president carried Rodino's district by a wide margin in his re-election campaign. This was the last time Rodino's general election percentage would fall below 60%. In a 1958 rematch with Addonizio, he won by 27,536 votes, 60,482 (63.90%) to 32,946 (34.81%). Rodino won 65% in 1960 and 73% in 1962.

He was re-elected in 1960 with 65% against Alphonse A. Miele, and in 1962 with 73% against Dr. Charles Allen Baretski, the Director of the Newark Public Library and the founder of the Institute of Polish Culture at Seton Hall University. In 1964, he defeated former Bloomfield Councilman Raymond W. Schroeder with 74% of the vote.

Rodino faced his first African American opponent in 1966, when Earl Harris, a Republican Essex County Freeholder (and future Newark city council president) ran against him. In a Democratic landslide year nationally and in New Jersey, Rodino beat Harris with 64% of the vote.

He was re-elected in 1968 (64% against Dr. Celestino Clemente, a surgeon), 1970 (70% against Griffin H. Jones, a Montclair lawyer), 1972 (80% against bakery owner Kenneth Miller ), 1974 (81% against Newark-South Ward Republican Chairman John R. Taliaferro), 1976 (83% against Tony Grandison), 1978 (86% against John L. Pelt, an auto salesman), 1980 (85% against East Orange businessman Everett Jennings), 1982 (83% against Tim Lee), 1984 (84% against conservative activist Howard E. Berkeley), and 1986 (96%, with no Republican in the race).

For many years, Rodino shared a Washington apartment with Hugh Addonizio, a fellow Newark Democrat who was also elected to Congress in 1948 as a young World War II veteran. After Addonizio left Congress to become Mayor of Newark in 1962, Rodino became roommates with Addonizio's successor, Democratic labor leader Joseph Minish. Rodino returned to his district every weekend.

Democratic primary challenges
From the 1970s onward, Rodino's main challenge was in the Democratic primary. This was mainly because the cities anchoring his district, such as Newark, East Orange, Irvington, and Orange, saw substantial growth of African American populations as white voters moved to the suburbs. In 1972, the 10th district was redrawn as a black majority district. Rodino, who had spent a career fighting on behalf of civil rights, was now a white congressman in a district that was drawn to increase African American representation in Congress.

In 1972, Rodino faced his first serious challenge from an African American candidate in the Democratic primary. He considered moving into the neighboring 11th district, which lost its black, urban municipalities in redistricting and instead included suburban Essex County towns (including a slice of Rodino's former territory); this would have forced a primary against Rodino's colleague (and Capitol Hill roommate), Joseph Minish. While many of Rodino's political advisers urged him to run in the 11th, Rodino decided to remain in the 10th and face two African American candidates: East Orange Mayor William S. Hart and former Assemblyman George C. Richardson of Newark Rodino beat Hart by 13,000 votes, 37,650 (57%) to 24,118 (37%). Richardson finished third with 3,086 votes (5%) and Wilburt Kornegy received 718 votes (1%).

Rodino faced another serious primary challenge in 1980, this time against Donald M. Payne, a former Essex County Freeholder who had carried the 10th district in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Essex County Executive in 1978. At this point, Rodino was a national political figure and beat Payne by 17,118 votes, 26,943 (62.17%) to 9,825 (22.67%). Former Newark Municipal Court Judge Golden Johnson finished third with 5,316 votes (12.27%), followed by 1,251 (2.89%) for Rev. Russell E. Fox, a former Essex County Freeholder and East Orange school board member.

Payne ran again in 1986, and had the endorsements of newly elected Newark Mayor Sharpe James and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Rodino promised to retire in 1988 and beat Payne by 9,920 votes, 25,136 (59.49%) to 15,216 (36.01%). Payne was elected in 1988 and was re-elected eleven times without substantive opposition, never dropping below 75% of the vote and died in office on March 6, 2012.

Legislative record

During his first term, Rodino was a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. After winning re-election in 1950, he was assigned a seat on the House Judiciary Committee. He worked to enact legislation to assure equal rights, reform immigration policy and public safety. He was the author of majority reports on civil rights legislation of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, was the author of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Rodino was the floor manager of the 1966 Civil Rights Act. He was the Co-Sponsor of what became the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, and authored the bill that designated Columbus Day as a national holiday. From 1971 to 1973 he was the Chairman of the Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality Subcommittee and played a key role in passing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Throughout his 40 years in Congress, Rodino held fast to a liberal agenda. He stopped the proposed constitutional amendments that would ban abortion, allow organized prayer in the public schools, and prohibit busing to achieve school integration. Still, he was one of the last liberal Members of Congress to oppose the Vietnam War. He was viewed as an expert on immigration and bankruptcy law. He was a strong supporter of fair-housing legislation, and a staunch ally of organized labor.

In 1973, Rodino voted against the confirmation of Gerald Ford as vice president as a protest against the policies of the Nixon administration.

In 1975, Rodino received the U.S. Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.

U.S. Senate campaign
Rodino nearly gave up his House seat after three terms to seek the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in 1954, when incumbent GOP Senator Robert C. Hendrickson was retiring after one term. Democrats believed they had a chance to pick up the open Senate seat and party bosses decided they would clear the field for a single candidate, avoiding a primary. Rodino actively sought support for the Senate seat, but Democrats instead went with another Congressman, Charles R. Howell.

House leadership
Rodino was the Assistant Majority Whip of the House from 1965 to 1972, and served as a member of the Democratic Steering & Policy Committee during the same years. He was the Senior Member of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control in 1977 and from 1979 to 1988. He was a delegate to the North Atlantic Assembly where he was chaired the Scientific and Technical Committee; to the Working Group on the Control of Narcotics from 1962 to 1972; and to the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration dealing with refugee problems from 1962 to 1972. He was also a member of the Congressional Committees Investigating The Iran-Contra Affair in 1987.

House Judiciary Committee chairman
Rodino became chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in January 1973, at the start of the 93rd Congress. He succeeded Emanuel Celler, a 50-year incumbent, who had been defeated for renomination in the 1972 Democratic primary election.

Later in 1973, after President Richard Nixon fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox on October 20, in what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre", numerous presidential impeachment related resolutions were proposed in the House. Speaker of the House Carl Albert referred them to the Judiciary Committee. The resultant impeachment inquiry and public hearings put Rodino, who until then had kept a low profile in Congress, front and center in the political limelight. "If fate had been looking for one of the powerhouses of Congress, it wouldn't have picked me", he told a reporter at the time.

The committee spent eight months gathering evidence and pressing the president to comply with subpoenas for White House tape recordings and documents. In 2005, John Doar, who was Special Counsel to the Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings, said of Rodino:

"He was able to impose discipline on the staff. He insisted that there be no leaks to the press. There were no leaks to the press. He insisted that it be bipartisan, it not be partisan. There was no partisanship on the staff. In fact, it was remarkably non-partisan. And that is the result of good leadership. And although Congressman Rodino was a quiet man, he had the knack of leading, of managing, and he did it very well, in my opinion."

As the Judiciary Committee prepared to vote on the first article of impeachment in July 1974, Rodino said: "We have deliberated. We have been patient. We have been fair. Now the American people, the House of Representatives and the Constitution and the whole history of our republic demand that we make up our minds." The committee, with six Republicans joining the Democratic majority, passed three of the five articles of impeachment. In a 1989 interview with Susan Stamberg of National Public Radio, Rodino recalled that after the committee finished its work on the impeachment articles, he went to a room in back of the committee chambers, called his wife and cried. He also stated:

"Notwithstanding the fact that I was Democrat, notwithstanding the fact that there were many who thought that Rodino wanted to bring down a president as a Democrat, you know, he was our president. And this is our system that was being tested. And here was a man who had achieved the highest office that anyone could gift him with, you know. And you're bringing down the presidency of the United States, and it was a sad, sad commentary on our whole history and, of course, on Richard Nixon."

Rodino presided over Gerald Ford's December 1973 vice presidential confirmation hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. He also was appointed twice by the House as one of the managers to conduct (prosecute) impeachment trials against U.S. federal judges: Nevada judge Harry Claiborne in 1986 (for tax evasion) and Florida judge (and later congressman) Alcee Hastings in 1988 (for perjury). While he served during the trial of Claiborne, he was replaced at the start of the 101st United States Congress as an impeachment manager for the Hastings trial, before the trial had begun.

Vice presidential candidate
Rodino emerged as a possible running mate for Jimmy Carter in 1976. About 50 House members signed a petition urging Carter to pick Rodino, and then-House Majority Leader Tip O'Neill told Charles Kirbo (the Atlanta lawyer that was heading up Carter's vice presidential search) that Rodino would be his best choice. O'Neill said that Rodino was a Catholic from a northeastern state who could bring middle class Italians back into the Democratic fold.

After Kirbo finished vetting possible candidates, Carter created a short list of seven—Rodino, and Senators Walter Mondale, Frank Church, Henry Jackson, John Glenn, Edmund Muskie, and Adlai Stevenson III. In July, before Carter made his choice, Rodino withdrew his name from consideration. He cited his age (67) and a recurring case of glaucoma that he felt might strain his ability to campaign.

Instead, Rodino was asked to give the nominating speech for Carter at the Democratic National Convention in New York. "With honest talk and plain truth, Jimmy Carter has appealed to the American people. His heart is honest, and the people will believe him. His purpose is right, and the people will follow him," Rodino said. "As he has brought a united South back into the Democratic Party, he will bring a united Democratic Party back into the leadership of America and a united America back to a position of respect and esteem in the eyes of the world."

In 1972, 57 delegates to the Democratic National Convention voted for Rodino for vice president instead of Thomas Eagleton, who was picked by nominee George McGovern.

Family
Rodino married Marianna (Ann) Stango in 1941. They had two children: Margaret (Peggy) Stanziale and Peter W. Rodino III. Peggy Stanziale married Charles A. Stanziale Jr., whose father had served as a Democratic State Assemblyman in 1932 and later as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. Marianna Rodino died on December 3, 1980, at age 70. In 1989, he married Joy Judelson, who had worked on Rodino's congressional staff from 1963 until 1969, when she left to go to law school. They were married until his death in 2005.

Retirement
On March 15, 1988, Rodino announced that he would retire from Congress after 20 terms. "Our journey together has been a long and fulfilling one," Rodino said in a statement. He left the House in January 1989 and was replaced by Payne, who became the first African American Congressman from New Jersey.

On November 4, 1978, Vice-President Walter Mondale attended the dedication of the Peter W. Rodino Federal Building in Newark.

After leaving congress, he became a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Constitutional Law at Seton Hall University Law School in Newark. He was a member of the faculty from 1989 until his death in 2005. "Between 1990 and 1999, he taught two seminars each year, providing students a unique opportunity to actively participate in research, study, and discussion of some of the many areas of law affected by his time in public office. Enrollment was limited to 25 students, and the courses were fully subscribed. Most of the term was taken up with traditional small class discussion of pertinent issues. Each student also undertook a research paper on a specific topic, with the research results being presented in the seminar in the latter stages of the term. Critique and commentary was provided by Professor Rodino. The first term seminar concentrated on Civil Rights and Immigration, including in particular the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1986 Immigration Reform & Control Act. The second term seminar dealt with Watergate and the Iran Contra Affair. These courses were co-taught with Professors Gil Carrasco and E. Judson Jennings," according to Seton Hall. "While at Seton Hall, Professor Rodino participated in many significant programs and events, including a Celebration of the Bicentennial of the Bill of Rights. He also wrote several important law review articles on the Ninth Amendment, the Special Prosecutor Statute, the Preamble to the Constitution, and the Presidency."

In 1998, when the House was considering articles of impeachment against president Bill Clinton, Rodino urged congressmen to be "cautious, restrained and non-partisan when weighing whether such an investigation is warranted". He said: "Even the thought of impeachment is a question that should be considered ever so judiciously, especially when it comes to an issue that wracks a country, a constitutional crisis, impeachment is not to be considered lightly."

He died on May 7, 2005, of congestive heart failure at the age of 95 at his home in West Orange, New Jersey. He lay in state at Seton Hall Law Chapel and the funeral mass was celebrated at St. Lucy's Church in Newark. Burial took place at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover, New Jersey.

New Jersey General Assembly (1940)
12 Seats Elected At-Large from Essex County

title: Peter W. Rodino


text:
WZGC

WZGC (92.9 FM) – branded 92.9 The Game – is a commercial sports radio station licensed to serve Atlanta, Georgia, covering the Atlanta metropolitan area. Owned by Audacy, Inc., WZGC is the Atlanta affiliate for Infinity Sports Network; the flagship station for the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta United FC radio networks; and the radio home of Randy McMichael. The WZGC studios are located at Colony Square in Midtown Atlanta, while the station transmitter is located in Atlanta's North Druid Hills neighborhood. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WZGC broadcasts over one HD Radio channel, and is available online via Audacy.

Classical (1955–1971)
The station signed on the air on September 1, 1955, as WGKA-FM. Owned by Glenkaren Associates, it was the FM counterpart of WGKA (1190 AM), with studios at 1140 Peachtree Street NE. WGKA-FM was the first full-time FM classical music station in Atlanta.

Rock (1971–1973)
In 1971, the General Cinema Corporation acquired WGKA-AM-FM. Even though it was a movie theater chain, GCC wanted to branch out into broadcast media. The classical music remained on the AM station, while the FM station became WZGC (referring to the last two letters in General Cinema) in 1972, with an album-oriented rock format.

Top 40 (1973–1989)
In March 1973, the format switched to Top 40 calling itself "Z-93."

In the 1970s, many radios still only received AM signals. WQXI and WGST (920 AM) were the leading Top 40 stations in Atlanta, but as FM listening increased, WZGC gained an audience. The station was acquired by First Media Corporation in 1976.

In the 1980s, the AM Top 40 stations switched to other formats, leaving WZGC as Atlanta's only contemporary hits station. Then, in 1986, WAPW (99.7 FM) debuted with its own popular Top 40 format, with WZGC's ratings declining as a result. The station switched to a rhythmic contemporary format during the summer of 1988.

Classic rock (1989–2004)
On January 3, 1989, that station changed to a classic rock format, while retaining the "Z-93" moniker. Infinity Broadcasting acquired WZGC in 1992; Infinity was renamed CBS Radio in December 2005.

AAA (2004–2012)
The name change to "Dave FM" and format switch to adult album alternative (AAA) came at 5 p.m. on July 21, 2004, following a stunt featuring all-Dave Matthews Band music. Dave's first song was "Orange Crush" by R.E.M. WZGC installed an HD Radio transmitter in the early 2000s. The HD-2 subchannel carried an Americana format branded as "Dave Roots."

Sports talk (2012–present)
Throughout its run as "Dave FM," the station maintained decent ratings, though it was never an overall winner. However, in the summer of 2011, the station saw a drop in its Arbitron ratings. At the same time, CBS had enjoyed success with several of its FM stations that had switched to all sports formats in Dallas, Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh. Due to this, CBS announced in July 2012 that WZGC would flip to all sports in October. Dave's final day of programming, which started on September 29 after a three-day radiothon for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, consisted of the on-air staff hosting final shifts (including Steve Craig, Jill, Mara Davis, Charles, Yvonne Monet, Sully, Renee and Margot), as well as a "Top 92 Songs of Dave FM" countdown. Around 12:20 a.m. on September 30, Dave FM ended regular programming with "Little Lion Man" by Mumford & Sons (the #1 song in the countdown) and "Atlanta" by Butch Walker. The station ran on automation until the flip at 2 p.m. on October 24. The final song on "Dave" was "Thank You Friends" by Big Star.

Even though WZGC was owned by CBS Radio, it didn't affiliate with CBS Sports Radio at launch, as the network already had an affiliate in Atlanta on WCNN. Because of this, WZGC had local sports hosts around the clock, all week long. Eventually, WCNN became an ESPN Radio affiliate, and WZGC added CBS Sports Radio programming to its overnight schedule.

On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with Entercom. The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on November 17.

On February 23, 2022, WZGC added The Bet to its HD2 subchannel.

Former DJs

 * Elvis Duran – hosted with sidekick "Hot Henrietta" during the late '80s.
 * Jimmy Baron
 * Steve Barnes – host of All Access
 * The Greaseman (syndicated show)
 * Steve McCoy
 * Shadoe Stevens
 * John Young -- later left DJing to continue voiceover work for WPCH (as WTBS), TNT and other TV/radio stations
 * Ross Brittain
 * Brian Wilson

title: WZGC


text:
WSTR

WSTR may refer to:

 * WSTR (band), British pop punk band
 * WSTR (FM) ("Star 94"), a radio station (94.1 FM) licensed to Smyrna, Georgia, United States
 * WSTR-TV, MyNetworkTV's affiliate television station (channel 18, virtual 64) licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

title: WSTR


text:
Turin Brakes

Turin Brakes are an English band, comprising original duo of Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian, and long-term collaborators Rob Allum and Eddie Myer. They had a UK top 5 hit in 2003 with their song "Painkiller (Summer Rain)". Since starting out in 1999, the band have sold around one million records worldwide. They are currently signed to Cooking Vinyl.

1999–2001: Formation and The Optimist LP
The band was started by long-time friends Knights and Paridjanian. The two met at a young age and spent much of their childhood together, both receiving guitars as Christmas presents at the age of 10. Although they split after Knights went to film school and Paridjanian formed 100 Moments, a London based experimental rock band with Canadian born guitarist and songwriter Michael Brennan. Later moving to Canada and attempting to form a band in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, they soon reunited and collaborated on what would later become their first EP, The Door, which was eventually released through Anvil Records in 1999 as a limited vinyl release. This led to the band attracting the attention of larger record labels. Source Records would eventually release two more EPs, The State of Things EP and Fight or Flight, prompting NME to proclaim "Turin Brakes inhabit a space which is entirely their own, fully formed and brutally emotive... give them the devotion they deserve."

Source reissued the song "The Door" before releasing their first album, The Optimist LP, in 2001. The album, which was released in the United States by Astralwerks, was greeted with critical praise, spawned several modestly successful UK singles, "Underdog (Save Me)" (reaching no. 39 in the UK Singles Charts ), Mind Over Money (reaching no. 31 ) and "Emergency 72", and received a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize. In August 2001, the album was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry. A planned tour of the United States opening for the Stereophonics and Matthew Jay, was cancelled due to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Still, the band played at over 80 venues in Europe and the United States that year.

2002–2004: Ether Song and mainstream success
Early 2002, the band started work on their second album. After demo sessions in Rye, United Kingdom, the band flew to Los Angeles, California to record with producer Tony Hoffer in the Summer of 2002. In October 2002, this resulted in single Long Distance (reaching no. 31 ) and an arena tour supporting David Gray.

In February 2002, the band embarked on their biggest headline tour to date, covering 24 UK venues in a month, including two sold-out shows at Brixton Academy, a venue they frequently visited when growing up. On 1 March 2003, their single "Painkiller" became their biggest hit to date, reaching the top 5 of the singles chart.

Turin Brakes' second album, Ether Song, was released on 3 March 2003. The album was a departure from the acoustic sound that had brought them success with their first album. The album was popular enough to reach number 4 in the UK Albums Chart upon its release and to be certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry four days after the release, on 7 March 2003.

After the successful release, the record company sought to replicate the commercial success by releasing a third single from the album, Average Man. However, UK radio channels didn't embrace the single as they had with previous releases and the chart performance (no. 35 ) was seen as disappointment by fans and the record label.

The album's commercial performance created some tension between the band and their label. In fact, between tours in the United States (their own headline tour and supporting David Gray) in the Summer of 2003, the band recorded a new single for a re-release of Ether Song with Tony Hoffer. The first re-release of Ether Song, featuring an orange version of the cover and single 5 Mile was released on 6 October 2003. 5 Mile charted higher than Average Man (no. 31 ) but was largely overlooked by UK radio stations. Overall, the album was re-released four times during its lifespan, and received various bonus discs between regions and versions. The band was on record as being unhappy with the way the record company was treating them and the fans regarding the release.

Following the success and stress of Ether Song, the band took a short break, but not before touring Australia and New Zealand and releasing a DJ mix album for Azuli Records' Late Night Tales series in February 2004. The mix album (2004) was a collection of some of their favourite songs and main influences, and also contained The Rolling Stones song "Moonlight Mile" as a cover. The band have done some DJ sets in the London area over the years.

The band spent the first half of 2004 writing and recording new material in their own studio, which they built in Brixton, London. That summer, they played a successful set at Somerset House, playing a selection of old and new material, including future singles Fishing For A Dream and Over And Over. Later that year, they found themselves part of the Band Aid 20 cast for the revamped Noughties take on Do They Know It’s Christmas, alongside Paul McCartney, Radiohead and Robbie Williams, giving them to date their only chart topper in the process.

2005: JackInABox and Live at the Palladium
Their third album, Jackinabox, was released to critical acclaim in early June 2005. Preceded by the single "Fishing for a Dream," which did not do as well as the band hoped (charting at 32). Despite the lack of airplay or a hit single JackInABox still sold quite well, entering the Top 10 of the UK Albums Chart in its first week and certified Silver by the BPI on 10 June 2005. The album was supported by the group's first full-band tour of the United States, as well as the single "Over and Over," which was serviced to U.S. radio.

Following the success of Jackinabox and its subsequent tour, a download-only album, Live at the Palladium, recorded in London was released in November 2005. Released one day after the concert took place in London, it was available on the band's website. Later it also got a release on iTunes and did well in the download charts. In the October / November 2005 tour, the band also sold the Red Moon EP. This acoustic EP featured a new (acoustic) version of "Red Moon", two new songs (live favourite Jet Trail and Love Is All You Deserve) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover "Breaking The Girl" (recorded at KCRW).

2006–2008: Dark on Fire
The band spent the first half of 2006 writing new songs, occasionally performing both new and old work at small gigs across the UK. The band did an intimate tour in November 2006 to try out new material. In January 2007 the band entered a recording studio in London to record their fourth album with producer Ethan Johns. After three weeks the band took a break (on 29 January Paridjanian's wife gave birth to a daughter), but the sessions were resumed several weeks later in a bigger studio (also in London). On the last day of March 2007 the band announced that they had finished the recording sessions, and recorded 17 songs.

The new album, Dark on Fire, was released in the UK in September 2007, preceded by a download-only single. "Stalker". On 14 January 2008 another download-only single was released: "Something In My Eye". The b-side was a cover version of Cat Stevens' "Here Comes My Baby". Both singles failed to make an impact on the singles charts, but Dark on Fire did chart at no. 36 in the top 40.

2008–2009: Bottled at Source and work with other artists
In spring 2008, the band were special guests on the Hotel Cafe Tour hosted by Tom McRae. Also, the band did an acoustic tour in Germany. During that summer, the band played various summer festivals. As of November 2008, the band are back in the studio recording new material. Also, the band have been working with and writing for Take That, resulting in the bonus-track "Here" on 2008's The Circus. They also worked with Pete Lawrie, Andy Steele, Dido and Lisa Mitchell.

In March 2009, the band announced they would make their live return later in the year with two acoustic shows at Folk in the Barn in Canterbury in May. In June 2009, it was announced that the band would be releasing a 'Best Of' album, to mark the tenth anniversary of their debut single "The Door", along with a festival slot at Latitude in late-July and a headline performance at London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane the following September. This album, Bottled at Source – The Best of the Source Years, was also their last album for the Source record label.

During the performance at Theatre Royal on 13 September, the band played brand-new songs off the untitled forthcoming album, which they hinted would come out in February 2010.

2010–2012: Outbursts
Their fifth album, Outbursts, was eventually released on 1 March 2010 on their new label, Cooking Vinyl. Its release was followed by a European tour and a US and Canada tour. The download single released from this album was Sea Change. Throughout the summer of 2010 the band played several festivals in the United Kingdom and Italy, including Glastonbury 2010 and Summer Sundae.

In November 2011, the band toured the United Kingdom to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their debut album The Optimist LP. The band played the complete debut album in the correct order, apart from hidden track Three Days Old and a second set of more recent work, including new song Rescue Squad and their re-working of Mary Poppins song Chim Chim Cher-ee, which they released as a digital single to raise money for homeless charities. A live recording of their show at Koko in London on 11 November 2011 was released as a live album.

Throughout 2012, the band wrote new material and played intimate venues in the United Kingdom. In October 2012, Olly Knights released a solo album If Not Now When on Turin Brakes' own record label, The Complete ATOMIC. In November 2012, the band returned to their studio to record material for their sixth studio album.

2013–2014: We Were Here
The band premiered a new song, called Sleeper, in Naples, Italy. Recording of their sixth album, We Were Here, started on Monday 11 March 2013 at Rockfield Studios with producer Ali Staton and was released 30 September 2013 on the Cooking Vinyl label. The album was trailed by lead single 'Time and Money' and followed by second single 'Guess You Heard' in April 2014. The album reached number 46 in the UK album charts. After the release of the album, the band played their biggest UK tour in over a decade.

In 2014, the band played the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas and toured the United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands. In 2015, the band started work on their seventh studio album.

2015–2017: Lost Property
On 2 November 2015 the band announced its seventh album Lost Property, recorded at Rockfield Studios with producer Ali Staton, would be released on 29 January 2016 and released the video for the track '96'. A song from the album, "Save You", appeared in the closing moments of the second episode, "First Day", of the ABC drama Designated Survivor on 28 September 2016.

2018–present: Invisible Storm
On 26 January 2018 the band released their eighth album Invisible Storm, recorded at Rockfield Studios with producer Ali Staton, well received by the fans and critics, the album featured a more commercial sound than some of their previous work. Singles released included, "Wait", "Life Forms" and "Lost In The Woods".

Sound
Turin Brakes have often been compared to many of the new acoustic movement bands spawned in the late 1990s such as Elbow, Starsailor, and the Norwegian band Kings of Convenience, whose 2001 album entitled Quiet Is the New Loud is a helpful indicator of the band's first album. With each record, Turin Brakes try to change their sound. While the first album features a lot of acoustic guitar, Ether Song featured more electric guitar and was, in total, a lot darker. The third album, Jackinabox, can be seen as a combination of the first two albums, with some funk influences.. While Dark on Fire featured a bigger sound produced by Ethan Johns, 2010's Outbursts can be seen as a return to the sound of The Optimist LP. Turin Brakes formerly performed live as a five-piece outfit to achieve a full band sound, and were joined on stage (and often also in the studio) by Rob Allum (drums), Phil Marten (keyboards) and Eddie Myer (bass). Following Marten's departure, they now perform as a four-piece band, with Gale's guitar playing being more prominent and more richly contributing to the live sound.

On 6 September 2012, all four Turin Brakes members played at a "Spirit of Talk Talk" evening at 229 Great Portland Street where they joined some former members of Talk Talk to play a few hits including It's My Life, with the band then playing a set of their own afterwards. Before playing the song "Painkiller" Gale announced to the audience that although it wouldn't be obvious to most people the song was heavily influenced by Talk Talk and by the work they did with producer Phill Brown in the Kent countryside some years ago.

Live albums

 * Live at the Palladium (Source/Astralwerks, 2005)
 * The Optimist Live (2011)

Compilation albums

 * Bottled at Source – The Best of the Source Years (Source/Astralwerks, 2009)

Mix albums

 * Late Night Tales: Turin Brakes (Source/Azuli Records, 2004)

Extended plays

 * The Door EP (Anvil, 1999) – 7"/CD
 * The State of Things EP (Source, 2000) – 7"/CD
 * Fight or Flight (Source, 2000) – 7"/CD
 * NapsterLive (Napster, 2005) – Digital download
 * The Red Moon EP (Source, 2005) – 7"/CD
 * Something Out of Nothing EP (Source, 2007) – CD
 * Everybody Knows Everyday's A Black Wicked Game (The Complete Atomic, 2010) – covers EP
 * Xerox (The Complete Atomic, 2011) – covers EP with one original track
 * We Were Here (Cooking Vinyl, 2013) – Spotify four-song release

Compilations
Turin Brakes tracks have appeared on the following compilation CDs:

title: Turin Brakes