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Diana Dors

Diana Dors (born Diana Mary Fluck; 23 October 1931 – 4 May 1984) was an English actress and singer.

Dors came to public notice as a blonde bombshell, much in the style of Americans Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Mamie Van Doren. Dors was promoted by her first husband, Dennis Hamilton, mostly in sex film-comedies and risqué modelling. After it was revealed that Hamilton had been defrauding her, she continued to play up to her established image, and she made tabloid headlines with the parties reportedly held at her house. Later, she showed talent as a performer on TV, in recordings, and in cabaret, and gained new public popularity as a regular chat-show guest. She also gave well-regarded film performances at different points in her career.

According to film critic David Thomson, "Dors represented that period between the end of the war and the coming of Lady Chatterley in paperback, a time when sexuality was naughty, repressed, and fit to burst."

Early life
Diana Mary Fluck was born in Swindon, Wiltshire, on 23 October 1931 at the Haven Nursing Home. Her mother, Winifred Maud Mary (Payne), was married to Albert Edward Sidney Fluck, a railway clerk. Mary had been having an affair with another man, and when she announced she was pregnant with Diana, she admitted she had no idea if the other man or her husband was the father.

Diana was educated at a small private school, Selwood House, on Bath Road, Swindon, from which she was eventually expelled.

During the war, Diana dated a boy named Desmond Morris from the Boys' High School, also on Bath Road, Swindon. Morris, who was from one of the town's wealthier, more prominent families, used to take her aboard his rowing boat on the lake in his family's garden. The garden and lake later comprised Queen's Park in Swindon. In the late 1960s, Morris (a zoologist) became famous as the author of The Naked Ape and presenter of the TV series adapted from the book.

From the age of eight, Hollywood actresses Veronica Lake, Lana Turner, and Jean Harlow became her heroines, and she enjoyed going to the cinema to watch them.

Towards the end of the war, Dors entered a beauty contest to find a pin-up girl for Soldier Magazine; she came in third place. This led her to work as a model in art classes, and she began to appear in such local theatre productions as A Weekend in Paris and'' Death Takes a Holiday. ''

LAMDA
Having excelled in her elocution studies, after lying about her age, at 14 she was offered a place to study at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), becoming the college's youngest student, starting in January 1946.

She lodged at the Earl's Court YWCA, and supplemented her £2-per-week allowance, most of which was spent on her lodgings, by posing for the London Camera Club for one guinea (£1, 1s in "old money", £1.05 in "new", ) an hour. Signed to the Gordon Harbord Agency in her first term, she won a bronze medal, awarded by Peter Ustinov, and in her second won a silver with honours.

First films
Just prior to LAMDA, Dors had unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of Kanchi in Black Narcissus that was played by Jean Simmons. She acted in public theatre pieces for LAMDA productions, one of which was seen by casting director Eric L'Epine Smith. He suggested Dors for what became the actor's screen debut in the noir film The Shop at Sly Corner (1947). Dors was cast in a walk-on role that developed into a speaking part. Her pay rate was £8 per day for three days.

During the signing of contracts, in agreement with her father, she changed her contractual surname to Dors, the maiden name of her maternal grandmother; this was at the suggestion of her mother Mary. Dors later commented on her name: "They asked me to change my name. I suppose they were afraid that if my real name Diana Fluck was in lights and one of the lights blew ..." Returning to LAMDA two weeks later, she was asked by her agent to audition for Holiday Camp (1947) by dancing a jitterbug with young actor John Blythe. Gainsborough Studios gave her the part at a rate of £10 per day for four days.

Dors' third film was Dancing with Crime (1947), shot at Twickenham Studios opposite Richard Attenborough during the coldest winter for nearly 50 years, for which she was paid £10 per day for 15 days.

Following her return to LAMDA, she graduated in spring 1947 by winning the London Films Cup, awarded to LAMDA by Sir Alexander Korda for the "girl most likely to succeed in films." Greta Gynt presented the award to her at a ceremony. Dors timed her return to Swindon to visit her parents with the local release of The Shop at Sly Corner.

Charm School
At the age of 15, Dors signed a contract with the Rank Organisation, and joined J. Arthur Rank's "Charm School" for young actors, subsequently appearing in many of their films. The Charm School had been established by producer Sydney Box, whom Rank appointed head of production at Gainsborough Studios, one of the companies under the Rank umbrella. (Other students of the school who went on to become famous included Petula Clark, Claire Bloom, and Christopher Lee.) Dors disliked the Charm School, but received more publicity than other students at the time in part because of her willingness to be photographed in glamour shots and attending premieres. An August 1947 article said her nickname was "The Body".

Her first film under contract to Rank was Streets Paved with Water, where she was the fourth lead; filming started in July 1947, but was cancelled after a month. She had a small role as a maid in Gainsborough's The Calendar (1948), and a good part in Good-Time Girl (1948), as a troubled teen being warned at the beginning and end of the film. She then played the role of Charlotte in Rank's adaptation of Oliver Twist (1948), directed by David Lean.

Dors had a bigger part in a B film, Penny and the Pownall Case (1948), a 50-minute movie for Highbury Productions. This was her first significant role, the second female lead after Peggy Evans. Bob Monkhouse wrote in his memoirs that, when he saw the film in the cinema, he thought it was "really bad" but was impressed by Dors. "It was her energy that at first attracted me", he wrote. "Her acting was raw but promising and her vitality made me remember her afterwards as if her part of the screen had been in colour."

In August 1948, Rank announced Dors would be one of its young players that it would be building up into stars. (The others included David Tomlinson, Susan Shaw, Patricia Plunkett, Sally Ann Howes, and Derek Bond.) In September, she was in A Boy, a Girl and a Bike (1949) by which stage her fee was £30 a week; she says that the movie took six months to shoot.

After a bit in My Sister and I (1948), Dors was given a showy comic-support part in Here Come the Huggetts (1948), a series that followed Holiday Camp, playing the lazy niece of the Huggetts, who causes trouble when she goes to stay with the family. Dors was so well received that she returned for the second movie in the series, Vote for Huggett (1949). Both were produced by Betty E. Box, who recalled, "Diana was all woman", despite only being a teenager. "She thought like a woman, acted like a woman, and looked like a woman." She was also in It's Not Cricket (1949).

David Shipman later argued that when Dors "was young she was very funny: she did a neat parody of the man-mad teenager, the nubile cousin who ogles the best man at the wedding breakfast, the office junior ready for a bit of slap and tickle behind the filing cupboard. She was the best thing about most of her early films."

Leading lady
Rank promoted Dors to leading roles in 1949's Diamond City, the story of a boom town in South Africa in 1870. Jean Kent was originally cast as a saloon owner in love with hero David Farrar, who loves a missionary played by Honor Blackman; Kent turned down the role and Dors took over. Filming took place in late 1948 and early 1949, when Dors was only 17 years old. She was paid £30 a week. She says the part of "Diana" in The Blue Lamp was written for her, but she lost it to Peggy Evans when the director decided he wanted "a waif type"; she also tested for the female lead in The Cure for Love, but lost out to Dora Bryan.

While waiting for Diamond City to come out, Rank sent Dors to appear with Barbara Murray in The Cat and the Canary at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing. She then appeared on stage in The Good Young Man with Digby Wolfe and in September 1949, with Marcel Le Bon in a touring production of Lisette, a three-act play by Douglas Sargeant .

In November 1949, Dors was contracted out to Ealing Studios, which put her in Dance Hall (1950), as one of the four female leads, along with Natasha Perry, Petula Clark, and Jane Hylton. Dors later called it "a ghastly film – quite one of the nastiest I ever made", although she received good personal reviews.

In February 1950, she went into the play Man of the World with Roger Livesey and Lionel Jeffries, directed by Kenneth Tynan, which opened at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. It only had a short run, but she received strong personal notices and was awarded Theatre World magazine's Actress of the Year award.

Diamond City flopped at the box office, though, and with Rank now £18 million (equivalent to £ in ) in debt, Rank closed their Charm School and made Dors redundant in September 1950. David Shipman argued that "though the Rank Organization knew how to put Dors through its Charm School paces, they had no idea how to handle such an individual talent."

British stardom
Dors landed the female lead supporting Ronald Shiner in Worm's Eye View (1951), a comedy that was one of the most popular movies of 1951 in Britain; her fee was £250. She had a leading role in a TV movie for the BBC, Face to Face (1951) then appeared in two plays – Miranda at Stratford, and Born Yesterday at Henley. She auditioned for the lead in Lady Godiva Rides Again and was turned down because it was felt she did not appeal to men and women, but she was given a support role. She later said her fee of £750 helped restore her financial situation.

Dennis Hamilton
With her boyfriend in jail and having just undergone her first abortion, Dors met Dennis Hamilton Gittins in May 1951 while filming Lady Godiva Rides Again for Rank, a film that has uncredited appearances by Joan Collins and Ruth Ellis (then four months pregnant). (Dors described herself as "the only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva".) The couple married five weeks later at Caxton Hall on Monday, 3 July 1951.

Later that month, Dors starred in a British film noir The Last Page (1952), directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer Films in association with producer Robert L. Lippert; her fee was £450 for four weeks' work. Lippert reportedly offered Dors a one-picture deal on condition that she divorce Hamilton, but Dors refused.

Dors often played characters suffering from unrequited love, and by the mid-1950s, she was known as "the English Marilyn Monroe". Hamilton also made sure that she had the lifestyle attachments of a sex symbol, agreeing to a lease-deal with Rolls-Royce such that a headline could be created in the tabloids that, at the age of 20, she was the youngest registered keeper of a Rolls-Royce in the UK.

Hamilton went to great lengths to advance Dors' career and his income or influence from it. After her death, friends and biographers said that Hamilton would lend Dors as a sexual favour to hiring producers and leading actors, much as in the "casting couch" practices of Hollywood.

Dors worked with Terry-Thomas on the TV series How Do You View? for £250. The Sunday Times called her a "charming addition to his crazy household."

In December 1951, a newspaper reported that the "likeliest British names for glamour in 1952 are probably Britain's Glynis Johns and plumpish Diana Dors. Both are going to Hollywood." She gained a second offer from Burt Lancaster for a lead role in his His Majesty O'Keefe (1954), but this time Hamilton turned down the part on her behalf before she even knew of the offer. The result was that her early career was restricted to mainly British films.

Theatre and Maurice Elvey
In April 1952, Dors appeared in a stage revue with Wally Chrisham, Rendezvous, which eventually made it to London.Variety said in May she made the "only noteworthy contribution" to the play, which ultimately only had a short run. However until Hamilton's guidance she received enormous publicity. Dors later said these reviews, in addition to Hamilton's publicity, helped turn her career around. Dors later said Hamilton "promoted me strictly as a sex symbol, never as an actress, but it served its purpose and at the time it was fun."

Laurence Olivier reportedly offered her a role in The Beggar's Opera, but Dors says the start date kept changing. Instead, she accepted an offer to appear in a show in Blackpool, Life with Lyons at a fee of £100 a week for three months. The Times newspaper reported on Tuesday 28 July 1953 (page 2) that  Diana (under her married name Diana Mary Gittins) received an absolute discharge after being convicted of the theft of several bottles of spirits from a friend's flat in Blackpool.

Dors' film career started to improve when she was cast in a support role in My Wife's Lodger (1952), directed by Maurice Elvey, who subsequently cast her in a small role in another low-budget comedy called The Great Game (1953) made by Adelphi Films.

In December 1952, Dors appeared on stage in It Remains to be Seen, which only ran seven performances. The Observer said Dors "bangs at it with goodwill." The Daily Telegraph said she "carries blondeness to its ultimate pitch, works very hard, and is likeable as a good-hearted little trollop."

In March 1953, Dors did a cabaret act in Glasgow. Variety said she showed "little ability to be a personality act." She began touring a variety act and performed variations of this act throughout her career.

Adelphi were impressed by Dors, announcing in February 1953 that they had bought the screen rights to the popular play Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary? (1953) as a vehicle for Dors; it was directed by Elvey in April. Her fee was £1,000 for four weeks work. She was paid that for another comedy, It's a Grand Life (1953) with Frank Randle.

Dors had a supporting part for Hammer in The Saint's Return (1954). In September 1953 the producer of that movie, Julian Lesser, announced he had an option for Dors' services on two more movies.

British stardom
Dors' career stepped up another level when she was cast in a supporting role alongside Glynis Johns in a prison drama, The Weak and the Wicked (1954), directed by J. Lee Thompson. She made the movie in August 1953, only a few weeks after having been convicted in real life of stealing alcohol from a friend's house. By this stage she was earning a reported £12,000 a year. When the film came out, it was a big hit in Britain and earned Dors some excellent reviews.

She played Aladdin as a Christmas pantomime in 1953 and did The Lovely Place for Rheingold Theatre on TV. In April 1954 she said "I'm picking and choosing my parts now. That doesn't mean I'm waiting for the perfect part, but I'm sick to death of being the sexy siren."

In 1954, Hamilton had the idea of exploiting the newly printed technology of 3D. He engaged photographer Horace Roye to take a number of nude and seminude photographs of Dors, which Hamilton subsequently had published in two forms; the semi-nude pictures were issued as a set called "Diana Dors 3D: the ultimate British Sex Symbol", which was sold together with a pair of 3D glasses; the full-nude test shot photographs became part of Roye's booklet London Models (1954). Police pressed charges, alleging the books were obscene but a court ruled that they were not.

Adelphi called her back for Miss Tulip Stays the Night (1955) for a fee of £1,500. She then played one of the leads in A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), directed by Carol Reed in mid-1954 for Alex Korda, paid £1,700; the film was one of the most popular movies of 1955 in Britain. Dors was offered the female lead in Thompson's As Long as They're Happy (1955) with Jack Buchanan, but was unable to accept; she agreed to do a guest role, instead, at £200 a day.

In October 1954, questions were asked in Parliament about why she was allowed to claim her mink coat as a tax deduction.

In December 1954, she reportedly turned down a seven-year contract with Rank worth £100,000 (equivalent to £ in ) because she could make more freelance. She did sign a three-picture deal with Rank worth £15,000 (equivalent to £ in ). The first of these was Value for Money (1955) for director Ken Annakin starring with John Gregson, filmed in early 1955, and An Alligator Named Daisy (1955), directed by Thompson, also for Rank, starring Donald Sinden.

The success of her movies, particularly Kid for Two Farthings, led to British exhibitors voting her the ninth-most popular British star at the box office in 1955 – the sole female star in the top 10. She ranked after Dirk Bogarde, John Mills, Norman Wisdom, Alastair Sim, Kenneth More, Jack Hawkins, Richard Todd, and Michael Redgrave, and in front of Alec Guinness. In November 1955 the press criticised her for wearing revealing necklines when meeting royalty.

Dors made a fourth film with Thompson, Yield to the Night (1956), filmed in late 1955. It was a crime drama with Dors playing a role similar to Ruth Ellis. She received some of the best reviews of her career. She was acclaimed at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

She turned down the female lead in Rank's The Big Money. On being offered that role and turning it down, she said:"If that's the best you can offer, then I'm rather surprised […] They still think I'm only good for the dumb blonde parts I played five years ago, I thought everyone in the business knew I'd come some way since then."

She later said:"After I did Yield to the Night, it [all the publicity] went a bit sour. It should have been toned down to give me the chance to become a serious actress."

RKO
Dors' performance attracted interest in Hollywood. In February 1956, she guest-starred on a TV special Bob Hope made in England.

In May 1956, Dors signed a contract with RKO to support George Gobel in I Married a Woman. She left Southampton on board the RMS Queen Elizabeth for New York City and then to Hollywood. She said: "I'm hoping to enjoy myself, keep my sense of fun and do a good job. It took me 10 years [of] hard work in poor[ly received] pictures, in revue, in straight plays, and touring to become a star, and I don't intend to let Hollywood push me about, crop my hair, change my style or personality."

In July 1956, Dors—through her company, Treasure Pictures—signed a contract with RKO Pictures to make three more movies, the first of which was to be The Unholy Wife (1957) with Rod Steiger, which started filming in September. Her fee was a reported $75,000, with the other films to go up $25,000. Dors reportedly had an affair with Rod Steiger during the filming of The Unholy Wife. In October 1956, Hamilton started an affair with Raymond "Mr. Teasy-Weasy" Bessone's estranged wife in London. In November, Dors announced Hamilton and she were separating. Dors later said, "They tried getting me in the gas chamber again in Hollywood [...] but [the film] wasn't good. They edited it badly."

William Dozier of RKO announced Dors would star in Blondes Prefer Gentlemen with Eddie Fisher, but the film was never made. In August 1956, she announced she had signed a one-picture deal to appear in a Bob Hope movie. This never happened; neither did a project Robert Aldrich announced he wanted to make with Dors and Paul Douglas at UA, Potluck for Pomeroy.

Due to meet Hollywood columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, interviews were arranged to be held at the Hollywood home of her friend, celebrity hairdresser Mr. Teasy-Weasy, who owned a Spanish-style villa off Sunset Boulevard, formerly owned by Marlene Dietrich. To coincide with the publication of the articles, Hamilton and Raymond arranged a Hollywood launch party at Raymond's house in August 1956, with a guest list that included Doris Day, Eddie Fisher, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Liberace, Lana Turner, Ginger Rogers, and John Wayne. After 30 minutes, while lining up next to Raymond's pool with her US agent Louis Shurr and her dress designer Howard Shoup, all four, including Dors and Hamilton, were pushed into the pool after the party crowd and photographers surged forward. Hamilton emerged from the pool and hit the first photographer before he could be restrained. The headlines in the National Enquirer read: "Miss Dors Go Home—And Take Mr. Dors With You". Because of the resulting negative publicity, the couple failed to buy Lana Turner's house, settling into a rental property in Coldwater Canyon.

She was meant to make three films produced by Anna Neagle, the first with Frankie Vaughan called The Cast Iron Shore; however, Dors pulled out in September.

In October, Dors appeared again on the Bob Hope Show. The New York Times said she "displayed considerable stage presence. The gal can handle her lines." Hedda Hopper reported around this time that Dors had replaced her agent "and her popularity is slipping even before her first film is shown." Hopper also said Dors' fee for British films was now $40,000, up from $20,000. In November, Dors, returning to London, announcing she and Hamilton had separated, with the latter blaming Steiger.

Return to Britain
In England she made The Long Haul (1957) for Columbia with Victor Mature, which started filming in February 1957. While making The Long Haul, Dors started a relationship with co-star Mature's stuntman, Tommy Yeardye. Details about the affair were reportedly leaked to the press by Yeardye.

Gerd Oswald wanted her for The Blonde. In October 1957, Hedda Hopper reported that Dors intended to make the last two films under her RKO contract, but Hopper thought, "she was just whistling Dixie."

She went to Italy to play an American in the French-Italian The Love Specialist (1957) with Vittorio Gassman. Dors stayed in crime for Tread Softly Stranger (1958), made for Gordon Parry with George Baker co-starring. She later said her three 1957 films made her £27,000.

Gassman and she were to reunite in Strange Holiday, but it was not made. She was a prostitute in Passport to Shame (1958). In August 1958, she reported she had been robbed of £11,000. She made a series of advertisements believed to have earned her £25,000.

Dors' RKO films flopped, so RKO elected not to make the other two films. In December 1958, RKO terminated its contract with Dors, alleging she "has become an object of disgrace, obloquy, ill will, and ridicule." Dors sued the studio for $1,250,000 in damages. (In July 1960, she settled for $200,000. )

Joseph Kaufman announced he wanted to make a film starring her called Stopover, but it was never made. In May 1959, she said she wanted to retire from acting and focus on her other interests, including a shampoo factory. She had a cameo on Scent of Mystery shot in Spain.

Cabaret
Following her final separation from Hamilton in 1958, Dors discovered that her company, Diana Dors Ltd, was in serious debt. Hamilton had steered the company toward the dual purpose of publicising his wife and helping himself, over paying tax bills and establishing financial stability. Having been forced by Hamilton "at gunpoint" to sign over all of her assets prior to the end of their marriage, and in need of money to pay her divorce lawyers and their accountants, she agreed to the suggestion of agent Joseph Collins to undertake a theatre-based cabaret tour titled "The Diana Dors Show". In July 1958, Dors was the top of the bill act at a cabaret in Coventry, being paid £2,500 a week.

Yeardye suggested that they hire comedian Dickie Dawson, later known as Richard Dawson; Dawson subsequently scripted the show and wrote most of the material. Dors started a relationship with Dawson and ended the relationship with Yeardye, who subsequently emptied her cash box at Harrods of £18,000 and sold his story to the media. This brought negative publicity to the show, but audience numbers remained high, which allowed Dors extra time to explain her affairs to a subsequent Inland Revenue investigation of her cash holdings. In 1959, Hamilton died, and Dors married Dawson in New York while making an appearance on The Steve Allen Show. "The Diana Dors Show" was commissioned for two studio-based series on television at ITV.

In 1959, Variety said Sabrina was "to Diana Dors in Britain what Jayne Mansfield is to Marilyn Monroe."

In 1960, it was announced Dors and Dawson would make a film of the stage show Grab Me a Gondola, but it never happened.

Filmink magazine said, "no decent British film roles seemed forthcoming" around this time. "The Rank Organisation, who could have used Dors around this time, did not seem interested. Neither did Hammer Films, who were experiencing global success with their horror movies. Perhaps most frustratingly for Dors, J. Lee Thompson, who had given her the two best opportunities, made a series of films featuring parts that Dors could have played, but which, for whatever reason, were taken by other actors."

Back in Hollywood
After the birth of her first child in February 1960, and wishing to stay in the United States with Dawson, Dors undertook a cabaret contract to headline at the Dunes hotel and casino in Las Vegas. In September 1960, she did a cabaret act at Ciro's, which Variety said was "pleasant enough".

She appeared in some American films: On the Double (1961), a Danny Kaye comedy, and The Big Bankroll (1962), a crime film also known as King of the Roaring 20's: The Story of Arnold Rothstein. She also sold her memoirs to News of the World for $140,000. She later claimed she turned down a role in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. She was meant to be in The Ladies' Man with Jerry Lewis but was fired at the last minute.

During the summer of 1961, Dors shot "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", based on Robert Bloch's story, for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The episode was so gruesome that it was suppressed for decades.

Dors returned to Britain. In 1961, she narrowly escaped death at a Guy Fawkes Night party in Wraysbury, where fireworks were accidentally ignited indoors. The house was destroyed, three people died in the fire and another one had a fatal heart attack, and Dors was slightly injured while escaping through a window.

She appeared in Mrs. Gibbons' Boys (1962), West 11 (1963), The Counterfeit Constable (1964), and The Sandwich Man (1966).

In the early 1960s, she was living in Los Angeles. While there she guest starred on episodes of Burke's Law and The Eleventh Hour, and starred in a 1963 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour titled "Run for Doom", co-starring John Gavin, and episodes of Straightaway and Armchair Theatre in Britain.

She toured Australia in 1963. While there, she said 1956 was "my biggest year, and you never can tell whether you will do it again. That is what makes show business so fascinating —you never can tell."

Bankruptcy
Dors divorced Dawson in 1966 and returned to the UK to find work, leaving behind her two sons. She resumed cabaret work with her pianist and musical director Denny Termer, and subsequently was served with a writ of bankruptcy. As her popularity had fallen, this time she was touring working men's clubs, and smaller venues.

In June 1968, she reported that she owed £53,000, of which £48,000 was to the Inland Revenue, and had assets of a little over £200. She declared bankruptcy in October 1968.

Dors' film career was now strictly supporting roles: Danger Route (1967); Berserk! (1967), with Joan Crawford; Hammerhead (1968); Baby Love (1968); Deep End (1970); and There's a Girl in My Soup (1970). She returned to the West End in 1970 for the first time in 17 years in a play called Three Months Gone.

TV stardom and supporting film roles
Dors played the title role in the sitcom, Queenie's Castle (1970–72), which ran for three series. Less popular was the follow-up, All Our Saturdays (1973). During this period, she appeared in a TV adaptation of A Taste of Honey (1971) and episodes of Z Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, Just William, The Sweeney, Hammer House of Horror, and Shoestring.

Dors' film work included Hannie Caulder (1971); The Pied Piper (1972); The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972); Swedish Wildcats (1972); Nothing but the Night (1972); Theatre of Blood (1973); Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973); From Beyond the Grave (1973); and Craze (1974).

In the mid-1970s, she became in high demand for sex comedies: The Amorous Milkman (1975), Bedtime with Rosie (1975), What the Swedish Butler Saw (1975), Three for All (1976), Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976), Keep It Up Downstairs (1976), Adventures of a Private Eye (1977), and Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979).

In 1974, she appeared on stage in a production of Oedipus Rex.

In 1977, she won a court battle to prevent Wolf Rilla from writing a biography based on interviews she had done with Rilla.

Final years
Still making headlines in the News of the World and other print media in the late 1970s thanks to her adult parties, in her later years, Dors' status began to revive.

In 1979 while touring Australia, she said, "I used to think it was a lot of hooey that life begins at 40. But I know what I can put up with; I've mellowed. I'm a homey person, although I don't expect people to believe it."

Although her film work consisted mainly of sex comedies, her popularity climbed thanks to her television work, where her wit, intelligence, and catchy one-liners developed as a cabaret performer won over viewers. She became a regular on Jokers Wild, Blankety Blank and Celebrity Squares, and was a regular guest on BBC Radio 2's The Law Game. She also had a recurring role in The Two Ronnies in 1980. A popular chat-show guest, an entire show – Russell Harty: At Home with Dors – came from the pool room of her home, Orchard Manor. Younger musical artists engaged her persona, brought about after the 1981 Adam and the Ants music video Prince Charming, where she played the fairy godmother opposite Adam Ant, who played a male Cinderella figure.

Dors' other final appearances were in a BBC tv adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1980), Timon of Athens (1981), Dick Turpin (1981), and Cannon and Ball (1981).

Having turned her life story into a cash flow through interviews and leaked tabloid stories, like many celebrities in their later careers, she turned to an autobiography to generate retirement cash. In 1960, she wrote and published Swingin' Dors, and between 1978 and 1984, she published four autobiographical books under her own name: For Adults Only, Behind Closed Dors, Dors by Diana, and A. to Z. of Men.

Diana Dors was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in April 1957, when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre, and in October 1982, when Andrews surprised her at London's Royalty Theatre.

Having gone through her first round of cancer treatment, by the early 1980s, Dors' hour-glass figure had become plumper, and she addressed the issue through co-writing a diet book, and creating a diet and exercise videocassette. This resulted in her working for TV-am, ITV's breakfast station, in the summer of 1983, in a regular slot focusing on diet and nutrition, which later developed into an agony aunt segment. As the cancer treatment took its toll again, however, her appearances became less frequent. She sued the show for withholding her fan mail.

Her last public appearance was in cabaret at Harpoon Louie's, Earl's Court, West London, on 15 April 1984, where she looked considerably frail, but stood throughout her whole set. Her final (posthumous) film appearance was in Steaming (1985).

Discography
The earliest recordings of Dors were two sides of a 78-rpm single released on HMV Records in 1953. The tracks were "I Feel So Mmmm" and "A Kiss and a Cuddle (and a Few Kind Words from You)". HMV also released sheet music featuring sultry photos of Dors on the cover. She also sang "The Hokey Pokey Polka" on the 1954 soundtrack for the film As Long as They're Happy. Dors recorded only one complete album, the swing-themed Swingin' Dors, in 1960. The LP was originally released on red vinyl and with a gatefold sleeve. The accompanying orchestra was conducted by Wally Stott. She also sang as a special guest for the Italian TV show Un, due, tre (One, two, three, starring Ugo Tognazzi and Raimondo Vianello) on 31 May 1959, at the Teatro della Fiera in Milan, with the orchestra conducted by Mario Bertolazzi, and recorded singles on various record labels from the 1960s through the early 1980s, including a single for the Nomis label, "Where Did They Go?" / "It's You Again" (the latter being a duet with her son, Gary Dawson), while she was being treated for cancer. While promoting the single on TV, Dors claimed "Where Did They Go?" had been especially written for her, but in fact, the track had been recorded originally by Peggy Lee in 1971 and in 1972 by Sandie Shaw.

Personal life
Dors was married three times:
 * Dennis Hamilton Gittins (3 July 1951 – 3 January 1959, his death): married five weeks after meeting, at Caxton Hall; no children; lived in London, Berkshire, and Hollywood
 * Richard Dawson (12 April 1959 – 1966, divorced): married in New York; two sons, Mark Dawson and Gary Dawson; lived in London, New York, and Hollywood
 * Alan Lake (23 November 1968 – 4 May 1984, her death): married at Caxton Hall; one son, Jason Lake; lived at Orchard Manor, Sunningdale, Berkshire

In 1949, while filming Diamond City, she had a relationship with businessman Michael Caborn-Waterfield, who later founded the Ann Summers chain, which he named after a former girlfriend. During the short relationship, Dors became pregnant, but Caborn-Waterfield paid for a back-street abortion, which took place on a kitchen table in Battersea. The relationship continued for a time, before Dors met Dennis Hamilton Gittins on the set of Lady Godiva Rides Again, and while with him she had a second abortion in 1951.

Dors is said to have become a close friend of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, after Ellis had a bit part in Lady Godiva Rides Again. However, Dors never mentioned having known Ellis, either in interviews or in her memoirs. Through her husband Hamilton, Dors was close friends with the notorious Kray twins and their mother Violet.

Parties
During her relationship with Hamilton, and until a few months before her death, Dors regularly held adult parties at her home. There, a number of celebrities, amply supplied with alcohol and drugs, mixed with young starlets against a background of both softcore and hardcore porn films. Dors gave all her guests full access to the entire house; her son Jason Lake later alleged in various media interviews and publications that she had equipped it with 8 mm movie cameras. The young starlets were made aware of the arrangements and were allowed to attend for free in return for making sure that their celebrity partners performed in bed at the right camera angles. Dors later enjoyed watching the films, keeping an archive of the best performances.

Dors became an early subject of the "celebrity exposé" tabloids, appearing regularly in the News of the World. In large part, she brought this notoriety upon herself. In desperate need of cash after her separation from Hamilton in 1958, she gave an interview in which she described their lives and the adult group parties in full, frank detail. The interview was serialised in the tabloid for 12 weeks, followed by an extended six-week series of sensational stories, creating negative publicity. Subsequently, the Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher denounced Dors as a "wayward hussy".

However, other mainstream news media, on television and film, were unwilling to repeat the stories until well after Dors' death. This was in part because of her popularity, and also partly because of who was attending the parties. Her former lover and party guest Bob Monkhouse later commented in an interview after Dors' death, "The awkward part about an orgy, is that afterwards you're not too sure who to thank."

Death
Towards the end of her life, Dors had meningitis and twice underwent surgery to remove cancerous tumours. She collapsed at her home near Windsor with acute stomach pains and died on 4 May 1984, aged 52, at the BMI Princess Margaret Hospital in Windsor from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years before.

She had converted to Catholicism in early 1973; hence, her funeral service was held at the Sacred Heart Church in Sunningdale on 11 May 1984, conducted by Father Theodore Fontanari. She was buried in Sunningdale Catholic Cemetery.

Alan Lake suicide
After her death, Alan Lake burned all of Dors' remaining clothes and fell into a depression. On 10 October 1984, Lake did a telephone interview with Daily Express journalist Jean Rook and then walked into their son's bedroom and took his own life by firing a shotgun into his mouth. He was 43. This was five months after her death from cancer, and 16 years to the day since they had first met. Alan had no alcohol or illegal drugs in his system at the time of his death.

Her home for the previous 20 years, Orchard Manor, was sold by the solicitors. The house's contents were bulk-sold by Sotheby's, which sold her jewellery collection in an auction. After solicitors' bills, outstanding tax payments, death duties, and other distributions, the combined estates of Dors and Lake left little for the upkeep of their son Jason (aged 14), who was subsequently made a ward of court to his half-brother Gary Dawson in Los Angeles.

Jason Dors-Lake's death
On 14 September 2019, Jason Dors-Lake, the son of Diana Dors and Alan Lake, was reported to have died three days after his 50th birthday at his flat in Notting Hill Gate, London, from the combined effects of alcohol and tramadol intoxication.

Commemoration in Swindon
Dors is commemorated in her home town of Swindon.

Statue
A larger-than-life bronze statue of Dors by John Clinch was erected outside the cinema at Shaw Ridge in West Swindon in 1991. It depicts an exaggerated version of her wearing an evening gown.

Blue plaque
Swindon Heritage unveiled a blue plaque to Dors in 2017 on the boundary of numbers 61 and 62 Kent Road in the Old Town area of Swindon. At the time, the two properties were the Haven Nursing Home where she was born. The plaque was unveiled by her son Jason Dors-Lake and her granddaughter Ruby Lake. Dors' 1959 pink Cadillac, which was a gift to her from Shepperton Studios, was parked outside during the unveiling.

Bust
The collection of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery includes a bronze bust of Dors by Enid Mitchell. It was originally unveiled at the Wyvern Theatre in the town in 1988, where it was displayed in the foyer until 2013, when it was moved to Swindon Central Library. It remained on display there until it was rehoused in the Museum and Art Gallery in 2015.

In popular culture
Dors was portrayed by Keeley Hawes (younger) and Amanda Redman (older) in the TV biographical film The Blonde Bombshell (1999).

On the cover of the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles, Dors' wax figure appears in the collage of celebrities, on the right below the tree.

The Kinks paid homage to her when they included the Ray Davies-penned tribute tune "Good Day" on their album Word of Mouth.

After appearing as Adam Ant's fairy godmother in his music video "Prince Charming", Dors was also included in the Adam and the Ants song "Scorpios" with lyrics "Black's the colour watch the claws, With nails as sharp as Diana Dors".

Dors was the cover star of the Smiths' album Singles.

Alleged fortune
Dors claimed to have hidden away more than £2 million in banks across Europe. In 1982, she gave her son Mark Dawson a sheet of paper on which, she told him, was a code that would reveal the whereabouts of the money. His stepfather Alan Lake supposedly knew the key that would crack the code, but he died by suicide soon after her death and Dawson was left with an apparently unsolvable puzzle.

He sought out computer forensic specialists Inforenz, who recognised the encryption as the one attributed to Blaise de Vigenère, (Vigenère cipher), but actually invented by Giovan Battista Bellaso. Inforenz then used their own cryptanalysis software to suggest a 10-letter decryption key, DMARYFLUCK (short for Diana Mary Fluck, Dors's real name). With the aid of a bank statement found among Alan Lake's papers, Inforenz was then able to decode the existing material to reveal a list of surnames and towns only – suggesting that there must be a second page that would reveal first names and bank details, to complete the message. As this has never come to light, no money has ever been traced. In 2003, Channel 4 made a television programme about the mystery.

Select stage appearances

 * The Cat and the Canary (1949) at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing
 * The Good Young Man (1949)
 * Lysette (1949)

title: Diana Dors


text:
Ubangi-Shari

Ubangi-Shari (Oubangui-Chari) was a French colony in central Africa, a part of French Equatorial Africa. It was named after the Ubangi and Chari rivers along which it was colonised. It was established on 29 December 1903, from the Upper Ubangi (Haut-Oubangui) and Upper Shari (Haut-Chari) territories of the French Congo; renamed the Central African Republic (CAR) on 1 December 1958; and received independence on 13 August 1960.

History
French activity in the area began in 1889 with the establishment of the outpost Bangi at the head of navigation on the Ubangi.

The Upper Ubangi was established as part of the French Congo on 9 December 1891. Despite a France-Congo Free State convention establishing a border around the 4th parallel, the area was contested from 1892 to 1895 with the Congo Free State, which claimed the region as its territory of Ubangi-Bomu (Oubangui-Bomou). The Upper Ubangi was a separate colony from 13 July 1894 until 10 December 1899, at which time it was folded back into the French Congo. The Upper Shari region was established as part of the French Congo on 5 September 1900. That same year the Company of the Upper Ubangi Sultanates took over 140,000 km2 of Upper Ubangi as a concession.

The territories were united as the separate colony of Ubangi-Shari on 29 December 1903, following the French defeat of Abbas II of Egypt, who had claimed the area. On 11 February 1906, this colony merged with the French settlements around Lake Chad and became the Ubangi-Shari territory of Ubangi-Shari-Chad (Oubangui-Chari-Tchad). In 1909, it received the administration over the sultanates of Zemio and Rafai from the Belgian Congo.

On 15 January 1910, this administration was merged with the French Middle Congo and Gabon as the Ubangi-Shari area of French Equatorial Africa (FEA). On 12 April 1916, it again became the separate colony of Ubangi-Shari, but in 1920 lost the territory around Lake Chad, and on 30 June 1934, was again folded into FEA. As a part of FEA, it was declared an overseas territory on 31 December 1937.

Between 1915 and 1931, stamps were overprinted for use in Ubangi-Shari, and later specially printed for the colony.

During World War II, it remained loyal to Vichy France from 16 June to 29 August 1940, before being taken by the Free French. It was granted autonomy as the Central African Republic on 1 December 1958, and independence under the same name on 13 August 1960.

Concession systems and atrocities
Ubangi-Shari had a similar concession system as the Congo Free State and similar atrocities were also committed there. Writer André Gide travelled to Ubangi-Shari and was told by inhabitants about atrocities including mutilations, dismemberments, executions, the burning of children, and villagers being forcefully bound to large beams and made to walk until dropping from exhaustion and thirst.

The book "Travels to Congo" by Gide, published in 1927 describes the horrors of the concession companies in French Equatorial Africa. The book had an important impact on the anti-colonialist movement in France. The number of victims under the French concession system in Ubangi-Shari and other parts of French Equatorial Africa remains unknown.

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

title: Ubangi-Shari


text:
Manfreda

Manfreda was a genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Agavoideae. Along with Polianthes, members are commonly called tuberoses. The generic name honours 14th-century Italian writer Manfredus de Monte Imperiale. All species are now placed in Agave. (See Agave § Taxonomy.)

Like other species of Agave, former Manfreda species have rosettes of leaves branching from a very short stem, and flowers at the end of a long stalk. The flowers are tubular and whitish, yellow, green, or brownish, with lengthy stamens.

Species
Species formerly placed in Manfreda:

 * Manfreda alibertii (Baker) Rose = Agave virginica
 * Manfreda brachystachys (Cav.) Rose = Agave scabra
 * Manfreda brunnea (S.Watson) Rose = Agave brunnea
 * Manfreda bulbulifera Castillejos & E.Solano = Agave bulbulifera
 * Manfreda chamelensis E.J.Lott & Verh.-Will. = Agave chamelensis
 * Manfreda conduplicata (Jacobi & C.D.Bouché) Rose = Agave virginica
 * Manfreda elongata Rose = Agave gracillima
 * Manfreda fusca Ravenna = Agave fusca
 * Manfreda galvaniae A.Castañeda = Agave galvaniae
 * Manfreda guerrerensis Matuda = Agave guerrerensis
 * Manfreda guttata (Jacobi & C.D.Bouché) Rose = Agave guttata
 * Manfreda hauniensis (J.B.Petersen) Verh.-Will. = Agave hauniensis
 * Manfreda insignis Matuda = Agave hauniensis
 * Manfreda involuta McVaugh = Agave involuta
 * Manfreda jaliscana Rose = Agave jaliscana
 * Manfreda justosierrana García-Mend. = Agave justosierrana
 * Manfreda littoralis García-Mend. = Agave littoralis
 * Manfreda longibracteata Verh.-Will. = Agave longibracteata
 * Manfreda longiflora (Rose) Verh.-Will. = Agave longiflora
 * Manfreda maculata (Mart.) Rose = Agave stictata
 * Manfreda maculosa (Hook.) Rose = Agave maculata
 * Manfreda malinaltenangensis Matuda = Agave scabra
 * Manfreda nanchititlensis Matuda = Agave nanchititlensis
 * Manfreda oliveriana Rose = Agave scabra
 * Manfreda paniculata L.Hern. = Agave paniculata
 * Manfreda parva Aarón Rodr. = Agave parva
 * Manfreda petskinil R.A.Orellana = Agave petskinil
 * Manfreda planifolia (S.Watson) Rose = Agave planifolia
 * Manfreda potosina (B.L.Rob. & Greenm.) Rose = Agave potosina
 * Manfreda pringlei Rose = Agave debilis
 * Manfreda pubescens (Regel & Ortgies) Verh.-Will. ex Espejo & López-Ferr. = Agave pubescens
 * Manfreda revoluta (Klotzsch) Rose = Agave revoluta
 * Manfreda rubescens Rose = Agave pratensis
 * Manfreda scabra (Ortega) McVaugh = Agave scabra
 * Manfreda sessiliflora (Hemsl.) Matuda = Agave scabra
 * Manfreda sileri Verh.-Will. = Agave sileri
 * Manfreda singuliflora (S.Watson) Rose = Agave singuliflora
 * Manfreda tamazunchalensis Matuda = Agave variegata
 * Manfreda tigrina (Engelm.) Small = Agave virginica
 * Manfreda umbrophila García-Mend. = Agave umbrophila
 * Manfreda undulata (Klotzsch) Rose = Agave undulata
 * Manfreda variegata (Jacobi) Rose = Agave variegata
 * Manfreda verhoekiae García-Mend. = Agave verhoekiae
 * Manfreda virginica (L.) Salisb. ex Rose = Agave virginica
 * Manfreda xilitlensis Matuda = Agave variegata

title: Manfreda


text:
Ironton

Ironton is the name of several places in the United States:

 * Ironton, Arkansas
 * Ironton, Colorado
 * Ironton, Indiana
 * Ironton, Louisiana
 * Ironton, Michigan
 * Ironton, Minnesota
 * Ironton, Missouri
 * Ironton, Montana
 * Ironton, New York
 * Ironton, Ohio
 * Ironton Junction, Ohio
 * Ironton, Pennsylvania
 * Ironton, Texas
 * Ironton, Utah
 * Ironton, Wisconsin:
 * Ironton, Wisconsin
 * Ironton (town), Wisconsin
 * Oxmoor, Alabama, also known as Ironton
 * Ironton Creek in Crow Wing County, Minnesota
 * Ironton Flats in Madera County, California
 * Ironton Hollow in Iron County, Missouri
 * Ironton Ridge in Reynolds County, Missouri
 * Irontone Springs in Otsego County, Michigan

title: Ironton


text:
Melinda Messenger

Melinda Jane Messenger (born 23 February 1971) is an English television presenter and former glamour model and Page Three girl. She presented the magazine programme Live from Studio Five and was formerly the co-presenter of the reality show Cowboy Builders.

Early life
Messenger was born on 23 February 1971 in Swindon, Wiltshire. After attending different schools, one of which was Dorcan Technology College, she spent six months working as a flight attendant for Britannia Airways. She then joined a local marketing company and rose to become customer services manager, overseeing a staff of 50 employees.

Modelling
Messenger decided to become a model, and was advised by the Jason Paul Modelling Agency to enhance her breasts, which she enlarged from a 34C to a 34DD cup. She then took a job modelling for a Gloucester-based double glazing company, Glevum, dressed only in lingerie. As part of an advertising campaign called "Class Behind Glass", the posters quickly began disappearing from bus stops, having been taken by locals. After a complaint at the lack of clothes on Messenger, the Advertising Standards Authority banned the campaign, claiming they were not sufficiently "classy".

After local newspapers reported on this, the Daily Star ran the story on 28 January 1997 as a photo-shoot of Messenger, under the headline "Move Over Eva Herzigova".

Signed by modelling agent Yvonne Paul, who had steered Samantha Fox to fame in the 1980s, Messenger's career accelerated. She posed for designers including Vivienne Westwood, then appeared on The Sun newspaper's Page Three; the publication later hailed her as the "Girl of the Thrillenium!" Her work for the newspaper entailed visiting the Spanish coasts and English seaside resorts, an assignment known as "Mel's Big Bus Tour".

Move from modelling
Messenger appeared in a cameo role in 1999's Virtual Sexuality as Superbra Girl, and costarred in the 2000 cult film The Mumbo Jumbo in the role of Princess Vanilla. She worked on Channel 4 cult show Eurotrash and became a popular pantomime actress, taking on roles such as Cinderella (2004–2005) and Aladdin (with Bobby Davro and John Rhys-Davies; Woking – 2005–2006).

Motherhood and becoming a presenter
Following the birth of her first child on 7 April 2000, by emergency caesarian section after she collapsed with pre-eclampsia, Messenger concentrated on developing her career as a television presenter.

Messenger released her Back into Shape Workout DVD, which was a six-week fitness programme designed to help new mothers recover their fitness. She appeared on Noel Edmonds – Gotcha! in which she was one of the subjects to receive the treatment from Noel and his team.

Messenger had her own issue of At Home With... magazine called "At Home With Melinda Messenger", which was aimed at parents. She joined with chef Antony Worrall Thompson in May 2008 and contributed some recipes for the cookbook The Sweet Life.

Television
Messenger's TV career began in 1997 on Channel 4's Eurotrash, where she featured as a "roving reporter" in erotic scenarios, including modelling fetish wear and acting as a nude magician's assistant.

In 1998–99 she hosted her own show on Channel 5 called Melinda's Big Night In.

From 1998 to 2001, Messenger presented the Channel 5 game show Fort Boyard, which ran for four series. She joined ex-EastEnders star Leslie Grantham and Catweazle star Geoffrey Bayldon in the game show which tested contestants' physical agility and brainpower on the sea fortress in France.

In 1999, Messenger presented the game show Beat the Crusher with Freddie Starr.

In 2002, she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother. She has since presented many TV programmes, including Loose Lips (with Richard Arnold), Baby Baby, Can We Still Be Friends, and Beat the Dealer.

In 2004, she appeared on the "Age Swap" episode of Celebrity Swap as 83-year-old Margaret Doyle, supposedly Melinda's old ballet teacher, disguised with prosthetic make-up, a black lycra suit, a red-white wig and fake teeth.

In 2008, Messenger presented as host on programmes including the BBC's To Buy or Not to Buy, ITV's Bingo Night Live, and A Garden For Eden for ITV Westcountry.

She did a voiceover for a viewer competition for ITV's Golden Balls between 2008 and 2009.

Messenger's show Cowboy Builders started on Five on 8 January 2009, co-presented with Dominic Littlewood. Alongside this, Melinda was a contestant in the fourth series of Dancing on Ice, which began on 11 January 2009. She was eliminated in the seventh week after losing a surprise skate-off against Jessica Taylor. She had survived three previous skate-offs.

In 2009, Messenger, along with ex-footballer Ian Wright and The Apprentice runner-up Kate Walsh, began presenting a new show on Five called Live from Studio Five. It was announced on 29 January 2010 that Messenger was leaving her role on Live from Studio Five, to focus on other projects. Her last show was on 26 February and she was replaced by a series of guest hosts. The show was cancelled in February 2011.

She hosted The Health Lottery Draws on ITV and Channel 5 between 2011 and 2012.

In September 2023, Channel 4 announced Messenger as one of the contestants on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.

Psychotherapist
After quitting regular television work, Messenger undertook training in psychotherapy and has practised since 2015.

Personal life
Having dated since they met at his local Swansea nightclub, Messenger married Wayne Roberts in Bali, Indonesia, on 26 November 1998. The couple have three children. Though Messenger expressed a desire for a large family, she decided not to have more children because she had suffered from post-natal depression after the birth of her second and third child. In 2003, Messenger won Quality Street "Celebrity Mum of the Year".

title: Melinda Messenger


text:
User talk:194.8.54.251

Proposed deletion of Alex Leigh

The article Alex Leigh has been proposed for deletion  because of the following concern:
 * Marginal notability; unsourced BLP since January 2007.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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Proposed deletion of Wood between the Worlds

The article Wood between the Worlds has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern: "Element does not have significant coverage in reliable third party sources as mandated by the WP:GNG. A search shows primary sources and passing mentions, nothing to establish WP:Notability."

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

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Wood between the Worlds until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

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title: User talk:194.8.54.251


text: User talk:204.249.212.29

title: User talk:204.249.212.29


text:
Quantum logic

In the mathematical study of logic and the physical analysis of quantum foundations, quantum logic is a set of rules for manipulation of propositions inspired by the structure of quantum theory. The formal system takes as its starting point an observation of Garrett Birkhoff and John von Neumann, that the structure of experimental tests in classical mechanics forms a Boolean algebra, but the structure of experimental tests in quantum mechanics forms a much more complicated structure.

A number of other logics have also been proposed to analyze quantum-mechanical phenomena, unfortunately also under the name of "quantum logic(s)". They are not the subject of this article. For discussion of the similarities and differences between quantum logic and some of these competitors, see .

Quantum logic has been proposed as the correct logic for propositional inference generally, most notably by the philosopher Hilary Putnam, at least at one point in his career. This thesis was an important ingredient in Putnam's 1968 paper "Is Logic Empirical?" in which he analysed the epistemological status of the rules of propositional logic. Modern philosophers reject quantum logic as a basis for reasoning, because it lacks a material conditional; a common alternative is the system of linear logic, of which quantum logic is a fragment.

Mathematically, quantum logic is formulated by weakening the distributive law for a Boolean algebra, resulting in an orthocomplemented lattice. Quantum-mechanical observables and states can be defined in terms of functions on or to the lattice, giving an alternate formalism for quantum computations.

Introduction
The most notable difference between quantum logic and classical logic is the failure of the propositional distributive law:
 * p and (q or r) = (p and q) or (p and r),

where the symbols p, q and r are propositional variables.

To illustrate why the distributive law fails, consider a particle moving on a line and (using some system of units where the reduced Planck constant is 1) let
 * p = "the particle has momentum in the interval $[0, +1/6]$"
 * q = "the particle is in the interval $[−1, 1]$"
 * r = "the particle is in the interval $[1, 3]$"

We might observe that:
 * p and (q or r) = true

in other words, that the state of the particle is a weighted superposition of momenta between 0 and +1/6 and positions between −1 and +3.

On the other hand, the propositions "p and q" and "p and r" each assert tighter restrictions on simultaneous values of position and momentum than are allowed by the uncertainty principle (they each have uncertainty 1/3, which is less than the allowed minimum of 1/2). So there are no states that can support either proposition, and
 * (p and q) or (p and r) = false

History and modern criticism
In his classic 1932 treatise Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann noted that projections on a Hilbert space can be viewed as propositions about physical observables; that is, as potential yes-or-no questions an observer might ask about the state of a physical system, questions that could be settled by some measurement. Principles for manipulating these quantum propositions were then called quantum logic by von Neumann and Birkhoff in a 1936 paper.

George Mackey, in his 1963 book (also called Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics), attempted to axiomatize quantum logic as the structure of an orthocomplemented lattice, and recognized that a physical observable could be defined in terms of quantum propositions. Although Mackey's presentation still assumed that the orthocomplemented lattice is the lattice of closed linear subspaces of a separable Hilbert space, Constantin Piron, Günther Ludwig and others later developed axiomatizations that do not assume an underlying Hilbert space.

Inspired by Hans Reichenbach's recent defence of general relativity, the philosopher Hilary Putnam popularized Mackey's work in two papers in 1968 and 1975, in which he attributed the idea that anomalies associated to quantum measurements originate with a failure of logic itself to his coauthor, physicist David Finkelstein. Putnam hoped to develop a possible alternative to hidden variables or wavefunction collapse in the problem of quantum measurement, but Gleason's theorem presents severe difficulties for this goal. Later, Putnam retracted his views, albeit with much less fanfare, but the damage had been done. While Birkhoff and von Neumann's original work only attempted to organize the calculations associated with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, a school of researchers had now sprung up, either hoping that quantum logic would provide a viable hidden-variable theory, or obviate the need for one. Their work proved fruitless, and now lies in poor repute.

Most philosophers find quantum logic an unappealing competitor to classical logic. It is far from evident (albeit true ) that quantum logic is a logic, in the sense of describing a process of reasoning, as opposed to a particularly convenient language to summarize the measurements performed by quantum apparatuses. In particular, modern philosophers of science argue that quantum logic attempts to substitute metaphysical difficulties for unsolved problems in physics, rather than properly solving the physics problems. Tim Maudlin writes that quantum "logic 'solves' the [measurement] problem by making the problem impossible to state."

Quantum logic remains in limited use among logicians as an extremely pathological counterexample (Dalla Chiara and Giuntini: "Why quantum logics? Simply because 'quantum logics are there!'"). Although the central insight to quantum logic remains mathematical folklore as an intuition pump for categorification, discussions rarely mention quantum logic.

Quantum logic's best chance at revival is through the recent development of quantum computing, which has engendered a proliferation of new logics for formal analysis of quantum protocols and algorithms (see also ). The logic may also find application in (computational) linguistics.

Algebraic structure
Quantum logic can be axiomatized as the theory of propositions modulo the following identities:
 * a = ¬¬a
 * ∨ is commutative and associative.
 * There is a maximal element ⊤, and ⊤ = b∨¬b for any b.
 * a∨¬(¬a∨b) = a.

("¬" is the traditional notation for "not", "∨" the notation for "or", and "∧" the notation for "and".)

Some authors restrict to orthomodular lattices, which additionally satisfy the orthomodular law:
 * If ⊤ = ¬(¬a∨¬b)∨¬(a∨b) then a = b.

("⊤" is the traditional notation for truth and ""⊥" the traditional notation for falsity.)

Alternative formulations include propositions derivable via a natural deduction, sequent calculus or tableaux system. Despite the relatively developed proof theory, quantum logic is not known to be decidable.

Quantum logic as the logic of observables
The remainder of this article assumes the reader is familiar with the spectral theory of self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space. However, the main ideas can be understood in the finite-dimensional case.

Logic of classical mechanics
The Hamiltonian formulations of classical mechanics have three ingredients: states, observables and dynamics. In the simplest case of a single particle moving in R3, the state space is the position–momentum space R6. An observable is some real-valued function f on the state space. Examples of observables are position, momentum or energy of a particle. For classical systems, the value f(x), that is the value of f for some particular system state x, is obtained by a process of measurement of f.

The propositions concerning a classical system are generated from basic statements of the form
 * "Measurement of f yields a value in the interval [a, b] for some real numbers a, b."

through the conventional arithmetic operations and pointwise limits. It follows easily from this characterization of propositions in classical systems that the corresponding logic is identical to the Boolean algebra of Borel subsets of the state space. They thus obey the laws of classical propositional logic (such as de Morgan's laws) with the set operations of union and intersection corresponding to the Boolean conjunctives and subset inclusion corresponding to material implication.

In fact, a stronger claim is true: they must obey the infinitary logic $L_{ω_{1},ω}$.

We summarize these remarks as follows: The proposition system of a classical system is a lattice with a distinguished orthocomplementation operation: The lattice operations of meet and join are respectively set intersection and set union. The orthocomplementation operation is set complement. Moreover, this lattice is sequentially complete, in the sense that any sequence {Ei}i∈N of elements of the lattice has a least upper bound, specifically the set-theoretic union: $$ \operatorname{LUB}(\{E_i\}) = \bigcup_{i=1}^\infty E_i\text{.} $$

Propositional lattice of a quantum mechanical system
In the Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics as presented by von Neumann, a physical observable is represented by some (possibly unbounded) densely defined self-adjoint operator A on a Hilbert space H. A has a spectral decomposition, which is a projection-valued measure E defined on the Borel subsets of R. In particular, for any bounded Borel function f on R, the following extension of f to operators can be made: $$ f(A) = \int_{\mathbb{R}} f(\lambda) \, d \operatorname{E}(\lambda).$$

In case f is the indicator function of an interval [a, b], the operator f(A) is a self-adjoint projection onto the subspace of generalized eigenvectors of A with eigenvalue in $[a,b]$. That subspace can be interpreted as the quantum analogue of the classical proposition
 * Measurement of A yields a value in the interval [a, b].

This suggests the following quantum mechanical replacement for the orthocomplemented lattice of propositions in classical mechanics, essentially Mackey's Axiom VII:
 * The propositions of a quantum mechanical system correspond to the lattice of closed subspaces of H; the negation of a proposition V is the orthogonal complement V⊥.

The space Q of quantum propositions is also sequentially complete: any pairwise-disjoint sequence {Vi}i of elements of Q has a least upper bound. Here disjointness of W1 and W2 means W2 is a subspace of W1⊥. The least upper bound of {Vi}i is the closed internal direct sum.

Standard semantics
The standard semantics of quantum logic is that quantum logic is the logic of projection operators in a separable Hilbert or pre-Hilbert space, where an observable p is associated with the set of quantum states for which p (when measured) has eigenvalue 1. From there,
 * ¬p is the orthogonal complement of p (since for those states, the probability of observing p, P(p) = 0),
 * p∧q is the intersection of p and q, and
 * p∨q = ¬(¬p∧¬q) refers to states that superpose p and q.

This semantics has the nice property that the pre-Hilbert space is complete (i.e., Hilbert) if and only if the propositions satisfy the orthomodular law, a result known as the Solèr theorem. Although much of the development of quantum logic has been motivated by the standard semantics, it is not the characterized by the latter; there are additional properties satisfied by that lattice that need not hold in quantum logic.

Differences with classical logic
The structure of Q immediately points to a difference with the partial order structure of a classical proposition system. In the classical case, given a proposition p, the equations
 * ⊤ = p∨q and
 * ⊥ = p∧q

have exactly one solution, namely the set-theoretic complement of p. In the case of the lattice of projections there are infinitely many solutions to the above equations (any closed, algebraic complement of p solves it; it need not be the orthocomplement).

More generally, propositional valuation has unusual properties in quantum logic. An orthocomplemented lattice admitting a total lattice homomorphism to $\{⊥,⊤\}$ must be Boolean. A standard workaround is to study maximal partial homomorphisms q with a filtering property:
 * if a≤b and q(a) = ⊤, then q(b) = ⊤.

Failure of distributivity
Expressions in quantum logic describe observables using a syntax that resembles classical logic. However, unlike classical logic, the distributive law a ∧ (b ∨ c) = (a ∧ b) ∨ (a ∧ c) fails when dealing with noncommuting observables, such as position and momentum. This occurs because measurement affects the system, and measurement of whether a disjunction holds does not measure which of the disjuncts is true.

For example, consider a simple one-dimensional particle with position denoted by x and momentum by p, and define observables:
 * a — |p| ≤ 1 (in some units)
 * b — x ≤ 0
 * c — x ≥ 0

Now, position and momentum are Fourier transforms of each other, and the Fourier transform of a square-integrable nonzero function with a compact support is entire and hence does not have non-isolated zeroes. Therefore, there is no wave function that is both normalizable in momentum space and vanishes on precisely x ≥ 0. Thus, a ∧ b and similarly a ∧ c are false, so (a ∧ b) ∨ (a ∧ c) is false. However, a ∧ (b ∨ c) equals a, which is certainly not false (there are states for which it is a viable measurement outcome). Moreover: if the relevant Hilbert space for the particle's dynamics only admits momenta no greater than 1, then a is true.

To understand more, let p1 and p2 be the momentum functions (Fourier transforms) for the projections of the particle wave function to x ≤ 0 and x ≥ 0 respectively. Let |pi|↾≥1 be the restriction of pi to momenta that are (in absolute value) ≥1.

(a ∧ b) ∨ (a ∧ c) corresponds to states with |p1|↾≥1 = |p2|↾≥1 = 0 (this holds even if we defined p differently so as to make such states possible; also, a ∧ b corresponds to |p1|↾≥1=0 and p2=0). Meanwhile, a corresponds to states with |p|↾≥1 = 0. As an operator, p = p1 + p2, and nonzero |p1|↾≥1 and |p2|↾≥1 might interfere to produce zero |p|↾≥1. Such interference is key to the richness of quantum logic and quantum mechanics.

Mackey observables
Given a orthocomplemented lattice Q, a Mackey observable φ is a countably additive homomorphism from the orthocomplemented lattice of Borel subsets of R to Q. In symbols, this means that for any sequence {Si}i of pairwise-disjoint Borel subsets of R, {φ(Si)}i are pairwise-orthogonal propositions (elements of Q) and
 * $$ \varphi\left(\bigcup_{i=1}^\infty S_i\right) = \sum_{i=1}^\infty \varphi(S_i). $$

Equivalently, a Mackey observable is a projection-valued measure on R.

Theorem (Spectral theorem). If Q is the lattice of closed subspaces of Hilbert H, then there is a bijective correspondence between Mackey observables and densely-defined self-adjoint operators on H.

Quantum probability measures
A quantum probability measure is a function P defined on Q with values in [0,1] such that P("⊥)=0, P(⊤)=1 and if {Ei}i is a sequence of pairwise-orthogonal elements of Q then
 * $$ \operatorname{P}\!\left(\bigvee_{i=1}^\infty E_i\right) = \sum_{i=1}^\infty \operatorname{P}(E_i). $$

Every quantum probability measure on the closed subspaces of a Hilbert space is induced by a density matrix — a nonnegative operator of trace 1. Formally,
 * Theorem. Suppose Q is the lattice of closed subspaces of a separable Hilbert space of complex dimension at least 3. Then for any quantum probability measure P on Q there exists a unique trace class operator S such that $$\operatorname{P}(E) = \operatorname{Tr}(S E)$$ for any self-adjoint projection E in Q.

Relationship to other logics
Quantum logic embeds into linear logic and the modal logic B. Indeed, modern logics for the analysis of quantum computation often begin with quantum logic, and attempt to graft desirable features of an extension of classical logic thereonto; the results then necessarily embed quantum logic.

The orthocomplemented lattice of any set of quantum propositions can be embedded into a Boolean algebra, which is then amenable to classical logic.

Limitations
Although many treatments of quantum logic assume that the underlying lattice must be orthomodular, such logics cannot handle multiple interacting quantum systems. In an example due to Foulis and Randall, there are orthomodular propositions with finite-dimensional Hilbert models whose pairing admits no orthomodular model. Likewise, quantum logic with the orthomodular law falsifies the deduction theorem.

Quantum logic admits no reasonable material conditional; any connective that is monotone in a certain technical sense reduces the class of propositions to a Boolean algebra. Consequently, quantum logic struggles to represent the passage of time. One possible workaround is the theory of quantum filtrations developed in the late 1970s and 1980s by Belavkin. It is known, however, that System BV, a deep inference fragment of linear logic that is very close to quantum logic, can handle arbitrary discrete spacetimes.

Historical works

 * Arranged chronologically

Mathematical study and computational applications

 * N. Papanikolaou, "Reasoning Formally About Quantum Systems: An Overview", ACM SIGACT News, 36(3), 2005. pp. 51–66.  arXiv cs/0508005.
 * N. Papanikolaou, "Reasoning Formally About Quantum Systems: An Overview", ACM SIGACT News, 36(3), 2005. pp. 51–66.  arXiv cs/0508005.
 * N. Papanikolaou, "Reasoning Formally About Quantum Systems: An Overview", ACM SIGACT News, 36(3), 2005. pp. 51–66.  arXiv cs/0508005.
 * N. Papanikolaou, "Reasoning Formally About Quantum Systems: An Overview", ACM SIGACT News, 36(3), 2005. pp. 51–66.  arXiv cs/0508005.
 * N. Papanikolaou, "Reasoning Formally About Quantum Systems: An Overview", ACM SIGACT News, 36(3), 2005. pp. 51–66.  arXiv cs/0508005.
 * N. Papanikolaou, "Reasoning Formally About Quantum Systems: An Overview", ACM SIGACT News, 36(3), 2005. pp. 51–66.  arXiv cs/0508005.

Quantum foundations

 * D. Cohen, An Introduction to Hilbert Space and Quantum Logic, Springer-Verlag, 1989. Elementary and well-illustrated; suitable for advanced undergraduates.

title: Quantum logic


text: User talk:24.190.151.178

title: User talk:24.190.151.178


text:
GeoTIFF

GeoTIFF is a public domain metadata standard which allows georeferencing information to be embedded within a TIFF file. The potential additional information includes map projection, coordinate systems, ellipsoids, datums, and everything else necessary to establish the exact spatial reference for the file. The GeoTIFF format is fully compliant with TIFF 6.0, so software incapable of reading and interpreting the specialized metadata will still be able to open a GeoTIFF format file.

An alternative to the "inlined" TIFF geospatial metadata is the *.tfw World File sidecar file format which may sit in the same folder as the regular TIFF file to provide a subset of the functionality of the standard GeoTIFF described here.

History
The GeoTIFF format was originally created by Dr. Niles Ritter while he was working at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The reference implementation code was released mostly as public domain software with some parts under a permissive X license. On September 14, 2019, the Open Geospatial Consortium published the OGC GeoTIFF standard, which defines the Geographic Tag Image File Format (GeoTIFF) by specifying requirements and encoding rules for using the Tag Image File Format (TIFF) for the exchange of georeferenced or geocoded imagery. The OGC GeoTIFF 1.1 standard formalizes the existing community GeoTIFF specification version 1.0 and aligns it with the continuing addition of data to the EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset.

Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF
"Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF" (COG) is a standard based on GeoTIFF, designed to make it straightforward to use GeoTIFFs hosted on HTTP webservers, so that users and software can make use of partial data within the file without having to download the entire file. It is designed to work with HTTP range requests, and specifies a particular layout of data and metadata within the GeoTIFF, such that clients can predict which range of bytes they need to download. COG is simply a specialisation of GeoTIFF, so COG files are TIFF files.

The pattern of optimizing GeoTIFFs for HTTP range requests was first demonstrated at large scale when AWS started hosting Landsat data on Amazon S3 in 2015. The pattern was developed into the COG within the Open Source Geospatial Foundation/GDAL project, starting in around 2016. The COG format can be read and written by many common geographic software tools including GDAL, QGIS, and GeoTrellis. Various providers now supply some of their data in COG format, including USGS, NASA, Google and DigitalGlobe.

title: GeoTIFF


text:
User talk:Jenna-g

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

 * If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

 * You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.

 * If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 17:21, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jenna-g


text:
User talk:Matsumoto2949

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

 * If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

 * You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.

 * If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 17:22, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Matsumoto2949


text:
Internet Infidels

Internet Infidels, Inc. is a Colorado Springs, Colorado-based nonprofit educational organization founded in 1995 by Jeffery Jay Lowder and Brett Lemoine. Its mission is to use the Internet to promote a view that supernatural forces or entities do not exist (metaphysical naturalism). Internet Infidels maintains a website of educational resources about agnosticism, atheism, freethought, humanism, secularism, and other nontheistic viewpoints particularly relevant to nonbelievers and skeptics of the paranormal. Relevant resources include rebuttals to arguments made by religious apologists and theistic philosophers, transcripts of debates between believers and nonbelievers, and responses from opponents of a naturalistic worldview. The site has been referred to by one of its critics, Christian apologist Gary Habermas, as "one of the Internet's main Web sites for skeptics", and by skeptical physicist Taner Edis as "a major Web site serving nonbelievers". Its tagline is "a drop of reason in a pool of confusion".

Mission
Richard Carrier, former editor-in-chief, said that "the mission of the Internet Infidels has always been to defend and promote Metaphysical Naturalism". The organization formally adopts agnostic philosopher Paul Draper's definition of metaphysical naturalism as "the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system, which means that nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects it. ... [This] implies that there are no supernatural entities, or at least none that actually exercises its power to affect the natural world." Internet Infidels aims to inform readers that similar views have been adopted around the world and across historical eras, to make hard-to-find information more easily available, and to encourage those who profess belief to review all of the arguments and evidence and come to their own conclusions.

Secular Web
The primary product of Internet Infidels is the Secular Web website, infidels.org. Its Modern Library section includes contemporary articles (1970–present) offering arguments that all religions are false (particularly Christianity, Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism), arguments against the existence of God, critiques of arguments for the existence of God, and arguments for metaphysical naturalism. A series of written debates between prominent theistic and nontheistic philosophers covering these issues and available in the Modern Library is titled "God or Blind Nature? Philosophers Debate the Evidence".

The Secular Web also includes a section containing historical works critical of religion by Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell, and Albert Einstein.

The Secular Web Kiosk section features short, informal articles. These general interest articles include editorials, book reviews, commentary on social issues or public policy, satire, and fiction, among other things.

Bruce B. Lawrence, the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor of Religion at Duke University, described the site as "hard to top" for "thoughtful material, extensive networking, and interdisciplinary flair."

IIDB
Until 2008 Internet Infidels hosted a discussion board, IIDB (Internet Infidels Discussion Board), but during 2008 IIDB was transferred to a new site, Freethought and Rationalism Discussion Board (FRDB). Both of those sites were eventually archived as FRDB became Talk Freethought in 2014. Talk Freethought continues in the tradition of IIDB and FRDB, hosting discussions on a number of subjects including philosophy, science, politics and of course, religion.

title: Internet Infidels


text:
Talk:Banjo-Kazooie (video game)

Missing reception of Xbox re-release for GA breadth
The article is currently missing the critical reception of the Xbox re-release, which is needed for the GA breadth requirement czar  17:16, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
 * czar, I have added the contents of those reviews to retrospective reception, as most of the content in those reviews are pretty much retrospective opinions of the core N64 game. However, opinions on the port itself are in the sequels and ports section. User:HumanxAnthro ( Nina Cortex x Coco Bandicoot ) 19:21, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Gameplay and Plot
I think that it is unnecessary to have the part talking about Banjo and Kazooie's mission to rescue Tooty, as well as the game show/board game part and final boss part in the gameplay section. We should delete those parts from the gameplay portion and add a plot summary for the game. 2603:6010:8B00:44FF:5CFE:D49E:E836:C3E1 (talk) 01:31, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Banjo-Kazooie (video game)


text:
Pointe du Raz

The Pointe du Raz is a promontory that extends into the Atlantic from western Brittany, in France. The local Breton name is Beg ar Raz. It is the western point of the commune of Plogoff, Finistère. It is named after the Raz de Sein, the dangerous stretch of water between it and the island of Sein (Enez Sun in Breton). It is a dramatic place of crashing waves and strong winds. The word raz was borrowed from Norman by the Bretons and shares the same etymology as the English word race, "strong current of water"; both are from Old Norse rás. It also marks the western end of the 3,200 km E5 European long distance path to Venice in Italy.

The "La Vieille" lighthouse can be clearly seen from the headland.

Although it is not quite the westernmost extent of continental France—that would be Pointe de Corsen, just to the north—its rocky isolation makes it a popular tourist destination, comparable in some ways to Land's End in the southern UK.

A brief description of Pointe du Raz is part of the culminating farewell conversation between the hero and heroine of Daphne du Maurier's novel "Frenchman's Creek," symbolizing the passionate turmoil (like the winds and waves of Pointe du Raz, in the channel between France and Britain) that characterizes the relationship between the French pirate hero and the aristocratic British heroine.

On November 2, 2023, Storm Ciarán hit the area with winds reaching 207 km/h (129 mp/h).

title: Pointe du Raz


text: User talk:69.37.19.2

title: User talk:69.37.19.2


text:
User:Paniq

for biographic details, see article.

otherwise i'm just browsing and fixing small errors here and there.

title: User:Paniq


text:
Dutch auction

A Dutch auction is one of several similar types of auctions for buying or selling goods. Most commonly, it means an auction in which the auctioneer begins with a high asking price in the case of selling, and lowers it until some participant accepts the price, or it reaches a predetermined reserve price. This type of price auction is most commonly used for goods that are required to be sold quickly such as flowers, fresh produce, or tobacco. A Dutch auction has also been called a clock auction or open-outcry descending-price auction. This type of auction shows the advantage of speed since a sale never requires more than one bid. It is strategically similar to a first-price sealed-bid auction.

History
Herodotus relates an account of a descending price auction in Babylon, suggesting that market mechanisms similar to Dutch auctions were used in ancient times. Descending-price auctions were used in 17th-century Holland for estate sales and paintings. The Dutch manner of auctioning appeared in England by the 17th century, which was called "mineing". In that type of auction, said to be a "Method of Sale not hitherto used in England", the auctioneer began with a high price that was sequentially reduced until one bidder cried out "Mine!" The Times mentioned one Dutch auction in 1788.

Auction process
Before the auction commences, the auctioneer presents information about the objects sold to bidders. This information is displayed on a clock or electronic device in front of the site.

A Dutch auction initially offers an item at a price in excess of the amount the seller expects to receive. The price lowers in steps until a bidder accepts the current price. That bidder wins the auction and pays that price for the item. For example, a business might auction a used company car at a starting bid of €15,000. If nobody accepts the initial bid, the seller successively reduces the price in €1,000 increments. When the price reaches €10,000, a particular bidder—who feels that price is acceptable and that someone else might soon bid—quickly accepts the bid, and pays €10,000 for the car.

Dutch auctions are a competitive alternative to a traditional auction, in which customers make bids of increasing value until nobody is willing to bid higher.

Auctioneer's revenue
The speed of the clock used in the Dutch auction has a significant effect on final prices and the auctioneers revenue. A fast Dutch clock has been found to yield significantly lower bids and seller revenue when benchmarked against a first-price sealed-bid auction. On the contrary, a sufficiently slow Dutch clock is found to be more profitable than a first-price auction.

Individual differences among bidders may also influence the degree to which a Dutch auction is profitable to the auctioneer. More advanced age has a clear, statistically significant adverse impact on the overall performance in Dutch auctions. Older bidders often end up paying too much in Dutch auctions because of their cognitive limitations and high need for closure.

In the case in which two or more bidders are participating in a Dutch auction, bid reductions should be increasing. Furthermore, the auctioneer's expected revenue should increase when the number of participants in the auction rises and number of bid levels increases.

The auctioneer is expected to increase its revenue when bidders exhibit the Allais paradox. This expectation is because bidders already have bidding preferences but insufficient time to change their preference and as such, typically act in accordance with their first plan.

Bidder's emotion
In Dutch auctions, bidders are unable to view other participants' bids; they can only view the winning bid. This leads to participants experiencing greater uncertainty when assessing the competitive dynamics of the Dutch auction. When losing, participants experience a stronger emotional response compared to when winning. This can be attributed to the instant-win feature of Dutch auctions. The winner is aware and assured of winning the auction and paying the winning price, whilst losing comes abruptly and as a surprise for the remaining participants.

In other words, bidders in Dutch auctions are more likely to experience winner regret, the belief that they overpaid, and loser regret, the belief that they underbid, because Dutch auctions evoke a stronger emotional response than other auction formats, as bidders are unable to seek signals (such as other bids) that can inform their bidding behaviour.

Public offerings
Compared to the standard book building method, Dutch auctions have been considered for public offerings and price discovery. Dutch auctions have been praised as being more efficient and fairer, as they can prevent underwriters from allocating stocks to known or favoured clients. It has been suggested that improved efficiency in the IPO market is more likely to be felt in larger, already publicly listed companies, as buyers are typically hedge funds or mutual funds. As such, the market has already priced their shares and an indication of issue size already exists.

The United States Department of the Treasury, through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), raises funds for the U.S. government using a Dutch auction. The FRBNY interacts with primary dealers, including large banks and broker-dealers, who submit bids on behalf of themselves and their clients using the Trading Room Automated Processing System (TRAPS) and are generally informed of winning bids within fifteen minutes.

For example, suppose the sponsor of the issuance seeks to raise $10 billion in ten-year notes with a 5.125% coupon and in aggregate the bids are as follows:

 * $1.00 billion at 5.115% (highest bid, lowest coupon)
 * $2.50 billion at 5.120%
 * $3.50 billion at 5.125%
 * $4.50 billion at 5.130%
 * $3.75 billion at 5.135%
 * $2.75 billion at 5.140%
 * $1.50 billion at 5.145% (lowest bid, highest coupon)

In this example the percentage at high is 66.66 percent, meaning that only $3 billion of the $4.5 billion at 5.130% get bonds. Bids are filled from the lowest yield (highest price) until the process raises the entire $10 billion. This auction clears at a yield of 5.130%, and all bidders receive the same yield. In theory, this feature of the Dutch auction leads to more aggressive bidding, as those who (in this example) bid 5.115% receive the bonds at the higher yield (lower price) of 5.130%.

A variation on the Dutch auction, OpenIPO, was developed by Bill Hambrecht and has been used for a number of US IPOs. Auctions have been used for hundreds of IPOs in more than two dozen countries but have not been popular with issuers and thus were replaced by other methods. One of the largest uniform price or "Dutch" auction IPOs was for Singapore Telecom in 1994. The 1994 auction IPO of Japan Tobacco was substantially larger, with proceeds more than doubling those of the Singapore Telecom IPO and tripling those of the Google IPO, but this auction was discriminatory or pay-what-you-bid, not uniform price or Dutch. SRECTrade.com uses a two-sided Dutch auctionundefined to trade Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs).

Dutch auction IPOs have been criticised for the possibility of tacit collusion and cartel-like behaviour, as the issuer has discretion over price and allocation. This possibility is more prevalent in primary market transactions.

Dutch auction share repurchases
The introduction of the Dutch auction share repurchase in 1981 gives firms an alternative to the fixed price tender offer when executing a tender offer share repurchase. The first firm to use the Dutch auction was Todd Shipyards. A Dutch auction offer specifies a price range within which the shares are purchased. Shareholders can choose to tender their stock at any price within the stated range. The firm compiles these responses, creating a supply curve for the stock. The purchase price is the lowest price that allows the firm to buy the number of shares sought in the offer, and the firm pays that price to all investors who tendered at or below that price. If the number of shares tendered exceeds the number sought, the company purchases less than all shares tendered at or below the purchase price pro rata to all who tendered at or below the purchase price. If too few shares are tendered, then the firm either cancels the offer (provided it had been made conditional on a minimum acceptance), or it buys back all tendered shares at the maximum price.

eBay ascending uniform-price mechanism
Rather than implementing a traditional Dutch auction, internet auction and e-commerce site eBay formerly (until 2009) offered a multi-quantity listing style. This allowed a person to bid by specifying a price and quantity collectively. This Dutch auction mechanism has been referred to as ascending uniform-price "Dutch" auction.

The units were sold per the price and quantity bidden that added up to the highest overall value. Each individual bidder paid the price of the bidder with the lowest winning price. However, they all were guaranteed the quantity they demanded in their original bid. This has been criticised in literature as not being a Dutch auction, because Dutch auctions guarantee not the price but rather the quantity demanded by a bidder.

Slow Dutch auction
Dutch flower auctions are considered to be a particularly fast auction form with particularly low transaction costs, and they use an electronic device to lower the price. Sometimes, slower processes such as the bargain basement of Filene's Department Store in the USA, during which the discount on goods was increased over time until the goods were sold, are considered Dutch auctions. When faced with a positive cost of returning to the auction site, buyers prefer to purchase the object sooner (at a higher price) to economize on the cost of return. Therefore, when transaction costs are accounted for, Dutch auctions yield, on average, higher revenue than sealed-bid auctions. Holding electronic auctions reduces transaction costs substantially by relaxing physical and temporal constraints. In many cases, electronic markets enable competition in markets where competition was not possible before.

Dutch auction format
Dutch auctions are all sellers' bidding auctions, also known as silent auctions, which can be divided into two types.

 * Manual silent auction is an early traditional form of price reduction auction, in which the auctioneer first publicly quotes the highest price, and then the bidders respond accordingly. In the event of a price that no one bids for, the auctioneer will decrease the price and quote a new price, and decrease the price one by one, and the process will continue until someone buys it; if there are more than two bids, the auctioneer should quote a new price in increments. price, that is, immediately transferred to the auction form, and the process of competitive price increase continued until no one added.

 * Dial-type silent auction was also invented by the Dutch and is a modern form of reduced-price auction. That is to say, the auctioneer first announces the highest price in public, which is displayed on the corresponding scale on the electronic auction clock, and then the bidder presses the button to bid one by one. Indicates a decrementing price reduction until someone pushes a button to stall it for a purchase. When there are more than two bids, the hands of the auction clock will rotate clockwise, indicating that the price will be increased until the last person left to stop. Here, the electronic auction bell replaces the wooden auction hammer as the transaction tool.

Hybrid Dutch auction
The hybrid dutch auction is a new form of dutch auction that uses two methods that is the traditional dutch auction and sealed bid uniform price auction. Compared to the traditional dutch auction method, hybrid dutch auction comprises several stages consisting of:

 * In the first stage, namely the classic dutch auction, the item's value continues to decrease gradually by 1%. If it has reached the minimum threshold price and no bidders putting offers, the first stage is declared complete.

 * The second stage is a sealed bid uniform price auction. The winner of the first stage has the option to no longer participate in the second stage of the auction. In addition, the winner's price in the first stage is used as a minimum price and bidders bid privately, where bidders do not know the prices each other is bidding on. The second stage winner is taken from the bidder with the highest bidding price.

 * In the final stage, the winner of the first stage auction may bid again at 10% higher than the second stage winner. If the first stage auction winner is willing to do this, he is the winner of hybrid dutch auction. But, if he cannot do this, the second stage winner is the winner of hybrid dutch auction.

The purpose of establishing the hybrid dutch auction is to overcome problems in the traditional dutch auction, which can lead to collusion and excessive payment. Auctioneer initially setting the highest price, and the bidders must bid lower the initial price until both the auctioneer and bidder reach an agreement. Collusion happens because bidders are able to collude in determining the price. Hybrid dutch auction reduces the probability of collusion and cartel by providing a minimum price limit, and the winner is drawn from the highest price bidder. In addition, in second stage auction, where the first stage winner has the ability to not take part in the second stage auction, he is able to increase his bid in the last stage. This action can increase the seller's profit. A hybrid dutch auction is also able to maintain the stability of the item price and gives benefit to both auctioneers and bidders.

title: Dutch auction