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Rufus Wainwright

Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded eleven studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set Shakespeare's sonnets to music for a theatre piece by Robert Wilson.

Wainwright's self-titled debut album was released through DreamWorks Records in May 1998. His second album, Poses, was released in June 2001. Wainwright's third and fourth studio albums, Want One (2003) and Want Two (2004), were repackaged as the double album Want in 2005. In 2007, Wainwright released his fifth studio album, Release the Stars, and his first live album, Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. His second live album, Milwaukee at Last!!!, was released in 2009, followed by the studio albums All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010) and Out of the Game (2012). The double album Prima Donna (2015) was a recording of his opera of the same name. His ninth studio album, Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets (2016), featured nine adaptions of Shakespeare's sonnets. Rufus' 10th studio album, Unfollow the Rules, was released on July 20, 2020. His 11th, Folkocracy, was released on June 2, 2023.

Wainwright is the son of musicians Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and the older brother of singer Martha Wainwright.

Early years
Wainwright was born in Rhinebeck, New York, to folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III. His parents divorced when he was three, and he lived with his mother in Montreal, Canada for most of his youth. His father is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the 17th century Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, later New York. Wainwright has dual US and Canadian citizenship. He attended high school at the Millbrook School in New York (which would later inspire his song "Millbrook"), and later briefly studied piano at McGill University in Montreal. He began playing the piano at age six, and started touring at age 13 with "The McGarrigle Sisters and Family", a folk group featuring Rufus, his sister Martha, his mother Kate, and aunt Anna. His song "I'm a-Runnin'", which he performed in the film Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller at the age of 14, earned him a nomination for a 1989 Genie Award for Best Original Song. He was nominated for a 1990 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year.

Wainwright identified as gay while a teenager. In 1999, he told Rolling Stone that his father recognized his homosexuality early on. "We'd drive around in the car, he'd play "Heart of Glass" and I'd sort of mouth the words, pretend to be Blondie. Just a sign of many other things to come as well." Wainwright later said in another interview that his parents "could not even handle me being gay. We never talked about it really."

Wainwright became interested in opera during his adolescent years, and the genre strongly influences his music. (For instance, the song "Barcelona" features lyrics from the libretto of Giuseppe Verdi's opera, Macbeth.) During this time, he became interested in Édith Piaf, Al Jolson, and Judy Garland. As a youth he trained at Interlochen Arts Camp, studying classical music.

At age 14, Wainwright was sexually assaulted in London's Hyde Park after picking up a man at a bar. In an interview years later, he described the event: "I said I wanted to go to the park and see where this big concert was going on. I thought it was going to be a romantic walk in the park, but he raped me and robbed me afterwards and tried to strangle me". Wainwright states that he survived only by pretending to be an epileptic and faking a seizure. He has been reported to have stated that he remained celibate for five or seven years after the incident, and eventually became promiscuous.

Rise to fame, debut album
Throughout the summer of 1995, Wainwright played weekly shows at Cafe Sarajevo in Montreal. Eventually, he cut a series of demo tapes produced by Pierre Marchand, who later produced Wainwright's second album Poses. The resulting tapes impressed Wainwright's father Loudon, who passed them on to family friend and musician Van Dyke Parks. Parks then in turn sent the recordings to DreamWorks Records executive Lenny Waronker, who signed Wainwright to the label in 1996.

The singer moved to New York City in 1996, performing regularly at Club Fez. He relocated to Los Angeles that year and began his first studio album, 1998's Rufus Wainwright. Waronker paired Wainwright with producer Jon Brion, and the two spent most of 1996 and 1997 making the record. Wainwright recorded 56 songs in total, on 62 rolls of tape. The sessions cost $700,000.

Wainwright's self-titled debut received critical acclaim; Rolling Stone recognized it as one of the best albums of the year, and named the singer Best New Artist of the year. Wainwright was nominated for four awards by the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards, including Album of the Year, Pop Recording of the Year and Video of the Year, and won for Best New Artist. Rufus Wainwright won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Music Album and a Juno Award for Best Alternative Album. However, commercial success of the album was limited; the debut failed to chart in any country, though he ranked No.24 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.

Wainwright toured with Sean Lennon in 1998 and began his first headline tour later that year. In December 1998, he appeared in a Gap commercial directed by Phil Harder, performing Frank Loesser's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?". In March 1999, Wainwright began a headlining tour in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Poses and struggle with addiction
Wainwright lived in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City for six months, during which he wrote most of his second album. On June 5, 2001, Wainwright's second album, Poses, was released to critical acclaim but limited sales. The album ranked No. 117 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Heatseekers chart. Poses won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Music Album and a Juno Award for Best Alternative Album, and was nominated by the Juno Awards for Best Songwriter ("Poses" / "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" / "Grey Gardens"). From 2001 to 2004, he toured with Tori Amos, Sting, Ben Folds, and Guster, as well as headlining the 2001 and 2002 tour in support of the album.

Wainwright became addicted to crystal meth in the early 2000s and temporarily lost his vision. His addiction reached its peak in 2002, during what he described as "the most surreal week of my life". During that week, he played a cameo role in the UK comedy television program Absolutely Fabulous, spent several nights partying with George W. Bush's daughter Barbara, enjoyed a "debauched evening" with his mother and Marianne Faithfull, sang with Anohni of Antony and the Johnsons for Zaldy's spring 2003 collection, and experienced recurring hallucinations of his father throughout. He decided after that he "was either going to rehab or I was going to live with my father. I knew I needed an asshole to yell at me, and I felt he fitted the bill." He subsequently spent a month in a rehab facility in Minnesota.

Want albums

In 2003, Rufus released the full-length album Want One. Then Wainwright's album Want Two, from which four songs were released as the EP Waiting for a Want, was released by DreamWorks/Geffen on November 16, 2004. The live iTunes Sessions EP entitled Alright, Already: Live in Montréal was released on March 15, 2005. A DVD entitled All I Want, featuring a biographical documentary, music videos, and live performances, was released internationally in 2005. That same year, Wainwright made two major contributions as a solo vocalist to a pair of records: the Mercury Prize-winning Antony and the Johnsons' I Am a Bird Now and Burt Bacharach's At This Time.

Want One and Want Two were repackaged as Want for a November 2005 release to coincide with the beginning of a British tour. This version of Want One contains two extra songs: "Es Muß Sein" and "Velvet Curtain Rag". The Want package in the UK has two bonus tracks: "Chelsea Hotel No. 2" (a Leonard Cohen cover) and "In With the Ladies", which replace "Coeur de parisienne – Reprise d'Arletty" and "Quand vous mourez de nos amours" from 2004's augmented edition.

Release the Stars and Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall
Wainwright's fifth studio album, Release the Stars, was released by Geffen on May 15, 2007. The album was produced by Wainwright and featured Richard Thompson, friend Teddy Thompson, sister Martha Wainwright, mother Kate McGarrigle, Neil Tennant, Joan Wasser, Julianna Raye, Larry Mullins (also known as Toby Dammit), and actress Siân Phillips. It reached No.2 on the UK Albums Chart, and debuted at No.23 on the Billboard 200. The first single, "Going to a Town", was released on April 3, 2007, in the iTunes Music Store. The second single released was "Rules and Regulations", and the third single was a 500-copy (12" vinyl) release of "Tiergarten", a one-track EP with the Supermayer remix of Tiergarten, which was released exclusively through iTunes and 7digital on October 29.

Two music videos were released for the album: "Going to a Town", directed by Sophie Muller, and "Rules and Regulations", directed by Petro Papahadjopoulos and styled by J.W. Anderson. Release the Stars was certified gold in the UK. The accompanying world tour saw Wainwright visit North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, ending on February 14, 2008, with a concert at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

On June 10, 2006, NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday broadcast an interview of Wainwright by Scott Simon. The segment concerned Wainwright's sold-out pair of Carnegie Hall shows on June 14 and 15, 2006 in which he performed the entire Judy Garland concert album that was recorded there in 1961. He later repeated his performance at the London Palladium, the Paris Olympia, and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Live CD and DVD recordings of the concerts were released on December 4, 2007. The DVD is entitled Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy!: Live from the London Palladium. The CD album, Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall, is a recording of his show at the New York venue. In 2008, Garland's daughter Lorna Luft expressed strong approval of Wainwright's recordings of her mother's songs. The album was nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.

Blackoutsabbath and Prima Donna

Wainwright created the concept of Blackoutsabbath in early 2008. In an attempt to become more environmentally conscious, participants are asked to live "off the grid" as much as possible on a designated date by unplugging appliances, walking or cycling for transportation, turning out lights and decreasing energy usage in any other ways possible.

As the sun sets on the evening of Blackoutsabbath, participants write ways they can contribute to the Earth's well-being throughout the rest of the year. Annual benefit concerts take place to raise awareness of the cause. Special guests performing at the concert included Joan Wasser, Jenni Muldaur, and friend and fellow singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson. The organization's official site contains updates about the program and contains links to various tools, green products and services, studies, and groups that promote energy conservation and environmental protection.

In December 2008 Rufus performed alongside his sister, Martha Wainwright, and mother, Kate McGarrigle, as well as many more of his family at the Knitting Factory in downtown Manhattan. Joined by other artists such as Emmylou Harris, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, the cast performed original and traditional Christmas-themed songs. In November 2009 Revelation Films released the concert on DVD.

Following his 2007–2008 tour, Wainwright began writing his first opera, Prima Donna, about "a day in the life of an opera singer", anxiously preparing for her comeback, who falls in love with a journalist. There are four characters, and the libretto is in French. The opera was originally commissioned by Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb. However, because of a dispute over Wainwright's decision to write the libretto in French and the Met's inability to schedule an opening in the 2009 season, Wainwright and the Met ended their relationship. Instead of a New York opening, Prima Donna was staged during the Manchester International Festival, where the first performance took place at the Palace Theatre on July 10, 2009. Reviews for the performance were mixed, with one publication suggesting Wainwright "may struggle to convince critics he is worthy of a place among the greats". Prima Donna won a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Musical/Opera in June 2011.

All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu and birth of daughter
In November 2009, Wainwright announced that he had finished recording his sixth studio album, and was calling it All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu. The album was released on March 23 in Canada, April 5 in the UK and April 20 in the US, with the first single "Who Are You New York?".

In December 2009, Wainwright appeared with sister Martha Wainwright and mother Kate McGarrigle at the Royal Albert Hall in London, raising $55,000 for the Kate McGarrigle Fund, which was established in 2008 to raise awareness of sarcoma, a rare cancer that affects connective tissue such as bone, muscle, nerves, and cartilage. It was the last performance made by his mother before her death in January 2010.

In late 2010 Wainwright became engaged to his partner Jörn Weisbrodt. The couple moved to Toronto, Ontario, in early 2012 after Weisbrodt was named artistic director of Toronto's annual Luminato festival.

In 2011, Wainwright announced the birth of his first child, with childhood friend Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard Cohen.

In July 2011 a 19-disc box set called House of Rufus containing all his studio and live recordings as well as previously unreleased material was released.

Out of the Game and marriage
Wainwright recorded his seventh studio album with producer Mark Ronson. He described the new songs as more "danceable" than his previous material. The album, titled Out of the Game, was released in late April 2012 in the UK and Canada and in early May in the US.

On August 23, 2012, Wainwright and Jörn Weisbrodt married in Montauk, New York. Artist Justin Vivian Bond officiated.

Second opera
His second opera, called Hadrian, premiered at the Canadian Opera Company as their opening production of the 2018 mainstage season at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto, directed by Canadian Director Peter Hinton, with libretto written by Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor. Hadrian attended the workshop Opera Fusion: New Works, a collaboration of Cincinnati Opera and University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, before its premiere.

Prima Donna 's revival
In 2015, Wainwright launched a new version of his first opera, accompanied by a film directed by Francesco Vezzoli, featuring Cindy Sherman as the Prima Donna. The finale was shot in Paris during spring 2015 and produced by Petite Maison Production, before it premiered in Athens in September.

Unfollow the Rules
Almost a year after releasing the stand-alone single "Sword of Damocles" in October 2018, Rufus signed a record deal with music publisher and record label BMG Rights Management for a new album. Soon after, the new song "Trouble in Paradise" was released as the first single from the album. In February 2020, the album, Unfollow the Rules, was announced alongside the release of the Joni Mitchell-inspired single "Damsel in Distress" and was slated for an April release. A third single, "Peaceful Afternoon", was released on digital platforms in March, with a French version, "Pièce à vivre", as a B-side. In early April, the album release was delayed until July after escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wainwright stating that "The CD's and vinyl LP's of my new album Unfollow The Rules are stuck in the warehouses they had to shut down to make way for all essential businesses being able to operate at full speed", adding "You know that I am an old school guy and for me the physical product is extremely important. I am incredibly proud of this album and the way I want you to experience it ideally is listening to it from front to back in the comfort of your living room, reading the lyrics, and looking at the booklet that I carefully designed." This announcement was accompanied by the announcement of a fourth single, "Alone Time", which was released on April 24, 2020, the date the LP was originally due to be released. One more single, a tongue-in-cheek commentary on fame and status relative to geographic location entitled "You Ain't Big", was released in early June. On July 10, Rufus Wainwright's 10th studio album, Unfollow the Rules, was released. The album was met with a warm reception upon release and has amassed mostly positive critic reviews, with an aggregate score of 82 on Metacritic, which is his highest score on the site equal only to his 2001 LP Poses.

Folkocracy and BBC Proms
On March 7, 2023, Wainwright announced his eleventh studio album, Folkocracy, would be released in June 2023. He said, "This album is almost like a recorded birthday party and birthday present to myself. I just invited all the singers that I greatly admire and always wanted to sing with." On the same day, Wainwright released "Down in the Willow Garden", which features Brandi Carlile. On March 24, 2023, Wainwright released the single "Dear World", a piano ballad about healing the world.

On September 5, 2023, Wainwright appeared at the Royal Albert Hall in the BBC Proms, performing songs from his albums Want One and Want Two specially arranged for the BBC Concert Orchestra, with conductor Sarah Hicks.

Artistry
In addition to his tenor singing voice, Wainwright plays piano and guitar, often switching between the two instruments when performing live. While some songs feature just Wainwright and his piano, his later work is often accompanied by rock instrumentation or a symphony orchestra, displaying complex layering and harmonies with an operatic feel. Wainwright is an opera enthusiast and likes Franz Schubert's lieder. Wainwright's music has been described as "popera" (pop opera) or "baroque pop". Many of his compositions are densely packed amalgams of strings, horns, operatic choruses, and ragtime rhythms, with a warm vocal timbre.

He often performs with his sister, Martha Wainwright, on backup vocals. Despite critical acclaim, Wainwright has experienced limited commercial success in the United States, although the release of Release the Stars saw increased media attention there, as did the associated 2007 U.S. tour.

Themes
Wainwright's work contains several recurring themes: opera, literature, pop culture, politics, and love (often unrequited love). "Foolish Love" and "Danny Boy" are about a crush he once had on a straight man. Other songs address full-blown love and the consequences of falling out of love ("This Love Affair", "Leaving for Paris", and "Peach Trees"). Wainwright also sings about his family relationships. "Beauty Mark", "Little Sister" and "Martha", and "Dinner at Eight" address, respectively, his experiences with his mother, sisters, and father. Several songs deal with his experiences with addiction ("Go Or Go Ahead", "Early Morning Madness" "Baby" and "I Don't Know What It Is").

The song "Matinee Idol" was written about River Phoenix. "Memphis Skyline" is a tribute to the late singer Jeff Buckley, whom he met briefly in the 1990s when Wainwright was an up-and-coming act. By this time, Buckley had already released his first album Grace, and was well on his way to stardom. The two met several months prior to Buckley's drowning, during a gig by Wainwright. The song references "Hallelujah", a Leonard Cohen song covered by Buckley (and later by Wainwright). "Nobody's Off the Hook" is written to close friend and fellow musician Teddy Thompson.

Legacy
Wainwright and his music have influenced several artists in the music industry. They include Katy Perry, Olly Alexander of Years & Years, Liv Bruce of Pwr Bttm, and Kimbra.

In Nick Hornby's book Slam, the child born to the young protagonists gets called "Rufus" because his mother listened to Rufus Wainwright while recovering from the ordeal of giving birth.

Personal life
Wainwright, a gay man, married German art administrator Jörn Weisbrodt on August 23, 2012. Wainwright has a daughter, Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, born February 2, 2011, conceived via sperm donation by Wainwright to photographer and antique dealer Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard Cohen. She lives with her mother.

Political views
Wainwright identifies as "a complete libertarian" and stated in 2008, "I don't think any government should encroach on what goes on in the bedroom at all."

In April 2010, Wainwright came out publicly in favour of legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States because he wanted to marry Weisbrodt. Wainwright stated, "I wasn't a huge gay marriage supporter before I met Jörn because I love the whole old-school promiscuous Oscar Wilde freak show of what 'being gay' once was. But since meeting Jörn that all changed."

In 2014, Wainwright reiterated he was a "complete libertarian", and explained that while he did not initially support President Barack Obama, he said he has "become a very big Obama fan", expressing support for his agenda, including women's healthcare and government-provided health coverage. Wainwright has publicly opposed 45th US President Donald Trump, addressing him in the music video for his song "Sword of Damocles" in 2018 and stating "It's impossible to minimise the ineptitude and pure evil of the Trump administration" in a 2020 interview with NME.

Work in film, television, and theatre

Wainwright has appeared in the films The Aviator, 2011's Silver Bullets and its extended footage follow-up, Stray Bullets, and Heights in addition to his role in Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller but said in a 2010 interview "I definitely enjoy seeing myself thirty feet high, but it's not something that I'm running toward passionately". He has also recorded tracks specially for films, including Brokeback Mountain, I Am Sam, Moulin Rouge!, Shrek, Meet the Robinsons, Big Daddy, Zoolander, and Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man. His recording of "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" plays during the closing credits of the film The History Boys. He is seen in the Denys Arcand film Days of Darkness (L'Âge des ténèbres), performing two arias.

The All I Want DVD, released in 2005, features a full-length documentary (A Portrait of Rufus Wainwright), performances at Central Park Summerstage and Cambridge Corn Exchange, studio sessions, music videos, and two bonus Easter eggs: a 12-minute documentary from 1998, featuring Wainwright and his family, and a short tribute to the McGarrigle sisters featuring Rufus and Martha.

In February 2005, the Pennsylvania Ballet premiered a ballet by Matthew Neenan that was set to Wainwright's music. The Pennsylvania Ballet has performed the work (titled 11:11) several times, including during an eponymous program in June 2006. It has been an audience favorite, although critical reviews have been mixed.

Stephen Petronio commissioned Wainwright to write a score for his dance production BLOOM, which was performed at Joyce Theater in New York in April 2006. For the lyrics, the two selected poems by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, and Petronio arranged for the Young People's Choir of New York to sing them.

In May 2006, Wainwright was one of three guests (along with Robbie Williams and Frances Barber) to star with the Pet Shop Boys in a concert at London's Mermaid Theatre. He covered the Pet Shop Boys' "Casanova in Hell" (from Fundamental). The critically acclaimed show was broadcast on the UK's BBC Radio 2 and repeated on BBC 6 Music, and released as a CD (Concrete) in October 2006.

In June 2007, Wainwright was a part of the multi-artist True Colors Tour, which traveled through 15 cities in the United States and Canada. The tour, sponsored by the Logo channel, began on June 8, 2007. Hosted by comedian Margaret Cho and headlined by Cyndi Lauper, the tour included Debbie Harry, the Gossip, the Indigo Girls, the Dresden Dolls, the MisShapes, and Erasure. Profits went to the Human Rights Campaign. In August 2007, Wainwright said that he considered it a "great honor" to perform on the gay rights tour.

Wainwright continued to tour during 2007 and embraced forms of expression not usually part of mainstream American music concerts. These included dressing in red lipstick and stiletto heeled shoes to perform Judy Garland songs, and expressing his concerns against the current U.S. political situation. His performances were critically acclaimed.

In April 2009, Wainwright worked with the Berliner Ensemble and the avant-garde director Robert Wilson, who hired Wainwright to supply the music for a joint staging of Shakespeares Sonette based on Shakespeare's sonnets.

In June 2012, Wainwright released a comedy video on the Funny or Die website, giving his interpretation of a number of jingles from chewing gum commercials. Also in 2012, Wainwright wrote and sang "Metaphorical Blanket" in the film Any Day Now.

In December 2023, Wainwright performed Hushabye Mountain from the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on the primetime CBS special Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic.

In March 2024 a new adaptation of John Cassavetes's Opening Night, for which Wainwright wrote the music and lyrics (with book by Ivo van Hove) opened at the Gielgud Theatre in London.

Discography

 * Studio albums
 * Rufus Wainwright (1998)
 * Poses (2001)
 * Want One (2003)
 * Want Two (2004)
 * Release the Stars (2007)
 * All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010)
 * Out of the Game (2012)
 * Prima Donna (2015)
 * Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets (2016)
 * Unfollow the Rules (2020)
 * Folkocracy (2023)

Headlining

 * 1999: 1999 Tour
 * 2001: Poses Tour
 * 2003–04: Rufus Wainwright: Live in Concert
 * 2007–08: Release the Stars Tour
 * 2011: An Evening with Rufus Wainwright
 * 2012–13: Out of the Game Tour
 * 2014: The Best of Rufus Wainwright
 * 2016–17: Rufus in Concert
 * 2018–19: All These Poses: Anniversary Tour
 * 2019: Oh Solo Wainwright Tour
 * 2021–23: Unfollow the Rules Tour

Co-headlining

 * 2004: Triple-Headliner Tour (with Ben Folds and Guster)
 * 2005: Odd Man Out Tour (with Ben Folds and Ben Lee)

Opening act

 * 1998: Navy Blues Tour (Sloan)
 * 2001: Roxy Music World Tour (Roxy Music)
 * 2001: Strange Little Tour (Tori Amos)
 * 2004: Sacred Love Tour (Sting)
 * 2005: Hopes and Fears Tour (Keane)
 * 2007: True Colors (Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry and Erasure)

Awards and nominations
Rufus Wainwright won two Juno Awards for Best Alternative Album, one in 1999 for Rufus Wainwright and one in 2002 for Poses.

At the age of 15, in 1989, he was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Original Song. A year later he received a nomination for a Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist. He was also nominated for a BRIT Award for Best International Male Artist in 2008 and a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album in 2009 and 2020.

title: Rufus Wainwright


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Social Democracy of Poland

The Social Democracy of Poland (Socjaldemokracja Polska, SDPL) is a social-democratic political party in Poland.

Foundation
The party was founded in April 2004 as a splinter group from the post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). The SDPL should not be confused with a former party the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (SdRP) which existed between 1990–99 and was a direct predecessor of the SLD.

First elections
SDPL contested its first elections in June 2004, this being for Polish representation to the European parliament. The party gained 5.3%, which saw three members elected to parliament. In May 2005 the party reached an agreement with Labour Union (UP) and Greens 2004 to jointly contest for the forthcoming Polish parliamentary elections, under the SDPL banner. SDPL managed to gain 3.9% of the vote, but fell short of the 5% threshold required to win parliamentary representation. SDPL put forward its party leader Marek Borowski, as candidate for the Polish presidential elections held in the following month of October. Borowski came fourth in the first round, winning 10.3% of the vote.

Coalition within LiD
On 3 September 2006, SDPL joined the newly formed Left and Democrats (LiD) coalition, made up of the centre-left parties SDPL, SLD, UP and the centrist Democratic Party – demokraci.pl. This alliance was created with a view to jointly contest the upcoming local government elections. The LiD alliance was maintained for the Polish parliamentary elections of October 2007, and LiD achieved 13.2% of the vote. This translated into 53 lower house seats, 10 of which were won by SDPL.

After LiD dissolved, 8 out of 10 SDPL MPs formed a new parliamentary caucus called Social Democracy of Poland – New Left (Socjaldemoracja Polska – Nowa Lewica, SDPL-NL).

On 3 February 2013, SDPL leader Wojciech Filemonowicz and Palikot's Movement leader Janusz Palikot stated an ambition to form an electoral alliance between the two parties to contest the European elections in 2014. The alliance was named Europa Plus. The SDPL withdrew from the alliance, along with the Union of the Left, on 7 February 2014.

Members of the Sejm
Prior to the October, 2011, Polish parliamentary election, where the party's representation was wiped out, SDPL had three members of the Sejm:

 * Marek Borowski (19 – Warsaw I)
 * Grażyna Ciemniak (4 – Bydgoszcz)
 * Izabella Sierakowska (6 – Lublin)

Marek Borowski, was elected to the Polish Senate in the 2011 elections as an independent candidate. He retained his membership of SDPL.

title: Social Democracy of Poland


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Pierre-Charles Villeneuve

Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve (31 December 1763 – 22 April 1806) was a French naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars. He was in command of the French and the Spanish fleets that were defeated by Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Early career
Villeneuve was born in 1763 at Valensole, and joined the French Navy in 1779. He took part in naval operations in the American Revolutionary War, serving as an ensign on Marseillais, in de Grasse's fleet.

Despite his aristocratic ancestry, he sympathised with the French Revolution, dropping the nobiliary particle from his name, and was able to continue his service in the Navy when other aristocratic officers were purged. He served during several battles, and was promoted to rear admiral in 1796 as a result of this.

At the Battle of the Nile in 1798 he was in command of the rear division. His ship, FRENCH SHIP Guillaume Tell, was one of only two French ships of the line to escape the defeat. He was captured soon afterwards when the British took the island of Malta, but he was soon released. He was criticised for not engaging the British at the Nile, but Napoleon considered him a "lucky man" and his career was not affected. His treatment by the British was not bad, but led to him describing them as 'gobelins gras' (lit. ' greasy goblins') in a letter to his family.

In 1804, Napoleon ordered Villeneuve, now a vice admiral stationed at Toulon, to escape from the British blockade, overcome the British fleet in the English Channel, and allow the planned invasion of Britain to take place. To draw off the British defences, Villeneuve was to sail to the West Indies, where it was planned that he would combine with the Spanish fleet and the French fleet from Brest and attack British possessions in the Caribbean, before returning across the Atlantic to destroy the British Channel squadrons and escort the Armée d'Angleterre from their camp at Boulogne to victory in England.

Prelude to the battle
After an abortive expedition in January, Villeneuve finally left Toulon on 29 March 1805 with eleven ships of the line. He evaded Nelson's blockade, passed the Strait of Gibraltar on 8 April and crossed the Atlantic with Nelson's fleet in pursuit, but about a month behind owing to unfavourable winds. In the West Indies Villeneuve waited for a month at Martinique, but Admiral Ganteaume's Brest fleet did not appear. Eventually Villeneuve was pressured by French army officers into beginning the planned attack on the British, but he succeeded only in recapturing the island fort of Diamond Rock off Martinique. On 7 June he learned that Nelson had reached Antigua. On 8 June he and his fleet were able to intercept a homeward-bound convoy of 15 British merchant vessels escorted by the frigate HMS Barbadoes (1804) and the sloop or schooner HMS Netley (1798). The two British warships managed to escape, but Villeneuve's fleet captured the entire convoy, valued at some five million pounds. Villeneuve then sent the prizes into Guadeloupe under the escort of the frigate FRENCH FRIGATE Sirène. On 11 June Villeneuve set out for Europe with Nelson again in pursuit.

On 22 July Villeneuve, now with twenty ships of the line and seven frigates, passed Cape Finisterre on the northwest coast of Spain and entered the Bay of Biscay. Here he met a British fleet of fifteen ships of the line commanded by Vice Admiral Sir Robert Calder. In the ensuing Battle of Cape Finisterre, a confused action in bad visibility, the British, though outnumbered, were able to cut off and capture two Spanish ships.

For two days Villeneuve shadowed the retreating British, but did not seek a battle. Instead he sailed to A Coruña, arriving on 1 August. Here he received orders from Napoleon to sail to Brest and Boulogne as planned. Instead, perhaps believing a false report of a superior British fleet in the Bay of Biscay, and against the Spanish commanders' objections, he sailed away back to Cádiz, rendering Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain wholly impossible.

The battle
At Cádiz the combined French and Spanish fleets were kept under blockade by Nelson. In September, Villeneuve was ordered to sail for Naples and attack British shipping in the Mediterranean, but he was initially unwilling to move and continued in blatant disregard of superior orders.

In mid-October he learned that Napoleon was about to replace him as commanding officer with François Étienne de Rosily-Mesros and order him to Paris to account for his actions. (Napoleon had written to the Minister of Marine, "Villeneuve does not possess the strength of character to command a frigate. He lacks determination and has no moral courage.") Before his replacement could arrive, Villeneuve gave the order to sail on 18 October.

Inexperienced crews and the difficulties of getting out of Cádiz meant that it took two days to get all 34 ships out of port and into some kind of order. On 21 October 1805 Villeneuve learned of the size of the British fleet, and turned back to Cádiz, but the combined fleets were intercepted by Nelson off Cape Trafalgar. Nelson, though outnumbered, won the Battle of Trafalgar, and Villeneuve's flagship FRENCH SHIP Bucentaure was captured along with many other French and Spanish ships.

Aftermath and death
The British sent Villeneuve to England in the Euryalus but released him on parole; during this time he lived in Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire. He stayed at the Crown Inn public house and his men, who numbered 200, stayed in local houses. He was allowed to attend the funeral of Lord Nelson whilst at Bishop's Waltham. Freed in late 1805, he returned to France, where he attempted to go back into military service, but his requests were not answered.

On 22 April 1806, he was found dead at the Hôtel de la Patrie in Rennes with five stab wounds in the left lung and one in the heart. He had left a farewell letter to his wife. A verdict of suicide was recorded. The nature of his death ensured that this verdict was much mocked in the British press of the time and suspicions abounded that Napoleon had secretly ordered Villeneuve's murder. The question of whether Villeneuve committed suicide has been a source of contention among historians ever since.

Legacy
His name is etched on the Arc de Triomphe.

title: Pierre-Charles Villeneuve


text:
XO (Elliott Smith album)

XO is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. It was recorded from 1997 to 1998 and released on August 25, 1998, by record label DreamWorks; Smith's first solo album on a major record label. Two singles, "Waltz #2 (XO)" and "Baby Britain", were released.

Recording
Early sessions for the album began at Larry Crane's Jackpot Recording Studio after the release of Either/Or in 1997. These sessions would yield early demos of several album tracks, as well as outtakes later released posthumously on New Moon. Work began in earnest on the album in early 1998, after Smith traveled to Los Angeles to work with producers Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock. An early working title for the album was Grand Mal.

The title of the first track, "Sweet Adeline", was inspired by Smith's recollections of his grandmother singing in her glee club, Sweet Adelines International. "Amity" is believed to be named after a friend who can be seen in photographs from Smith's 1997 tour. "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands" is based on a true story of an intervention that saw Smith check into a rehab facility in Arizona. Smith's original lyrics bear this out further, with references to 'the desert', a 'dream-killing doctor', and a 'twelve-stepping cop'.

Release
XO was released by DreamWorks Records on August 25, 1998. It was Smith's first solo record on a major record label, though he had previously released music on a major label with his band Heatmiser's final album, Mic City Sons (1996).

Singles released from the album were "Waltz #2 (XO)" in the same year and "Baby Britain" the following year.

Reception
XO was well received by critics upon its release. Mark Richardson of Pitchfork wrote, "Smith's songwriting continues to improve, as each of [the album's] fourteen tracks displays his inarguable mastery of the pop song structure more clearly than ever." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave the album a one-star honorable mention rating, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like". His review described the album's music as "high tune, low affect," citing "Waltz #2 (XO)" and "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands" as highlights. XO placed at number five on The Village Voice's 1998 end-of-year Pazz & Jop poll.

In its retrospective review, BBC Music wrote, "the budget might have gone up, but Smith's masterful way with an understated melody and melancholic lyric remained firmly intact", calling XO "perhaps the greatest long-player Smith released; if not, it's certainly the equal of the preceding Either/Or. Repeat listens don't dull it in the slightest, every barbed one-liner and exhalation of despair perfectly preserved". Trouser Press called the record "a tastefully commercialized production (completely with horns and strings) that respects Smith's privacy and, in fact, does him a solid service. [...] If the songs are not the most profound or developed of Smith's catalogue, it's still a great record that proves how durable integrity can be."

A 2023 review by Pitchfork's Jayson Greene described the album as "a transformational landmark and a logical next step for the restless composer" and remarked that the "breadth and depth of XO astonished even his benefactors".

Legacy
In 2010, Spin magazine placed XO at number 90 on its list of the 125 best albums in the magazine's lifetime. Pitchfork Media placed the album at number 68 in their list of the greatest albums of the 1990s.

Matthew LeMay has written a book about XO as part of the 33⅓ series of books on albums, released on April 6, 2009, by the Continuum International Publishing Group.

RJD2 sampled "I Didn't Understand" on the song "Ghostwriter" on his album Deadringer. Indie rock band Grandaddy performed "Oh Well, Okay" live in 2012 as a tribute to Smith.

Personnel

 * Elliott Smith – guitar, vocals, piano, bass guitar, drums, organ, mandolin, electric piano, melodica, percussion, string and horn arrangements, record producer, recording (all tracks except 4 and 9)

Additional personnel

 * Rob Schnapf – guitar ("Baby Britain"), production, recording (all tracks except 4 and 9)
 * Paul Pulvirenti – drums on "Baby Britain"
 * Tom Rothrock – drum programming ("Independence Day"), production, recording (all tracks except 4 and 9)
 * Joey Waronker – drums ("Bled White", "Bottle Up and Explode!")
 * Jon Brion – vibraphone and Chamberlin ("Waltz #1", "Bottle Up and Explode!", "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands")
 * R. James Atkinson – French horn on "Oh Well, Okay"
 * Bruce Eskovitz – bass saxophone, baritone saxophone on "A Question Mark", flute on "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands"
 * Roy Poper – trumpet on "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands"
 * Shelly Berg – string and horn arrangements
 * Tom Halm – string and horn arrangements
 * Farhad Behroozi – strings
 * Henry Ferber – strings
 * Jerrod Goodman – strings
 * Pamela DeAlmeida – strings
 * Peter Hatch – strings
 * Raymond Tischer II – strings
 * Russel Cantor – strings
 * Waldemar DeAlmeida – strings

Technical

 * Alex Sanderson – engineering assistance
 * Doug Boehm – engineering assistance
 * Richard Barron – engineering assistance
 * Stephen Marcussen – mastering
 * Larry Crane – recording (tracks 4 and 9)
 * Johnson and Wolverton – sleeve artwork
 * Eric Matthies – sleeve photography

title: XO (Elliott Smith album)


text:
Talk:British Leyland

Rover trademark retained by BMW?
I heard this in a business report on Radio 4 yesterday, talking about which assets were currently still owned by Austin Rover. I presume that BMW allows Austin Rover as licensee to produce Rover vehicles without charge. If anyone can correct or corroborate this, I'd be grateful.

Your help requested
The Mini article is in the Peer review process - perhaps heading towards Featured Article status. I would greatly appreciate experts on BL taking a look at it. (If you find a problem, please either fix it or post your concerns on the Talk:Mini page. TIA SteveBaker 20:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Nationalization
Autocar’s centennial edition in October 1995 clearly states that BL was never nationalized. It was only effectively so. Yet I find assertions all over Wikipedia that BL was nationalized. Anyone want to weigh in on the debate?—Stombs 07:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I suppose it depends on the definition of nationalized that you use. In the Wikipedia "Nationalization" article it says: "Nationalization or nationalisation is the act of taking assets into public ownership/state ownership".  Gillian Bardsley, the archivist for the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust, which holds many of the original BL papers, says in her book Issigonis: The Official Biography that the British Government had a 99.8% stake in British Leyland Limited, the holding company created in 1975.  If 100% state ownership is required to declare full nationalization then it falls short by 0.2%.  -- de Facto (talk). 09:54, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think we can take Autocar as necessarily being definitive. For example,  says "BLMC was nationalised to become British Leyland Ltd"...so we have duelling sources and we have to look to other means to resolve the issue.  Wiktionary says: Nationalize: To convert a private industry into one controlled by the government. - so nationalisation is taking the business into government control.  Since you have control with a 51% share a business can be partially owned by the government - and yet still be nationalised.  In this article we have a responsibility to explain about the 99.8% thing in some detail - but elsewhere, 'nationalized' is clearly a perfectly acceptable shorthand for "99.8% owned by the government".  So...Who owned the other 0.2% of the shares?  If I had to bet, I'd say that it was probably shares awarded to management as a part of some kind of incentive scheme - but it would be nice to know for sure. SteveBaker 13:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Good points—thank you for clearing that up. I do agree that a majority shareholding by the government is certainly enough for nationalization in my view.—Stombs 01:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox
Could BL qualify for the defunct company infobox or is it just a group of independent companies?

Aeons 07:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

BL Category
Should all the various BL/BMC/Leyland/Rover articles be put in a new Brtish Leyland category? Penrithguy 20:47, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

 * The problem is: Should it be a "British Leyland" cat - or should it be a "BMC" cat - or maybe a "Nuffield Organisation" cat...where do we make the cut? SteveBaker 21:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

BL Logo
Does anyone have access to the slightly different logo of BL from after around 1980 with the L missing in the centre. Penrithguy 19:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Tractor
Where should text on the Leyland tractor be integrated into Wikipedia? It was international: I live in the United States. My uncle had one and my grandpa still does. I'll take a picture. They were imported into the U.S. in the 1970s. Royal broil 22:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Image added. Royal broil  02:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Image moved into relevant article section - 79.74.41.67 (talk) 19:26, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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Notice of Reliable Sources Noticeboard discussion
There is currently a discussion at Reliable sources/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is www.team.net. Thank you. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:38, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Austin 3-Litre
The statement that the 3-Litre had 'no discernable place in the market' is absurd: it was, very obviously, the direct replacement for the Austin Westminster and its' derivatives, the corporation's flagship models. In fact it was originally intended to carry on the name. 92.25.93.1 (talk) 13:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:British Leyland


text:
User:LeonSimms

I'm a student at the University of Pennsylvania working on my Ph.D. in neuroscience. Right now I'm studying nicotine and cues associated with nicotine relapse.

title: User:LeonSimms


text:
User:PolishPoliticians

Describing politicians in Poland

See also:
 * Politics of Poland,
 * List of political parties in Poland
 * List of politicians in Poland

--- Your redirect of the article on the Prussian provice of Posen to the Grand Duchy of Poznan was without reason and distrurbed an official project.

Note this text on the Talk page for that article: The article is being conformed to the project template of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Historical_States Bwood 03:07, 1 May 2004 (UTC) Bwood 22:27, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

title: User:PolishPoliticians


text:
Nathalie Sarraute

Nathalie Sarraute (born Natalia Ilinichna Tcherniak (Ната́лья Ильи́нична Черня́к); 18 July 1900 – 19 October 1999) was a French writer and lawyer. She was nominated in 1969 for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Nobel Committee member Lars Gyllensten.

Personal life
Sarraute was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (now Ivanovo), 300 km north-east of Moscow. She was the daughter of Pauline (née Chatounovsky), a writer, and Ilya Tcherniak, a chemist. She was of Jew ish origin. Following the divorce of her parents, she spent her childhood shuttled between France and Russia. In 1909 she moved to Paris with her father. Sarraute studied law and literature at the prestigious Sorbonne, having a particular fondness for contemporary literature and the works of Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, who greatly affected her conception of the novel, then later studied history at the University of Oxford and sociology in Berlin, before passing the French bar exam (1926–1941) and becoming a lawyer.

In 1925, she married Raymond Sarraute, a fellow lawyer, with whom she had three daughters. In 1932 she wrote her first book, Tropismes, a series of brief sketches and memories that set the tone for her entire oeuvre. The novel was first published in 1939, although the impact of World War II stunted its popularity. In 1941, Sarraute was barred from working as a lawyer as a result of the Vichy regime's antisemitic laws. During this time, she went into hiding and made arrangements to divorce her husband in an effort to protect him (although they eventually stayed together).

Sarraute died at the age of 99 in 1999 in Paris, France. Her daughter, the journalist Claude Sarraute, was married to French Academician Jean-François Revel.

Career
Sarraute dedicated herself to literature, with her most prominent work being Portrait of a Man Unknown (1948), a work applauded by Jean-Paul Sartre, who famously referred to it as an "anti-novel" and who also contributed a foreword. Despite such high critical praise, however, the work only drew notice from literary insiders, as did her follow-up, Martereau.

Sarraute's essay The Age of Suspicion (L'Ère du soupçon, 1956) served as a prime manifesto for the nouveau roman literary movement, alongside Alain Robbe-Grillet's For a New Novel. Sarraute became, along with Robbe-Grillet, Claude Simon, Marguerite Duras, and Michel Butor, one of the figures most associated with the rise of this new trend in writing, which sought to radically transform traditional narrative models of character and plot. Sarraute was awarded the Prix international de littérature for her novel The Golden Fruits in 1963, which led to greater popularity and exposure for the author. That same year, Sarraute also began working as a dramatist, authoring a total of six plays, including Le Silence (1963), Le Mensonge (1965) and Elle est là (1993). As a result of Sarraute's growing popularity and public profile, she was invited to speak at a number of literary events both in her native country of France and abroad.

Sarraute's work, including the novels Between Life and Death (1968), The Use of Speech (1980) and You Don't Love Yourself (1989), have been translated into more than 30 languages. Her work has often been referred to as "difficult," as a result of her experimental style and abandonment of traditional literary conventions. Sarraute celebrated the death of the literary "character" and placed her primary emphasis on the creation of a faithful depiction of psychological phenomena, as in her novella The Golden Fruits, consisting entirely of interior monologues, and the novel The Planetarium (1959), which focuses on a young man's obsession with moving into his aunt's apartment. The constantly shifting perspectives and points of view in Sarraute's work serve to undermine the author's hand, while at the same time embracing the incoherence of lived experience.

In contrast to the relative difficulty of Sarraute's novels, her memoir Childhood is considered an easier read. Penned when she was over eighty years old, Sarraute's autobiography is hardly a straightforward memoir, as she challenges her own capacity to accurately recall her past throughout the work. In the 1980s, the autobiography was adapted into a one-act Broadway play starring Glenn Close. The issues with memory which Sarraute highlighted in her autobiography carried through to her last novel, Here, published in 1995, in which the author explores a range of existential issues relating to the formlessness of both individual and social reality.

Agnès Varda dedicated her 1985 film Sans toit ni loi (Vagabonde) to her.

Novels

 * Tropismes (1939; revised 1957). Tropisms, trans. Maria Jolas with The Age of Suspicion (1963).
 * Portrait d’un inconnu (1948; revised 1956). Portrait of a Man Unknown, trans. Maria Jolas (1958).
 * Martereau (1953). Trans. Maria Jolas (1959).
 * Le Planétarium (1959). The Planetarium, trans. Maria Jolas (1960).
 * Les Fruits d'or (1963). The Golden Fruits, trans. Maria Jolas (1964).
 * Entre la vie et la mort (1968). Between Life and Death, trans. Maria Jolas (1969).
 * Vous les entendez ? (1972). Do You Hear Them?, trans. Maria Jolas (1973).
 * « disent les imbéciles » (1976). "fools say", trans. Maria Jolas (1977).
 * L’Usage de la parole (1980). The Use of Speech, trans. Barbara Wright (1980).
 * Enfance (1983). Childhood, trans. Barbara Wright (1984).
 * Tu ne t’aimes pas (1989). You Don’t Love Yourself, trans. Barbara Wright (1990).
 * Ici (1995). Here, trans. Barbara Wright (1997).
 * Ouvrez (1997). Open.

Plays

 * Le Silence (1964). Silence, trans. Maria Jolas with The Lie (1969).
 * Le Mensonge (1966). The Lie, trans. Maria Jolas with Silence (1969).
 * Isma, ou ce qui s’appelle rien (1970). Izzum.
 * C’est beau (1975). It’s Beautiful.
 * Elle est là (1978). It Is There.
 * Collected Plays (1980). Translated by Maria Jolas and Barbara Wright. Includes It Is There, It’s Beautiful, Izzum, The Lie, Silence.
 * Pour un oui ou pour un non (1981). For No Good Reason (1985).

Essays

 * L'Ère du soupçon (1956). The Age of Suspicion: Essays on the Novel, trans. Maria Jolas with Tropisms (1963).

title: Nathalie Sarraute


text:
User talk:Gitaroo

Welcome to Wikipedia

title: User talk:Gitaroo


text:
Talk:Dagen H

ANNI-FRID “FRIDA” LYNGSTAD of ABBA and Dagen H
I'm not sure if this is important enough to include somewhere on the page, and it may be mere speculation or urban legend, but I'll mention it here because it's an interesting story.

It appears that the career of Abba band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad was launched by a TV show performance on Dagen H, and many claim that she became a celebrity because the performance was on a day when the TV audience was much bigger because Swedes were unable to travel.

The Anni-Frid Lyngstad page mentions the performance day, but doesn't make the connection (emphasis mine): "...She won the competition with her song "En ledig dag", leading to a television appearance on Hylands Hörna on Dagen H; as a result, she was signed by EMI..."

I did find the following in the Dutch Wikipedia https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anni-Frid_Lyngstad though it lacks a citation.

Google translation (again, emphasis is mine):

On September 3, 1967, Lyngstad won 'New Faces', a large-scale national talent show in Stockholm, organized by record company EMI on the occasion of Dagen H. With her winning song En empt dag (A day off) she was given the opportunity to perform in 'Hylands hörna', the biggest Swedish TV show of the time. Because the Swedes left their cars at home that evening due to a change in the direction of travel and sat en masse in front of the TV, Frida instantly became a national celebrity. Shortly afterwards she signed a contract with EMI Records who released her first single En empt dag / Peter, kom tillbaka (A day off / Peter, come back). Mark Asread (talk) 15:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Photo caption
Can we add a caption to the photo; it's not entirely clear to me exactly what's going on in this picture. Is this during the 10-minute period when the directional switchover was made? -- Seth Ilys 23:12, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

"H" in Dagen H
I'm assuming H stands for the swedish name for right? Am I right? --Gbleem 00:05, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, right = höger in Swedish. Den fjättrade ankan 17:35, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Trams
"Trams that ran on tracks embedded in the streets were junked" Why? And why did the trams in Gothenburg survive? AlainV 02:30, 2004 May 14 (UTC)

 * I'm not trying to answer this, but it does seem that trams became unpopular all over the place at some point around that time...

 * Factoid: Subways in Stockholm are still RHD. Harald Hansen 18:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

 * You mean the trains run on the left-hand track, or the right-hand one? A RHD/LHD driver's seat designation is probably meaningless in a train cab... 193.63.174.211 (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Crash rate
Uh, the article currently mentions that the number of road accidents dropped sharply as a result of the changeover. What it fails to mentions, as is mentioned at Rules of the road, is that the accident rate rose to its previous level within two years. If this is true, could somebody please add it: I'm not sure of the facts myself. --Dom 00:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Can't the lower accident rate after the switch be attributed, also, to the possibility that everyone on Sweden at the time were driving more carefully due to the switch? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.161.197.132 (talk) 09:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Weren't all cars LHD?
The article says that most Swedes drive imported cars with the steering wheel on the left, but what about Volvos and Saabs? Were these RHD? I don't think so.

 * They weren't, or to be precise: I have never seen one, and I live next door (Norway). Harald Hansen 18:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually one of the argument against the switch was that the driver could not see the edge of the road driving on the right in a LHD car. As for SAABs they seem to have all been LHD, even the prototype 92 was LHD, the only exception seems to be the Saab Sonett mk1 (but notice the placement of the gear stick!) // Liftarn

Señor citizen?
A phrase about older (elderly?) "people" refraining from driving rather than re-educate lacking a cite, is ineffectual. Placed non sequitur next to a passage about absent car accident during the days of the switch, is just rude and miscrediting lack of formality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KreviazukCole (talk • contribs) 16:22, 7 January 2010

Håll dig till höger Svensson
The band singing the song was called Telstars, while Rock-Boris (Boris Lindqvist) seems to have been involved in the band somehow. . It seems it'd be more appropriate to refer to Telstars than Rock-Boris alone.126.109.230.99 (talk) 12:44, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Commemorative children
The logo was displayed varous commemorative items, such as children. What is the intended meaning of this?Klausok (talk) 06:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

 * The edit history suggests it's a bit of mildly amusing vandalism... I'll zap it. 193.63.174.211 (talk) 19:01, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Timing of switch, and "side-specific headlights"?
Doesn't it seem strange that they would wait until 5AM to do the switch, when everyone is heading to work? Why didn't they time it for midnight, or 2AM, when the roads were mostly empty? That way, everyone could just get out of bed, and get into their car and drive to work on the right side of the road, without worrying about all this stopping and switching sides business. Did they just not want to ask the workers to go out in the middle of the night to set up the new intersections? Did they think it'd be dangerous to ask the few drivers that were out on the roads to try to learn right-side driving in the dark?

Also, what is this about dedicated headlamps for right- and left-hand drive cars? As far as I know, in the US, both headlamps are the same: both sides face straight ahead, so it doesn't matter if you put them in a LHD or a RHD car. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but as far as I knew, US headlamps shine straight ahead, have low and high beams, and are adjusted so they converge and aim properly with screws-mounts. Why would a RHD car need different headlamps than a LHD car? AnnaGoFast (talk) 04:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC) . ..

Hi, as a person who designs headlights, you will find that there are many types: 1. UK RHD. 2. Japan RHD. 3. EU LHD. 4. US/Canada LHD. 5. Rest of world LHD. 6. Rest of world RHD. All of these markets have 'different' demands on performance / beam direction / dip direction.

For your information, US headlights have different beam patterns for left & right hand sides, along with different 'maximum brightness' legislation demands.... EU markets have a 1200 lumen maximum brightness of 'dipped' beam US markets have a 1500 lumen maximum brightness

These are numerous other regulations that we have to comply with

Crazy, I know - I have to work with this !

Hope this helps AG  England .

External links modified
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Non sequitur in the opening section
I feel that the 2nd para of the opening section ("City buses...") is completely out of place there. I was going to move it towards the end, either to 'The Switch' or 'Results' sections, but there is already a para in the latter section about public transport, so this would be at least partly repetitive of that. Unless someone feels like editing the text (eg. merging those two paras), I suggest the "City buses..." para be deleted. DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Photo Caption 2
I edited the photo caption. This photo is widely misattributed to being from Dagen H. The photo caption said so before I changed it. To anyone reading the article it is obviously not the case. There was no traffic from 10.00 on Saturday morning until 15.00 on Sunday afternoon. Do people really think traffic would have waited there for 29 hours? This photo was taken in the middle of March. It was staged to create an image necessary for the massive public information campaign. I had some trouble editing the caption so someone might like to tidy it up. 78.82.80.49 (talk) 09:14, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure what your source is for the photo being staged as every reliable source says otherwise. There's even an interview with the actual photographer confirming that the photo was taken on September 3rd, which I have referenced in the article now as I reverted your change. Somuchknowledge (talk) 23:08, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
 * In the Wikipedia article it says "In Stockholm and Malmö, however, the ban was longer – from 10:00 on Saturday until 15:00 on Sunday – to allow work crews to reconfigure intersections.
 * Therefore the photo was not taken on 3rd September. You can't possibly think traffic stood still on Kungsgatan for 29 hours just to take the photo. The photo was used throughout the spring and summer of 1967 in publicity campaigns. 94.234.117.27 (talk) 03:51, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Anecdotes paragraph missing
After the results I think there should be an anecdotes paragraph like present in the German version saying:

On September 2, 2017, the city of Malmköping celebrated the 50th anniversary of the introduction of right-hand traffic in 1967. The changeover (Högertrafikomläggning) was celebrated by running selected streets with left-hand traffic from 11 am to 3 pm. Vintage vehicles and old buses from the Malmköping Tram Museum, which were designed for left-hand traffic, drove "correctly" again. VossNorway800 (talk) 04:23, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Dagen H


text:
Basil Hirschowitz

Basil Isaac Hirschowitz (29 May 1925 – 19 January 2013) was an academic gastroenterologist from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) best known in the field for having invented an improved optical fiber which allowed the creation of a useful flexible endoscope. This invention revolutionized the practice of gastroenterology and also was a key invention in optical fiber communication in multiple industries.

Hirschowitz was born in Bethal, South Africa. He received his medical education at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It was from this institution that he earned M.B. and B.Ch. degrees in 1947. He received Postdoctoral training from University of the Witwatersrand, earning an M.D. degree.

In 1953 he moved to the United States, where he continued his gastrointestinal fellowship at the University of Michigan and joined the faculty between 1954 and 1957. Hirschowitz became a naturalized citizen of the US in 1961.

Among his many awards, Basil Hirschowitz received the Schindler Medal of the ASGE, the Friedenwald Medal of the AGA (1992), the General Motors Cancer Research Awards Kettering Prize (1987), the UAB Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Science of Medicine. The Alabama Healthcare Hall of Fame honors Dr. Basil Hirschowitz for reaching the pinnacle of academic medicine as a teacher, scientist, and clinician. In 2006 he became M.D.h.c (Honorary Doctor of Medicine) at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Groll-Hirschowitz syndrome — a rare genetic condition characterized by gastrointestinal abnormalities, deafness and neuropathy. It is named in honour of B. Hirschowitz and A. Groll, who first described the condition.

Hirschowitz died in Birmingham, Alabama on 19 January 2013.

title: Basil Hirschowitz


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