text:
Rocky Super Action Boxing

Rocky Super Action Boxing is the first licensed video game based on the Rocky franchise. The game is based on Rocky III and was designed by Coleco for its ColecoVision console. The player can play as either Rocky Balboa or Clubber Lang, either against the computer in a one player game, or against each other in a "Head to Head" two player mode. There is also a "Demo" mode if the player wants to watch Rocky and Clubber Lang fight.

Gameplay
Each boxing match consists of, according to the skill level chosen, two, five, ten, or fifteen rounds each lasting one minute each. During gameplay, the player's movement is restricted to three positions or "lanes" vertically, and from each player's side of the ring to the front of their opponent horizontally.

The 4 button controller allows for (independently) offensive hits to the body or head, defensive blocking for the head and body, and ducking.

Points are scored in the game by hitting the opponent's guard (1 point), or with a punch connecting with the opponent's head or body (2 points for either hit).

Victory can be achieved in two ways, either by knockout, or by point count if the fight goes all the way to the end.

Critical response
George Kopp of Electronic Fun with Computers & Games said that "Coleco's Rocky for the Super Action Controllers is a masterpiece of sports simulation.

title: Rocky Super Action Boxing


text:
Wonderland (Erasure album)

Wonderland is the debut studio album by English synth-pop duo Erasure, released on 1 May 1986 by Sire Records in the United States and on 2 June 1986 by Mute Records in the United Kingdom and Germany. Not an immediate success, the three singles released from it failed to crack the top 40 in the UK. "Who Needs Love Like That" would eventually make the UK top 10 in 1992, and "Oh L'amour" reached the UK top 20 in 2003, both in remixed form promoting their Pop! The First 20 Hits and Hits! compilations respectively. However, the album fared better in both Germany and Sweden, where it charted within the top 20.

Erasure's initial exposure in the US came via dance clubs, as two singles reached the top 10 on Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart.

At the time of its release, Wonderland was considered a failure, especially when comparing it to Clarke's prior successes with Depeche Mode and Yazoo. Andy Bell has stated that Alison Moyet was an influence of his vocals and he used to practice to Yazoo songs.

Critical reception
In a contemporary review for Billboard's "Dance Trax" column, Brian Chin wrote that "Erasure's "Wonderland" (Sire) may just be the nicest thing ever produced by Mute Records. "Reunion" and "Oh L'Amour" are pop-disco that would be hi-NRG if harder; other highlights on this enjoyable album are the shuffler "Say What" and "Love is a Loser," as arch and ambiguous as any Boy George song."

Track listing
All songs were written by Andy Bell and Vince Clarke, except where noted.

Side one

 * 1) "Who Needs Love Like That" (Clarke)
 * 2) "Reunion"
 * 3) "Cry So Easy" (Bell)
 * 4) "Push Me Shove Me" (Clarke)
 * 5) "Heavenly Action"

Side two

 * 1) "Say What"
 * 2) "Love Is a Loser"
 * 3) "Senseless"
 * 4) "My Heart... So Blue" (Clarke)
 * 5) "Oh L'amour"
 * 6) "Pistol"

CD bonus tracks

 * 1) "Say What" (remix)
 * 2) "March on Down the Line" (remix)
 * 3) "Senseless" (remix)

Side one

 * 1) "Who Needs Love Like That" (Vince Clarke) - 3:19
 * 2) "Reunion" - 3:25
 * 3) "Cry So Easy" (Andy Bell) - 3:35
 * 4) "Senseless" - 5:20
 * 5) "Heavenly Action" - 3:30

Side two

 * 1) "Say What" - 3:56
 * 2) "Love Is a Loser" - 3:02
 * 3) "March on Down the Line" - 3:26
 * 4) "My Heart... So Blue" (Clarke) - 4:31
 * 5) "Oh L'amour" - 3:24

CD bonus tracks

 * 1) "Who Needs Love Like That (The Love That Mix Version)" - 6:11
 * 2) "Oh L'amour (The Funky Sisters Remix)" - 7:17

The US version drops the tracks "Push Me Shove Me" and "Pistol" and adds "March on Down the Line" which was originally the B-side to "Oh L'amour" in the UK (and also appeared in a remixed form as a CD bonus track on the UK version of the album). The CD versions of both the UK and US versions of the album have different remixes as bonus tracks.

The UK and US album versions of "Oh L'amour" were slightly different. The Brazilian edition of the album contains the live version of "Oh L'amour" as track 6.

2011 remaster and repackage
On 4 July 2011, EMI re-released Erasure's first two albums in 2CD/DVD format. Both feature the original album remastered, plus another disc of tracks associated with the album, and a DVD containing promo videos and a live concert.

2016 "Erasure 30" 30th Anniversary BMG Reissue LP
Subsequent to their acquisition of Erasure's back catalog, and in anticipation of the band's 30th anniversary, BMG records commissioned reissues of all previously released UK editions of Erasure albums up to and including 2007's Light at the End of the World. All titles were pressed and distributed by Play It Again Sam on 180-gram vinyl and shrinkwrapped with a custom anniversary sticker.

2016 "30th Anniversary Edition" US Audiophile Remaster LP
In December 2016, American boutique record label Intervention Records released an audiophile-quality analogue remaster of the US release sourced from Sire's masters still held by Warner Bros. Records in the US. The release was pressed on 180-gram vinyl and in a 60s-style Tip-On jacket.

Intervention also planned and begun work on a similar release of Erasure's second album, The Circus, for the first quarter of 2017, but it was withdrawn in February of that year.

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

title: Wonderland (Erasure album)


text:
Battle of Maloyaroslavets

The Battle of Maloyaroslavets took place on 24 October 1812 as part of the French invasion of Russia. It was Kutuzov's decisive battle to force Napoleon to retreat northwest over Mozhaisk to Smolensk on the devastated route of his advance with a higher probability of starvation. Kutuzov's next attack against the remnants of the Grande Armée, the Battle of Krasnoi, began on 15 November 1812, three weeks later.

Prelude
The last major battle had been the Battle of Tarutino on 18 October 1812, that was won by the Russian army. A great part of the large mob of non-combatants, invalids from the hospitals, women, fugitive inhabitants of Moscow, whose number can only be guessed at, was directed upon Vereya and the straight road to Smolensk and only the fighting force was to march towards Kaluga. On 19 October 1812, Napoleon had retreated from Moscow and marched south-west to Kaluga, Eugène de Beauharnais leading the advance The French army leaving Moscow was estimated by Wilson: 90,000 effective infantry, 14,000 feeble cavalry, 12,000 armed men employed in the various services of artillery, engineers, gendarmerie, head-quarter staff, equipages, and commissariat, and more than 20,000 non-combatants, sick, and wounded.

Alexis Joseph Delzons commanded the lead units going to the village of Maloyaroslavets. The bridges across Luzha River were destroyed by order of local authorities. Delzons' soldiers entered the city over a dam and built a pontoon bridge next to the destroyed one. Then Delzons attacked the heights on which the village rested. On the evening of October 23 Delzons placed two of his battalions in the village.

Battle
On the 24 October 1812 General Dokhturov entered the town from the south and found the French spearhead had seized a bridgehead. Fierce fighting began. General Raevski arrived with 10,000 more Russians; once more they took the town, though not the bridgehead. De Beauharnais threw in his 15th (Italian) division, under Domenico Pino (Minister of War of the Kingdom of Italy), and by evening they had again expelled the Russians. Armand Charles Guilleminot was the first who entered the city. During the course of the engagement the town changed hands no fewer than eight times and it was quoted that in particular the Italian Royal Guard under Eugène de Beauharnais 'had displayed qualities which entitled it evermore to take rank amongst the bravest troops of Europe'. Marshal Kutuzov arrived and decided against a pitched battle with the Grand Army the next day, and to retire instead to the prepared line of defense at Kaluga. The mainly French and Italian forces won a victory on the day, but Napoleon might have realized that "unless with a new Borodino" the way through Kaluga and Medyn was closed. This allowed Kutuzov to fulfill his strategic plans to force Napoleon on the way of retreat in the north, through Mozhaisk and Smolensk, the route of his advance that he had wished to avoid. French casualties were about 6,000–8,000, while the Russians lost about 8,000 men killed and wounded.

Kutuzov's strategy
On the 25 October 1812 at about two in the morning after the battle Kutuzov retired his army in perfect order southwards away from the French army behind the rivulet of Koricza to secure the road to Kaluga. The British general Wilson who wanted Napoleon to be attacked protested against this strategy. Kutuzov replied to him, here simplified for a better understanding: "I am by no means sure that the total destruction of the Emperor Napoleon and his army would be such a benefit to Russia; his succession would fall to the United Kingdom whose domination would then be intolerable."

Aftermath

The immediate result of the battle of Maloyaroslavets on the 24th had been a strange French tactical victory: the French army had secured a bridgehead, the Russian army had retreated but Napoleon did not follow them. The long-term result of the battle became a Russian strategic victory as they had disturbed Napoleon's ability to wage a war.

On the 25th, at daybreak, Napoleon nearly was caught by a Cossack regiment but was saved by a corps of grenadiers.

From then on, Napoleon carried a bag containing a lethal poison, hung by a string around his neck.

On the 26th, Napoleon decided to retreat over Mozhaisk and Borodino to Smolensk for reasons unknown resulting in the strange detour in the attached map of Napoleon's invasion of Russia at Maloyaroslavets. On the 26th Napoleon again set out for Maloyaroslavets,...he ordered the retreat of his own army by Mozhaisk on Smolensk. Before Napoleon could come to such a conclusion he must have been very conscious of the extreme weakness of his army, for the march he now decided on undertaking was one of two hundred and sixty miles through a devastated country, whose towns, sacked and burnt, offered no shelter or supply against the inclemency of winter.

On the night of October 27, the rear guard of the Grand Army left the ruins of the city, crossed to the northern bank of the Luzha and joined the general retreat.

On Kutuzov's order, Platov and his Cossacks directly followed Napoleon. The next major battle for the Russian army was the Battle of Vyazma on 3 November 1812.

Kutuzov "escorted" Napoleon on the more southern roads with better supply of food and shelter, securing the south against the French army. The next battle for Kutuzov was the Battle of Krasnoi on 15 November 1812.

The last battle in this campaign for Napoleon was the Battle of Berezina on 26–29 November 1812.

title: Battle of Maloyaroslavets


text:
Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

The Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (Russian: Российский университет дружбы народов имени Патриса Лумумбы), also known as RUDN University and until 1992 and after March 2023, as Patrice Lumumba University in honour of the Congolese politician Patrice Lumumba, is a public research university located in Moscow, Russia. It was established in 1960 by a resolution from the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR to help nations to assist countries that had recently achieved independence from colonial powers. The university also acted to further Soviet foreign policy goals in nonaligned countries.

The University focused on catering to non-aligned countries, which were previously known as the "Third World". The University's main goal was to train personnel from Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. RUDN University was considered the 'Oxford' of Russia in the mid-1980s due to the fame it achieved within a short period. RUDN University's stance on global issues became neutral after the end of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet Union. RUDN University mainly focuses on research and has partnerships with over 2500 foreign universities and research centres.

In March 2023, the name of Patrice Lumumba was returned to the RUDN University.

1960-89
The university was founded on 5 February 1960. Its stated purpose was to help developing nations. Many students from developed countries also attended the university. On 22 February 1961, the university was named Patrice Lumumba University after the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, who had been killed in a coup that January. The stated purpose for establishing the university was to give young people from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, especially from low-income families, an opportunity to be educated and to become qualified specialists. The organizations mentioned as founders of the university are the All-Union Central Soviet of Trade Unions, the Soviet Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee, and the Soviet Associations Union of Friendship and Intercultural Relationship.

Sergey Vasilievich Rumiantsev, Doctor of Engineering, was the university's first Rector. He remained its Rector until 1970. In 1960, Russian language studies for international students started at the preparatory Faculty. On 1 September, Russian language studies were introduced at the six main faculties of the PFU (Engineering faculty, Faculty of History and Philology, Medical Faculty, Agricultural Faculty, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Law and Economics). The first 288 students from 47 countries graduated in 1965. Around that time, international construction teams started to appear, and the first student teams of KVN were organized.

Vladimir Frantsevich Stanis became the second Rector of the PFU. He proclaimed the "cult of knowledge" at the university, heading it from 1970 to 1993. In 1972, Stanis proceeded to extend the duration of studies, which until then were shorter, along the lines of mainstream Soviet universities. At the Faculty of Medicine, for instance, the duration of studies was extended from five to six years. By 1975, the university had more than 5,600 graduates, 4,250 people from 89 foreign countries.

1990-2019
The university's name was changed to the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia on 5 February 1992 by the RF Government, the university's founder. The university's current Russian name is "Российский университет дружбы народов" which could be translated as "The Peoples' Friendship University of Russia" or, more directly, as "Russian University of the Friendship of Nations". The English-language version of the university's website, however, uses the name "RUDN University", with the acronym RUDN derived from the Russian name transliterated into English ("Rossiiskii Universitet Druzhby Narodov"). Nonetheless, it remains most common in English to use the name "Peoples' Friendship University of Russia" or the abbreviation "PFUR".

From 1993 to 1998, PFUR was headed by Vladimir Filippov, a 1973 graduate of Patrice Lumumba PFU. From 1998 to 2005, PFUR was directed by Dmitry Petrovich Bilibin, a graduate of Patrice Lumumba PFU. He was acting Rector until 2004 and was elected Rector of the university in 2004. Filippov was reelected Rector of the PFUR on 4 March 2005 and has headed the university since then. The 1990s saw the creation of new faculties and Institutes: the Ecological faculty, the Faculty of Economics, the faculty of Law, the Philological faculty, the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the faculty of Refresher Training for Health Care Professionals, the Institute of Foreign Languages, the Institute of Distance Learning, the Institute of Hospitality Business and Tourism, and the Institute of Gravitation and Cosmology.

More than 77,000 graduates work in 170 countries, among them more than 5,500 holders of PhD and Doctorate degrees. Lecturers train specialists in 62 majors and lines of study. More than 29,000 graduate and postgraduate students from 140 countries studied at the university as of 2014. They represented more than 150 nations of the world. It has a team of 4,500 employees, among them 2,826 teachers. Foreign and Russian political and public figures, scholars, and scientists have become PFUR Emeritus Professors.

2020-present
The university and 11 others from Russia were suspended from the European University Association (EUA) following support for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by its president Vladimir Mikhailovich Filippov in a statement issued by the Russian Union of Rectors (RUR) in March 2022. The EUA justified the suspension on the support expressed in the statement, stating said universities were "opposed to the European values that they committed to when joining EUA". In early March 2022, open letters were published calling for an end to the war in Ukraine on behalf of employees, students, and graduates of several Russian universities, including the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.

Ranking
The university was ranked #1,035 worldwide by U.S. News & World Report and #1,635 by the Center for World University Rankings in 2022.

Organization

 * 1) Agrarian Technological Institute:  It was founded in 1961. It has about 1,000 students and five teaching and research departments (The Agrobiological Department; The Agricultural Engineering Department; the Department of Veterinary Medicine; the Department of Technosphere Safety; the Department of Foreign Languages). It has more than 100 teachers, among them 26 DSc (full professors) and 66 PhDs.
 * 2) The Faculty of Humanitarian and social sciences: It was founded in 1996 (after the re-organization of the Historical-Philological faculty). It has more than 2,500 students and 12 departments. It has more than 250 teachers, including one corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 22 academicians of various public academies of sciences, 66 full professors, and 118 PhDs. The faculty maintains close ties and cooperates with universities in France, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, the United States, Canada, China, Egypt, Syria, and Iran. PFUR students participate in academic exchange with partner universities and research centres worldwide. It helps them not only to improve their professional skills and master foreign languages but also to facilitate adaptation to the modern world.
 * 3) Engineering academy: It was founded in 1961. It has more than 2,600 students and 16 departments. It has more than 240 teachers, among them 17 corresponding members and academicians of various academies of sciences, 46 full professors, and 110 PhDs. The main aim of the Engineering faculty is to prepare specialists who, apart from their significant qualifications, could head enterprises and run businesses.
 * 4) The Faculty of the Russian language and general educational disciplines: It was founded in 1960. It has more than 1,000 students and nine departments. It has about 200 teachers, seven full professors and 62 PhDs. The Faculty teaches the Russian language to international students so that they can study at PFUR's main faculties and other Russian universities. Every year more than 1,000 students from more than 140 countries study at the Faculty to continue with 62 lines of study and specialities at the main faculties. Scholars of the Faculty organize international scientific-research conferences on the problems of teaching Russian as a foreign language and interdisciplinary communication.
 * 5) Institute for Medicine: It was founded in 1961. It has more than 2,300 students and 43 departments, and two independent courses. It has 420 lecturers – 5 academicians and two corresponding members of the Russian academy of medical sciences; 24 academicians and corresponding members of social academies; 15 Honored scientists of the Russian Federation (RF), three laureates of RF State Prizes, two laureates of government State Prizes, 132 full professors and 220 PhDs. Functioning at the faculty are the Students’ scientific society which helps students become familiar with research from the beginning; the Young medical doctors’ community; the Students’ theatre Hippocrates—the lecture centre where lectures in literature, music, and history are presented. The pre-university education is provided at the Medik medical-biological school (preliminary courses). Today, the Institute for Medicine of PFUR is equipped with 14 novel clinical laboratories; computer testing and TV broadcasting are used in the training process. For refinement in an experimental treatment, subdivisions of computer tomography, liver fibre scanning, and andrology have been created.
 * 6) Faculty of Science: It was founded in 1961. It has about 900 students and 16 departments, about 280 lecturers, 65 full professors and 160 PhDs.
 * 7) The Philological faculty: It was founded in 1996 (after the re-organization of the Historical-philological faculty). It has more than 2800 students and nine departments. It has about 155 teachers, 17 corresponding members and academicians, 43 full professors, and 120 PhDs. The scientific life of the faculty is very active: scholars elaborate various trends, apply for and get grants, and participate in international, national, and branch conferences, seminars, and symposia; there are Doctorate dissertation councils for philological, pedagogic and psychological sciences. Russkiy Mir Foundation opened its department inside of RUDN in 2008.[1] Russkiy Mir foundation, created by Vladimir Putin in 2007, is a government-funded organization promoting the Russian language, culture, and educational programs abroad.
 * 8) Ecological faculty: It was founded in 1992. It has 514 students and eight departments: the faculty numbers 80, 15 academicians and corresponding members, 35 full professors, and 31 PhDs. At the Ecological faculty, students can master general educational disciplines but also a range of particular disciplines in system ecology, human ecology, eco monitoring, ecosystems management, eco expertise, radioecology, and geoinformation technologies. Lectures are given by leading foreign experts in international ecological projects and ecologists from global companies represented in the Russian market.
 * 9) Faculty of Economics: It was founded in 1995 (after the re-organization of the Faculty of Economics and Law). It has more than 1,500 students, ten departments, and two laboratories. It has 160 teachers, ten academicians and corresponding members of various academies of sciences, 24 full professors, and 74 PhDs.
 * 10) Institute for Law: It was founded in 1995 (after reorganizing the Faculty of Economics and Law). It has more than 1,800 students and nine departments. It has about 180 faculty members, including three academicians and corresponding members, 32 full professors, and 71 PhDs. Law students participate in international exchange programs every year. They undergo study courses at universities in France, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, the US, Finland, Austria, China, and other countries.
 * 11) Institute of Hospitality Business and Tourism

Research and development

 * 1) Academic-research Institute of Gravitation and Cosmology
 * 2) Institute of World economy and business
 * 3) Institute of Medico-Biological Problems

The university staff includes about 5,000 employees; among them are 442 professors and Doctors of Science, 807 associate professors and candidates of science, 91 academicians and Corresponding Members of academies of Russia, 50 Honoured workers of Science of the Russian Federation, 56 PFUR teachers and professors are full members of international academies and learned societies, as well as other general employees.

Campuses

 * 1) The main campus of PFUR is situated along Miklukho-Maklaya Street, starting from Leninsky Prospect in the direction of Volgina Street. On the even-numbered side, you can find: The main building of PFUR (called the "Cross"), buildings of the Faculties of Medicine and Agriculture, and also the sports complex, the polyclinic, the archives, and the new building of the Faculty of the Russian Language and general educational disciplines, the building of natural sciences and humanitarian faculties hosting the Faculty of Humanitarian and Social Sciences, the Institute of Hotel Business and Tourism (IHBT), the Institute for International Programs (IIP), and the Institute of Supplementary Professional Education's postgraduate department.
 * 2) The Engineering Academy and Faculty of Science campus are located at #3 Ordzhonikidze Street. The campus consists of several blocks, and the building at #3/4 Ordzhonikidze Street was built in 1913 by Boris Alberti. This is a former parochial secondary school with the church named after Duke Vladimir in 1913–19. The building at #3/1 Ordzhonikidze Street was built in 1930 and was the main house of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. The Engineering Academy and Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences started to use this building complex in 1960.
 * 3) The campus of the Ecology Faculty is located at #8 Podol'skoe Street.
 * 4) The Faculty of Refresher Training for Health Care Professionals campus is located on Leninsky Avenue.

Degrees offered

 * Bachelor's degree (4 years of study)
 * State Specialist degree (5 years of study)
 * Medical Doctor degree (6 years of study)
 * Master's degree (2 years of study following B.Sc.)
 * Ph.D. (3 years after Masters or Specialist)
 * D.Sc. (2–3 years after Ph.D.)
 * Summer schools programs (Russian language learning; Short courses, different areas)

Notable alumni

 * Karim Massimov, former Prime Minister of Kazakhstan
 * Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
 * Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (Carlos the Jackal), Venezuelan terrorist and assassin (expelled)
 * Anna Chapman, Russian spy, media personality, and model
 * Michel Djotodia, President of the Central African Republic
 * Vladimir Filippov, former Minister of Education and Science of Russia, current Chancellor of the university
 * Dieudonné Gnammankou, Beninean historian
 * Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian politician and leader of the Palestinian Authority
 * Fatima Abdel Mahmoud, Sudanese politician, and leader of the Sudanese Socialist Democratic Union
 * Irina Khakamada, economist, journalist, and politician
 * Lucy Seki, Brazilian linguist
 * Timoleón Jiménez, leader of FARC (expelled)
 * Porfirio Lobo, President of Honduras
 * Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua
 * Hifikepunye Pohamba, former President of Namibia from 2005 to 2015
 * Alexei Navalny, lawyer, political and financial activist, and politician
 * Bharrat Jagdeo, former President of Guyana
 * Tamar Beruchashvili, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Georgia
 * Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya, Minister of Environment, Rwanda
 * Hillary Onek, Minister of Internal Affairs, Uganda
 * Rohana Wijeweera, Sri Lankan Marxist politician, revolutionary, and the founding leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna
 * Abed Elrahim Abu Zakrra, Sudanese writer and poet

University people

 * Viktor Alekseevitch Frolov (1936—2016), Dean of the Medical Faculty, doctor, professor, academician, pathophysiologist and medical scientist


text:
User:Sgeo/sandbox

Special:Mypage

title: User:Sgeo/sandbox


text:
Supergrass (album)

Supergrass is the third album by the English alternative rock band Supergrass. It was released in the UK on 20 September 1999 and reached #3. It is often referred to as "the X-ray album", due to the picture on the sleeve. In Australia a free CD was included with some live tracks. In 2022, the album was remastered and reissued as a 2CD deluxe edition, which includes new remixes of several of the songs created by John Leckie and John Cornfield among other bonus tracks.

Track listing
All tracks written by Supergrass/Rob Coombes.

CD 5220562 / TC 5220564 / 12"  5220561 / MD 5220569
 * 1) "Moving" (4:26)
 * 2) "Your Love" (3:27) This features a harpsichord in the outro.
 * 3) "What Went Wrong (In Your Head)" (4:05)
 * 4) "Beautiful People" (3:22)
 * 5) "Shotover Hill" (3:43)
 * 6) "Eon" (3:44)
 * 7) "Mary" (4:00)
 * 8) "Jesus Came from Outta Space" (4:10)
 * 9) "Pumping on Your Stereo" (3:20)
 * 10) "Born Again" (3:38)
 * 11) "Faraway" (5:05)
 * 12) "Mama & Papa" (2:30)

'''LTD. ED. CD ''' 5220560

This was free with a limited number of CD releases of Supergrass.
 * Exclusive Band Photographs
 * Full Discography
 * "Caught by the Fuzz (video)" (2:19)
 * "Time (video)" (3:12)

'''LTD. ED. Mary Live Bonus CD''' (AUS only)

The Australian release of the album in 1999 came with a bonus live EP to coincide with the Australian leg of Supergrass' tour.
 * 1) "Mary (from Lamacq Live)" (4:02)
 * 2) "Pumping on Your Stereo (live from Peel Acres)" (3:12)
 * 3) "Strange Ones (live from Peel Acres)" (3:57)
 * 4) "Richard III (live from Peel Acres)" (3:29)
 * 5) "Sun Hits the Sky (live from Peel Acres)" (4:44)

2022 Deluxe Edition CD2

 * 1) Moving - John Leckie and Mick Quinn 2022 Remix (5:22)
 * 2) Beautiful People - John Cornfield and Mick Quinn 2022 Remix (3:54)
 * 3) Pumping On Your Stereo - John Leckie and Mick Quinn 2022 Remix (3:47)
 * 4) Born Again - John Cornfield and Mick Quinn 2022 Remix (3:34)
 * 5) Wild Wind - Demo (1:50)
 * 6) Pumping On Your Stereo - Live at T in the Park, 2000 (3:15)
 * 7) Lucky (No Fear) (3:09)
 * 8) Blockades - Studio Outtake (4:12)
 * 9) Sick (3:40)
 * 10) You’ll Never Walk Again (2:19)
 * 11) What A Shame (2:40)
 * 12) Moving - Live at T in the Park, 2000 (4:52)
 * 13) Believer (3:47)
 * 14) Faraway (Acoustic Version) (4:55)
 * 15) Out Of The Blue - Monitor Mix (2:14)
 * 16) Mary - Live at City Varieties, Leeds, 2005 (3:09)
 * 17) Country Number - Demo (3:38)
 * 18) Born Again - Live at The Forum, Melbourne, 2000 (3:52)
 * 19) Jesus Came From Outta Space - Live from 107.7 The End, Seattle (3:26)
 * 20) Oracle (3:41)

Supergrass

 * Gaz Coombes – lead vocals, guitar
 * Danny Goffey – drums, backing vocals
 * Mick Quinn – bass guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Beautiful People" and "Mama & Papa", co-lead vocals on "Mary" and "Faraway"

(entire band is also credited with "bells, whistles & bicycle pumps")

Additional musicians
 * Rob Coombes – keyboards
 * Satin Singh – percussion
 * Gavyn Wright, Patrick Kieran, Boguslav Kostecki, Jackie Shave – violins
 * Bill Benham, Andrew Parker – violas
 * Martin Loveday, Frank Shaefer – cellos

title: Supergrass (album)


text:
James W. Kemp

James W. Kemp (born c. 1955; died September 7, 2006) was a United Methodist pastor and author from Lexington, Kentucky. He is best known for his book The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss.

Education and career
Kemp grew up in Lexington and attended Duke Divinity School. He served as a minister for 15 years before retiring in 1996 due to multiple sclerosis. He became paraplegic, and his speech declined to the point where his mother took dictation for his books, and his wife interpreted for him during interviews.

Writing
His first book was Who Says I'm Dead? and details his struggles with multiple sclerosis, particularly an incident in 2000 when the federal government mistakenly believed he had died. The second was a book of ideas for children's sermons.

While serving as a minister he had often used Seuss stories as illustrations for his sermons, and those sermons were the inspiration for his third book, The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss. He said Theodor S. Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) had always been his favorite theologian, and his favorite theological book was Horton Hatches the Egg.

The "short, clever new book" has 13 chapters about characters like Sam I Am, Yertle the Turtle, King Derwin of Didd, and the Grinch. In each chapter he summarizes a Seuss story, draws a moral from it, and links the story to Biblical passages or characters.

The book was released in January 2004; by March a second printing had been ordered, and Barnes & Noble featured it as part of a national celebration of Geisel's birthday.

Death
He died September 7, 2006, after living with multiple sclerosis for 20 years. Just before his death he told his family and friends that he wanted them to "put the fun back into funeral" for his memorial service.

title: James W. Kemp


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Sidd Finch

Sidd Finch is a fictional baseball player, the subject of the notorious April Fools' Day hoax article "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch" written by George Plimpton and first published in the April 1, 1985, issue of Sports Illustrated. According to Plimpton, Finch was raised in an English orphanage, learned yoga in Tibet, and could throw a fastball as fast as 168 mph.

Hoax
In early 1985, Mark Mulvoy, the managing editor of Sports Illustrated, noticed that a cover date that year would fall on April 1. He asked George Plimpton to commemorate this with an article on April Fools' Day jokes in sports. When Plimpton found himself unable to find enough examples to craft an article, Mulvoy gave Plimpton permission to create his own hoax.

Plimpton reported that Hayden Siddhartha "Sidd" Finch was a rookie baseball pitcher in training with the New York Mets after being discovered in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. He also wore only one shoe—a heavy hiker's boot—when pitching. Finch, who had never played baseball before, was attempting to decide between a sports career and one playing the French horn. What was astonishing about Finch was that he could pitch a fastball at an amazing 168 mph, far above the record of a "mere" 104 mph, with pinpoint accuracy, and without needing to warm up. The Mets' scouting report gave Finch a "9" on fastball velocity and control—"8" is the highest score on the scale.

According to Plimpton, Finch grew up in an English orphanage and was adopted by an archaeologist who later died in a plane crash in Nepal. After briefly attending Harvard University, he went to Tibet to learn "yogic mastery of mind-body" under "the great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa", which was the source of his pitching prowess. Finch decided not to pursue a baseball career, instead choosing to "play the French horn or golf or something."

The story was accompanied by photographs of Finch, including one featuring a young Lenny Dykstra and another of Finch talking with the Mets' actual pitching coach, Mel Stottlemyre. The Mets played along with the hoax, even providing a uniform and number (21) for Finch.

Sports Illustrated photographer Lane Stewart recruited his friend, Joe Berton, who was a junior high art teacher from Oak Park, Illinois, to portray Finch. Berton posed as Finch for the photographs (usually with his face averted from the lens). Berton stands at 6 ft and wears a size 14 shoe.

Novelist Jonathan Dee, who was working as Plimpton's assistant at the time, described Plimpton at the time of the writing of the article as "a wreck". Dee wrote years later, "Nothing, he knew, falls quite so flat as a bad joke. Such was his anxiety that, for the one and only time in my five years in his employ, he asked me to come in to work on a Saturday. I still remember my naïve astonishment at the sight of a world-famous, successful writer actually agonizing over whether something he’d written was good enough, funny enough, believable enough, or whether the whole thing would wind up making him seem like a national jackass." Dee also talked about his role in the Finch hoax in an outtake from the 2012 documentary film Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself.

Response
The story was released in late March 1985. Many people fell for the prank. Mets fans were overjoyed at their luck in finding such a player, and flooded Sports Illustrated with requests for more information. A New York sports page editor complained to the Mets' public relations director for allowing Sports Illustrated to break the news. Two general managers called Commissioner of Baseball Peter Ueberroth asking about Finch. The St. Petersburg Times sent a reporter to find Finch, and a radio talk show host claimed he saw Finch pitch.

The Mets gave Finch a locker between George Foster and Darryl Strawberry. The three major networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC, and the local St. Petersburg, Florida, newspapers sent reporters to Al Lang Stadium for a press conference about Finch. At the April 2 press conference, Berton announced Finch's retirement.

The subhead of the article read: "He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga—and his future in baseball." The first letters of these words spell out "Happy April Fools' Day—a(h) fib". Despite this clue and the obvious absurdity of the article, many people believed Finch actually existed. The magazine printed a much smaller article in the following April 8 issue announcing Finch's retirement. It then announced it was a hoax on April 15.

Aftermath
Plimpton eventually broadened his article into a novel, first published in 1987. The book discussed Finch's "brief re-commitment to baseball", in which stories of Sadaharu Oh and Steve Dalkowski, as well as Finch's girlfriend, inspire Finch to stick with baseball, and he reaches Major League Baseball with the Mets.

In April 2015, ESPN released a documentary on its 30 for 30 Shorts program about the Sidd Finch phenomenon, as another April Fools' joke for a new generation.

On August 26, 2015, the Brooklyn Cyclones had a Sidd Finch bobblehead give-away for the 30th anniversary of the event. George Plimpton had died, so his son Taylor threw the ceremonial first pitch. Joe Berton attended and signed autographs on the bobbleheads. The bobblehead showed Finch in a Cyclones uniform, with French horn and one bare foot. The Cyclones were not in existence in 1985; a team executive explained in an interview during the game radio broadcast that using the Major League team name and logo would have been much more expensive.

title: Sidd Finch


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Queen Sofía of Spain

Sofía (born Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark, Σοφία; 2 November 1938) is a member of the Spanish royal family who was Queen of Spain from 1975 to 2014 as the wife of King Juan Carlos I. She is the first child of Paul of Greece and Frederica of Hanover.

Sofía married then Infante Juan Carlos of Spain in 1962 and became queen of Spain upon her husband's accession in 1975. On 19 June 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated in favour of their son Felipe VI.

Early life
Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark was born on 2 November 1938, at Tatoi Palace in Acharnes, Athens, Greece, the eldest child of King Paul and his wife, Queen Frederica. Sofía is a member of the Greek branch of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg dynasty. Her brother was the deposed King Constantine II and her sister is Princess Irene.

As her family was forced into exile during the Second World War, she spent part of her childhood in Egypt, where she took her early education in El Nasr Girls' College in Alexandria, and South Africa, where her sister Irene was born. They returned to Greece in 1946. She finished her education at the prestigious Schloss Salem boarding school in Southern Germany, and then studied childcare, music and archeology in Athens. She also studied at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. She was a reserve member, alongside her brother Constantine, of Greece's gold medal-winning sailing team in the 1960 Summer Olympics.

Marriage and family
Sofía met her paternal third cousin, the then Infante Juan Carlos of Spain on the cruise in the Greek Islands in 1954; they met again at the wedding of the Duke of Kent, her paternal second cousin, at York Minster in June 1961. Sofía and Juan Carlos married on 14 May 1962, at the Catholic Cathedral of Saint Dionysius in Athens.

Sofía converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Catholicism to become more palatable to Catholic Spain, and thus relinquished her rights to the Greek throne.

Sofía was in Greece on a private visit to her brother, King Constantine II, when the 1967 Greek military coup took place. Except for a brief stay for the funeral of her mother in 1981, Queen Sofía would not visit Greece until 1998.

In 1969, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco named Juan Carlos his successor under the official title "Prince of Spain". Juan Carlos acceded to the throne in 1975, upon the Franco's death. Juan Carlos, after his accession to the Spanish throne, returned with his family to the Zarzuela Palace.

The couple has three children: Elena (born 20 December 1963); Cristina (born 13 June 1965); and Felipe (born 30 January 1968).

Queen consort
Besides accompanying her husband on official visits and occasions, Sofía also has solo engagements. In her first public appearance as Queen, Sofía attended a Shabbat service at the Beth Yaacov synagogue in Madrid in June 1976, marking the first time in modern Spanish history that a member of the Spanish royal family had visited a Jewish house of worship.

She is executive president of the Queen Sofía Foundation, which in 1993, sent funds for relief in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is honorary president of the Royal Board on Education and Care of Handicapped Persons of Spain, as well as the Spanish Foundation for Aid for Drug Addicts. Additionally, she has served as the patroness of the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute since 2003.

Sofía takes special interest in programs against drug addiction, travelling to conferences in both Spain and abroad. The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is named after her, as is Reina Sofía Airport in Tenerife.

Sofía is an Honorary Member of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts and of the Spanish Royal Academy of History. She has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Rosario (Bogotá), Valladolid, Cambridge, Oxford, Georgetown, Evora, St. Mary's University (Texas), and New York.

Sofía has been honorary president of the Spanish Unicef Committee since 1971. She has been working closely with Dr. Muhammad Yunus on his Grameen Bank, which offers microcredits to women across the world. Queen Sofía has travelled to Bangladesh, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico to support the activities of the organization. Queen Sofía has also been a strong supporter of Somaly Mam's Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire, an NGO combatting child prostitution and slavery in Cambodia. In 1998, Mam was awarded the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in the Queen's presence.

As Queen, Sofía never publicly commented on political issues. However, in October 2008, Pilar Urbano's book La Reina muy de cerca ("The Queen up close") sparked strong controversy as it contained alleged statements by the Queen on issues debated in Spanish society. She criticized the military intervention in Afghanistan, where Spanish troops were taking part at the time, defended religious education in schools, and expressed her conviction that gender violence publicity would encourage new cases to occur. She also rejected abortion and euthanasia as well as same-sex marriage. The Royal Household commented that the book "puts in Her Majesty's mouth alleged claims that [...] do not correspond exactly to the opinions expressed by Her Majesty". While the two major parties - Socialists and People's Party - refused to comment, her opinions were subjected to heavy criticism by Republican parties like IU and ERC and LGBT activists.

In May 2012, Sofía was reportedly refused permission to attend the celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II by the Spanish government, citing tensions over fishing rights at Gibraltar.

In July 2012, Sofía visited the Philippines for a fourth time. She inspected several development projects around the former Spanish colony that her country's government is funding via the Agencia Española de Cooperacion Internacional para el Desarollo (AECID). She visited the National Library, National Museum and the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, which had the oldest extant university charter in Asia and housed the world's largest collection of suyat scripts. She also met with Spanish nationals residing in the Philippines, and attended a reception at the Spanish Embassy. She also attended a state dinner in her honour at Malacañan Palace hosted by President Benigno Aquino III, and thanked the president for promoting the Spanish language in the Philippine educational system.

Queen mother
Following her husband's abdication as King in 2014, Sofía has focused on her sponsoring activities, spending her time between La Zarzuela and, in the summer months, the Marivent Palace in Palma de Mallorca. She regularly accompanies her son and his family at events.

Honours

Queen Sophia was awarded the Order of the Queen of Sheba by Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia in 1973 upon her and her husband King Juan Carlos's visit to the capital Addis Ababa. Sofía was appointed to the Grand Cross of The Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III on 10 May 1962 and to The Royal Order of Queen Maria Luisa on 14 May 1962. The Queen of Spain was appointed to the Collar of the Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III as dame on 31 October 1983. Since then, Queen Sofía has received different appointments and decorations by more than 40 foreign states.

Notable published works

 * En Decelia: fragmentos cerámicos de Decelia y miscelánea arqueológica. Athens, (1959–1960). Edited in Spanish in Spain, 2013. ISBN 9788494103308

title: Queen Sofía of Spain


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James Kemp

James, Jim, or Jimmy Kemp may refer to:

Religion

 * James Kemp (bishop) (1764–1827), Episcopal bishop in America
 * James Kemp (missionary) (1797–1872), missionary for the Church of England
 * James W. Kemp (1950s–2006), Methodist minister and author

Sports

 * James William Young Kemp, better known as Hamish Kemp, Scottish rugby player
 * Jimmy Kemp (born 1971), former CFL quarterback
 * Jimmy Kemp (cricketer) (1918–1994), New Zealand cricketer
 * Jim Kemp (Australian rules footballer) (born 1947), Australian footballer
 * Gabby Kemp (James Albert Kemp, 1919–1993), American baseball player

Others

 * James Kemp (Australian politician) (1833–1873), member of the New South Wales Parliament
 * James Furman Kemp (1859–1926), American geologist
 * James Kemp (NAACP) (1912–1983), American labor organizer and president of the NAACP

title: James Kemp


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Mercenary War

The Mercenary War, also known as the Truceless War, was a mutiny by troops that were employed by Carthage at the end of the First Punic War (264–241 BC), supported by uprisings of African settlements revolting against Carthaginian control. It lasted from 241 to late 238 or early 237 BC and ended with Carthage suppressing both the mutiny and the revolt.

The war began in 241 BC as a dispute over the payment of wages owed to 20,000 foreign soldiers who had fought for Carthage in Sicily during the First Punic War. When a compromise seemed to have been reached, the army erupted into full-scale mutiny under the leadership of Spendius and Matho. 70,000 Africans from Carthage's dependent territories flocked to join them, bringing supplies and finance. War-weary Carthage fared poorly in the initial engagements of the war, especially under the generalship of Hanno. Hamilcar Barca, a veteran of the campaigns in Sicily (and father of Hannibal Barca), was given joint command of the army in 240 BC; and supreme command in 239 BC. He campaigned successfully, initially demonstrating leniency in an attempt to woo the rebels over. To prevent this, in 240 BC Spendius and Autaritus tortured 700 Carthaginian prisoners to death (including Gisco), after which the war was pursued with great brutality on both sides.

By early 237 BC, after numerous setbacks, the rebels were defeated and their cities brought back under Carthaginian rule. An expedition was prepared to reoccupy Sardinia, where mutinous soldiers had slaughtered all Carthaginians. However, Rome declared that this would be an act of war and occupied both Sardinia and Corsica, in contravention of the recent peace treaty. This has been considered to be the single greatest cause of war with Carthage breaking out again in 218 BC in the Second Punic War.

Background

The First Punic War was fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC, and lasted for 23 years, from 264 to 241 BC. Rome still exists as the capital of Italy, while Carthage was razed by Rome in a later war; its ruins lie 16 km east of modern Tunis on the North African coast. The two powers struggled for supremacy primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters, and also in North Africa. It was the longest continuous conflict and the greatest naval war of antiquity. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were defeated. The Carthaginian Senate ordered the commander of its forces on Sicily, Hamilcar Barca, to negotiate a peace treaty; he delegated this to his deputy Gisco. The Treaty of Lutatius was signed and brought the First Punic War to its end. By the treaty's terms, Carthage evacuated Sicily, handed over all prisoners taken during the war, and paid an indemnity of 3,200 talents – 1,000 talents of this was due immediately, the balance over ten years.

While the war with Rome was being played out, the Carthaginian general Hanno, who was one of several Carthaginian Hannos known as "the great", was leading a series of campaigns which greatly increased the area of Africa controlled by Carthage. He extended its control to Theveste (modern Tébessa, Algeria) 300 km south-west of their capital. Hanno was rigorous in squeezing taxes out of the newly conquered territory to pay for both the war with Rome and his campaigns. Half of all agricultural output was taken as war tax, and the tribute previously due from towns and cities was doubled. These exactions were harshly enforced, causing extreme hardship in many areas.

Carthaginian armies were nearly always composed of foreigners; citizens served in the army only if there was a direct threat to the city of Carthage. The majority of these foreigners were from North Africa. Libyans provided close-order infantry equipped with large shields, helmets, short swords and long thrusting spears; as well as close-order shock cavalry carrying spears – both were noted for their discipline and staying power. Numidians provided light cavalry who threw javelins from a distance and avoided close combat, and javelin-armed light infantry skirmishers. Both Spain and Gaul provided experienced infantry; unarmoured troops who would charge ferociously, but had a reputation for breaking off if combat was protracted. The close-order Libyan infantry, and citizen militia when present, would fight in a tightly-packed formation known as a phalanx. Two thousand slingers were recruited from the Balearic Islands. Sicilians and Italians had also joined up during the war to fill the ranks. The Carthaginians frequently employed war elephants; North Africa had indigenous African forest elephants at the time. Roman sources refer to these foreign fighters derogatively as "mercenaries", but Goldsworthy describes this as "a gross oversimplification". They served under a variety of arrangements; for example, some were the regular troops of allied cities or kingdoms seconded to Carthage as part of formal arrangements.

Mutiny
After receiving orders to make peace on whatever terms he could negotiate, Hamilcar left Sicily in a rage, convinced that the surrender was unnecessary. The evacuation of the Carthaginian army of 20,000 men from Sicily was left in the hands of Gisco. Not wishing the freshly idle soldiers to combine for purposes of their own, Gisco split the army into small detachments based on their regions of origin. He sent these back to Carthage one at a time. He anticipated they would be promptly paid the several years' back pay they were owed and hurried on their way home. The Carthaginian authorities decided to instead wait until all of the troops had arrived and then attempt to negotiate a settlement at a lower rate. Meanwhile, as each group arrived it was billeted inside the city of Carthage where the advantages of civilisation were appreciated to the full after up to eight years under siege. This "tumultuous licentiousness" so alarmed the city's authorities that before the full 20,000 had arrived they were relocated to Sicca Veneria (modern El Kef), 180 km away, even though much of their arrears had to be paid before they would go.

Freed of their long period of military discipline and with nothing to do, the men grumbled among themselves and refused all attempts by the Carthaginians to pay them less than the full amount due. Frustrated by the Carthaginian negotiators' attempts to haggle, all 20,000 troops marched to Tunis, 16 km from Carthage. Panicking, the Senate agreed to pay in full. The mutinous troops responded by demanding even more. Gisco, who had a good reputation with the army, was brought over from Sicily in late 241 BC and despatched to the camp with enough money to pay most of what was owed. He started to disburse this, with promises that the balance would be paid as soon as it could be raised. The discontent seemed to have abated when, for some unknown reason, discipline broke down. Several soldiers insisted that no deal with Carthage was acceptable, a riot broke out, dissenters were stoned to death, Gisco and his staff were taken prisoner and his treasury was seized. Spendius, an escaped Roman slave who faced death by torture if he were recaptured, and Matho, a Berber dissatisfied with Hanno's attitude towards tax-raising from Carthage's African possessions, were declared generals. The news of a formed, experienced, anti-Carthaginian army in the heart of its territory spread rapidly and many cities and towns rose in rebellion. Provisions, money and reinforcements poured in; an additional 70,000 men according to Polybius. Rebel coins from this period read 'from the Libyans', suggesting the mutinous troops were hired by the Libyan cities. In turn, the rebelling Libyans may have been led by Zarzas. Other coins minted by the insurgents were engraved with the Punic letters "A, M, or Z", with the historian Louis Rawlings surmising that these stood for the rebels' main leaders: Autaritus, Mathos, and Zarzas. The pay dispute had become a full-scale revolt threatening Carthage's existence as a state.

Hanno
Hanno, as the commander of Carthage's African army, took the field. Most of the Africans in his force remained loyal; they were accustomed to acting against their fellow Africans. His non-African contingent had remained quartered in Carthage when the army of Sicily was expelled, and also remained loyal. The few troops still in Sicily were paid up to date and redeployed with Hanno, and money was raised to hire fresh troops. An unknown number of Carthaginian citizens were incorporated into Hanno's army. By the time Hanno assembled this force, the rebels had already blockaded Utica and Hippo (modern Bizerte).

In early 240 BC Hanno set off with the army to relieve Utica; he took with him 100 elephants and a siege train. Hanno stormed the rebels' camp in the Battle of Utica and his elephants routed the besiegers. Hanno's army took over the camp and Hanno himself entered the city in triumph. However, the battle-hardened veterans of the Sicilian army regrouped in the nearby hills and, not being pursued, returned towards Utica. The Carthaginians, accustomed to fighting the militias of the Numidian cities, were still celebrating their victory when the rebels counter-attacked. The Carthaginians fled, with great loss of life, losing their baggage and siege trains. For the rest of the year Hanno skirmished with the rebel force, repeatedly missing opportunities to bring it to battle or to place it at a disadvantage; the military historian Nigel Bagnall writes of Hanno's "incompetence as a field commander".

Rome pointedly declined to take advantage of Carthage's troubles. Italians were prohibited from trading with the rebels but encouraged to trade with Carthage; 2,743 Carthaginian prisoners still held were released without a ransom being required and were immediately enrolled into Carthage's army. Hiero, the king of the Roman satellite kingdom of Syracuse, was allowed to supply Carthage with the large amounts of food it needed and was no longer able to obtain from its hinterland. In late 240 or early 239 BC, the Carthaginian garrisons on Sardinia joined the mutiny, killing their officers and the island's governor. The Carthaginians sent a force to retake the island. When it arrived its members also mutinied, joined the previous mutineers, and killed all of the Carthaginians on the island. The mutineers then appealed to Rome for protection, which was refused. The classicist Richard Miles writes that "Rome was in no shape to embark on yet another war" and wished to avoid acquiring a reputation for supporting mutinous uprisings.

Hamilcar
At some point during 240 BC the Carthaginians raised another, smaller, force, of approximately 10,000. It included deserters from the rebels, 2,000 cavalry, and 70 elephants. This was placed under the command of Hamilcar, who had commanded the Carthaginian forces on Sicily for the last six years of the First Punic War. The rebels held the line of the Bagradas River with 10,000 men commanded by Spendius. Hamilcar would need to force a crossing if he were to gain access to open country where he could manoeuvre. He did so by a stratagem, and Spendius was reinforced by an additional 15,000 men drawn from the force laying siege to Utica, which the rebels had renewed. The rebel army of 25,000 moved to attack Hamilcar in the Battle of the Bagradas River. What happened next is unclear: it seems Hamilcar feigned a retreat, the rebels broke ranks to pursue, the Carthaginians turned in good order and counter-attacked, routing the rebels, who suffered losses of 8,000 men.

Hamilcar was appointed joint commander of the Carthaginian army, alongside Hanno, but there was no cooperation between the two. While Hanno manoeuvred against Matho to the north near Hippo, Hamilcar confronted various towns and cities which had gone over to the rebels, bringing them back to Carthaginian allegiance with varying mixtures of diplomacy and force. He was shadowed by a superior-sized rebel force, which kept to rough ground for fear of Hamilcar's cavalry and elephants, and harried his foragers and scouts. South west of Utica, Hamilcar moved his force into the mountains in an attempt to bring the rebels to battle, but was surrounded. The Carthaginians were saved from destruction only when a Numidian leader, Naravas, who had served with and admired Hamilcar in Sicily, swapped sides, bringing 2,000 cavalry with him. This proved disastrous for the rebels, and in the resulting battle, they lost 10,000 killed and 4,000 captured.

Truceless War

Since leaving Carthage, Hamilcar had treated rebels he had captured well and offered them a choice of joining his army or free passage home. He made the same offer to the 4,000 captives from the recent battle. The rebel leaders perceived this generous treatment as the motivation behind Naravas's defection and feared the disintegration of their army; they were aware that such generous terms would not be extended to them personally. To remove the possibility of any goodwill between the sides, Spendius, encouraged by his fellow leader the Gaul Autaritus, had 700 Carthaginian prisoners, including Gisco, tortured to death: they had their hands cut off, were castrated, had their legs broken and were thrown into a pit and buried alive. The mercenary leader and skilled polyglot orator Autaritus is cited by Polybius as a chief instigator of this massacre. Hamilcar, in turn, killed his prisoners. From this point, neither side showed any mercy, and the unusual ferocity of the fighting caused Polybius to term it the "Truceless War". Any further prisoners taken by the Carthaginians were trampled to death by elephants.

At some point between March and September 239 BC the previously loyal cities of Utica and Hippo slew their Carthaginian garrisons and joined the rebels. The people of Utica offered their city to the Romans, who, consistent with their response to the mutineers on Sardinia, declined. The rebels previously operating in the area moved south and laid siege to Carthage.

Having a clear superiority in cavalry, Hamilcar raided the supply lines of the rebels around Carthage. In mid-239 BC, he was joined by Hanno and his army, but the two men disagreed as to the best strategy and operations were paralysed. Unusually, the choice of supreme commander was put to a vote of the army – possibly only the officers – and Hamilcar was elected; Hanno left the army. In early 238 BC the lack of supplies forced the rebels to lift the siege of Carthage. They fell back to Tunis, from where they maintained a more distant blockade. While Matho maintained the blockade, Spendius led 40,000 men against Hamilcar. As in the previous year, they stayed to the higher and rougher terrain and harassed the Carthaginian army. After a period of campaigning, the details of which are not clear in the sources, Hamilcar trapped the rebels in a pass or mountain range known as the Saw. Pinned against mountains and with their food exhausted, the rebels ate their horses, their prisoners and then their slaves, hoping that Matho would sortie from Tunis to rescue them. Eventually, the surrounded troops forced their leaders to parley with Hamilcar, but on a thin pretext, he took Spendius and his lieutenants prisoner. The rebels then attempted to fight their way out in the Battle of the Saw and were massacred to a man.

Hamilcar then marched on Tunis and laid siege to it in late 238 BC. The city was difficult to access from both the east and the west, so Hamilcar occupied a position to the south with half the army, and his deputy Hannibal was to the north with the balance. The rebel leaders taken captive prior to the Saw were crucified in full view of the city. Matho ordered a large-scale night attack, which surprised the Carthaginians, who suffered many casualties. One of their camps was overrun and they lost much of their baggage. In addition, Hannibal and a delegation of 30 Carthaginian notables who were visiting the army were captured. They were tortured and then nailed to the crosses previously occupied by Spendius and his colleagues. Hamilcar abandoned the siege and withdrew to the north.

The Senate encouraged reconciliation between Hanno and Hamilcar, and they agreed to serve together. Meanwhile, Matho and his army had left Tunis and marched 160 km south to the wealthy city of Leptis Parva, which had risen against Carthage earlier in the war. Hanno and Hamilcar marched after them with an army totalling perhaps 40,000 including every Carthaginian citizen of military age. The rebels, rather than wait to be besieged, met the Carthaginians in open battle in mid-to-late 238 BC. No details of the battle survive, but the remaining 30,000 rebels were wiped out and Matho captured with few losses to the Carthaginians. Any other prisoners were crucified, while Matho was dragged through the streets of Carthage and tortured to death by its inhabitants. Most of the towns and cities which had not already come to terms with Carthage now did so, with the exceptions of Utica and Hippo, whose inhabitants feared vengeance for their massacre of Carthaginians. They attempted to hold out, but Polybius says that they too "quickly" surrendered, probably in late 238 or very early 237 BC. The surrendered towns and cities were treated leniently, although Carthaginian governors were imposed on them.

Sardinia
Probably in 237 BC, the indigenous inhabitants of Sardinia rose up and drove out the mutinous garrison, which took refuge in Italy. As the war in Africa came to a close, they appealed again for Roman assistance. This time the Romans agreed and prepared an expedition to seize both Sardinia and Corsica. It is unclear from the sources why the Romans acted differently from three years earlier. Polybius held that this action was indefensible. Carthage sent an embassy to Rome, which quoted the Treaty of Lutatius and claimed they were outfitting their own expedition to retake the island, which it had held for 300 years. The Roman Senate cynically stated that they considered the preparation of this force an act of war. Their peace terms were the ceding of Sardinia and Corsica and the payment of an additional 1,200 talent indemnity. Weakened by 30 years of war, Carthage agreed rather than enter into a conflict with Rome again.

Aftermath
The Romans required a strong military presence on Sardinia and Corsica for at least the next seven years, as they struggled to suppress the local inhabitants. The seizure of Sardinia and Corsica by Rome and the additional indemnity fuelled resentment in Carthage. Polybius considered this act of bad faith by the Romans to be the single greatest cause of war with Carthage breaking out again nineteen years later. The role of Hamilcar Barca in the victory greatly enhanced the prestige and power of the Barcid family. Immediately after the war, Hamilcar led many of his veterans on an expedition to expand Carthaginian holdings in southern Iberia; this was to become a semi-autonomous Barcid fiefdom. In 218 BC, a Carthaginian army under Hannibal Barca besieged the Roman-protected town of Saguntum in eastern Iberia, providing the spark which ignited the Second Punic War.

The historian Dexter Hoyos writes that "the truceless war ... produce[d] a complete and enduring reversal of Carthage's domestic fortunes and military orientation". Miles agrees there was "a period of profound political transformation". Carthage never regained control over its army: generals continued to be, like Hamilcar, selected by their armies; the troops in Spain effectively became the Barcids' private army. Internally the opinions of both the Barcids and the Popular Assembly increasingly dictated to the old-established bodies of the Senate and the Tribunal.

title: Mercenary War


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CTI Records

CTI Records (Creed Taylor Incorporated) is a jazz record label founded in 1967 by Creed Taylor. CTI was a subsidiary of A&M before becoming independent in 1970. Its first album was A Day in the Life by guitarist Wes Montgomery in 1967. The final release, by the CTI Jazz All-Star Band, was recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2009, and released in November 2010 on multiple formats: CD, DVD and Blu-ray.

Its roster included George Benson, Ron Carter, Eumir Deodato, Astrud Gilberto, Freddie Hubbard, Bob James, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Hubert Laws, Stanley Turrentine, and Walter Wanderley.

History
Don Sebesky created many of the arrangements for CTI and its subsidiary labels. He was later joined by Bob James and then David Matthews in the mid-1970s. Taylor used Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, with Rudy Van Gelder engineering nearly all sessions until the later years of the label. Sessions included Ron Carter, Eric Gale, Herbie Hancock, Bob James, Richard Tee, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, Steve Gadd, Idris Muhammad, and Harvey Mason.

CTI was commercially successful with certain albums well-received by critics. CTI's best-selling album was Deodato's Prelude, which reached No. 3 on the US Billboard albums chart in 1973. A single from the album, "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)", peaked at No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 7 in the UK. Other successful singles were Bob James' "Feel Like Making Love" and "Westchester Lady", Idris Muhammad's "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This", and Esther Phillips' "What a Diff'rence a Day Makes", a disco hit.

Successful album releases included Grover Washington, Jr.'s Mister Magic and Feels So Good (both reaching No. 10 in 1975), Esther Phillips' What a Diff'rence a Day Makes (reaching No. 32 in 1975), and Bob James' BJ4 (reaching No. 38 in 1977).

Taylor's productions for CTI helped to establish smooth jazz as a commercially viable musical genre. CTI also became known for its striking album sleeve designs, most of them with images by photographer Pete Turner.

After founding CTI as a jazz label for A & M Records in 1967, Taylor decided to go independent three years later. The company had several subsidiary labels. Kudu Records was established in 1971 and concentrated on soul jazz with albums by Joe Beck, Hank Crawford, Grant Green, Idris Muhammad, Esther Phillips, Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Grover Washington Jr. Salvation Records released 10 albums during its existence, including music by Airto, Roland Hanna, Faith Howard, New York Jazz Quartet, Johnny "Hammond" Smith, and Gábor Szabó Greenestreet (which released albums by Jack Wilkins, Claudio Roditi, Les McCann) and Three Brothers (with recordings by The Clams, Lou Christie, Duke Jones, and Cassandra Morgan).

A switch to Motown Records for distribution was to end in difficulties in 1977, with legal and financial problems eventually leading to the label filing for bankruptcy in 1978. CTI, though, remained active until 1984, releasing studio albums by Ray Barretto, Urszula Dudziak, Jim Hall, Roland Hanna, Nina Simone, and the all-star studio band Fuse One

Taylor restructured CTI in 1989, resuming his association with Van Gelder and Turner in June 1989 when recording the all-star session for Rhythmstick, an ambitious album released on vinyl, CD, VHS, and LaserDisc in 1990. Many young musicians were signed to the label, such as Charles Fambrough, Jim Beard, Ted Rosenthal, Bill O'Connell, Donald Harrison, Steve Laury, and Jurgen Friedrich, as well as veteran guitarist Larry Coryell, who collaborated with arranger Don Sebesky on the best-selling Fallen Angel album, which reached No. 18 in the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums Chart in 1993.

CTI's post-A&M Records catalog (albums released between 1970 and 1979) is owned by Sony and distributed by Masterworks Jazz in the USA. King Records handles the rights for exclusive distribution in Japan. Grover Washington, Jr.'s Kudu albums have been re-issued by Motown and its MoJazz imprint as part of Universal Classics & Jazz. Bob James owns the four albums he recorded for CTI (now managed by Evolution Music Group under license from Tappan Zee, James' record label). Seawind also owns their back catalog of CTI releases. CTI's A&M-subsidiary releases are distributed by Verve, a division of Universal Music Group.

In 2009, Taylor produced a reissue series of twenty CTI titles remastered by Van Gelder for release on SHM-CD format in Japan. New liner notes were provided by Ira Gitler, Arnaldo DeSouteiro, and Doug Payne. Other reissue series came out in December 2013 (including forty titles released on Blu-spec CD format) and in December 2017 with another forty titles on the CTI 50th Anniversary Collection.

3000 Series
The albums comprising the CTI 3000 Series were produced by Creed Taylor between 1967 and 1970 and issued by A&M with a "CTI" logo on the front cover.

1000 Series
In 1970, Creed Taylor established CTI independently of A&M and issued the first five releases as the 1000 Series which had a green record label. The 1000 Series featured artists working outside of the jazz genre.

6000 series
The albums in the CTI 6000 series were released between 1970 and 1976 and featured an orange CTI label with black print, but Quadraphonic issues featured a red label variant. Later albums in the 6000 series were distributed by Motown and are designated by the addition of an S1 to the catalog number.

CTI Twofer series
The albums in the CTI Twofer series were double albums released between 1972 and 1974.

5000 Series
The 5000 Series was introduced in 1975 as a series of popular music recordings and consist of eight issued albums. Only a handful in this series were produced by Creed Taylor; outside producers handled the rest, like Harvey Mason producing Seawind's albums and David Grusin and Larry Rosen producing Patti Austin's second album. The first releases features a "P.S." (which stood for "Pop Series") inside the familiar CTI logo.

7000 Series
The 7000 Series continued the numbering sequence from the 6000 Series after it ended its distribution deal with Motown.

8000 Series
The 8000 series was launched in the late-1970s. Its purpose was to reissue previous CTI and Kudu albums. In some instances original album titles were changed, and artwork was also altered, with releases originally issued in gatefold album covers now reduced to single sleeves.

9000 Series
The 9000 Series was started in 1980 and was distributed by CBS Records but maintained its independence (except for Patti Austin's Body Language album which carried a CBS-style look and catalog number) The series started with the classic orange label (used since the 6000 Series) but by 1981 switched to a white label with a new logo design, though in 1983, for George Benson's archive release Pacific Fire it had a silver label.

Kudu
The Kudu label was started by Creed Taylor in July 1971 and specialized in soul jazz, releasing 39 albums from 1971 to 1979. Kudu is considered CTI's sister label.

Salvation
Salvation Records was a CTI subsidiary originally intended for gospel albums but after releasing one album by the B. C. & M. Choir and laying fallow for two years the label was revived for a handful of jazz and R&B releases. While Creed Taylor did produce the B. C. & M. Choir album, outside producers would handle the other releases.

Three Brothers label
Three Brothers Records was a short-lived subsidiary of CTI named after Creed Taylor's sons (Creed Jr., John, and Blake). It had a few single releases and issued one album by Lou Christie.

title: CTI Records


text:
Dadra

Dadra is associated with the Hindustani classical music of the Indian subcontinent.

Dadra tala
This is a Hindustani classical tala (rhythmic cycle), consisting of six beats in two equal divisions of three. The most commonly accepted theka or basic pattern for this tala is dha dhi na, dha tu na. There is a higher emphasis laid on the first swar in comparison the following two, that is, dha - higher emphasis following dhi na and again a higher emphasis on dha following tu na.

Theka of Dadra Tala
मात्रा भाग : 3-3. धा धिं ना - धा तीं ना It has a characteristic pattern of bols (theka).

This can also be shown using the following figure

Dadra (genre)
In this context dadra is a light classical vocal form in Hindustani classical music, mostly performed in Agra and in Bundelkhand region. It was originally accompanied by dadra tala (from where the term for the genre was borrowed), but later dadra compositions are often found in other light talas (such as keherwa).

The peculiarity of Dadra genre is that the Sthayi is in Braj Bhasha while the Antara is sometimes in Urdu. It is one of the illustrations of how cultures have amalgamated and coexisted in Indian classical music.

There have been some Bollywood songs as well based on the same for instance Madan Mohan composition -Lag Jaa Gale, a song from the movie Woh Kaun Thi.

title: Dadra


text:
Talk:David Manicom

Untitled
From VfD:

Vanity? Career diplomat with a couple of books at a small Canadian publisher. Orphan page. --Ianb 19:16, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Not a writer I'm personally familiar with, but he does pass the Google test. I'll add a link from List of Canadian writers, so I guess my vote would be to keep. Bearcat 23:00, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Google says he's one of Canada's leading poets, thats not a bad discription

end moved discussion

Anybody know what he studied at University of Toronto and if he persued post grad studies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.96.80.15 (talk) 20:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:David Manicom


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Portrait of Lozana: The Lusty Andalusian Woman

The Portrait of Andalucian Lozana (original title in Spanish: Retrato de la Loçana andaluza, translated into English by Bruno Damiani in 1987 as Portrait of Lozana: The Lusty Andalusian Woman) was published in Venice by the Spanish Renaissance writer, Francisco Delicado, in 1528, after he escaped from Rome due to the anti-Spanish sentiment that uprose after the sack of Rome a year earlier.

Published anonymously, the book contains a description of the life in Rome's underworld during the first third of the 16th century, focussing particularly on the world of immigrant women from Spain and Spanish Southern Italy. It includes one of the first accounts of women making beauty products, and working as beauty technicians.

It is considered a book descendant of Celestina (written some thirty years before by Fernando de Rojas) because of the literary genre, the novel in dialogue, and one of the earliest manifestations of the picaresque novel. There is only one extant copy of the book, now in the National Library of Austria, Vienna.

Plot summary
The book begins in Cordoba where the sexually precocious Aldonza lives with her mother. After her mother's death, she moves to her aunt's house from where she escapes with Diomedes, a sea merchant. After travelling to many cities of the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East and changing her name to Lozana, they come to Marseille to meet the father of Diomedes, who, disgusted with his son, sends him to prison and pays a sailor to make Lozana disappear.

However, the sailor disobeys the order given and takes Lozana to Livorno, where she continues her journey up to Rome. Without money, Lozana goes to the Spanish downtown in Rome to request help; there, the women see her abilities in cooking, and creating beauty products (although her face is a little bit disfigured by syphilis).

After a Neapolitan woman gives her a servant called Rampin, Lozana makes an agreement with him so that he becomes, for a time, her servant and lover. Following the advice of a post man, and with the aid of a Jew called Trigos who installs her in a house he owns, she begins her new life as a prostitute.

After few years, she becomes the madame of a brothel, then Lozana and Rampin move to Lipari; the book ends with a little narration about the sack of Rome.

Literary significance and criticism
One of the most important characteristics in the book is the didactic-satiric line (as well as other books of the picaresque novel, as Lazarillo de Tormes conceived as a strong critic done by the humanists), because it unveils the moral decadence of Rome, and all the characters displayed — from the bishops to the villains — appear surrounded by a world of corruption, prostitution and violence.

This makes the book an eloquent, realistic testimony of the manners and life in the Roman underworld from the years 1513 to 1524 and the ulterior attack by the imperial forces of Charles V in 1527 that led to the finalisation of the first period of the Renaissance. While the narration never gets to 1527, there are some clues that prophesy this end, which can be compared to the punishment of Babel for the Romans' sins: Pues «año de veinte e siete, deja a Roma y vete», says the author (Arrived the year of twenty-seven, leave Rome and go away), as a clear manifestation of the divine punishment for the bad actions (along with the dogma of remuneration in the Christian faith).

The literary aspects in this book are the social description of characters as Lozana and Rampin, the defense of the Jews (in a historic moment when an intolerant attitude against them, as well as Muslims, had begun in Spain; also supported by the theory that makes Francisco Delicado a converso). With the occasional intervention of the author as a character (as in the earlier Cárcel de Amor (Prison of Love) by Diego de San Pedro), its narrative structure (divided in 3 parts and 66 mamotretos) goes on the line begun by Celestina and the narration constructed on the basis of dialogues:

 * Lozana. Más gana tengo de dormir que de otra cosa

 * Tía. Sobrino, cená con nosotros, en tanto que vo e la ayudo a desnudar

 * Rampín. Señora, sí.

 * (Lozana. I would prefer to sleep rather than anything else

 * Aunt. Nephew, have dinner with us, while I go and help her to undress

 * Rampin. Yes, my lady).

The scatological and sexual elements prevail during the narration: there are descriptions of a ménage à trois; an episode in which Rampin gets covered from head to foot in excrement after falling in a latrine; and other uninhibited allusions to the reconstruction of hymen, and procreation. It gives one of the testimonies about syphilis as a plague in the first years of the 16th century: Linguistically, it uses different variants of Spanish as Germanía, Catalan and Italian. The book was considered as obscene by Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo who, according with the Mexican philologist, Antonio Alatorre, enjoyed the fact that Lozana hadn't had descendence in the Spanish literature; a commentary that doesn't apply for the Italian literature on which Lozana's influence became evident in contemporary works as the Ragionamenti written almost a decade after by the Italian humanist Pietro Aretino.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
There was a Spanish-Italian film version from 1975.


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Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom, (バック・ロジャース：プラネット・オブ・ズーム) known as Zoom 909 (ズーム909) in Japan, is a pseudo-3D rail shooter released as an arcade video game by Sega in 1982. The player controls a spaceship in a third-person perspective, adapting the three-dimensional perspective of Sega's earlier racing game Turbo (1981) for the space shoot 'em up genre. It uses the Buck Rogers license, referencing the space battles, though Buck himself is never seen.

The arcade game debuted at the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show, held during November 18–20, 1982, where it was considered one of the show's best games and a milestone for demonstrating the potential of 3D shoot 'em up gameplay. Ports were released for the SG-1000, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, Coleco Adam, ColecoVision, Intellivision, MSX, Commodore 64, VIC-20, TI-99/4A, Apple II, and ZX Spectrum. The IBM PC version uses CGA graphics. The ColecoVision version was released in April 1984.

Arcade version
In the United States, it was among the thirteen highest-grossing arcade games of 1983. In Japan, Game Machine listed Zoom 909 on their June 1, 1985 issue as being the thirteenth most-successful upright/cockpit arcade unit of the month.

The arcade game received positive reviews from critics. American magazine Video Games gave it a highly positive review following its AMOA 1982 debut, ranking it the second best game of the show. They called it a "gorgeous, 3-D game that deserves the" moniker "Space Turbo" with "high-quality graphics" and "fast and furious" action.

French magazine Tilt, in its May 1983 issue, rated the arcade game six out of six stars. British magazine Computer and Video Games also gave it a positive review, noting the behind-the-ship perspective, comparing the opening tunnel section to the Death Star battle in the film Star Wars (1977), and stating that anyone "who has enjoyed the" Buck Rogers "TV series will be interested to see just how it converts to the video screen!"

Home conversions
Michael Blanchet for Electronic Fun with Computers & Games reviewed the Coleco Adam version, stating: "After playing Buck Rogers a scant fifty times, I noticed an ever-increasing number of on-screen glitches. I can only presume they were caused by tape wear".

Dan Hallassey for Ahoy! reviewed the Commodore 64 and VIC-20 versions, stating that "graphics and gameplay combine to make this an excellent and absorbing – though admittedly one-note – space game".

Other reviews

 * Your Spectrum — September 1985
 * TeleMatch — January 1984 (Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, VIC-20)
 * Popular Computing Weekly — July 18, 1985
 * Zzap! — May 1985 (Commodore 64)
 * All Game Guide — 1998

Legacy
Planet of Zoom went on to influence the 1985 Sega game, Space Harrier, which in turn influenced Nintendo's 1993 game, Star Fox.

title: Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom


text:
Gymnastics at the 2004 Summer Olympics

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, three disciplines of gymnastics were contested: artistic gymnastics (August 14–23), rhythmic gymnastics (August 26–29) and trampoline (August 20–21). The artistic gymnastics and trampoline events were held at the Olympic Indoor Hall and the rhythmic gymnastics events were held at the Galatsi Olympic Hall.

Format of competition
The competition format was largely the same as at the 2000 Summer Olympics. All participating gymnasts, including those who were not part of a team, participated in a qualification round. The results of this competition determined which teams and individuals participated in the remaining competitions, which included:

 * The team competition, in which the eight highest scoring teams from qualifications competed. For the first time, each team of six gymnasts could only have three gymnasts perform on each apparatus, and all three scores counted toward the team total.
 * The all-around competition, in which only the twenty-four highest scoring individuals in the all-around competed. For the first time, each country was limited to only two gymnasts in the all-around final.
 * The event finals, in which the eight highest scoring individuals on each apparatus competed. Each country was limited to two gymnasts in each apparatus final.

Participating nations
A total of 252 gymnasts from 45 nations competed at the Athens Games.

Controversies
The gymnastics competition had scoring controversies, most prominently with the South Korean competitor Yang Tae-young.

The Korean team contested Tae-Young's parallel bars score after judges misidentified one of the elements of his routine. The effect of this misidentification was that the start value was recorded as 9.9 rather than 10. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed the Korean Olympic Committee's appeal on the grounds that the appeal, coming after the end of competition, was made too late, and insufficient evidence of corruption or bad faith on the part of the judges was presented to overturn a strong preference for a "field of play" judgment rather than one made after the fact.

Further problems occurred in the men's horizontal bar competition. After performing a routine with six release skills in the high bar event final (including four in a row – three variations of Tkatchev releases and a Gienger), the judges posted a score of 9.725, placing Nemov in third position with several athletes still to compete. This was actually a fair judging decision because he took a big step on landing which was a two tenths deduction. The crowd became unruly on seeing the results and interrupted the competition for almost fifteen minutes. Influenced by the crowd's fierce reaction, the judges reevaluated the routine and increased Nemov's score to 9.762, but this did not improve his placement and he finished without a medal.

The controversies led to the reconstruction of the scoring system which was implemented in 2006. The rule changes are credited as having encouraged more acrobatic activity and increasing difficulties on the high bar apparatus seen in later competitions.

title: Gymnastics at the 2004 Summer Olympics


text:
Life on Other Planets

Life on Other Planets is the fourth album by English alternative rock band Supergrass. It is the first album that includes Rob Coombes as an official member of the band, and originally went under the working title of Get Lost. The American edition of the album included many bonus tracks and rare live editions. One of these live editions became infamous when it was discovered you can hear a gunshot in the background of the song. It peaked at #9 in the UK charts.

Background
The band hired an outside producer, Tony Hoffer, for the record, having felt that their last release, Supergrass, lacked some of the urgency of their previous albums: "He helped us keep the takes quite short and sweet", says Danny Goffey. "We really didn't mess around because he kept us moving. If we had done it on our own again, we'd just get really analytical and start crying and trying to mend things that weren't broken. "

Composition and lyrics
The naming of the album was influenced by this excursion, but also by a telescope which qualified astrophysicist and keyboard player Rob Coombes, would bring with him to the recording studio in order to see the planets; "...we got fascinated on everything above us and came up with the title," explained Mick Quinn. The band claim that much of the inspiration for this album was gleaned from a "working holiday" in the Côte d'Azur, Southern France together, listening to the French radio station Nostalgie and watching Carl Sagan documentaries on the cosmos. Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams are in fact mentioned on the reverse of Life on Other Planets under a list of people Supergrass would like to thank.

Musically, the sound of the album has been described as power pop, drawing comparison to the work of the Sweet. Coombes employed the use of an Elvis Presley impersonation on "Seen the Light" and "Evening of the Day", while on "Brecon Beacons" he sounded closer to Marc Bolan of T. Rex. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine said it found the "perfect balance of the sensibility and humor of I Should Coco with the musicality and casual virtuosity of In It for the Money". Pitchfork contributor Joe Tangari referred to it as a "tour of 70s British rock, but more to the point, it's a summary of Supergrass' own career, merging all of the band's many mutations into one decisive sound". In a review for Rolling Stone, journalist Greg Kot wrote that throughout the album, there are "chirping birds, bleating sheep, Munchkin choirs, fumbled tambourines and an Elvis imitator". He also mentioned that they melded together the better aspects of the 1970s, such as Electric Light Orchestra, glam rock and Paul McCartney's solo career, with the "punk holy trinity of speed, noise and more speed".

Tangari said "Za", the album's opening track, was a standard Supergrass "rocker stuffed with big, crashing Mick Ronson riffage, but backed by strange, wordless vocals". "Rush Hour Soul" is a garage rock track with influences from progressive rock. "Evening of the Day" includes a reference to "All the Way Home" by Spinal Tap, and is followed by the ska track "Brecon Beacons". The country rock song "Evening of the Day" mixes Small Faces-type Brit-rock with blues in the vein of B.B. King. "Prophet 15" evoked "Let 'Em In" (1976) by McCartney's Wings; Spin Alex Pappademas wrote that it has the spirits of "Oscar Wilde, John Belushi, and Che Guevara visit Coombes while he's blowing out his mind in a car". Tangari said that "Run", the album's closing track, had "glossy harmonies and squiggly effects [which] pick up on the spacier bits of the 1970s and squash them into a glowing, noise-addled coda". It concludes with a looping synthesizer part that recalled the opening moments of the album.

The album was debuted at Meltdown festival in London's Royal Festival Hall on 28 June 2002, the edition curated by David Bowie.

Reception
Life on Other Planets was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on 21 reviews.

Some reviewers praised the band's energy and songwriting. Erlewine saw it as a "smashing return to form, an album giddy with the sheer pleasure of making music", adding that there "hasn't been an album that's this much fun in a long time". Entertainment Weekly Ken Tucker thought that the band "continues to evince range and spunk aplenty on Life on Other Planets". Blender writer Pat Blashill remarked that the majority of "these concise, supercatchy tunes are as unself-consciously traditional, and fun, as an undiscovered cache of British Invasion rock".

Other critics thought the band lacked ideas. Paul McNamee of NME wrote that "with so much riding" on the album, the band "take no chances, opening at full tilt with a volley of hits-in-waiting". While he "believe this to be the great album they've always threatened, Supergrass start to mug it up; they just can't help themselves". Tangari wrote that "on the one hand, there's an abundance of energy and some great songwriting; on the other, there's less focus here than on either of their previous two releases". The Guardian critic Dave Simpson acknowledged that it "harks back to the youthful effervescence of their debut - but the energy feels laboured", with its main issue being the "lack of ideas". Q writer David Quantick said that while it was "more varied than their last album," it featured "less rock than In It For The Money, it's a fiddly disappointment, as centreless as a B-sides compilation". Kot said the album's 12 tracks were "packed to bursting with the tension of too many ideas and too little time", mentioning that the band's "lack of commitment can get wearisome, and Life suffers without a guiding sense of personality, a point of view". Pappademas wrote that "unfortunately, Coombes seems to have the glam era's fuzzy-brained approach to pop song-writing nailed a bit too well". He suggested that for the next release, they should "leave their forebear' lazy lyricism back at ground control".

Track listing
All tracks written by Supergrass (as Rob Coombes officially was a band member effective this album).

CD 5418002 Limited edition 12" (with free poster) 5418001
 * 1) "Za" – 3:04
 * 2) "Rush Hour Soul" – 2:55
 * 3) "Seen the Light" – 2:25
 * 4) "Brecon Beacons" – 2:56
 * 5) "Can't Get Up" – 4:02
 * 6) "Evening of the Day" – 5:18 The track is in fact a tribute to Spinal Tap song "All the Way Home", with the lyric "If she's not on that 3:15, then I'm gonna know what sorrow means."
 * 7) "Never Done Nothing Like That Before" – 1:43
 * 8) "Funniest Thing" – 2:29
 * 9) "Grace" – 2:30
 * 10) "La Song" – 3:43
 * 11) "Prophet 15" – 4:05
 * 12) "Run" – 5:28

CD TOCP 66003 (Japan only) The Japanese release of the album has the same track listing as above, but with the addition of:

"Velvetine" – 3:39 "Electric Cowboy" – 5:09

Enhanced CD 440 063 685-2 (US only) This contained the same tracks as the standard release, but the enhanced section consisted of the following:
 * 1) "Grace" (video) – 2:37
 * 2) "Seen the Light" (video) – 2:45

Personnel

 * Gaz Coombes – lead vocals, guitar, bass guitar on track 6
 * Mick Quinn – bass guitar, backing vocals, guitar on track 6, lead vocals on tracks 6, 7 & 10
 * Rob Coombes – keyboards
 * Danny Goffey – drums, backing vocals

title: Life on Other Planets